This Was 46
46.
With the way things are now, I really had no desire to write about things, my life, whatever. As things continue on, I find myself feeling more fatalist? Nihilist? Well, hopelessness to the point of apathy, paralysis. What will happen will happen. We all die in the end, anyhow.
Nonetheless, here is what has been happening as I have plummeted through my 47th year:
- I’m still mostly taking public transit to work. It’s given me a lot of time to start reading again. Here are the books I’ve completed:
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. I actually started this during my Berlin trip. A strange little book. Not as good as the first 2 volumes of 1Q84.
- Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. This is one of the only books I’ve read that left me crying at the end. Detailing a Korean family from the Japanese occupation to their time in Osaka, it broke my heart. Aka, it’s very Korean.
- Ask the Dust by John Fante. I love imagining living where I live back in the 1930s. It proves that the blood of Downtown LA hasn’t changed much over the years. It was a shithole then. It’s a shithole now. But it’s MY shithole. And I love living in it.
- Sula by Toni Morrison. This is my first Toni Morrison book, and it pulls no punches. It’s a great portrait of black life during the first half of the 20th century.
- Queer by William Burroughs. I had to re-read this after watching the film. This is one of the few instances where I liked the movie more than the book.
- The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. I’ve started this one so many times but have never finished it. A fun romp through the most drug-addled paranoid plot put on paper.
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. Oh man, that sermon on evil. A fucking classic for a good reason.
- Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I’ve been meaning to re-read this the last couple of years, and here I go. I forgot how hilarious this book could be at times. The detached voice is a bit annoying, and some of those endnotes, come on. I like how the plot is shaped like a moebius strip, infinity symbol.
- I’ve had a hemorrhoid for most of the year. It’s starting to go away now, but it’s been making things a bit messy in my underwear. It hasn’t been painful or itchy or anything. It just feels like something is a bit prolapsed down there. The annoying part is that I haven’t been active, so it really is a mystery.
- I spent my birthday near Joshua Tree. Unfortunately, it was still a little too cool to fully enjoy the pool, but my Airbnb did have a hot tub. I did go to the Integratron for one of their public sound bath sessions. I probably would have enjoyed it more if the guy next to me didn’t breathe loudly and fart.

- On May 2 to May 4, I’ll be in middle-of-nowhere Parsippany, NJ for the Dark Force Fest. My little blackened coal of a goth heart will be filled to the brim with what can be construed as happiness as I get to see Razed in Black, Haujobb, Funker Vogt, Covenant, Klutae, Suicide Commando, the Genitorturers, Beborn Beton. I’ll be in my 20s all over again! Except in this 46-year old vessel of blood and gristle. After the fest, I’m going to head off to New England and explore mostly Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
- Here are some random pictures from my travels on public transit:




- Oh yeah. I relented and got boxed dye to cover my white hairs.