I never belong. I envy people who feel like they belong someplace. The times and places I have felt that way are few and far between. Everyone says to don’t worry. you’ll find your tribe. But what if you think you can’t? What if you feel like an outcast among the outcasts?

What if you thought you had found that tribe, and it turned out they didn’t really like or love you at all? That all their supposed love and affection was conditional? What then?

Modern society has the answer. Buy stuff. Or go join in the latest mass entertainment. Numb your brain so you’ll be a good worker bee and keep capitalism running. That will make you happy, yes sir,

Except it doesn’t. It doesn’t answer what to do in those long nights when you can’t sleep, and there’s no one there to talk to. The Swedes called them the wolf hours, when the thoughts are the darkest, and the wolves are at your door.

People offer lots of solutions. Write it down. Breathe. Don’t give into the anxiety. And some days that works, And you do the things, and the brain weasels subside. Or they don’t and you have to do things like write a blog post about it.

I talked before about jealousy. I’m jealous of those people who have had long lasting, ride or die relationships. Those are few and far between, in my experience. Especially once you get past fifty.

Everyone talks about me needing to be alone during my separation and divorce. I’d like to point out that the people saying that have either A) not ben through one or B) in denial. Every person I’ve talked to who’s been through one has talked about the people who got them through.

And here’s what those people don’t understand: I feel alone. All. The Time. I feel lonely at cons, concerts, work and play. And since i have the one two punch of RSD and anxiety, I tend to do things to endear myself to people, because I think I need to prove my worth to other people for them to love me. And it’s awful. It’s wrecked so much in my life.

After things blew up earlier this year, and all I’d done, I had few friends left. The ones I did have, I feel blessed to have. And thankfully, I’ve made a few new ones. And their friendship isn’t transactional. And they make the lonely less. But I still struggle on some days and some nights. Writing this and knowing some of you will see it and understand helps. It makes it less lonely, Good night.

It’s time to talk about an ugly word: jealousy. When I tell people I’m in a poly relationship, that’s the one thing people always mention. They’ll say things like “I could never do that, I’m too jealous.” or things like “I don’t share my partner with anyone.”

First off, if you look at it realistically, you always share your partners and lovers. You share them with their job, kids, friends and family. And we never consider that weird or abnormal. A man can work 80 hours a week, we commend him. We don’t consider the harm he’s doing to his other relationships bad, he’s just dedicated. But it will cost him other relationships. If you don’t tend to the vines and lines, they wither and die.

But polyamory comes up, and most people, its all about the sex. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it comes up sometimes. But it’s probably the least thing I’m jealous about in my relationship with my partner. Why? Because we communicate about it, and express our fears and doubts. Most of which are mine. I won’t go into specifics of things, either. I don’t know most of you well enough, or you don’t want to know, and my kids read this.

No, most of my jealousy comes from emotional issues, and not being realistic. But holy hell, my brain weasels are creative. I wish I could weave stories the way they come up with shit. But my partner and her long distance partner have known each other for forty years. They’ve only been dating for a year or so. I’m the newcomer, who gets to see her much more. By rights, he should be jealous of me, and I’m sure we’ll have that conversation someday. But he’s a good guy, and she loves him. So how could I deny her love? Love shared is multiplied. Why people can’t see that, I don’t know.

Knowing my past, people question me getting into a situation that involves a level of honesty, that to be blunt, I haven’t had before, It’s a fair question, but all i can tell you , is this feels different, and I feel different. But it doesn’t stop the brain weasels from vomiting up the hits.

My brain weasels get jealous of time, mostly. All the time he’s had to know her. All the shared history they already have? How do I compete with that history? With all that love?

Here’s the smart answer: I don’t, not when I’m not dealing with my trauma based issues like insecurity and anxiety. Competing with others , especially in love, is stupid. It leads to a win/lose mentality, when it should be win/win. Love is not pie.

So I’ve learned to feel the feelings, and let them be felt. Which can suck, btu holding onto those feelings is way worse. I used ot do that, and it cost me dearly in my relationships. Now I try ot let them go, or talk to my partner, or a friend. Last resort, I count 90 seconds. Thats how long, according to science, that emotions last in the brain if you just feel them, and dont reinforce them. Then the chemicals dissipate, and you can think again. Usually.

I’m not going to say it’s perfect, but it’s way better than holding it in, not talking about it, and it festering. That wya leads to resentment, hurt and damage. I think communicating feelings, reinforcing the good things like love and respect, help deal with jealousy much better. Jealousy is natural, and like all other feelings, is valid. It’s what you do with it that makes you who you are. Good night.

My name is Trevor. I have a Bachelor’s in Journalism. But that’s not what my real degree should be in. My Bachelors should be in Executive Dysfunction. My Master’s however, should be in self sabotage. Together, they pack quite the punch to my life.

I’m great at starting things. What I am terrible at is finishing things. I either lose interest, or I just… stop. That’s the executive dysfunction. I’m doing the work to try and fix that part. I’m making progress, I think.

What amazes me, looking back now, how self-destructive some of my behavior was, and remains to this day. I don’t eat well. I don’t exercise enough, and me keeping a job for three years seems like a lifetime. I have atrocious money habits. I could list more, but I’m veering close to beating myself up.

And that’s the most self destructive of all behavior. I know they say to not love others until you love yourself, but moments of me loving myself have been few and far between. When you spend most of your life pleasing, or attempting to please narcissists, they make sure your self worth is not internal, it’s external.

I’m making conscious efforts to break that cycle. This blog is part of that. I’m making better choices, conscious choices. Because I’m being horrified by the unconscious ones. Zen tells you to act without thinking, to just be in the moment. But what do you do when you’re in the moment, and stop and realize that being zen right then is hurting you?

I am a diabetic. It’s been fairly well regulated for years, but recently, it’s taken a turn for the worse. So in an effort to live consciously, I ‘ve been regulating my diet again, and getting more exercise. Not all I need to , but gradual steps are working better than my usual cut everything and burn it all down mentality.

I had a bad mental health moment this afternoon. I can’t discuss why, but I did. And I found myself eating a handful of skittles about ten minutes after. And I stopped myself, shocked and honestly amazed at my behavior. Why, in my hour of need, did I go for what I knew was bad for me? Sure it tasted sweet, but it wasn’t amazing or anything,

Normally, this is where the self hatred would kick in and I’d start down the spiral of beating myself up. I could even hear the brain weasels preparing the hate in the back of my head. But then, I just stopped. I acknowledged the foolish thing I’d done. I recognized my behavior for what it was, which was bad for me, both mentally and physically. So I told myself I’d do better, be more conscious next time.

Because while Zen thought can teach you to be in the moment, it also tells you to be conscious in that moment. To be aware of what you’re doing as you do it, but not to be separate from it. In that moment, I was separate from my mind and body, and it was bad. I need to embrace fully feeling and thinking about those feelings, but not acting on them in negative fashion. That path leads me out of the darkness, and toward a more feeling, more conscious path. Good night.

PS. Thank you to all who have helped steer me towards aiming higher. Much love to Leesa, Ryan, DDP, Steven Barnes, and as always, Jasmine.

Buckle up, folks, this is going to be sappy. I love kids. Not just my own, but kids in general. Even my children that currently hate me? I still love them. I will likely never stop. Even when they’re having grandkids of their own, I will look at them and see the child they were.

And I can just hear the naysayers, of course it’s easy for you to say you love children. You don’t have to birth them. You don’t have to put up with their constant needs. And yes, those are valid feelings. But trust me, I see what happens when people don’t love their children. I deal with that trauma every day.

My mother tried to love me, as much as she could. my father could never be bothered to. He might have finally said it back in my thirties, but deeds not words. And that;s all I’m saying about bad parenting.

I loved, and still love, being a dad. Driving kids all over god and creation? Hell yes. Sleepless nights with them crying nonstop? Hell yes. Would I want to murder them some days? Good gods , yes. But I wouldn’t. Because children are amazing.

Yes, some of them are assholes. But you can generally sus out why and where they’re coming from, Children force you to think, They will make you question everything. And gods knows, we need more of that, not less. Children are bullshit detectors of the highest caliber. You can make them believe in Santa Claus, but don’t think they’ll believe your excuse for alcohol on your breath. Kids know, they can sense when something isn’t right.

I don’t think I knew what love was until I had children, both step and biological. When a child asks to play a game with you, and you say yes, there’s a joy there that people will search all their days for. And having a child fall asleep on you is one of the greatest feelings you can have as a human.

My biggest problem with modern society is how we’ve failed our children, on every level. They’re not safer, they’re not healthier, and we know so much more now then we did before about how to be better parents and adults. And yet we don’t do the things we’re supposed to be doing. We underfund programs to help them. We pay teachers jack shit. And we abandon them to screens instead of just simply talking to them. I’ve been as guilty as everyone else. We must do better, as a species and culture.

I’m going to end this by shouting out my biological daughter, Aubry. I don’t think she’s ever had as tough a year as this last one. Yes, lots of it is due to the divorce. But her bedroom just got destroyed in this weekend’s flood, so she’s staying with me. That alone should cause you to feel bad for her. But she’s amazing. She makes me want to be better. She’s so much more moral than me, tougher than me, and yeah, I pretty much adore the ground she walks on. Don’t like it? Step off. Good night.

I love a lot of things in this world. I love people, places and things. But I realize I love one city in the world, and at a very specific time in its history. I love Minneapolis in the late 90’s. And I’m going to tell you why.

Minneapolis in the 90’s was special. I hate to be one of those people who say you don’t understand unless you were there, but you just don’t. It was in the middle of the boom bust cycle we have in this country, and all the people being priced out of Chicago were moving in, but hadn’t crushed the rent prices yet.

Minneapolis in the 90’s has it’s own soundtrack. Bands who went on to be one hit wonders, like Semisonic and “Closing Time”. Soul Asylum blew up, thought never quite as big as they should have. But my favorite Minneapolis band of all time will be Boiled in Lead.

Boiled in Lead could have been described as world music, I describe it as an Irish band and a Romany band get drunk and have a sing off. I’m very particular about my BIL. Antler Dance is their finest hour, followed by the soundtrack to the book Gypsy as a close second. Whoever decided that Adam Stemple didnt belong must not have wanted success. They never sounded as good before or after him. Yes, I did propose during a Boiled in Lead show. Their last with Adam, as I recall.

But Minneapolis in that time, there was something magic in the air. A magic best captured in the book War for the Oaks by Emma Bull. My favorite Xmas urban fantasy, and the first book I’d make into a movie when I win the lottery.

A lot of my favoritism runs into places that are no longer there. Shinder’s books is gone. Uncle Hugos got burned down in the George Floyd riots. That was the last place I saw my mother smile at. Uncle Hugos and its twin, Uncle Edgars are back, I hear. I hear the Saloon is gone, the gay bar I worked at for a while. I went back a few times since I left in 2000 and more and more of it is gone. I dont’ recognize the place.

But maybe that’s all for the best. I’m certainly not the guy I was then. I’m better now, in ways I can’t explain. But the city held me in its bosom for a while, so while I shed a tear every time I go past First Avenue(RIP Prince) I also cant help but smile at thoughts of Melissa, who truly taught me to dance like a free human. Or of all those Tuesday nights, where all the real deviants hung out. Weekends were amateur hour.

IF living in Minneapolis taught me anything, it taught me to live life while we can. To dance while we can still hear music, to love people while they’re here. And yeah, I can cast a misty eyed look back at a place and time when I was poor, and drunk(a lot), I can’t think of a better place I could have been at that time. Now if you excuse me, I’m going to go to bed, while “Unmarked Helicopters” by Soul Coughing(Biggest non Minneapolis band in the city at the time) sings me to sleep. Good Night

I’m going to talk about something that many people feel I have absolutely no reason to talk about: love. If you feel this way, stop now and read no further. I don’t need it the negativity, and frankly, even if you have the right to complain, go get your own blog and post it there. My blog, my words, my choice.

People have so many fucked up ideas about love. Some mistake control for it, or use it for that reason. Others treat it with disdain, or dismiss it as mere chemicals. I pity those people, but I understand. Love has cost me so much, and yet has also given me the greatest rewards. And yet, most of the time, our mass media and culture gets it all so wrong, in my opinion.

If you consume a lot of media, love is about the dramatic moments, the grand gestures, the sweeping off your feet and leaving to a round of applause. I get the appeal, trust me. I’ve been involved with some of those, and it’s exciting, exhilarating and memorable. But those moments aren’t what love is built on.

To my mind, what love is built on, and grows on, are many tiny moments. It is , in the words of Death in Bergman’s Seventh Seal, “Strawberries and Cream”. It’s the little things that build it brick by brick. It’s the way she breathes when she’s asleep. Its the smile you can hear through the phone when he’s thinking about you. It’s hundreds of good mornings and brief hand holds. It’s not just the prom, but the laundromat as well.

And we lose sight of that. And when you don’t prize the little, you lose the big. People can point to this or that in a breakup, and not realize there’s a so many moments that lead up to that end.

But I’m not thinking about that tonight. I’m thinking about the salad that is a loving relationship. The popcorn in front of the TV, the squeeze of a hand while driving, and running errands all blur together.

If you’re in love, I wish you well. If you’re not in love, or have a broken heart, I wish you well. Even if you hate me right now, chances are, I love you and am rooting for you. I wish you the patience to weather the storms if you’re in love. I wish recovery for those who have been wounded and are hurting. Good Night

PS. I love you, Jasmine.

My name is Trevor, and I’m fat. To anyone who knows me, this is like saying water is wet. I’m 6 foot 3, currently 289 pounds. My lowest in the last two decades has been 265, but I haven’t been under 200 since the eighties. And even then, according to the NIH, I’m not healthy until I’m down to 190. It’s these kind of metrics that drive heavy adults insane. Those metrics say every wrestler in WWE has to lose weight. And I defy you to call them unhealthy. What’s unhealthy is society’s obsession with weight and the damage it’s caused. The world has a body image problem.

I’m not here to preach to the converted. I know most of you reading this are aware of the issue. As the father of four girls and three granddaughters, I’m keenly aware of this. What I’m here to talk about is a problem that gets shoved under the rug: male body image issues.

I could quote you facts and figures, but most men with body image issues don’t talk about it, or would never admit to it. Gods knows, I never did. Until a couple years ago. Weirdly, it was three things that made me painfully aware of my problem: Kevin Smith, smut sites, and Pride.

I’m a big, literally, Kevin Smith fan. What struck me was he was on Late Show with Stephen Colbert one night, talking about his heart attack. He was petrified of being seen naked, so much that he hadn’t been fully unclothed unless he was showering since he was born. This is a man in his fifties, with a wife and child. If a guy like that can’t be free to be naked, why should I be? It made me sad.

Pride was a big factor when I started figuring this problem out. IF you ever have a problem with your body image, gentlemen, go to Pride. Damn guarantee someone there is looking at you and finding you cute. Yes, there’s a lot of muscle and skinny, but seeing the bears made me reconsider my body image. I mean, if those big, round, hairy as hell guys could get out there in speedos, why couldn’t I? Another piece of the puzzle fell into place.

Another thing that made me reconsider my image issues was smut sites. Growing up, men in porn weren’t worried about image, they just worried about being able to do the job repeatedly on camera. Unless it was gay porn. Those guys had to be buff. Men are visual and all. When porn and smut, got democratized and people coudl post themselves quickly and anonymously. the men lost their minds. Thousands , if not millions of dick pics flooded the net. Not a good thing, but I kidnof amdired the guts and bravado it tookt o post, or send those pics.

It led me to bring up my body image issues with my therapist. Mentally, I was at a serious low point, as well as physically. I had ballooned to close to 350. I was sedentary. I was having more low self esteem issues than ever before. I had non stop suicidal ideation. But even before all that, I couldn’t look at myself naked in the mirror. I could barely tolerate seeing myself with my shirt off. What she told me to do was the first step on the journey to where I am today,

She told me to stand in front of the mirro in the bathroom naked, for five minutes a day. If it fills you with horror, you’re not alone. Every guy, and several women I’ve suggested this to, have all looked horrified. I was against it. First time, I only lasted three minutes. Save your jokes, folks. For three months, I did that. I could look ay myself naked, but still felt uncomfortable naked. Then, as I was building up image self esteem, I blew my life up.

I won’t go into the gory details, or talk about fault or blame. My page, my life, my voice. Suffice it to say, when the smoke cleared, I was out of the house, out of my family and out on my own. And I discovered something out there that shocked me.

I was desired. Women and recently, a few men, found me physically attractive. I’d rarely , if ever had this happen. I was encouraged to be free and be naked on camera. Did I do it? The people who need to know that answer already do. We’re all adults here.

The last, and most important step in my body image journey has bene my girlfriend Jasmine. She’s encouraged me being naked, and not just for sexy times. As a result, I’m wearing clothes at home a lot less. You’ve bene warned, window peepers.

Why write about this? So men with body image issues look inward and realize they’re ok. So that people can use this story to maybe not dislike themselves so much. So maybe someone reads this and gets brave and feels free from what society tells them they should be. And yes, I”m writing this with less clothes than usually socially acceptable.

What also inspired me to write this was getting some negative test results. So I have to make changes so I’m healthier. Not weigh less, be healthier. Try to keep up the meat shell, folks, It’ll help with the mind as well. Good night.

Tonight’s post is kind of disjointed and weird, much like me. I’ve had an interesting couple of days, and I’m going to use this blog to sort some of it out on the page. If you don’t like therapy, probably won’t like this post. That’s ok. Not all of them can go to college.

Last night, I made dinner for my partner, Jasmine and her boyfriend, Ryan. That’s how I refer to them, among other terms, This is only my second time meeting him, he lives five hours away. But it was a nice evening, he’s a good guy. Any comments about poly ships and such, keep to yourselves. Our business, not yours. And it’s not really about the evening, but what happened after. Get your minds out of the gutter, you people. Oh wait, you read me. Get your minds out of the sewer.

Ryan and I talked on chat later that night. He had some real insight into the divorce I’m currently going through. He also had some insight on how to get back from, and recover from the situation, It was simple: make better choices.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But what do you do when you don’t trust your choices? When you’ve had it ingrained that you choosing is always going to be a failure. That’s what narcissists teach you: you always choose wrong, so I’ll choose. Even when you think you win, you lose. So you don’t choose. Because what’s the point in playing a game you’re never going to win?

I was pondering the notion of better choices throughout the day today, in the quiet moments. I spent it with my daughter Aubry. We went to see the new Fantastic Four, which is fucking awesome. That could be an entire post itself, but it won’t be. Because this post isn’t about the movie, it’s about a commercial before the movie.

What’s so important about the commercial? It was using “Only You” by Yaz. It being in the commercial didn’t bother me. Musicians have to eat. and Spotify needs to die. It’s the way they used it. They used it to soundtrack a meet cute. If you’ve ever heard the song, that is so not the use of that song.

Sitting there with Aubry, it took me back to the last time music use in a trailer annoyed me this much. Oddly, it connected to Aubry. It was when a crap movie, the Breakup, used the song Ball and Chain by Social Distortion in their commercials and trailers. Whoever had chosen this had looked at the song title, thought it sounded like the term old ball and chain, and chucked it into the trailer.

It was so thoughtless and dumb, That song is one of despair and wanting out of life, ending it all. Oddly enough, it had a deeper meaning for me, because when I held Aubry in my arms the first time, it was the first song I sang to her.

Now, you can say that singing a song about ending it all at that time was sick. Certainly most people who’ve heard it and the story think so. I’ve chosen to interpret it as I knew my life as just a guy was over. At that point, I was a father, and everything changed.

So maybe that’s the moral to this story. When you screw up, find a better way to think about your choices. Maybe figure out a way to wrap that mistake in a shiny new coat of paint, just so you can keep moving. I’ve suffered from feeling like losing all the time, and I need a new mindset, a new vision if I’m going to make better choices. Because that’s the goal, isn’t it? Make better choices. Good night.

They say that you regenerate your entire body every seven years. This is why the seven year itch exists, I think. People don’t keep up with each other, and boom, you’re married to a completely different person. I think this happens with people all the time. It can be a blessing or a curse. Some folks use this time to renew their strengths. Some people fall apart. It’s usually somewhere in the middle, I’m thinking.

I’ve never talked about my divorce in this place. Still won’t. But it is a trial by fire. A burning away of things. I mourn some of them ,some I don’t. But you can look at this as a season of nothing but loss. You lose security. You lose friends and family. And you can lose your self esteem, your self worth, think you’re the lowest scum on the face of the earth.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to die. At least not literally. Maybe these events, like divorce, or retiring, are like dying in Dark Souls or Dungeons and Dragons. It’s time to create another character. And you can choose to roll the dice, but I’d rather control who I become. Maybe that’s why I liked systems like Champions back in the day. Choosing your powers over rolling for them.

It can be tough figuring out who you want to emulate. I don’t recommend specific people. That route is hazardous. I think I’d like it to be like the comic book hero Captain Marvel. The word he used to activate his powers, Shazam, was an amalgam of people, each letter a different god , denoting a specific ability ot virtue. Think I’ll do that for me. I’m still figuring out who I want to be, Maybe this will inspire me to think , and more importantly, act better. I want to be better, so I must make better choices. I was never encouraged to choose as a child, so I don’t choose. Maybe just by choosing, I can fake it until I make it, Make the better choice, like my friend Ryan says. What’s better? Start listening to your brain, your heart and your instinct.

Yes, you’ll make mistakes. We all do. We trust the wrong people. It doesn’t mean you’re bad, or they are necessarily bad, just the combination doesn’t work. Maybe the locks need to be rekeyed, or the strings restrung. But change like that happens, and all you can do is try to be better on the other side of it. Good night

PS. Today is National Girlfriend Day. I have one. Her name is Jasmine. She’s amazing. I love her. That’s all.

I didn’t want to write this. I had a major family conflict tonight, the details of which are none of your business. But I curled up into a ball, went through some shit, talked to friends, etc, etc. I sat on my couch eating a fudgesicle, not wanting to do anything. But then a friend reminded me , obliquely, that I’m a Zen guy. So what’s the Zen response to troubles?

Chop Wood, Carry Water.

It’s the idea that the mind is entwined with this meat suit we wear. It’s a bonus , in my eyes, but sometimes the world we exist in, drags us down. I was feeling ashamed, sad, a whole host of feelings that left me numb and tired. I was going to go to bed, chuck it all in.

But that felt like defeat, like I was letting the situation rule me. That I was letting the slings and arrows, both deserved and undeserved, stop my life. And I wasn’t about to do that. That’s letting the brain weasels, the black dog, whatever you want to call it, win. It’s another step up onto the gallows. And I fight that climb every day.

In my opinion, there is no hard fast solution to getting over writers block. I prefer the solution John Hartness said to me: ass in seat. Like Skynrd said, all I can do is write about it. And I really need to start taking that to heart.

I’m going to end this by thanking everyone who’s reading these. In a lot of ways, you’re helping me. I hope I’m entertaining, not wasting your time, and make you think once in a while. Tonight, that ‘s all I have. Good night.