Bourbon Apocalypse is still alive and blogging. Yes, my sporadic posts over the past five years might lead one to think that I blog only between writing chapters in my heartbreaking novel about a deracinated racial mongrel (like me!) trying to establish roots in a postmodern America that no longer celebrates the permanent things, all the while slowing coming to the ineluctable yet surprisingly sweet conclusion that the Catholic Church is the only institution that will allow him to rise above the diversifying trend of all things material and all ideologies secular. Boring.

Nope, not writing that novel. Not writing any novel. Barely reading novels these days.

I am an incredibly slothful individual. Now, I realize that sloth, in a theological sense, refers primarily to vice of not performing one’s religious duties, but I do consider writing to be a religious duty, though not in that typical sense of being a “blogger for Christ.” Sheesh–we have enough of those types as it is. Rather, I believe that writing is somehow mysteriously tied up with my overall spiritual well-being. When I am not writing, I am not well.

In addition to my sloth, I have been struggling with depression, lack of direction (read: I am sick-all-the-way-to-the-tired of teaching), loneliness, and drinking. (That last one came out of fermented left field, I know.) At this point, white nationalist alternative-righters will point to the fact that I am mixed-raced and say, “Uh huh–social science studies [said group trying to hide erection at the mention of the word science] have shown that racially-mixed people are more prone to depression than….” Perhaps that is true. Will not discount it offhand. Or, perhaps I am just a melancholy bastard, and would have been one had I been all the Scots-Irish of my mom or all the Japanese of my dad.

Starting to entertain the possibility that I may die without a wife and children. While for years I have thought that maybe I had a call to the priesthood, I truly do not like people or making small talk with pppppp-people, and this quality might disqualify me from the role of God’s public servant. Now, the monk’s life I dig–especially if that monk be a Carthusian, but I fear that my aged parents will soon need me, so I will not allow myself to dream. Perhaps I lack faith. Anyway, I suppose that I deserve this. I have had the opportunity to develop relationships with a number of lovely women, but have prefered the tangible particulars of freedom to the abstraction of commitment and all that it might possibly entail. However, deracinated freedom comes at a price in postmodern America.

I have been lifting serious weights at the gym. My neck is getting out of control–and I like it. May have to go up a collar size. If only transformations of the soul and mind were as immediately gratifying as transformations of one’s body.

All this to say: I plan on writing a little something every day from this point forward.