The Mirror Image

Spin Around Fast, Catch a Glimpse

I’m vain. I’m conceited. I think I’m smarter than I really am. 

I spend a lot of time acting, or arranging my body, as though someone were watching me. 

I’m jealous. I exclude myself from whole worlds of experience because they involve other people’s achievements.

My critical mind is always roaming, searching for something to feel alienated from. And to worry about. I am trapped in my mental scripts. Yet I wouldn’t meditate if they paid me to.

I very much want to be admired, and have cultivated and achieved far more admiration than affection.

I try to get people to admire me by asking them a lot of questions. I don’t always remember their answers for very long.

I’m easily offended. My love is more conditional than unconditional. My favorite expression is FUCK ’EM IF THEY CAN’T TAKE A JOKE. But it’s aspirational — I never actually feel that way.

I have little idea of who I am apart from my many faults.

I thought it might all change as I got older. It hasn’t so far. The world has just spit me further out than it used to.

I’m honest, but sometimes that feels exhibitionistic.

Nevertheless, I would say that I’m having a good time.

Here’s a song about it.

AS BEST AS I CAN

—Larry Bush for Alte