December 11th, 2023 - Keats at Twenty-Four

Dear TNY,

“Keats at Twenty-Four” is crap. 

It’s just a writer writing about writing and it’s pompous and full of itself and wildly unimportant. 

I guess that’s cool.  I guess that’s what we’re about these days.  Everyone focused on their own shit.  I get it.  I’m no exception.

The story is irrelevant.  It doesn’t further the art.  It wipes the dry, cracked, dusty & dead asshole of the writers who came before and offers their barely-oily, bloody, desiccated, stool-covered paper as fodder and calls it glory.

BREAK BREAK BREAK

Just now my oldest son called.  And I started talking about how beautiful he and his brother were and are and how happy I am that I get to see them in less than a month.  I cried.  He asked me if I was tearing up.  I said yeah.  And he asked why.  I said it’s been a really hard day.  And TNY, it’s been a really hard day.  But I love them so much.  And he was there to support me, even though it’s not his job.  He said, “Well, I don’t really know how to help.  But I want to.”

And I said, “It’s my job to help everyone else, bud.  No worries.”

And he said, “I lobe (sic, because there’s a longstanding inside joke about saying lobe instead of love) you so much, daddy.  You do such a wonderful job helping us.  Thank you.”

And I cried, guys.  I’m crying now. I’ve been crying off and on all day. A raw fucking nerve. Hiding it though! Probably not.

This too shall pass.  This all shall pass.  And if I helped them after all this passes, then that’s pretty fucking good.

Anyway, I cannot even recall what happened in this story after talking for 20 minutes with my oldest.  That’s how inconsequential it was.  But good on you, TNY.  And the author.  You really did it.  You really fucking made meaning out of all this meaninglessness.  Solid fucking effort. Shitting in high cotton as my deceased father would say. Whom, if I’m honest, I did not spend enough time with and wish I could hang with now. Because as judgmental as he would be, and he would flatten me, he would be so very proud of who I had become and what I can do. And that would be great right now. I could use it. Just eek one more day out, you know?

Until next week.

Nick