The only exception is you can maybe plan on going to a bookstore but that’s it

Yesterday was a travel day. Sarah and I have found that it’s better, when you’re traveling, to consider any day when you have a flight as a day when nothing else gets done. That day is just for travel. Don’t try to meet anybody, don’t go see any sights, don’t go eat at any particular restaurants. Just pack and get where you’re going. The temptation is to cram as much activity into a trip as you possibly can, but there is no more sure-fire way to fuck up your itinerary’s hard deadlines than to try to do something immediately before or after a flight.

Plus, we’re both worriers and find the simplicity of having only one-thing-to-do-that-day comforting. Besides, sometimes a relatively simple trip can take up a surprising amount of time.

We left Sarah’s mom’s place at about 10:30 a.m., heading for the airport in Bozeman. We stopped to have lunch and to visit a dry goods store called Murdoch’s (not my idea — this was supposed to be a travel day, but Sarah’s mom needed, swear to god, cat treats). We arrived at the airport at 1:00 p.m. for our 3:00 o’clock flight, made it through security, and then hung out at our terminal. I read The Butcher’s Masquerade and listened to Talking Head’s Fear of Music, which has 11 tracks and came out in 1979.

I don’t mind airports the way a lot of people do. They’re expensive and crowded and the chairs should really be more comfortable considering sitting down is like the only thing everyone DOES at airports, but I enjoy having a moment to relax on an otherwise hectic trip.

I paused while listening to Fear of Music to talk to Sarah about the Talking Heads.

”I’m not trying to be confrontational here or anything, but what do people see in this band? Is it the satire? The comedy? Because I’m listening to their third record and … I don’t like the singing, I don’t like the lyrics, I don’t like the drums, I don’t like the guitar, and the production value isn’t spectacular. The whole first song is nothing but a bunch of white guys doing a we-just-discovered-African-music. The bass is good on a lot of songs, but the bassist is a one-trick pony when it comes to tone.”

Sarah oftentimes thinks I’m looking for an argument when I talk about books or music or movies — it can seem like I’m challenging her to defend a band that she’s not particularly nuts about, when really I’m just trying to voice questions that I’m asking myself. “You don’t have to listen to them,” she said. For her, music isn’t supposed to be a struggle. It’s supposed to be something you enjoy. If you’re not having fun, then why bother? Stop listening to it.

I don’t really have an answer to that question, other than I think it’s important to try things you don’t like. Especially in the realm of art. Art is there to challenge us, after all, and some of my favorite musicians are acts that I didn’t like at first but only came to enjoy after repeated listenings. Maybe I’ll wind up liking the Talking Heads — who knows?

Our flight took off at 3:00 p.m. Our seats were surrounded by stinky, invasive children. We landed at SeaTac at 4:00, having gained an hour in the air. We quickly deplaned and made our way to the light rail system, which brought us north to Lynnwood, where Sarah’s dad picked us up. It was about a 90-minute subway ride. After a quick dinner at the marina, we loaded up the boat and made our way to the island my wife grew up on. A 30-minute boat ride through smoke and choppy waves.

I listened to the audio of The Butcher’s Masquerade as we traveled and made a lot of progress before we finally arrived at our destination at around 8:00 p.m. Just like that, our trip, which mostly consisted of a 2-hour flight, managed to take up nearly 10 hours.

You can see why it’s better not to cram in activities on a travel day.

It is beautiful out here. Dark at night, and very quiet. It’s easy to get lost in your own thoughts.

I dreamed of a purple pillow that screamed at me. It was a large, square throw pillow with a face, and it had been screaming for a while. I went up to it and said, “I’ve had enough of your goddamned screaming, purple pillow. Enjoy being face-down.” Then I put the pillow down on its face and left it there, knowing it didn’t have the ability to right itself.

Everyone’s grandpa got one for Christmas one year and frankly it ruined that song forever

There was a big fire about a mile away from where we are staying. You could see it burning from the front porch. They put it out in fairly short order, but it’s still … unsettling to think about. Looking at a map of wildfires in the area really gives you a better understanding of where all this goddamned smoke is coming from.

I’m about half-way through The Butcher’s Masquerade. Holy cow is this an angry book. One of the most surprising things about this series is the anger, in my opinion. Carl is just straight-up murdering POWs, if you want to call them that. As bad as that is, he’s killing them while talking shit because he knows their families are watching.

Is it justified? Most people would say so. The aliens Carl is mercilessly slaughtering are the same aliens who destroyed Earth, the same aliens who subjugated the human race and forced everyone into a deadly competition for the entertainment of the rest of the universe. If those bastards don’t deserve to be the target of guerrilla warfare, then who the hell does?

Still, it feels like Carl has crossed a line. Somewhere between “blowing up that monster that’s trying to eat me” and “cracking jokes before curb-stomping some bitch.” It’s a level of violence that borders on “torture porn” — Carl just gave some mantis-lady a case of “enthusiastic double gonorrhea,” which sets a fire on her crotch that can never be put out. It’s horrible.

And I’m 100% with it.

These books are so popular largely because they tap into an anger that so many of us are feeling. I’m not a young man, but it does seem like these books are popular with young men. And, while it isn’t strictly young men who don’t normally read novels who are making this series successful, hitting that demographic has certainly helped. People in America are fucking pissed off, and we can see that same anger in Carl. We root for that anger when we see it.

I did wince, though, when Carl stuck the goose’s head in the garbage disposal.

Boy, did I not enjoy More Songs About Buildings and Food by Talking Heads. The album is from 1978. It has 11 tracks. I listened to it this morning while doing some chores around the house, watering plants, and hanging out by the stream. I tried so hard to find something to latch on to. But there just wasn’t much.

”Take Me to the River” is a legitimately good song. Groovy bass line, cool vibe. David Byrne is doing his best to keep himself in check with no unusual yips or squeaks, which must have been tough for him when the song was recorded. “Turn it down to about a 4, Dave,” his bandmates told him. “You’re at an 8 now. Cut that in half, okay? 50% less. That’s the sweet spot.”

That song, however, is disqualified due to its affiliation with Big-Mouth Billy Bass.

talking heads: 77 & the gate of the feral gods in smoky montana

Sometimes you’re by a campfire and, no matter where you sit, the smoke and ash blow right into your face. You get up and move, but the smoke seems to follow you. You move again. The smoke moves again. You curse and say, “This fucking happens every time I go camping.”

Well, that’s what it’s like in Montana right now.

Spokane, Washington, is apparently burning down (thanks to arson!) and the smoke is just … everywhere. It’s spreading across the northwest like a Lovecraftian haze, turning the horizon into a Japanese landscape painting.

If you haven’t seen the effects of these fires, you should check out some of the videos. Entire neighborhoods in Washington’s second biggest city are being reduced to ash.

I was talking to Sarah the other day about why I don’t think I’ve ever given Talking Heads a fair shake.

”David Byrne sings like he’s joking. Like, if I’m singing while I’m doing chores around the house, just faffing about not putting any thought into what I’m saying and just belting out whatever crap comes to mind, that’s what David Byrne sounds like.” I would guess that he really does put thought into his lyrics and vocal affectation, but he often comes across just sounding silly. I think he wants to sound silly.

When I was younger, music was something that I connected to on an almost visceral level. I liked artists who put passion into the way they expressed anger or happiness or excitement or loss. It was borderline offensive to me that other artists didn’t take it seriously.

”He’s up there dancing with a fucking lamp,” I thought. “Who likes this shit?”

I’ve never been able to hear Talking Heads without an accompanying mental eye roll. I figured it wasn’t fair that I disliked them without ever listening to them, though, so I’m going through their discography while I read Dungeon Crawler Carl.

I’m awfully glad that I got back into this series. The Gate of the Feral Gods has been a blast so far. I’ve got a lot of time to read while we’re in Montana, so I’ve made tremendous progress with it — I should finish the book today.

I got book 5 — The Butcher’s Masquerade — at a little bookstore called Country Bookshop in Bozeman, which is a fantastic little place and very well curated. My suitcase didn’t need the extra weight, but we all make our sacrifices.

Hop aboard the struggle bus our rates are reasonable and our seats are clean hey what do you mean you don’t have exact change f*ck

I don’t know what I expected. Maybe that I’d be better at handling loss than I am. Maybe to believe the mid-west adage that there’s nothing more curative than WORK WORK WORK to take your mind off things.

Whatever the case, I have been struggling. I feel like I’m doing a terrible job at school and that just messes with my head. I can’t stand being somebody who isn’t doing their best, and there is no doubt that my classes are being affected by what I’m going through.

I’ve missed more days of work these last few months than I have at any job ever, which means I’ve had substitute teachers, which means that all of my classes are behind in their coursework. It’s nothing insurmountable, and I don’t mean to say a single bad word against substitute teachers — they are vital and God bless every one of them — but the fact is that not as much work gets done when the class has a sub.

Lots of students, even the most studious students, tend to slack off. I don’t get upset at students for it — what am I going to do? Get mad at someone for not wanting to read “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?”

Plus, I often feel like a significant portion of my brain has melted. I am just … dumber than I used to be. My memory is bad. I have trouble focusing. Little things that I’d normally remember slip through the cracks. (Cue a panicked student yelling, “Did you grade my paper yet!?”)

Between this paragraph and the last paragraph I typed, I just spent about 10 minutes trying to get the cat to sit on the heated pad we got her. Unsuccessfully.

Sigh.

The solution here is obvious: Time.

Of course that’s the answer. I have to be gracious with myself and give myself time. All I do by beating myself up like this is giving myself a proverbial black eye. All I have to do is wait. Breathe. Exist. “This, too, shall pass.”

I hate it, though. Until it does pass, I hate every last minute of it.

It wasn’t a funeral technically we didn’t have a funeral it was an inurnment which I learned is different than an interment

Here are some words I did say at my father’s funeral:

…everything good that I am is thanks to you. I am living and pursuing happiness in a foreign land, a thing that I have always dreamed of doing and a thing in which I find exceptional value and strength. If I wouldn’t have had you, if I wouldn’t have had Mom, none of this would have been possible. If we are to count our blessings then this is the first and perhaps greatest of mine.

Yeah, it was a little sappy.

Neither of my brothers were particularly jazzed about the idea of saying something at Dad’s gravesite, so I had a little speech typed out and in my coat pocket. I won’t put all of it here on the blog, but the whole thing was about how ineffective words are at explaining loss.

The speech ended with me yelling, “Kakaw!” at all the nice folks at our small grave-side gathering. Sarah’s part was to reply by hollering, “Aye-aye-aye!” like a member of a mariachi band. (It made sense in context.)

Dad would’ve liked that.

Three dollars times five days a week times four weeks a month is sixty dollars times twelve months a year is seven hundred and twenty which it turns out is too much

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what it means to be “Put Together.” (As in, “Let me put myself together,” or, “That’s a guy who really has it all together.“) It’s a feeling that I like and I assume everyone else likes it, too. Otherwise, why would we all have dress shoes?

Anywho. When I think of being “Put Together,” I always think of Haruki Murakami.

Author of books like 1Q84, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami has become a bit of a literary staple. I had a furious love affair with Haruki Murakami’s books in the 2010s, when I was in Korea and shopping at What the Book, which carried all his Vintage International Editions with covers by John Gall. (I read them all, collected all the different editions. I even had a few written in Japanese, which I couldn’t read but admired.)

I’m a Murakami nut.

Murakami has a few tropes that appear in his works, and one of them is the (usually male) character who loses his current life for one reason or another and is forced to rebuild his life from the ground up in a whole new setting.

Like, a guy has an existential crisis, gets dumped by his wife, leaves his house and job, and then moves out to the countryside where he works at a small-town library. Once placed in his new surroundings, Murakami describes how the character wakes up, how he cooks breakfast, how he gets to work, etc., etc. Murakami might describe the steps involved his getting dressed, how he unwinds after a long day, the restaurant he goes to for dinner, or the turn-by-turn route he takes in going home from work in the evening. All of it is so meticulous and minute and it just scratches some kind of itch that I have. I can’t get enough of it.

I think that itch I feel is the desire to be “Put Together.”

A few years ago, when I first started teaching at my current school, I was trying to set up a routine that would work for me. Sarah and I had just moved into the house we rent and things were … tough. We’d been overseas for so long, we didn’t have any furniture, knew hardly anybody in town, the pandemic had just happened, and both of us weren’t making very much money.

Things were decidedly not “Put Together.“

Back then, I thought I’d stop in the mornings at a gas station for a quick cup of coffee like I did back when I was student teaching, which was the last time I’d been a teacher in a U.S. classroom. It was a silly thing, but I liked stopping at a little place before the sun came up for a quick cuppa. I liked the silly little interactions I had with the gas station attendant. I liked walking into the school building with a warm paper cup in one hand and my entry badge in the other. I liked to take a little sip, smack my lips real loud, and go, “Aaahhh!” so it echoed down the hallways. Frivolous? Sure, but you’ve got to take pleasure in tiny, pointless, everyday activities. Otherwise what’s the point?

After a few days, though, I did the math, and I realized that I wasn’t making enough money to buy gas station coffee before work. With rent, utilities, gasoline, insurance, groceries … I just couldn’t afford to stop at a f*cking Casey’s for a bullshit cup of coffee every morning. And while having a gas station coffee isn’t necessarily a big part of being “Put Together,” it felt like I was trying to build for myself one of those minuscule Murakami habits only to be told, “Sorry, the coffee from our gas station is for better people than you.”

I’m still bitter about it. Dark and bitter. And aromatic!

They always had chicken tenders and they weren’t great but they were hot and ready when a lot of other things weren’t

When someone you love is slowly dying, one thing no one really tells you about is just how much goddamned sitting around you have to do. Something like 75% of the whole shebang is time spent just sitting in a chair in a little room with the people you care about waiting for something bad to happen.

The other 25% of it is, based on my experience, forgetting to eat and then running down to the hostpital cafeteria before it closes to see if there are any chicken tenders left.

Anywho, there were a bunch of times in that room when I’d look up as if suddenly coming awake and see that, of the six or seven people squeezed in to be at Dad’s bedside, all of us were looking at our phones. Everyone except Dad, of course, who was busy with other matters.

It was surreal and … kind of horrifying. A definite, “My God, what have we become?” sort of moment.

I’m not pointing fingers at anyone or blaming anybody or any of that jazz. It’s just that I’m a teacher and I spend a lot of my day fighting to keep people off their phones so they can get some work done. These days, I have a sort-of conditioned response to seeing a room full of lowered heads and a bunch of tiny, glowing rectangles. I see how f*ing insidious our cellular masters are. I get angry about it.

In that room with Dad, I’d purposefully put my phone away and just sit. Not the whole time, but every now and again, when the urge hit me. It wasn’t meditation, but something akin to it, when I’d pick a sound or something and try to focus on it and just … exist in that room. Sometimes I counted seconds, sometimes I counted breaths, sometimes I counted the number of times the IV Dad was hooked up to made its little pumping noise. (It had to pump 4,000 times to go through one bag of IV fluid.)

Was it worth doing? Trying to “be in the moment” rather than scrolling? F*ck, I don’t know. It was hard not to be nihilistic or fatalistic when Dad was dying right there, to say to myself, “What is the point of anything?” and then mindlessly swipe through TikTok or Reddit. Take comfort where you can find it, right?

There have definitely been times when I’ve thought that the sort of distractions phones can give was a comfort. A blessing, even.

But we all know better.

Dear john we had a lot of good times didn’t we oh boy those were good times anywho I’m seeing someone else

I’m going to take a little break from Dungeon Crawler Carl. I have nothing against it, to be honest. It’s been a great series–it’s just had the unfortunate distinction of being the series I was reading while Dad was getting sicker.

I listen to audiobooks when falling asleep, and for the last several weeks, the soothing sounds of Carl shouting “Goddamnit, Donut!” have been the soundtrack to my snoozes. This has created a bit of an unfair association, and I (well … Sarah and I, actually) realized we should probably listen to something a little more innocuous.

… This reads like a break-up letter to a book series.

Honestly, I just want a change of pace, vibe, scenery, or whatever-you-want-to-call-it. I need to get my head straight, so I’m just going to start with something new.

In essence: “It’s not you; it’s me.”

I’ll probably come back to Carl later. Maybe as a destination-read or something that will help remove the negative association. Hard to be mad at any book you read on a beach, that’s what my ol’ Nana used to say.

(I don’t believe my Nana ever so much as set foot on a beach. At least not without complaining about it.)

Anywho.

For the last few days, Sarah and I have just been listening to The Lord of the Rings as we fall asleep. It’s a book we’ve both read several times, so we can really just start at any point in the story and not miss a beat. It’s safe. It’s also an audiobook I don’t feel the need to finish, and an audiobook I (probably) won’t associate with my dad dying.

Sarah and I also went to Barnes & Noble today and I looked for books off of my list of 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die, which is more challenging than it ought to be. (I know there are a lot of great books out there and shelf space is limited, but we can all agree that bookstores should have at least one copy of The Power & the Glory, right? Right, fellas…?)

I found a slight little thing called The All of It by Jeannette Haien, which I know next-to-nothing about. (The only thing I DO know for certain about the book is that it has a rowboat on the cover.) I’m glad it’ll be my next read because, even if I don’t like it, it’s only around 145 pages.

… and now I’m justifying my rebound novel. I actually called it a “slight little thing!”

Ha! What a world.

The New Normal and words that I probably won’t say at my father’s funeral

My dad died early in the morning on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2026.

What had started out as a trip to the E.R. for abdominal pain spiraled into more and more problems until, eventually, the cancer was just too much for his system.

It feels too personal to go into details, but my memory hasn’t been … working the way it should for the past few days. All of us were by Dad’s side right up until the end and everything has turned into this blur of nurses and doctors and hospice reps and phone calls and late-night drives and texts and chicken fingers from the hospital cafeteria and, at some point, my brain said, “You know what? I need a break. We’re going to shut down some non-essential functions.”

And so, my writing about all this is a way of helping my poor brain keep track of events.

(I can’t believe I’m still doing doodles for a post like this)

My brother has told me a couple times in the last few days that he doesn’t think it’s really “hit” him yet.

I’ve responded both times by asking, “How do you think it’ll ‘hit’ you? Like, what do you anticipate will happen when it does?” Because that’s what a therapist would ask — it’s a leading question to help you understand that you’re not tied to any tracks; there’s no steam train about to run you down. You’re having a trauma response that makes you feel like there’s an immanent threat, but really there isn’t.

(Today’s armchair psychologist’s report is brought to you by: Years and Years of Teaching Seminars!)

My brother says he doesn’t know what it’ll feel like when it hits. I think the whole “hitting” thing is a myth.

Or, I should say, I’m not as worried about getting hit as I am worried about “The New Normal.”

What I think happens when you go through a traumatic event like this is your brain slowly starts incorporating new, bad habits that result from the trauma and/or getting rid of good habits you may have once had. If you’re not careful, those temporary habits become actual full-time habits when maybe you don’t want them to and all those good habits you once had are gone forever.

Like, right now, there’s no way I’d be able to go out and do fun stuff. I absolutely don’t feel like it. If a friend called and asked, “Hey, do you want to play board games or go to a concert or see a movie?” I’d probably respond (internally) with, “No way! I’m too sad to do that. I want to stay home and watch A Relaxing Walk Across Skyrim and take a nap for the fourth time today.”

That’s a big, obvious example and I’m sure you think, “Oh, yeah, that makes sense, I can see that.” But how many tiny and seemingly-innocuous habits are there that I’m losing or gaining?

For example, at one point in the last week (although the specific day escapes me), I realized that I hadn’t brushed my teeth in two days. I had similar realizations at other times along the lines of, I haven’t had any food since breakfast yesterday. And When was the last time I showered? Christ. I don’t remember.

And mental habits! I don’t even know how many times I’ve told myself, “I am not going to think about that right now. I’m just not even going to consider that particular problem right f*cking now.” It could be a bill or an email I have to send or the question of what to with my father’s collection of erotic sculptures from across 6 continents. I will just shove it aside like a passenger on a Japanese train, without so much as a care, and continue on about the business of being miserable.

That’s what I think happens to you when someone you love dies; They leave a hole, and a big part of that hole are the habits — physical and mental — that keep you happy and healthy. Your sadness becomes a part of “The New Normal” and you’re left just being … worse.

Sigh. This is not at all what I intended to blog about when I started.

Whatever. I’m still here. Still typing.

My world’s on fire how about yours

This is going to fall under the category of “Posts People Probably Don’t Want to Read on Account of Their Being Overly Morose,” but here we are.

My dad’s cancer is getting worse and worse.

Yesterday, he was unable to make it to his radiation treatment because he was having some intense pain in his lower back. The cancer is in his liver and bones and he has low calcium (which apparently causes pain along with brain fog), so we don’t know exactly what is causing the discomfort. He was admitted to the hospital and is currently being monitored. My brothers and I are on our way to see him and be with him and…shit, I don’t even know. What does one do?

There have been dozens of times when I’ve thought to myself, “I don’t think I could feel any worse than I do,” only to find out that there is no bottom to this mess. As Trent Reznor once said, “I now know the depths I reach are limitless.” Of course he was talking about sex and/or drug addiction, but misery is misery at a certain point. We’re all brothers and sisters in pain.

I have no idea what to do and feel like I’m panicking all the time. I randomly start crying and am desperately overwhelmed by everything that I have to do. (Life goes on despite the mess — I’ve got papers to grade and meetings to attend and dishes to do and all the while I feel like my brain is a puddle of goo.) From what I understand, so many people are going through this.

Every time I mention to a coworker what’s going on, the invariable response is, “Oh, that has happened or currently is happening to my family also!” Sometimes it’s a father, sometimes a mother, sometimes a sibling, sometimes a child.

It’s…disheartening. Like peeking behind the veil only to see a hospital waiting room.

So, to everyone out there who has been touched by this bullshit, I wish you all a hearty fuck cancer.