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People of the world, we need to talk. We have a problem. It’s not Trump. He’s actually a symptom of the problem. It’s not the environment, but if we didn’t have to deal with this problem, we could probably fix that. We could even fix most of the world’s problems, including how much radio has sucked for the last twenty years. Nope this is a big problem, and no, it isn’t any minority causing the problem. It’s a problem because in terms of power, these people have become the majority. Folks, it’s time we talked about narcissists.

Now, hold your horses, Trevor, I can hear you say. Don’t you believe in shameless self promotion? Don’t you have a blog? Aren’t you preaching at my ass as I’m reading this? Yes, all of this is true. I have an ego. It’s either gigantic or tiny, depending on who you ask. It’s mid size. But having an ego doesn’t make you a narcissist. It’s when that ego gets out of control, and takes over from the other brain forces, like compassion and empathy, that you get narcissism.

And I don’t have the exact terms for what I’m describing, but I’ll tell you what it sounds like. It sounds like “You had it bad, let me tell you how bad I had it” “I know exactly hwo you feel, you fel like when this happened to me” “You”ll get through this, people have survived worse”.

It sounds good, until you think about it. It’s what I call the Godfather complex. In the Godfather, Don Corleone dishes out favors like candy on his daughter’s wedding day. Michael Corleon’s girlfriend Kay notices how nice his father is. I’m paraphrasing, but Michael says, don’t kid yourself. Those favors all come with strings. They’re like food packages left by explorers heading to the Norht Pole. He drops those favors, but someday, every one of those favors will be paid back.

That’s called transactional love. Narcissists live on it. The best ones hide it well. They look so nice, they’d give you the shirt off their back. But god help you if you cant help them when they come to call. Then the true face of the narcissist comes to the front. And the beautiful facade falls away.

Then comes the emotional manipulation. Guilt and Gaslighting, the worst version of D and D ever. No, I didn’t do that, you were mistaken. And how could you do this to me? And if you don’t respond, then comes the emotional abuse. Telling you how you were never really there for them. That you never did enough. That you were never really their friend/lover/whatever. And they’ll want to be thought of as the most important. They’ll want to out sacrifice and outwork, so long as you know they’re the ones doing it.

Now some of you might be reading this, and be going, wait, I’ve acted like this. People can gaslight and not know it. Perceptions a tricky thing, and denial is a fucking ocean in some people’s lives. And if you have concerns about this, talk to a professional. Don’t just use some online quiz. Though some of those are useful for checking out if you think you might have one in your life. The big difference is, if you’re a narcissist, your immediate response would be to shift blame, deny, and accuse, and claim no fault in the matter. To be as pure as a little lamb.

The big difference will be in how you feel about the behaviors that narcissists engage in. A narcissist won’t care when you point it out, and never feel bad. Or they’ll use it as an excuse to martyr themselves upon the cross they built for themselves.

I’ve had major narcissists in my life. No, I’m not accusing or naming names. I just think people need to listen and ask questions. To not take anything at face value. To quote Stu Feiler, my mentor in college, who stole it from an editor at the Chicago Tribune: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”

What else can you do? Be curious, not judgmental-Walt Whitman. Ask yourself why people aee saying what they’re saying, not just what they’re saying. There’s a lot of noise out there, and it buries the signal. And narcissists spew noise like fertilizer, because the noise hides them. They want you confused, down and out. And they want you alone and needing them. They don’t want a village, they want a church, And they’re the ones who need the worship. Good night.

Most media is all about the big things in life. Car crashes, people dying, and rousing speeches are all fodder for the media. And so, we concentrate on the big things, and as a result, miss the million small things that are important. Or worse yet, dismiss them.

It’s what used to make country music so successful. It celebrated everyday things, small victories, and the everyday kind of love that makes the world go round. I think what people miss and dont appreciate are the strawberries and cream of life.

Strawberries and Cream are what Death says is the meaning of life, in Ingmar Betgmans The Seventh Seal. Howard Stern once gave an interview about how when he was young, that answer pissed him off. It wasn’t until decades later that he got it.

It’s not the anniversaries, it’s the marriage. It’s not the victory lap, it’s running the race. It’s firing up the grill on Sunday afternoon. It’s a board game with your friends. These are the moments that make it worth all the struggle. And we lose sight of it sometimes.

I took off work today to celebrate my birthday. I’ve been told I’m accruing too much PTO. And after the week I’d had, I was ready to breathe for a day. But when it came to decide what to do that day, I froze. So many options, so much to do. Do I go to Chicago? Or a major concert? Take in a museum?

Ended up being none fo the above. Just some shopping, dinner, a movie. And it was so much better than any of those things would have been, probably. Because I’m starting to figure out that if you don’t enjoy the small stuff, you hype up the big stuff too much, and lose the joy.

It’s not the cost of the meal, its the people with you to enjoy it. It’s not what you buy, it’s the person who goes with you and also pets the dog in the record store. I think the more we stay present int he moment, and don’t get distracted by the future, or whats next, and just simply be, and enjoy, that makes it all worthwhile.

That’s all for today. I hope that even if you hate read this, know that I mostly still want good things for you. Good night.

Dreams are fickle, aren’t they? You get some people who have amazing ones, and others have nightmares. There’s no reason why or when. And they can uplift or drag us down. And thats also true for the dreams we make for ourselves.

I talked to my therapist. Told her about this blog. She asked me what it was about. I told her I honestly didn’t know. I told her what my dreams used to be: My own newspaper column, and to be a raido talk show host. She seemed kind of dismissive of the blog, but she asked why i wasnt pursuing my dreams. That kind of shook me.

What does pursuing a dream look like?Is it making a plan, and then not stopping? Is it doing something similar, that satisfies that need? I think people sacrifice those dreams for something else. Or they realize that wasn’t the dream at all. I think of Geena Davis in League of Her Own. So many women I knew hated her leaving baseball for her marriage. But sometimes life takes you away from your dream. Or puts another one in front of you. Or even takes it away again so you have to figure out what your dreams are now.

I don’t have dreams. Never really have had any. People say that’s sad, but it’s more common than you think. I have things I’d like to do. I have passions I’d love to indulge. But I’m turning 56 tomorrow. I have goals and agendas. Maybe once I hit a few of those, I can think about dreams.

But don’t take this as giving up, dear readers. I’m still moving towards my goals, just not sacrificing too much for them. I’m like the bull in the joke about the old and young bull, I’m not running down the hill to nail one dream. I’m sauntering down to nail all of them. I should be hurrying to get things done, but Ive found that if I hurry, I lose track. ADHD brain is real.

So, go after your dreams. Like Ivan Stang says, don’t just eat that burger, eat the hell out of it. But stop and reassess, or you might get lost and end up someplace you don’t recognize. and the person you wont recognize the most will be in the mirror. Good night, and may your dreams come true.

I’d need a stable the size of Omaha. Just kidding, folks. But my birthday is coming up in two days and I’m telling my readers what my brthday wishes are. Kind of silly, but I believe in putting positivity out in the universe. Here goes nothing

1)I wish all of you, even the people who hate me, good health and good fortune. I’m working on being more positive. Even if you hate me, if I know you, chances are, I want the best for you.

2)To my haters, who will read this and spew vitriol,I say again: be curious, not judgemental. There’s three sides to every story: mine, yours, and the truth.

3)I wish that Palestine was free, Hamas, Iran , Hezbollah, IDF, Netanyahu were all dropped into an active volcano, and we could stop the genocide.

4)I wish that I had the clarity of vision I have now twenty five years ago. And the backbone.

5)I wish that people paid as much attention to the damage being done by the 100 companies that produce 80 percent of the pollution on this planet. Pay attention to who your enemies are, people, and ask yourself continually why they are, and who says they are.

6)I want Alligator Alcatraz to burn. With evryrone who thinks its a good idea in it. I know a concentration camp when I see it.

7)I wish I hada radio show again, One of the things I need to get back to.

8)I want the major studio to be busted up , and they cant merge again until they adapt all the great books that need to be movies. FFS, where’s my Pern and Newford tv shows?

9) *** this wish has been redacted on the advice of my attorney, who says my girlfriend would kill me if I made that one public ***

10) I wish things were just better. That people talked to each other, and more importantly, listened. It’s all noise out there, and no signal. But the people in charge, who hoard money like dragons, divide us on purpose. Talk to your neighbors. Listen to them. We need each other. Now more than ever

11) Bonus wish: a group of small houses, or a refurbished small mall, where my family of choice could live, and their family of choice, and so on and so on. People sharing life, stories, song and joy. And we’d care for and lift each other up. Going to go sleep on that one. It’s been a day.

I don’t like Sunday nights. Most of them, anyway. It’s the time you’re most likely to have a heart attack. Look it up, don’t trust me to tell you the truth. Trust , but verify, people. And this post was going to be me bitching and moaning about how those Sunday nights sucked, and Monday mornings are awful, and on and on and on. And I realized, I needed to go down to the crossroads again.

People talk about the crossroads as this gigantic place, where you decided your ultimate fate. This piece is about what I’ve come to realize about the crossroads. One of them is that you never get one trip down there. There is no one decision that makes your life go down a certain way. I wish it was that easy. That you could go back, flip one switch and everything would be easy as pie.

But it never is, really? It’s why Robert Johnson’s song about them resonates so loudly with some of us. Some of you are lucky You only have to visit the crossroads every so often. Hell, some of you only have to visit every few years. Me? I go every damn day.

For me, every day is a visit to the crossroads. And every day, no matter how good, I’m going to go see the crossroads. In my mind, it looks like the intersection of the main roads in Stull, Kansas. Go look, shudder and come back. That place is even creepier in person. And who’s waiting for me there? Not the Devil. He doesn’t exist on my world. The only devils are in my skull. I call them the brain weasels. They are at the crossroads every day. They have soothing voices that are brittle and cloying. Telling me how I’ve failed, and how I’ll never do anything of substance. I could tell you who they sound exactly like, but I don’t know you well enough to tell you. Every time I go down there, I bargain for my soul. If I lose, I’m in survival mode afterwards. I’m numb, barely alive. It’s like they take my soul away.

Sunday nights are some of the worst crossroads times. That, and about 230 in the morning, if I’m alone. But about six months ago, I discovered a secret:I don’t have to go there if I don’t want to.

It shook me, and still shakes me. You don’t have to meet your inner demons. The laws and contracts you’ve made up to agree to meet them? They’re just that:figments of imagination, just like the weasels themselves.

So this Monday morning and Sunday night, don’t go to the crossroads. Don’t meet the Buddha on the road and kill him. Choose joy. Choose life, like the old shirts used to say. Embrace the ideas of pronoia, that the universe is out to give you good things. The world wants you to be miserable and cowering, hiding away, numbing yourself . At least capitalism does. It requires you to need things so it can sell them to you. Being happy is the enemy of mass consumption. Go for a walk, and touch some grass. And when the crossroad shows up on your path, you’ll know which way to turn. And it won’t be the one to lead you to despair.

No song lyric guesses this post, just a heartfelt thanks to the people who are showing me better ways to be. I’ll thank them personally in private, but they know who they are. Good night, and fuck the brain weasels.

“You should be alone, and work on yourself.” I hear it all the time. You need to be with yourself, and figure out your shit. I have yet to meet anyone who knows me who’s said that who doesn’t have an agenda: punishment.

I’ve been alone. It’s overrated. I was a single child, latchkey kid who had a hypochondriac mother and a workaholic narcissist father. I’ve been alone enough thank you. And being alone doesn’t help me on my quest.

I turn 56 in less than a week. I have a lot of acquaintances, but the number of friends and family, I can count on both hands and have fingers left over. So as I ‘m healing, I’m searching. And yeah, I want to get out and do it in person. I hid away from the world in my wounded state. But people tell me: you’re too raw, too wounded, stay home and heal.

No, I won’t. Being alone is whent he brain weasels, the RSD, and the insecurity all jump on me like the worst mental porno scene in the world. No lube or kisses to be found. But some people, this is what they want. And no, I’m not naming names. Not giving them the satisfaction.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this post. Let’s just say I’m hurting today, the brain weasels are massing, and I’m going to go to Walmart in an effort to get out and about. Again, one of these days someone will name where I get a blog title from. I might die of the shock. Good night.

I love books. I have over a thousand, roughly and I was a bookseller for every single major chain that existed in the US except Hastings. Gods did I discover that one too late. So while trying to think of something to write tonight, I started going through books I’ve sold to people. I coiudl go on about the ones I loved. But what about the ones I hated? What about the ones that made my skin crawl or just weren’t right? Considering I have books that I’m proud to own that contain necrophiliacs and fascists(know your enemy people), what could be the books that I’m sorry i ever sold to people? Here’s my top 5:

5) Sex by Madonna: Let the hate flow now. Was it daring and transgressive? To the mainstream, yes. But the movie version of Exit to Eden was more transgressive, better priced, and a better view of kink. And it had a naked Vanilla Ice. Not to mention the thing was made like shit, which is why the thing is so expensive on the collectors market, because they all fell apart. It came wrapped in foil, and I’d have felt better selling condoms.

4)Mazes and Monsters by Rona Jaffe. Gods do I hate this book. One fothe worst things about 80’s nostalgia like Stranger Things and Ready Player One is how it turns being a nerd in the 80’s into something cool. Which absolves all the guys who used to kick my ass daily for being one of any responsibility. People forget what the Satanic Panic did to some of us. And Rona,who wrote this steaming pile, used a family tragedy(A young student who did an early version of LARP and disappeared) to make kids like me’s life worse. And she never bothered to find out what actually happened, or how a investigator found the guy flipping burgers in Maine six months later. Stopping her from having a book signing in my store in Waukegan is a point of pride for me.

3) A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer. If you think any of this is true, I bet you are in Qanon by now. Another one that fueled the Satanic Panic and had people believing Satanists were running daycare centers. I know Satanists. Most of them are stockbrokers. And don’t call them Pagans either. If you need a God to rail against, you don’t qualify. Why this book isn’t in the religious fiction section is beyond me.

2) The Anarchist’s Cookbook. I sold this book to people under protest. Not because I’m opposed to anarchists, I just find most of them entirely too strident and far too many are trust fund babies. My opposition to selling this was that the recipes are all wrong. I’d try to sell them the Poor Man James Bond series instead. Those recipes worked. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

1)The Turner Diaries by Andrew McDonald(actually William Pierce, founder of Aryan Nation) One of my worst days was having to sell this piece of racist garbage to a customer. It inspired so much hate, It isn’t even funny. When the next copy came in, due to automatic ordering systems, I hid it in the back for five years. If customers asked for it, I said we couldn’t get it. You can call me pro-censorship or an asshole, but I had to live with myself. And seeing what this country has become since, I’m not one bit sorry. I do own a copy, but that’s to remind me of what I fight against. And yeah, I stole that fucker.

That’s my worst five. Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow with my favorite five, or someone will tell me where the title comes from(its a hit song from the 80’s). Until then, sleep tight.

My girlfriend just left. We had a wonderful evening, but it was time to go. She had work in the morning, i had work, and it was just… time. Walked her out to the car, said our goodbyes, and I went back upstairs. And after I closed the door, I wanted to burst into tears. Hi , my name is Trevor, and I have RSD.

RSD stands for Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. It’s commonly thought of as a emotional dysregulation ,related to ADHD. Basically, any rejection is seen as a catastrophe. People are sometimes told “suck it up, you’re too sensitive”. I was told that a lot. What people don’t understand is what that advice does to you, especially as a male in Western society. Suck it up becomes a prison sentence. It becomes solitary confinement.

It makes you afraid to dare, to try. It makes your world small. It makes you cling to people who treat you badly because, who else is going to have you? It’s disturbing when you realize what’s going on. You either fight, flight or fawn. RSD is associated with ADHD, but if there isn’t a link to trauma and depression, I’ll eat my hat.

So what stops RSD? Breathing exercises, which slows the panicked mind. It helps you slow down the over thinking and catastrophising that comes with this. And then you learn to talk to yourself, calmly and rationally, about what’s really going on. Then you acknowledge the thoughts, and let them go. And occasionally, you write about it.

Did I end up crying? Bawling on the couch? Sorry to disappoint some readers, but nope. I talked it over with myself, kicked the brain weasels out, and had some emotional support chocolate. As one does.

Good night, and a prize to whoever guesses first where tonight’s blog post title comes from.

This website was born in a time of loss, of fire that’s burned away a lot of my life. It’s left me with scars, but has burned away somethings that needed to go. I declared the word “flummoxed” to be my word of the year back in March, and so far, it’s proven to be amazingly accurate. So, in that spirit, and so I can get something on here today, these are the five things I think that have changed the most. NSFW ahead, you have been warned

1) I’m separated from my wife. After 20 years, we’ve agreed to end our marriage. There’s a lot I could say, but I won’t. Just know it’s painful for all of us, and respect my wishes to keep it private.

2)I now live on my own. Yes, I live away from the family. First time living completely alone since 1996. It’s freeing at times(I’m wearing a lot less clothing around the house) and lonely at others. You get used to other people, and the quiet you yearned for sometimes can really feel empty now.

3)I’ve gone back to some old favorites. I’m back to dancing a lot these days. Goth Barge and Subspace are two local groups that are really making this old carcass move. Also check out DJ Synthia and Dance Cmndr as well. You won’t be sorry.

4)I’m embracing my flaws and trying to heal them. Avoidant anxiety? Check. C-ptsd? Check. ADHD with neurospiciness? Also check. I’m working with a new therapist to try and work through this, and have been finding a new inner strength, despite some people’s efforts to keep me weak.

5).Hell has frozen over. There’s several things I’ve encountered during my life , that in the last few months, I’ve done a 180 on. I’ve dyed my hair and am painting my nails.I now enjoy edibles. Not every day, but more than I used to. And I’ve embraced the kink and poly communities. And lastly, I’m describing myself as heterocurious. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on, but I’m a lot more flexible than I used to be in terms of my sexuality.

Now, there’s people who will read this, and want to open their mouth and let hate and negativity spew forth. You want to do that, get your own page. I’m tired of living in denial of things I’m experiencing and feeling. This is my page, not yours.

Still trying to figure this site out, and find a theme that works for me. This is pretty, but doesn’t do the job. Can’t format to paragraphs, can’t cut and paste. So bear with me through the growing pains. But in the meantime:

I realized earlier tonight that I was talking to myself, and I heard a voice I hadn’t heard in a while: my inner teenager. You can laugh, say I’m full of it, that I’m mocking people who say they have an inner child. I do have an inner child. He’s in a safe place, with a bunch of stuffed animals and comic books. But I have an inner teenager as well. That guy’s pissed. He’s been pissed for decades. Because I haven’t done a good job of protecting either of them. I’ve let narcissists and emotional abusers run them over and hurt them repeatedly. It’s only in the last year or so that they’ve begun to speak to me, an I’m beginning to heal, to work to be a better person. So if they do speak to me, both of them are usually angry.

Except today he wasn’t. The last few days have been rough, mentally, for reasons I won’t go into. But after a few days like that, I was busy beating up on my favorite target: myself. I spiral down and am just horrible to myself. That’s why if you’re going to try and hurt me, better realize I’ve probably already said it to myself a dozen times before. I was in the thick of it, when I heard him. And he was singing.

“When you gonna make up your mind? When you gonna love you as much as I do ?” It shook me to the core. Usually he’s good for Bad Religion, like “Drunk Sincerity” or “Hooray”. But Tori? And then I realized: he was singing to me, and by extension, to himself. Stop it, he was saying. Stop hurting yourself when there’s so many people out there willing to do it for you. Love you, all the parts of you. The parts you forget in your whirlwind of trauma reactions. Love yourself, especially during the hard moments.

I went to the bathroom and had a meltdown. Not a shocker these days when I cry at the drop of a hat. But I felt better afterwards, which is happening more and more. Maybe if we all showed ourselves as much kindness as we’d like to show to others, maybe we’d all shine a little brighter and the world could be better. That’s all I got.