Microdosing Monday: the now edition
*weekly newsletter cross post with my Patreon account
What day is it? Who cares? It’s today. My kids and closest friends have heard me repeat that mantra many, many times. And although this mantra began as a joke about my inability to remember the day, or date, it’s roots are steeped in the philosophy of staying in the now, and that’s something that’s never been a laughing matter to me. Nor an easy task.
I’ve watched and read about human tendency enough to know that I’m not alone in this struggle, but especially when we work time clock jobs, there’s a common trait of skipping and looking past work days to get to the weekend, and that has never sat right with me. Just because I have a work shift this evening, shall I toss this whole Tuesday in the waste bin early?
Its bad enough that we all live through days that are days we just get through, and I don’t want to ever be guilty of not giving today, each day, a chance to be something more than just an ‘x-ed’ out square on my wall calendar. I don’t want to be the human that doesn’t let Mondays be Monday anymore. I don’t want to be a human that throws Thursdays away, because they’re always the broke last day before payday. I don’t want to live days that don’t mean any thing more than my paycheck, so my mantra, what day is it? Who cares? It’s today, has come back into heavy rotation.
Tattoo on my left arm
Yeah, today’s Tuesday, and my microdosing monday newsletter is microchomping different days many weeks, but that’s ok. If you read this blog, you know the drill by now. Hell, one of the few things that keeps me pinned down week after week, is my commitment to do this micro update at some point, each week. Otherwise I get lost in a spinning blur of hours and days, and lately, the blurs have been weeks long, and that’s kinda wild.
But I tell you, there’s things right now for me to really look forward to, and I’m not going to count down the days until they get here, but goddamn, I can hardly wait.
Friday July 26- Sunday July 28 insomniacathon in Louisville, KY. 57 straight hours of poetry, art, music and performances by 50+ poets, over 20 musicians, and many artists. Hosted by Kent Fielding and International Beat Poet Laureate, Lifetime Emeritus Ron Whitehead. Daily tickets are on sale, or whole weekend packages are available. I’m reading Sunday at 2:45pm, but plan to be there most of the weekend.
And boy howdy, I can’t wait to tell you about this next one.
Saturday August 10th in Toledo, OH it’s Ben Stalets Backyard Birthday Blowout. Oh man, oh man, oh man. Ben Stalets, the folk hero of Toledo will be playing with his whole band to celebrate his birthday, and with special guest Don ‘Doop’ Duprie of River Rouge, a small, gritty, blue collar Detroit suburb, and friends, Doop is by far my favorite songwriter. If you’re into to Midwestern folk, country, rock n roll, and working class art, this night is the night for you. Hosted by Over Yonder Concert House, my favorite local concert promoter, and in a large old west end backyard on a summer night, with well over 100 attendees and a sold out crowd expected. Oh yeah, guess what? They’re gonna let me host and read some poems to open. Hot damn. Get your tickets quick for this one. If you want to see me perform in Toledo, this is the night to be there.
In the meantime, I keep my head down. I make sure I put my pen to paper, and my fingers to keyboard, at least a little bit each day, and I spend time each day outside with the plants, animals and sky. I read like a student that’ll never graduate. I live a simple writer’s life full of the grandest natural luxuries. Freedom. Love. Nature. Literature, music and art. Weed. Good food. Unlimited cups of coffee.
Chicken knocking on my camper door
I try to make each day count somehow, and for more than just a day of getting through, and somehow along the way, you find yourself content in the now. Happy to be who you are, even if you’re not where you want to be. Bukowski wrote that “the shortest route between two points is often unbearable,” and I’m not sure about short routes, but the easy ways out have always seemed unbearable to me. I’ve always gotten where I wanted to be, and needed to be, and traveled way beyond that even. I got here because I learned to not look ahead. To not look back too much. But to make the now matter.
There you go. A newsletter with big updates and ho-hum back alley blue collar Buddhism-ish-ness. Go find that in the NYT’s hot blog of the day or whatever. Do people even read blogs anymore? Substack seems hopping. Who knows? If I cared about who read what I wouldn’t be writing poetry and silly little stories.
Be kind. Show concern for those next door before you worry about the news.
Love,
Dan