12:00 am

on me. . .

They say bad things come in threes. I am curious about the scale. Not just the timeframe but also the severity. Losing a brother to suicide, losing a friend to cancer, losing a marriage to divorce, all bad things, but they didn’t happen in a reasonable time to be considered an omen. Recently I dropped something on my toe, then days later I kicked the back of a shopping cart blackening the nail. It’s been a minute but given threes I fully expect an additional podiatry related trauma or at least I will not be surprised if it happens.

I suppose the whole trio of bad trope is merely apophenia, but I can’t deny that I hold tightly to certain superstitions. More accurately I am not a fan of coincidence. Of course bad things are also coupled with Irish luck and Murphy’s Law. Something in my blood that breeds cynicism and a lack of shock when bad things come my way. I am grateful for the bounties life has brought, but my days are mostly navigated in a haze of expectation that another shoe will drop. Probably on my toes given I have one bad thing owed.

At the same time these ancestral coping mechanisms are useful. Once you wrestle an event into conforming to the Law or requirement of three, there is a release. Blame is gone. The chain of bad is broken. Now the mind can concentrate on receiving the good. Except good is subtle. Good doesn’t plow into your life with toe smashing clumsiness. Sometimes good doesn’t get recognized for years.

These are the winds that blow across my mind as I struggle to find slumber. I recognize this storm. I have had fits of insomnia in the past and though it has been a while it seems those clouds are building again. I can’t say why it is happening now other than I have been shoveling information into my brain with no consideration toward what is necessary or valuable. Most of this doesn’t serve me but I am compelled to pay attention to the broader world of internet slop and political fearmongering.

Do I need to have an opinion on the oldest butthole fossil?

I have a habit of letting my life turn messy. Something about needing chaos to break out of the boredom. Another thing about a childish tantrum over grinding in the rut of mundane tasks merely to survive another day. I can usually put it aside yet here I am, tossing and turning, overthinking and frustrated, staring at the clock in denial that the best course of action should not include a YouTube rabbit hole and noshing on sugary bullshit.

There is a cream cheese danish calling to me.

Fuck it.

As I saunter through darkness toward the kitchen, my mind keeps somersaulting. It’s funny. A vinyl record has grooves that make music. I have a rut that produces static. It makes me wonder if there is some kind of secret to sort these lumps into some kind of harmony. Or maybe I need to sharpen the needle. One thing is for certain, I shouldn’t wallow in this metaphor for too long. Otherwise I will end up trying to relate some obscure record player part to my genitals.

No one needs to think about my floppy spindle.

It is an understatement to say my life right now is a mess. I am out of shape in almost every aspect. Of course when I pause to reflect on how bad things could be I realize I am simply feeling pitiful for no reason. Be grateful you asshole. There are plenty of people in much more dire situations. If you are unhappy with your lot then do something about it. Do what you have trained your kids to do.

Choose something different.

I survived the global financial crisis. Sure I had just bought a house, almost instantly owed $70,000 more than it was worth, popped out two kids then promptly lost my job. I mean who wouldn’t be upset as banks collapsed and millions of working people starting hemorrhaging money while the government talked about bail out plans for the very banks that caused the problem in the first place.

Totally fair.

Don’t worry about it. I know you want to occupy Wall Street, but the fat cats get a wee nervous around the plebs. We made you a little designated protest zone for you to wait this out with your cute little cardboard signs. I am sure the banks and the politicians will get their shit together once they fully understand your demands.

This sarcasm hits harder when you know that the Occupy folks didn’t understand their own demands.

Whatever.

2008 is ancient history at this point.

Still it was a bad time for me. I lost a lot of friends in the process. Lost some hair as well. I took a chance on a dream to escape the grid that had just fucked me up the sensitive area and I failed at that as well. I had to come crawling back to a life I hated. I had to jump back into a cubicle trying to help people that didn’t seem to want to be helped. Or at the very least they were really pissed off about me trying to help them.

I lost just about everything except my kids. It took almost two years to claw my way back to barely standing on my feet. I found a great job, but I lost my marriage and went bankrupt along the way. I was living in the hood in a house full of cockroaches, maniacally throwing my will and my intelligence at the universe to get out of the mess I was in. Life had one foot on my neck and the other on my balls but I was fighting through it.

I slept.

I finally put the pieces in place and got another house, secured a raise at work, and had my life in a better position that I had been before the collapse. Of course fate decided since I had bought a house it was the perfect time to bring me a global pandemic that shut the whole world down.

Sweet.

Bad thing number two I guess.

Luckily I didn’t get sick, and no one I knew died, but I lost my job again. I was confident I could find something comparable or perhaps even higher paying. I bought a new suit, got an interview right away, and strutted myself into a situation that was a complete bait and switch.

What do you think about sales?

Since a sales job isn’t what I applied for I have some opinions.

Then, as the weeks of nothing turned to months of nothing and that nothing included denials for jobs I was highly overqualified for I started to fall into a depression. My self-confidence evaporated. My conspiracy brain started teasing me with narratives about how no one wanted to hire a 50 year old heterosexual white male with a terrible hairline.

Debt piled up, unemployment ran out, and I was staring down the barrel of losing another house with a side dish of possible homelessness given I lost my support system of friends and in-laws. My folks were in no position to serve as a net so there was basically no one. I was the guy. It was all on me and I was failing.

I slept.

It took me a year to find a job and even then it paid far less than I had been making. All the while I lost the best cat I had ever known, I lost two dogs, and I got T-boned and lost my Jeep. I came out of that accident unscathed aside from some chipped teeth and new scars on my hands, but losing that Jeep sucked. Almost as much as the subsequent medical bills.

I still slept.

Not tonight, though. Tonight something is off. Off in a way that a global financial crisis nor a worldwide pandemic touched. Now I am facing a growing concern that the world could be heading into World War 3. Of course this was a threat my entire life, complete with drills in school where I was expected to accept that my desk would protect me from nuclear annihilation. I may be sculpted by a near lifelong worry that governments will make decisions that will destroy the lives of every creature on the planet that isn’t resistant to cesium decay.

Probably speaks to why I hate politicians. I mean, I should feel really good about dedicating 10% of my existence to support a system that refuses to solve the same problems I was complaining about back in 2001. The same problems George Carlin was lamenting that were already 30 years old by then. Problems that started before I was born and will probably still be problems long after I die.

I mean why do anything good for the human condition when you can find new ways to blow people to pieces and get rich while doing it instead?

Still, if the world does devolve into another widespread war I will probably survive. Cockroaches are hard to kill. If nothing else, I have proven I can figure out a way to keep my house of cards from completely toppling over. Right now I have a home, I have two wonderful kids, I have a job, I have a Jeep, and I have my health despite my penchant for sugary bullshit.

I am doing okay.

Everything will be fine.

After all, bad things coming in threes is just a thing some people say.