I'm Not Going to Place 3

Bars, cul-de-sacs, Main, that mall, social web. It's somewhere between the two places you have to be: work and home. A third place. How does that advice go? Don't ever let him (Misery be damned it's always a him) take you to a second location. The third location is really a second, second location. Second squared. The worst. Stay home like a man. Eat a sleeve of saltines, a jar of green olives, and pop a second one because it's been a long day. Put on the football game but watch it ironically, then pass out before putting the mayo back in the fridge. At least you're not a poser who has to go to the third place just to tell people you don't go to the third place. The bonus, spoken, unspoken, is that you can't lose if you don't play, and you might even get some shit done. Or maybe you'll keep telling yourself you'll get some shit done. At least you're not proud of it like they are. As soon as you lose contempt for inaction you've lost your last bit of self respect, held yourself to the lowest standard you can invent. Hell isn't hating yourself, it's loving yourself into irrelevance. They take another day off, get a little older, externalize that festering resentment into whatever will take it: politicians, their own kids, actors, their own kids, tycoons, their own kids, you get the idea. They have to do something with it because it won't just go away. It's a tumour that eats impotence and poops snide Internet remarks. Who knows, maybe the bad cells were there all along and just needed time to grow. But you're better, you save your contempt for those that won't rather than the people who do.

If only your will wasn't just as meek as theirs.