#reznor

Yet some people I follow or encounter whether I want to or not make entire personalities about meeting Trent, NIN a few months ago, like every day it’s some post, some memory, some reminder, some “story.”

I wouldn’t meet him anyway, but it’s not about that. It’s just — I’m tired of overthinking everything I share, always wondering about my impact, whether something could hurt someone. Make them feel bad.

I’m always analyzing myself, what I do, what I say. Self-editing, holding back for someone’s sake, making myself small, feeling bad for even the 1s and 0s where I take up space.Always performing some mental calculus, feeling I always take away more than I give.

Some people were never taught that, or never needed to, or don’t think about it, or don’t care, or it never occurred to them, not yet, maybe never will.

Post your post, it’s your life. No one is responsible for my feelings or reactions.

But I’m tired of feeling responsible, since I was aware, since I became self-aware. I wish I had a cool story, too, bro. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel this way, maybe I wouldn’t have been made to feel this way — that I have to manage everything, even people’s emotions. Even the ones I didn’t put there, can’t control, have and had nothing to do with me.

My mom used to call it walking on eggshells. Always treading carefully, never wanting to accidentally step on any toes, any brittle shells. She said living at home was like that, and it was. No making noise, no asking to lower the volume. Don’t bother anyone, don’t ask for anything, don’t do even some tiny thing that could set someone off who was already mad or wanted to be. Who was “looking for a fight.”

Yet the eggshell was not brittle, it was a lot bigger and stronger than us, and didn’t worry about taking up space, making us feel things, see things, hear things. About stepping on anything, breaking anything brittle.

Always reminded us, “this is my house. I pay for it.”

the way my book about nin or phm specifically would ball so hard it wouldn’t be funny

actually it would be funny bc I’m funny

but shit’s not gonna be written one letter at a time on an iPhone keyboard with one finger while in the fetal position clutching my head

can’t sit at a desktop

don’t have any industry connections anymore

I even know the guy who wrote the other book

tons of music journos and historians and archivists and cultural commentators and editors

names and numbers for the 90s photographers

but they don’t talk to me anymore

don’t respond

I’m a virtual nobody now

couldn’t sit through drafts and revisions

nope

I vomit out words through my fingertip and never look at it again or have time or energy to edit it or make it linear or

I just press post

that’s all I can do

but it would have been good