All my life, I have been habitually and chronically Tangled Up In Blue. But man I don’t like being depressed. I was, for a couple days. Maybe I still am, but probably not. Forgive my incoherence. I just woke up.

From a long Saturday afternoon of napping, like some average boring drunkard or drone.

***

A couple weeks ago I decided to radically change the way I ate, tentatively embracing the gospel according to keto, and the faith of a short tight eating window every day. That’s all to the good. So is the inspiration put a Walk at the center of every day. For that I’ve been faithful, and rewarded.

The first couple of walks, I just walked. The third one I made a little film about, and it did … ‘really well’.

I have some videos that tank–four views, five views–and I rush them off backstage to an orphan playlist in shame.

Mostly I have my core of ten or eleven peeps who show up to watch dependably, and I’m so grateful for that and for them.

The first local walking video went up over seventy views fast, but even more gratifying was that people were actively liking it, and even commenting, and in one blessed case Subscribing–the holy grail.

For a hot minute I let myself think I had cracked the code, and reached over into the promised land of Doing Well By Doing Good, as the influencerati and other dislikable people might say. I felt all artisinal. I felt as if by opening myself up and letting go of some paranoia, I was not just going to be doing The Work, but maybe even getting paid. Man it felt good.

The second video slipped back to an average number, though at least the comments kept coming. I rallied my inner troops, and started to game and get clever. I read the evidence correctly, surmising that if I added “things to do” to the name of the town, it would jack the Algo, put me up higher in the search, and build the truth of my vids into something more … palatable to the wider markets.

Gaming it worked and pushed me quick in the direction of 150+ views.

They were not, though, quality views. More often than not, people weren’t watching after the first thirty seconds had rolled by, and the comments section went bone dry.

Things just got worse from there; or rather more specifically, went back to average, in spite of the fact that I was working (and walking) my ass off and posting every day. I’d even played the face-reveal card repeatedly, and still … the larger world yawned and clicked away.

I walked further and further, raging, until I was pooping in the woods. And then it started to be too much for me–couldn’t get back to sleep, burned; obsessed over people that have wronged me in stupid petty ways, or just failed to live up to a higher standard.

Knowing full well that the latter group included myself.

Finding the southwest floodwall road really was a success.

But it failed to translate. I failed.

I didn’t want to make a video today. I didn’t want to walk.

I forced myself to do a basic mile and a half anyway, and I filmed some, and got in the car and filmed more. Then I came home ‘like always’ and chopped it into twenty minutes of movie.

After six hours, two people have viewed it and I think that counts me, and the wife.

I went face down into the pillow and slept and slept in a paroxysm of escapist fat-napping until after sundown.

It’s 9:30 PM.

I know acutely who I am. I know, in rough outline, what my Work is.

It’s still easy for me to be calm and almost serene. It’s more of an effort now, to feel strong and tall.

I don’t know what side my bread is buttered on.

I am holding on, to a house that holds on to me, and all I can think about now is turning it into a liquid asset and then a home, some other where, in that better promised land place.

I’m angry that I’m even thinking about getting another fucking job (rage against the machine), and I’m afraid when I think about even applying for one. They might say no again and I already know what a double-blow to my pride that has ended up being.

There must be some way.

That is the mantra of my faith as the third cross-fades gently into the fourth.