Author: OoD

The universe has been generous enough to offer you the opportunity to fail—utterly—yet again, and you have predictably accepted without a moment of hesitation or gratitude, or even being aware of it.

I have full confidence in you, said nobody ever, to her.

From the instant you vow never to forget, it begins to slip away

Thirty years of thinking have emptied you out. Finally, you know nothing.

Decades later, encouraged by a friend to obtain his old psychiatric reports, he was mortified to read what he had perceived to be a courageous hero’s journey described as the petulant dithering of a timid neurotic.

The book’s celebrated “brutal honesty,” refreshing at first, is ultimately outweighed by a hipster/junky air of smug self-congratulation I’ve encountered in some AA people, reveling in their transgressive pasts while simultaneously gloating over their current virtue.

The future hasn’t aged well.

I did my best, which is nothing, which is what you’ve come to expect.

Your unabashed self-confidence leads me to question your intelligence.

I saw you sneak that drink, and I forgive you for it.

Each morning he stepped out, felt the air on his skin, and gave thanks for this new reprieve.

What’s the problem?
No idea, really. It’s quite the mystery.
How does it manifest?
Microagressions, slamming drawers, muttering, occasionally striking oneself on the head with a crystal paperweight. The usual.
Does it leave a mark?
Only above the hairline.

Each meme a chunk of life replaced by an x/y coordinate, gone forever.

His dog had lost all respect for him, or could no longer stand his scent. Either way, oil spots on the driveway were of more interest to her, and on the rare occasions they occupied the same room, she abstained from meeting his eye.

I can just picture you giving a TED talk, pacing the stage in one of those fucking headphone getups, starting each sentence with the word “so,” thinking it makes you less of an asshole.

I am convinced, after years of study, that surfing is the truest model of incarnate existence. Not that I’ve ever surfed, or could explain the justifications for my statement. That would take years.

All-purpose advice: wire now, detonate later.

He drove past the old house on the way to the liquor store. The familiar bay window above the porch, where she used to sit waiting when he came home. Halfway down the block he had to pull over. He couldn’t go forward, and he couldn’t go back.

Manage to find someone willing to pay you for being some semblance of who you are, and you might survive.

Compulsive thinking, fitful sleeping, and endless, endless trips to the bathroom.

Please take a few minutes to complete this brief survey:

_ maudlin
_ vaguely amusing
_ pointless
_ cringe-inducing
_ naive
_ pretentious
_ absent any discernible qualities
_ tedious
_ beinahe nichts

Whenever I see an advertisement cut to a soundtrack of “What a Wonderful World,” I always feel like I’m being sold a great big steaming pile of shit.

Your hearing starts to go, and then your vision—preparation for leaving this world.

“a large but uncertain quantity of discrete, mostly undated texts left in no sequential order, such that every published edition is necessarily untrue to the nonexistent ‘original.’”

Once you’ve had a thought there’s no reason to ever have it again.

He wanted things to add up, but they didn’t.
Some were less, and some were more.

The promise of lawn sprinklers in the sun, that’s all over now.

1) Forced confluences of random or variable systems
2) Dislocation of expected boundaries in relation to contents

Another day, another pithy aphorism.

Messages on walls or mirrors, invariably perceived as more urgent than those typed on a computer.

Canadian slasher movie with Leonard Cohen in a hockey mask.

Conveying the appearance of conveying a point of view.

The words in this posting can not express how great this opportunity is.

If anything, you could probably be a little harder on yourself.

Why did we try so hard, why did we care? We never learned to play the game. We didn’t even know there was a game.

His had been a life of accomplishment to no one but him. For him it had been a miracle.

I’d rather be here, with you, for the worst that could happen, than anywhere else, for the best.

I’m the kind of person who, if you know me, you either pretend not to see, or cross the street to avoid. I didn’t arrive at this awareness through self-knowledge, but only recently, through observation. Inwardly I feel nothing like the ponderous bore I sense myself to be in your presence. Perhaps this perceptual gap accounts for the spirit of unspecified ridicule I’ve always felt hovering about our interactions. Now that I understand it, my memories finally begin to make sense.

Still, I prefer the present—your present face. The past holds nothing for me.

She sat up suddenly and, looking past him, cried I have so much packing to do. So much packing! He stroked her forehead until she fell back to sleep. No more packing, my love. No more packing.

When someone tells you they’re behind you “1000 percent,” you know you’re on the way out.

When Rotten sang no future
this is what he meant

(A) resulting from a curational interest in the subject of the photograph; (B) from a formal interest in the photograph itself; (C) from a formal interest in the results of curational interest.

Looking through the eyes of the photograph itself.

My old friend appeared at the door. He had always been, if not vain, fastidious in his presentation. Now he was only partly shaven, with his shirt worn inside out. “Rand,” he whispered, “Thank God.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so exhausted. He dragged his fingers through his long greying hair and waved me in. The apartment was nearly bare, with a recliner parked in its center—the site of his long, lonely vigil.

Who’s the asshole, somebody asked, and when he repeated the question I realized he was referring to me.

As he struggled up to greet me, even with his belt cinched so tightly it nearly cut him in half, his pants fell down. They had nothing to hold onto. To this day I remember the look on his face. Apologetic; afraid he’d embarrassed me.

A funeral in the rain, attended by five people who knew him online.

Imaginative acts were denounced as vectors of postcolonial oppression.