John Paul Brammer

On being chronically single and my visit to the love psychic Yesterday, I stepped into a psychic’s reading room, hoping to address my difficulties with love. I dressed nicely, all in black, to emphasize my sorrows and silver hairs. I sat on a throne across from a young woman who was perched, catlike, on an identical throne. She had long hair and wore a university fleece. I wished she was older. Where was her turban? The lozenge-sized jewels on her gnarled fingers? The crystal ball?

Thank you for being a paid subscriber. It helps me live. A lot! No one has been right so far. About the end of the world, I mean. But it has to end somehow. Imagine the correct guess here: [ , and then . Ultimately, ]. Human life is a fine lace made of spun sugar. One wrong touch, it collapses. This would be true even if we weren’t insane. But we are. We have a sweet tooth. The world could end in any number of ways. The moon, known for its placidity, suddenly becomes hostile, for example.

Your paid support goes directly to replacing my laptop lol thank you If it’s true no one reads anymore, you’d think there’d be fewer writers. But there are a lot of them. Hundreds of articles about what it means to be a writer are published every day. How to do it. How not to do it. Meanwhile, I’m told, our society is slouching toward illiteracy.

Your paid support makes my writing possible. Thank you. Narcissus didn’t fall in love with himself, but with his reflection. There’s a difference. “Inopem me copia fecit,” he laments. “Abundance has made me poor.” He wastes away with everything he wants right in front of him. I have a primal fear of being photographed. Someone angles a phone camera at me, and I duck like they’ve pulled a gun. I’ve told people I don’t like having my picture taken, that it makes me anxious, that it’s painful, even.

Buy me chowder. Hello from Dublin. The longer I keep a journal, the less I want to write about myself, and the more I want to write about strangers. Not because I think I’m uninteresting, but because it’s interesting for a person to find other people interesting, and the worst thing you can be in your own journal is boring. It was keeping a journal that revealed this unintuitive fact; that it’s the things that seem totally unremarkable at the moment that are the gems.

Your paid support makes my writing possible. Thank you. It speaks to a deep spiritual inadequacy in me that I’m not a sports fan. What the average beer-bellied football enthusiast is capable of doing from his recliner on a Sunday afternoon is nothing short of astral projection in my book. When I look at what’s keeping me from enjoying sports, it looks an awful lot like what’s keeping me from escaping samsara. I’m a smarmy materialist.

Please help me recoup my losses from these IMAX tickets. Please! Bear Week in Provincetown. Last night, I had the privilege of viewing The Odyssey the way it was meant to be viewed: on the largest IMAX screen in the country, with merlot, a cup of Dippin’ Dots, and three friends. Very traditional. I discovered today that I could have sold these $30 tickets for something like $4,000. It’s all getting to such a point, and I wonder how much longer I can endure.

Thank you for being a paid subscriber. “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” The most impressive thing Jesus did. The fish and loaves thing looks like catering in comparison. I’d find a way to walk on water before I forgave. I don’t think I’ve ever genuinely, earnestly forgiven anyone. Not of my own will. I’ve forgotten. I’ve pretended until time did it for me.Deciding to forgive someone? Choosing to? I wonder if it can be done.

Your paid support makes my writing possible. I regularly read on the subway. Physical books. Increasingly, these books are leatherbound tomes. I’m at high risk of someone sneaking a photo of me and posting it online with a caption like “Look at bro seeking occultic wisdom in the grimoire… you are not a vibe my guy.” Plus, my fit will probably be trash. “Performative reading” is an allegation of inauthenticity.

Thank you for being a paid subscriber. I’m around the age that features in marriage pacts between teenaged besties. “Okay, if both of us are still single by 35…” I made some of these pacts myself, which says something about being young. I thought 35 was impossible. No one was 35. I didn’t know anything. I’m supposed to want to go back to that brain? My body doesn’t ache nearly enough to trade wisdom for youth! I imagine this will change. “Still.” A nauseating word. Mosquitoes lay their eggs in it.