February 17th, 2025 - Chuka

Dear TNY,

I’m late again with “Chuka” but I don’t care.

I was attending to folks in my life and I was on an adventure.  So fucking sue me. 

This story…I couldn’t get into it.  I didn’t finish it.  Wasted time.  Saw that you guys have a book out as well.  100 years of fiction or some shit.  I know it’s shit, though, because you put “Cat Person” in the mix with “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”.  That’s like putting a fucking raccoon turd on the wall next to Christina’s World.  Fuck you.

The vacation has come to an end.  I dropped my companion off at the airport yesterday.  The jewelry box was delivered, as discussed.  Beers were consumed and giant weed gummies and after the drop was made I got day drunk and took a nap in the van and woke up to a text.  From her.  Her her.  And she said she wanted to talk. 

Guys.

Guys.

I’m terrified.  She’s the scariest person I’ve ever met.  Certainly not scary for most people.  A perfectly fine and lovely person.  Not a murderer or anything.  But she has my heart, as you know.  So the risk is much higher for me than you.  But you know this because your heart is extended too. And we can’t change those things, you know?  The heart things.  We extend ourselves to persons for reasons we cannot define and we cannot control.  And then we hope.  And I know my hope is stronger than my fear so once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. 

And speaking of hope, I was texting my ex wife yesterday about something completely different and I was reminded, by texting her, of this:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

“At all” is the important part.  It never stops singing.  I just have to listen.  I get accused of being depressive and dark and always focusing on the bad and blah blah blah.  I’m probably the biggest optimist you’ll ever meet, though.  See, I hang my hope out there like the U.S. Mail of old:  "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds"

This is why I’m so sad so often.  Because I don’t protect myself. And why should I? Deny myself the complete saturation of this fucking random occurrence of existence that not one person can explain? No one knows why any of us are here or why here is here. Fuck it. All in, baby. So here I am, fuckers. A raw nerve.  Taking all this fucking pain in. And trying to upcycle it for you! Huzzah!

And I don’t really want to do it any differently.  I just want to be loved.  Like anyone else. 

Loser.  Shut up.  Just shut the fuck up.

Later.

Nick

P.S. I figured out how to beat your paywall without paying. So slurp up my brick-red New Mexican chile relleno drizzles, ya cunts!