Welcome to Monday Morning Commute on Election Tuesday! I’ll tell you something, my friends. I had begun writing this column yesterday, and it was full of piss, vinegar, and a real fucking white-knuckled fist at the world. And, you know what? It was just exhausting, my dudes. I petered out after the first paragraph and called it quits. I just don’t have it in me to rage, rage, against the Dying Democracy. Instead, fuck it. I offer you this boon, this refuge from the insanity of the Outside Digiverse.

Now listen, I’m not saying to not care. Now listen, I’m not saying to not vote like your future queer daughter’s life depends on it. However, lost in 2020 is the need for self-care. For sure, i’s a privileged practiced. Everyone needs it, not everyone can attain it, and I care and have empathy for those less fortunate.

But, if you can spare a few minutes, hang out here at MMC with me. I can’t promise you anything other than my kindness, but I’m genuinely curious what you’re looking forward to in this Hellscape of a week. Okay, fuck, that was dark. Listen, I’m trying, but reality does penetrate me straight through the ass every once in a while.

I got my own collections of diversion, distractions, and diluting potions I’m imbibing this week. In fact, I’ll fucking tell you! Then follow-up in the comments with your own laundry list of pleasantries.

I love you all, this is Monday Morning Commute!

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Happy Happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, motherfuckers! It’s Halloween tomorrow, and it’s fixing up to be a wild, weird, chaotic one just like all of this year. Today, we got motherfucking snow blasting our ass! Snow! October 30! Which makes me deeply glad I don’t have a commute this semester. Tomorrow! A COVID Halloween! Which means the usual coterie of parties and treat-giving is down to a mere simmer.

A weird year. A distance year. Apparently, a fucking snowy year.

However, that’s the glory of the Space-Ship Omega hurtling through the digiverse! Despite being separated by sickness and space-time, we can still spend this Halloween together here at the Open Bar!

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This is the way, motherfuckers! Or at least, it seems to keep me going. Eating food, and basking in the delights of pop culture. Cause let me tell you, it’s rough sledding for this dude these days. Like, an actual thought I had this morning as I prepared to teach?  At my computer desk? Again? I thought to myself, it feels like going back to prison.

Holy moly! What a fucking awful thought. A prison sentence, albeit with fellow inmates I enjoy. However, a prison sentence none the less. I hadn’t sat at the desk all weekend, and as I steeled myself to sit down, I realized how much I was dreading it. Right in the bubble guts. Right in the scrotum of my soul.

But, at least I can kick it with you fucks. And, at least there’s some shit I’m looking forward to this week. You know, the pop culture delights that’ll sustain me, as the weather unravels. As the days darken. So, I’m about to enumerate that bullshit for you, and I hope you’ll join me in the comments.

This is Monday Morning Commute!

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Sometimes the end is an ugly, horrid affair. Other times, the end can be beautiful. Which is how I’d like to frame the onset of Autumn, you know? View it more as an excuse to get comfy, hunker down with some arts&farts, and wait out this COVID calamity. ‘Cause the other perspective? Is being shut-in for six months or so, separated from the Old Ways and the Distanced Friends. So, fuck! Let’s be positive about everything, right? Or at least try.

This here is Monday Morning Commute! And, I’m about to list all the shit I’m enjoying this week Then, I hope you’ll join me in the comments section. What are you partaking in, this week? Got any dope horror movies lined up? Playing the new World of Warcraft patch? Got some music you’re rocking out to? I want to know!

Let’s spend some time together, as the sun sets earlier, and the beautiful end draws near.

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What’s up, slugs? Are you existing in a marmalade of twinkling optimism and oppressive anxiety? Or, is that just my bipolar ass? Either way, welcome! For me, it’s a gloomy-as-fuck Tuesday, following a long weekend. Which means that everything requires just a smidge more emotional energy than usual, and if I’m being honest, I feel as though everything costs more emotional energy for me than most.

That’s neither here nor there, though. I mean, right? That ain’t the point of this shit, Monday Morning Commute (on a Tuesday). No, no! Indeed, the point is to share what I’m anticipating and enjoying this specific week. Then, I hope you’ll join my ass in the comments.

Regal me, motherfuckers! Regal me with your own happenings! I beg. I plead. I demand.

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OL never dies, motherfucker! Even if I take five goddamn weeks off from a Monday Morning Commute. Like a goddamn bum! I’m here today, man. Trying to rally mind, body, and soul for a little interaction. How is everyone doing? It’s just a fucking cataclysmic year, even for those of us most fortunate. For example, yours truly.

The synapses may be rumbling along at a tepid pace. Zoom classes may absolutely fucking suck. But, I’ve still got a home, health, and a job. That’s a victory in most years, especially so in 2020.

Furthermore, it’s not like working from home doesn’t have its advantages. No commute! Getting to spend more time with Sam. And right now, I can glance out my windows and watch the leaves fall. Peaceful. As. Fuck.

Anyways folks, here I am. Per the function of this column, I’m about to run down what I’ve been enjoying as of late. You know, the shit that’s titillating, despite my depression, anxiety, and general fear of both The Future and the Now.

I hope you’ll join me in the comments!

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Salve, bitches! That’s Latin for “hello” and pretty much all I remember from four-years of taking that language. How is everyone these days? I hope you’re hanging in there, given, you know the circumstances. What circumstances? Throw a dart at a board of world topics. Whatever it lands on? That circumstance, among the others.

That said, ain’t doing too badly over here. Surfing these waning stages of summer both in terms of the weather, lifestyle, and vacation. As I’ve oft indicated, this is one of my favorite times of the year. However in many ways, it feels like a sort of holding pattern. I can sense that Fall and the semester are looming, which leads to a bit of anxiety. At the same time though, I got myself open evenings and late rises. It’s a liminal space, and it ain’t the worst place.

I know! Oh, god, do I know. Know what? That in about seven weeks I’m going to be looking back longingly on this specific moment in space-time. You know, as I’m buried under my first or second wave of papers to grade, with seasonal depression tag-teaming with my usual state of mental illness. Really just blasting my balls, the two of them taking turns. Occasionally teaming-up for an impressive tandem move.

Anyways, you all know the fucking rigmarole here. It’s Monday Morning Commute! What are you fuckers up to this week? What are you basking in, as the days grow shorter, the air grows colder, and Autumn begins to walk into the room?

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Hey, friends! Apologies for the tardiness! Mea culpa, mea dumb ass. I think I butchered the Latin there, but who knows. It’s a fucking dead language. Who is going to stop me? Motherfuckers buried under the rubble of Mount Vesuvius? Some nerd Latin scholar at University? Step-up bitches, and face a Superkick Party. Anyways, I’m genuinely sorry I’m dropping this MMC on a Tuesday.

In case you’re wondering why? Man, I’m fucking fighting it this week! Fighting what? Just a general sense of existential malaise. A sexier way of describing my various chemical imbalances compounded by the flat-out Dumpster Fire that is life in the United States  Just the act of sitting down and compiling words in a WordPress document seems pretty overwhelming. But, I’m here motherfuckers! Sometimes the act of just pushing through is helpful. You know? Maybe you know.

Anyways. Any-fucking-hoo, here we have Monday Morning Commute! Truth be told I’m digging a lot of shit these days, and these arts & farts are genuinely helping me through the week. So, I’ll drop them below, and I hope you’ll share your own collection of happenings and happiness-inducing activities in the comments.

This is Monday Morning Commute.

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Hey, friends! I know, Monday Morning Commute is a day late! But as my wife and I always say around that time of the month, “better late than not at all”, right? Here we are! Me kicking shit off crass as hell, which I suppose is par for my idiotic, juvenile course. How are you friends? Are you surviving the never ending Maelstrom of Cruelty and Resignation that is America in 2020? I hope so, dudes. I hope so. It ain’t easy, though! I’m feeling it lately.

From the privileged problems like not being able to go out to eat, to the more resonant ones like worrying about my job. My anxiety runs the whole gauntlet! Meanwhile, I suppose I’m just struggling with the loss of normalcy. I had a dream over the weekend that it was my first day back in the classroom after this whole son of a bitch runs its course. You know, to the extent that it ever will. COVID-19 is here forever in some form, baby! ‘Cause we all fucked up. But, man. That dream felt fucking good. I miss it, I genuinely do, the motherfucking classroom. My ass snapped awake, and there was just this melancholic-ass feeling in my guts.

I admit if my biggest sadness is not being able to teach in a classroom, I’m doing fucking well. Great, even. That said, it does register like a nut-punch to the existential nards that I’ll be teaching from home all Fall. Spring too, probably.

Anyways, enough caterwauling from this blubbering bitch. This is Monday Morning Commute! As probably all four of you know. Which means I’m about to give you a rundown of what I’m enjoying this week, what I’m looking forward to this week, and all of that other happy horseshit. Per usual, I hope you’ll join me in the comments. Ain’t gonna blame ya if you don’t, though!

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Hello, good friends! How is it going? Hope you’re staying healthy, hope you’re staying cool. There’s an absolute fucking monstrosity of a heat wave plastering the Northeast, and I’m realizing taking my daily two-mile walk was not the best idea. Said realization stemming from what can only be described as a scorched-ass feel from my unadorned cheeks. But, fuck! You know how it goes, dudes. I need my steps on the regular! Without a campus to canvas, it’s way too easily to let my pallid ass (a lot of me is tanned — my ass, and accompanying asshole? pale) fall into a sedentary lifestyle.

However, I’m paying the tab for it right now. A cruel mistress, nature happens to be. A beautiful one as well, though. What must be understood, what must be accepted, though — is she bargains with no one.

Anyways! Outside of a sun-raked skull-piece, I’m doing well. Today marks the true beginning of my pseudo-vacation. And dammit, I’m feeling better already. I’m sleeping, I’m more relaxed, Reality and All Its Horrors seem a bit more endurable. However,  I don’t know if it’s disappointing to know that this isn’t how I always feel, you know? Like, this certainly isn’t my typical disposition. Or rather, my disposition during the middle of the semester. That said, at the same time? Perhaps I wouldn’t appreciate these moments of placidity if they were the norm. That said, at the same-same-same time? That’s probably the perspective the Endless Behemoth of Industry and Cultural Commands To Hustle To Death want me to fall for!

Eh, what the fuck can you do? Enjoy the moment, motherfuckers. It’s really all that’s promised our asses, anyways.

This is Monday Morning Commute!

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