The Late Man. Post #424.

I’m late for everything. Dentist, therapy, dinner, lunch and business meetings. I am late on bill payments, bank deposits, email replies, car tune-ups, car-registration and work deadlines. My dogs go several days without food because I am late to buy their food. I am late to buy myself groceries. I am late to getting myself in better physical condition, eating a healthier diet and visiting doctors for general check ups. I am late to watering my plants, cutting my toe nails, doing my dishes, laundering my clothes and filing my car tire (which is almost flat) with air.

I am a late man.

I am late for everything. I am late to wash my car. I am late to floss my teeth. I am late to do all the things that I need to do to have better oral and sexual health. I am late to write a novel. I am late to write anything. I am late to having a career as an author. I am late to becoming the man I want to be. I am late to telling other people that I love them. I am late to getting the dried leaves and dead branches off the roof of my house (the leaves are currently causing the roof shingles to break apart).

I am a late man. Late, late, late, late.

I am late to organizing my life. I am late to keeping a daily journal. I am late to going for long walks every morning. I am late to finishing several projects I have started. I am late to listening to all the records I want to listen to. I am late to finish writing this. It is as if being late is a fundamental part of my biology. Being late seems to be imbedded in my neural operating system. A way of being that I was born into. I was late to being born. Doomed from day one. My mother says I took 15 hours longer than expected to show up. Is it true that the way in which we are born determines our fundamental behaviors for the rest of our lives? I think so.

With my therapist we discuss lateness. My therapist also struggles with being late. I have been working with her for almost a decade and I do not think that she has ever been on time to one of our sessions. This is ok because neither have I. Because my therapist is late, I can tell that she is hesitant to really talk about what it means to be late. She fears exposing too much about herself to me. I understand. She fears that I would see her as a flawed human and thus no longer trust and desire her psychological guidance. She doesn’t know that the more flawed she reveals herself to be, the more I trust and desire her psychological guidance. She is late to knowing this.

Most humans are late to everything. Everything important at least. Even the ones who are on time to appointments and meetings are late to almost everything else. They are late to knowing themselves. Late to achieving authentic human happiness. Late to love. Late to figuring out their life’s meaning. Late to learning how to appreciate the people in their lives. Late to knowing how they hurt others. Late to realizing that taking care of themselves is being kind to others. Late to not being so deeply self-absorbed. Late to knowing how to properly floss their teeth. Late to being sexually comfortable. Late to taking care of their bodies. Late to feeling comfortable in the nude when around other people. Late to being the directors of their own lives. Late to spiritual understandings. Late to not feeling bad after masturbating or having non-traditional sexual experiences. With medical improvements, most people these days are even late to their own deaths.

Everyone is late.

Knowing that everyone else is late makes me feel better about being a late man. The difference between myself and other on time people is that the ways in which I am late make my struggle to be on time, more transparent. Being late to meetings and appointments gives me away as being a person who struggles with showing up on time in every other aspect of my life. People assume that if I am late to appointments and meetings, I must be late to learning what it means to be a healthy and responsible human being. I think they are wrong. People who show up on time to meetings and appointments are just better able to hide how they are late for everything else in their life. Even though everyone struggles with being late for most things (especially the important things like love, health, flossing, guilt free sexual fulfillment, generosity, kindness, being naked and happiness) those who are on time to appointments and meetings get to appear like they “have their shit together.” Obviously, this appearance could not be further from the truth.

I am late to buying new underwear and socks. I am late to career development. I am late to committing to a career. I am late to being financially independent. I am late to having a hairstyle that I am comfortable with. I am late to being comfortable with my physical appearance. I am late to being able to be vulnerable with another human being. I am late to authentically being a nice person who is not sometimes faking being a nice person. I am late to being able to turn to a stranger who is sitting at the table next to mine while talking really loudly and eating with mouth open and being able to let her know that she is talking really loudly and being really obnoxious. I am late to accepting the conditions of my life as they are. I am late to not feeling guilty. I am late to giving before getting. I am late to inner peace. I am late to transparency. I am late to telling people what I really think. I am late to not caring what other people think. Obviously, I am late to all the important stuff.

My therapist tells me to be patient. That I have made massive improvements over the past ten years. My therapist tells me that gradually I will be more and more on time. That being on time is not something that happens on time. Being on time takes time and happens in stages. My therapist tells me that because I am working on my inner self so diligently, everything will gradually fall in line. These are the fruits of long-term psychotherapeutic labor, she tells me. I trust her. I am on time to more things in my life now than ever before. Especially love, inner peace, kindness and sexual fulfillment. Also economic independence and not caring what other people think. More and more I am on time for these things, no longer as late as I once was. But I am still late to appointments and meetings. I don’t know if I will ever be on time for these things. Maybe it is a fundamnetal genetic flaw which escapes all attempts at correction. What is important is that I try. That I keep trying to be on time. That I do not retire until there is nothing left in me but bones, blood and an empty space where my will once was. This is what my therapist tells me. This she says is how I will be an older man who is more on time in life.

No longer late.

Interview With My Protagonist (Post #414)

Protagonist: You might not want to drink that second cup of coffee that you have there.

Me: Thanks, but I need it. I’m feeling tired this morning. Probably will not drink all of it though.

Protagonist: Don’t you think you should start exercising in the morning rather than sitting here doing stuff like this?

Me: Probably would not hurt, but I am too tired. Besides, this is my time for drinking coffee, reading and writing.

Protagonist: I remember when you would wake up, meditate for forty-five minutes and then go for an hour walk. I think you have just become lazy and neglectful of your mental and physical health.

Me: Ok, well I appreciate your perspective but this is actually supposed to be an interview with you rather than a therapy sessions for me, so would you mind if we begin the interview now?

Protagonist: Ok. Hey you might not want to keep sipping from that coffee cup.

Me: Thanks for coming today. I appreciate your willingness to be interviewed.

Protagonist: I did not have much of a choice, right? I have to just show up whenever Randall is ready to write. This is the unfortunate thing about being a protagonist. No free will. No matter what I am doing in my own life, even if I am in the middle of making love with a beautiful woman, I have to stop, get up and show up for Randall whenever he is ready to write.

Me: Ok, well thank you. I do appreciate that.

Protagonist: I don’t think you really do. I do not think you really understand how difficult it is to be a protagonist. Imagine, if you were in the middle of making dinner and you were really hungry and then without any choice you had to suddenly leave and go play some part in someone else’s story.

Me: Sounds hard but I think we all have to do this in one way or another. Most of us live lives that are parts in someone else’s story. Besides, you are a protagonist, this is your job. But this is not the point of this interview. Tell me, what is your life like when I am not writing about you?

Protagonist: You don’t want to talk about this stuff because it is true. My life has been greatly sacrificed by having to show up whenever you want me and I have never even made a single penny off anything you have written.

Me: Well I am yet to make any money either from writing. But please, tell me about your life outside of my writing?

Protagonist: Maybe if you got your act together, made more of an effort to get your work out there rather than just publishing your writing for free on your blog that no one reads we both might be able to begin making some money. Life is not easy for an artist, you have to push yourself beyond your blog.

Me: Maybe so.

Protagonist: You have to be willing to work harder! Did you know that Beethoven was sued more than once by his landlords for scribbling all over his walls?

Me: I did not.

Protagonist: Now that is a sign of someone hard at work.

Me: Maybe so. Are you going to answer the question that I asked you?

Protagonist: Would you mind turning off the heat? It is getting uncomfortably warm in here.

Me: Sure (I get up and turn off the electrical heater).

Protagonist: So what are we doing here? It is early Sunday morning and I am not so sure what the point of all of this is?

Me: I am trying to ask you questions about yourself. I thought that since you have been a fundamental character in my writings for the past ten years that it would be good to get to know you better.

Protagonist: Get to know me better? You are the one who creates me. Shouldn’t you know more about me than I know about myself?

Me: Sure, but I want to know about the you that exists outside of my writing. I want to know about your life outside of my stories.

Protagonist: This is one thing that frustrates me with you Randall. You are always looking for the easier way out. You want me to help you learn more about me? Yet you are the one who creates me. How the hell would I know more about myself than you know about me? Outside of what you write, my life is not interesting. You want me to tell you about how I live in poverty because the author who creates me is not willing to make any money off of what he writes? You want me to tell you about the shit jobs I have to work because the writer I work with is always looking to take the easy way out by self-publishing on his blog rather than actually trying to get legitimately published?

Me: Ok. First of all, I am certainly not always looking for the easier way out, that is ridiculous. You really think it is easy to be sitting here for hours doing this? Writing and editing and then publishing on my blog regularly is no easy undertaking. I would much rather be reading or doing something else. As far as not getting legitimately published, well I don’t know what to tell you. I tried for years and it came to nothing. I believe that this blogging thing will pay off in time, we just have to be patient. The purpose of this interview is not to talk about what I am doing wrong. It is just to learn more about you!

Protagonist: That is your problem, not mine. Randall, did you know that James Joyce had lost all his teeth by the age of forty-one? Aren’t you forty-five?

Me: I am yes, almost.

Protagonist: Hasn’t it been more than a decade since you have been to the dentist?

Me: Probably.

Protagonist: Well, you might want to take better care of your teeth because there is nothing worse that a writer with teeth falling out. What if you become a successful writer later in life? You going to show up to book readings and signings with no teeth in your mouth? That will really help your career.

Me: (My protagonist is really starting to piss me off.)

Protagonist: Did you know that the painter Monet was so broke when he was thirty-nine that when his wife died he could not find the money to be able to redeem the pawned locket that he knew his beloved wife wished to be buried with?

Me: I did not know that. That is sad.

Protagonists: Life is never pretty for artists and writers but it is even worse for protagonists.

Me: So lets get back to the point of this interview. I am curious to know what you think of how you are portrayed in my writings?

Protagonist: Honestly?

Me: Yes.

Protagonist: Honestly, I’m bored by what you write.

Me: What do you mean by this?

Protagonist: I mean I like how you make me out to be this troubled and neurotic, middle-class misanthrope who is always at odds with his life and family but you no longer take enough risks. You are now playing it safe and it’s getting a bit boring.

Me: Ok…..

Protagonist: Remember years ago when you first started self-publishing on your blog? The stuff you wrote then was great! Sex Life Of A Man Without One, Part One through Part Twenty. Now that was a great series of writings to be a protagonist in. You had courage back then. You were unafraid of taking deviant right turns. Now it seems like you are going left instead.

Me: I remember that stuff. Times were different then. I could afford to take those kind of risks. Now I have more to lose.

Protagonist: You’ve become fearful.

Me: Maybe so.

Protagonist: Once a writer becomes fearful, their work becomes dull.

Me: Maybe so.

Protagonist: Did you know that the writer John Kennedy Toole was so convinced that his writing career would come to nothing that he committed suicide by running a hose from his exhaust pipe into his car?

Me: I knew that he had committed suicide but did not know how or why. Why are you asking me these questions? I feel like you are testing me.

Protagonist: No, I just want you to know that the path you have chosen is no easy path. Even those who came before you that you think of as being successful at their craft suffered immensely.

Me: Point taken. So I am curious if…..

Protagonist: Did you know that Gustave Courbet died when he was fifty-eight? Towards the end of his life the guy was drinking a full dozen bottles a wine a day!

Me: I didn’t know this but thanks for letting me know. I always liked his work.

Protagonist: Oh common, you didn’t know his work. What work of his do you like?

Me: Look, can we just get back to the interview?

Protagonist: Tell me, what work of his do you like?

Me: Look, I don’t know right now, nothing comes to mind, but I am trying to conduct this interview with you and you are making it very difficult. If you do not want to participate, lets just call it a day. I am getting sick of this bullshit. I am not interviewing you so you can teach me some kind of lesson about how hard being a writer is and how much I am failing at this task. This is an interview that is supposed to be about you and I have had it with your bad attitude.

Protagonist: My bad attitude?

Me: Yes, your bad attitude. You always have a bad attitude.

Protagonist: Really?

Me: Yes!

Protagonist: Well dammit you might want to take a look at that because my bad attitude is your creation! You are the one creating me, lets not forget! I am not choosing any of this for myself. You think that if I was given the choice I would be the way I am? You think I would be behaving in the ways that you make me behave? If you do, you are nuts. I have always just played the part you want me to play without any complaining. I am the blank canvas for you to project your disturbed mind all over. My bad attitude is your fault dammit. Not mine.

Me: My fault! My fault! I don’t have any say about what I write. I just sit down and write. You are the one who does the rest. I give you complete freedom to be yourself! You think I am creating you? That is such a crock of shit. That is such an easy way for you to take no responsibility for yourself. Sure, just blame all of your actions on the writer. Typical. Raskolnikov tried to do that with Dostoyevsky and the stress from that relationship caused Dostoyevsky to become a drunk. I will not let you do this with me! You are responsible for your actions just like everyone else.

Protagonist: You know, I am tired of this. I have had enough. You know damn well that Raskolnikov had no say in things. You know that he was Dostoyevsky’s slave. I don’t have to sit here and listen to you tell me about my bad attitude and how I want to blame you for my behaviors. That is a typical cop-out that writers often take. I thought you were better than this. You never take any responsibility for the way you create me and I am tired of it. You need therapy. You need to take a better look at yourself so that you can realize what you are doing to me and my life. If you are creating a character that might end up destroying you in the end, are you going to blame your down fall on my bad attitude? Probably. I have had enough of this bullshit for today. The interview is now over.

Me: Fine. Lets call it a day. This has gone a lot worse than I ever thought it could. I will be sure not to make the mistake of ever trying to interview you again. Have a good Sunday.

Protagonist: Did you know that the Russian writer Emile Zola died from smoke inhalation when the chimney in his bedroom fireplace backed up? He could not afford to have it cleaned.

Me: Enough! Enough! I am feeling really agitated and anxious and just want to get my stuff together in peace and get out of here.

Protagonist: Fine. Fine. I told you not to drink that second cup of coffee.

Sit Down Butt (Post #410)

“Randall sit down!” My father-in-law had all ready said this to me several times. I had been standing up all through lunch.

After a three-hour Sunday lunch, we were now at another restaurant. I am not used to spending this much time with anyone, but my wife’s parents enjoy being with their daughter and I (and we with them). When we go out to lunch together this often means we will not get home until 8 or 9pm that evening. This is what happens when a family really loves one another (and gets along).

“ I really don’t want to sit down, but feel free to stand with me,” I said to him. He had been sitting for hours, so I thought standing for a bit might be good for him.

“No way. I’m sitting down just like everyone else,” he said with a smile on his face, after taking a sip of his beer.

“Just sit down Randall! It is getting a bit much,” my father-in-law said again after ten or so minutes passed.

I have not sat down in a week. I will not sit down again until I have resolved, what to me feels like a serious problem. I eat, read, watch films, write, meditate, work and relax standing up. Everything that I once did sitting, I now do standing. There is more pain present in my lower back and legs now, but that is the consequence I must suffer in order to get back what I let go.

Last week I was walking down the street when I notice two attractive young girls standing around a bench. I noticed that they were looking directly at me and smiling as I walked. For a moment I felt my self-esteem rise but it quickly went way back down. I heard one of the girls say to the other, “See that is what Sit Down Butt looks like.” I noticed that the other girl was looking directly at my butt as she said, “Oh god, I see, yeah, that is a Sit Down Butt.” I continued walking, pretending not to hear, but I heard and now regret not stopping. I should have turned to them and said, “What do you mean by Sit Down Butt? You really think this is a Sit Down Butt?” I should have engaged in more conversation  about this subject with them since it has bothered me so much ever since.

Sit Down Butt. I have asked around about what this is since there is not much information on-line about it. What I have learned is that it is a term used by people mostly under the age of 21 to describe an adult who has a flat butt. Sit Down Butt is a derogatory term that is meant to insult adults who look like they have let their butts go. It is also meant as a condemnation of growing older. From the perspective of a young person who uses the term Sit Down Butt, they are describing an adult who they think spends most of their time sitting down, a direct result of loss of vitality and youth. In the young person’s mind, a flattened butt is a direct consequence of what is often referred to as giving up.

One fundamental downside to my job as a writer and psychotherapist is that involves a lot of sitting. The hours spent sitting quickly add up. I once had a nicely rounded and firm butt but I was not aware that it had gone away. I suppose I have been working too much to notice or care about something that I assumed would always be there (this is the problem with aging, it takes from a person everything they assumed would always just be there). But after having my Sit Down Butt pointed out to me by two, attractive young girls- I immediately drove home, pulled my pants down in front of my bathroom mirror and noticed that they were right! I have a Sit Down Butt.

How had this happened, without me noticing? Am I that detached from my body? I felt humiliated. It felt like I had developed Sit Down Butt so quickly. I tried on various pants and noticed that there was indeed no sign of a butt in there. All the sitting down that I had been doing had caused my butt to atrophy! I was (and am) not ok with this since having some kind of butt is a sign that a person is still an active contender in perpetuating the human gene pool. Once a person is no longer an active contender and gene mutations and genetic drifts begin to set in, it is all down hill from there.

“Randall, common, just sit down buddy. I am begging you,” my father-in-law said. I wondered if he had Sit Down Butt. I wondered if everyone who was sitting down had developed Sit Down Butt.

“Just leave him alone. If he wants to stand let him stand,” my mother-in-law said to him.

“But I don’t understand why he has to stand this much! He has been standing all day,” my father-in-law said to my mother-in-law.

“You don’t have to understand. It is none of your business. Just let him do what he wants,” my mother-in-law said. This is why I love this woman. Unlike my own mother, she stands up for me.

My father-in-law left me alone for the rest of the day.

We went to another restaurant for dinner. It felt as if we had just had lunch not too long ago, but lunch had ended four or five hours ago. Everyone sat down around the table. The hostess looked at me as if she was waiting for me to sit down in the one available chair. I looked at her and said, “No thanks, I will stand.” She handed me the menu. My mother-in-law looked sternly at my father-in-law who was just about to say something.

I spent the rest of the night standing up.

I am determined to get rid of my Sit Down Butt.

A Writer’s Daily Routines

images-2

 

Wake up 7:30am
Ten minute walking meditation
Make coffee
Write for several hours
Go for walk (if time permits)
Get dressed
Go to work
Think about drinking gin
Come home from work
Drink gin (or not)
Eat dinner
Do dishes
Go on-line
Watch film or read
Fall asleep reading and listening to music

(Or)

Wake up 8:00am
Walk for one hour
Eat/coffee
Write
Get dressed
Meditate
Go to work
Meditate
Come home from work
Read or go on-line
Go to bed

(Or)

Wake up 8:30am
Ten minute meditation
Walk for hour
Coffee/food
Sit in garden
Read
Avoid writing
Clean house
Avoid writing some more
Get dressed
Go to work
Come home
Drink Gin
Eat dinner
Watch movie or read
Get in bed and watch late night with David Letterman

(Or)

Wake up 8:00am
Walk and listen to a podcast
Drink coffee/eat
Read
Water the garden
Clean house
Sit and stare out window
Get dressed
Go to bookstore
Go to work
Come home from work
Drink gin (or not)
Eat dinner
Do dishes
Listen to music
Watch television

(Or)

Wake up 7:30am
Meditate
Drink coffee
Read
Avoid writing (because I dislike writing so much on these days)
Go to work
Go out for dinner
Drink gin
Come home
Watch television or listen to records
Fall asleep watching David Letterman

(Or)

Wake up 9:00am
Drink coffee
Read
Hang out
Listen to music
Read various things on-line
Get dressed
Go to work
Come home from work
Drink gin
Surf around on-line again
Listen to music
Get in bed and read
Fun sex with wife
Fall asleep

(Or)

Wake up at 8:00am
Drink coffee
Write for several hours
Walk for an hour
Get dressed
Meditate
Go to work
Come home
Drink gin (or not)
Read
Go to bed
Hopefully sex with wife
Fall asleep watching David Letterman

(Or)

Wake up whenever
Drink coffee
Vaporize cannabis
Do whatever I want for the entire day and night (zero obligations)
Get in bed
Fall asleep, holding my wife, with television on (or off)