July 6th, 2026 - Pig Lab
Dear TNY,
“Pig Lab” is today’s sampling.
And it’s not bad.
I was ready-set-go to hate it because in the first paragraph the author says this:
I expected to taste the bitter clouds of cordite drifting over the lawn and see the green muzzle flash of machine guns firing blanks on full auto.
This forced me to look the author up after I read the story to see if he had any gun experience. He had, in fact, been to war. Some of which was embedded in a SEAL team. Which makes this more frustrating.
Cordite was invented in the late 1800s to help diminish the amount of smoke on a battlefield. There would be no cloud as the whole point of cordite is to dispense with that. I’m not saying gunfire doesn’t have a smell/taste, either. It does. It smells a little farty and burnt. Either way, cordite is obsolete; it hasn’t been used in over a hundred years. The author should have known this. That’s disappointing. The fact that no one at TNY knew this is not disappointing. Nor surprising.
***BREAK***
I looked up cordite in a dictionary in a few different places and it’s listed as a smokeless powder, just in general, not the product name with capital letters. But I looked at a bunch of gun websites and cordite hasn’t been made in years and they refer to other brand names that became it’s replacement. Essentially, it’s kleenex, coke, jeep, laser (which is an acronym, I know), etc. And while I may use those words in modern literature, I won’t use cordite that way. Because I’m a motherfucking explosives expert, bitches!
***BREAK OVER***
Thankfully the story turned itself around. I really, really like the parts with Allison. They felt so alive. They reminded me of this poem I heard once from a guy who was a real piece of shit. It was about his wife and how she was molested by the piano tutor she had as a child. And in this poem, when his wife told him this, he travelled to the tutor’s house and beat him to death with fists, having to pick teeth out of knuckles afterward. Then he strapped the piano in the bed of his truck, hauled it home, and put it in the living room for his wife and said, “You can play for me now.” So beautiful.
The pig stuff is okay. I liked when he thought of the humans as pigs. Pigs as humans. That was a nice touch.
Yeah, this story is medium. Not great. It’s leagues beyond last week’s story, though, which I read about an hour ago. So the comparison is easy.
What am I really trying to say? I’m trying to fill this bucket with words about the story because that’s the job here. But the reality is I don’t know what this project is about at all. I never did. I think, now, the goal is to play. To move and shake. To have an appointment. To come back and have a conversation almost every week that, some days, discovers beauty. Most days it doesn’t. But I wouldn’t capture anything if I didn’t sit down to try.
It is, maybe, about everything. Or nothing. It is my barbaric yawp. It is my Min Kamp (Knausgård, cunts).
To that end, I’ll update you on what’s happened in the two weeks since I have written you.
My drinking is down to one beer a day (it’s actually zero now!). Most days I force it down just to make the quota. Last night, though, was the birthday of a friend. And at the end of this month, I am stopping drinking completely. So I drank with abandon. I was messy. This morning I was hungover for the first time in a long time. And, overall, it felt like one of the late seasons of a TV show, one well after the show should have been cancelled and they were just making more shows because it’s all they knew how to do.
Speaking of seasons, The Bear is now over. I have finished it. And it’s perfect. I cried for almost the entire season. I texted my mother again because of the show. It was a good exchange, actually. She didn’t make it about religion or her, which was nice. I thought a lot about my previous relationship because of the show as well. Not because of the plot of the show, per se. No, it was more like compatibility. That show and I just click. There are many other shows. They don’t click with me. But this one? Yes. And I started trying to reconcile the idea of compatibility in people. Like, one show can’t make everyone happy. I have met someone that doesn’t like Ted Lasso, for chrissakes. No, some shows are for some people and some shows are for other people and that’s just that. And I have a lot more thinking to do on that with regard to people. The Bear, though, is perfect. And I believe anyone that doesn’t like it (or Ted Lasso) actually has a problem with empathy, not the show.
Speaking of people, I was doing a lot of walking and I kind of had an epiphany. I realized that I’ve had an amazing life. I’ve done many of the things that people tell you you’re supposed to do with your life. And I’ve done a ton of other things that people tell you not to do. I’ve been successful at so many things. And I’ve failed over and over. I’ve been in the right place at the right time. I’ve worked really hard and walked really far and seen so many things. But somewhere along the way I forgot I was that guy. That guy that did those things. That guy that tells those stories. That guy that makes people feel seen. Heard. Those are their words, not mine. I forgot I was Nick. And when that happened, the forgetting, I allowed people to devalue me. To convince me that I was the problem. Now, I’m not going to blow smoke here. I can be a problem. I’ve made so many mistakes, sometimes with people’s feelings, and I have felt like shit afterwards. For years. As I should. But I did an inventory of people in my life and I realized that, back to compatibility, I draw in and keep people in my life that are astonishing humans. People who give instead of take. People who help instead of hinder. People who don’t put up with shit from shitty people. People who see, you know? Like, I have people in my life who are exceptional writers because they can see. They just don’t write. Because writing is a practice. You can get better at it. Seeing is a gift. And if you can’t see, I’m not sure you ever get to see. I don’t know how seeing works. I just know it when I feel it. The Bear sees. So does Ted Lasso. And so do a lot of people in my life. So I thought about people I know that don’t see. And I just feel sad. And I think about compatibility and how those people find people, and those people they find validate unseeing behavior and opinions, and somehow in all of this we have so many people not questioning their own existence. Their own anything. We have groups of people who take. They maximize their taking. So we end up with a lesser quality humanity because of the takers. And they don’t even know they are taking, often blaming their issues on the givers.
So we take. We have takers here. And we have givers. And the givers, you know what advice we give to them when they get hurt over and over again? “Have better boundaries.” We don’t tell them that being a giver is a gift. We try to get them to hide it so they won’t get destroyed. I say no fucking boundaries, cunts! Make the takers murder you. Give until you give them your life. Don’t let someone elses’ piss poor behavior make you a shittier person. Not a fan of Jesus, but turn the other fucking cheek, man. Be Tyler Durden in the fight with Lou.
Oh, speaking of givers, I’m gonna talk about S. I got asked this week why I loved her. Which I do. The ask was awkward, though. And it got more and more awkward as the night went on because she kept asking and asking and fucking asking (not S., but her friend, but I get it, the friend has big feelings and was trying to protect her friend). And I kept saying that it wasn’t the right time to talk about it. Because S. and I, we dated a few years ago. And it ended. I ended it. And as endings go, it had some ugliness in it. And sadness. But then, when my brain melted a few years later, I needed The League of Extraordinary Ex-Girlfriends to save me from certain death (no hyperbole). See, the damage done to me (by others and myself) was so bad that I needed help to fix it. I asked some of the best women I knew/know to help, and they did. Which surprised me a little because these were women whom I had hurt and ended things with, yet they still talk to me and spend time with me. And S. is one of them.
So, why do I love her? She gives everything away. She gives time, in the way that she has a huge network of people where she lives, and her family, and they all want her time, and she will give it to them, and care for them, and help fix their issues, and even with all of that, she will waste days of it with me, some of which involve her napping on the couch while we watch TV (really, I’ll watch it and then summarize what happened while she was asleep and then she doesn’t have to rewatch the show). She gives life, having had two sons, and even though they have said mean things to her in the past, she will reframe it such that she will remember thinking those same things about the adults in her life when she was a child, and how she never said them aloud, but her kids feel safe enough, strong enough, and secure enough in their own skin and with her to say them aloud to her; that she fostered their ability to express themselves. She gives touch, as she is the sneaky hand-holder, the forearm caresser of friends, the sturdiest of hugs from such a small stature (1/2” taller than the average woman!), the fetcher of ticks from dog coats, the underbeard nuzzler, the pull you in closer and make you feel like your presence has the highest value, the picker of foreign object off your skin, the sweaty nighttime understander, her, never letting go no matter how hot it gets because she knows what it’s like to sleep alone or with someone that makes you want to sleep alone, the toucher of souls, my guys, with her ability to see you in technicolor and figure out exactly where and when and how to touch you such that you will light up. She gives nourishment with her food, which is of the highest quality, never making you think for a second that you could be burdening her by doing so because it isn’t a burden to her at all to make sure that you put things in your body that are good for you and taste fucking incredible. She gives perspective, her ears like enormous funnels receiving signals from so many people in her life, not judging, but looking for a way to reshape each and every one of our experiences into a format that allows us to see it differently, more beautifully, even the hard shit. She gives motion and thrust, her being that person in every room that can get everyone to get along, get together, and do something unbelievable. She gives love like people exhale air, her, consistently showing up for friends, partners, and family with whatever help she can deliver and asks for nothing in return. And she gives excuses, Jesus does she give excuses, every time you say she is beautiful or wonderful or magical or special or incredible, she will give you a reason why you are wrong in that assessment as she prefers to put her head down and work on being better (and because real beauty is embarrassing to those making it and it can be very hard to bear). She gives forgiveness, which is my favorite thing that I watch her give; I don’t mean forgiveness she has given me, instead, I have watched her forgive people that have fucking destroyed her, over and over again, and she changes her own perspective to see that by destroying her not only did they get the gift of the knowledge of their true self by doing so, because in her eyes it was a thing that that person needed to do and if it was going to be done it might as well be done to her because she can take it, but she also sees it as a gift to her, that forgiveness existing as a mark of her progress toward being a better person. She gives kisses like I don’t have a fucking moustache that is in the way all the fucking time. She gives structure to hold the people in her life up, forming foundations in the muck and pushing those people higher so they don’t have to be down in it.
Really, she gives people reasons to live, and I’m speaking from experience here. But I’m not the only one she has done this for.
So, why do I love S.? Because she gives an example of what it’s like to be a good person. And when I say that, I mean a good person. I’m not fucking around. I’m not a good person. There are lots of non good people. But she is a person that we can all point to, especially with context, and say, “That right there? That’s a fucking good person.”
What S. gives is everything. If she reads this, she will think to herself, “Nah, I could give more.” But that’s the mark of greatness. She also doesn’t ask for anything in return. And if I get to grow up, I’d like to be more like her. Because she’s the fucking bees knees. The strongest person I have ever met. No hyperbole.
I guess, I don’t know what happens from here in my life. I never did. No one does. But as long as I keep trying to see, and keep trying to give myself away, and maybe act a little more like S., I might be alright.
But who knows. Certainly not me.
Nick
P.S. I sent this to S. before I posted it. I wanted her opinion on how accurate it was to her story as I did not want to misrepresent. I have mostly left my original draft as is, even though her response was lengthy. Because, folks, her response is an excellent example of how much she really gives. It’s so much that it has wiggled itself into empty spaces between electrons and protons, atoms and molecules, and seems to be a deep-seated code embedded in every cell she has. Motherfucker has mitochondria that are givers! So please bear with me on this extra length, and thank you so much for reading her words. They pumped me up. I hope they do the same for you.
(I have lightly edited this for clarity, and these are only excerpts of the longer response)
On the subject of this post as a whole, particularly with regards to the list of gifts that she gives:
I don’t actually think giving is the gift. I think seeing is.
You have this ability to really see...not just situations, but people. You notice the small, almost invisible details that most people miss completely, and then you reflect them back in a way that makes the rest of us see them too. That’s what makes your writing feel so alive to me. The giving part is beautiful, but I think it comes out of the seeing. When someone is truly seen, generosity becomes almost inevitable.
Let’s start with the fact that one of the first comments (aside from some technical writerly ones) she responded with was to push the giving aside as a gift, and then give me that unbelievably kind paragraph as a gift. She does this often. It’s like Sebastian Shaw’s superpower (From X-Men: First Class, but you fucking nerds already knew that, didn’t you!). He has this ability to absorb power and reuse it. In one scene, he lets a grenade go off in his hands, but because he absorbs all the power he doesn’t get injured. Instead, he turns the power on another player and kills him. S. has that same power, but for good. She absorbs a list of things about her and then blasts back at me that seeing is a better gift than giving. Guys, at no time in the email did she talk about any of the nice things I said or even any of the not nice ones. It was only at the very end of the email, in a different font, causing it to look like it was whispered, she said: Thank you for seeing me.
I also would like to mention that last sentence in her excerpt above is how I believe humanity is supposed to operate. That sentence slaps, as the kids say. It’s incredible and the kind of mantra one can use against their own inner darkness.
On the subject of the sentence in the list about forgiveness:
When you talk about the idea that by “destroying me” people were giving me the gift of seeing themselves, that’s not how I experience it. The gift was never theirs. The gift was mine. I don’t see trauma, abuse, or betrayal as gifts in themselves. I see them as experiences that create the possibility for exponential growth. In a world that is contained and defined by polarity, light and dark, yin and yang, good and evil, etc., there are moments where something heavy or harmful is carried on one side in order to create space on the other side for something to emerge. I don’t excuse the harm, but I do recognize that, in a karmic sense, it provided the contrast that allowed me to see the light, to reach for something else entirely. The gift not being the harm itself, rather the harm being the container showing the light of unlimited capacity. In that way, I thank the soul of the abuser and/or situation that took on the dark, giving me the opportunity to grow in my capacity of more sight, more understanding, more acceptance, more gratitude, more love. I hold great gratitude for that, not for the harm itself, but for the opportunity. I was able to transmute it into forgiveness, into evolution, into empowerment, and into a much deeper capacity to love. That’s the part I recognize as the gift.
This is so spectacular and totally speaks for itself. But, I did tell you she was a good person, right?
On the subject of making the takers murder you:
I understand the spirit of what you mean, but I wonder if there’s another layer to it for someone who sees the way you do. Giving everything of ourselves without discernment or boundary becomes a disservice to the person receiving it (also to the giver, as energy will naturally flow into the void, aka the taker). Because if they’re held up by our capacity, they never fully develop their own. And when we’re no longer there, they fall right back into the same cycles, because what seemed as selfless giving actually was selfish, without discernment or boundary.... in the way that when we leave it is no longer. This is something that I am still working to hone.
That’s where I think the greater capacity and deeper edge of seeing comes in. Mature seeing includes knowing when your sight, your gifts, your giving, is actually the drug that treats the symptoms rather than the medicine that points to the cure that is lighting the way to their own evolution of capacity.
Maybe the evolution of what you’re describing isn’t giving less, but seeing that distinction clearly enough to know when to step forward and when to step back. When your presence is expanding someone, and when it’s quietly substituting for their own becoming.
She and I have had long discussions about this and do differ. Maybe I hold resentment for the takers, resentment that she has somehow transcended. Maybe for me, I want the real takers to look me in the fucking eye when they slip the knife in (when they take from me) and I don’t want to compromise who and how I want to be as a person because someone else acted shitty. She’s right in that everything everyone has, both light and dark, is in limited supply, as entropy is coming for us all. And to stay on this plane and do more good works, that keeps that energy up here where it’s needed and not in the void. Her way is certainly a more sustainable way to look at existing, “sustainable” not necessarily a word I have ever tried to integrate into my “life plan”, whatever the fuck that is. It is likely that I am not mature enough to rock her path yet, or as focused on the hone as she is. But, again, her writing wasn’t about me, it was about how she feels about it, which itself is just another example of trying to give more. Even when giving is taking away one’s help to let the other stand on their own.
Ah goddamn it, I just mentally put this into context for my children. And I would give them anything as long as I thought it would help (I’m not perfect, guys; I have given them many “gifts” that were sacks of lumpy diarrhea which did nothing to help them). But under that logic, “anything” means everything, which does include giving them nothing. No help. To teach them how to ride the bike, to take the training wheels off, and then to let go of the seat. And only then go pick them up when they are in a tangled shitheap. So, I guess she’s right again.
P. to the motherfucking P. S. The pic for the post today is S. She approved of this as well. In the first days that I met her, she asked me if I wanted to see her favorite picture of herself. I said yes. And the moment I looked at it I could see her. Remember, this is her favorite. To be seen instead of just looked upon. Baller for dayz, as the MFA dudes would say.
