"Thank you for visiting"

Pouring my wonders and worries into the internet

Singer songwriter Zach Bryan was honorably discharged from the military and then went on to become arguably one of the best Americana folk musicians on earth. Zach said he wanted to stay in the army, but the military made a smart call. How many other creative souls out there are learning tactics of war when they could be using their time and energy to make the world more beautiful and less violent instead. Everyone should be immediately honorably discharged from every military on earth. I know it’s simplistic, but sometimes it seems so simple. This is the video that caught the world’s attention and set him free from his soldierly destiny.

I just finished my very first Toni Morrison book, Song of Solomon. I am ashamed it’s taken me this long to read her, but I finally did and it was beautiful. Each character is complex and disturbed, yet completely understandable and relatable in their unhappiness. One character was happy, Pilate, and she was my hero. Plenty of threads unwind in this book, but my favorite yarn is the story of how two siblings from the same parents, experiencing the same tragedy can go on to live such big lives that are the total opposite to one another. Pilate Dead is named after Pontius Pilate, (yes the one who killed Jesus) although the name choice was not intentional. Her illiterate father picked a word out of the bible; he liked the shape of the letters. Pilate has rejected wealth, materialism, and other white people pleasures and instead lives the life of a bootlegger in a house on the rough side of town with her daughter and granddaughter. They have no electricity or luxuries, but plenty of joy. Her brother is the antithesis, obsessed with money, property, status and getting more at all costs. Macon married Ruth, the richest black woman in town, the daughter of the town’s only black doctor, and he hasn’t touched her since they conceived their son nicknamed Milkman, the protagonist in the novel. In Macon’s eyes, when you live in the grossly unfair and prejudiced 1950s, the only way to get even is for black folks to get that money. But not Pilate. She had a completely different truth and way. And yet they were kin, with the same childhood.

Which one do you think lived a happier existence?

Isn’t it funny who we decide to become.

Speaking of the stories, I performed stand-up comedy last Sunday night, and while I didn’t win the $1000 that was actually the motivation to have me get up and do it, I was shocked out how little I cared that I didn’t win. I’ve stumbled on a new creative challenge! I’ve attempted comedy before, but what I liked about this time around was that my bit wasn’t really mean to any specific demographic. I didn’t punch down, I didn’t punch up, I didn’t punch at all! This time I just tried to be self deprecating and curiously quirky! I suppose I might have punched myself a bit, but I can take it. I feel like I have something different and new to work towards. Who knows maybe I’ll perfect this in New Orleans. I did incorporate the harmonica which I also can’t play. (Thanks to Newcastle Comedy Club for this video!)

After the Comedy on Sunday, Tuesday night my friend Laura and several others came over. We made Pisco Sours and talked about politics and friendships and memories. Oh how we laughed! Laura and I used to be housemates, and she moved to the UK years ago, but we were very close at one point in our lives. She was one of the first friends I made in Newcastle when I was looking for people to practice Spanish with. As an extrovert with two homelands, I struggle juggling friends and countries, and while I hadn’t seen her in at least seven years, it was like it always was with her, and she looked exactly the same too. We drank more than we should have, but I regret nothing.

Friendships can’t always be a casual drop in full of rainbows and cocktails. But we are allowed to be in the right place at the right time and to love each other without worrying too much about why we do so.

Tuesday was wonderful because otherwise life feels heavy lately. There’s lots of drama happening around my work life, and I am recovering from a wicked crick in my neck. To add insult to injury, every advertisement on my social media currently seems to be a personal attack on mine and its slow deflapification towards my collarbone.

Seriously, though, I have been thinking a lot about the deaths and illnesses of people I love, and the sadness that surrounds these things. I get blue analyzing how (and why) everyone gets just one chance at living. With all this expensive neck technology, why hasn’t somebody determined what happens after we die? If we knew for sure, we could plan accordingly. (Please see my recent substack on making plans.) Post death intel would be as big as birth control.

Last but not least, I worked at the museum this weekend, and I noticed the sign as visitors leave that says “thank you for visiting.” You don’t see a sign like that at the prison or the hospital. There is an invisible acknowledgement in a sign like that, that people come here willingly, that they want to be here.

Anyway those are my talking points for the week. What are yours?