And just like that, someone turned a switch & summer stumbled into fall, red & brown leaves, cool night air, breath fogging in the morning, mixing with smoke exhalation. In the mornings the car buttons up, no top-open-sunroof joy of lazy sidestreet-driving-stereo-blasting, windows closed, heaters on. No matter how far or far gone, the winters always seem to bring an edge of struggle with them, this year so far only has the heaters struggling to warm up the entire interior of the sedan just for me. Sometimes the stupidity of everything is enough to make you cringe.

These are days of stunning monotony & tedium. There is nothing in the office but spreadsheets & price quotes, endless boredom. On the balance, better to have a job than to not, except for those that prefer exciting hunger to secure boredom. Boredom can be dangerous, & in the dark, lonesome hours between sundown, sleep, & rise all the vices know my name & exactly what I'm looking for. Tonight nothing but warming whiskey, cigarettes stolen in the cold, & Alan Ginsberg singing with the Clash, all of it turned to dust ten years before my mouth could shape the words of their greatness.

From this distance even the landscape looks dull. Watching entrenched arguments play out over circular logic, you can see the same debates taking new shapes over the millennium. Could all political thought be divided into simple categories of 'conservative' or 'liberal'? Could we really be this incredibly slow? The Cold War's been in the can for two decades & we still find ourselves drawing lines in the sand over socialism & capitalism, as though either ideology-- on its own, simple merits-- were worth the time spent defending it.

In the dark wood booths, under ambient red shift lighting, even the interpersonal seems stale & worn. New faces appear, sliding in & out of old roles, doing the same things. Its a harsh judgment & in the morning light it will be entirely unfair-- some of the best people I know I first met in bars-- but for the moment nothing seems new or interesting.

The holding pattern holds. Your horse is tied where you left it. You drink this tonight & you'll feel worse in the morning. Like you always goddamn do.

This is only temporary, you know this. But then, isn't everything?

Isn't everything only over the horizon, just a breath away? The troubling aspect of this theory being those that spend so much time chasing the horizon they fail to enjoy the moment. But I live breath-to-breath. So where does that leave you when this breath is as nominal & uninteresting as the last? There is a time & a place to tear shit up, & a time to build it all back, but what do you do with all the in-between moments? The seconds between seconds, when you're just watching the clock tick by, you know tomorrow brings something better-- & in fact you've already laid all the necessary groundwork for just such a something better-- but that doesn't make today any less daunting, any less dragging, any less fucking depressing.

Boredom is a killer of men, more dangerous than wars, guns, women, whiskey, & heroin. Potentially more dangerous than all of them combined. Given that I've whiskey in front of me, women all around, heroin at arm's length, guns in everyone's pocket but mine, & war only a short form (okay, & a few continents) away, what chance do I have, really?

What can you say?

As ever, you just have to tip back the glass at the right angle, smile like a switchblade knife, & get on with getting on. Whatever you say probably won't be enough, but if you're bound & determined to be miserable, the best you might be able to do is carry it well.

(...)

(xxx)

(Thursday, 15 October, 4:33 AM, in the wilds of Southern Jersey)

Morning Edition Edited to add:

I'm in need of someone to throw some software (Wordpress) onto a website for NO MONEY, & then occasionally update/repair it as needed. It sounds like a thankless task, & mostly it is, but the project is interesting, I just can't give details publicly, People with an interest related to comics might be especially welcome. Private message me or email to chrissick[at]gmail[dot]com for details. Cheers.