Jonny Numb

What are you apologizing for?

Why are you apologizing?

You don’t need to apologize!

Is it wrong to think most people aren’t sincere when they utter the above phrases? I feel like they’re trying to spare your feelings – you’ve very obviously frustrated or disappointed someone, and they – usually in a flustered tone – give you one of those (supposedly) anger-curtailing standbys.

As if to say: “I really wanna strangle you right now, but these Magic Words will keep that impulse at bay!”

For many years – up into my 20s – I apologized for everything.

Anytime I frustrated someone: Sorry.

Anytime I did something that inconvenienced someone: Sorry.

If I took something as a joke that wasn’t (or vice versa): Sorry.

I think of that moment when the Ghostbusters are on their first paid job, and wreck a fancy hotel ballroom in the process. When Ray (Dan Aykroyd) accidentally brings down a chandelier and says, “I did that, I did that – it’s my fault!” with such childlike innocence, I relate so much.

Appy polly loggies.

Sorry became the go-to solution; a deflection from anticipated punishment; a word to make things “better” in the moment (even though it never did).

For a long time, I was a people pleaser.

Like all things, there’s a time and a place for being a people-pleaser (or, to be crude with it, an ass-kisser). It is not a full-time occupation, as it drains the life and vitality from you, and if you don’t discriminate toward the people you please, you wind up trying to please everyone – even those totally undeserving of it (there are too many assholes in this world, and don’t let any one asshole tell you otherwise) – and that’s no. Fucking. Good.

I’d apologize to people who had wronged me and in no way whatsoever deserved an apology. Now that’s fucked up!

But I guess the point of this post is: I feel the need to apologize to whomever is reading this.

Yes, that includes YOU.

This apology is going to come off like a list of excuses, so buckle up.

I went to Leipzig in early June, and while the experience – which will be documented in a series of future posts (I promise) – was good overall, I brought a case of Covid back to the States that was subsequently passed on to my S.O. The worst of the symptoms lasted maybe 72 hours, with the lingering after-effects (nasal and throat congestion; a hacking cough that refused to quit) going strong for an additional 2 weeks.

Needless to say, I don’t feel like doing much of anything when I’m feeling like shit. (And feeling like shit when you’re 44 is different than feeling like shit when you’re 14, if ya know what I mean…)

Another thing…

For the past couple months, I’d been on the maximum dose of Effexor (225mg), but noticed an emotional flatness that was causing me to shrug off projects and activities – even minor organizational tasks around the house (I’ll get around to that pile of stuff that’s been sitting next to my desk for months; it’s not a trip hazard yet!). My lack of motivation was palpable, the one thing I actually seemed to be feeling with any consistency.

Everything seemed insurmountable; everything felt like a demand with a hard deadline (that I was imposing upon myself); everything was just too fucking much.

I tried to settle back into prose writing…but I simply don’t have the patience or attention span anymore. I know some of you have liked reading my fiction in the past, but unless some sort of mental lever is pulled in my brain, I’m not apt to dedicate myself to a venture that’s going to end in incompletion and frustration over lost time. The days of me keeping myself up into the early hours of the morning, tapping keys over a story that simply refused to let go, are over. Sorry.

That said, there are several screenplays I’d like to write, and for whatever reason, that medium has always held my attention better than prose, especially in recent years. (Don’t ask me why – I have no idea. Maybe because I’d rather skip the “write-a-story-that-may-be-adapted-to-a-movie-someday” phase and go directly to the “write-a-script-that-may-be-a-movie-someday!” phase.)

After a med check with my doctor, it was decided that I would start on Wellbutrin as I weaned myself off Effexor (150mg for two weeks, followed by 75mg for two weeks). The new prescription had been recommended by our couples counselor after I explained my recent state of mind (or lack thereof). So far, the new med is working well – it supposedly provides an energy boost of which I am sorely in need.

I know I owe some of you reviews of things…or some kind of promotional aid. I apologize for this falling by the wayside. I know most of the people who know me know I don’t work fast, and how I tend to doubt and nitpick the life out of my writing before publishing. That said, I assure you these things are on my mind and will be completed…at some point. Hopefully before year’s end.

I am now attempting to view things in terms of what is within the realm of accomplishment (what can I see through from beginning to end?). I stalled out on that movie-reviews compilation which dates back to 2023 and is something else that became a mountain of hardened excrement that just seemed too smelly to traverse with any success. But I want to get back to that, as well.

There are good things afoot with people I know, and for that, I am thankful. You – yes, you – deserve it.

There are few people whose success I genuinely pull for, which makes their achievements all the more satisfying. Humility is a rare trait among artists these days – perhaps because “content” has superseded actual “art” – and I am therefore keen to promote those who refuse to make a clown-assed spectacle of themselves on social media for clicks.

But I realize I play a part in this, as well, and therefore have an obligation to do right by: artists whom I also value as friends; runners of nonprofits whose life’s work exhibits a degree of dedication that continues to inspire; and family members who look toward the future undaunted, despite any obstacles standing in the way.