My therapist thinks I have some ‘executive function’ issues. Apparently, executive function is the psychological (maybe neurological? Idk) process by which one is able to set and pursue longterm goals, to prioritize tasks, and to do the basic things one must in order to be an adult (more or less).
In me, one of the ways this appears is through my ability to finish things. When things get hard, I stop. When things take too long, I stop. When things get boring, I stop. In other words, there are many, many situations in which I stop.
However, I’m also someone who’s in his head a lot. I’m also someone who processes things by flapping his gums about them. Combined, these traits cause some trouble. Recently, my day has proceeded like this: I wake at 4 a.m. (I like to rise early). I piss. I proclaim this day to be the day I finally stop smoking. I buy a Black and Mild. I smoke it. And as I do, I read the news. This starts it off. The news gets the mind churning. It gives me ideas and complaints. It gives me a little frustration, exasperation. It gives me a number of things to think about. Those thoughts lead to others. The newer ones give way to different branches of thoughts. Reruns of Dance Moms churn in the background. And the thoughts continue. Then, to process those thoughts, I have to talk about them. With this, my day — very quickly — devolves into a 14 hour, inner and venomous, screed, its topic synthesizing from whatever fresh hell my neurons have stitched together.
For example, me and the sun have a longstanding beef. This has been going on for years. It’s up, and it’s quite literally stuck. It’s too fucking bright. This is my thing. I can’t stand that. I can’t stand it. I’m trying to drive down the goddamn road. Why am I blinded? Why is it so bright all the time? It’s winter right now. That’s when the sun is at its absolute worst. The trees are dead, and the shady shrouds their leaves erect, those rot by the gutters, on the forest floors. So what happens? The sun shines right in my goddamn face all day. I’m trying to drive down the road, can’t even see the damn traffic lights, the pedestrians, the cops. I can’t see shit. And I can’t see shit because of the unnecessarily bright sun. Sunglasses don’t work. I can’t tint my windows. Lord Jesus, I can’t do it. I cannot do it with the sun. I can’t.
Now imagine that, but instead of a paragraph, envision it as a treatise so long that it takes 14 hours to read.
No ma’am.
No ma’am.
It’s just not sustainable. And that’s what brings me here. When I was thinking about how to handle this sustainability problem, I figured that I had three options:
(1) I could continue this way.
So far, this hasn’t worked as well as I had hoped. I’ve decided this route holds little promise.
(2) I could talk to myself.
I’ve tried that. It makes me feel psychotic. I also worry for my neighbors (I live in an apartment complex). Does anyone deserve to endure hours of mutters and whispers poking from the (very thin) walls? No, no, I don’t think so.
(3) Or, I could handle this in the way that, historically, has been most effective. I could handle this by writing.
Substack is free. Substack is public. And Substack allows me to have my cake and eat it too. It allows me to do the digital equivalent of standing out front the gas station, shrieking about the people underground. It allows me to rant and rave in whichever way I choose. If someone’s curious about my rants (some of my friends ask me questions that, in the moment, booze and weed make difficult to answer), I’ll now have a place towards which to direct them.
There’s an additional benefit to this, one I find difficult to describe in a non-jackassy way. The language I’ve used, particularly in the few sentences above, kind of presupposes it — I’m speaking of an audience. As I write this, I feel as though I’m writing to someone. But as I type sentences like, “some of my friends ask me questions that …”, I realize I can’t possibly be writing to them. So, I must be writing to somebody else. I must be writing to a general audience, to people, *gasp*, whom I may not know. Here’s where I find the descriptive difficulty. At once, I’m thirsty for clout, yet I’m also terrified that others might read this. I want to reject the audience, but if they happen to fuck with me … I’ll allow it. I won’t say, “No.” I might even be happy. Obviously, I’d never admit that (my therapist has a lot of very accurate explanations for why this is).
This difficulty makes me want to stop (executive dysfunction, remember?). But I can’t mutter into the walls of my house anymore. I can’t do that. It will be no more. Thus, to remove me from my spot in between that rock and its hard place, I need to assert some rules. On second thought, maybe the word ‘guidelines’ serves me better.
Firstly, I can’t write for an audience. I’ll have a mental breakdown. I’m gonna write whatever the hell I damn well please. And I’m gonna do so in whatever way I damn well please. That’s a must. Maybe somebody else reads it. Maybe they don’t. I don’t know. I don’t care. Chile, I’m trying to give these walls a break, goddammit. That’s all I’m concerned about: saving these walls from the mutters. It’s giving creeping women and yellow wallpaper at this point.
Secondly — and maybe I’ll elaborate on why later — the only things I want to talk about right now are the police and reality television (specifically the baddies universe, which includes projects like Bad Girls Club, Baddies, South Central Baddies, Young and Reckless, etc). Right now, I expect a lot of the stuff I post (if I post anything at all) to run along the treads of cultural commentary with some occasional Philosophy 101 injections. I might post some fiction stuff too. Maybe I’ll turn this thing into an OnlyFans. I don’t know. Regardless, it’s going to be what I want.
And the last reason helps justify my opening paragraph. I’m not interested in doing research. I’d really like to. I want to get in the weeeeeeeeds with some of these topics. But I know that, if I try to, I’ll wind up abandoning this altogether. I’ll be back at square one. So everything I say should be taken as precisely what it is: hot-takes from a chain-smoking homosexual who may or may not be a little buzzed as he composes them. I’ll do as much ‘research’ as I’ve the constitution to do, as much as whatever these ‘executive function’ issues allow.
I think this sums it up. These are my rules. So mote them be!
XOXO Cheryl McDonnahugh (This is a Gossip Girl reference).
And so it begins