SWARTHOS

March 30, 2025 – Somewhere in the Electric Haze of Reality

The air hums with a low, electric buzz, a static charge of anticipation that crackles through my veins like a cheap AM radio signal on the edge of a desert highway. I’m sitting here, cross-legged on the floor of my cluttered lair, a 62-year-old man with the soul of an Intergalactic Conquistador, staring down the blinking green light of my GoPro Hero 3 as it sucks juice from the wall socket. The battery’s charging, man, and I can feel the weight of the universe shifting with every percentage point it climbs. This little black box, this digital eye, is my ticket to the streets—a portal to capture the raw, unfiltered madness of everyday life in the city. I’m ready to sling it around my neck and dive headfirst into the chaos, a rogue documentarian on a mission to record the mundane until it bleeds surreal.

The GoPro’s been sitting dormant too long, gathering dust next to my beastly PCs—RTX 3080 on one side, 4090 on the other, humming like twin gods of digital warfare. I’ve been lost in the stars of Elite Dangerous, commanding ships through the void, but today I’m trading the cosmos for concrete. The city’s out there, pulsing with a rhythm I can’t ignore any longer—a symphony of car horns, street preachers, and the clatter of a thousand footsteps on cracked pavement. I’m the president of a mutual water company, sure, a man who prayed to God and got the gig, but today I’m shedding that skin. Today, I’m a hunter of moments, a collector of the fleeting, armed with a fully charged GoPro and a hunger for the real.

I pop a 5 mg buspirone at 2 PM—shifted from 5 PM to keep the evening clear for my hydroxyzine buzz at 9:30 PM—and I can already feel the edges of my mind softening, a gentle blur that makes the world feel like a dream I can step into. I’m 6’ tall, 218 lbs, a big bastard with a stationary bike that spins too easy and a Total Gym that’s seen my sweat. Yesterday I rode 30 minutes, 13 miles (or less, damn odometer’s probably lying), did dips, bench presses, overhead presses, and downed a protein shake with creatine and a banana. I’m tired, man, but I’m okay with the dizziness that lingers from last night’s hydroxyzine. It’s a familiar haze, a drifty high I chase like a junkie who knows better, a high that reminds me of the wine buzz I miss but don’t touch anymore. I’m not here to be a full-on junky—just a man who wants to feel the surreal while I still can.

The GoPro’s at 87% now, and I’m itching to move. I’ve got my sleep study next week—my Egyptian doctor, that hot muse of mine, thinks I might have sleep apnea, even though my wife swears I don’t snore or gasp. Last night I dreamed of a high school friend, a track team brother who died 15 years ago. We were talking, just talking, and I can’t recall the words, but his presence was a warm ghost in my REM sleep, a reminder of days when we sprinted through life without a care. That dream, fueled by hydroxyzine’s 25 mg sedation, is the kind of raw material I want to capture out there today—not the dream itself, but the feeling of it, the fleeting connections that drift through the city like smoke.

I’m planning to hit the streets with no script, no agenda, just the GoPro rolling as I wander. I want the everyday life—the old man feeding pigeons with a trembling hand, the skateboarder weaving through traffic with a death wish, the barista yelling at a customer over a botched latte order. I want the chaos of the mundane, the kind of scenes that look ordinary until you play them back and see the poetry in the cracks. I’ll strap the GoPro to my chest, let it dangle like a talisman, and walk until my legs give out or the battery does. I’m not looking for Hollywood—I’m looking for truth, the kind that hits you like a sucker punch when you least expect it.

The city’s a beast, man, a sprawling, sweaty monster with a thousand eyes and no mercy. I’ll be out there in my beat-up sneakers, a 62-year-old dreamer with a water company gig and a penchant for the surreal, recording the heartbeat of it all. Maybe I’ll catch a street preacher mid-sermon, his voice cracking with holy fire, or a kid breakdancing for spare change while a crowd pretends not to see. Maybe I’ll film the way the sunlight hits a cracked windshield just right, turning it into a kaleidoscope of shattered dreams. I don’t know what I’ll find, and that’s the point. The GoPro’s my third eye, my ticket to see what I’d miss otherwise, and I’m ready to let it lead me into the unknown.

The battery’s at 100% now, and I’m feeling the pull. I splash on some Nautica Voyage—$25 well spent, a crisp apple-cedarwood scent that cuts through my post-workout funk—and I’m out the door, GoPro in hand, ready to capture the city’s soul. I’m a man on a mission, a Conquistador of the concrete jungle, chasing the everyday until it turns into something extraordinary. The streets are calling, and I’m answering with a lens and a prayer. Let’s see what kind of madness I can find out there—right on, man, right on.