I slept about 8 hours. Crazy dreams I can’t remember now. I’ve been working on my website for about 7 hours. I uploaded about 100 poems and a few movie reviews. I want to continue but I should get away from my computer. I’m going to shower and get ready – possibly go for a walk.
Aaron should be getting home tonight. He’s been gone since Monday.
“As You Cry Out in the Night”
I didn’t get to sleep until after 4am this morning. I tried. But it just wasn’t happening. Eventually I needed to have a snack and I also gave in and took an Ambien, because I didn’t think I’d get to sleep until tonight otherwise. That’s just how my brain works sometimes, and that’s why I have sleeping pills in the first place.
I slept until noon, so about 8 hours. I didn’t really wake feeling rested. It was raining and though I didn’t have a migraine, I could still feel the storm and it had me a little on edge. I tried to distract myself with more work on my website. I started working on three different pages but quickly realized I wouldn’t be finishing any of them today so they’re just drafts – which is fine, but when I publish something there’s a sense of satisfaction that I’ve completed something, and I didn’t get that today.
I have kidney stones. I mean, I’ve passed 7 or 8 of them in my life and I’ve had a stone in each of my kidneys for at least 3 years. Every now and again one of them moves and there’s a lot of pain and a lot of being on edge – and that is also happening today. I’m taking the medication I was given for these events and I’m drinking way more fluid than I usually do (because fluids can make it difficult for me to keep anything down), but that definitely isn’t helping with my mood.
What has helped is that my friend Nicole did a deep dive on my site and gave me some meaningful feedback. I didn’t expect her to delve into the photo section but not only did she take a look, she looked at a lot and had very positive things to say. And again, I didn’t expect any of that. Creating this site has been wonderful for my mental health, but it has also been a challenge because I’m used to telling my family what I’m working on and I think they might take issue with me having what I see as an artistic expression, but which could honestly also be described as pornographic. I mean, there are a lot of photos of me fucking, and it takes a certain level of detachment to see that and celebrate it as a personal victory rather than a cause of gossip and concern? One of my dear, straight male friends once looked through my photo galleries on my old website while he was on the phone with me and had a perfectly wonderful conversation with me about this or that thing and not only do I (clearly) still remember the talk, I cherish it to this day.
I listened to Cutting Crew’s “The Broadcast” album the other day. I don’t really connect overly much with any of their songs, despite liking them a lot; they just don’t seem to be singing about anything that really matters. But emotionally, the songs matter a great deal to me because this is one of the musical gifts that I got from my sister Janice. She would often give me music themed gifts for Christmas and my birthdays as it was something we both loved. I would mention in passing that I liked this or that song and she would listen, remember and get me what I wanted. And it was always a surprise. I never dropped hints to get those gifts, I was just being honest in the moment. Anyways, I was just singing the title song in the shower so that’s today’s jam.
I hope the weather improves soon. I would really like to get out more this week, which won’t be difficult as I barely left the apartment in the week ending today.
I need to request refills for a couple of medications. I should message Nicole back. And then I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I might try to sleep tonight because I’m already very tired, but that might not be the easiest thing given what happened last night / this morning. I should definitely keep drinking water though. I should have had a smoothie earlier.
Oh. They released the first teaser trailer for the penultimate season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Season 4 will air weekly from July 23 – September 24. Season 5, the 6 episode final season of the series will likely air sometime next year, along with the 10 episode final season of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. And after that, well, it doesn’t seem likely that we’ll have Star Trek back on streaming / television in the near future. There is a film in development, but who knows how long that might take or what the story might entail? Not me.
“Dreaming and Sleep”
I should have gone to bed hours ago, but I needed a shower. And I do some of my best thinking in the shower. And I was thinking about all these interesting things and I thought I might like to write about them. So I did. And I put some artwork together and posted it here. And then I posted it on Facebook. And now I’m writing about doing those things, which is probably redundant.
Shawn Foreman sent me a friend request on Facebook. I didn’t approve it right away because I assumed it was a hack as we’ve been friends on Facebook for years, but when I looked, we were not friends anymore, so I’m assuming this is the real deal. We’ll see. I should let him know that Goth Boy is back.
I’m very tired and I don’t think I’ll need anything to sleep, but if I do, that’s fine. I did not go outside yesterday. I got ready. I shaved. But I didn’t need to go anywhere and my energy levels felt off, so I didn’t go out. The only reason that bothers me is that I’ve not been out since Monday and I don’t want to fall back into bad habits. I did however get a lot done on my website. And I also got to catch up with Aaron on the phone, which was nice.
Time for sleep.
“And Go Into the West”
1
Disparaged Gilgamesh
forsakes the raging scars of scorn.
As marriage of the flesh
takes the stage and we are born.
Archived in the symbol’s light
that mends us when we’re broken.
Our lives are but a single night
that ends before we’ve woken.
A night of savage
strain
that’s part discomfort;
part despair.
A right of passage
(PAIN)
that’s hard to comfort
without prayer.
But the tributes that they spoke
were only lies about the queers.
Distributing the woke
with open eyes to shed their tears.
2
They prayed to feed the hunger –
wasn’t heard in all the chatter.
They say that I look younger
but it doesn’t really matter.
I’m older than I was
and I will be ’till I’m dead.
A bolder man because
I still believe in what was said.
The fairytales and prayers
are pretty stories
as we age…
The marriage failed –
affairs are pitied glories
on the stage…
And the words we speak…
the lies enmeshed in flesh are all but finished.
We fade away to seek
the guise of Gilgamesh diminished.
Written By Jason Wright
April 25, 2026
As I write now, I think I may start taking notes of what I was thinking about when I wrote because I’m uploading many poems from my archives and many of them don’t say what they’re about, and having written thousands of them, over several decades, I don’t always remember what I was thinking or feeling. I also often dedicated a poem to someone and only wrote their first names, and I often can’t remember who this or that person was, so I’m probably going to put that in context moving forward.
As for this piece, I was thinking about how people often tell me that I look younger than I am, which is nice, but I let it fool me for awhile, that because I looked younger, then I actually was younger. But I’m not. I’m still as old as I am. And assuming there are no issues with my health or an accident or whatever, I’m still that much closer to dying. Bodies only last for so long. And as I wrote that down I started thinking about religion, myth, prayer, how homophobia pushes many people away from religion, and how for a time I had really horrible night terrors having to do with imagining death – both my own and / or Aaron’s. I’ve worked on the latter and while I expect it will possibly crop up again, it doesn’t haunt me quite as much as it once did. The title is a veiled reference to the diminishment of Gilgamesh, via Galadriel in the Lord or the Rings: “I pass the test. I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.”
“You’re On Your Own Now”
I got to bed before 2am last night. I had no trouble getting to sleep, but in part that was likely due to this being an Ambien night. I’ve been really good about not taking them every night, but the nights I do it works really well, so I do look forward to those nights. I woke up with a headache but it was raining and this is likely why.
I got up and had a smoothie. I’ve been having smoothies almost every day for at least a month and probably more. I replaced ice cream in my diet with these concoctions and I’m sure it’s been beneficial. I had some garlic bread last night but most of the day I snacked on blueberries, olives, nuts and seeds, with water and a smoothie. I think I might have had a yogurt as well. I still get potato chips now and again; I love the taste but I’ve noticed that I don’t enjoy how they make me feel, physically, which is new. I used to eat them every day. Now I get them maybe twice a month. All of which is to say that I think I’m probably healthier than I’ve been in a long while. That mixed with the therapeutic nature of this website (which I’ve been working on for about 20 days) + getting out a bit more than in the past, will surely have benefits to my life moving forward.
I uploaded some old LGBTQ movie reviews to the blog. Moving everything here is a lot of work and may well take me years, but there’s a great deal of satisfaction sharing things here that were either on a drive somewhere or only displayed on the increasingly toxic Facebook, which certainly gives me peace of mind.
It’s 11 am. I have TV to watch but I’m not really in the mood. I might work on the website some more, but I expect I’ll need a break soon. The rain stopped hours ago and the sun seems to be out. I just checked and it’s a lot cooler out than yesterday with a high of 64, but perhaps I’ll go for a walk. I haven’t been outside since Monday.
“Buried By Desires and Weakness”
I slept about 6 hours last night. I felt rested. When I got up I started working on a Marvel multiverse viewing order for my website but it’s slow going as I’m having to do the art and fill in information that I didn’t have before. I made a lot of progress though. But I’m struggling with something that has been bothering me for awhile, trying to figure out how to highlight essential elements vs. items included strictly for completionism. I’m also including (or want to include) supplemental materials for a more enriched experience, but I don’t know how to list those things in a cohesive manner. So, unlike other lists and entries I don’t have the pay off of publishing it because I’m not even close to being finished, so it’s just a saved draft for now.
And that sucked up hours of my day, which I hadn’t planned for. It seems beautiful out but I’m struggling with a migraine now, and the energy I had yesterday seems completely depleted. My own weaknesses are cropping up and I hate it. I’m not sure what’s going on with me today exactly, except that one of my new medications tends to stay in my system longer than I think it should. But it’s also helping me to not take Ambien every night and I only have 4 more doses so this problem will pass in time.
In the last 24 hours I’ve also tried to make notes about a possible third entry in my Sex Essays. I have tons of material to write about but I haven’t yet found a framework for the next entry; there’s no contextual outline or structure that might eventually entrap the next tale into a consistently harmonious telling. Once I find something, I’ll know, and it will likely flow relatively quickly. That’s how the first two entries worked, even if I did write them almost 10 years apart. I definitely want to get more written in the coming weeks and months.
Also, my conversations with Michael yesterday left me feeling a bit confused. There are elements of that relationship that have stayed with me ever since. Some of that is PTSD, which I have failed to conquer, although I have identified most of that and explained it to Aaron and my friends and family, so they can understand my reactions to things that seem like red flags, and they are, but they are warning signs for something that actually happened about 15 years ago, rather than anything that’s happening now. Part of me is stuck back there and despite my best efforts I just can’t free myself from that mess. The other part is a complicated sexual component that predates my 2 year relationship with Michael, but was greatly amplified by my experiences with him and then continued on long after we parted. It’s something that I’ve tried very hard to explore and understand, and sometimes I feel that I do. I feel like the work of understanding these things is important and that had I not tried I would have suffered more. I wish I had the foresight to have explored these elements of my personality years before, but I can only try my best. I will continue to explore this topic. Just talking about it here, it’s clear that there is much to write about, and perhaps that could help as well. I’m just not sure if I have any concrete conclusions to highlight in such a piece. But maybe that could be the whole point?
I miss Aaron. I’ve not had any meaningful conversations with him since Monday. I know that he’s very busy so I’m not too distressed about it, but when we spoke on the phone yesterday he seemed odd? I don’t know what that’s about and I’m not sure I will until we can talk about it a bit more.
Glenn sent me a message awhile ago. He said that he really likes Christian a lot, and that they had some fun conversations about me. But he didn’t explain. And I’m not sure what a conversation about me would entail. Glenn did say that my history would make a great play, and he also thought I should do standup, and I do genuinely love Christian, so I’m sure it was all innocent fun, but I’m left wondering what it all means.
I need to order some groceries.
“I Could Forget About Everything”
I just watched Daredevil: Born Again S02E06 “Requiem”. SPOILERS
I wish I hadn’t known that Jessica would show up, or that she had a kid, because those would have been great surprises. In the comics, Jessica is married to Luke Cage, who is likely the father of her daughter – something else that was spoiled for me – and all of that by a friend who thought he would share something cool. I was not amused.
Having said all of that, the seeming reference to the events of “Thunderbolts*” places this episode after that film, and likely this whole season though it pains me to say it. There’s a slight time jump in the new episode (from Vanessa’s death to her funeral) so it could happen just before this episode but then explaining why none of these characters turned up in that movie becomes even more difficult to explain. So 2027 and beyond for the M.C.U. seems to go like this:
Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 (9 episodes)
Captain America: Brave New World
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Thunderbolts*
Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 (8 episodes)
Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Avengers: Doomsday
Avengers: Secret Wars
I look forward to seeing how “The Punisher: One Last Kill” and “VisionQuest” tie into these final stories. And possibly “Born Again: Season 3” which should arrive between “Doomsday” & “Secret Wars”.
Yesterday I had therapy. I also spoke to Michael, but not about his lies; not directly. I played some Zelda. I briefly spoke to Aaron. I might be running an errand for him tomorrow; I volunteered but I’m waiting to see what he says. Either way, the weather is supposed to improve tomorrow so I want to get outside after not being out since Monday night.
I should be asleep but this is another of my non-Ambien nights so it could take awhile. Still, I should try.
“Just Invisible Men in the Emperor’s New Clothes”
I had a really illuminating chat with someone who I don’t know that well, but who I have known since early 2012. We are both ex-boyfriends of the same man, who lied to us both and cheated on both of us as well. It makes sense. But what I didn’t know, was that my ex had lied to this person and told him that I had cheated on the ex, which is obscene, when the truth is I was totally loyal to him and he cheated on me constantly, often with multiple men throughout any given week! Truly. I’ve dated men that cheated but never anything like the way this guy did. It was so fucking horrible. But really, the problem with him was that he couldn’t be honest with me. I had suggested an open relationship where we were both free to see or fuck whoever we chose, and that he and I would go back to using condoms, and the only rule was that we needed to be honest with each other, but he just couldn’t do it. He lied over and over despite that being the only thing I didn’t want him to do. And it never stopped, no matter how many chances I gave him. And it was killing me, so I cut off all contact with him – which was terrible but likely saved me, on many levels. I ran into him 8 months later, I think it was, and that was also the night that I met Aaron Sanko, who I went out with later that day, and we’ve been partners ever since. I don’t hate the ex. I think he has mental problems. I think he is deeply insecure and that the lying fulfilled some need within him that I couldn’t break through, but as long as we aren’t a couple, he can’t hurt me anymore. I speak to him sometimes. I texted him this morning, before this conversation happened. I’m friends with nearly everyone I’ve ever dated. That’s one thing I’m really good at. I rarely hold grudges and when I do, I try to get over them. I’m over this. Hearing that he lied doesn’t shock me, but hearing that he lied about me is a different thing. Given what I already knew, that’s just who he is. And that makes me sad for him.
But I’m over it. Really. I’m already smiling. And he’ll probably text me back later and it won’t hurt me at all. Time has made just about everything better. I have some scars but they are not – and will not be – the end of me. 🙂
“Where are you? How are you? I wait for an answer…”
I slept more than 7 hours, which was wonderful. I dreamt about a home, where I’m from, secrets and hidden places on our property which don’t actually exist in reality, but which have some basis in fact and which are recurring elements in my dreams, which I cherish. I woke up around a quarter to 5. I had two missed calls, from Aaron & from Mark Adams. Both called shortly after I went to sleep. I suspect Aaron was just reaching out to let me know he’s okay and how his L.A. adventure is going while Mark was likely calling to talk about the new episode of Daredevil: Born Again, which probably ended around the time that he called – but I don’t know for sure, obviously.
When I got up to use the bathroom I saw that I had indeed caught the mouse in my traps. Often even finding a mouse in a trap I find it repulsive and it is a cause of some stress, but this time I felt a sense of victory. I swept the trapped mouse into the trash and I was done. I left the other traps just in case we have more than one pest, but I don’t think we do. I washed my hands, made a smoothie and decided I’d catch up on some of my TV shows.
I got caught up on Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord, watching the last 2.5 episodes, which brings us to episode 6. I’ve had mixed reactions to this series. It’s up to snuff with other animated Star Wars stuff like Tales, The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch & Rebels, but this has been the least compelling to date, which sounds like I hate it, but I don’t. I think what drags it down is the structure. We’re getting 10 episodes in Season 1, 2 episodes a week, but the story feels like a single movie randomly chopped into 10 pieces, so the endings all feel forced and obnoxious IMO. Everytime I feel like I’m finally getting into the series, it ends. I’d just wait and binge it but I don’t want to get that far behind on anything if I can help it. I will say that episode 6 (S01E06 “Night of the Hunted”) felt like the best episode so far and has many things I enjoyed, which made the first 5 all feel like setup, which is fine, but I wish I’d enjoyed the setup a bit more. Perhaps I’ll grow to love the series once this season is finished? We’ll see. The season will be over in just 13 days. A second season has been ordered but it’s unclear when that will arrive or what the story might be. I kind of hope there is a time jump between seasons and that we get a different Maul story that builds on this one while forging another way forward in a different location with different characters, but I really have no idea how this season ends, how that will affect my opinion, or what they have planned going forward. There has been so much new content since I last watched the majority of The Clone Wars (all 3 seasons of Tales, 2 final seasons of The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch and now this + Forces of Destiny) that I would really love to do a re-watch of this entire era, but I’m watching so much right now and I’m behind on even more, so it just doesn’t seem likely. Hopefully someday.
I’ll try to get to the other shows later, but I felt like taking a break.
“It’s late. Time for bed.”
Well, it’s not that late. But I didn’t sleep well last night and I’m tired and I got some new Melatonin gummies to try. I will also sleep better tonight as the 20 mousetraps I ordered arrived on time, 6 of which have been placed + the trap that I already had. The mouse may have left my house, but if he stayed instead then he’ll soon be dead. Sorry, not sorry.
I played more Zelda. I did not watch any television. I got some work done on my website and the viewing order for the Infinity Saga is now online. I’ll try to get more Marvel-y things up in the near future. I assumed I’d work on it a bit more tonight, but like I said, I’m sleepy.
And yes, I know that “A Last Request (I Want Your Sex Part 3)” is a bit rapey, but I would have let George Michael do anything he wanted to me when he was alive. This year, on Christmas Day, he’ll have been dead for 10 years. That’s crazy. I mean, it feels like that was a long time ago, but it also doesn’t. Time, and our perception of time, is weird. He was 53 when he died. I’ll be 52 in August.
Really. It’s time for bed. If I sleep 8 hours (which I doubt since I’ve not been sleeping as much lately), I’ll be up very early. I have therapy tomorrow afternoon, but otherwise I think I’m free.