What to Say?

What to say?

What to say? What to write? What tone to take, what themes to play with, what stories to share, what news to cover?

What to say?

Do I tell the story of being ripped from stoned dissociation by the heavy revving of a large engine? Of the panic I felt while mentally scrambling for situational awareness and threat assessment? Of the disorientation of finding myself in a room in a house, distant and insulated from the untamed street?

Do I tell of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial? Of the escalating tension that occurred on the steps of that courthouse next to honest attempts at discourse? Do I weigh in on the accuracy of the jury’s ruling? Examine the practical outcomes of the it?

Do I keep it to Portland? The nonviolent march with its subtly escalating chants and the die-in outside the Timbers stadium protesting the Rittenhouse verdict? The couple of flare-ups from window-smashing activists? Do I share what I’ve learned about the unresolved murder of Sean Kealiher? Do I retell the police killing of Robert Delgado? Do I criticize Portland ACAB bloc for chanting “Black lives matter” at an action spotlighting a dead white man?

Has it been too long past all of that? Do I go the opposite direction, so near the anniversary of Jan 6, and look at the state of the nation? Do I turn to the future and make predictions for the coming year? Update predictions for the coming five? Do I rant about constantly fucking up copy-paste shortcuts from swapping between Apple and Windows? Do I examine the present with an eye for what isn’t being said? Do I talk about Nazis? School board meetings? Republican strategy? Democratic incompetence? Generational social change? Anti-vax? Iranian influence operations? Cognitive biases? Grey zone warfare? VUCA? OODA? COVID? Boogaloo?

Do I reveal the breakdown and stagnancy I underwent living in a house for a month and a half? Or the cold and hunger of the first night back in the van, pinned down in a mummy bag with my cat by 18° weather, stranded on a roadside, freshly towed, no transmission, yet somehow feeling alive again?

Or do I bash out a list of personal uncertainties in a madcap review of the last four months, just to have something to publish?

What do you want from me? What do you want to hear? What do you want me to talk about? What do you want me to say? And does that even matter? Am I, in fact, writing for you at all, or am I writing for me and inviting you along for the ride?

I don’t fucking know. But the more I ask myself these questions, the less I write. And I can’t accept that.

Trying to work on something a little bigger. A little different. Trying to get it ready by March. Uncertain on how realistic this is. ADHD’s a bitch. But hey, gotta aspire to something, right?

Otherwise, well, what’s the point?

You know?