Author: Jeff Popovich

2022 March 1

I’d be one of the first killed in a nuclear exchange with Russia
I work two miles from the White House
live four miles outside DCwithin two miles of Walter Reed and NIH
For 58 years I’ve lived within fifteen miles of DC
grew up during the Cold War
never fretted nuclear annihilation once
Do I think the stub-fingered ickiest shitlord sociopath
(at *this* given moment in time in shitlord narrative)
would destroy the world rather than lose everything while getting Gaddafi-ed
Hillary laughing?
NobutIconfessIspentafret

2022 February 24

OfcourseGeorgeismy
favoritehe’smostpeopleI
like’sfavoritewe’reGeorge
Ukrainenuclear
JohnvPaulradiation
fuckdyingfromthat

but the grid reminds me (a) I did leave the prebepod voluntarily at least 50/50 I was not kicked out and was represented at my wedding by people I cho(o)se to hang with (b) David Phillips the one break-up I don’t remember (Annie Hawk, laugh) cleanly but that was when we were all at our worse and best acid-wise

but was reminded by latest grid to pay MORE ATTENTION TO THE UP AND DOWN re otherDavid, neither Dave, barklaughingly, every dave I’ve met

True won’t affect who doesn’t read but now that I’ve granted myself privilege to not post when I don’t want to I have no reason to not spend the time honing the post, subtler than folding the towels

2022 February 21

  • Posted yammeryum today, fuck it in celebration of my finding my lost hat
  • Posted because I had to post it to not type about not posting it night after night
  • Posted despite my redacting the juicy parts not for art but for I won’t tell you the juicy parts
  • but my posted heavily-redaction version itself a major development, let me not explain
  • Posted to reduce myself not in stature but better broth
  • Posted so editing first draft live and draft never dead though always abandoned
  • Posted, timestamped, taint-logged regardless of uselessness of content

2022 February 18

Do I abandon simplenote for evernote, the free version? It does have the back button I keep fucking up in simplenote and need, before I consider I need copy paste into blooger, the reason google docs is a fail

First cut and paste seemed fine, ok, will give this a try, I can simplenote this with the exception of having a back button

So here it is in the chromebook, I am making the migration for at least a trial, I will keep it as simple as possible but use the few tools I know how that are useful that simplenote didn’t have as well as the undo a fuckup button, I have no need at this post to tag and merge and sort and shit

Having posted today, and lost my haiku, and suddenly poetry not reading for me at all, all seems pretentious, I have nothing to write at this minute, sometimes that changes

I abandoned simplenote for evernote like I abandon everything except my wife and daughter and father and brothers and friends and motherfucking job I honestly wish I *could* abandon, my alzheimer’s retirement funds 80% invested in Ponzy Inc stocks, and my favorite bands and rigid political positions and related obsession with uniforms and my cats, I’d never abandon my cats (though we talk of fewer cats (when by natural attrition) of getting a dog, we really want a dog) and 95% all of my dogma-n, but I feel no disloyalty to simplenote notable only that plus or minus good about me this is yay! new

I’ve tried abandoning explaining what I just said just after I say it, by far the greatest effort to change my explaining why I do things habit, and I haven’t tried much less abandoned monitoring digital bumps how much you love me though I *have* noticed I check much less often than once but tack that up to my too scrambled mind, I can remember a Dead concert in Syracuse University’s Carrier Dome in eighties but what did you say a minute ago more than indifference, I couldn’t abandon sideways playing sideways my whole life and was taught to not be sideways cowardice, pick a fucking uniform and root

Laugh, copy/pasting testing in wordpress, let me explain why I hesitate to experiment on pOj in wordpresstan

2022 February 12


When south on Senena Bluff Trail after the abandoned 1930’s steel plow but before the bluffs over Seneca a new installation, a hippo I found forgotten in the smallest, most out of the way I never look pocket in my backpack Look for it today eye level on the left side of the trail while heading south from the parking lot off Montivideo, I am trying to figure out what I want to do here, some still unseen something someday

From the best of Seneca Bluff Trail’s bluffs over Seneca Creek, an eye-level of winter woods, I’d have to teach myself fucking wordpress just to post the level just above stupid and format not the issue and not necessarily content the issue my welcoming committee, 7 of 10 times home

2022 February 8

investigate resonancefm radio in office Tuesday
sent an ambient show to Claire and confessed again I suck as correspondent
texted back by Claire laugh just more our shared genes
set up work simplenote abandoning reliance on memory like I abandoned tablets
old man catches shit kernels in digital colander
analog shit calendar effort for work fuck that
will forget to call daughter and she him

2022 January 29

It takes a touch of madness to take seriously the possibility that your entire society is insane
Your suicidal thoughts and shitlord profits
aRe yOu in the mARKEt fOr a uSEd cIa tORTURe fACILITy in lITHUANIa?
Your prayers to White Jesus Cracker and shitlord profits
To be fair there is an app or one is in design for your weird faith too
If you murder two people in cold blood your gun will be punished!
The egregious lies Americans tell themselves
⬆On yesterday’s bridge collapse from 2018⬆
Shitlords: a how-to on how they shitlordmore here
Ukraine and U.S. War Propaganda
Abolition: notes on a normie shitstorm
Crackers are sore winners
Shitlords, motherfucking pigs, infrastructure
Walking DC from east to west
People don’t trust liars
Biggest riminalcay anggay in mericaay
Spotify is not a music company
{ feuilleton }’s weekend links
The sublime ironies of John Ashbery
On the practice of *personal criticism*
Turning stories upside-down
Another Will Oldham/Bill Callahan interview

2022 January 26

Robert Reich says Biden should nominate Obama to replace Breyer
but Villager consensus settled in ten minutes on Kamala Harris
both deliver on a Biden campaign promise to name a liberal
woman of color and allows Biden/Democrats to dump the anchor
Harris as vpotus is and reboot Biden’s 2022 midterm energy
Robert Reich the larpiest professional Democrat playing
progressive of the professional Democrats my friends tweet
derisively for unsatisfying laughs from fellow apostates. L tells me
Breyer’s ice cream crap now, not the Breyer’s of her youth (I don’t
like ice cream, I’m told it’s very good, try the jamocha shakes) I have
not yet seen anyone nominate Hillary to replace Harris though I did
see someone retweet a person nominating Hillary to scotus to piss
off crackers, you know who Fox’s target audience is when New
Gingrich says on Tucker that Republicans will take every single
congressperson on the January 6 commission and roast them to
death one at a time on national TV in a copper donkey with open
mouth out of which scream unanswered pleas for mercy before
anguished death brays, yes?
If true it would re
present a fun
damental shift of pow
er in the quad
rents’ mime’s incen
diary novel of my apo
stasy of meek out
rage at best pract
ices, never borrowed nev
er overdue Tab
lets ink watercol
or ruler now tree
knots abandoned

2022 January 9

Hey, see subject line

My eyes are ok, I’ll have to get yearly laser zaps if necessary to not lose more vision from glaucoma, stay on meds, he thinks I can and should avoid cataract surgery until necessary and I’m very ok with that

Roddy is in a dump off Capital View Road, he saw physical and occupational therapists Thursday and Friday and supposedly sees a speech therapist (who apparently determined whether patients might choke on the all pureed diet this dump serves and Roddy’s on it cause he *was* a choke threat when he first went to hospital, it will take the OK of another speech therapist before the dump can serve him food they can legally let him chew) He’can’t be home by himself but this dump is p(o)r(i)ison and does no one any good, if we break him out on Monday then home care will be covered up to something by insurance.

The four of us will badger him go to daycare, he won’t Everything I remember about working at Asbury as a janitor in the Dear God Let Them Die Wing came back to me, Roddy now talking about God

2022 January 7

My first job was delivering the Washington Post every morning, I had the Oakton-Woodland-Rolling perimeter, included Tulip and Hutton north and east of Woodland
second job at Mario’s Pizza on Summit across from elementary school I went to first grade (and met Willy Dayne, who, out of courtesy to you, I don’t remind you of the running down the cat in his green dodge dart on Ten Mile Creek Road everytime we hike Ten Mile Creek Trail which we do at least once a month, it’s the best trail in Moco)
third job was Asbury Methodist Home, an old folks harvesting factory in Gaithersburg that since has grown twenty fold, four excellent and distinct eighteen-hole disc-golf courses could be built on the campus
I worked six weeks in the Sorry, you’re-soon-to-be-dead building as a janitor
Sarek is *not* in the Sorry, you’re-soon-to-be-dead building but the building freaks the fuck out of me, reminds me why I quit, it paid better than any pizza joint or landscaper would pay me and offered hours that gave me evening and weekends free and the people I worked with were more often than not lovely and the boss was fair and funny and nice
Of course the physical distress of the patients horribly disturbing at times and yes what you imagine a janitor in a Sorry, you’re-soon-to-be-dead building often mops up this janitor mopped up but what was worse were the looks on the face of those aware enough to know what happened, the mortification, the humiliation, the despair they couldn’t will themselves to death
I quit to take a job at Arnolds Diner on Redland Road across from where now sits the big red Teachers Credit Union for hours Thursday and Friday nights and Saturdays until six for two dollars less an hour and am who I am typing this poem tonight because I did
The means exist to yoink Sarek out as soon as can be discovered, navigated, then implemented both at a get out of now but what about next level
SeatSix showed up tonight with dinner and the front desk refused entry and would and/or could not say why, though the place is three pestilential floors of contaminated human aerosol projectiles
I work at a mid-sized university and watch undergraduates flount masking rules and never felt worry, full-vaxxed and boosted and properly masked me
1/100th of the worry I get in that three-floored petrie dish
I have no idea if Sarek’s been swabbed, I assume he has but who knows
No one asked me for my vaxdox, my temp was 97.2 like it always is, I checked a box on the screen vouching for my vaxdox, I understand, help has enough with the dying without fighting the dyings’ un-vaxxed visits
I forget the order much less have a complete inventory in my head of jobs 4 through my current job, there were dozens, Roys Place of course on Diamond, we all worked there, a landscaping place that ran out of a room in the Holiday Hotel on Walnut Hill where now a storage facility squats, a place on Oakmont on the railroad tracks that made windows and door frames, that job in the short few weeks taught me enough about crackers to not been wrong about them since, Crown Books of course where I met Hamster and then Earthgirl, a photomat in a strip mall in Annapolis when Earthgirl and I lived in Deale
Willy Bayne got me a job at Highs, I made it to second key night manager, without that job I would not got the Crown job and Planet wouldn’t exist
Cookie Factory and Alpine Pantry in Lakeforest Mall
The only job I ever quit *not* because fuck this and fuck you the Sorry, you’re-soon-to-be-dead building job, I’ve felt guilty ever since

2022 January 5

He’s finally out of hospital because they finally found a rehab place for him. He’s slightly stronger, a bit sharper, Marc said he was able tonight to walk around his new room to the bathroom on his own, but not ready to take care of himself, he’s physically weak, and he’s now and then delusional, he keeps wondering to Claire why Steve won’t return his calls (which is sweet, they did love each other). He knows something’s not right

Current hope is he’ll be there two weeks, build up physical strength, maybe learning how to drink something besides Yuengling and Coca Cola, get used to a regimen of eating at certain times, etc, plus gain needed physical strength and balance.

He is at Autumn Lakes Healthcare 2700 Barker St, Silver Spring (Georgia Avenue just north of Plyers Mill on the left side heading towards Wheaton), visiting hours 10-8 daily, room 245C. 

2021 December 24

My Next Gen Clusterfuck Metaphor of the Day: Picard returns to the Enterprise to get his saddle discovers the crew routinely conducting a barium sweep up to no good, the barium sweep has started, any living cell barium swept be dead, Picard uses his saddle to capture the nogoodnik who’ll be a Bejoran terrorist in the penultimate Next Gen episode and a Vulcan cast member on Voyager. Picard threatens torture and death with a laser welder, the nogoodnik scoofs, says, you’re Starfleet, you won’t kill me. Picard zaps him with one of those across all franchises Star Trek neck needles that fart upon injection, I guess you’re right, says Picard, then leaves him unconscious to die in the barium sweep

2021 December 20

A year ago today I posted the first grid, I typed last night
Transitioning from ink and tablet journal keeping ended my ink and tablet self-portraiting because why? that’s right, fuck me
some of those early grids hoowee and quoting from links like chum, chum, like you’ll click or beg-me bait when you won’t at basic bait
I miss writing in journals and still do on hikes when Earthgirl paints, but deciphering my handwriting and editing before comprehending when translating and typing into digital, unfuck me there, I could tap into simplenote on my phone on hike when Earthgirl painting it just occurred to me laugh out loud, when have lots of days to hike the next two weeks
I started tapping at simplenote in Summer 2020 and its limitations freed me with an archiving option tablets don’t have – I can’t do anything in it *but* type and tag then cut and paste and – here’s the key – abandon knowing I reread it in a horrible sans serif font I can’t change but can control + the screen so I can read it without squinting. I build the link grids in sheets, the part that’s me typed in simplenote
The grid I realized an attempt to replace the ink and watercolor straight lines intersecting at deliberately just plus or minus 90 degree angles, once I discovered posting photos into grid cells didn’t crash my free shitlord blogging platform but did allow just one post to front page at a time and the asshole in charge of brand marketing in my head said no can do
That’s right, here’s where I talk about Tony Hecht who taught me structure liberates, freedom constricts, I think this true, and though the haikus have dried up and I seem to be following no rules now and am content with content
In any case, I had no idea a year since I started gridding and never stopped and though hooweed through iterations but I see grids remaining until they don’t, I can’t imagine me thinking the bullets before the grid should replace the grid, I can’t imagine my eyesight improving to when I desire a smaller font (push me)

2021 December 1

Of course I started Books of Jacob just to hold the book as object and book as book in hand and each because required reading and like almost every novel I start I caution myself I’m liking it too much and let’s see tomorrow but this one’s roots’ depth evident already I do not regret winning my bet against myself I would start it, I’d break the paperback spine except for that jinxing part when combined with this jinxing part jinxes exponentially

I picked another fight with borth nethesdans, this I confess a favorite obsession, much more powerful than recreational loathing of porth notomac which is half Rockville, two fifths Gaithersburg, one fifth Darnestown, they resent a new map that clusters them with Silver Springers and – here’s the outrage – Takoma Parkers

We entered east moco on Norbeck Road, MD 28, weeks ago, I wrote about MD 28 years ago, we walked the Underground Railroad Trail, trailhead where Layhill turns turns into Ednor crossing Norwood, saw *the* Sandy Spring, east moco *all* USPS-called Silver Spring, I can’t argue a moco neighborhood name east of Georgia Avenue

Books of Jonah may amaze me but I’ll not get 4/5ths of the religious allusions and references in a book that will be interrogating Torah and Koran and Bible and each’s adherents’relationships to the others, don’t get me wrong, this is a reason to read it, I hope the 5/5ths on helmetball teams and glee clubs teaches me something much smarter than dumb I am, I’ll get the part about zealotry

2021 October 17

Subaru hate and desperate I own a new Subaru
a base model 2022 Impreza sedan one of only two new cars available
plus Fitz did me right on the trade-in for fucked-up service on recall
Too, try walk into a car dealership and buy a new car, cash in hand
there will not be another new car in America until 2025
Bluetooth works there’s no CD-player
console not a casino slot machine
It made it to 70 on 270 today without shuddering

2021 October 7

Confirmed I don’t want to read Elkin now
Found a Bad Man on shelf on Tuesday
read with nostalgic tingling the opening chapters…
This has nothing to do with my least favorite cat
who will deliberately scratch out my left eye
before Lynn accidentally breaks my ankles
getting into bed is named after Stanley Elkin
Elkin is a garotte, I once loved in, now I’m out

2021 August 12

I am the plumber*
invited to committees
by professionals

to describe shit-tubes’
best practices re: shitty
deliberate choke

points (professionals
either acknowledge I know
of what I speak or

forever dismiss
me (death to the either/or)
as embittered staph)

What makes a good boss
sharpest interview question:
Me, nine of ten say

*I am the polite
Bajoran people invite
to symposiums

but have no real sway
among my people* today’s
lame metaphor, gag

2021 August 10

Our shitlord astronauts, who are not actually shitlords but for Bezos, actively fuckyouing you, I’m leaving this
shithole as soon as I can. Working in a university library slaps me daily re: attrition and decay as shitlord
Policy One. I no longer do the Slothrop allusion but I am a trajectory of motherfucking late boomers
No one has ever asked me and no one ever will why I didn’t type a period at the end of the third line.
Shitlords savant-mine amoral geniuses, their most gifted sociopathic actuaries tell them to tell peasants the shitlords rocketing to Mars
Betting on clusterfuck shitlord poker. Why do I daily shorthand and deliver shit you already know?

2021 July 17

How many times do you think you’ve pissed in your life?
I will be 62 in six weeks do the math that’s 22,630 days
4 into 62 add 15.5 days for leap years = 22,645.5 days
x how many times you pissed a day on average
factoring age, medical history, especially UTIs
plumbing and sump pump problems, weight fluctuations
everything you’ve forgot not just the last time you pissed

My problem acknowledging
Shitlords censoring crackers to incite crackers
yes to incite crackers but more incite me?
Works, visa versa of course, fractionally Shittier Chow when necessary!
The valence of -.06% less-shittiyism

For the oofed time tonight I remind myself not to explain, here’s
why How many times now? I don’t keep count

2021 July 13

gladyskravitzing
I tweeted and no one liked
13 stopped scrolling

immediately
scrolled on. Gladys the scold
saw Samantha this

Endora that, did
the original Gladys
survive black and white’s

death? Name gatekeeping
what made me think of Gladys
and not forgotten

interlibrary
loan coordinator Scold
reminded today

phew. Gladys Kravitz,
I forget her husband’s name
I could look it up

but that research, no.
Sc(r)ol(l)d. Sc(r)ol(l)ded. So yes it’s worked
out as designed to

the clusterfuck I tweeted
reflexively at a dope
who should know better

motherfucking scold
asserts. Scrolls past his life. Types
haikus in carrels

2021 July 3

Gulf of Mexico
on fire, ruptured pipeline
burning Triskelion

crude gallons of greed
Hurricane targeting Gulf
Arctic melting, Portland

Billionaire Space Race
Update as fucking often
as necessary

re: Washington Post
(disclosure: space racer owned)
Hey! don’t look at that

look the fuck at this!
How do you pronounce Barthelme
my latest savior

I give me until
Tuesday to fail him Shitlord
actuaries urge

shitlord divestment
from peasants, planet poisoned
should one shitlord care