the overwhelming burden of trying to assess all the shitty shit around us into one ball of evil i can get my head around.

i just got back from the hometown. things done changed, but it's probably more me than anything.

i finally got to meet my little girl thing, the baby pictured a post or two down. she was sweet and smelled nice, and was even kind enough to smile a bit while i was around. her folks know exactly what to do, which is great, because just being in the same room with her makes me feel unprepared and dangerous to tiny fragile things. at least i know that i'm ham-fisted, unexperienced and stupid, and embarrassed by it. nowadays, it seems like that's the type of shit that gets you into power.

i've been wanting to talk for a minute about the experience of being an american, cuz it's got me worried. but i can't. i can't help but feel like me, my friends and neighbors, and those out on the street haven't changed, but everything else around us has. and by changed, i should specify: gotten reeeel fucked up. everything that can go wrong, has. everything beautiful is being or has been destroyed. that which was once part of us all, for better or worse, is fractured and marginalized. it's almost too big to talk about. i mean everything. american art, discourse, ethics, attitudes... it's all changed so much, so quickly. i sometimes get a bee in the bonnet and want to write about the war, or our national leader, or the state of corporate affairs and global influence, or any ol' damn thing, and i just become so fucking overwhelmed. everything sucks. everything is in jeopardy, nothing is certain, even for a minute. and for all the self-serving profiteering weasels, everything is coming up roses. and they don't worry about the damage, cuz they'll be dead soon, but not soon enough for me.

and there is no sign, not even a clue or a promising lead, that this place will be in any better shape when i leave from when i got here. and not only is this place eating shit in a disgraceful style, the us of a is either shitting upon everywhere else decent or it's providing some glossed over plastic homogenized culturally bankrupt model for other nations to aspire to. this world could have been heaven, but we made it hell.

but you already know all this.

well, i used to try to be amused, and now i'm just disgusted.