November 25th, 2024 - Minimum Payment Due

Dear TNY,

Monday again, and “Minimum Payment Due” is fucking lamecakes.

Like, who’s the audience for this?  Is this supposed to entertain rich folks, them laughing at this inept dude’s incompetence and/or financial worries?  Or is it a cautionary tale to those who overspend?  Are we to seek therapy because of this?  Or believe Mr. Robbins?  What is the target audience, goddamn it?  Because I can’t think of one in which this story is considered good.

Now, I don’t typically believe in debt; I try desperately to avoid it.  But I understand that for some it’s critical to their lives (I’ve taken on home loans myself).  And that’s very unfortunate and I feel for them.  You know who I don’t feel for?  This motherfucker.  He’s got a good job.  Good health.  He just spends too much.  His debt isn’t hospital debt or any other reasonable reason to have debt (it’s not reasonable to have hospital debt, by the way, because we should have free fucking healthcare because people should care about other people and not how much money they have, but the world doesn’t work like that because it’s fucked).  So I don’t feel sorry for this guy.  I just don’t.  The fix is easy.  Give all your money to someone else and have them handle it.  Set an allowance.  Bob’s your uncle.  He’s not even depressed or anything.  No trauma.  He’s beige as fuck and he just keeps spending, right until the very end of this shitstick.  Who fucking cares!

I got high before I realized I had to do FTNY today.  So the quality of this letter may be suffering.  One can’t tell.

I fixed a garage door opener and fucked up some dovetail joints today.  I got frustrated.  And then gave up.  Tomorrow I’m going to regroup and try to do better on the joints.  I know I can.  I made some big, early mistakes while processing the wood and I shouldn’t have.  Tomorrow will go better.

Also, minus a bulbous reliance on alcohol to be a “yes” in my life, I’m pretty much okay.  The therapist has covered this with me thoroughly.  Like, all the bad shit previous partners said, that shit was +95% not true.  They were projecting.  Or just flat out wrong.  Cool. At the expense of my already damaged psyche.  To say it another way, as the wizard of kindness once said:  Invalidating my experience was just a natural consequence of validating their own.

To be clear, I’m guilty too. I know it and I know what I need to work on. Mainly, patience.

To that end, my oldest and I talked on the phone for an hour a couple of days ago, about character development, narrative arcs, the continual decline of art that we are all witnessing, and how to change the tonality of one’s farts. So the information gets in over time. I should be patient and wait for it. But he’s a kid. The rest of you are adults. Get your shit together. I’m trying to as well.

So, fuck it.  I’m going to go back to writing something else.  A dream piece I’m working on.  It’s nice to watch my brain come from together, in real time, inside this beautiful world.  And then share it with people.

Nick