The Wandering Heathen

I woke up with questions. Do I start packing? Is it irresponsible to take the leap right now? Will I regret waiting? Will I even live long enough? Prevailing orthodoxy says to stay put, work overtime, save aggressively, and target a 4% withdrawal at 65. That would mean another 24 years of this shit. I’ll eat a .40 before that happens. Perhaps the real question is the boy. Would an unconventional life abroad be a boon or a curse? It’s not like the U.S. public school system is doing much for him…

Refusing to spend another weekend in suburban purgatory, I booked us for the opening slot at Meow Wolf – Radio Tave. Whatever my expectations, they were exceeded. Immersive, surreal art that encourages you to touch, read, and explore. Passwords and secret passageways, computers and radio frequencies, and secrets hidden in plain sight. I’m certain we missed so much this first time through. After blowing some cash in the gift shop, we went across the street to Saint Arnold, Texas’ oldest craft…

After yesterday’s post, I expected a note or two full of hate in lowercase, but instead I got an email from a burner account calling me a “larping incel”. I wanted to send my compliments for the creativity, for taking the time to message little old me, but alas, they’re a coward. I told my wife I’m an incel now. She acted confused, but her eyes said, “Oh, thank god.”

what is this trend that i see in some of your writing? this lowercase affectation? i’ve read that it’s a deliberate rejection of convention, meant to soften the tone, make it more intimate. I hate it. Not that my opinion matters, or that anyone even reads this blog, but when I click through Bear and see that so-called style, I immediately close the window and hide the blog. But E. E. Cummings intentionally subverted literary convention as an aesthetic! Piss off. None of us vomiting words out…

Do consultants not sleep? I passed out around 12:30 and awoke to nearly a dozen Teams messages. The sender is in my timezone. Poor bastard. A lot of them seem to chug the corporate Kool-Aid. In a matter of minutes yesterday, my carefree, do-nothing job turned into hour-by-hour babysitting of grown people. Dress rehearsal for a major technology transformation project, and it’s not looking good for the real deal. I dread these Teams calls. Pretending to care, the ridiculous pseudo-business lingo:…

It finally happened. I’m finished. After so many years of bureaucracy, endless appointments, and countless denials, my rating is maxed. Permanent and total. After a victory, when the initial excitement fades, there’s sometimes a hollow feeling, a sudden absence of purpose. Not this time, though. I feel free. I suddenly have options. The company no longer owns me. So, what changes now? Nothing, really. Not yet, anyway. I’ll continue on as I have for a little while. Save money, relax, let the…

Sometimes it’s all a bit much. The pervasive fear of living on the knife’s edge. Destitution on one side, mere survival on the other. In an at-will state, your fate could be decided on a whim. Then there’s the inexorable march of time. Who said it heals all wounds? Pink Floyd had it right: With each day we’re shorter of breath and one day closer to death. I feel it in my bones, the inevitability. And as if that wasn’t enough, we shoulder the banal injustices of daily life. The insufferable…

Reclaim your night. Daylight hours are occupied by the struggle to stay alive, but when the moon is high (and so am I), the time is mine. Sadly, we seem to have lost the plot these days. We melt into the couch cushions and scroll brainrot until our eyes are too heavy. Then we make terrible diet decisions and pass out. Midnight dumplings hit the spot, though. We should make more of our nightly ritual. We used to play games together (you cheat at backgammon; no one rolls double six so often) and…

Feeling nostalgic, I spent my commute singing along to this Incubus album from 1997. I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday, but I can remember the lyrics to almost every song. I pulled up to my corporate gulag with a shit-eating grin on my face. This album is pure fucking brilliance and Brandon Boyd’s voice is nothing short of magic. The first half is quintessential nu-metal. The heavy guitar with syncopated rhythms and the almost out of place turntables. But the second half…

Finally booked a trip. Off to San Francisco at the end of the month. The plan is to split time pretty evenly between the city and nature. We’ll base in Pacific Heights, check off the big city tourist spots, and then grab a rental to cross the bridge and hit Muir Woods and the Marin Headlands. I recently got the “Gold Star & Veteran” America the Beautiful pass, so national park access and parking are free for life. My wife jokingly said that I spent thousands on a trip just so I can use a pass…

Every morning, before the family wakes and after the cat has been fed, I light a stick of incense, bow toward a kakejiku of Amida Buddha, and plunge it into the little bowl of sand and ash. It’s said that our sense of smell is more closely linked to memory and emotion than any other. It bypasses the Thalamus; straight to the dome. Shoyeido's Kyoto Autumn Leaves (Kyonishiki) incense takes me places. There’s a whole world in that tiny stream of smoke, rising in the light of a fake candle. It…

Memories of those years are hazy, at best. A chaotic slideshow of wanton debauchery, ragged at the edges. Police lights, smoky rooms, girls who knew too much. How I survived is still a mystery. My poor son, I see you on the cusp of those wild years. The world has changed; everything is recorded. A foul word, a bad decision, they can follow you forever now. The advice I offer, I can see that it doesn’t land. The vacant gaze betrays you. I’m an old man. What do I know? Your naiveté frightens me.…

Always waiting. An existential snare pulled tight around the neck of humanity. Like a wolf that wanders into a farmer’s trap, we snarl and thrash about in futility until he comes around to put a bullet in our head. Waiting for the weather to change, for an opportunity to arise, for things to get better—for that nebulous time in the future when you can finally do what you want to do. It will have all been worth it, just not now. Not yet. There is no future. It isn’t real. Hope is a comfortable…

An RSS reader was the key to breaking my Discover page addiction. The Redditification of writing needed to be nipped in the bud. I don’t want to be concerned with upvotes. Stormy weekend ahead. I’m an hour into the Elden Ring DLC. Respecced from mage to melee. Occult Nagakiba build goes hard. I also just got a handful of Dandadan manga. My wife wants me to wait for the next season of the anime, but I need to know what happens. I’m not much for meta-blogging, but I’m finally happy with this…

木漏れ日. A Japanese word that describes sunlight filtering through the leaves of trees. Think of the dappled, shimmering patterns of light and shadow. It elicits that longing, almost nostalgic feeling deep in my core. It speaks of transience—the fleeting beauty of nature and the interplay of light and dark. I imagine autumn woods. Eyes closed, face turned toward the slanted light of a dying sun as it teases its way through the branches. It dances across my eyelids as I breathe in cool, crisp air,…

I’ve been dreaming of retiring early, selling all my shit, and slow-traveling S.E. Asia. We're close. Plans have been made; the pieces are coming together. But now there's Mei, our little Bombay void. She was VIP at the shelter, a cat nobody wanted. And now we’re all obsessively in love with her. Considering the strict quarantine protocols and the stress of constantly moving between countries, dragging her along would be unreasonable and cruel. It looks like I’m going to stay in the U.S.…

Philosophy for a rainy afternoon. When I learned Peter Wessel Zapffe was Norwegian, I wasn’t at all surprised. In his 1933 essay “The Last Messiah,” Zapffe suggests that human consciousness has become grotesquely overdeveloped. We are animals made intolerably aware of death, suffering, and meaninglessness. He uses the image of an elk gone extinct because its antlers grew too large. We avoid a similar fate by cutting ours off. We isolate by collectively suppressing talk of death and the…

We can give Texas back for all I care. Let Mexico and the Native Americans pick their parcels. This place is a fundamentalist shithole. The Texas Senate race has everyone all hot and bothered. The core of the debate? The candidates’ preferred version of Jesus. Talarico is leaning into hippie Jesus, while Paxton is all about that supply-side Christ. Am I the only one who thinks this is fucking madness? We have very real and imminent issues to address, but instead my lawmakers want to argue about…

Despite my tendency to wax poetic about revolutionary politics and the evils of free-market capitalism, I’m just another tool trying to get that bag. My hypocrisy knows no bounds, but at least I own it. I have a C&P exam today. I’m already on the dole, but even a 10% rating will put me at 100%. Permanent and Total. Set for life. I’ve spent years fighting the bureaucracy, and the finish line is in sight. I traded my youth and my sanity for this. Committed unspeakable acts against humanity.…