Oh man. This is the berries. This is the berries glazed with a thick coat of awesomeness. The creator of Mr. Robot, Sam Esmail, is going to be bringing his auteur-ass-baller-vision to the director chair for every single episode of the show’s second season.

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Ah, autumn. Brings with it apparently the hottest day of the fucking year here in Massachusetts tomorrow. But also! The usual meanderings. Football is back, praise the Elder Ones. School is back, praise the Old Things. And with school being back comes my typical beginning-of-the-semester renunciation of caffeine. To an extent. I’ll level with you — I have to get up at 7 am. And while many call that “normal”, I call that “an hour and forty-five minutes before I’m used to.” With the knowledge that I must RISE~ earlier, I’m trying to scale back my caffeine consumption. So I can go to bed at an earlier time. Let me tell you — I still have enough caffeine in my blood to stop your heart twice over — but goddamn if my skull ain’t pounding. My jaw clenching. My eyes twitching. My detox is your overdose, but I’m going to make it through.

I hope.

Anyways! This here is Monday Morning Commute. That means I’m about to list the various activities, arts, comics, and cool happenings I’m looking forward to this week. After I’m done babbling about my poor choices (though I will admit I’m sweating a couple of things this week v. much), you share own weekly interests.

Let’s do this! With clenched jaws and slightly less prominent heart palpitations!

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I’ve spent the last week wondering what the fuck I’m doing. Let me tell you — the life of an adjunct is brutal. I stand a mere seven days away from starting a semester, and I don’t know what classes I’m teaching. How many, what time, their subject level. And I stand and I gaze into myself and I wonder why I put myself through such rigors. Every semester. The answers are obvious but when you’re stressed, when you have a haunting sense of not pulling your share of the financial weight, when you have a new mortgage, they seem to evaporate before they have any chance of distilling into anything appreciable.

Lord, I don’t know.

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Welcome to Monday Morning Commute, my friends. I’m going to spare you my usual Fusillade of Verbosity for the week. ‘Cause honestly I have a bit of a headache, and the SpiritsVapors are burning out in my synapses quicker than I anticipated. Don’t snort them, Caff. The GraveBits are tired. You will metabolize them too quickly. You know better! You know better. And I do. But when you’re tired, and you got a bit of the sludge-blood, what else can you do?

You can lay down.

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I am no great leader of men. I am not good at planning, or issuing commands. For many that may be difficult to admit, but I find leaning into your strengths and acknowledging your weaknesses is the best route. I am no great leader of men, but I’m certainly quite adept at being their right hand man. I think this is one of the reasons I get along with my wife, Sam. She is an Alpha-Human, designed to implement designs. Bend reality to her will. And I’m there to. You know. Make her laugh at the end of a long day of being professional and powerful and whatever. I can’t budget, I can’t conceive of running conferences like her. But when she’s hungry I can get her a bagel. Listen, it’s not the most glamorous life. But when you’ve caught the tail of a brilliant, gorgeous comet, you play to your strengths.

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They didn’t know they were already dead. Carl and Martina had been chosen to pilot the last space-ship on Mars onto the Asteroid. They were supposed to till the Helium to power the rest of the Martians home to Europa.

They didn’t they were already dead. Some fatal flaw within the wiring, some poor-man’s rigging of This or That combustible chemical dispenser was waiting for that first thrust post-orbit to vaporize Carl. To vaporize Martina. To vaporize their hopes of getting everyone home.

They didn’t know they were already dead. As the Martians stared at the faint silver glimmer that was their doomed space-ship taking flight, puncturing the skin of the atmosphere to leave for the Asteroid, they felt hope for the first time since they could remember. The entire planet cobbled together the materials for the space-ship. The entire planet’s intellect poured into reimagining a type of vessel not used for decades. The entire planet’s hopes, literally, ham-handedly symbolically, invested into the space-ship.

They didn’t know they were already dead.

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To perceive oblivion is to invite your own doom. Ignore Yog-Soggoth’s dark, piercing clarion call. Turn your eyes away from his enticements. Do the same for the other Elder Ones. They whisper promises that shall only fill their bellies with your psychic-vomit, as your ears bleed and your ocular holes find themselves filled to the brim with gelatinous, former-eyes. Yeah, I know. It’s a letdown. The limitations of our meat-sacks. But hey! Until the great Transhumanism Movement of 20XX, we can spend our time bound in these rot-vessels together! Hanging out at the Weekend Open Bar.

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It’s fucking July 24th! That can only mean one thing! My summer class is done! It’s fucking Friday! That can only mean one thing! I’m done with work for the week! It’s fucking Weekend Open Bar! That can only mean one thing! It’s time to gather in this column with fellow denizens of the Space-Ship OMEGA. Share what you’re doing this weekend!

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Roberta knew falling in love with Clauius, the thick-poled Cyborg was a mistake. He could see Infinity, perceive The All. His pistons would (practically) never age. His psyche could only expand. But still. Those eyes. That class. And don’t get me wrong. Clauius knew that falling in love with Roberta was a gamble only a foolish Flesh-Sack would make. She would age. Certainly, he was not immune to Entropy. But by the Circuitry Above, he could practically watch her decay happen in real-time. And when he sped up his relativistic perceptions, he did. But those eyes. And that brain. And so fell they love. Her programming and his programming (programmed by her programming) too much to overcome. For a moment, they will Find a Way. And for a moment we all Find a Way. There be romance, and mundanity, and hurt, and humping, and a cadre of other experiences. Most of them banal, some of them transcendent.

This is Monday Morning Commute | The arts, farts, blips, and blops that I look forward to during a given week. Share what you’re looking toward to. Join the community. Share your highlights, your misery.

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