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.

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.