September 11th, 2023 - Siberian Wood

Dear TNY,

Well here we are in September and today’s offering is “Siberian Wood”.

I’ll start with the positives.  This was very easy to read.  It wasn’t trying to dazzle with complexities or freshness.  And it wasn’t trying to impart energy or manipulate pacing (or anything else, really) with sentence structure.  It was just clean and clear and moved along…well…like the great big beige brick that it is.

And that’s my problem with it.  What’s the fucking point of a story like this?  I am absolutely convinced that mediocre people living mediocre lives, drinking in NYC apartments, is entertaining to the staff at TNY because that’s what their lives are.  Just because you are living it, that doesn’t make it good. Or interesting.  So, I can’t really knock much of this story besides the overlying issue with its existence. It shouldn’t. This isn’t literature. This is a waste of everyone’s time.

What else can I say about that?  Probably nothing. 

I sold my couch.  I’ve taken everything off the walls and patched the holes.  The TV is gone.  Today a few other things are going to go.  I stay home mostly. I see no one. I rarely talk except to myself or people on my phone.  I’m emptying the fridge one condiment at a time.

Speaking of condiments…

So this weekend, I had to step out of my apartment for the entire afternoon (both days) so the owner could have an open house (also, when I come back it’s always like someone laid on my bed or moved shit around in the kitchen or hid my fucking hand towel behind the bathroom door; don’t touch my shit, meatgang!).  I walked down to the local taproom and tried not to drink myself into a stupor too soon (was successful).  It was really boring, actually.  The drinking.  The taproom.  And I was thinking of Ben yesterday while doing this, waiting for time to pass.  I guess on his last conscious day, the doctor came in the morning and asked if he had eaten breakfast.  He said that yep, he sure did and it was good.  So the doctor turned to the nurse and asked what he ate for breakfast.  The nurse said he took a jam packet, peeled off the foil top, and squirted a ketchup packet into it.  And ate that.  Now, I knew my friend to be an eccentric person.  He had weird tastes, sure.  Mostly of the gas station stomach bomb variety.  And what I was thinking about last night was that he likely believed that it was good and that he did eat breakfast.  That’s how bad it was.  His brain was so deteriorated that that breakfast checked all the boxes of “passable” and he was just carrying on with his day.  One of the most brilliant men I have ever met thought that a fucking jam packet with ketchup on it was breakfast.

Before all this, it was impossible to die. Or maybe just die “young”.  But let’s get down to the real issue here, it was impossible to kill oneself with one’s choices.  Mistakenly or otherwise.  You know how it goes, guys.  People die all the time.  But if it’s not happening in proximity to you, it’s just a story.  I would imagine that most of you don’t go around worried you will be hit by a car.  Well I do.  That happened in my life.  And cancer and heart attacks too.  Although the core group of dudes in my life drink, it was impossible to drink yourself to death (a side note here, I think his liver’s condition was the primary factor in his passing, but his malnutrition was severe and not helping either).  Now, with Ben being ash and scorched bone fragments in a clear vial in my headboard, it is suddenly very clear that the game we are all playing is Russian Roulette with poison. 

It's a lot to think about. 

I mean, from last week to this, the hope has all but vanished.  So reasons to live are not as vibrant.  But now there’s a fear here.  And I don’t know if that makes it worse.  Like, this morning right after my normally scheduled jerk session to a better life (that’s right kiddies, my spankbank’s #1 greatest hit is the idea of a better life), I just wanted to end.  These thoughts come in and out all day.  But that was followed by fear that I might end.  That I might not be around forever to be miserable and want to end.  Isn’t that crazy?  That I’ll sit around and cry because I’m afraid to die because death will mean I won’t be sad anymore.  I won’t be anything anymore.  Even sad is better than nothing.  So I’m likely going to have to do something.  I mean, I could tell you exactly what it would take.  What the right thing would be.  But that would spoil the movie.  We’ll see if it happens.

Anyway, I’m tired today.  I should probably go take my bed apart so I can sell it.  Call the fucking insurance company because someone sideswiped me last week.  Get some food.  Shower.  And stuff a few more jerk sessions to a better life in throughout the day.  Maybe even cry right after.

It’s depressing when you realize how much of a hassle you are for someone, like a potential partner.  It’s like, you get all your hopes up and then you remember who you are and then you just kind of slump over in the chair.

In other news, I wrote an essay about what it was like in a panic attack.  I wrote it while I was in a panic attack.  Yay!

See you next week.

Nick