nicholasarthur

[nicholasarthur]

Trying to take it easy during a difficult time of the year

I had written a mental health post, but I don’t think everything has to be for the internet. I get why other people do them, it can help someone suffering know they’re not alone. I just think there are better, more effective ones out there.

I always feel like I’m under a massive weight at this time of year. Every fuck-up is magnified and I feel worthless. Projects get left unfinished, text messages aren’t answered as timely.

My partner, friends and family are more important than ever. I'm grateful to have these people in my life, even if I feel like I want to hide under a rock most days.

I feel like social media only adds to this feeling of hopelessness. You see your shortcomings are distorted into insurmountable peaks. You exhaust yourself crawling down rabbit holes that don’t really lead anywhere. You want to shout the cruelest parts of the world to the ground, but people just cringe and move on to the next thing. So, I’ve been trying to spend the bare minimum on it. I think, even after this short amount of time, I’m a bit happier.

Music has helped. I’ve been doing 100-word reviews of bargain bin CDs again. I haven’t put any pressure on myself to do a certain amount every week. I’ve just been having fun. Sometimes I don’t even write about them. I just let the music do its thing and take me somewhere else.

A few shows helped too. I saw Jonathan Van Ness, Shadow Show and Carmel Liburdi on three separate nights. Despite my difficulties in social situations, all three were pretty great. I'm glad I didn't just stay home.

I’ve been working on prose stuff for the first time in a while. If I have a good idea, I just add it to a Word doc. At some point maybe there will be enough for something. I’ve done a couple of these at readings and they seem to go over well. If nothing comes of it that’s fine too.

[nicholasarthur]

War all the time, books, painting, B-movies

Coming of age in a post-9/11 world makes war a given. There's a grief that permeates every part of the day. To know violence continues, but you can only do so much about it is disheartening. The two-party political system becomes a one-party system in this way. The U.S. has its entanglements and, it would like you to believe, there is no other way.

Distractions are necessary, but shouldn't blot out the world around you. You should be paying attention, doing research and asking questions. You should be exercising your First Amendment rights. But you have to pace yourself or else you'll lose your mind.

If we're talking distractions, you can't go wrong with the wonderous junk cinema on the free streaming app Tubi. Want a low-budget horror movie that questions nationalism starring Isaac Hayes? Check out Uncle Sam. Want a mindless action flick? See Jean-Claude Van Damme's Timecop. A movie where Elvis (Bruce Campbell) and JFK (Ossie Davis) fight the undead? Watch Bubba Ho-Tep.

The writing stuff has slowed lately. I've been trying to figure out my employment situation, which hasn't left much time for other things. When I do get time, I've been reading. In a way that contributes to the writing getting better. I just finished Jamie Stewart's funny/honest/brutal semi-fictional memoir Anything That Moves. Earlier in the year I read Sam Pink's Witch Piss and Polly Rosenwaike's Look How Happy I'm Making You. Three very different, but great books.

I'd like to do more painting but that's slowed a bit as well. Here's a painting I did a few weeks back:

[nicholasarthur]

If nothing else...

I started a novel a while back, but I got in my own way. I overthought it and it's been difficult getting back to it. The writing seems too conventional.

But poems keep coming. The notes section of my phone flashes across my face at 3 a.m., weird phrases I tinkered with the preceding day start taking shape. So, if nothing else, I'm sure I'll have enough poems for a collection by the end of the year.

I don't know if they'll see the light of day. In all honesty, some are pretty bad. They feel like things I've written about before. I say that a lot though, so who knows what will happen to them.

The music blog/Instagram is kind of in limbo as I'm figuring out stuff with my day job. I have a lot of things I want to write about and people I'd potentially like to interview. It's been a year since the music blog has been updated, which is depressing. I write things for it, but they don't feel very good. They live and die in the notes section of my phone. Same goes for the Instagram. I have 10 of those 100-word album reviews lurking somewhere but they're all sort of underwhelming.

But, if nothing else, I've got poetry. Here's a new one:

Falling Rain is pouring as I roll through the intersection. I see you, window down, blowing bubblegum until it pops. You seem unfazed by the rain. Damp winter hell splits in two, light shines on wet pavement.

[nicholasarthur]

Death, still writing poetry and getting older

I was going through my website and remembered I still have a Tumblr. Why not use it?

One of the reasons might be that it transports me back to a difficult time. I had a friend named Alyssa during this format's heyday. It was a turbulent time. We had a pretty bad falling out and didn't talk for years. Last year she reached out, but I only half-heartedly reciprocated. You never really know when you're going to talk to someone for the last time. Alyssa died a few months later.

She was a really brilliant person. I don't think people got to know that side of her and are honestly worse off for it. Most people only saw the erratic or hurtful things. I get it. For a while those things overshadowed how I saw her. But she was so much more than that. She was an artist. It seemed like, from my ignorant perspective at the time, she could never get a foothold. She always got in her own way. Now I understand some of it was sexism and a misunderstanding of trauma. How men would use her and diminish her own artistic skills. How they would write her off as "crazy."

The only thing to do about any of that now is try to make sure to resist being judgmental in the future. Take a beat, be kinder and more patient instead of reactionary. I regret plenty of things, but that only does so much good. If you get too bogged down by that stuff then you're never able to actually change anything.

Getting older is strange. You wake up and there's some new ache that confronts you, internal and external. I'm still doing what I do. Hopefully it gets less embarrassing as I work at it. I keep telling myself I'm done with poetry but then I find myself typing something new in my note section at 3 a.m. It's hard to deny this is a great outlet to transmit raw emotion.

Here's a new one:

Snap Life is a rubber band. It stretches and stretches, as far as it’s able. Until one day it can’t stretch any farther, snapping back to where it started.

I'm focusing on writing this year. I'll be posting here as things come out.