whocaresthisisstupidanyway

[whocaresthisisstupidanyway]

what if, instead of being sad when our fellow flesh bag, er, person dies, we don't give in and give them what they want, react how they expect us to, and instead we celebrate their exiting from this shithole of an existence, like, "way to go, it'll be me someday." or would that cause nobody to want to live anymore, since death is now the cool stasis whereas life is now stupid and boring.

[whocaresthisisstupidanyway]

society really hates when an older person and a younger person get married, or hook up, or become friends, and i in no way am referring to anybody so young they cannot make their own decisions. i am speaking of people who are 18 or 21, but the people they are with are old or older, in some cases to something of an extreme. if the guy is 70 and the women is 21, that's gross! but, it's also none of our business, and none of our decision, and telling a grown, adult person who is legally old enough to make their own decisions that the decisions they are making should be more like the decisions you would make for them, it's kind of weird.

again, i'm not talking 50/15. i'm not talking about 30/17. i'm talking about two adults who are legal in all fifty states, and every single country on earth. yet, they still are judged harshly for the decisions they have made, using their own sense of personal autonomy.

these types of criticisms always strike me as awkward because it feeds into people's desires to come across superior, to feel dominant and special, but also because it's people speaking on behalf of other people on a subject they have no say or stake in, and they likely don't even know the people involved and are merely speaking to what they would prefer to do or not to do, and because they find relationships between people with an age gap gross and wrong, so much you.

never will i understand why some people feel absolutely entitled to telling others how to live, what to do, what to think/believe. that must be the wildest thing to me, and i have no clue what it's based upon. i understand a certain degree of uniformity and even conformity is necessary in moments and for matters where you need all hands on deck -- like, say, in combatting and getting through a global pandemic -- but there legitimately are people out there, mostly older, entitled, old money white people, who think they have a genuine claim over somebody else's life. that they can tell someone what to do, and because they are them, the person must do it. this level of warped thinking has to stem from the concept of american exceptionalism, where we're the best, we're number one, while everybody else eats shit, right?

either way, man. we've really got to push past our yuck factor and learn to deal with this shit. who cares if anna nicole smith was fucking that old dude for his money, both consented to that shit, so back off.

[whocaresthisisstupidanyway]

can’t buy me love. or anything, really.

what's the point of all this money if i can't go out and enjoy it, or enjoy life at a comfortable clip? i'll be honest with you: i am neck-deep in this crypto bull run, and i am four or five times away from a cool million... but, i should already be there, perhaps two or three times over. and that i sold the coins i did so soon means i am realistically gonna have to wait a few weeks or months longer to cash in. but, man. i could have been loaded. but, man. what good is five million dollars over one million dollars when you can't go to concerts, you can't go to ballgames, you can't go to bars, you can't hang out and see your friends, you can't go shopping or outside without a mask, and the world is out to get you. everybody is unemployed, everybody is soon to be evicted in, oh, thirteen days. which is when i'm assuming my stuff will all go up. oh, and on top of that, we're a continued fascist dictator state.

i could escape to canada, but then i'd be away from the people who brought me to the dance. i'd be away from my mom, my dad, my sister, and my few friends i actually have. i'd be away from all the people, places, and things i love and want to help out, and no amount of money is gonna fill that hole left inside me if and when my mother passes, and i'm not there for it. my mother is the one reason i am here, she's the one person who comforts me and calms me and has that ability. so if that means i need to 'settle' for one million in the u-s-of-a vs. ten in the great white north, then so be it. we're all gonna die anyway due to global warming, and no amount of cash can fill that hole, either. probably best to just stop giving such a hefty shit over that which i consider my new job, and just chill and let my investments grow -- which i didn't do the last several times. but, if there is any proof to this bull run's legitimacy, it is that i could have had a million off unc, xor, and now swap, but chose not to. i just need to hold what i have, and FORGIVE MYSELF for the moves i have made. forgiveness, please.

[whocaresthisisstupidanyway]

buy my soul.

i had a soul and i traded it for riches. now, i must learn to buy it back.

[whocaresthisisstupidanyway]

i fear thee.

i'm talking with a friend, who i would now actually call a friend, about going out to a socially distanced lunch with, and that's no real reason for concern, is it? but this friend of mine, is a friend of ashley's, and i think still one of her best, childhood friends she still talks to and comes to spend a day with whenever she's in town. the last time ashley came in was last summer, i believe, and that is when this friend of hers -- of ours -- mentioned that ashley asked about me, and still thinks about me. and part of me, a great, big part of me, just shattered.

this friend of ours, j, she's had a lot of health problems over the years. she's always been sick or sickly, and i even went with ashley and her family to visit her at comer children's hospital in chicago. then we got portillo's and ashley pooped green and posted about it on her crazylife page. "maybe this means i'm gonna be rich?" why do i remember her so fondly. those six months felt like six years. i hate myself, utterly fucking hate myself, for how much i miss her, and for how much she, to this day, dominates my mind. the utter influence. the one person who knew the score better than me. my teacher.

j has always had these health issues, i meant to get to before i carried off into space land. i'm a lil' spacey right now, forgiveness. in college, i interviewed her for one of my latter-career journalism classes, about a heart transplant she received, and it told a really good narrative, so i got a good grade and used that as one of my clips going forward, which helped me get at least one gig down the line. those were the stories i wanted to tell and the people i wanted to spotlight, and once journalism became to corporatized and phony, i couldn't possibly stay involved. but that's a story for another day.

we've been friends for as long as i've known ashley, j and i. fifteen-plus years. occasionally, it's been awkward. she's the best friend of my first ex-girlfriend, whom i do not talk to, but j for whatever reason, she's remained friends with me. and she's one of my last links to ashley, too. and i know if i go and get lunch with her, the one thing that bonds us, the one reason we're friends in the first place, is going to come up. ashley is going to come up, and i fear that so much, for ashley: i fear thee.

i fear ashley because she's honestly the most brilliant person i'd ever met. she is, i dunno, transcendent in her intelligence. the way she understands the world, and how quick she is to 'get' everything. every joke i told, every feeling i felt, even every meltdown i experienced, she understood immediately what i was going through, as she was walking through that same, exact hellfire. i mean, i have had chemistry with a lot of people, a lot of women, but she just felt different to me. it felt like we were almost brother and sister, because honestly, we didn't have all that much sexual chemistry. or romantic, either, as i was head-over-heels for her, and she was, well, less so. which is why i was always the one to try and reach out to her, and why she was always the one not to respond to me.

i've felt this moment coming. i just didn't know what circumstances would lead up to it. i've felt for the past fifteen years that this story isn't over, between me and ash, and every single thing i have noticed along the timeline has lined up and shown me that i am right. everything i thought would come true, has come true, based on a complete gut feeling that ended up being correct. i gave up my entire college career pining for a girl who didn't want me back, thinking it was meant to be, and it wasn't. or was it. i don't even want her back like that, just back in my life. oh, my god, could you imagine picking her brain for an hour? or her picking mine? the way we feed off each other? there is no better rapport. maybe me and natalie, but that's got to be it. me and stan, maybe? there is little competition.

the way i think of it is, i have been the dominant one in every relationship i've ever had. with lauren right now, with the previous one, i think in both cases, we both showed sides of dominance. with the girls i hooked up with, i was dominant. in command, in control. submissive girls. but with ashley, i felt like she was in that position of domination. like she knew more, she experienced more, she just... felt more. ethereally speaking. and there were so many concepts and just random, odd-ball ideas she filled my brain with that were so ahead of their time by those standards, and for her age. nobody saw through me like her. nobody had a better sense of taste, or a more impeccable pattern recognition. i just wish i had a chance to tell her how brilliant i feel she was, and always has been.

because the world is dying. and what i really fear is i won't get to say it before one of us goes along with it.

[whocaresthisisstupidanyway]

every person in your life serves a purpose. they are functions to your story, that either push you forward, hold you back, or distract or divert you from your trajectory. which is where you are headed without anybody's help.

every friend, every relative, every stranger you meet, and every girlfriend. some bullies teach you lessons about yourself. some friends make you realize who you are. some people naturally love you, and some naturally hate you. some women hold your soul. while others keep you afloat and fill gaps when you need them filled, supporting you on your way to the end of your own personal rainbow. whatever that is. wherever that is. whenever that is.

i feel i met my soul mate already. and then i met my match. and now, i've met someone who is propping my ass up while i do what i need to do to be done. and get not only where i need to be, but where they have always wanted to go, but fell short.

[whocaresthisisstupidanyway]

god > big bang > universe

what if god was the precursor to the big bang, and when that occurred, god fractured into a zizillion pieces (that's 5,000 'o's'), which we call the 'star stuff' that makes up the universe as we know it today, and thereby we all are made of that star stuff, aka god. and the better of us have comparatively more god in us, while like, all the evil folks have very little, or they figured out how to subdue that god particle.

that, i haven't figured out yet.

[whocaresthisisstupidanyway]

i feel like i have power over others only because i recognize the power others have over me.

[whocaresthisisstupidanyway]

five-thousand, three-hundred, and five days, and counting.

if i really think about it, i have not been happy -- fully, truly happy -- since jan. 22, 2006. kobe bryant shot 81 that day and i watched it on my little tv set beside my computer. for whatever reason that moment has always marked the day, and made it extra memorable. days rarely exist as 'memorable' on their own accord; usually there is at least one other reason to find it worth remembering.

that was the day ashley broke up with me. already in a dorm room by myself, with my freshman year roommate having moved down a floor, because he couldn't stand me and we didn't get along, that was the day she decided to leave me too. i felt like i'd lost everything that day, and it was the first time i truly felt something break with me mentally.

she was the only person who made me fully, truly happy, and everybody else since then has done their best, but hasn't met her where she is in terms of complete and total understanding of me and my every thought and action. the immediate, autistic familiarity we shared with each other will never be duplicated. how, upon just seeing her, i felt comforted. i felt at home.

now, take that feeling of being understood, being validated for how you think, speak, do, etc., and combine it with the feeling of being wanted. now, take those feelings, and want her right back and you would have had my relationship with ashley. every single day i felt like i was learning from her. utterly in awe of what she knew and her life process. how i would give anything to pick her brain once more.

i feel bad saying this, as i am currently with a woman i like a lot, but it just isn't the same. the level of understanding me isn't the same. the level of understanding herself isn't the same. and her level of understanding life isn't the same. not that that needs to be a bad thing, though. my functional, partnership-style relationship with lauren has, in my eyes, aided me in getting where i am professionally more than falling deep in puppy love ever would have. and it has aided her, as well.

but i want to feel happy someday. i think i deserve that much. and ashley made me feel happy by validating my existence 100 percent, and through that of her own. she and i saw right through each other from the jump, knowing the other was special, but we never knew what that kinetic, energetic connection was until years later. when, by then, it was much too late.

every other girl since has not had that instantaneous connection with me. which isn't to say me and either lauren didn't, and hasn't, clicked, or me and any other girl, or person. that is to say, however, that there may never be another like ashley, who knows what she knows, and makes me feel like i am growing just by spending time with her. she brought me up to her level, whereas i feel everybody else i have to drop down a notch or two to theirs. i'm guessing that is how ash felt about me when she was with me. great guy, just unaware of who he is, and she had no reason sticking around for that.

i just regret taking this long to figure that out. so instead, i figured out everything else, from why the world is the way it is, to everything about people, all at the expense of that fabled happiness i may never see or feel again. why, now i have crypto money. i don't need no stinkin' job. and that's great and everything.

but it means nothing if the feeling i want has long since passed its expiration.

[whocaresthisisstupidanyway]

i am trying to help you.

sometimes the spirits that inhabit your physical being don't like to let go and you can't even detach from them and it's the most gruesome, let-me-live-my-life bullshit thing ever. the agreement between afterlife participant and current-life participant aren't one and the same, and in order for there to be any degree of real-life coincidence, both parties need to just fuckin chill, and support the other as they are doing their thing.

i am trying to help you.

[whocaresthisisstupidanyway]

near-death experienced.

i should be dead by now. drowned, naked in a pool. waterlogged, liquid in my lungs, a cold, death fish, pale and slimy and wet. yet.

i should be dead by now. severed by metal, affixed and betwixt more metal, on a pavement pile lay beneath me. see.

i should be dead by now. liver severed, organs played out, this body disembodied by chemicals and disease, nothing left, only gut. but.

i should be dead by now. heart attacked, lunch packed, eyes blue-and-blacked, deck stacked against the man. and.

[whocaresthisisstupidanyway]

pain, or something like it.

the only thing that keeps me up at night are the regrets. the only regrets that i allow to do that to me are the ones involving people i mistreated in my past. most all other things meant to hurt me, don't. i am translucent. few things i allow to bleed through, few people. and they want nothing to do with me. and they are the ones who would most inform me about me. in their absence, a sizable hole to my sense of self. a crack in the mirror preventing me from fully seeing just who i am, in full, in total. without them, i will always be incomplete. but with them, i may not be at all.

[whocaresthisisstupidanyway]

i dream of death, i scream of sirens.

inevitability kisses our lips like judas, the kiss of death. of betrayal and dismissal, and resurrection prim. i live with ghosts, their spirit invasive my body. i am drowning in their fate. bleeding buckets of empathy for a death not even dying. she, won't, we. *****y.

somebodys gonna feel. the hurt i feel.

though you stand beside me.

absently.

[whocaresthisisstupidanyway]

another guest appearance.

this won't last long, or maybe it will.

how i long to be seen as smart, intelligent, or otherwise worthy of respect in a manner suggestive to my hard work and knowledge of various things. how i long to make conversation and break bread with those people i do not know, but seem like such sure fits as friends. who refuse to talk to me because i once interacted with them and went over the previously agreed unspoken rule of 240 characters. maybe i sent them back-to-back tweets and they thought it weird of me, or they thought of me less cool. maybe i care too much about those who care less about me. maybe that's the way it was destined to be. i did, after all, toss aside my entire college career when it came to sealing the deal with a girl at a party, and why? shit, because i was obsessed with the first girl who gave a shit about me. and, looking back, it's how few people gave a shit about me that made her stand out in the first place.

imagine nobody ever caring about you beyond maybe hanging out with you every here or there, or loving you because they have to, because they're related in some way, and then somebody finds you, and they're intelligent, quirky, witty, ~and~ they are on the same end of the autism spectrum you are? that is heavy stuff. it was a moment in time. and it was probably too much too soon for me, which is why it had such a long-lasting, lingering effect. it took me out of the game for four and a half years because i felt i had found perfection, only what i'd considered perfect wanted nothing to do with me, while everybody else i considered 'lesser' -- mostly on a subconscious level, not as active thought -- was left for me to deal with, to try and enjoy, to make friends out of, etc. i had found the one who had challenged me to find myself, for the first and perhaps last real time, and i lost that. and i have yet to fully recover it.

today, i face equal challenges. there exist people whom i follow, who follow me, who are in my life in one way, shape, form or fashion, and they're shoe-ins for close friend territory, or at the least, somebody whose brain i could pick from time to time, and vice-versa. there are a couple girls i follow right now who come across so funny, sharp, self-aware, and upbeat -- spirited, in other words -- that it's impossible for me not to take notice, and take interest. these are people with whom i would love to communicate, to chat, to collaborate on a project, a website, even just one article or work. these are the people others tend to gravitate toward naturally, whose looks strike you first and fill you with that feeling that you're not dealing with any ol' loser type here, no, these are confident, proud, focused, aware women whose standards supercede most any of those around them, and they have a difficult time hammering down a relationship because of it. for they appreciate their autonomy so much that sharing it would be to kill it outright.

nothing smarts more than seeing people i am 'mutuals' with on twitter interacting full-blow with other people we mutually follow, all while never, not even once, looking my way. i tell myself that, hey, maybe it's because i have a girlfriend, and they don't want to look too suspicious by liking all my tweets. what would lauren say? but that's nonsense. and then i convince myself that, hey, those other guys with girlfriends? they're ugly! and i am not. so the women interact with those ugly taken guys, but not interacting with the cute ones is a subtle way of saying, 'i actually do notice you!" ha. ha-ha-ha. who am i kidding?

it's pathetic to demand attention, but it feels pathetic knowing what's going on, and continually allowing it to happen. you can't speak up about it, as it will make you look bad, or even worse, and you can't sit on it or else you'll feel like a massive creepshow who doesn't, and probably never will, understand what he did to get put in social media mutesville. or ignored altogether. and the thing about it is, you know what you did. i know what i did. in each and every case, people seem to have an idea about me going into following me, and that makes them not want to fuck with me. nobody, i dare say, wants to fuck with me. certainly none of the people i've ever wanted to fuck with, outside a handful. but the one thing i feel is missing from my life right now, straight-up missing, is that feeling of mutality. my reaching out to someone, them reaching out to me, being friendly, having a rapport, building a friendly relationship that is mutually beneficial to both parties.

we could have it so much better. yet, here we are.