Welcome to the 10th Annual Motherfucker Day, motherfuckers. For you motherfuckers who are late to the party, here is the story of Motherfucker Day, as it was written on this day in 2002:

“From this day forth, September 11th will be known to all people as “Motherfucker Day”. Motherfucker Day honors the word “motherfucker” as one of humanity’s greatest contributions to planet Earth.

To observe Motherfucker Day, all one needs to do is say “motherfucker” at the end of every sentence, or at least every sentence that you remember to end it with. For instance, “Can you please pass the salt, motherfucker?” Or, “I love you, motherfucker.”

You can also put up banners that say “motherfucker” at your home, workplace, school, or place of worship; write the word “motherfucker” on walls everywhere (if you get busted, simply tell the police “I’m no criminal, motherfucker!” They’re sure to understand, and let you go.); and, if you’re so inclined and they’re consenting, feel free to go ahead and fuck someone’s mother. Hell, they could probably use it. This is just a short list of ways to celebrate Motherfucker Day, and is by no means complete. If you can think of another way to celebrate Motherfucker Day, feel free to do it, and certainly feel free to tell us about it here!

That’s all for now. Hopefully, by issuing this decree to all of humanity, I’ve done something to make an otherwise ordinary day feel just a little more special and festive. Spread the word! Tell a friend! September 11th is Motherfucker Day! Enjoy your new holiday, motherfucker!”

…but my birthday’s coming up, and I do feel like being a self-indulgent prick this year, so here’s what you can do to help a brother out:

My wish list is here. Not a lot on it, most of it isn’t expensive (though I’m fine with it if you wanna buy the Paul Levitz DC Comics book that’s over $100), knock yourselves out.

Do you like this site? How’s about throwin’ some money in the tip jar, then, Spanky?

Note: just about every time I actually say anything about people sending me a gift on here, some person or another that I don’t talk to anymore tries sending me money or presents in an attempt to buy their way into me talking to them again. It’s been tough, but in these cases, I’ve actually sent things and money back more than a couple of times now. However, starting today, if anyone does this (especially repeat offenders, and there’ve been a few), I will be keeping whatever is sent to me, and continuing to not talk to the involved parties. Thanks in advance for anything you decide to send me, but that’s all you’re getting out of me. Seriously, you guys, we don’t talk for good reasons (some of which are for your benefit as much if not more than mine), and you have more important things to spend your cash on, so be REALLY sure that you want me to have cash or frivolous things more than that other stuff, despite the fact that I’ll continue not talking to you.

If you’d prefer to do things that are less geared toward me having more stuff or cash to blow at the dog track (in all seriousness, my indulgences of this nature are few and far between, as I’ve got next to nothing coming in, gas is expensive and it costs a lot of money to maintain a life), all of the charity suggestions I listed last year are still viable ones. George had his day in court, but hasn’t heard back on a decision yet, is still in rough shape, and relief could take months even if his case reaches a positive outcome. This year’s Race For McGee is next weekend, June 18th, and I’d be happy to see you help out Deb’s cause. Brad is still helping out City Year via Ordinary People Change The World, too.

Finally, if cash, goods and services are out of the realm of possibility for you, then just drop me a line and tell me how you’re doing. That’ll work.

It’s basically like emotionally-charged needles are sticking into every nerve ending in my body, making me feel hurt, angry, depressed, defeated, abandoned, betrayed, and alone. It makes me feel like I can’t do anything but focus and fixate on the pain I’m dealing with, or doing destructive (not of the scale or type that I did in my youth, and not physically destructive to me, but still destructive; compulsive spending has been my weapon of choice in recent years) things to try and blot it out somehow. Yet, I know that if I get it to go away or lessen before I put as much of this feeling into words as I can, I’ll be betraying myself alongside the betrayal I’m experiencing from the people who I’ve put in charge of my care, so I have to just write as much as I can about it, while it’s here, hang onto it, try to externalize it, and hope that someone with a conscience and a soul gets to read it and decides to show some decency and compassion in the situation I’m in with them.

I fucking HATE that I even have to look for that from a person or an organization that I feel so thoroughly fucked over by right now, being a sometimes-too-proud person, one for whom trust is in short supply, and one who does like to stand up for what’s right and against what’s wrong when I recognize things as being such, but this is the way things are right now. I have 6 weeks until my currently scheduled day in court, one that will determine the course of at least my next few years, if not the rest of my life, and these people are trying to make me go away for reasons that still hold absolutely no water, ring as inauthentic, and seem to lack even the most basic compassion. Not to mention the “Hey, fuck them” I feel for putting me in a situation where someone else who exhibited very poor judgment in a great many situations that affected both them and myself may read this and get to feel even the slightest bit of “I was right” smugness. The person in question wasn’t right as it applies to this, and my even caring about what they think about this situation in the first place is still only stupid pride and a vague interest in that someone not having any more deluded ideas about The Way Things Were, but hey, fuck these people for giving me even a second of that distraction and possibly screwing the other person up further as well, when I have so many much more important things to think about.

It’s been said that being able to communicate brings us closer together and is one of our (or at least my) greatest strengths. Normally I’m inclined to degree, but in situations where my life and my personal survival truly depends on it, my ability to communicate these thoughts and feelings clearly and the least bit eloquently just seems to make the people I’m communicating them to think that “if I’m OK enough to say all of this rather than just fucking drooling on myself and illiterately begging for mercy, I must be “OK” in general”. Either that, or they just plain don’t give a shit, or aren’t paid enough or unafraid enough to stand up to the people who give less of a shit than they do. Either way, I’m mad as hell at a world that deals with things this way, and I can’t help but be mad at myself sometimes for having so much of that “potential” that I’ve heard about having for my entire fucking life, the stuff that makes certain people doubt that I could ever be weak or incapable or anything short of brilliant, to sound immodest for a moment, when the reality is that I’m a few weeks shy of 37 years old, still suffering from serious mental, emotional, and probably neurological issues that have plagued me my entire life (documented back as far as early childhood), unable to really take care of or provide for myself in a lot of the ways that count, show up for things on any kind of a sustainable basis, unable to trust, unable to forge lasting friendships and relationships with people without serious difficulty, and most of the time, unable to speak one one-hundredth of the words I’ve just spoken about my difficulties out loud in any attempt to convey the weight and severity of my issues when asked. Sometimes, I’m too riddled with anxiety to speak to people at all, even if I have no reason to fear anything from them. I was too terrified to talk to Jane fucking Wiedlin a few weeks ago without severe prodding and a few attempts, and I have at least one witness to this. It sure as hell isn’t pretty, and when I talk like this, it guts me to, because it’s never easy to be candid about this much weakness for anyone, I don’t think, but does this even begin to illustrate just how totally, royally and completely fucked I am? I hope it does.

I still feel those needles after typing this. I don’t know what I’m going to do about that. Do I dull them with what I’ve been legally prescribed and responsibly dulling them with over the past few years? Do I leave them there? Will I be able to get any sleep in the next 16 hours or so before I have what may be my final discussion with the people entrusted with my care about these things either way, and what shape will I show up in there if I do or don’t sleep? When I hand them a print-out of this post, as well as print-outs of several other things I’ve posted or written about in recent weeks, will any of it make any fucking difference to my situation, regardless of what shape I show up in?

“Once you get past the punishment for the fart, you’ll have a good legacy.”
-Chuck Scarborough, to the nun who was sitting next to him on the plane

“Nah, man. They’re just making a cat food commercial, and trying to soundtrack it with ‘Deuce’ by KISS.”
-me, to an unnamed guitar player who interrupted my pornography reading to tell me that people were actually making pornography in the next room

If the US media decided to spend all the money they’re pissing away covering this stupid goddamn wedding in England on health care for the uninsured.

Oh well.

So I had a weird dream this weekend that Lee Mazzilli had a band in the late ’70s that reunited in the late ’90s, produced by Billy Corgan. They covered “Medusa” by Anthrax.

I don’t want to live in a world where I never hear differing opinions that may open my mind, cause me to reconsider my positions, and ultimately might make me a better person. Echo chambers suck.

However, I’m not terribly interested in being relentlessly subjected, passively and aggressively, to arrogance, ignorance, idiocy and madness in the interest of “keeping an open mind” anymore, either.

I’ve spoken of this a bit before, but in the past few days, I’ve started to take a more proactive approach toward eliminating some of the noise, and am carefully considering my options before taking further steps.

What steps have you taken to find the middle ground I’m searching for and working toward?

Contrary to earlier reports that I was going to, I haven’t registered for the marathon yet. I also don’t really have the $200 laying around to do it, if I do in fact get selected (it’s a lottery; I missed the cut last year), because I went through a really undisciplined few months financially. Compulsive spending is a helluva drug, and it’s something I’m wrestling with mightily at the moment.

I’m not telling you guys this in the interest of getting a single red cent from you, and chances are, I’d send back any money directed to me for marathon entry, just because I haven’t earned it by training steady or behaving with responsibility or, in this case, integrity. I procrastinated on signing up for the lottery, despite my word otherwise, and now it’s basically too late to do much about it because my financial situation isn’t strong enough to pay someone $200 to let me run 26.2 miles. In the interest of full disclosure, without beating myself up too much (really, I’m not), I’m telling you all what’s up so that you don’t think I’ve just given up or that I’m not keeping my word. If lottery day came and went and you didn’t see any news about my status for the ’11 marathon after my years-long determination to get myself in there, that’d look fishy to me, as a reader, especially one who’s been let so far in on the workings of things where I’m concerned.

I feel kinda like I’ve let myself down here and let you folks down, and I’m sorry for that, but I’d be even sorrier if I lied or just skulked off with nary a word on the subject. There’s a lot of people that I want to run this thing for, starting with me, continuing on to George and Deb and even Meb, who I’ve talked with a little on Twitter recently. I actually feel physically great, if out of shape, so I’ll be getting back to running possibly as soon as this week, but I’m not so sure about New York this year, just because I kinda screwed my finances in a way that’d make it tough without help that could go to any number of far more worthy causes at the moment.

So, that’s kind of where I’m at.

So, a couple of days ago, as I was cleaning out an old directory, I came across some of my music, and for the hell of it, I put it on and listened to it.

Some of it’s still very much “me”.

Some of it sounds like a Polaroid of me taken in 1990-something.

I don’t know that I’d want to still do that stuff 5-10 years from now, or maybe not even now, just because it’s not at all who I am anymore, and I’d feel like I was doing “Head Like A Hole” or something else that’s been rendered totally irrelevant in the present day by the passage of time and the number of times I’ve heard it. I don’t care if I get hit with They Changed It, Now It Sucks. I’m not going to do anything that I feel is a drag anymore. I’m not doing anyone any justice if I’m not enjoying myself. I can do difficult things, but I can’t do things that make me unhappy or disinterested, or that make me feel dishonest.

At the same time, I don’t want to do shitty adult contemporary music like everyone does at about minute 51 of their “Behind The Music”, despite one prediction years ago that I’d go in that particular direction.

I don’t really know what I want to do.

I love music, I love singing, I love composing, I’m not that big on playing instruments live (never have been, just not disciplined or interested enough), but I’m still sort of in limbo. I’ve been mostly incommunicado about things with the couple of people interested in making music with me, mostly because I don’t have any news or answers for them, and probably won’t for a while longer until I can set things up so I feel comfortable actually playing and making music somewhere.

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say here, really.

I was just struck by how different a person I am than the person who wrote and recorded those songs.

It’s been an interesting 5 years, since I recorded the last of what you’ve all heard of mine.

Yep, I’m still alive. I just haven’t had much to say on here over the past month and a half.

I’ve been much busier in other parts of the web that would probably bore the shit out of most of you, but where I’m having the most fun I’ve had writing in ages.

New Year’s Resolutions are on pace, sorta.

Everything else has been somewhere between delightfully and agonizingly quiet.

So, not a lot to say here at the moment. When I have something substantial to say, you’ll know about it. In the meantime, in addition to the aforementioned other parts of the web, I say some other sub-140 characters stuff here, if you’re kinda jonesing. If you’re really jonesing, I’m not above bribery.

As I do every year, and have for over a decade now, I’d like to provide you with the information necessary to tell those cocksuckers what you really think of their fucking holiday.

Hallmark:

Email: info@hallmark.com

Or call them at 1-800-HALLMARK

De Beers:

clientservices@debeers.com

Or call them (toll-free this year!) at 1 (888) 376 9230

If you have suggestions for customer service emails/phone numbers of companies that belong in my annual announcement (I actually like florists and flowers, so I usually give them a pass), let me know.

Have fun!

Final Score:

Me 41, Fear 26

Some observations:

From what I observed by re-reading the year’s entries, I had 37 unique fears that affected me enough to think about them, and, in turn, write about them. I’m not going to individually address each one here again, as that’d be very boring. Just the highlights, folks. There’s an archive of what I’ve written in the past on this site, so you can read about anything I don’t address today over there. Back to the score, though. The number 37 doesn’t match up with the 67 items I scored myself for in total. This means that I catalogued identical fears multiple times (either because I didn’t recognize them as being identical to others as I was writing or because I was affected so much by them that I felt I needed to break my “no duplicate entries on the same fear” rule), so my scoring’s a little off in all likelihood. I’ll keep it as is, just because it’s a matter of historical record now. Of the 37 I identified as unique, there are 16 that I feel confident that I’m in control of, 17 that are works in progress, and 4 that I’m still having a lot of trouble with or haven’t tended to at all yet.

I’ve established and ascertained that I’m usually pretty good in a crisis or short-duration emergency. Once upon a time, someone berated me for not “reacting” when I was in a dangerous situation, but I didn’t “react” because I was busy handling what was happening in front of me. It’s a lot easier to handle crisis, danger and emergency with a cool head than it is when you’re freaking out about it. Assuming that you make it through the situation OK, there’s time to think about what it all meant afterward. There’s an admitted danger in being too cool, because it puts you at risk of not properly respecting the weight of a given situation, but for the most part, you’re just better off staying calm if you can swing it.

Outside of famous or otherwise admirable people, who, because I’m an idiot, I still clam up around sometimes (I think I’m finally mad enough at myself to kick this habit, though; so many missed opportunities that I may never have again), I feel that I’ve made huge strides on the “handling social situations” front.

I’ve done better with getting out of the house, but it does take more preparation than it used to in order to keep it stress-free. When I was a kid, I didn’t give a fuck. Now, I have more of an understanding of the cost of things and more understanding of my responsibility to myself, so I do have to contend with that, but I also have to make sure it doesn’t keep me from having any fun. I also have to be careful that I don’t spend too much time away from home, because I do get homesick and I don’t feel grounded without being there a fair amount of time. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.

A lot of my fear of making music is actually the fear of the business of making music. It’s healthy to have some fear of the pitfalls therein, but not healthy to let it consume you. That’ll be the trick moving forward, and my “I’m not doing it if it isn’t fun” rule should help there, even if it makes me even more of a pain in the ass to the people who deal with me in the music world.

The mental and emotional cost of dealing with bureaucracy is still daunting (to go into more detail, it’s exhausting and demoralizing) to me, but I’m doing my best to confront it one tiny moment at a time.

I still dread telephone conversations. Some of that’s because I’ve had a lot of really rough phone conversations and some of it’s because I just don’t like the medium anymore. I’m doing my best to make the calls I need to, though.

I’ve spent a bunch of time this year organizing my affairs so that, if anything catastrophic happens to me, people will know what to do, but I’d say I’m probably about another year’s worth of work away from having it all make sense to folks, maybe two. That includes developing secure-ish ways for people who may need to access my accounts and such to do so, reducing clutter, having the things I decide to keep around make sense to someone who didn’t live my life, figuring out who gets what when it’s time to divide up my things and seeing to it that anything I’ve created and/or shared with people outlives me. I’m also looking into ways to help others outlive themselves digitally, but that’s still in the very early stages. If you’re a software or web site developer interested in this subject, get ahold of me and we’ll talk about it.

I’m learning to deal better with anticipation, to the point where I do actually manage to get some sleep on nights when I’m expecting something, even something good, to happen.

My hardest-to-resolve, fear-related issues are the following:

Money: I fear being broke for the obvious reasons, and I fear the illusion of not being broke, as leads me to spend impulsively and compulsively sometimes, in what I’d consider to be self-destructive ways. We’ll get to my plans for this in a minute.

Expectations: I’m always afraid that I’m not holding up my end of the bargain in life, or that I’m not living up to the expectations that the important people in my life have of me (or should have). The world at large, I don’t worry about much, as you can’t please everyone, but people who make a real, positive difference in my life, well, I want to do right by them, and I don’t always feel like I do, or, more specifically, like I do to the degree that I should. I’m learning to actually ask them what those expectations are, so I can at least worry about a known commodity rather than worrying about things that may all be in my head. This way, even if I do continue to panic about these things, I’ll at least be panicking about something real. I have serious issues with this, though

Regret: Regret keeps me awake at night. I don’t know how many of you live with regret, but I do. People have done much worse than I have in life, but that thought hasn’t helped me make peace with what I have done, or haven’t done. It’s stuff I can’t do anything about beyond making amends with people I feel that I’ve wronged and being the best person I can be moving forward, but it still gets its hooks into me all the time, and it’s painful. This is a lifelong struggle, and I think it’ll take work that I’m not sure how to do yet to get a handle on it. How do you deal with regret?

This Year’s Resolutions:

Beyond continuing to work on what I’ve made public for the past year privately, I’ve got two resolutions, ones that I won’t be burdening this site with for privacy as well as readability reasons, but important ones.

1. Save money and manage money better: I’ve experimented with a budget over the past year or two, but it’s not something I’ve done great with. I’ve also been saving, but not enough to put together a comfortable emergency fund or long-term savings. I intend to step up my game on both fronts. Wish me luck.

2. Do a better job of enjoying what I have: I’m really, really fortunate, despite all the obstacles in my life. Yet, I do a lousy job of enjoying, using, and appreciating the fortune at my disposal. I’m looking into a number of ways to remedy this, including a “Wheel Of Solitary Entertainment” to encourage me to read, listen to, watch and play with the things I’ve been hoarding for years rather than just sitting in front of a computer hitting “reload” all day, and I’m also looking at sites like Goodreads, I Heart Movies and Rate Your Music (perhaps not those exact sites, but at the very least, ones like them; stay tuned for more details) to help me catalog, share my insight on and enjoy what’s in front of me everyday. In addition, I’ll be stepping up my efforts to place things I’ll probably never get around to enjoying in the hands of folks who will. Again, wish me luck.

Thanks for enduring this yearlong experiment with me, and I hope that you’re able to stick to your guns on your various resolutions as well, regardless of whether they’re made on New Year’s Eve or not.

I’ll do this as quickly as possible, as I don’t think there’s much in the way of serious existential crisis going on here.

Relationships: still in the same one. That’s all you guys get.

Socializing: I do what I can. A little hard, because people are spread out and busy, but all anyone can do is their best.

Sleep: way better in the second half of the year than in the first, but it still goes batshit sometimes, right now being one of those times.

Meds: no changes. Looking for good meds for acid reflux syndrome, suggestions welcome.

Therapy: my poor therapist. I’ve mostly run out of things to complain to her about that she can actually help me with. We probably need to start focusing on…

OCD: I haz it. I’m getting a little better at managing it, but sometimes, I really, really, REALLY get locked in on shit. If you talk to me and you think I’m having one of those moments (lately, they involve me talking about baseball cards to people who probably don’t care), let me know as it’s happening. Thanks in advance.

Food: I have good and bad stretches with my diet. Still trying to figure out what I like to eat at age 36 and change that’s good for me, and trying to pull myself away from whatever I’m doing in order to prepare it. Also having the usual struggles with what I can eat pain-free, related to the acid reflux.

Exercise: I totally shit the bed on this in the 2nd half of the year. On the plus side, my left leg is as healthy as it’s ever going to be for when I start running again, which will probably be as soon as some of this damned ice and snow clears.

SSI case: still waiting for a hearing. If my math’s correct and the line hadn’t gotten any longer before I joined it, I’d estimate an August or September hearing.

Other health stuff: have a new general practitioner, who will hopefully not be my “annual new general practitioner”, because I like her. I’ve got osteoarthritis (at its worst in my left knee and neck), acid reflux syndrome, migraines, slightly high cholesterol (but normal blood pressure for the first time in 4 years) and you guys know about my sleep problems. Finally looked into low blood sugar and thyroid issues, and neither of those are a concern for me, so that’s finally answered, and with a good answer to boot.

Fear: I just spent a year talking about this, probably to the considerable detriment of my site traffic. I’ve got a wrap-up mostly written that I’ll post after the 1st of the year, but the short version is this: I’m good on 43% of what I was afraid of in the past year, still working on 46% of it but actively doing so, and totally at a loss or dropping the ball on the remaining 11%. I’m not sure what those raw numbers mean, but I figured I’d put them out there while I had the calculator handy.

Second Life: abandoned ship for the most part, like everyone else has. Don’t feel too bad, SL, I stopped playing WoW too. I miss a few of the people and some of what I used to do there, but I’m working on contingency plans there. I probably will never have a full reproduction of my club Heck on a private Second Life server, mostly just because I’ve seen games that were made in this millennium, and SL’s graphics really don’t cut it for me anymore. Unless you have someone who’s an absolute wizard building and programming what’s there, they’re garish, clunky and look kinda like the worst of Playstation I-era graphics. I know, Mr. “I still own a couple of Pong systems” is bitching about graphics, but on something like this, they really do make a difference. I’ll visit periodically just to see what’s left of the place, but I don’t want to live there anymore.

Music: have some things in the works. Have some collaborators in mind. Still looking for more collaborators. Drop me a line if you’re interested in being one. Still also need to rebuild the home studio in a way that makes sense and doesn’t destroy my house. Starting on that in a few days.

Writing: the comic book stuff has been slow going, but I’ve been very busy with another project, and it’s the most fun I’ve had writing in years. The response seems to be decent, too, so I must be doing something right. I need to write on this site more often, too, and not just about fear and jogging. I’m actually getting close to being able to start doing this, which I talked about 9 months ago. Time flies, doesn’t it? I’ve also re-added my status updates to the site, though because of the clunky way the ping.fm plugin works now, they’re in the sidebar rather than inline with my feed. No likey, but it’ll do for now. You can always add me on teh twitters if you miss my brain ejaculating on you in 140 characters or less.

School: not happening until after the SSI case is over. Dropping this from the next update unless something happens there.

And, last but not least…

Money: this sucks as usual, but shit’s tough all over. Managed to barely do what I needed to in 2010, despite some compulsive spending in Q4 that complicated things a bit. Doing my best, looking to unclutter some more so I’ll probably sell a bunch more stuff in 2011. Have some other plans where money’s concerned that I’ll announce after the 1st, but not bore you all with for a year straight. In the meantime, if you love me or this site and want to contribute to my continued well-being in some way, it’s always appreciated.

My wish list, mostly for things to keep me sane while I’m in limbo, is here.

Here’s that list I keep a link to in the top left of the site of ways you can help the site out, some of which don’t include giving me money outright or buying me anything.

And, finally, here’s America’s favorite PayPal button! Thanks as always for your support, however you choose to give it.

This Week: Me 1, Fear 0
Total Score: Me 41, Fear 26

OK, 3 days and change left in the year, and one of the more high-stress weeks of the year (the week of Christmas) caps it off. The stress that comes with Christmas is kind of pissant in the grand scheme of things (especially if you’re a person without kids; kids and Christmas, that’s a whole different ballgame, and props go to every set of parents who do it right and care about giving their kids a good holiday), but it still creates fear, so we’ll talk about it. I had some typical week-of stress (“Do I have something for everyone I should have something for? Am I doing enough? Will I get everything done in time?”), and I was in the stores until 7:30 on Christmas Eve, but all in all, I kicked ass. I refer to the immortal words of Mr. Miyagi, who once said “Buddha provide.”

There’s some snow here on the East Coast, too, but that’s really no big deal. Not even worth awarding a point to in either direction.

Later in this week, or at the beginning of the next (I may wait until I’ve got the whole year under my belt), I’ll sit down with all 52 weeks of these posts and do a wrap-up. I’ve got next year’s resolutions picked out as well (which, thankfully, won’t be as emotionally intense as this year’s, from the looks of things), but we’ll talk about those in the wrap-up.

This Week: Me 0, Fear 0
Total Score: Me 40, Fear 26

Yet another very quiet week. One more week (well, technically 9 days right now) to go!