i am davidbrothers dotcom

“and you’re number one through ninety-eight”

I’ve been wrestling with this since biking home after a particularly long day, after a long month, after a long year. It seemed like a good idea on the ride home, and then I came home and took a nap and woke up and it still seemed like something I was led to do. And as much as I hate the very idea of complaining about my life online, I don’t think I’m very happy, and maybe crystalizing the myriad reasons why will be helpful or healthy somehow.

Or not.

I dunno. You should probably skip this. Sorry. There probably aren’t 100 things, I just liked that line from Copywrite’s “7 Light Years.” It’s just a maelstrom of guilt and self-loathing, probably. Writer, write thyself, right?

I hate how trapped I feel by my job sometimes. It’s the beginnings of a nice career, probably, and it was my desperately-needed way out of my hometown, but it’s still a trap. I’ve learned a lot, and gained a lot of experience, but not anything that will necessarily translate to another gig, especially not with the sorry state of my education. I’m proficient in a lot of different things, but a master of none (save the generic idea of writing, I’d argue). I feel overly specialized in a specific subset of an industry that doesn’t quite translate to any other subset (or industry entirely) beyond marketing. On top of that, San Francisco rent being what it is, I can’t just hop jobs or depend on my freelance writing work to pay the bills. It’s too irregular and too low. And if I can’t pay the bills, that means a one-way ticket back home, to stay there until I probably die.

I hate that my two jobs have poisoned both video games and comics for me. I’m glad to have both, and I feel very fortunate that I can pay my bills, but I also fell into both by accident. I don’t know what my plan was in college, but it just happened. And now, I know that the games industry is horribly run and that the comics industry, or at least the mainstream side of things, is run by passive-aggressive children. It’s incredibly demoralizing, and I’ve managed to let the worst aspects of both industries infiltrate my day-to-day life. It’s a dose of poison in a dish I love, and I should’ve known better.

I hate that what I do best, which is I guess best termed “critical analysis” (though I’d never call myself a critic or journalist), is being, or has been, completely devalued and made obsolete. Companies that I work for are trying to hire people to do what I do for free, and the stuff I enjoy doing is outshined by kicksplode-y top ten lists on how rad some wack new comic book is. It’s like someone putting up a “You’re not welcome here, be gone by sundown” sign and tapping their foot while pointing at it and looking you directly in the eyes. “Not enough people care about what you do, and we don’t care either. Tick tick tick.”

I hate that what I’m apparently known best for is writing about race and comics. I hate race and comics. I hate writing about it. I hate thinking about it. I spent too long telling people things that they should already know, and while it’s hubris in the extreme to think that I could have ever effected a change in multinational corporations, I’m still disgusted that I didn’t. The nice spots remain nice, but the overall picture is still ugly, and when I’m being honest with myself late at night, more than enough reason to quit mainstream comics entirely. It’s so obvious to me, and these people just don’t get it.

I hate DC Comics and the way they poisoned the idea of Milestone Media for me. One of my favorite concepts, something that influenced me as a kid, is now irreparably tied to mistreatment and childishness.

I hate how I feel about my jobs, considering how I was raised. But being unendingly grateful just isn’t in me.

I hate that I feel like I have no one I could tell all this stuff to, when I know for a fact that that isn’t true. I spent so long exorcizing mental poison by myself that it’s become first nature. I don’t even know if I know how to do this with other people. Isn’t that stupid? But I can’t. There’s a block there. I know it’s stupid, and I still can’t correct my course.

I hate how every one of my friends being married or in a long-term committed relationship makes me feel. I’m very happy for them, obviously—but it’s a reminder that nothing ever goes as planned.

I think I hate San Francisco. Or maybe not the city—just living in it. It’s so expensive and so much of it is just not my thing that I feel strange. I hate whatever poison is in me that makes staying in my tiny box of an apartment seem more appealing than going out with my friends sometimes, and I double hate that I sometimes fall victim to that. I know better. I should do better.

I hate knowing that even if I wanted to move, I couldn’t afford to without saving every penny I make for several months, no matter where I wanted to go.

I hate the fact that my bills are somehow half my paycheck, including my completely worthless student loans and pre-groceries, and that my rent is an entire check.

I hate the fact that I went to college. It was a complete waste of time and only served to keep me pinned down, thinking I was doing something, when I should have been trying my hardest to get out of Georgia. The only thing I got out of it was thousands of dollars of debt for a degree that’s less than worthless.

I hate that I still feel like I didn’t work for all of this with my own two hands. I’m just waiting for Sandman Sims to come onstage and pull me off. I hustled for years to get to where I am, aimlessly at some points and incredibly focused at others, and I worked to get here.

I hate that I can know something, but still feel otherwise.

I hate that I don’t know how to express this beyond writing. I remember being a kid and being really angry at my mom. She asked me why, or something, the memory is hazy, but the clearest part is asking her if I could write a letter instead of answering. Which was pathetic then and is even worse now.

I hate my sleeping schedule. Lately, once a week, I crash and sleep twelve hours. On other days, I barely sleep any. On weekends, I binge. It’s not healthy, but I can’t seem to fix it.

I hate how bored I am by video games now. It used to be a nice outlet, something to cool down with after work, but I’m growing increasingly dissatisfied with them.

I hate knowing about things that are disgusting that I can’t talk about, like the company in one industry that switched a latino lead character to a white one because the white guy was deemed more marketable or appropriate or something. I hate that I supported that company with dollars because I wanted something they offered even after I was made aware of that fact. Where’s that hardline philosophy at?

I hate that I wake up some days and wish I’d stayed asleep. Whatever black cloud it is that’s followed me around for years, popping in to kill my day for no reason at all, I hate it. I wish I knew how to fix it.

I hate how I feel about my life, despite the fact that I’m paying my bills by writing.

I hate that adult life isn’t how I was told it would be. Petty, or ignorant, or whatever, yes, but: I feel just as stupid and small as I ever did. Which I suppose everyone does, but it’s no less disconcerting.

I hate how easy it is for me to cut off friends entirely or by accident. It reminds me of an Aesop Rock line: “The prickly outer shell’s genetic, it helps defense mode. But it also helps to fuck up a couple of sacred friendships.” I understand why I can do it—never going to the same school more than two years in a row past third grade will do it—but I hate that it’s so easy.

I hate how I feel about having been the only black kid in most of the gifted programs I was in as a kid. It poisoned me for compliments forever. Every “Oh, you’re so smart!” felt like I was being graded on a curve instead of anyone actually recognizing how smart I am, like there was this subtext of “smarter than the rest.” And I’m not that smart. Definitely not so smart that I should’ve ever been the only black kid in the room.

I hate how I feel about a lot of opportunities I’ve had in life that others haven’t.

I hate that I had to sit down and do something dramatic like this, but whatever whatever. It’s probably necessary.

I hate how being drunk or hungover feels, but I crave the social interaction that goes along with it. All my friends, save for maybe one or two, are drinkers, hard or otherwise, and that’s the usual “Let’s all go do something” plan.

I hate that I spent so much time in high school being concerned with how codependent other people were, but I figure that’s what high school is for. Making stupid mistakes over and over and not seeing the forest for the trees. You’re never as smart as you think you are.

I hate that, when looking back over my past, all I see are the mistakes, not the triumphs. There have been a lot of both.

I hate not being able to get over and come to terms with a familial relationship I really should have understood years ago. I hate that spike of… whatever emotion that is that arrives every time I think about it.

And I guess what most of this comes down to is that I hate a lot of what I grew up to be. (Another song flashes through my head, El-P this time: “Excuse me, little child, why the devious smile? Well, I’ve become what I’ve forsaken and the irony’s wild”) I’ve got easily identifiable issues that apparently aren’t so easy to cure, and I hate how unfulfilled I feel, but I don’t know how to capture that feeling of fulfillment I want so much, no matter how much I go out or how often I write about things I like.