Archive

Tag Archives: depression

My Girlfriend for Two Days

October 19, 2025
Romance
Leave a comment

I was deep in the college party and bar scene when Sabrina came front and center. Everyone knew everyone, or pretended to. Sabrina had been an ancillary figure in our group, always there at the edges, bumming cigarettes on the porch, but suddenly she was throwing herself at me with an intensity that felt both flattering and overwhelming.

We’d end up on barstools that wobbled, her knee pressed against mine while she leaned in close enough that I could smell her perfume mixing with whiskey. The way she looked at me felt like I was being selected, pulled from the crowd into some private frequency. In retrospect, she was attracted to my social role and image in that world. I was part of her extended friend group, had the same habits, and moved in the same circles.

It escalated to official dating status in a matter of days. We were socially aligned, attractive to each other, sexually compatible. It felt good, or at least it felt like it should feel good.

But I suffered from depression and anxiety that would come in unpredictable waves. One evening we were sitting on the stoop smoking cigarettes; the air was thick and still. I don’t remember what led to it, but I admitted I sometimes had crippling anxiety.

The moment I said it, her face changed. Not gradually, instant – like a door slamming. Her mouth twisted into something between disgust and confusion. “Okay…” she said, drawing out the word with such contempt that I can still hear the exact pitch of it. Then she stood up, dropped her cigarette, and left.

I don’t remember the exact breakup conversation, but that was functionally it.

She was still around constantly, though, and the reality of the bomb I’d dodged quickly surfaced. I watched her throw herself at every guy in our group with the same aggressive focus she’d used on me. The same lean-in at the bar, the same intensity that had felt flattering when it was aimed at me. Everyone saw it. Everybody resisted.

One time she was over when some guy approached the front stoop. He didn’t knock, didn’t hesitate, just walked up and punched someone in our group square in the face. No words, no warning. We all lost our shit. At some point during the chaos, he dropped a screwdriver on the ground, a weapon he’d been carrying. I watched Sabrina quietly pick it up and slip it into her purse, like she was collecting something that belonged to her.

I realized then she’d had him come over to meet her. He wasn’t random, he was hers. It revealed everything about her taste in men.

labels vs action

January 17, 2016
Uncategorized
1 Comment

To invoke the label “I’m an alcoholic” has always seemed to derail the conversation. TMI but as an analogy, I remember I had an enflamed gut, the doctor diagnosed me with gastroenteritis. “What is gastroenteritis?” I ask. “Inflammation of the gut.” Worthless circular logic.

Because a label doesn’t necessarily beget action.

So then to say “Well I don’t know that I resonate with labeling such as “Alcoholic”, what about to generalize to ‘Problem Drinker? That’s more behavioral / action-ey’ Because certainly I knew I had problematic drinking tendencies and I needed to behave better / more responsibility to reduce those problems. Except I don’t actually know how to “behave better” because I never fucking do and I would have figured this out by now if it were possible because that’s the solution I’ve always tried for.

So I try to take a step outside of the occasion of drinking: “I have problematic as well as known alcoholic tendencies that necessitate lifestyle changes which may include managing the amount that I drink.”

This is better but it is critically lacking to why specifically does my condition necessitate change other than to mitigate only Bad consequences? Because Risk Aversion is actually not a genuine motivator for me, and leads to question:

“For what greater Good am I in pursuit beyond merely mitigating the Bad?”

The answer is none.

I am pursuing no greater Good because I waste all of my physical time and health away with debilitating behaviors that enable me on a daily basis to never answer that question.

And truly in my heart, if not always my actions, pursuit of the greater good is the highest ideal of myself. The root of the issue is that I am not on that path.

So to be that person, and not to be the person I am that I don’t particularly like, there is one very specific task I can perform immediately to that end – to begin the journey, I must know Where I Am Going by answering the question “For what greater Good do I pursue beyond merely mitigating the Bad?”

In order to first answer that question, I must become sober, because otherwise I never will.

I don’t mean to cheapen the context of this lovely quote, but it has oddly stayed with me through the years: “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank


feast & famine (II)

August 17, 2015
meter, metered poetry, rhyme, rhythmic
1 Comment

This is a rewrite of an older entry, but this here is my first attempt at legit poetry. Literally, mostly metered. If you make it to the end, obviously I need a real ending. But I think up to that point is a decent spur-of-inspiration.

Feast & famine

Life’s all right with adventure and movement;
Horizons span far and broad,
Unfettered by haze and fog
And noise and clutter.
And everything falls into place.

Try I might align myself, as prudent,
To as many harrowing odds;
Against better ways, and chance,
And poise, and balance;
With nothing to stand before me.

But alas should the sails fall flat, halfway through;
Or perhaps away all your crew
Have up and left you;
Straws drawn at dawn embarked, by dusk alone,
To a terrible thirst at sea.

And yet the cellars are dry, and so am I, oh why?
To weather the storm inside,
Abiding time in stride;
To try the tide to take its course – no guide –
And drift all along the way.

Without that pilot light that from all sight eludes me,
Curious to feel it gone but never burning.
So what did I do to deserve the flame, and what did I do to lose it?
Didn’t I care to waste not, want not?
And never abuse it?

I lie here a while in stow to prove it,
Concluding hereto it’s a soothing,
Illusion of forward moving;
For when I wash up at the shore,
Why the fuck was I on a boat?

fuck-giving quotient

April 6, 2012
Introspection
3 Comments

The Fuck-Giving Quotient

This ratio is comprised of fucks-given to fucks-received; whose ideal is to remain as close to 0 as possible. Let’s explore the nuances.

  • The fuck is the essential, indivisible unit for this analysis. Thus fucks given and fucks received are of equal value; transactions can be comprised of many fucks, increasing the magnitude of the ratio. However, for the purpose of this model, the ratio is reduced to manageable figures.
  • If giving a fuck is to be avoided, the fuck given is something better off possessed. Thus fucks are a coveted psychic currency.
  • As fucks are psychic currency–immaterial–there is no determinate finite quantity. Fiat, if you will. They can be printed. But as they are also inherently valuable, inflation does not apply.
  • As currency, transactions are voluntary.

The danger in “Not giving a fuck” is the purpose behind this definition. In an intersocial, and intrasocial economy, a lack of cash-flow (fuck-flow) leads to a depression.

It’s rational self-interest in a depression to save your $ (fucks) and avoid expenditure. Thus, commonly a defense mantra, “I don’t give a fuck” is in reference to fuck-scarcity a priori.

The solution is a stimulated economy. To merely not give a fuck exacerbates the problem; fucks must be given. But a fuck-investor will not haphazardly place these investments; they must be smart investments and yield a return.

Of course it’s wise to be frugal where you invest yourself, in what you give a fuck for. So do continue not giving fucks as necessary.

I recommend a 1:3 fucks given to received. Here’s why.

  • If you give one fuck and receive one fuck, the ratio is 1. This is technically sustainable, better than alternatives, but alas you’re stagnant. Only from a growing portfolio are you likely to be invested in.
  • If you give one fuck and receive two, the ratio is .5. Keep it up, but this rounds up to 1. You can do better.
  • If you give one fuck and receive three: Now we’re talking business.
  • If you give zero fucks and receive any, you’re feudal lord status.
  • Zero given and zero received means you’re dead.

The moral of the story is to monitor your fuck-giving quotient. For what all you give, what is the return?