I apologize, but I have been edging my essay and I don’t wanna stop.

It’s going to be a little sexual for a second, but this is my blog and I get to do whatever I want. I’m not your pet.

Why does edging carry a positive connotation if it’s merely procrastinating your pleasure? Procrastination is identical yet hated upon. When I procrastinate, it’s not a bad habit or something I need to correct. It’s pleasure. It’s my kink. It’s building the anticipation within me as to maximize the bliss when it comes out. I feel sexy when I accomplish my goals. Let me ride the wave, feel it all, add stress and sweat to the process. It’s gonna feel sooooo good when it’s over.

I think I’m lying to myself a lot these days and it’s fucking up my life a little bit. Whatever. I’m not finishing anything except into him. Again. and Again. and Again. I’m certainly not finishing any essays.

There are some things in life you let go of forever and others you just set down for a while. You never know which is what until it happens. I quite smoking vs. I’m quitting smoking. I’m edging vs. it’s not gonna happen tonight. Learning vs. failing. What are we? And what should we be? I don’t want to finish my essays because it means it will be over – and what will I have to show for myself? It’s so hard when the tangible result is yourself.

I’m in no rush to get anything done. You see, the world has already ended. Professor, I’m sorry but I forgive myself for turning in my essay months late. I forgive myself for edging all night instead of working on saving the world. I forgive myself for making the McEconomy go brrrrr and losing myself to dancing and debauchery each weekend. I forgive myself for writing a perverse blog that renders me unemployable. I forgive the homophobes and the queers who hate fun and I forgive the bouncers when they turn me away. Have a lovely evening.

I’ll do better next time I promise. I love you. Do you still love me? What if I edged you a little longer?

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Becoming a fighter is acknowledging you’re probably going to get hurt and knowing you are going to hurt others. The firefighters will kill the fire. The researcher will give the rat cancer. You’ll have to fall in love again and again, not because your life is full of love, but because love keeps leaving your life. Fighting isn’t pretty, and for better or worse I love it when people call me pretty.

Last night at a Christmas party, a woman started critiquing my outfit with veiled compliments. Flight has its place too. Not every evil deserves to be hit.

Everything in my body except my brain is telling me to fight right now. Everything in my body is telling me to buy the organic produce. My brain knows I can’t afford it. It’s a reoccurring source of frustration and failure for me. We know what to do, but it’s not gonna feel right. It’s gonna feel uncomfortable like a missed opportunity, a crime, or something weirdly sexual on the internet. What do I do with that? How do I act morally when immorality is so easy to slip into and feels so good?

I am a fighter, he writes on his blog to manifest into truth. Now is now. Later will be different, but who cares about later?

Only fight what and who is in front of you.

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Extinction Rebellion used to meet in the basement of my job. I never went. I left that job and moved on to a better paying, larger institution deeper in the belly of the beast. They fired me a month later. The old gallery closed too, and I don’t know where Extinction Rebellion meets anymore. I’m sure I could find out.

On the weekend I party in parks, on beaches, and down the stairs. During the week, I struggle to pay my bills because I spend my days “helping” people. Most of them don’t succeed. I’m in the largest institution there is, yet I’m powerless and I can’t get any deeper. I’m a cog – of course I’m doomed to fail.

“As our own chief executives, it’s our obligation to make our own lives better,” Luigi said in his manifesto. “The recoil of the gun – did it sting, down his back?” asked a Twitter user. Nothing is black and white, we know this, but right and wrong are still opinions we form. What he did to me was wrong and cruel. What he did was right and necessary. These can be both be true. It’s really up to you.

I go to Miami to feel the harshest sun known to man. Nobody gets sunburned like I do. I go to Miami to see the people I see each weekend in New York, eat the same meals, and feel the same, unbearable, all-consuming existential dread. I’m not doing enough. I don’t love enough and I don’t care enough. I write it in my journal over and over like a maniac who forgets his name: A new place doesn’t make you different. Only you can make you different. I’ll be in LA in a few weeks.

I want to change the world. I really do, and it makes me pathetic. What have I ever successfully changed? Tires, my clothes, and one time I hit somebody. I don’t do that anymore. I don’t cheat anymore. I don’t steal anymore. Maybe one day I won’t get my hopes up anymore. Maybe one day it’ll all be different.

Luigi is going to be murdered. Do the people get this? An eye for an eye is perfectly balanced. Strange thought I rarely have – is balance realllllly what we need right now? It’s certainly not something we’ve ever had at the macro. Luigi is going to be murdered and I feel deeply for him, because Luigi wanted to change the world and we are united in that goal. Luigi can’t anymore, but I could.

This is the part, at the end, where I say I have not killed anyone, do not intend to kill anyone, and would not kill anyone even if they were my enemy. The high road is going somewhere. So is the low road. There’s definitely some mid roads. Who’s gonna get there first? And how slippery is the slope?

Genuinely, I am holding space for Paulette and her family. It’s not black and white. That’s the problem with world changers. They work in Technicolor and tend to leave collateral damage. Maybe that’s why I haven’t changed the world. Perhaps my world isn’t colorful enough yet. If I can get there, where will I be then? It might be awfully scary. Is Luigi is scared of himself right now?

Editor’s Note: I COULD NOT CARE LESS ABOUT THIS BEING THE THIRD DEAD PETZ SONG ON HERE. THAT ALBUM WAS UNDERAPPRECIATED BY SOCIETY. SO I SHALL APPRECIATE IT NOW. MYSELF.

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The first time he didn’t stay the night, I didn’t believe him and I was right. This time, I have to believe myself and that’s a daily, delusional act. To stand up for one’s self is beautiful but it takes a fuckton of muscles and it might leave you weak and raw wondering if all that effort was really worth it. I can buy myself flowers even if it sends my account into collections.

What we eat will either heal or murder us. It’s true, and yet sometimes we still don’t know exactly what we’re eating. We’ll find out when we see the effects, and some of those won’t be seen for decades. The internet makes a joke of it, but I study the microplastics. They won’t kill us, but they’ll make us infertile, deaf, and dumb. They’ll do it slowly, but surely. A chronic uncoupling is worse than a quick one, yea?

What we make shows the world what we are made of. I created a place for love, discovery, intimacy, and vulnerability in my life, but it wasn’t welcomed. Maybe I didn’t create what I intended. Maybe something else leached in. Something toxic. Either way, now I need to make something new. Out of love.

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Today is my birthday and it’s also my blog’s birthday and it’s also a 14-hour day.

I’m still consuming, I’m no angel, but my net output is positive right now. It’s art, it’s research, it’s affection, it’s full of possibilities, and now it’s a blog. The world is a sponge, and I am like water. Suck me up I’m loving the feeling. Spit me out I don’t care it’s all a cycle. When I eat, I eat good. When I’m eaten, I taste good.

I think I change the world more than the average person. Not more than the average world-changer, but more than the average person. Is that bragging? I think it is, but I’ve got to do it. Because more people need to change the world.

You should change the world. We should change the world together. That’s the idea here – to change the world together. Cheese is delicious. So delicious that sometimes it’s worth the factory farm, the methane, the refrigerator, the polymer plastic packaging, and the pain in my gut. I’m not even lactose intolerant. I just liked finishing the thread with my personal pain. For me that pain is in my brain.

There is going to be a lot of lying. There will also be facts. Come along, why not?

In the morning, I took an intense shower and bumped the air purification to three. In my Calvins, I sterilized a knife, the surface, and my hands. In the incubator was my baby. I took the knife to her wounds and cut it all away. They’d grow another day even if they didn’t grow in the way I wanted them to. I’ll just keep trying.

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