Dear K,

 I've spent the whole month putting work off. I've spent most of last month putting things off. I've spent my whole life saying that tomorrow I would get to it. I fill up the present with worry that I'm not getting enough done and the things I want to do will be done tomorrow. This is what I do sometimes with my life. Sometimes I beat myself up about who and what I am. Sometimes all I dwell on are my failures and my vices and my sorrows and I turn and twist each one into a barb.

I promise though that life is better when you try to stop doing that. I think clearer, I sleep better. It's hard though. It's really really hard to not believe that I'm throwing my life away. It's really hard to not believe that all the hours I'm spending in loneliness and boredom and all the hours I pour into things that may never be read or seen by anyone or enjoyed by anyone, that all these things are not wasted. It's hard to remember that I didn't start doing these things because I want to be famous. It's hard to remember that I started making things, started writing things for the pure pleasure of doing it. The world wants us to rate ourselves, or maybe we want the world to want us to rate ourselves. I don't know, anyway we spend our lives looking around at everyone else trying to figure out how good we are compared to them, and that's a losing game, because there is always a bigger monkey.

I'm sorry your down. I know that's hard. What makes you happy though? Give me a call sometime. Lets talk and laugh and reminisce, and think of distant Junes when we smelled flowers in bloom through screens in our windows, and we were young in the sun, and hangovers couldn't touch us.


In The Trenches Next To You,
K