A World on Fire

I’m changing my clothes before bed while I’m thinking I will watch Louis Tomlinson’s shows in London/Wembley and Doncaster. Those might be my final concert streams for a while as I take a couple of vacations to clear my head. I’m going to Hawaii soon and Italy in September, where I plan to finish two books in the works — the mainstream ones under my other name. I also plan to exorcise an obsession that started in January just after Amazon suggested I wanted to watch a former boy-bander music concert on the BBC. What followed drove me to Twitter and You Tube and an odd obsession so I wrote a book about it. Then I unpublished it because I thought the book was even more unhinged… But everything seems unhinged lately.

While there’s a part of me that wishes I could quit them (remember Brokeback Mountain?) for the sake of my sanity, I can’t. I’ve tried. But I have forbidden myself from looking at Twitter in the middle of the night. Problem is I need to look at my phone to see what time it is, so I know how much I haven’t slept.

…

All the laughs I got this year discovering gay romance genres and tropes are ringing in my head.

All the sweetness and joy I got this year from listening to the music of two men, I came to understand by accident, lays softly in my heart.

All the while, I realize there’s a country on fire. Innocent people have died. I feel bad about climbing into a comfortable bed. I feel like I should sleep on the floor so that my back will hurt in the morning.

As always has been and I suppose will continue to be, someone is toasting with champagne and sleeping in soft sheets, while someone is trying to sleep and comfort their crying children in an auditorium full of people to escape bullets.

Someone is grieving a tragic death while someone is tasting love on the tip of their tongue.

Someone is suffering abuse while someone is standing at the edge of blue water breathing in the ocean air.

Realities are colliding in my head.
And my heart is breaking.
And I realize above all else today
time is short.
Don’t let love get away.

Excerpt from Laugh. Stream. Sleep. Repeat., the book I was writing when I was distracted by Amazon to watch a music concert that pushed me into deep and sometimes dark rabbit holes. But in the end. Thank you.