Microdosing Monday: Summer is Here
the weekly writer's newsletter
Good morning. Happy Monday. How you doing? We passed the summer equinox last week. Hope you took time to celebrate it. Summer is here, and it’s my favorite season.
Last week was a fast walk through a spring meadow. Read at Poetry Speaks in Evansville on Tuesday, and got to spend a few days in Southern Indiana before heading back to Ohio in time for another reading in Toledo.
Saturday the Summer Anime Girl Appalachian Resistance Tour reading took place at the Collingwood Community Garden. It was 97 degrees when I got there around 6pm. We still got a crowd of about 30 hardy poetry lovers, and the show was fire. Pella is a good host, and she kicked the show off by reading one of her most powerful poems and that set the tone for the night. There were transgendered poets and anarchist poets and transgendered anarchist poets and socialists and communists, GASP OH MY, what a night of fun. Righteous indignation rolled down Collingwood Blvd. and if the world’s wars were fought in stanzas, evil would have never stood a chance.
After the show, when the sun went down and the early summer temperatures receded to mid-80’s, many of us made it to a Waffle House, an oasis at the end of many an epic night. I played the jukebox, which isn’t a jukebox anymore, and as over a dozen of those aforementioned unmentionables clattered into booths, one of the waitresses said, “fuck this,” and threw her apron down and walked out and quit. We stayed. Were served well and laughed often. Twas a good night indeed.
This week is back to the grind. Appointments and writing. And oh yeah….
Come hang out with me Friday night at the Switchboard in downtown Toledo. My buddy, Ben Stalets, possibly the best songwriter in Toledo, has a new album out, and he’s having a release party and show this Friday. HIs album Lucky Dog is his first one in three years, and I wouldn’t miss his release party for nothin’….and I’ll post a link to buy a CD and come to the show here click this
Hey. Can I take a minute to tell you what I’ve been reading? I hope so. I love books.
I finished a Robert B. Parker novel called Double Play. Maybe the third time I’ve read it, as Parker is my favorite writer and I’ve read all of his books at least twice. You should check them out. I’m reading Wes’ new book Cloud Watching in the Inferno and it’s his best stuff yet. You read Wes? You should.
And fuck shit. I’m reading the book The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk. I’m reading it at the suggestion of my therapist, and though I have done a lot of research on trauma and been in therapy for decades, this book is maybe the leading and defining text of our time for what happens to a human that endures traumatic events. It’s medical language but it’s fascinating to me. My PTSD is probably something that I’ll have to work on in therapy for the rest of my surviving life, but like all survivors, as long as I’m still here I have a chance to be happy, and if happy ain’t our goal, then what are we doing here.
I’m going to repeat that last line. If happy isn’t our goal, then what are we doing here? No matter what the news says, if happy isn’t our goal….
Hey, you wondering just what it is that I’m smoking? Shit. I wonder how many people have wondered? No matter. Access to legal medical marijuana has been a life-saving medication for me. I was just talking with an artist friend Saturday evening at that sweltering and crazy powerful outdoor reading, and they were surprised by how much cannabis I consume, until I said, “well yeah. That replaced four ativans a day, ya know?” See what I’m saying? Can you imagine how my life would be if I’d have taken ativan everyday the last 10 years instead of smoked pot? I don’t even want to look up the long term side effects of ativan, but I know that they’re not nearly as fun as the side effects of getting high. Oh yeah, add to the ativan that weed, thus far, replaces a need for pain medication, helps with my depression, and jesus fuck does it help my anxiety. I’ve had a prescription ever since it was legal in Ohio, and lately I’ve been smoking some 25% THC Sherbcake, a hybrid cross of Girl Scout Cookies strain and a strain called Pink Panties. Whatever it is, it’s good for relaxing and anxiety they say, and I like it just fine.
And now here we are on another random and rabid Monday, winding this so-called newsletter up, and if you’ve been here a minute you know I like to end it with positive and happy hippie hug vibrations. If you’re new here, I end my newsletter every week with something positive and encouraging, some stoner back alley Buddhist affirmations if you will. I do that because there’s already so much negative and fucked up in the world, and I want to always strive to add more good than not.
This week I’m going to work really hard on finding some happy in each day. I know what the news says. I know what the temperature is outside and inside our hearts. I know the war cries and the hate crimes are out there, but I also know that there are humans that have endured the most atrocious things that other humans can inflict and still found contentment and happiness. Look at the Tibetans. Look at Viktor Frankl. And think about the daily luxury that most of us live in, and know that no matter what time the news tells you it is, there’s always a flower growing in a crack somewhere. That’s where the light gets in.
Love,
Dan
Ps. Here’s a little dose of good for you. Toledo artist and songwriter Henry Gray did this portrait of my facebook profile photo. Hell of a cool thing. One of the coolest ever for me. Thanks, brother.
and ps. life is good and Evansville and Toledo were good to me at readings of late, so the bank account is in the black for once. But also, stamps are expensive and I’m running low on them, so if you want to contribute to the over-all struggling artist fund I’ll gladly send you some books to say thank you.
