First Post - Alchemy

My name is Karl. I'm sort of a writer (I have couple of published books), and soon to be a father. I have ADHD and mild OCD. I run a small press called Excession Press with my wife, Whitney. 

The purpose of this thing is not to build a readership, or advertise, or any of that other shit. Its purpose is to try, really try, goddammit, to transmute my increasingly unhealthy appetite for social media into something beneficial. It's been years since I wrote a short story. My reading and writing habits have fallen off a cliff. Something has to be done to reprogram my brain. I figure, if I can make myself write on this thing everyday, without treating it like a marketing exercise, then maybe I can be the writer I once aspired to be. Because, right now, I don't feel like anybody. I feel like a fraud. 

So, let's get into it. I'm going to be a dad in January. How do I feel about that? Uh, pretty good! This is something I want. Something that Whitney and I did deliberately. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm scared shitless. Especially in these times, when my brain feels like it's leaking out of my head. But I can't wait to meet our son.

This pandemic is making me chubby. I used to go to the gym. Now I just do pushups every once in a while.

Our pug, Roxy, is almost 15 years old. She's having more trouble standing up and squatting to pee. I fear that her time left on this Earth is short. It's such a melancholy and terrible thing. 

I'm terrified of death. I've never lost a human that I truly love. But it'll happen someday. It has to. Everyone dies, and there's no returning from that oblivion. I don't believe in ghosts or spirits or souls - although Whitney and I have promised that we'll be ghost husband and ghost wife if there is something afterwards. 

On the other hand, it's comforting to know that our perception of time is an illusion. No past or future. I have already lived and already died. I am indelibly part of the universe, finite as my time is. I must not focus on that impending loss, for there is no way for me to mourn in advance. I must love what is immediately perceptible to me. Because there exists nothing else. Everything is already here.