I Am Santo

And why wouldn’t I start a journal entry some two years after the last with a borrowed title from a TikTok-famous rap track?

Truth is, not much has been poppin. Since 2020 was an anguished blur for most of us, it probably isn’t worth recounting. What can be said is that we made it through relatively unscathed from a physical standpoint and while it was emotionally debilitating, what isn’t? Life is constantly taking pieces out of our hearts. If it wasn’t, would there be so many songs about heartbreak?

Before the pandemic started, I’d downloaded an app called Reflectly on my phone. It was a pretty bare-bones creature that offered daily platitudes and motivational sayings, but I liked it as a journal-keeping software. Here I was with Microsoft Word and Evernote Premium and I went for this ridiculous app from Norway that seemed to have almost zero market penetration. It was good for many moons too; at least four months of daily journaling. And then they revamped the functionality of the app… and lost me. My daily habits became weekly, then monthly, then none-at-all. This February, I let the subscription expire, as I did too with Evernote Premium.

With the acquisition of a new mechanical keyboard – one of the supa-fly glowing background ones – I’m wondering if I might give this WordPress site a real go. I mean, it does have some history, logging all of those old Instagram-via-Tumblr posts, but also using WordPress at my day job makes me wonder what it might be like to use the CMS as a creative platform.

So, I may be here for a bit. It wouldn’t be too forthcoming – that’s the good part about having an app on a locked phone: there’s no need to be shy. But it might offer me a place to consistently give voice to some thoughts that too often seem out of place on Facebook (where no one cares) and Instagram (which I try desperately to only write creatively.)

As usual, no promises. Maybe it’s a single run with this keyboard and we’re done. But I get the sense it could be something more. I’ve been feeling the cyclical nature of life of late, and I’m sensing my twenties are rolling around again in a more wizened state as I near my, gulp, fifties. Could it be that the creative energy that used to course through me like lightning is building up wattage for a new run at powering me through days?

One can dream. But again, one will not promise.

I started this random site about two-and-a-half years ago to get myself up and running on WordPress again after many, many years of using other CMS solutions. There was interest at my day job in it, so I fired up an instance and wrote a couple entries, focusing more on moving old material from various platforms – mostly Tumblr – to here. As I was writing on Instagram and even posting periodic stories to Facebook, this was a forgotten space that acted more as a nuisance due to filechange notifications and SPAM comments. And yet here we are and this is the only part of me that’s really present online.

What happened? Life, really. I got too busy – and felt too dragged down – by social media, and the weight of not regularly writing on Instagram felt oppressive and shameful. I was tired of not posting anything creative and just talking about my life on Facebook – or Twitter – seemed pointless. Politics were infuriating. Being witty was tiring. Interactions with friends felt inconsequential. Time was nearly extinct and when I did have a moment, all I did was scroll and scroll, feeling more and more down about the state of everything.

So I jumped offline and said good-bye to most of it all – except Twitter, which I do not use – and this blog, which I also don’t use. But here I can tell a story to anyone who might be looking for me. And here that is:

I am fine. Life is busy and I am consumed with parenting my two children and working smart and well-enough to keep myself from drowning in debt. I am doing a 365 project for my son Diego which too is online, so there is that, but it’s nothing anyone seemed remotely interested in beyond his mom and I. Such is the choice of platforms, I suppose. I did the same 365 project for my boy Justin when he was Diego’s age and while challenging, I’ve rarely been more pleased with the outcome of a project. This one has been just as fulfilling.

This July, I am getting married to Diego’s extraordinary and incredible mother in Spain. I visited London and New York City in March. I’ll be in Aruba in November. It’s a big year for travel, and I’m looking forward to making this chapter of my life “official,” although to me, she and I agreed long ago to be together forever when we agreed to try for a child.

This is my best chapter. I’m living for those I love and the byproduct is a kind of happiness and sense of self I’ve never known. I’m still a mopey, angry mess a lot of the time, but it’s less and less time and I’m less and less mopey and angry. (Or at least I hope I am.)

So life goes on without being under the indifferent microscope of Facebook or Instagram. I love and work and keep breathing. I don’t know what’s next for the creative side of me, but I do know that I’ll be creative again at some point. Or maybe not. I can’t say I care all that much anymore. There just isn’t enough time to care that much.

This is kind of a turgid brainspill, so I apologize if you’re here reading it as I believe most entries here going forward are going to be more about me sorting through my thoughts and less about me sharing creativity.

It’s been a couple weeks since I swung by and did a little organizing. My days at work learning WordPress are much more about working on the back end, php, HTML, CSS, etc. It’s fun, but in time that work will lead to categorization, tagging and site taxonomy. That means getting back to working with posts and maybe in turn it’ll lead to me coming around these parts to write something new.

But there’s a bigger issue to tackle when it comes to posting material on this site and it’s a simple one: what belongs here? Many of the older posts are poems and short fiction that passed through my Blogger and Tumblr accounts, neither of which I use much, if at all, anymore. In fact, I need to redirect jasonsanto.com to here, a domain switch that gives me a little bit of agita as I’ve struggled with redirects in the past – an admittedly ridiculous fact because there should be nothing more simple. But I don’t want a simple redirect, so much as a mirror of iamsanto.com to appear with the same directory structure, etc. as this site. I seem to recall that being a SEO no-no, so then it becomes obvious that I need jasonsanto.com to occupy the WordPress hosting instance, reversing the original set-up and… well, that’s all tangential and too much bother on this sunny, September Tuesday.

Back to the original thought and the question of “what belongs here?”, I find myself puzzled with what this venue will represent. The goal in 2016 was to publish a book or three, but so far I’m slower than a snail crawling through tar when it comes to organizing manuscripts. As a result, I could just keep popping new creative writing into here, as my recent attempts at broadening my readership by using Facebook posts has been a punched A-Class ticket to Fail Town. What did I expect, though? Facebook loves silly, cute, incendiary, and – most of all – anything easily digestible. While my stories and poems are bite size, they’re not bite-sized enough. Instagram was never the right platform for me in this regard. Facebook even less so.

Medium has piqued my interest as an online spot where people with attention spans may congregate, but there’s something about it that’s left me a little hesitant. It’s almost as though my work isn’t right for any of these platforms, leading me again to this bloggy approach until I publish something.

But will I publish something?

That’s the real question, and it’s a chicken-and-the-egg scenario. If I don’t publish, no one can read it. But without any demand, I am hesitant to put in the effort to supply. Either way I look at it, there doesn’t appear to be a clear-cut, simple answer so I just continue doing what I’ve been doing; writing on Instagram for the dozen or so seemingly dedicated readers that exist out a following of over 1,200 accounts.

Why? Because it’s easy and it’s an (albeit minuscule) audience. Plus I have a rhythm with which I’m comfortable when I create for there – that 2,200 character limit has been a fun challenge to write to episodically. Of course, I could just re-post the stuff here – kind of like I did with my other sites. But that seems pretty pointless. If anyone is interested in my writing, they likely already read my Instagram so what’s the benefit of a site with the same material? Perhaps the fact that it’s organized? Is that enough of a benefit?

The categorization of a site like this pretty much allows everything to be here. The bonus for the creative stuff is that, if someone likes my work, they have a whole Hell of a lot of it to sort through and read in a variety of ways pretty easily. There are tags. There’s a search feature. There are distinct types of writing broken out in the navigation. No one is likely to care, but for me it at least feels moderately clean – almost as though my mind has some order to it. Instagram cannot offer that.

There is one thing that will not be here, however, and that’s anything that’s ultra-personal. This may be a blog, but it’s not a journal. That’s perhaps too bad because I certainly could use the outlet as I always have a lot with which I’m trying to come to grips and I’ve grown downright lazy with attending to my thoughts in the written journals I maintained most of my life. I think the last time I wrote in my journal was six months ago. Sad. I really want to get back to that kind of writing, but I need to do it there, not here.

Oddly, my last journal had stories within it – one of which, Grave, had several installments typed up and included on Blogger and is now here! It was both personal rumination and creative expression, and I think that’s exactly what a journal should be. So this… this place just becomes a sortable dumping ground; a place to drop off thoughts and creativity without much hope of attracting any significant audience. And yet it feels good to have it all here: it feels tidy.

Anyhow, I guess there will be quite a few entries like this one, rambles that find me wondering about the whys when the wondering is the why.

The irony was not lost on Tim. While he sat in the bustling middle of Royal Street with his fingers wrapped around the tip of Clive’s clarinet, Clive crouched forward and explained the issue with his cock. It was too large, he told Tim just loud enough that the other band members setting up for today’s gig, including Kira the violinist they’d brought in only a couple weeks ago, could overhear the humble brag. Tim felt hot embarrassment creep into the sides of his face, but tried to hide it with a creased brow and unwavering gaze, treating Clive’s problem with his latest conquest as if it was a topic of genuine concern. Still he felt the glances of the others, some quick, some lingering like campfire embers and he paid no mind, staying focused while Clive continued his tale about how he simply couldn’t fit in this girl’s butt. He’d known their bandleader for two years, and while he was frequently a difficult person – one ex-bandmate called him a double-sided verbal razor-blade coated in alcohol – Tim had liked Clive’s brashness and charisma. He was an excellent musician as well as a formidable playa, and the stories of his exploits gave Tim an active, vicarious sex life set to the whimsical tones of the Dixieland they played together. Recently though, Tim’s tolerance for both busking and Clive had started to wane, the excitement of playing in the center of all these rusted New Orleans pastels and greed-sodden, wide-eyed tourists having lost its organic rush. Playing had in general become a chore, as was listening to Clive drone on about his adventures between the sheets and the details he insisted were important with his booming voice and gregarious laugh were flat notes wafting through humid afternoons. Yet Tim listened, partly believing, partly irritated, and partly, if he were forced to admit it, still hopeful that he and Clive’s own chemistry still lurked behind each one of these ribald anecdotes; the water beneath his snake-oil salesman grin.

They’d kissed one time, right around when Tim had joined the band. It was a hazy evening, measured in empty pint glasses, neon, a hoarse voice and cigarette breath. Clive was the first man Tim had kissed. He’d noticed himself in flux beforehand, right after high school he started watching porn with an eye on the men, their length and thickness, the musculature and straight lines at the jaw, the abdomen. He grunted hardest when they came, timing himself with their release and while the women’s hunger still turned him on, it was the men tensing, letting go, weakening that was led him to climax. Kissing Clive was unexpected, thrilling. Their lips fit as naturally as any woman Tim had kissed and while he wasn’t crazy about the straw texture of Clive’s dreads under his open palm, Tim’s body roared when he felt the hardness growing in Clive’s pants rub against his leg. That was the anchor that kept him listening while every wind in life seemed to be blowing him away from music and from Clive, especially the hot air spewed while they were setting up for a gig.

Clive finished rolling his cigarette, clearing a dreadlock from his face and smiling big. He’d settled on the same conclusion as always to his conundrum: find someone new who can satisfy him. Then he laughed, big and dark, but melodic and charming like a canyon echo. And as Tim handed him his clarinet and went back to setting up his drum kit, he saw the violinist looking long at Clive with a bottom lip slightly tucked under a front tooth. Of course. The new band member induction. The story was bait, lines cast just loud enough to inspire curiosity. Clive wasn’t talking to Tim, but at him. The drummer sighed heavily, tightened his high-hat and knew this was going to be another long gig.