Going Home, Red Hobo Boatman Financial Rambling, POOP

May 19, 2026

My leave is in two weeks. At that point I’ll have been on the boat for four months straight, 120-something consecutive 12 hour (minimum) shifts. I’m checked out, man. I think three months is my limit. It would have been dead easy if I had a settled life back home, or a home at all. Not sure what “life” I have anymore and my task off the boat is to pick up the pieces. Sounds negative but starting from a blank slate is a terrifying miracle.

No point to this entry. Just got off the phone with a dear friend, no, more than that. The satellite internet is so bad it can’t even handle a wifi call. Lots of repeating ourselves through the drops. I have butterflies thinking about getting “”home””. Time is moving slower than ever. Ever since I put in for my leave I have kept my sanity in tiny milestones: requested the leave, leave confirmed, booked a place downtown near the light rail, office emailed me plane tickets this morning. Once I’m a week out I’ll pack my things to feel excited.

This is very much not a real boat but I think I got enough of a preview of maritime life. I enjoy this mode of work. No commute, no cooking, no bills if I’m creative enough and land a job with a long hitch. It’s groundhog day and I know how my watch will go every time. Boring but an easy life. One perk of being on this specific class of vessel is I can stand navigational lookout and be part of that process without some endorsements. I’m steersman sometimes while we meet vessels and around sharp bends. Very cool!

Another perk of this kind of work is financial and it ties into ideology. The next job will have a long hitch, I’m looking for 28 days minimum. Three months if I can swing some specific companies. It’s a lot easier to bounce around as a bum if you have at least a month off. Out of high school I traveled around an expensive country for three months on only $2,000. I just had to pick eggplants at a farm for a lot of it. Don’t mind doing it again. Anything but a landlord, man. We can’t kill them yet but we can drop out. The 21st century hobo isn’t as cool as the trainhopping one, but at least we got websites for it.

The reason I’ve vowed to be houseless and carless is to finally have some CAPITAL. The one thing in the world that matters. I have always been poor and it’s nice to have changed the relationship with money. I don’t fret about buying name brand. I don’t cringe if the beers at a place are $7. There’s that part in Walden where he values things based on the labor-time required to purchase it. I just paid my phone for the year. One day’s pay. Mid hotel is half day’s pay. Domestic one-way flight is about a day’s pay. Etc etc etc. A real boat will pay double what I make now.

I will retire by 33 and I don’t care how much of a bum I have to be to do it. The American dollar, as weak and dilute as it has become, is still powerful and it is a privilege to be paid in it. This is the way to extract from the evil empire and give little back. I’ll have my beautiful little house I build myself somewhere with no building codes and drop out. Perhaps this is a fascistic pastoral fantasy but if the Third-Worldist theoreticians are to be believed The Revolution won’t come until the rest of the world corners the U.S. Yeah, that ain’t coming any time soon. I’m not waiting until the woke Rapture to be a free man.

Working on a boat is a lot different than the shift work I have always done. At a normal hourly job it’s in your best interest to do as little as possible as the clock runs. Not here. If the work doesn’t get done you won’t sleep. So, you have to learn to do the HUGE amount of tasks efficiently and well. Doing a job well is healthier for the mind than being conscious of your status as a wage-slave and slacking accordingly.

The way this boat pushed into the bank has us listing significantly to port. It’s a very strange feeling having your house tilting. Walking around like this is very exhausting.

The shit solids tank leaked one night. The deckhand who discovered it was standing in the middle of the flow going “I don’t know, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.” Vacuum toilets really suck and break all the time. The vacuum seal on mine stopped sealing and… yeah.

Getting off the boat in New Orleans is maddening because the concentration of beautiful women is too high. All respect but I am a man and deeper than that I am a mammal and I have been on this boat for 109 days straight. After getting a few drinks I wonder in my weakness why the hell I gave up a pretty woman. You were awful to me but holy shit I need my short hair rollerskater right now.

I missed this entire opera season working here.

Fih

May 8, 2026

I got some fish stickers from garfriend. Go get a gar sticker or five.

Halfway

April 30, 2026

This fucking internet we have will not let me upload any decent pictures or the video of our storm. God damn it. I’m below deck so 5G doesn’t even work!!!

Halfway done. I wasn’t going to take my leave so I could get this all over with but three months on a boat, even an easy one does wear on you. I put in for my leave and I’m just going home. I have grandparents still and I guess I’ll be a good grandson. Just sucks to pay all that money for an extended stay hotel and just be… home. I put in for my leave because I started going a little nuts just a few days ago. Realized I’m abusing myself the way I do every time I catastrophically burn out. If I can just take a little more abuse, life won’t suck. Just make it suck a little more so it can stop sucking forever. Doesn’t work. I’m going to go on my hometown bender. I need to remember I’m a dropout and I’m forever done with deadlines.

I miss sleeping naked. I am a shameless naked sleeper. Now I sleep in my full uniform just in case of an alarm.

Couple of people here live on sailboats. One is a deckhand and the other is an officer. One tells me the sail bum life was the worst mistake he’s ever made and the officer tells me it’s the only way to live. I asked how to learn to sail and they both said they learned by themselves after buying a boat. The younger one says Youtube and the older one had this little “how to sail” book. They say I won't die. I was never drawn to sailboats and always viewed them as this gaudy symbol of 80s excess like RVs. However the sailboat thing fits with the financial thing: $10,000 for something that needs a little bit of work and $350 a month for slippage in a trashy marina, a “sailor park.” Maybe.

I don’t mean this in a pained or whiny way but I really want to drink myself numb. It feels real nice. I started around 17 and that headspace feels like home. Even when I first started drinking I thought this is where I belong and where I’m comfortable. My family is full of alcoholics and the only reason I don’t have that title is I haven’t been harmed by it, physically or otherwise. Charles Bukowski:

“now I have found something, I have found something that is going to help me, for a long long time to come. The park grass looked greener, the park benches looked better and the flowers were trying harder. Maybe that stuff wasn’t good for surgeons but anybody who wanted to be a surgeon, there was something wrong with them in the first place.”

When I drink alone it’s because it gives me the very same warmth that comes with cuddling or having a woman put her hands on my face and play with my hair. That’s why I drink so much after breakups. It’s not all for the feels. I’m a clingy guy, man. I’m having an alright time but I don’t have my tool for sanity, my substitute for touch.

Had a dream I crashed the boat. I was caught up in paperwork and everything was moving 20x the speed it really does and I rear ended one of the big ships we often see. The crash was Microsoft flight sim style where everything freezes. CRASHED!!

There was a really funny firing but I guess I should keep it unwritten as long as I’m still employed. Haha.

A lot of the captains and mates came from good and wildly different careers. They’re better off doing this and I think I’m okay with blowing up my life. Standing on the bow at night in high winds, water crashing up to the deck, I feel alive for once.

Snores / Sleep-Deprived Rambling

April 18, 2026

A little short of halfway done. I have been awake 28 hours. Not as bad as it sounds but not ideal especially when you have to stay alert in the pilothouse for some of that time. Made a terrible impression with the new captain and deck leads because I’ve been on ghoul mode.

Before all my whining I’ll say I actually am having fun here. It’s a dumb job for dumb pay but it is enjoyable overall. Getting suited up and geeked off the nicotine+caffeine then throwing a heaving line spot-on to shore is just too badass. This crew is starting to be a bunch of sickos. Starting to think that yeah, this is it. Just somewhere else.

My schedule was flipped opposite. It’s not supposed to change like this but the mate decided it this way. Nice guy overall but I think I complain too little around him since I often get shafted. Usually with schedule changes you work a little over or get a little time off. This time I was given four hours to go down and sleep. Manageable. I couldn’t sleep because my roommate is a terrible snorer and a SLEEP SHOUTER. I had no idea because we had opposite schedules until now.

This fucker is useless on the boat. He’s such a light sleeper that he’s kicking and moaning whenever I quietly enter the room with my phone screen on the very lowest to get around. He’s a zombie during the day and I catch him sleeping in the laundry room sometimes. Clumsy, always late, generally disliked by the officers and crew. Says he was in the Air Force for 17 years, still somehow active duty. Rumor says he was shot in the face and is on some sort of medical leave. I’d think he was a liar but he did indeed go to the VA at one of our stops. Brain injury tracks for his fucking bizarre behaviors.

Snoring with Kim Possible blasting and shouting in his sleep. I hate this fucker. Not sleeping causes cancer. You are giving me cancer. Your fucked up airways and childish habits and deep paranoid psyche is giving me cancer. Fuck you. Die. By the laws of natural justice I’m allowed to kill you with my two hands.

My birthday passed a little ago. Sweet messages from two dear friends. Old old ex developed the film from a forgotten disposable camera used during a camping trip 7 years ago. Bad for the brain to look at. Money is piling up for once. The pay is a joke but it’s still more than I can save with a good job while paying for an apartment and car.

awful rambling:
Still minorly spiraling thinking about stupid shit that I just can’t solve and won’t solve until I’m off the boat. I never write or talk about it to anyone, least of all my friends since somehow 80% of them are women. That ex jokingly called me a “male lesbian” once and I still have no idea what the hell that means. I can’t put it all together into something that doesn’t read like an incel screed and I’m certainly not that. Short version: I think I’m unfuckable because of absurdly cruel rejection in my very first experiences with sex and relationships. Clearly not since I’ve dated, probably had more sex than most men my age just by virtue of being in two long-term things. IDK man it’s dumb. People tell me I look fine, good even, but the scars of 1. first “”relationship”” that I waited 8 months for (was out of town) taking it all back almost immediately for being ugly, huge freakout when I simply asked if a kiss is okay after a date and 2. my first real relationship was amazing but then I got the talk that (classic incel concept) that I’m simply not for sex, not someone who can offer it, and I’m not the best they can have, will have, or has had. But I’m good for the domestic duties and can stay around to do just those. Nineteen year old guys don’t last long. What did you want from me? I used to rub lidocaine on my dick for you. Now I’m old and don’t need it.

But I’m alright. I’m in bed finally. Almost halfway there. Two of the camping pictures I was not emailed are arriving in the mail as a surprise. I have a boat crush, different and less muscly department, that I definitely can’t pursue but it’s fun just looking at him and talking baseball. It’s a boy this time, exceedingly rare and VERY fun when that happens to me.

One Third

March 31, 2026

Exactly a third of the way through. Finally totally operational. Not much to say but a lot is happening.

I’m still embarrassed of what I’m doing on the boat and where I ended up. Cleaning etc is done on any boat, but I just hate how anal you have to be when aesthetics are part of the product. I’d rather be on one of the many barges we pass hauling gravel or something. This is easily earned seatime, though.

The other side of that is I spend many hours of my watch driving the boat and doing cowboy shit with the lines. Not a seaman as desired, but I guess I can be called a boatman now. Just at the Burger King of maritime jobs. Everyone on the crew (kids & washouts) breaks when things get tense while docking but I love the screaming here. Mate tells me to quit FUCKING around and get line 5 tied off and I just scream back I GOT HER SIR. Fun!

A lot of work is done and I think I could do more. I was worried about not having what it takes on a real boat. I’ve got plenty of energy left after a 12, 13, 14+ hour watch and I uncharacteristically wake easily. Sixty something consecutive days (and counting) of work is nothing at all when I have no commute and don’t have to cook. A working boat will pay double this and that will make me more eager.

Started saying y’all too much. Involuntarily picked up the habit of calling objects “her” and “she.” The satellite internet sucks and I get no 5G below deck, no pictures yet. To be honest I just wanted to post more Curtis Mayfield. We’re rolling.

Opening Day

March 24, 2026

Tomorrow’s Opening Day!

Some people get “seasonal depression” in the winter. I never did. The opposite, actually. Soon the heat will be so oppressive that I won’t be able to think and I’ll be grumpy all the time. But I’m coming out of a seasonal slump: Opening Day is (sort of) tomorrow! Baseball is back!

I don’t know anyone else into baseball. The types I usually hang around with never have thought about it for a second. I’m from and currently am in deep football country. Nerd-types will scoff at caring about “sportsball.” Mean gays think they’re above it. Once I was at my favorite dive bar back home which is pretty gay and pretty sketch. Some guy came up to me to first ask for coke, said I look too sharp to be here (sharp being an H&M pink polo), and finally to fish around and see if I’m gay. I guess I was giving him mixed signals: his gaydar was getting some slight pings, he was picking up on something, but my eyes were glued to the Mets game. He was clearly confused and a little offended. “Seriously, sports?”

Yes, sports! Baseball is for both heart and mind. Sabermetrics when you want to do numbers, too many magic moments to list for the heart. Try the last inning of the 2023 World Baseball Classic, USA vs. Japan. Mike Trout batting up against his then-Angels-teammate Shohei Ohtani, full count. You couldn’t script a better game.

Like most things in the world I’m not happy at the state of baseball. I’d change a lot if I could. The situation with the A’s was just disgusting. There are deep structural issues with the league ownership that hurts competition. I hate the new rule changes. I hate the Manfred Man (also known as the zombie runner.) I hate the expanded playoffs. Above all, I HATE THE UNIVERSAL DESIGNATED HITTER! America died for good when it happened.

But, still, it’s baseball and it’s back. I have something to follow every day, even if it’s just checking scores like the last couple of seasons. Let’s go Angels, and I’ll root for a few other teams that have soul. Shoutout Brewers.

Emo Boys, Pee, German New Medicine

March 11, 2026

I was stealing a few more moments of comfort after my alarm went off enjoying an old memory that somehow entered my mind. I’m standing behind him, arms wrapped around his body and picking up the warmth of his core. I’m smelling his emo-cut hair and tracing up and down his ear with my nose. Immediately after waking and still in the darkness I have perfect recall of these senses.

But I was fully woken by the ringing of the fire alarms. We have, I think boats in general have the old school bell kind? Not the obnoxious buzzing kind we had in school or public spaces. It’s actually a polite noise and not too loud from my quarters. We hadn’t been primed for a drill today and midnight is a strange time to do one. So I really hopped up to report to it. It went off shortly after. Tests.

Cleaned all the bilges. This was a dirty job and another rare reason to be glad to be short. Some idiots threw trash into it, we have to pass inspection, they can’t see any solid objects that may gum up the bilge pumps. Also scrubbing off all the mud or whatever the hell is gummed to the bottom. The worst I thought was going to be the male crew quarters bilge. I kept hearing that it smells like piss. Opened it up and sure enough, it’s piss. Countless years of overspray, splashback, whatever it’s called have slowly dripped down and formed this ancient piss puddle constituting a monument to poor marksmanship. Once I got over my aversion it was a simple operation to vacuum it up.

With the leadership constantly rotating it’s a sprint, then a lull, then to look busy there’s bullshit work. As previously griped about the not-real work results in too much thinking. Something I was hoping to escape from taking this on. There’s some progress on this front. The spiraling is giving way to daydreaming. Almost as unbearable but sweet daydreams can be conducive to growth. More Jung bullshit.

I think I’m secure in my views on money, work, family, the mode of living I want. Things that people much older never seem to solve. Unfortunately there’s just one or two areas I feel developmentally stunted and far behind on, so I drive myself nuts with either a spiral or a sweet short fiction. I like reading about zany belief systems so I once picked up the book German New Medicine: Psychic Roots of Disease. In short, psychic traumas show up as things like undescended testes (man-hate in the family), cancers (usually loss), genital warts (in men: wants sex but doesn’t get it), cellulite (thinking your ass is unattractive. Seriously.) Funny read. According to the book, if I solve these particular problems my back and shoulders won’t hurt anymore, Wonderful! If I don’t solve them I’m at risk of things like osteoporosis, strokes, or a duodenal ulcer.

Mailboat

March 6, 2026

I keep neglecting to really finish my site. I don’t have a proper introduction of myself, any method of contact, and some formatting/organizational things to finish. I’ve reached out to a few Neocities people and had some good talks, made good friends. I guess it’s time to be fair and offer a way to reach me for anyone who might want to say something. It’s definitely not because I love receiving emails and want people to talk to haha.

If you have anything, ANYTHING to say you can reach me at oscarsburner@proton.me. Long, short, dumb, smart, whatever. I will probably take some time to reply, but I’ll do my best to get back in a reasonable timeframe.

I’m a cis man (probably obvious) in my late 20s which brings me no pleasure to confront. I can hold conversations about baseball, music (Motown and The Beach Boys are my specialty), computer science, concrete, cats, dreams, furniture and other aesthetic objects, the esoteric and occult as long as it can be filed under “that’s bullshit but I believe it.” I only refuse to talk about mathematics anymore. Weird hippie DIY home-building, extreme personal finance, turn on tune in drop out, done with psychedelics but sometimes it’s worth talking about. Shitbox cars, cooking… think that’s all I can think of at the moment. I also hold an amateur radio license but have been largely unable to make use of it.

A Giant Fucking Spider Jumped On My Face

March 4, 2026

Twenty percent the way through. Just this boat left to get in shape and there’s not much real stuff to do. We had time to be taught line handling, finally, some real sailor stuff. It’s real cool to hold a vessel back all by yourself with just a rope. Potable water, sewage, and diesel leak into the crew quarters. I’m enjoying the lifestyle. Have half a mind to walk over to the real boats and just ask for a job, but my resume is too eclectic and miserable at the moment.

The pedo-oil-Paypal cabal has decided to begin what the Freaks have been having wet dreams about for fifty years now. I saw it coming, just not this soon. We’re burning $5M smart bombs on $5000 lawnmower engine powered drones and I suspect we have much more than six soldiers dead. Thank God the evil is so incompetent this time. It’s very strange getting your finances in order and planning out a career as if you don’t hope and expect the current world order to collapse.

More sailor’s advice, this time from a guy who used to work tugs: His captain, apparently completely seriously, says washing with brown Listerine cures the clap.

I’m going through a can of Zyn a day. Unsustainable. I’m not actually consuming all that nicotine. The Zyns release too fast and I have to take them out early. The 3 milligrams don’t tickle my brain enough, the 6 milligrams release too fast and make me sick. The On! brand is a little better for this, but they use an inferior nicotine salt and therefore tear up your gums. The Velos are pre-moistened which I find disgusting. I need a slower releasing thing to keep in my mouth. Started chewing gum.

I miss beer and I miss sucking on a neck. It’s been.. forty something days since I’ve had either? A lot of people seem to grow out of kissing but I never did. I’m so embarrassed every time after this thing I had. It’s not quite a hookup but not something that can go anywhere. Complicated thing that goes back seven years now. I’m afraid of being too sweet for something that’s meant to be meaningless. I caress your face and nuzzle and hold your hand during the thing. And of course, I’m trying so hard not to say “I love you.” Was I cringe? I don’t know.

I have weeks of leave I can take. They’ll fly me out and back anywhere in the U.S, but I don’t know where to go. I was thinking Pittsburgh since it’s a cheap and young city. Never been. Realistically I’ll probably go back home just to placate my miserable family. I don’t want to do that. I just want to go to a city with endless cheap dive bars and prove that little voice from an ex wrong. Not the last one, the one who said (wokely) that I’m not a sexually desirable person and it’s not a game I can play. Well, I might not be desirable but I don’t disappoint. It’s an unhealthy way to get over this and I’m not all into that sort of thing but I can’t think of any other way to shut it up. Yeah, Pittsburgh. Maybe Philly. Chicago?

Opera Moments #1 - Folly

February 25, 2026

I’m starting a series about certain opera moments that stay in my mind. Sometimes they’ll cover the main action of each opera, sometimes they’ll be small things off to the side. I’m wholly unqualified to write about music theory and therefore I cannot and will not cover that. User’s guide: pieces simply hyperlinked are optional, embedded are must-watch.

Number one is from the first act of La Traviata. One of the deckhands was la-da-da-da singing the melody from the drinking song and I just had to revisit this opera. You have certainly heard this at least once, somewhere, and likely many more times.

In Operaland, romantic love is a real thing. It is often the only thing. God is only hoped for, but Love is the real, actual divine power here. It redeems or ruins. Even if you see the ruin coming, you can’t abandon the duty lest you betray your soul and suffer a damnation worse than physical death, which opera has plenty of.

In the real world, unfortunately, I’m not sure so romantic love exists. While carefully weighing whether to end my last relationship I read The Eden Project, which in part is a sort of dissection and debunking of love from an analytical psychology lens. For me, it’s too much looking behind the curtain of the human experience and so when love returns, I’ll gladly be possessed by that madness again. The author shares the same sentiment. The case is made that romantic love is now the one religion of Western society. Lacking my old object of worship, I definitely feel that emptiness some feel when they leave their religion.

La Traviata (The Fallen Woman) is about Violetta and Alfredo. Violetta is an expensive whore, excuse me, courtesan. Spoiler: she dies of tuberculosis. She’s already having coughing fits at the start. Alfredo is young and from a petite-bourgeois family. The setting of the first act is a wild Parisian party. Alfredo has been coming around and asking about her condition daily. She doesn’t know that. He finally introduces himself after singing the drinking song and we get into Un dì felice, eterea.

I could not find a recorded staged performance that delivered this duet correctly, in my very unqualified opinion.

This would be a criminally insane way to introduce yourself in the real world, but in Operaland it’s okay. Now we’re starting to get to the point of this post. There’s kind of an irony to the music of the first act which is foreshadowed here. Alfredo’s melody, the lover’s melody is first delivered sweet but soon it’s dead serious. Pained. He’s sicker than Violetta at this point. The melody of her part is playful and if you didn’t know the words perhaps you’d think she’s in love too. No, she’s a woman trained in manners and lets him down politely and gently. Violetta will not love, cannot love, and you’d better move on. It does turn around for Alfredo in the next piece, she offers him a flower and tells him to return when it wilts. Paraphrasing the libretto: “So… tomorrow?” “Yes, I guess tomorrow.”

Dawn arrives and the party leaves. Violetta is left alone, and in e strano! she’s thinking of those words. Again and even more so, love isn’t represented by sweet and happy music, here it’s more like horror movie strings. It’s a total Rapture. Oh shit, she’s in love. She daydreams in Ah fors’è lui, repeating those crazy words Alfredo gave to her but quickly comes to her senses.

And finally, we’re here at the moment I think about. There’s a very cool device being used here in follie! sempre libera:

She’s drunk. She’s telling herself there’s nothing life has to offer besides empty hedonism, so might as well soak it all up. Then those damn words hit her like a thunderbolt, or the voice of God from Heaven. He’s singing off-stage and it’s distant. Very cool!

Ah sì, da un anno.
Un dì, felice, eterea,
Mi balenaste innante,
E da quel dì tremante
Vissi d'ignoto amor.
Di quell'amor ch'è palpito
Dell'universo intero,
Misterioso, altero,
Croce e delizia al cor.

By the end of it she’s practically trying to scream over the words ringing around in her head. It’s a true madness scene. Sorry, Violetta. You’ve been drafted into this awful thing called love. Now you have another disease and you will suffer tremendously.

Life Is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back

February 20, 2026

Just a dumb braindump. Cool projects on the backburner. Setbacks at the top and shit flows downhill.

Old sailor’s advice from a long dead Alaskan fisherman transmitted through my mate: cayenne pepper mixed into bottom paint prevents barnacles. Google says this is a common belief and maybe not all that effective.

A little more than ten percent completed with the seatime I need to get a real job. The grease trap exploded into the bilge again. Lots of chipping. Sent off two more ships but mine will be the last to leave.

I have been on night watch for about a week now. It’s easy but unbearable. I’d enjoy it if we were underway but there’s nothing to do but just sit there and stare. Then I’m relieved of that and do stupid little solitary projects. Fine.

It’s not the work or lack of it. I had a lot of time away from myself during the day. Now I have time to think in the dark and nothing good happens up in this head. The passive ideation that has been the backdrop of my life gets a little more active on nights like these. It’s a prosecutor and an accountant who either lays out all the charges or counts everything up and tells me what I have or haven’t had enough of. But, actually, I haven’t done anything to anyone and nobody has really done anything to me. The accounting is just OCD noise, so I can ignore that.

She has a new guy. He’s taller and whiter like the rest of my exes find. No doubt richer. Not as handsome for once, though. I reflexively wanted to feel bitter about this but she’ll eat him alive soon enough. Haha

Started reading The Count of Monte Cristo. I can’t believe I hadn’t read it before. Very relatable, except in my case the girl is one of my conspirators.

The sun comes up. All’s well. I’m back on day watch. Thank God. Caught the Walmart shuttle and dropped $150 on Zyn. The fuel for work and the fuel for weird dreams. That’s how I got hooked on the stuff, to induce dreams. I was smoking mugwort before.

The power has been out all day. Massive (potable! fortunately) water leak into my quarters. Something is always broken on a boat as I have learned.

Valentine's

February 13, 2026

On the water (Sorta)

February 7, 2026

I am finally, finally on the boat. Yes! We’re in port until April. No! It isn’t the type of boat I wanted. Crummy cruise… Very small by cruise ship standards but still a big vessel. Fortunately they do attempt to teach us traditional maritime stuff.

The pay is abysmal. The food is excellent. Endless options of luxurious food at every meal. The work is either looking busy or quite grueling. It’s like when I worked construction but with much less space. For once my small size is an advantage, tall people are just a waste of space on a boat.

Bunking in a closet with two other dudes. A few deckies are coming out of the military or jail and they say it’s pretty much identical. One of my roommates took the job to save money to go see his wife who was deported for DUI and “assault” of a cop. Any sympathy extended to him is met with NO BRO SHE’S AN IDIOT BRO. Really jarring to hear a Southern boy speak Arabic to the phone.

At the moment we’re painting a few ships in layup. After noon I stand watch and do security/firewatch rounds. Easy stuff.

So, still nothing much to report. Didn’t think I’d end up on a boomer cruise. I’m having fun, though! The novelty is nice and it is a gentle introduction to this life.

Sketches of some thoughts I didn’t bother to flesh out:

After a week and some change I thought it would be refreshing to leave the shipyard. Louisiana has its charms but this town is a certified SHITHOLE.

The crew are all kids or older people with some disastrous personal reasons to take the job. Me. It feels dumb being around a bunch of kids but at the same time it’s kind of nice to get a do-over on the late teen and early twenties socializing I missed out on. My non-traditional therapist was actually the only person to support this going to sea LARP. His opinion was that I was trapped in a sort of femininely authoritarian world being in academia and a horrible relationship. He thought I was lacking a productively masculine environment. Sounds uncomfortably close to the incel concept of the “longhouse” but I think he put it in better terms.

Starting to set in that I won’t have sex for many months. It’s really silly to complain about but it’s a little triggering when it doesn’t come. It’s been too little, too late in my life and I used to be too ugly or broke or otherwise undesirable. So naturally I feel chopped regardless of the reason. I can manage poverty in the material sense but this is a need that I have no patience left to leave unfulfilled. Being single has zero advantages besides being able to fuck off somewhere and make money.

New environment, hard work: Weird dreams. Dreamt all my hair fell out. Dreamt two of my teeth fell out. Another in which I was horribly emasculated, no, straight up cuckolded. My days and mood are good but clearly something is going on beneath the surface. Yesterday I had one where I was busted for a high profile federal crime and I was in love with the prosecutor-cop lady on my trail. Had a good one today where my friend took a job at the zoo back home and she let me pet a seal.

Lots of pretty working boats to gawk at in this shipyard. Gotta serve my time and upgrade then I’ll be on them instead.

Dreams

January 13, 2026

Some significant dreams from late 2024 to mid-2025. The only thing as boring as hearing about people’s dreams is hearing about their acid trips. It’s my blog.

I’m at the opera. There was some conflict getting in that I don’t remember, but I eventually find my seat. I’m having trouble getting a decent view. Suddenly it stops and the lights come on. Some Nazi looking police officers march in and start handing out pamphlets in German, Fraktur font and all. I can’t read German. I ask a fashionable and attractive woman next to me if she’d read it. The “Office of Anti-Plagiarism” ordered the opera shut down because the libretto was stolen from something. Only the Germans would be so regulatory. We ended up going on a date to a museum next door. She was cute. My age or younger. Butterflies.

I couldn’t make sense of this dream until my analyst offered a convincing interpretation almost immediately. I was partaking in something illegitimate. My studies, career, and relationship at the time. Some higher power had to come in and shut it down speaking a language I couldn’t understand. The unconscious. A symbol of Eros was needed to decipher it for me. Clearly the Anima.

A dream I had dozens of times before, but this time manifested differently. I’m landing a little Cessna. Every time I’m about to touch down some crosswind blows and I have to go around. I spent probably hours repeating this effort. Incredibly frustrating. It's something I'm confident I can do. I've done it not just thousands of times in simulation, but in real life too. The other times I’d have this dream it was about sex. I’d get close, closer, but never quite got to “land”.

The analysis here wasn’t very enlightening. Probably induced by stress.

I’m in the university library building a massive, probably 20 feet high and 30 feet long paper model of a Greek trireme. It’s flawless. Imposing, martial, perfect. I poured my heart and soul into building it but for some reason submitted it as my mathematics homework. I only ended up getting a C. I remember being upset about my grade.

The professional opinion veered into a theoretical lecture about the “collective unconscious” and how ancient symbols survived through generations and still live in my brain. His guess was a need to conquer (trireme = plunder) that just wasn’t being met by my experiences in a diluted and disappointing academic career. My best guess is that it was dissatisfaction with my courses. I thought my third year in mathematics would be something else. Instead it was all quite elementary and unrewarding. I spent my time hacking on personal projects instead and neglected my grade.

I'm running along some train tracks through a grassy countryside stealing petty things. I see a big executive desk up on a hill. There's a fancy fountain pen on it. Nobody's around. I take it. I keep running and eventually come across the desk again. This time there's a cigar. I love cigars. I take it and run off again.

His analysis was I feel unworthy of a higher station in life. I need to cheat my way into it. With the way things have gone, clearly I'm not worthy of an executive position.

Fish

January 8 (7), 2026

I didn't mean to update so soon. I hate being noisy. But two things happened. I caught (and released) a lot of big ass trout. On the way back up, the news had just broke. Now I'm not in the mood to gloat about fishing and my outrage wouldn't add anything. But,

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

Autism

January 6, 2026

One time as a sort of party game my friends took the RAADS-R (Ritvo Autism and Asperger Diagnostic Scale, Revised). I didn’t think it was that funny of a bit. I got the highest score at 155. This self-assessment of course is not a diagnosis, but a score this high leaves little doubt that something is going on. Supposedly in research no neurotypical scored more than 64. There is also the caveat that the test should be administered with a professional, but I don’t think that would change much here.

I asked a couple of people who are familiar with autism and they told me, Duh, of course I’m autistic. I’m already feeling shame even talking about it, that my deficiencies are so obvious to tell me so confidently. At this point I’m thinking shame and, not quite relief, but how it would make too much sense. It does make too much sense.

The stereotypes seem to hold. I’m too reserved as a defense mechanism. My batting average for interviews and dates is abysmal. My girlfriend would elbow me in the ribs when she felt I wasn’t speaking enough at gatherings. I can hold a dead-end job just fine for about six months until the routine becomes exhausting. The jobs I can keep are solitary. Forklifts, driving, and laboratory work. Mathematics major. Flight simulator setup with all the controls. The only video games I play are the “spreadsheet simulators.” Weird hobbies. I know more about the Beach Boys than almost anybody. Burning out many times in my life. Absolutely clueless at the stranger-acquaintance small talk stage with people. I don’t have the sensory issues, but I do need silence. Planning and rehearsing before I talk to someone I’m not close with. Generally being seen as a little “off” while managing to be normal enough with great effort. To top it all off, I’m on Neocities.

My last therapist said I most certainly am NOT autistic. His reasoning is that I would be arguing with him constantly. He was an excellent Jungian analyst but I don’t trust his judgment here.

I’m not sure what to make of this. It would finally give me an answer to all the times in my anger and grief I’d lash out and ask “what the hell is wrong with me?” Maybe I’m not. The autism cases have skyrocketed, maybe all these cases are fake. There’s no way I really am, right? Yeah, right. Maybe I’m just tremendously stupid and a fuck-up and that’s all. Well, there’s a pattern that’s hard to ignore. All I ever wanted was to be normal, successful, powerful and in some position of responsibility. Why haven’t I figured that out yet? This could be an answer.

There is zero reason to pursue a diagnosis. I’m getting into jobs that require constant medical certification. I want to get a pilot license one day. It’s extremely expensive and difficult to get diagnosed as an adult. The time for interventions was in childhood and I think for the most part I’m stuck as the person I am. I’m not going to claim it of course and I’m not going to see a professional about it. All I can do is be a little more forgiving to myself for once.

Resolutions

January 1, 2026

Not so much resolutions but more like two perpetual projects.

My friend gave me my first ever professional massage. Part therapeutic, part relaxation. I had my body worked over, but particularly on my vagus nerve, lymphatic stuff, and my slightly out of place shoulder. I felt perfect! There’s so much work to be done on this neglected body. I’d be a much happier and kinder person if I was always that nimble, loose, and not in pain. I’ll be making an effort for general mobility and some physical therapy.

The second is a little trippier and airy. I have a dysfunctional relationship with sleep and dreams. If I’m living as a productive human being I have to get little sleep. If I plan to get 8-9 hours it paradoxically becomes impossible to wake up on time and I start being tortured by dreams. Not nightmares, but absurdly pleasant dreams where I experience this feeling of completeness. Completeness and perfection and when I wake I’m just heartbroken at reality. It’s the feeling I want to bring into my waking life. I’m not sure how. It must be the goal of almost every mystic and spiritual tradition out there.

Life would be so wonderful if my body was in the shape it’s meant to be and I was walking around with this, I don’t know, enlightenment or nirvana or bliss. Nothing else would matter.

Motown Junkies

December 16, 2025

I love Motown so so so much. It's as significant to the nation's soul as Ford or Coca-Cola is.

One of my favorite things on the internet, https://motownjunkies.co.uk, has returned after a 5 year hiatus. An ambitious project by a Brit to review every Motown single. I am so, so, so happy it's returned. Check it out if you really want to get in deep with Motown history and trivia.

Qi Gong, Relationships, Butterflies

December 12, 2025

Hired on a boat. Wanted a better one, but I must take what I can get. Starts eventually.

I think I’m beginning to recover from burnout. I haven’t felt mentally 100% for at least a year, maybe longer. From reading other’s accounts, the healing process is similar to recovering from a brain injury. Brain injury sounds right. The quality of my writing has certainly plummeted from what it used to be.

There’s the grogginess, the gunk, the ever present tension held over from being attacked and yelled at in my last relationship. I still can’t wake up in the morning without feeling like I want to vomit or have a heart attack. I still can’t read. Still a mess, but getting better.

I started practicing Qi Gong. Almost certainly improperly since I am only following from a crummy book and not a teacher. I am not a stranger to meditative practices but Qi Gong has been a little different. Mental clutter is just one of my problems right now. My body is constantly tight and now weak and I feel just so lethargic. Practicing Zhan Zhuang and letting just my skeleton and the Earth hold me upright while supposedly “cultivating qi” is solving the other issues. And the qi, whatever it is, is absolutely real. My hands are aching from it gathering.

My dicking around with the I Ching is to be sorted with my interest in Jungian psychology. I am not in my “Chinese era.”

As much as I would prefer not to, I have been thinking a lot about relationships. Relationships I’ve been in and relationships in theory. I’m not satisfied with my conclusions about both.

I don’t think anyone has ever been interested in me on my merits alone. It was always exceedingly rare for someone to show interest, that’s the first hint. The quality of the people is the second hint. I think broken people see my plain and polite appearance and believe I’m some redeeming path to normalcy. Eventually you find out I’m just as broken as you are, actually, and bad things happen at that point.

Then I start thinking about what I do want next. Besides me listing my type (For women: short hair is a plus, introspective, smart, has taste but not too much, must like seafood, HUGE eyebrows.), I’m not sure what that is. Something permanent. One more heartbreak is going to kill me. I suppose the biggest thing on my wishlist is someone who has gone through the excruciating and alchemical process of resolving traumas. Someone who creates their life, not suffers it. Someone who sees me, just me, and not themselves reflected back with their wounds filled in.

Un?fortunately the next thing is years away. Too many things to get sorted, too much money to save up. This boat I got on is a seven month contract. The next one will probably be longer. It’ll be lonely.

To my surprise I felt some simple joy and butterflies intermittently. I believed certain sensations just die off with youth and I thought that was a little sad. It’s been many, many years since I felt butterflies and even then it wasn’t even close to the electric intensity as a child or a young teenager. Besides being generally healthy I wonder how I can make it come back.

I want to b*** TikTok (In Minecraft)

November 5, 2025

It used to be in a thing in the news that you read about someone losing their mind aided by TikTok. Religious psychosis, incel ideology, gangstalking, body dysmorphia, various business scams. There’s a lot of disastrous feeds you can fall into. This has been written about to death already, now the current thing is LLMs doing the same thing to people.

I am one of those TikTok victims. I never used it, but my girlfriend did. If you caught my embarrassing drunken vent, you know my current situation. Four months ago everything was great. We shared an entire house out in the suburbs and my only two complaints were the long commute to school and mourning the wild 20s I never got to experience. Very minor problems. I was working far too hard and I was miserable, but I was going somewhere and I almost had the reward.

Things got bad between us. I couldn’t figure out why. I was busy a lot, sure, but I always made sure to pull my weight and be a decent partner. A better partner than most of the losers women are dating, anyway. I came home and she was sobbing. Tell me. No, you don’t want to hear it. Tell me.

It’s a TikTok skit with the premise of “that friend that’s been a girlfriend for four years”. Her entire feed is filled with stories of women being suddenly abandoned by their men. Everything makes sense now. TikTok said I’m on my way out and now she’s testing me with every single interaction. If she looks at my Resting Bitch Face while I’m struggling with work it’s not because I’m thinking about mathematics, it’s because I’m pissed off at her. If I’m tired after work, it’s because I’m tired of her. That’s all she could see.

She eventually gave me an ultimatum. She wants a ring, even an Amazon ring. We can Zoom the courthouse. As if a sub-$100 ring and a paper marriage means more than my word and how entangled our lives already were. I certainly didn’t have any assets for her to secure. “If he wanted to, he would” is a popular comment on that side of TikTok. Something she told me probably a dozen times. I told her years ago there was zero doubt we were getting married. I just have to graduate.

I couldn’t convince her in the end. Her tests and tantrums sabotaged my classes and work. TikTok told her I’m going to leave and eventually I did.

STCW

October 21, 2025

In a bid to make myself more employable I got my STCW (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers) Basic training. It’s a quick course in CPR, first aid, survival at sea, some rules, and basic firefighting. It’s required by treaty for ALL sailors worldwide aboard ships of a certain size in international waters.

But that’s not what’s interesting. I was in Orlando, and being in Orlando without a car is alienating and isolating. Or so I thought. After everyone graduated, being sailors, we all found the nearest bar and tore that place up. We owned the karaoke from opening to closing and crashed a Scottish couple’s honeymoon. Good fun. Days later my throat is still sore from scream-singing I Want It That Way,

Arias I'm Stuck On

September 18, 2025

None of these are particularly deep cuts, and the ones I would like to write about aren’t particularly great pieces of music. And for an audience that doesn’t know opera, the “dying cat” singing would be a turnoff. So, here’s some I think I could show off that wouldn’t be offensive to someone without an opera palate.

La Bohème: "Che gelida manina"

Moods: Love at first sight, desperate curiosity of the other

Mimi’s candle has gone out and she’s out of matches. She asks her neighbor, Rodolfo, to light it. She loses her key and they both search for it on the floor. They live in a very poor building and a draft blows both their candles out.

A man like Rodolfo needs to use some slight dishonesty and gamesmanship to win a woman like Mimi. He finds the key and slips it in his pocket, then declares there’s no use searching in the dark. He uses the opportunity to introduce himself to her. The aria begins.

He introduces himself. A lot of words here to say he’s a broke writer. The shocking confession begins at 2:35 and climaxes perfectly at 3:45:

l'anima ho milionaria.
Talor dal mio forziere
ruban tutti i gioielli
due ladri: gli occhi belli.
V'entrar con voi pur ora
ed i miei sogni usati
e i bei sogni miei
tosto son dileguati.
Ma il furto non m'accora,
poiché vi ha preso stanza
la dolce speranza!

I’m a millionaire in spirit.
But sometimes my strong?box
is robbed of all its jewels
by two thieves: a pair of pretty eyes.
They came in now with you
and all my lovely dreams,
my dreams of the past,
were soon stolen away.
But the theft doesn't upset me,
since the empty place was filled
with hope.

Now the supplicant Rodolfo is on his knees, literally begging Mimi to find out who she is. Ramón Vargas delivers this role better than any other filmed performance I’m aware of. His vulnerable pleading is what does it for me. Who hasn’t been enamored by a stranger, just wishing you could just get on your knees and ask “Who are you?” Rodolfo gets to.

L’Elisir d’Amore: “Una furtiva lagrima”

Libretto

Moods: Triumph, requited love

Nemorino is a peasant and a fool hopelessly in love with Adina, a landowner. He gets swindled by a traveling “doctor” into buying a love potion which is actually wine. It doesn’t work. He enlists in the army and uses the bonus to purchase even more.

There’s a party and the women are all over him, as the entire village found out before our couple that Nemorino’s uncle has died and he just inherited a fortune. Now, he’s drunk and is convinced the potion has worked. He notices a tear on Adina’s cheek and takes this as evidence of her jealousy. Actually, she found out the poor idiot spent his entire recruitment bonus on her. The aria begins.

Le Nozze di Figaro: “Porgi, Amor”

Moods: please God bring him or her back

Mozart. Not much to say here. Just sad and whiny. Stream the full thing wherever you’d like, the linked video isn’t complete but I think you must see what’s happening on the stage.

Serse: “Ombra mai fu”

Moods: Security in another

Baroque, Handel. He’s singing to a shade tree. Written for castrato, nowadays commonly sung by mezzo-soprano. Really nice with a body high.