Keep it down, will you? I’m spiritually sleeping.

I am not present. I am not mindful. I am spiritually asleep. On the road, I’m yelling the “C” word at bad and selfish drivers. I’m laying in bed way too much and sleeping way too little.

I’m hopeless.

I have avoided facebook (and most people) since September 26^th. I can’t imagine going back.

I have stayed away from most November Writing Month write-ins in; especially the ones where a certain jackass semi-unintentional NaNoWriMo forum troll might be present because I’m afraid I will knock him unconscious with a well-placed punch to the jaw. And let’s face it. That would be a stupid thing to do because then my hand would hurt for a while.

A couple friends know that I am struggling. A couple others even know why. I’ve been pretty tight-lipped for the most part.

The Healer falls into the first category. We are - or were - arguably the two most significant leadership consultants to the writer pal known here as the Liaison who is the NaNoWriMo (November Novel Month) regional leader for Scooterville; a contingent roughly 2000 members strong of which about 220 actually participate on a given November, of which maybe 50 participate in the forum of which maybe 30 might be prone to coming out to a write-in or a social event at some point.

I had my life pulled out from under me - to put it as dramatically as possible. I also had my employer tell me that work was slow; the subtext being: I should look for another employer.

The Healer (my dear hiking buddy and part-time life-coach) suffered a home invasion just days prior to the November 1st NaNo launch - where she was punched in the face by the drug-fucked absconder of her cell phone and laptop (she got them back. Kudos to the cops). Her life-mate learned that he is being laid off in eight months. His kind of work is very specialized; hard to find.

And our pal the Liaison is suddenly - as far as we know - dying of brain cancer.

And official leadership is not at all a priority for either of us even though it is something we’re both skilled at. Therefore the NaNo community is being publicly led, for better or worse, by our pals Sickboy and Chess Champ with our support in the background.

This internet troll surely does not see himself as such but he is a giant buffoon who is scaring away a lot of very sensitive writers; many with social anxiety and I am seeing one of the most successful NaNo regions, which was rebuilt lovingly and profoundly gracefully by my dear departed pal the Liberal Theologian years ago, falling apart - if I may be so bold.

And here is me in my pathetic weakened state: furious at this fucker for undoing her noble work; apparently unable to be the peaceful balanced forgiving nurturer I once confidently manifested in myself. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. What has become of me?

In one of our frequent sad little support-group-of-two conversations with The Healer I said: “I’m semi-aware that I’m being a big baby but…”

But what? I can’t do anything about it? Maybe I can. Have I tried? Not really. Do I fucking feel like trying? No, I don’t. Sometimes I think I want Thing One and Thing Two - lunatics of The Fucking Century (Trump and Jong-un) to fire up a thousand nukes and put us all out of my misery. God knows I’m way to cowardly to ever take my own life.

“...But oh well.” is all I said.

She very much identified with this and so she put one of her thousand deadly creative skills to use and made us our very own meme which I shall here post. I hope one day I will look at it and look back at this and laugh and say “Never again.”