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November 15, 2025

I’ve been alright. Just all the goddamn waiting. Trying not to beat myself up too much because it’s genuinely not my fault the country collapsed the minute I left home. I got an interview for a boat! However, the rental car company called me the day I was meant to leave to let me know they’re sold out, no doubt because of all the stranded people at the airport deciding to just drive to their destination instead. Clearly the nation is too dysfunctional at the moment. Picking up an assembly line job in the meantime. It kinda sucks but I got a couple of reasons to smile this week. You don’t get to hear about those.

The one thing that has kept me going the last few years is the idea that I’m going to build my own house. People look at me funny when I say this but I am dead serious. It really isn’t rocket science. In America we build stick frame structures. That was a postwar innovation to mass produce housing using unskilled labor. There is nothing intellectually difficult about framing a structure. Any able-bodied person can build their own home.

This was the expectation for men just three generations ago. It’s what men did. I don’t see the sense of working so hard to pay for a $500,000 piece of shit “”home”” when I can get some piece of quiet land for $20,000 and put up my own humble, tasteful house for just $70,000 in materials and build it the way I like.

There’s a few other factors besides money, although money is the primary one for sure. I am not built for this world. I have not had success and I cannot find comfort in the usual way of doing things. The little brain and muscle I possess has not yielded any results, but I chalk most of it up to bad luck. I hate driving every day. I hate most people. I’m not old but I already cannot recognize the world I live in anymore. Our government and the industry has colluded to shut us natural born citizens out of my old line of work. These freaks are about to carpet bomb, maybe even invade Venezuela. AI content is just going to turn us all into stupid scared serfs. Love, family, work, education, friends, sex, everything that is meant to make life worth it just has not been right. It’s all wrong. I want out!

I want out the same way Ted Kaczynski got out. I want out the way Dick Proenneke got out. I want out the way Seraphim Rose got out. I want out the way countless men said FUCK YOU to the world and let the sea or the forest consume them. I’m not going to be a hermit, I’ll have internet and a mailing address and I won’t be more than an hour or two from civilization. But I’m not wage slaving another 40 years. My brain isn’t that special but it still has better things to offer. I want independence and I want peace in my mind and the only lesson I got from life is I won’t find it in this society.

It is possible to live a life where money is largely optional once your shelter is secured. I have enough hick family to have witnessed it. Following the 5% withdrawal rule, if you spend $10,000 a year (and this is quite a lot for the life I plan), you need just $200,000 invested. A deer can feed you for months. Personally I’d skip the trouble of processing an animal myself and just go to Costco, but there really is probably a million people in America who don’t spend one cent. Firewood is a very efficient form of heating. Solar power requires some money but it more than pays for the ability to live on even cheaper land. You still get electricity, heating, running water and a toilet. Why aren’t more people doing this?

I have a library of home building books mostly regarding unconventional techniques and materials. To my dismay a stick-frame is the most economical option, but maybe I’ll try out one of these techniques after my first house. Earthships, rammed earth homes, semi-underground structures are some of my favorites.

I realize this is a fantasy everybody has. It’s not a fantasy to me. It’s been in my mind for years and it’s the reason I’ve put up with all the bullshit I have. It’s what every cent I'm going to make will go towards. It’s going to happen very soon. I don’t have to be a slave the rest of my life and neither do you. You don’t even have to go this far.

I want to b*** TikTok (In Minecraft)

November 5, 2025

It used to be in a thing in the news that you read about someone losing their mind aided by TikTok. Religious psychosis, incel ideology, gangstalking, body dysmorphia, various business scams. There’s a lot of disastrous feeds you can fall into. This has been written about to death already, now the current thing is LLMs doing the same thing to people.

I am one of those TikTok victims. I never used it, but my girlfriend did. If you caught my embarrassing drunken vent, you know my current situation. Four months ago everything was great. We shared an entire house out in the suburbs and my only two complaints were the long commute to school and mourning the wild 20s I never got to experience. Very minor problems. I was working far too hard and I was miserable, but I was going somewhere and I almost had the reward.

Things got bad between us. I couldn’t figure out why. I was busy a lot, sure, but I always made sure to pull my weight and be a decent partner. A better partner than most of the losers women are dating, anyway. I came home and she was sobbing. Tell me. No, you don’t want to hear it. Tell me.

It’s a TikTok skit with the premise of “that friend that’s been a girlfriend for four years”. Her entire feed is filled with stories of women being suddenly abandoned by their men. Everything makes sense now. TikTok said I’m on my way out and now she’s testing me with every single interaction. If she looks at my Resting Bitch Face while I’m struggling with work it’s not because I’m thinking about mathematics, it’s because I’m pissed off at her. If I’m tired after work, it’s because I’m tired of her. That’s all she could see.

She eventually gave me an ultimatum. She wants a ring, even an Amazon ring. We can Zoom the courthouse. As if a sub-$100 ring and a paper marriage means more than my word and how entangled our lives already were. I certainly didn’t have any assets for her to secure. “If he wanted to, he would” is a popular comment on that side of TikTok. Something she told me probably a dozen times. I told her years ago there was zero doubt we were getting married. I just have to graduate.

I couldn’t convince her in the end. Her tests and tantrums sabotaged my classes and work. TikTok told her I’m going to leave and eventually I did.

Rat Living

October 25, 2025

I’ve been crashing out. First the boat job I thought I had falls through, then I get more licensing and training, then the government shuts down so I can’t even get my training recognized by the Coast Guard! God doesn’t want me to get on a boat.

I’m trapped in Honolulu. It’s not the worst place to be stranded but I haven’t been happy. I was supposed to be at the union hall waiting for a job to come. Can’t do that until the government opens and upgrades my credentials. The money is running low. I’m living in hostels for $20 a night and subsisting on peanut butter at this point. I’ll have to fly back home if I can’t get any work, anything. I have tried every one of my usual tricks: temp agencies, cold calling businesses, showing up in person, asking workingmen at bars. Even Olive Garden turned me down. I used to work on the nuclear arsenal and now I’m deemed unfit to wash dishes.

I made friends here and none of them have work for me, but they have all offered me a couch. I have too much pride to accept help like that. I found a way out, though. I came across the book Rebel Without a Crew by the filmmaker Robert Rodriguez. People my age may know him as the Spy Kids guy. He made his first feature length film on a budget of $7,000. How’d he get the solitude to write the script? How’d he get even that pathetic sum of money? A month long clinical trial.

So that’s what I went looking for. I found one back home. $11,000 to take some brand new drug and stay in a hospital or whatever for 21 nights. Not a bad deal. A bed I’m not paying for, meals I’m not paying for, and more money than I’d make driving a forklift. The government should definitely be open by then and my credentials will be processed. Maybe I’ll try Honolulu again with some money in my pocket, or maybe I’ll try out a different union hall and visit the West Coast friends I made in New Orleans.

There’s always a way to keep it going.

STCW

October 21, 2025

In a bid to make myself more employable I got my STCW (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers) Basic training. It’s a quick course in CPR, first aid, survival at sea, some rules, and basic firefighting. It’s required by treaty for ALL sailors worldwide aboard ships of a certain size in international waters.

But that’s not what’s interesting. I was in Orlando, and being in Orlando without a car is alienating and isolating. Or so I thought. After everyone graduated, being sailors, we all found the nearest bar and tore that place up. We owned the karaoke from opening to closing and crashed a Scottish couple’s honeymoon. Good fun. Days later my throat is still sore from scream-singing I Want It That Way,

The Last Place on Earth

October 20, 2025

I spent 10 days in New Orleans. I stayed at a very cheap hostel. It was great fun, except it was a bit like the horror movies where they stay in a wonderful mansion or something and it gets revealed that some fucked up shit is happening beneath the surface. I really do not want to get into the fucked up shit. I went mostly to kill time and also doorknock some boat companies. No luck with the boats.

Here’s some shit that happened:

Fell MADLY in love with a woman 10 years older than me.
Got a last-minute invite to a transgender rave held in a communist venue.
Somehow ended up in a Mercury Sable with 5 trans people outside the rave, a car with 4+1 seats. I was just a dude in khakis and a polo.
Got into multiple comedy shows for free as the comedian’s plus one.
Got into passionate discussions about mathematics (my major).
Went down the wrong street and got followed and accosted, but I kept my wallet!
Got brutally and cruelly roasted by the comedians. I suppose that’s the price for getting in free.
Drank too much.
Regained my confidence about my ability to just be normal and accepted among people.
Made friends I think I’ll keep for life, all over the world.
Debated a woke Aussie on the usage of the term “cunty”, in the girlboss/queer sense.
Met two French people I didn’t absolutely hate.
Found the only decent Étouffée in the Quarter.
AC went out while my dorm of 16 men was fully occupied. Absolutely disgusting.

I met some interesting people. I didn’t relate to people back home at all, but I met a few that were in similar situations as me.

The Staff

Indian guy who just recently got his PhD in Mathematics. Sort of disillusioned with the field and stuck in a weird limbo period. Can’t work because of his visa, but hasn’t landed an academic job. Stuck. Stuck like me.

Utah

Kid who decided to just take the interstate one day and didn’t stop. From my state. He befriended an old woman, she died, and her family let him stay in her old house. He felt like life was too easy that way and decided to see the country. Last I heard from him, he’s living in the forest in Mississippi.

The Comedian

Her material covers killing your landlord, gender, Luigi Mangione, The System, and being broke. From San Francisco. Also makes fun of the techie freaks. We both happened to have Jungian therapists and we had wonderful conversations about that. Kinda loopy person.

I did manage to spend some time with locals, since the excursions with the comedian and others brought me out of the tourist traps. You also get into conversations just walking to the corner store. There really is something unique here, even still. There’s this social order that’s constantly being maintained by everybody and it’s not just the Southern hospitality thing. It’s deeper. I wish I spent more time around it to be able to articulate it better, but as someone who is very reserved and closed off I found myself getting into wonderful conversations with complete strangers without even necessarily wanting it. A transplant from decades ago told me this was “The last place on Earth.” I thought that was an interesting way to say it.

I feel like I got over some hang-ups here. I joked with my adopted family (the comedian dubbed us the Manson Family) that doctors should prescribe a trip to New Orleans for depression instead of pills. Spending a week or more with women, who I am not chasing, also lead to some revelations. I always felt like I carried around a big neon sign or some dark aura that signaled to the people around me “This dude isn’t normal, he’s a freak, he’s a weirdo, what the hell is he doing here?” No. To my surprise, everyone said that they thought I was just a normal dudebro. That I am not.

It was a huge relief. It’s something I’ve been carrying my whole life since my early teens, that I had a “smell” on me. That I had something on me that just let people know to steer clear. No, I’m just a man. I am what I am, as Popeye says. The worst feedback I got from the women is that I had a little Resting Bitch Face, which I already knew. I guess my hometown is weird, not me.

Arias I'm Stuck On

September 18, 2025

None of these are particularly deep cuts, and the ones I would like to write about aren’t particularly great pieces of music. And for an audience that doesn’t know opera, the “dying cat” singing would be a turnoff. So, here’s some I think I could show off that wouldn’t be offensive to someone without an opera palate.

La Bohème: "Che gelida manina"

Moods: Love at first sight, desperate curiosity of the other

Mimi’s candle has gone out and she’s out of matches. She asks her neighbor, Rodolfo, to light it. She loses her key and they both search for it on the floor. They live in a very poor building and a draft blows both their candles out.

A man like Rodolfo needs to use some slight dishonesty and gamesmanship to win a woman like Mimi. He finds the key and slips it in his pocket, then declares there’s no use searching in the dark. He uses the opportunity to introduce himself to her. The aria begins.

He introduces himself. A lot of words here to say he’s a broke writer. The shocking confession begins at 2:35 and climaxes perfectly at 3:45:

l'anima ho milionaria.
Talor dal mio forziere
ruban tutti i gioielli
due ladri: gli occhi belli.
V'entrar con voi pur ora
ed i miei sogni usati
e i bei sogni miei
tosto son dileguati.
Ma il furto non m'accora,
poiché vi ha preso stanza
la dolce speranza!

I’m a millionaire in spirit.
But sometimes my strong?box
is robbed of all its jewels
by two thieves: a pair of pretty eyes.
They came in now with you
and all my lovely dreams,
my dreams of the past,
were soon stolen away.
But the theft doesn't upset me,
since the empty place was filled
with hope.

Now the supplicant Rodolfo is on his knees, literally begging Mimi to find out who she is. Ramón Vargas delivers this role better than any other filmed performance I’m aware of. His vulnerable pleading is what does it for me. Who hasn’t been enamored by a stranger, just wishing you could just get on your knees and ask “Who are you?” Rodolfo gets to.

L’Elisir d’Amore: “Una furtiva lagrima”

Libretto

Moods: Triumph, requited love

Nemorino is a peasant and a fool hopelessly in love with Adina, a landowner. He gets swindled by a traveling “doctor” into buying a love potion which is actually wine. It doesn’t work. He enlists in the army and uses the bonus to purchase even more.

There’s a party and the women are all over him, as the entire village found out before our couple that Nemorino’s uncle has died and he just inherited a fortune. Now, he’s drunk and is convinced the potion has worked. He notices a tear on Adina’s cheek and takes this as evidence of her jealousy. Actually, she found out the poor idiot spent his entire recruitment bonus on her. The aria begins.

Le Nozze di Figaro: “Porgi, Amor”

Moods: please God bring him or her back

Mozart. Not much to say here. Just sad and whiny. Stream the full thing wherever you’d like, the linked video isn’t complete but I think you must see what’s happening on the stage.

Serse: “Ombra mai fu”

Moods: Security in another

Baroque, Handel. He’s singing to a shade tree. Written for castrato, nowadays commonly sung by mezzo-soprano. Really nice with a body high.

Norfolk and Western Railway

September 7, 2025

I saw your boy at the switchyard. Frailer than usual. He was watching the Pullman trains go by. Think he wanted to hop a freighter, but I don’t think he’s nimble enough to catch a ladder. He’ll slip and lose his legs.

Reckon he knows that and we’ll see him in Ms. Jones’ class. He’ll be too shy to read his book report, just like the last five grades. But she’ll give him a pass again.

Remedia Amoris

September 1, 2025

I have been stir-crazy, and combined with travel stress I haven’t been completely stable. Lovesickness and mild erotomania have possessed me.

I went looking for a cure. I found Remedia Amoris, a didactic poem by Ovid written circa 2 AD. Ovid presents himself as a physician curing you of the disease known as love. It is the follow-up to the Ars Amatoria, which is about how to find and keep love. Both works are for men and women.

Here's his advice:

• Get busy. Work for the courts, join the army, or take up farming.
• Do not use sorcery.
• Tally up the betrayals and grievances. Ovid tells us his lover had ugly arms.
• Exaggerate or twist benign (or even good) qualities into bad ones. Ovid’s example: if she’s a little heavy, now you must believe she’s fat.
• Get her into situations where her bad qualities show. Examples: If she has bad teeth, make her smile. If she has a bad voice, make her sing.
• Catch her in the morning before she has the chance to do her makeup. Ovid: catch her “disarmed”.
• Get a second lover. Your energies will be split between the two.
• Don’t be alone.
• Don’t meet her. Don’t meet her family nor her servants. Move if you must.
• Don’t hate her. It enrages Heaven and the man that hates, loves.
• Burn your letters.
• Throw out her portrait.
• Move out of the place that you shared.
• Avoid romantic poetry.
• Don’t drink. Wine inspires lust. If you must drink, drink so much that you can’t think.