I woke up in the middle of the night rebounding off a bunch of anxiolytics I’d taken the day before. I was pissed off and SELF PISSED cuz I had finally gone a day without adding drinking to the mix as well.

I’d made it through the last part of the day by pulling out one of my old samplers and was making a pretty sick dark beat on it cuz I’m warming up to start posting on the trans music prod community. Then my sampler locked up and I lost my work and I got mad and frustrated and sad, went to bed early, woke up 4 hours later.

I’d made it to midnight. I chilled, I re-listened to some podcasts a couple times. Might’ve posted I can’t remember. Eventually I was like "technically I made it the 24 hours without drinking, and smashed two ciders back to back along with another dose to try and knock me the fuck out to try again another day.

But it didn’t work.

I decided to ride to the local park and listen to some dark music on a bluetooth speaker and drink, out in the night with the clear skies and stars shining and maybe just cry. Or maybe meet fellow freaks of the night. I went armed because you never know.

I tried to take my dog but he hasn’t run with me with the bike in ages and he only got so far before I realised he was not happy and I parked up, left my jacket, helmet and bike and got him home, made sure his paws weren’t injured etc. Nah, he just wasn’t feeling it. I get it lil bro.

But so I had to run back to the park to get to my bike cuz dawn was about to break and I didn’t want my franken e-bike to get jacked, nor my expensive jacket etc. Made it back just in time, passed an elderly lady on the way there, gave her a gentle “behind you” as I was moving fast to get to my bike and didn’t want to ninja up on her and give her a heart attack, so she turned and we exchanged quick pleasantries and I got to my bike. All good.

Anyway, she caught up while I was getting myself situated and I said Hi to her again and we chatted for a while. She had big S.C.U.M energy for a woman in her late 70s. I mean, I wasn’t even the one who brought it up nahmean? She was a multiple-time survivor of men. Somehow it just came up and I patted my pocket and said “yeah there’s a reason I have to keep a blade on me” and she held her chin up and placed a finger on her jugular, said “you just have to hit em here love.”

We chatted for a while, opined on what a shame it is when people miss the opportunity for a neighborly chat etc, and we went our separate ways.

I’d nearly made it back to the road when I was like “nah” turned around and caught back up with her. I told her, “hey, I was in a really dark place when I left the house earlier. plans to go be stupid on top of stupid. you’ve made my morning and alleviated my night I just wanted to say a sincere thank you and let you know you’ve made my day a lot better”

She said “well, no shit, you’ve made my day a lot better too” so I was like “mind if we walk together?” and so we did, chatting while she detoured to feed the native birds etc. We bonded over a few different things, exchanged fairly wild opinions and found ourselves in perfect agreement in practice on a lot, if not the particulars of our principles.

Eventually I decided I wasn’t gonna take up more of her time, said goodbye and that I hope we meet again. Zipped home. Megadosed and passed out for the rest of the sleep I needed.

Now this is just one oddball story of a particularly bad night. But I do this a lot. I live in an area with a lot of retirees. I make a point to say hello, etc. We’re kinda country town like that even if it’s big enough to be pretty anonymous if you need to be.

Mostly I find myself interacting more and more with the boomer generation and finding real fucken gems.

I joke about DotP once in a while. My own parents are “aight” but y’know, family’s complicated. But I like a lot of these people, from a time before the internet, who grew up before a lot of tech and with interesting stories and an openness to just having a yarn.

I dunno why I’m posting this.