From This Day Forward...

At one point in my wayward youth, I had a (second) job as a radio newswriter on the weekends. The hours were 4 a.m. to noon on Saturday and Sunday. As you might imagine, this really put a crimp in my weed smoking social life. This is also around the same time I was smashing the drums in a hard rock band, so I'd frequently find myself going straight to work after the after-gig party, just a regular party, or just a night at The Yard, without any sleep. I never actually clocked in while inebriated. Well...overtly. But every time I showed up at Sunset and Gower, I was loopy from lack of sleep.

Sometimes, I'd have something of an out of body experience. Sleep deprivation plays crazy tricks on the mind, altered chemicals in the brain and all that. It was almost like I'd get a feeling of deja vu, except I felt like I was outside the actual moment in time, which was always brief, couple seconds or so, looking in at myself, my surroundings, and being consumed with a feeling of absurdity. Like, this is ridiculous. All of it. The word that set me off, my life, this office, none of this matters and yet, it's oddly and completely compelling.

Pretty good metaphor for a blog.

Gawd. I don't know what I'm doing here anymore. More damning is I can't find anything to write about THAT MATTERS. This navel gazing exercise certainly doesn't. But you're gonna get it anyway.

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I've been trying to figure out the problem. It's not writing. Been doing plenty of that elsewhere. It's this thing. This thing I used to love, this forum which allowed me to think out loud, as entertainment, as exercise, as therapy. I mean, this blog contained the worst thoughts and events of my life. You all read it (and if you didn't, and you like a good fucking train wreck, perusing the archives circa January-March of '06 oughta do it) and that sorta became what it was all about. Kent would bare his personal demons and his abject despair for the delight of others.

Then I stopped wanting to do that. It seemed indecorous to air my dirty laundry here, unfair to X, who had no means of response. And then, things sort of became okay between us, civil and cooperative, and I feel like it's my duty as AJ's father not to bash his mother, since I never do it in his presence.

Which is why I probably have 30 unpublished posts sitting around from the past year or so. Emotions I needed to get out of my bloodstream, but, somewhere between "Once upon a time..." and Publish Post, I lost the nerve to put it out there. Or, like in recent instances, I've decided against posting because of what the rant would say about me.

I have a very base reaction to X's upcoming wedding. I'm not proud of it. And it's separate from me being her partner in co-parenting AJ. I'm careful not to let my distaste bleed into his life. But seriously, how can people get so fucking worked up about a wedding when the two people involved have absolutely no regard for the institution of marriage? I've been to a few weddings in my life and I don't recall the passages where the Reverend says "Cheat on your husband" and "Sleep with married women." Maybe those are in them new-fangled, hippy vows I've been hearing so much about.

You might think someone with my track record (oh-for-two!) would be cynical about marriage. I am not. Quite the opposite. I have this superior streak and weddings are a celebration and these two people have NO RIGHT to be celebrated and, to quote the immortal H.G. "Buzz" Bizzinger, "It pisses the shit out of me."

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So yeah, I think about it, the contrived photos and the pomp and the smiling faces and I find it surreal, out-of-body, like those early mornings at KNX. At the same time, I realize my reaction is infantile, a petty response to something well out of my hands for a long time now and that I should embrace my own life, the positive aspects and my own path. Probably the way to go.