Alive Or Just Breathing?

Fuck man... This has been a long week. In a long month. In a long year. Here's the Cliff's Notes version to get some of it out of my head and down on paper.

-Lost my uncle Mike recently and it hit hard because he was like a father to me. Only member of my immediate family that ever encouraged my art or music when I was a kid, and that was probably the one of the main reasons I kept on keeping on with any of it.

-Mike was also a totally lovable wild-man that I now realize was a huge influence on my personality and I find myself wishing I could give him a hug and have a cookout with him one more time and just kinda tell him thanks for everything.

-DD collapsed this past weekend and wound up in the hospital it was scary as fuck but after tons of bloodwork and tests it looks like it was nothing particularly serious. Something called a vasovagal syncope which I'm pretty sure is just medical jargon for "I dunno."

-If we hadn't wound up in the hospital on Saturday there's every chance we would have been up on South Street when that mass shooting popped off? 'Cos we were heading that way when she collapsed. Scary as fuck.

-She was down with a headache yesterday, probably 'cos we had a couple late nights in a row and she's still recovering from all the blood they took at the hospital, but it fucking rattled me 'cos all I could think was: "did they fucking miss something?"

-DD is my wife, my bandmate, and my best friend and if she was gone I literally don't know what the fuck I would do... At this point in my life I have no friends, no family, and my world is pretty much just her, a room full of music gear, and a small handful people I email about music every once in a while... The rest of the world feels empty, hostile.

-I was gonna quit doing this webzine because it honestly kind of feels like a waste of time sometimes, but now I'm thinking I might as well keep going because it gives me something to do that takes my mind off the other bullshit.

-I've been missing a lot of dead friends lately. To the point a random memory of playing the Darkstalkers arcade machine with my friend Anthony almost made me cry yesterday.

-All of this shit has hit my sense of well being like a ton of bricks and left me feeling really fucked up and off balance, but I guess I'll just grit my fucking teeth and keep fighting through it.

-One foot in front of the other. Keep Breathing.