I’m officially seeing a therapist for the first time in my life. I’m pretty annoyed with myself for waiting so long, but better late than never, I suppose. I saw a counselor for a brief time in my early twenties, toward the end of a mild-to-moderate depressive phase. Talking to someone who hadn’t already heard all my complaints a million times helped a lot, so after three or four sessions, I started to feel a little better and more hopeful, and then my dumb 22 year old brain was all like “I’m cured!” and then I stopped going. Next thing I know more than a quarter-of-a-century has passed, but much to my surprise, life never stopped happening that whole time.

Celebrated American author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) liked to draw tombstones with profound and/or funny epitaphs. Based on my exhaustive research (which consisted of googling “Kurt Vonnegut tattoos” and perusing the first page), this one from 1969’s Slaughterhouse Five is probably the most well-known of his tombstones, which makes sense, as Slaughterhouse Five is his most well-known novel.

This tombstone drawing is my favorite. It’s from Breakfast of Champions (1973), which is the first Vonnegut book I read, and which remains my favorite. His drawings helped me feel more confident about drawing whatever I feel like drawing, and about not getting hung up on my lack of artistic abilities.

Thing is, when I look back on my life, I see a lot of examples of me simply not trying, and if I may use the parlance of my childhood, that’s dumber’n hell. I’ll get interested in something until it gets difficult, and then I’ll just quit.

One Example: my homeboy Travis taught me how to play an E-minor chord on my first guitar, and later he managed to both figure out a slower version of the opening riff from Helmet’s “In the Meantime” and pass his knowledge on to me, but eventually my hands started to hurt, so I stopped trying.

Another example: Travis got a set of drums, and I got a bass, along with a practice amp and a Boss DS-1 distortion pedal.¹ We made a hell of a racket in my parents’ garage for a while, and we had a couple of our buddies jam with us on guitar while we tried to build a complete band that could maintain a tune for at least a couple of minutes. At some point I heard “Maxwell Murder” by Rancid, and then I decided I didn’t wanna play bass anymore because there was no possible way I’d ever be as good as Matt Freeman.

A third example: I owned an electric keyboard/synthesizer the whole time I owned my guitar and my bass. I figured out how to play “Hot Cross Buns” all up and down the keyboard by jabbing one key at a time, like when Schroeder is fed up with Lucy’s nonsense.

I was able to morph “Hot Cross Buns” into “Mary Had a Little Lamb” pretty easily. I fucked around with the presets every now and then (“Bossa Nova” was my favorite), but after a while I always got tired of not knowing how to play it, so back under the bed or into the closet it would go, until I finally gave it away about ten years ago.

One more example: learning how to deal with life in healthy ways takes effort, and so I quit trying to learn. Fuck that. I’m learning now. And I’m gonna crack the nut that is my anxiety if it’s the last thing I do.

Speaking of non sequiturs, the state of this cursed timeline we inhabit has got me feelin some ways lately that I’ve been unable to put into words, so I’ve been sketching, doodling, and kind-of drawing more these past few months. I’ve always been a picture doodler, and later, when I got into heavy metal, I became a band logo doodler as well. My journals are full of doodles, dating back to the one I had to keep as an assignment in fifth grade, but it’s been awhile since I’ve been more artsy than fartsy in my journals. When it comes to drawing, I very much do not consider myself an artist, but I’ve definitely gotten better over the years, just I would’ve gotten better at the guitar, the bass, the piano/keyboards, the trumpet, and all the other shit I’ve given up on due either to lack of natural aptitude or lack of positive attitude.²

What I’m trying to say is that I’m tired of not trying, and I’m tired of acting like I have to be good at something to bother with doing it.

Speaking of which, I’m gonna share some of my drawings and doodles from the past few months. Maybe you’ll like them, maybe you won’t. All I know is I’m gonna keep making them for as long as I enjoy it, and I’ll probably share more of them here at some point, but maybe I won’t.

Without further ado…

I started writing this thing on January 24, with the Vonnegut stuff, and I had no idea where I was gonna go with it. I’ve opened the file a few times over the past nine days and revised and rewritten and added and deleted and cut and pasted and proofread and almost published, but today, right now, I’ve decided to quit fuckin around and just mash that “Publish” button already. It’s not like more than a handful of people are gonna read it anyway.

I still don’t really know where I’m going with it, but I’m gonna call it finished. I’m sorry if you were expecting a tidy conclusion, or an obvious unifying theme. You’re rarely gonna get either of those with me. If there’s a takeaway, I suppose it might be that five decades in, I’m finally ready to start really facing my fears. I intend to document the process here as much as possible. If you wanna check back in and follow along, that’d be cool. I’ll be here either way. Thanks for reading.

1. I thought playing bass would be easier, because I wouldn’t have to learn chords. I’ve always been something of a dingus. ↩︎
2. Bonus example: two completely different times in my life, I’ve started painting, and then quit almost immediately because I don’t know how to recreate the things exactly the way I see them in my head. ↩︎