Status Updates August-September

9/12: I wonder if it bothers Mitt Romney sometimes to have to publicly pretend he's a homophobe.

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9/12: The man in line in front of me at Speedway just bought 40 ounces of malt liquor and 20 lottery tickets. It.'s 6:30 am, I'm in Clermont County.

9/8: "The conviction that the world, and therefore man too, is something which really ought not exist is in fact calculated to instil in us indulgence towards one another: for what can be expected of beings placed in such a situation as we are? From this point of view one might indeed consider that the appropriate form of address between man and man ought to be, not 'monsieur, sir' but 'fellow sufferer, compagnon de misereres'. However strange this may sound it corresponds to the nature of the case, makes us see other men in a true light and reminds us of what are the most necessary of all things: tolerance, patience, forbearance and charity, which each of us needs and which each of us therefore owes." - Arthur Schopenhauer

9/5: In America, those of us not born with everything must fight for anything.

9/4: Phew! Great speeches tonight from Deval Patrick, Lily Ledbetter, and Julian Castro. And now Michelle Obama has me crying. I am sufficiently fired up.

9/4: Reading Schopenhauer to prepare my soul for re-entry into the adult world. Vacation is over.

8/28: Vacation, I am on you.

8/27: "They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself." - Philip Larkin

I'm going to ask my boys to read this poem out loud once they reach their thirties. If they are amused by it, I'll know I did okay. If I hand the book to them and they say, 'I don't need that, I've already got it memorized...' I'll apologize and offer to pay for their therapy sessions.

8/26: Happy anniversary, Abby! Asking you to marry me was probably one of the best impulsive decisions I've ever made. Thanks for loving me, and thanks for the babies. I like them too.

8/23: “The young teller
at the credit union
asked why so many
small checks
from universities?
Because I write
poems I said. Why
haven’t I heard
of you? Because
I write poems
I said.”
— Bob Hicok, Making it in poetry

8/23: Life! Someone send me an e-mail when they make sense out of this shit.

8/22: I love reading H.P. Lovecraft's letters to his friends. After describing how he was going to turn a dream of his into a story: "I wonder, though, if I have a right to claim authorship of things I dream? I hate to take credit, when I did not really think out the picture with my own conscious wits. Yet if I do not take credit, who’n Heaven will I give credit tuh? Coleridge claimed “Kubla Khan”, so I guess I’ll claim the thing an’ let it go at that. But believe muh, that was some dream!!" I was going to dedicate the rest of the year to reading Hellboy comic books, but I might intersperse those with Lovecraft letters.

8/17: "I would die for her...but she also wants me to do the dishes." - Hellboy, perfectly encapsulating the biggest challenge to sustaining romance.

8/15: Satan is my spirit animal.

8/15: 'Like a Prayer' by Madonna may be my favorite song ever. It has the perfect mix of hopefulness, blasphemy, sex, romance, and armchair philosophy.

8/14: Killing it is my business, and business is good.

8/13: Bracing myself for the regular Monday night bullhorn church service across the street. Be strong, my soul.

8/9: Langston can now identify Trotsky, Lenin, and Elmo by sight.

8/8: my dog is so excited to see me when I get home that he literally runs around in frantic circles of mindless ecstasy for around fifteen minutes after I first open the door. If only all relationships were so easy...I wonder if that's what christians will do when Jesus comes back.

8/6: Langston just put a bookmark in a board book he was casually flipping through and laid it right next to mine on the night stand.

8/5: Once, about a year or so ago, someone bought a few boxes of Smiley-face Busken bakery cookies and put them in the employee lounge for everyone to enjoy. Ever since that day, I walk into our lounge every day hoping to see an open box of Smiley-face Busken bakery cookies waiting for me. I know it's an unrealistic thing to expect every day, but those are really good cookies.

8/4: It always comes back to Dickens: my greatest sins are born of ignorance and need. More often than not, my sins are born from ignorance of what I really need.

8/4: "A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials." Seneca. I don't think I'd be able to make it through life without Epictetus, Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Montaigne, and Schopenhauer. I need to build a bible for myself of their maxims, essays, and aphorisms.

8/2: I need to stay in touch with people just frequently enough to avoid having to ask the question, 'so, how are you guys?' every time we talk.