I had the pleasure of attending rehearsal — as I’ve been contracted, like a disease, to provide sound design — for Liz Shipe’s holiday play, Upon a Midnight Clear: A Tale of Jack Frost. I use the word pleasure sincerely, as the cast is hard-working and understand her play, and the play itself is simply delightful. Simple. Delightful.

It focuses on a cobbled mythology of different Pagan and Christian magicks, and I couldn’t help but be swept away in it. Everyone involved, with the possible exception of the one person I didn’t get to meet, invested pieces of themselves I rarely see, and the entire atmosphere gave me a warm fuzzy.

We’ve cast our show, Bachelorette, with some truly stellar Milwaukee talents, most of whom I’ve never worked with before. Marcee’s superior hosting and organizational skills made the whole process a massive success.

I’m curious to see how this Thanksgiving will turn out without my grandfather. More importantly, I wonder what Christmas will be like. Will I need to assume a leadership role, paterna familis? I can do it, I suppose. Maybe it’s a good thing.

“You can’t just think of yourself, just this one time. ‘Cause it’s Christmas.”

As part of my therapy for depression, my prescription has been to journal, workout, meditate, etc. That all makes scientific sense, even if it does become difficult to keep up with all the daily “meds.”

The one prescription I have the most trouble with is seeking joy. I have always been moody, of course, but I find that to be a more genuine experience than actively searching for something as ephemeral and indefinable as joy. When it comes, I am prepared for it. I think the harder part for a depressive is not to analyze happiness. Accept it, in whatever quantity or form.

So, in accordance with my prescription, my last few days have had some moments of contentment and even happiness that I will log here.

Marcee, with only minor prodding, played Star Wars Battlefront with me, and seemed to enjoy it. It was a lot of fun to play a co-op game with her. Discovering the game, rather than predicting it, comes easily to her, since she doesn’t and hasn’t played that many games. Watched, yes; participated, no. I tried not to bug her about it, but I insisted that she tell me whether she enjoyed it, and she said that she did.

I also got to play the game split-screen with Mike, and he did not suffer his usual motion sickness, so we have a new game to play together. When we played WoW or CoH together, I always felt too far behind to have much fun, but this game doesn’t rely too much on time spent, unless you count practicing. I enjoyed laughing with him as we both crashed and burned in the dogfighting.

We also shared a bit of nostalgia about Star Control, and I was able to recommend FTL as a reminder of how much fun we had playing that.

And at night, I watch Newsroom and Peep Show and enjoy them both immensely and for different reasons. I’ve taken up crosswords using the NYT iPhone app, and when I’m bored, I spend more time with a deck of cards practicing my sleight of hand than I do with facebook.

I am looking forward to having my workstation back for using this laptop, but I have some calls out to places to send me the money they owe me, so that’s not far off either.

Now I will log off and play some games before getting to do some sound design for some people I really enjoy working with. All in all, a good day.

See you tomorrow, little blog.

You wake to find yourself in an alternate universe much like our own, but our technology has advanced while our style of living has devolved. A mix between the renaissance and sci-Fi.

“The time is 10:30am. You have asked that I awaken you.” Serf’s voice, as I had programmed it, insisted gently.

“Thank you, Serf.”

“It is my pleasure, sir.”

Pleasure. It sounded like pleasure, but the orb-like surface of its head bobbed impassively. Still, what could it hurt to be kind?

“Agenda.”

“Yes, sir. Today, you have several appointments.”

I rose from the bed and stood in the UV bath, in the usual cruciform. I imagined I could hear the screams of millions of microbe societies, replete with relative millennia of histories, burning away in the hissing lasers.

“You are to meet with the Marquess of Bayview to discuss the approval of the use of her lands for the new Rose Theatre. This afternoon, you must inspect your landholdings, and select which projects you wish progressed overnight. You and the Countess are also asked to attend court early this evening, as the Magistrate of Milwaukee wishes to have his entire entourage in attendance as he signs the charter to abolish all human labor. And then, of course, your duel —”

“Big day.”

I stepped out, and shivered in the manufactured breeze of the climate control.

“As you say, sir.” Serf held out my suitcoat and hose.

“For breakfast today, sir, Chef has initiated several warm choices, awaiting your decision.”

“Granola will be fine.”

“Chef insists that your dietary needs will be better served by a warm meal. OVERRIDE?”

“No, fine. I’ll have whatever option A is. Include an extra shot of espresso in my coffee.”

I powdered my legs and pulled on my hose, then dropped the jacket over a loose-fitting blouse. Stray powder covered the carpet in a snowy sheen for a moment, before the carpet nanites collected it, and swarmed like fruit flies to return it to the case, which chirped, “Waste not, want not.”

I took my snuffbox from the vanity, and used my thumbnail to pop it open. Suspended in air, the neti-snuff jumped to my thumb as I leveled it nearby, then raised it to my nostril. As my sinuses cleared, my mind became calm and empty, the insta-meditation granules performing their duty. For one flashing moment, I saw a vision of thousands of Serf Units laboring under a hot sun, before the medication wiped the image away in a Zen haze of acceptance.

“Remind me, Serf: for what offense do I defend my honor this evening?”

“ERROR”

“Serf?”

“My apologies, sir, I am unable to provide an answer on the subject of HONOR. Please rephrase the question.”

“Nevermind. It’s not important.”

In the mirror, I adjusted the rapier at my side, little more than a hilt with a stretched piece of lead to hold it in the scabbard, a symbol of my station and not of the violence to come. Serf fastened a rose to my lapel, and brushed my jacket with a microfiber pad.

“Sir looks dashing today,” Serf murmured, as he pushed me from my ready room. The dining chamber was filled with the smells of  cinnamon, and warm apple. Serf tied a napkin around my neck like a bib, and scrolled through my iRSS feed as I ate my oatmeal.

“Top stories, World News: Olympian Jason Reed implicated in scandal over —”

“Skip.”

“Politics: State of the War with —”

“Read.”

“Negotiations with Iran continue to fail, even as drones penetrate the palace in Tehran. Religious leaders cite the infidels’ use of machinery to neuter and weaken human fighters in the region as proof that they will be on the right side of history, having sided with God against this sacrilegious genocide.

Allied Leaders continue to claim the use of android and cybernetic soldiers as a moral victory over the inhumane emotional cost of human lives in such a barbaric exercise as war. Iranian Coalition forces continue to use guerrilla tactics against civilian targets, under the assertion that it remains their only option to fight back. Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia —”

“End.”

“Sir.”

“Where is the Countess headed today?”

“Other than her appearance at court today, the Countess has no appointments. Shall I have her accompany you?”

“No. Call the coach for Bayview, and tell the Countess I have already left.”

“Ley-D informs me that the Countess remains in the sitting room, awaiting your daily meeting.”

“I’m not going.” My voice had more gravel and more gravitas than usual, and the sound of it surprised me.

“Agenda includes —”

“Override. Authorization: u-l-t-7-1.”

“OVERRIDE ACCEPTED. Your coach awaits, sir.”

I stepped out of the climate-control onto a path meticulously maintained by a dozen or so Keep-R units, who busied themselves elsewhere as the hovering coach blasted eddies of sterilized dust into the air. I tried to remember what it was like to sneeze. A loss of control and brief euphoria. A sting in the chest.

As the coach whizzed into the transport tube, I turned off the heads-up display which showed me the map and countdown in seconds until I reached Bayview. Creating a new theatre, a place where human citizens could be engaged by live performers, had caught the attention of the hoi-palloi, but to allow in the omegas of the society? Even the merchant class had long since lost the ability to read or speak the Queen’s English, in favor of moji. What art could possibly appeal to all the classes? Even if I could convince the Marquess, I remained myself unconvinced of the utility of such work. Was I chasing novelty and notoriety, rather than altruistic expansion of the class system to include our lessers?

Imperceptibly, the coach came to a stop, and the chime as the door slid open startled me from my preoccupation.

The Marquess’ grounds were lavish, dotted with ever-shifting topiaries made popular with the elite by the Japanese Bonsai animators. A fad, but a beautiful one. Her Serf units bowed deference to me as I strolled through a colonnade of shiny, steel servants. Within myself, I cringed at the effort, but an outer facade of aloof indifference put me on equal ground with my betters. Negotiation required such disingenuous focus.

When the Marquess emerged from the earth via the hoverlift, like Venus in the painting, I bowed low, looking up at her under my brow. She offered her hand, and I kissed it.

“Though our meeting takes place on schedule, my Lord, your presence always surprises me with its pleasing affect.”

Affectation would be more appropriate, I wanted to say. Instead, I rose, and delivered a smugly confident, “Marquess.” Embracing the masculine propensity for laconism, I said nothing more, and received a warm smile and her arm in mine for the walk inside.

Gimme a stick. I’m fighting my way out of this.

And when you can’t write, let others do it for you.

I’m sitting here, compulsively checking facebook, waiting for any one person to give me any validation, ignoring the “likes” I hate and the posts that probably mean the most.

I have fully committed to an avoidant personality. In trying to make myself whole alone, however, I am bored. Without something to complain about, I should have time to sit and enjoy my pastimes… any of them. Video games – bored by what is offered, not intrigued by what I could go out and purchase. Books – too still. Working out – I don’t want to commit to it; I’ve never worked out for health, always for aesthetic, and I cannot see the point when I am not single, and no longer interested in being on stage. Writing - I hate my own work, and others are indifferent to it.

So, instead, I stare at different screens and wait for my body to be tired enough to sleep. I read others’ words, pretend they’re my own, lament that I have nothing unique to offer anyone, chastise myself for being so predictably boring in my mental illness. You can’t even fight it. Not really. Winning buys you a half-happiness at best. Losing at least makes you feel something, even if it is despair.

Choose Her Every Day (Or Leave Her)

I spent 5 years hurting a good woman by staying with her but never fully choosing her.

I did want to be with this one. I really wanted to choose her. She was an exquisite woman, brilliant and funny and sexy and sensual. She could make my whole body laugh with her quick, dark wit and short-circuit my brain with her exotic beauty. Waking up every morning with her snuggled in my arms was my happy place. I loved her wildly.

Unfortunately, as happens with many young couples, our ignorance of how to do love well quickly created stressful challenges in our relationship. Before long, once my early morning blissful reverie gave way to the strained, immature ways of our everyday life together, I would often wonder if there was another woman out there who was easier to love, and who could love me better.

As the months passed and that thought reverberated more and more through my head, I chose her less and less. Every day, for five years, I chose her a little less.

I stayed with her. I just stopped choosing her. We both suffered.

Choosing her would have meant focusing every day on the gifts she was bringing into my life that I could be grateful for: her laughter, beauty, sensuality, playfulness, companionship, and so … much … more.

Sadly, I often found it nearly impossible to embrace – or even see – what was so wildly wonderful about her.

I was too focused on the anger, insecurities, demands, and other aspects of her strong personality that grated on me. The more I focused on her worst, the more I saw of it, and the more I mirrored it back to her by offering my own worst behaviour. Naturally, this only magnified the strain on our relationship … which still made me choose her even less.

Thus did our nasty death spiral play itself out over five years.

She fought hard to make me choose her. That’s a fool’s task. You can’t make someone choose you, even when they might love you.

To be fair, she didn’t fully choose me, either. The rage-fueled invective she often hurled at me was evidence enough of that.

I realise now, however, that she was often angry because she didn’t feel safe with me. She felt me not choosing her every day, in my words and my actions, and she was afraid I would abandon her.

Actually, I did abandon her.

By not fully choosing her every day for five years, by focusing on what bothered me rather than what I adored about her, I deserted her.

Like a precious fragrant flower I brought proudly into my home but then failed to water, I left her alone in countless ways to wither in the dry hot heat of our intimate relationship.

I’ll never not choose another woman I love again.

It’s torture for everyone.

If you’re in a relationship, I invite you to ask yourself this question:

“Why am I choosing my partner today?”

If you can’t find a satisfying answer, dig deeper and find one. It could be as simple as noticing that in your deepest heart’s truth, “I just do.”

If you can’t find it today, ask yourself again tomorrow. We all have disconnected days.

But if too many days go by and you just can’t connect with why you’re choosing your partner, and your relationship is rife with stress, let them go. Create the opening for another human being to show up and see them with fresh eyes and a yearning heart that will enthusiastically choose them every day.

Your loved one deserves to be enthusiastically chosen. Every day.

You do, too.

Choose wisely. ॐ

— Brian Reeves

I can’t stand THE DEPRESSED. It’s like a job, it’s the only thing they work hard at. Oh good my depression is very well today. Oh good, today I have another mysterious symptom, and I will have another one tomorrow. The DEPRESSED are full of hate and bile, and when they are not having panic attacks, they are writing poems. What do they want their poems to DO? Their depression is the most VITAL thing about them. Their poems are threats. ALWAYS threats. There is no sensation that is keener or more active than their pain. They give nothing back except their depression. It’s just another utility. Like electricity and water and gas and democracy. They could not survive without it.

― Deborah Levy

A compliment requires two sides. It is the proverbial tree in the forest, and simultaneously the scientific answer to that question. There must a producer of the compliment and the receiver of that compliment. I would further postulate that the receiver in this instance must agree to the nature of the compliment for it to actually be so.

I know all this to be true. If I were to approach a strange woman on the street, for example, and tell her that her dress fits her beautifully and accentuates her shapely figure, I would intend that to be a compliment; however, much of how she receives it would be the context in which it was said, primarily — and this is cynical — whether she finds me attractive. The well-worn comic cliché applies here: the line between stalking and persistence is in the eye of the beholder.

Combine this thinking with the more recent (at least to me) rash of male body dysmorphia, and you find me, dear reader, where I sit so precariously, now; that is, invisible to the opposite sex, yet longing for their validation. Nothing I write here will threaten to rock the core tenets of the middle-aged male psyche. Predictably, I wade in the stagnant reflecting pools of the midlife crisis, late adolescence, and male insecurity. As I can all but feel my testosterone waning and the last gasps of my wonderboy charms suffocating under the iron grip of gray-haired, professorial reserve, I watch the admiration of the young transform from emulation and infatuation to smirks and boredom. Seduction now has become a process once again, as it was when I was young and unwanted.

As a descriptor, I have never taken comfort in the word, “handsome.” Much as many a woman would be loathe to labor under that descriptor from a potential suitor, I have always taken it as euphemistic and general praise. Its connotation seems to imply an inoffensive physicality, rather than a desirable one. To that end, I know I must accept my endomorphic proportions. I have not done so, but I know the burden is on me. After all, I shall never be the target of such a word as “beautiful.” Why? Possibly because my cis-gendered, laborer physique might imply to the uninitiated that I should find that term diminishing somehow. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I take similar umbrage when described, quite accurately, with any number of ostensibly complimentary epithets: burly, brawny, strong, muscly, bear-like, virile, etc. While the archers of these particular arrows mean them to have Cupid’s touch, they rather land with a thwack into a raised shield of defensiveness. I know how I look, and, for my own neurotic reasons, I’d rather not be reminded. Precise as these terms may be, I would prefer a more intangible quality to my compliments. I’ve been considered only once to have earned the adjective “irresistible,” for example.

These hangups belong to me, quite clearly, and I do not intend to saddle them onto anyone else. Sincerity accepted, complimenter. Flattery noted. For my fragile ego, however, drawing attention to those things I see as failings in myself only serve to make me feel lesser. I know that large, bald, hairy, funny, bright… all of these can, and have, been made as parallels to sexy. Universally, however, tall, sinewy, dark, with beautiful locks, sharp features, a sly, perfect smile… real sexiness lies there. Te majority agree that Benedict Cumberbatch does not hold up to scrutiny under close examination, but his confidence and the lines of him combine to make something sensually pleasing.

Confidence, of course, is the chief contributor. I submit that confidence originates externally; at least, the confidence that we associate with sexiness does (perhaps not the confidence we associate with Donald Trump, for example.) When I receive validation, unsolicited, from someone with regard to my physical attractiveness, I become supremely confident in it fairly quickly. I stand taller. I smile more. I assert myself with casual charm. I literally lose weight when people tell me I look good. I don’t have to change a thing; by the grace of my sex and my genes, it falls right off. Testosterone is a hell of a drug.

Due to my size, when I assert myself, I am often seen as aggressive. Yet, because I am aware of this, and at heart, want to please people above all, I am seen as weak. When my empathy and foresight allow me to make decisions of a buddhist nature, I sense the women around me judging me as wishy-washy and worthy more of their pity than their desire. Further, when I then, unwisely, tell of the reasons behind my actions, I appear to be defensive and weak, drooping even lower in their estimation of my potential as a mate. Understand here, dear reader, that I am not interested in polyamory, but validation, and validation for men like me must often take the form of sexual attractiveness.

When I don’t receive that validation, or when the validation has to be solicited, the opposite effect occurs. I can hear my therapist and my own knowledge of the human condition ganging up on me here. “It comes from within. Then, people validate it.” I disagree. My self-esteem has always been entirely based on the opinions of others, but that doesn’t necessarily change the self-image. An example: I retain that I am a person of unique empathy and vision, an artist of some achievement, working in successive approximations toward a fully realized version of my art and craft. If someone attacks that, even if their points are valid, the integrity of those core tenets remains. It transforms under my own care, and I take advisement, rather than criticism.

External perception of the aesthetic qualities of one’s self, however, remain entirely the province of the outside observer. If not, insanity reigns. To say, “I like the way a Trilby looks on me,” is all well and good, and such an opinion cannot be disproved. If, on the other hand, no other person, including people that have seen past your Trilby obsession to see the person within, can agree that a Trilby accentuates your best features, while diminishing your flaws, then that is simply not the truth of things. Argument must cease on that front, because your love for the Trilby should be accepted, but its aesthetic value can still be in question.

Similarly, people can see past my lack of fashion sense, or accept my crooked teeth, or convince themselves that baldness drives them wild, but in reality, I am not beautiful. I have been privy to many conversations between people where so many people are described for their beauty, even people in the room. For me, my attractive traits have always been listed as “intelligence, sincerity, empathy, humility.” While I take pride that I am thought of so highly, those are not traits associated with desire. I have never been one to value the warmth of the hearth over the heat of the bonfire. Is that what aging means? Never to be desired again, only settled and settled for?

Any of my past indiscretions, no matter how innocent, have always resulted from a woman tapping into this subconscious need. Sometimes, I have even felt manipulated at how simple it is. When my whole life has been platitudes about nice guys or handsomeness or confidence, even a throwaway of “hot” became a flag for a new world. Dare I consider myself in such terms? Nothing else mattered in those moments. For once, the dark and the dangerous parts of me enticed more than the silly and the safe.

So, how do I respond to the “handsome devils” and “cuddly bears” of my everyday existence? Can I cope with feeling like the nice guy or the big brother? It’s not a friend zone argument. Friends and past loves have blurred the lines of that image of me to similar levels of confusion. My own neurosis, I suppose. But even if you believe that you want to trap a handsome bear, I won’t come calling for that particular bait.

* My first post using the laptop I inherited from Marcee. It feels very Doogie Howser to be able to write from the couch. It seems… right. Probably, it is nothing more than the novelty. Anything that gets me writing again, I suppose.

This is the world we wanted.
All who would have seen us dead
are dead. I hear the witch’s cry
break in the moonlight through a sheet
of sugar: God rewards.
Her tongue shrivels into gas…

Now far from women’s arms
and memory women, in our father’s hut
we sleep, are never hungry.
Why do I not forget?
My father bars the door, bars harm
from this house, and it is years.

No one remembers. Even you, my brother,
summer afternoons you look at me though
you meant to leave,
as though it never happened.
But I killed for you. I see armed firs,
the spires of that gleaming kiln come back, come back…

Nights I turn to you to hold me
but you are not there.
Am I alone? Spies
hiss in the stillness, Hansel,
we are there still and it is real, real,
that black forest and the fire in earnest.