Every now and then, I have an okay day. Not going to tell you what or who made it okay. But sometimes, during those days something will come along and rock my world. And it was such a tiny thing that did that today.

It was a reel on FB,sent to me by my amazing partner, Jasmine. I won’t quote it exactly, but it was about healing. And it said, basically, that you’ve started healing when you actually don’t repat the patterns that were informed by your past traumas and history.

That floored me. Because what it made me realize was how much further I need to heal. Because I took a good hard look, and I am still stuck in some of those patterns. I still have avoidant behaviors. I still don’t do well with sticking with things. It made me think: I haven’t learned anything, I’m still so far behind on where I want to be, life wise and mental health wise.

It threw me into a depressive episode. I started catastrophizing, listing everything I haven’t done that I wanted to be doing by this time, after the separation. Brain weasels were in my head, like the orcs at Helm’s Deep. So I was stewing.

Then, like Gandalf, I started hearing Jasmine’s voice in my head. Reminding me that healing is a journey. And I started thinking of the patterns I’m stopping. Cutting down on sugar. Managing my money. Trying to actually keep in contact with people. Trying new things and going after what I want. Asking for what I want and need. Communicating openly about those things. And what’s happening?

I’m less angry. I’m less anxious. Is it perfect? Fuck no. I haven’t made it through a day yet without crying since March. I don’t expect I will any time soon.Not asking for sympathy or anything, just telling my truth.

And I have people around me who get it. Who are on their own healing journey. Or at least trying to be. And what do they tell me, besides to be patient?

To look at your actions. See if you’re doing the same shit. And ask people around you. Your real friends will tell you. Jon Berenthal said something to the effect of that your duty as a friend isn’t to abandon them when they fuck up, but to help them make sure they don’t do that shit again. I think in all of this, I’m finding out who those people are. And I love them. Good night.

Tonight’s title is a quote from Rev. Ivan Stang, the founder of the joke that became a religion, or vice versa, known as the Church of the Sub-Genius. I’m not going to try and explain them, just go to www.subgenius.com and take a gander. What’s on my mind is a core tenet of their religion, known as Slack.

Slack, to the Subgenius, is a force for good and pleasure in this world. It’s like the Force, but hornier. If you trust in it, and the Church, it will lead you to higher heights of fun and ecstasy.

One passage of the book noted that “Slack might put you in the hospital with a broken leg, but its only so you get the hand job of your life from a nurse there. “

I thought about Slack tonight, or maybe it crossed my mind, right after I got some bad news tonight. My partner’s partner and my friend , Ryan, was in a car accident. He’s fine. But he’s not rich, and he depends on his truck for his livelihood. So I was concerned, once i knew he was OK. My partner said his truck was in the shop.

This is how divinity works, in my mind. Not floods nor fires. God is in the details, not in the large print. They’re in that truck not being there for him to crash. A thousand things that can change the world by miles within a space of an inch.

Ryan says “the universe is perfect”. Its not the idea that everything is hunky dory, tis that good things come your way, little by little every day, if we care enough to see them. You can call it mindfulness, or satori, or Slack. But it can make the world a better place for you, if you only take the time to look at it from the right angle. Up to you. I’m changing my perspective, and it does make the world better. Good night.

Today’s 9/11. I’m not going to argue or debate anything about it today. I’m just going to tell my story of 9/11. This is my truth of that day. We owe the dead nothing but the truth.

I was working and living in Kenosha. I worked for a market research firm called Market Probe. We did phone and in-person marketing research surveys. It was pretty bad but not the worst job I’ve ever had.

As usual, I’d stopped in the Walgreens next door. Someone said they’d heard on the news that a plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York. I just thought some bozo in a Cessna had a bad day.

When I got to work, that’s when I learned that the plane was a jumbo jet. It confused me, because I knew a lot of stuff had to fuck up for that to happen. But I went to work.

We were actually calling businesses in New York that morning. Manhattan, to be precise. Stupid surveys about new business names. I called and called, kept getting no answers or hang ups. After about a half hour, I got an answer.

“Oh fuck,” the guy said, “I thought you were my wife calling me back. “

I tried explaining what I was doing. He wasn’t having it.

“We’re evacuating the building. I’m in the World Trade Center.”

His next words froze me in my seat. “Holy shit. A body just fell past my window.” The call ended.

A few minutes after that, and a dozen more calls, My boss came out of her office. She was an older woman, very stern. She was ghost white.

“Everyone shut off your phones. A second plane has hit the World Trade Center.”

You have very few moments where you know, right then and there, that the world has changed, and for the worse. A loved one dies. You lose your job. This was bigger. And we had no idea what to do next. We wandered around the office. It was before everyone had internet on their phone, so people were looking for a television. We never found one. My boss had the radio on in her office. She yelled “God damn it” when the announcer said another plane had hit the Pentagon. That was when they sent everyone home.

I didn’t drive at that time, so I started walking home. One of my coworkers grabbed me by the arm, and told me he’d drive me home. Nobody needed to be out walkign right now. When I got home, the guys in the apartment downstairs waved me into their place. First thing I was was the Pentagon burning. I burst into tears.

I got my neighbor to drive me to Lianna’s after a bit. My stepdaughters had all been picked up by their grandmother. We sat there all night watching the news. I feared for my children. I feared for everyone. I called my parents and checked on my neighbors.

I’m normally posting here to do positive things. But I can’t think of anything positive about that day. I visited the memorial a few years ago. They have bodies they still haven’t identified. I wondered if one of them was the guy who fell or who I talked to.

After 9/11, I didn’t work for a week, I soon got my driver’s license and quit the market research business. People got mean after 9/11. They got scared. A moment that could have united us, divided us further. If there’s anything that 9/11 did, was it made it easier to find some strains of assholes. Good night.

Yeah, I wanted to use a song quote as per usual, but nothing seemed as appropriate as the scene that this line is from. Because we’re going to talk about something I avoid: fighting.

I know, there’s many of you hiding a laugh or giggling. I’m not know for shirking away from conflict. I have been known to wade into it, mental or physical, online or in person. And with an impending invasion of Chicago by the federal government, conflict is on my mind tonight.

But this won’t be about politics. you can find how I feel by looking at my FB page, And if you don’t like where I stand, there’s the door. But here’s the thing about fighting: I don’t actually like it. At all.

I grew up in a household of immense violence. Emotional and physical violence were rampant, and there’s suspected sexual violence as well. My father never hit me, but he threw a lot of stuff at me, and at times, threw me.

By the time I reached my late teens, I had been in alot of fights. I lost most of them, until a growth spurt at 16. Then I started winning them. Or so I thought. When I was 18, I got into a fight with a guy outside a bar. I put him in the hospital. I was given a choice:jail, military or find a martial arts class.

Thanks to the gods, I found Sensei Tseng and Aikido. It introduced me to(after several kickings of my ass) to non violent conflict resolution, and that was folded into the Samurai way of conflict resolution. Bottom line: I don’t start fights. Ever. You start a fight, you’ve already lost.

This si a good philosophy, but it left me blind. I was so busy looking for people who started with me, I didn’t notice the people who’d already started a fight with me, and I didn’t see them coming. Until it was too late.

As a result, I got hit. And hit in the soft places. My mind and emotions, left wounded by decades of trauma, never expected those blows to come again. And what did I do? Did I fight back? No I retreated. I fled and fawned. Look up trauma responses, and that’s what I did. And ods, did it cost me.

But that brings us to today. I had my triggers for conflict pushed hard today. I wanted to rely on my old pals, Fawn and Flight. But I didn’t . I fought. Not with fights, or passive aggressive behavior. I fought with carefully thought out words and careful actions and responses. And I feel better for those responses.

When you’re attacked, you can have automatic responses. I’ve done it dozens of times. But as I get older, the more I realize that automatic responses and fights are not the best action. Nobody ever really wins a fight. I haven’t felt good about getting into a fight since the Eighties. But I won’t shirk back from conflict. I just have better ways to handle them. I hope you find some too. Good night.

I’m in the process of doing Alan Moore’s BBC Maestro class on writing, being a writer, and worshipping snake gods. Just kidding about the last part. I think. One of the things Moore does to me every time I interact with any of his work is reignite my love of language and history. I’m going to talk about both, but only in the metaphorical sense. I’m going to talk about how my inner language has affected my personal history.’

I was never taught how to talk to myself. I imagine most of us weren’t. What we say to ourselves is both learned and experienced into us. Some of it may even be hardwired into us by brain chemistry and genetics. And it can even be the society or culture you’re raised in.

I was raised in a quiet household. At least mostly. When you’re an only child, not a whole lot of conversation happening. My parents usually spoke to correct or complain. If I wanted affirmation or affection, I had to be hurt or do well in school. Neither of my parents knew how to express positive emotions. My father didn’t tell me he loved me until I was 30. And my mother was trapped in a cycle of addiction and abuse from my dad. So silence was preferable to the yelling.

I could detail my life, but by the time I got to adulthood, I had a very negative way of talking to myself. There was no successes, ever. Nothing was ever good enough. Those inner voices, fueled by trauma, family, society, and the people who were supposed to love me, left me with no belief in myself, no faith in my ability to do anything. All my reasons for doign things were external, not internal.

It was the language I was using. Moore reminded me of the power of the Word. The Gospel of John says, in the beginning was the Word. The Words you say to yourself create your reality. And I’m now taking action to change my Words.

I’m ignoring the voices, slowly. I call them brain weasels. They’re slick slimy and awful. They say the worst things. Think you can say things to hurt me? Get in line. You have nothing that can wound me, only if you’re important to me. And most of you aren’t, sorry.

Positive words. Affirmations. For a guy raised on Stuart on SNL and crap like Hazelden and twelve steps, it all seemed a joke. But recently, after this trainwreck of a year, I started looking into it. Looking at it as rewiring the pathways. Yeah, its a construction project like I-94, and just as messy. But its getting better. And I have people who say the positive, and dont use it just to sweeten the bitter medicine of their own narcissism and negativity. I’m not talking Barney level garbage, but belief in my own power and love for me. And just for me being me.

Try it. Get up tomorrow morning, do some stretching. (Words +movement= double strength reinforcement. Go look up Steven Barnes.) Say things like “I love myself” and “I am enough.” It’s amazing what it will do for you. And you deserve to be happy. I deserve to be happy. And that’s all I have. Good night.

(Reverend’s note: Yes, you can name the song this is from, but defy you to name the group. No checking.)

I’ve had a hard time with heroes, especially in writing. Both personally and professionally, been some major letdowns. Neil Gaiman was the professional, and I won’t discuss the personal. Those who need to know, know.

But Alan Moore has never let me down. He’s always been who he is, and still a legend. Has he done stupid, and even distasteful stuff? Yeah, but he’s never sexually assaulted anyone. So, yes I still admire him.

That admiration has grown even more today. I got his BBC maestro class for a Yule gift two years ago, and circumstances have let me neglect it. Thankfully, it hadn’t expired. I finished the first six lessons today, and it really flipped my wig.

Alan shocked the world at fifty when he told everyone he was taking up magic and starting to worship a Roman two headed snake god. But for people who knew him and paid attention, it wasn’t that big a surprise. The magician has always been there, through his writing. But I’m here to talk about his lesson, not his career.

One of the lessons , and one of his over arching ideas, is that writing is magic. Considering he’s the first person who ever talked about sigil magic, hardly surprising. Some would say it’s his ego talking, or maybe it’s because he recognized the power of the word.

The biggest lesson I took away from this portion of the class was about Will. That you must believe in yourself, and what you’re doing. That you believe in your goals, your dreams, and your ideas. It’s powerful and scary stuff, especially in today’s world.

We are taught to believe, but not in ourselves. Modern society only celebrates the will as it helps sell things. You can do it if you buy or consume this. Get the right thing, you’ll go far. Don’t buy this, you’re a loser. But no real development of the will.

People with a solid will, can do great things, and horrible things. Trump is Will without brains or reason. FDR was Will with a conscience. Ask any success story, and chances are, Will got them there. And it has to start with you, nobody else.

I have a hard time with Will. I was raised by narcissists who couldn’t countenance any Will but their own. But their Will was weak, because real Will doesn’t rely on destroying someone else’s. So now, at 56, I’m finally taking the steps to believe in myself, to think I can do things, and accomplish what I set my mind to. To become a better, perhaps even good, person.

Diamond Dallas Page has a saying: “What would you do, if you knew you couldn’t fail?” And that’s the heart of Will . That you won’t let life stop you. That you’ll get up in the morning, look in the mirror, and say: YES I CAN. Good night.

Vargtimmen is a Swedish word. It means the hour of the wolf. In Swedish folklore, it’s the hours between 3 and 5 am or so, right before dawn. Supposedly, it’s the hours when the most births and deaths occur in life.

My personal vargtimmen is Sunday night. It didn’t used to be that way. When I was big into pro wrestling, during it’s height, there were two Sundays a month that were occupied, and during the fall, there was football those nights. And way back in the day, Sunday night was the bomb ass night for nerds in Chicago. Monty Python, Doctors Who and Demento, and Dave Allen at Large. You knew who your people were by who was the most tired on Monday mornings.

But before I get to the Monday morning. I have to get through the Sunday night. Now I have several options, I could stuff my face with carbs and wake up sluggish and feeling worse becuase of over eating. Sadly, this has been my drug of choice. I could do an entire article on my relationship with food. Let’s just say I’m on Monjauro because frankly, me and food need counseling. I used to play video games or read, but one of those isn’t available, and the other isn’t cutting it. ]\

I think a better solution would be to accept that I’m feeling this way every Sunday night, and figure out a way to turn it into something positive. I’m trying to find better ways of doing things. Maybe if I plan good things for the next couple of days, I’ll feel better. I’ve done that this week, might be a good thing to try to look forward with hope and a positive attitude, rather than dread. Worry and stress kills people every year. I don’t want to be one of them.

So instead of vargtimmen, maybe I should call my Sunday nights my Zero Session. Thats a gaming term for the pre-start of a new campaign.I should look forward to the week, find the bright spots where I can. reflect on the good things I had happen this weekend(Thanks Jasmine, Grim and the band Cyanotic for those this weekend). And maybe use that past vision to envision a week ahead that will have good things, in addition to the bad. Focus on the positive, the negative will be here soon enough. Good night.

Sunday will mark eighteen years since my mother left this place. It was a hard life. The world wasn’t very nice to my mother, myself included, in the end. I don’t know if this is a tribute or not, but here it is.

My mother was born in 1945 in Montevideo, Minnesota. I don’t know much about her childhood. Much of my mother’s life and family remains a mystery to me, thanks to my father, time, and me being foolish. I talk occaisionally to her two siblings, my Uncle Perry and Aunt Rosie. I’ll have to talk more about them another time.

My mother didn’t have a happy childhood. She was the oldest of three, her mother was a raging alcoholic. Her father was a country dentist. Ironically, I have a phobia of them. Wonder if it was his revenge.

My grandfather’s passing was a tragedy that my mother never fully recovered from. He was out seeing a patient, and his car got hit by a train. The circumstances are unknown to me. All I know is they couldn’t find his ID in the wreckage. So they brought him to the local hospital, asked if the staff to look at him and see if they recognized him. The second person they asked was my mother, who was working as a candy striper.

I don’t think she ever got right after that. It was the sixties, and farm country Minnesota didn’t believe in mental health help. So she tried to keep the family running, while her mother poured herself into the bottle. And then she met my father, Tom Curtis.

If I could warp time and somehow stop my mother from marrying my father, and still exist, I would. My father was a narcissitic workaholic who wanted two things from my mother: a clean house and babies. They married in 1963. I was born in 1969. The records I’ve seen indicated by the time she had her tubes tied in 1978, she’d had over a dozen miscarriages. My dad wanted sons, and had no concern for her well being .

And I was not the son my father wanted. I was sickly, premature, with permanent nerve damage in my arms that has given me issues since grade school. I was never going to be the jock all American. I was too interested in books and fantasy. I was epileptic. I have a suspected diagnosis of something called Hirschsprungs disease. It means I have about three feet of bowel with no nerves. I have had continual bathroom issues.

My dad retreated from home, always busy with work. Mom went to work as a teacher’s aide and a union rep for the teachers union. The whole time she was fighting with dad, suffering under him, and trying desperately to protect me, She also waitressed all the time, in an effort to keep the money coming in, and I suspect, to get away from home. I had babysitters, then when we got too poor and I got older, it was the TV.

She left him a few times. After each time, I’d hear him say hes sorry, but then he’d be back on his bullshit again, throwing shit and yelling every Friday night. We’d go on vacation, but only to see his family, not moms. I can count on one hand the number of times I saw mom’s family.

I watched her wither. She had friends, then she didn’t. Mainly because they all begged her to leave him. And she got worse and worse. A psychiatrist put her on a combination of valium and thorazine, even though she wasn’t schizophrenic. I think that’s what finally broke her.

My parents split up my sophomore year of college. Mom wanted to go back to Minnesota. I was tired of finding her vodka bottles and emptying out the vodka and filling them with water. She told me to decide, her or him. I was sixteen, just starting to make friends. I was young and scared. I chose to stay. I think I broke her heart that day.

I didn’t see my mother for four years after that. She picked prom night to tell my dad she was never coming back. I met her at a Burger King in Minneapolis, where she brought Murray, husband number 2. My other had a type. Misogynistic abusive narcissist? She’d crawl over broken glass for these guys.

We really connected when I moved to Minneapolis for a few years. She loved cozy mysteries, I loved science fiction. We’d go to lunch every Sunday, after she went to church. How that woman kept believing in Christ after everything still mystifies me. We’d go to Uncle Hugos and Uncle Edgar’s bookstore. Those Sundays are my favorite memory of her.

But she still had issues, mostly due to the men she chose. Her last husband, Larry, I hung out the window by his ankles when he slapped her in front of me. We didn’t talk much after that.

The last time I saw my mother in person was the day after my wedding. She’d made it down, much to the annoyance of my father. He caused a scene at the rehearsal that almost killed the wedding. But we hugged, she kissed me and got in a car to the airport.

We ended up naming my daughter after her, sheer fate. Aubry is the French version of Ruby, which we didn’t know until after we’d chosen it. Sadly, she never got to meet Aubry, which haunts me to this day. But she moved to Montana with Larry. Started using pain pills and booze again. My last words to her were angry, telling her to get clean so I could save the money to fly her to see Aubry. A week later, Larry called me in the middle of the night to tell me she’d passed.

I never got to bury my mother, or hold a funeral. That’s a whole other story of failure and communication on my part. But I have her ashes, and I see them every day. I talk to them sometimes. A lot more this year, I tell you. But it’s not really where I see her.

I see her in every good teacher or librarian. I see her in every abused wife I see in my line of work. I see her in every addict I encounter. And I see her the most when I look at Aubry, because she has her nose.

I normally have a lesson with these things. Not tonight. Only lesson here, is that no one is promised tomorrow. If you love someone, tell them. If someone is hurting you, run away. And love yourself most of all. Good night.

I’m sorry, this post is not going to be sweetness and light. It’s not going to feel like it’s positive. But I think there’s something we need to talk about, as a culture, society and civilization: Stop. Telling . People. How. They. Feel.

Is that clear enough? Stop telling people they never felt a certain way. Or that they did feel a certain way. Are you psychic? And if you are, why aren’t you rich? Where do you get the nerve to tell somebody that? It’s ego and hubris of the highest order.

They’ll say “I know them better than they know themselves” Yeah, sure you do. Nobody knows what’s in a person’s heart. They will surprise you, amaze you, and blindside you. You can be as close asa brother, and still never know.

My ex best friend, Brian, showed me that. Came to me, told me he couldn’t be in my wedding. I asked him why. The feds busted him for child pornography. I never saw it coming, Looking back, saw all the signs I missed. Totally blindsided.

You know how to know someone? Curiosity. Find out things, pay attention. Get to know them. We’re a village, folks, like it or not. Better to know somewhat who you’re dealing with. I’m not saying it’s perfect. People have hidden lives, hidden thoughts. But if we treat others with interest and respect, it’s amazing what things will unfold. Like Walden said, be curious, not judgmental.

Telling people how they’re feeling is gaslighting, straight up. Don’t do it. And yes, I’ve been guilty of it, so save your cards and letters. But I want to do better, and recognize my mistakes. We need to stop making this one, and do better. Good night

I was about thirteen when I first heard about the Gordian knot. If you aren’t familiar with it. It was a giant ass knot that supposedly nobody could undo. The story goes that Alexander the Great strode up to the knot, took one look, and said he could solve it. He then took out his sword and cut it entirely in half.

You could make a lot of metaphors out of that story. You could argue that any major life event could be the sword, destroying connections and lives. Yes, I am talking about divorce. But only in metaphors, not in details. You can call me a coward, whatever. My page, my rules.

I got to thinking about this because of the tradition of handfasting. Where two people are literally bound together in matrimony. Those cords are meant to grow and tie each other together further, producing beautiful knot works of love and friendship.

But what happens when the cords tie too close? When they knot into each other tighter and stronger. Suddenly you can feel more bound than you need to. That’s when you reach out and put strings out in other directions. Life isn’t meant to be a knot, it should be a web.

And we can lose sight of that. I have anxious attachment style and ADHD. I can get very wound up in someone. And it becomes another thing thats web related. The person so wrapped up in layers placed around them they don’t see what they’ve lost around them. They’re cocooned and can’t see what’s around them. Some people do it to themselves, others have it done to them by narcissists and sociopaths.

When that cocoon breaks away, and the person can breath again, they may feel like they’re falling. In that case, we, as a species, need to reach out. To extend our web to them. To let them know they’re not alone. To catch them in our web. People can argue that its not safe, that extending those webs could get you hurt.

They’re right. You’re going to get hurt. But it took me a long time to learn that in order to get to the love, you’re going to have to get hurt. Sometimes, the ones you love the most will hurt you. But not maliciously, or on purpose. That’s not love. But getting to the understanding of where people’s motivation are takes time and patience, a commodity sorely lacking.

I’m trying to rebuild my web. My girlfriend is making sure I don’t hide myself away in a cocoon of my own fears and regrets. She challenges me to make new connections and live authentically, to be a better person than I have been . ANd this is my challenge to you, Extend your webs. Make connections with others, and not just the people you see every day. But some of them might be worth getting to know too.

I’ll be out and about Saturday night. If anyone’s reading this who I haven’t met, holler at me then. Or even if you have met me and want to get to know me better, let’s do something about it. I’m looking for good people to show me how to be a better one. And at the very least, I’ll have someone new to tell all my stories to. Good night.