[i]
Waking up around 1 p.m.
Grapefruit Strawberry Honey Bunches of Oats with Almond Milk.
Cleaning. Organizing.
Kale Salad with Almonds and Cranberries. Croissant. Honey Black Tea.
Finishing Clockers (1995).
Playing basketball at the Rec Center.
Apple.
Back home. Preparing Spaghetti with Mushrooms, Green Peppers, Onions, and Garlic Bread. Enjoying dinner with Darren and Ana at the table. Talking about the difficult time Darren and Ana are having looking for a new job. Some of the ads on Craigslist are bonkers. As Darren points out, "Some of these jobs they're like...we need you to have a graduate degree and ten years experience in the field and you have to already show us your bank account, all your personal information. We need access to your Facebook. We wanna be able to monitor your entire life. We need you to be able to drop all of your plans in a split second and work for us whenever we tell you to. [slams his hand on the table] $8.00 an hour."
As the conversation gets deeper into the imbalance in the work force and then on to healthcare and blah blah blah the frustration escalates.
Darren: "How is it that just so many people are just so complacent? How is it that there are not more people like me that are just ready to just fucking gun down a police station and start the world over! I mean, how is it that no one out there—"
Me: "There are! There are, dude. There really are. You can tell because if you get on the Internet and you read all these articles and blogs and conversations on Facebook there's a lot of unrest. The problem is about 80 percent of those people aren't being active about it; they're just complaining."
...
Darren continues, "What I think is wrong in this country too is it used to be, the saying was: it took a village to raise a child. And that was because you as the parent, you had to accept the fact that the wider community knew more about raising a healthy individual...and bringing a healthy individual into the community, because eventually you have to let your little shit-kid go into society but what really happened was in the 70's and the 80's we developed the word: self-esteem. And now teachers aren't even allowed to write in red ink because that could hurt the child's feelings. And parents are so fucking insane and every single mother in the world is like, I have shat out this cunt baby and now it's mine! All mine! The idea that a mother is allowed to decide whether or not her baby can be vaccinated is absolute fucking insanity to me...
...And you know what the sad thing is too all of this stuff is combined with the fact that generally in society you're not allowed to just tell someone that they're a fucking idiot and that they're doing something wrong. And if we had more people that were willing to do that maybe we wouldn't have so many problems."
...
Eventually, Josh enters the picture. Sophie provides adorable entertainment making her rounds hopping in different people's laps and howling into the night.
I fiddle on the guitar and come up with a makeshift blues progression that turns into a comedy hour. Darren begs me to play this Musicplayer song and won't stop building me up with compliments and words of encouragement about how I shouldn't waste anymore time and record these songs. He's right. And I always come back to music. It's the craft I know I'm sharpest at. And I should focus all my energy into elevating it. Ana and I sing a few of our songs too. We've spent hours and hours in the dining room hanging out and having a good time. Eventually, Ana and I retreat to the bedroom and settle down.
[i] Images by me.
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