(11/14/21)

Sometimes it feels like I have chronic diarrhea of the brain. Like I don’t know what’s going to come out of my mouth when I’m not paying attention. Shit just slips out sometimes. I feel like that might be an ADHD symptom, which I feel like I have but I also feel like everybody feels like they have ADHD. Also, I just spent over eight dollars on a coffee. After spending seven dollars on a coffee yesterday. I wonder what’s the most I could possibly spend on one oat milk latte in San Antonio.

There’s not much to do or see in San Antonio, at least compared to Houston. San Antonio is boring. All I do is drive around to coffee shops that close far too early and spend excessive amounts of money on shit, particularly expensive coffee. It might just be a function of the suburbs. Or maybe I don’t spend enough time at the actually cool places in San Antonio. The trees are squat and ugly, and everything is too far away. Are people happy here? I guess there are some interesting things, if you know where to look. Like there’s a comedy club in the basement of a children’s restaurant. And the music venue is fun. I think you just have to look.

I saw Remo Drive in Houston this weekend, but only their first and last songs were good because they were from the first album. Everything in the middle was new. It makes sense that they structured the concert like that, with the best parts as bookends. They know what they’re doing. I hoped it would be a bigger crowd with crowdsurfing and all that, but it was fairly small. 

Apparently 4.4% of US adults have ADHD. I wonder why. Also, of course, it looks like ADHD is diagnosed less frequently in Black and Hispanic children. And probably less frequently in other countries. It makes me wonder what ADHD is. More to come.

Earlier this week, before falling asleep, when the brain unhinges from its hamster wheel of rotational, rotisserie chicken thought circles, I thought about how Thanksgiving is mass coercion. We are all just expected to eat a turkey in our individual homes, and most of us agree to it….but no one’s gonna see you? But we all do it anyway? Is there any power in refusing to do so? It reminds me of when I learned about why Columbus Day is a thing. I was with my friend Lexi from middle school getting earwax candles at Target and we were wondering why there was so much traffic, which made us wonder why Columbus Day is a thing. Turns out it’s because eleven Italian Americans got lynched in 1892. And then President Benjamin Harrison was like, let’s make a holiday to appease the Italian Americans and ease relations with Italy. In the process alienating the Native Americans, of course. 

My friend at work, this fifty year-old Satanist, told me about how he lost his virginity to his mom’s 38-year-old neighbor, who his mom sold Tupperware to. And how he “did cocaine in a fucking Chili’s.” He has “STAY DOWN” written across his knuckles, and “SWAN SONG” under it. He told me that swans mate for life, and when male swans are about to die, they sing this beautiful song to their mates that sort of solidifies that. I looked it up and I don’t think it’s true, but it sounds cool so I’m gonna believe it anyway. 

I read Kal Penn’s memoir, which was really good. He’s really funny. 

I’ve been thinking of what to do with my life and I came across this quote by Lily Tomlin, “The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you’re still a rat.” I’m not sure why my ratty life is supposed to look like, though. I’ve been thinking about this quote a lot lately. I just wanna live my ratty life. It reminds me of when Tom Wolfe describes Mexico in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, except I’m pretty sure he was being somewhat racist.  Or the W.H. Auden poem where he talks about the “dogs [going] on with their doggy life.” Or the short documentary 73 Cows, where beef farmer and vegan Jay Wilde describes transforming his farm from a cow farm into a non-cow farm, and wanting his cows to live out their cowy lives.

I think I have to be okay with being a rat and living a ratty life. I haven’t read any Kerouac but it’s supposed to make you feel restless, according to a question asked on the podcast Dear Hank and John. They talk about the uncertainty of their 20s. I need to try better at taking every day one at a time.

I have this desire to write the Kitchen Confidential of music venues, even though I’ve only worked at two for a grand total of less then two years and I haven’t read Kitchen Confidential, but I just bought a copy of it. It would probably end up being a pamphlet. And it would need a catchy title. Also I’m not sure what there is to confess. There is some stuff, however. Drama and whatnot.

And I’m embarrassed to say that at the grand age of 19 I couldn’t drive so I would pay for a Lyft to my non-work at my non-job every time I went there, to the first music venue I worked at. I also wasn’t paid, which is illegal, I think. I would carry tables from the Hilltop Tables from Harambe—yeah, Harambe—the shed across the street. Harambe used to have a giant gorilla billboard above it before it was bought by the venue for storage.