It’s mainly about

trying to forget it all happened, now. But all these bulging stomachs keep reminding me. Everyone is fat, I don’t even recognize some of my friends. Then there’s the friends. I depended on them so much during lock down -- needing them desperately-- which is all part of my abandonment complex, which  lock down put into warp speed. I think a couple of them are now scared of me —' Is Sky being clingy and needy again?' You see I got into the habit of urgently filling my life during lock down, planning weeks ahead what will I be doing at every moment?  I’ve always been a 'scheduler' and the fear was — I tried to explain this to my partner and he totally didn’t understand (that’s why I’m calling him my ‘partner’ today) -- the way my life was organized in the past, was I drank to — well nearly to --  but not completely, to — oblivion, two nights a week, and the rest of the week I was home watching CNN, writing, feeding the cat, and arguing with but sometimes loving (though arguing can be loving) my partner. That worked for about 20 odd years (and they were odd). Suddenly the spectre of every night is empty lay before me. I realize now that the reason previously I was able to endure five nights a week of no drinking, and oh yes this is very important -- 5 nights of no promiscuous sex -- was because I had the other two nights of the week to be a crazy drunken slut. I know this pre-COVID-19  life plan might sound unhinged -- but all of my therapists approved of it. They said — 'Hey if it works for you, then go ahead!'  So then the wrench got thrown into the works, that is I got hit hard by tet COVID-19 wrench and suddenly weekends spent drinking with a friend and not getting laid just didn't hack it. So okay, yes I admit it.  All alone in my room in Toronto (what could be more sad?) late at night every Friday and Saturday I would jerk off with the help of poppers and porn. It was poppers I was looking forward to, all week, really. (It's my drug of choice). But weekdays became difficult too, because poppers filled my nose but -- to be pathetically poetical -- not the hole in my soul. At home during the week, my worst fantasy was that at I might end up siting in my room staring at the walls at 11 pm wondering ‘why is there air?' (that’s a quote from Bill Cosby, sorry). So I would work furiously in the evenings until quite late at night. And yes I have managed to write most of a book, and far too many blogs. But it all had to be scheduled, every moment, and if I went off my schedule I panicked. So the trick now is, abandoning my abandonment issues, as there is now a shitload of stuff to look forward to (yes sex and even plays, maybe). So I threw the poppers out the window. I made a pact years ago never to buy them, and to rarely use them even when offered, as they rot your brain and are the same as huffing cleaning products under the sink. So can you see why many of us don’t take kindly to all  you self-righteous masked do-gooders warning us ‘there will probably be another lock down?” I really couldn’t care less about my or anyone else’s physical health, when our mental health is at stake. And the kids! I can’t imagine! When you see another fat belly jiggling by just imagine it's the brains and emotions of those kids bouncing up and down, locked in a their rooms when they should be running free, more lonely, more alone, than you and I could ever imagine, because for them it feels like forever. Perhaps my popper confession; was just too much? My unsavoury drug addiction? My masturbatory habits? It’s all I can offer; it's the way I crucify myself for you. It's the least I can do as an artist  i.e. strip myself naked emotionally -- because hey, your life isn’t easy, either, I’m sure. Speaking of which, if you want to see a very witty non-artist pretending to be an artist, watch Bo Burhnam’s Inside. It’s squeaky clean and politically correct, although he does get three-quarters-naked a couple of times (he has a lovely treasure trail leading to….?) and he -- somewhat like me -- also endlessly castigates himself. But Bo, if you’re going to put yourself down, you need to talk about having a popper addiction and jerking off to porn alone in a dark Toronto flat. If the best self-criticism you can come up with is ‘I’m a white person and I feel guilty, and know I should shut up, but frankly I just care too much’ well you need to go back to your electric piano and start over. Getting popcorn at the movie theatre before Inside -- there were only 3 other people there (you can watch it on Netflix. I just wanted to go to a movie theatre, because I can) -- was a lonely little family. A fat mother and her two fat sons.The sons were of indeterminate age but teenagers basically, and probably gender fluid. I had to stand behind them as I was waiting to get to the mustard for my hot dog (they were taking an enormous amount of time picking out toppings). Passing my time gazing their giant backsides scared the hell out of me. This is the youth of today, living with mom, fat, gender indeterminate, depressed about everything, generously accepting apologies ('No worries!'), nurturing their inner victim, and hoping they never have to do anything or live in the world-- or god help them -- lose weight.  I don’t want people to be fat. I know, you think I’m shaming them. It’s about COVID-19, okay?  I never thought I’d say it, but that crazy lady Marjorie Taylor Greene did utter one wise thought (yes she did, bad people can say good things, i.e. I agree with Trump on free speech) when she said -- "Instead of doing all these crazy lock downs, people should lose some weight!" It's difficult to hear, but most of the people who die of COVID-19 are overweight. The fact that this crazy Qanon wingnut got booted off twitter for saying that just means… beware, everyone. When speech and thought become  crimes they will  be drawing outlines of all our bodies on the pavement. We need to say and think whatever we like honey! On pain of death, or just on having having to read a solipsistic, narcissistic diatribe like this.