Basket of Thoughts

Thoughts from my mind to the internet

Introductory Entry

Nathan Smith

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October 14, 2019

Hello, and thank you for entering into this journey of the unknown. I have created this blog so that the fire of my passion for writing doesn’t dwindle to ash. There will be no specific topic or any agenda to the blogs that are posted on here. This is simply what I consider a basket of thoughts. Some days I could put up a review of a movie, a book, video game, or something else. Other days it could be just a venting journal entry. Either way, I am not sure where these posts will lead me. Again, I thank you for checking it out. I hope that you can relate, be entertained, maybe even encouraged by whatever things I may post. Stay tuned for the next time when I unload my basket of thoughts. NRS

I Was The First Person To Die From Hallucinogenic Mushrooms

Nathan Smith

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May 17, 2023

True story. Or at least that’s what my mind was telling me last Saturday night. It’s taken a bit of time for me to actually come around to writing about this experience. Mostly due to the fact that a lot of it is actually really difficult to describe but I’m sure as hell going to try anyways. I may do a part 2 of this at some point from other perspectives at the time of the incidents from that night. Until then, well I’m just going to have to give it my best go. To start, I have no idea how much I had scale wise. I’ve not been spooked by these kinds of things most of the time and if anything have backed into psychedelic experiences. That was all about to change. I had a couple of big caps of shrooms, didn’t think it would really be much different then some of my other times. Thought I’d see some cool visuals and such and go on my way…. Well, I was dead fucking wrong. I’ll start with what I remember prior to things going upside down on me. I felt them kicking in but I was feeling tired, so I close my eyes. Now, if you’ve never taken shrooms before, when you close your eyes, you don’t see the darkness of your eyelids. In fact you see unbelievable and weird shit to be honest. I can’t really explain what I was seeing at that point other than a bunch of random stuff. After that, I sort of came to out of nowhere, almost like from a bad dream and when I did I recall sliding off of the couch down onto my knees or on my but and literally thinking I don’t know who the fuck I am! What essentially happened during that time was I had what would seem like a dream but it seemed all too real where everything I had known in my life was not even real. My family was never who they were, my friend and most notably best friend who was also with me at the time was not who he was. Come to find out, I was an experiment for psychedelics and I had been getting IV’d them my whole life but they realized they had gone too far and now I was aware that everything wasn’t real. So I came to, having no recollection who I was questioning everything. Then in a blink of an eye another event happens. I’m actually fucking dead. I died in a car accident from driving while on shrooms. All I can explain is that what I saw was a first person view of a vehicle on it’s side and completely split in half. I could see my family friends everyone crying and upset that I had passed. Which yes, I know this is weird because moments ago, none of them were really in my life to begin with but I wasn’t making the rules that night. The fucking fungus was. I could hear my brother saying, you really did it now Nate. That stuck in my head because then I had a vision again of the vehicle split in half and I could also hear my wife’s voice, when that happened the reality of my death gave me a ton of guilt. Mainly because my wife recently lost her father back at the end of March and now she’s lost her husband because he’s a fucking idiot and had to do shrooms because I always like to tote that hallucinogenic mushrooms can’t kill you. So here I am now, and in my head I know have to go to my wife to explain to her that I’m dead. I know, I know, a lot of this shit makes absolutely no sense which is another reason why it is so hard to describe but it’s just how I remember the experience. During this time, I had a lot of sorrow and it was hard for me to build up the courage to confront my wife about my death. According to whoever I was hearing and telling me directions on what I need to do to move on after life, I had to confess that you can die from hallucinogenic mushrooms. There was also a point during this whole experience where I was stuck in this weird loop trying to pass over into the spirit realm. I could hear my brother and friend talking but everything was glitchy and I was on the floor at this point. I do know this because I remember grabbing onto the leg of the table a lot but I was sort of stuck in this glitch mode where they would talk but it was all glitchy. And I had a phrase that kept repeating in my head which was I wonder what it would be like to be the first person to die of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Now why I had this thought in my head? I have no idea but it was on repeat and as it repeated I kept trying to also confess that I had done it. According to my friend and brother at one point we were outside. All I really remember about that is being outside the bulkhead and looking at the neighbor’s house. It looked like it was nothing but string lights surrounding the house. It was very beautiful with the back drop of the night honestly, and there was a starlit path leading to the house. I remember being drawn to it and I think at that time my brother and friend grabbed me to try to get me back inside. I was drawn to the house because I felt that was where I had to go to get to the other side so to speak. I also remember during several parts constantly saying or yelling “I’m the firs person to die from hallucinogenic mushrooms!” I remember distinctly my brother and friend covering my mouth multiple times so I wouldn’t alert the neighbors. The majority of the experience as you can tell revolved around death and shroom usage ultimately. Some would say it was a bad trip. I won’t say it wasn’t but I can say there was a lot that came out of it for me. It gave me a greater appreciation for life I can say that much. It gave me the open mind to be open to receiving love and knowing how much me being gone would affect other people in my life. I will say it’ll be awhile before I decide to do that shit again if ever. Ultimately, it left me shook for a couple days. Especially the whole car accident bit. That had me looking over my shoulder feeling like Final Destination. All I can really say about it now is that I got spanked in the woodshed on that trip and in and seeing that I did come out of it on the other side, I am overall thankful for it, as it was definitely an eye opening experience. I also have to say I had zero recollection of what I was doing physically but from what I understand I collapsed/swan dove multiple times. If there is a part 2 of this it will be the accounts given by my brother and my best friend. I hope some of this made sense to you but either way it was an experience I had to write about. That’s all I have for now.

Me, My Own Worst Enemy

Nathan Smith

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December 1, 2022

I started this blog about 3 years ago or so now. All to give me a reason to write and put my stuff out there. I started off quite consistent and posting frequently. Sometimes, multiple times a day if I had the time. I felt reinvigorated and sitting down to write regularly was fun and enjoyable. I even started to garner some readers. I also started this with pipe dreams of making some money maybe. What a dream! Making money doing something I truly enjoy. Yet as always, at some point the fire burns out and I start to get lackadaisical and post less often. Then even less often. Then almost nothing. I’m damn ashamed of myself to see I only have done 4 posts so far this year. 12 months and only 4 fucking posts? I couldn’t even commit to fucking at least one post a month. Hence my title of this. I am my own worst enemy. I should know myself enough after over 40 years that if I start taking a day off here or there it gets all too comfortable to just keep putting it off. Fuck that, I gotta get back on the bike and start writing again. I hope you notice the little play on words there. That kind of stuff is the reason I like writing and reading. I love creating those types of things and I enjoy when I read others that do it as well. It adds an element of wit and humor. I like wordplay that is done well on film, too. I find a lot of that stuff comes with British humor. It’s not necessarily blatant funny. It can be dry and sometimes go over your head. I think that’s why I like it as I think of it. It’s not for everyone and it feels like being “in” on the joke by understanding it while others may not. There’s a show that had been on Netflix for a while and I’m not sure where it can be found now but it had great wordplay and it was called “Toast of London” holy shit that show was funny. If you like that type of humor you should try to seek it out. I think that is all for now. I’ve run out of steam on what to write about. Anyways, I will remain committed and will post more regularly. For you for me, my own worst enemy.

Retarded

Nathan Smith

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September 29, 2022

Whoa! What am I thinking writing a piece with this title? I’ll tell you exactly what I’m thinking. I’m thinking it’s bullshit that saying this word is frowned upon. I’ve used it a majority of my life and have never once used it towards anyone that is physically or mentally challenged. Not once! I usually use it for perfectly competent people, that display signs of idiocy. I understand yes, it could be offensive to some. It’s something I don’t understand. I guess because I don’t get offended easily if at all about anything in language. Why? Because they are fucking words, not a fucking knife to the heart. Anyways, the main reason I wanted to write this is because of an instance I recall from when I was in 2nd grade. This means this is well before any cancel culture stuff we’ve seen transpire over the past decade or so. I was fortunate of where I went to school when I was young because we were able to actually get our stories we wrote at the school printed/published. I still have many of those short stories in my possession. You could say my desire of writing started from grades K-4. Those were the years when I was able to have stories published. I loved the idea as a kid and it fueled my desire to want to write. I must have at least a dozen stories from that time period. If only publishing a book was as easy as it was then, haha! Anyways, in 2nd grade I remember specifically in one of my stories I mentioned that these aliens were walking around all retarded. When the teacher read it to me she fucking told me that it wasn’t even a word. She told me did you mean retorted? I adamantly said no, I mean retarded. She continues with this lie and says I’m sorry but that’s not a word you must mean retorted. So against my wishes we added retorted instead of retarded. Do you see what I’m saying here? If she thought it was an inappropriate word she should’ve just said that. Don’t fucking insult my intelligence despite my age and tell me a word that I know exists isn’t a word. So there you have it. All these years I’ve doubled down on that word. No not to offend or be an asshole, simply because I was lied to. I may have had a different experience and outlook on the word had I not been told it doesn’t exist. So either she didn’t have the wherewithal to buck up and tell me she thought it was inappropriate or perhaps, she was retarded. That is all!

T.G.I.F.F.

Nathan Smith

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June 24, 2022

The extra “F” is intentional. If you read enough of these posts you know I’m calculating with some of these things I write. You also probably know what it represents as well. It shouldn’t take (insert preferable genius, here) to figure it out. If you need me to tell you, I will, and with pride. To spell it all out, Thank God It’s Fucking Friday! Sometimes you just have to say fuck. It feels good. I enjoy it and I use it very liberally. I know that turns off some people but I guess I wouldn’t be your kind of people. I’m okay with that because you likely aren’t mine, either. So, the feeling’s mutual, bub. Anyways, moving on before I forget what this whole thing was supposed to be about. To sum it up, I’m fucking fed up with my work. I’ve got things I’m working on to try to get out. I’ve started a company but it’s taking some time to get off it’s feet. I have complete confidence that once I start getting clients that it will take off. I’m well aware of my skills and knowledge and I firmly believe once it gets known I’ll have steady business. I could be completely wrong but I have a good feeling about it despite it being a slow launch. It has to take off, hell or high water I have to get out of where I am now. I’m fucking sick of feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders because I feel like only myself or my manger are the only ones that can actually fucking help most of our patients. I guess that in turn is why I feel like I’ll be successful with my business. I have high standards and I don’t like complaints… I don’t like complainers either but somehow I have found a skill or perhaps a gift to be able to turn around the most pissed off people and turn them to mush by the end of the conversation or encounter. People don’t like being dicked around, especially when it comes to their health or well being or that of a loved one. You have to be honest, and if you don’t know the answer you have to let them know you don’t and tell them as such. However, if you don’t have the answer you better sure as hell know who does because if you don’t you’ve lost. Personally, I never liked not having the answer so I put the work in to learning and retaining the information needed. No, I don’t know it all but if I need to I’m not scared to seek it out. Hard work is what people want and it is ultimately what drives success. I’ve had enough of putting hard work into someone else’s business just to see it all go to shit anyways. It’s time this hard work goes to my OWN business. If it fails, I’m the only one to blame and that’s how I like it.

When is it enough?

Nathan Smith

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May 26, 2022

I can’t be the only person asking this question in regards to the tragic, disgusting, violent shooting in Uvalde, Texas where multiple children and a couple teachers were killed. How many times do we have to see, hear about, or, be the unfortunate victim of events like these? The ones that have the ability to do things about it are doing nothing because of their fears of losing power within their political party. I’m tired of hearing about what seems to be damn near weekly at a minimum of some sort of gun violence. Yet, America doesn’t have a gun problem? Guns don’t kill people, the people pulling the trigger do, gun advocates will say. I honestly don’t get the fucking infatuation with guns in this country… It’s almost like to have guns is American or something. I understand it’s in the constitution but that fucking thing was written over 200 years ago. I understand the purpose of it to being to protect ourselves from the government. Well, I’m at the point where that narrative of government takeover if we didn’t have guns is something I would live with compared to nothing being done about it at all. Which I honestly feel nothing will be done. I recall growing up that at times all it took was one person to fuck all the fun up for everyone else. Mainly in school. A tactic to help keep the students behaved so that we could all enjoy some sort of privilege of some sort. I’m at the point where I do not believe that guns should be fucking a right anymore. I think they should be be put in the same category as privilege. Like driving. You have to take tests and education to get a license. What criteria is really needed to get a gun? To my knowledge you don’t need to take any kind of test. I feel there needs to be way more stringent efforts in being able to obtain one. This alone doesn’t solve the problem I am aware. If someone wants a gun they will typically find an illegal way to obtain it but for fuck sake, can’t we agree they should be harder to get via the legal measures currently in place? I don’t know. It’s just so frustrating to always see this shit happening. Anyways, I think that is all I have to say about it for now.

Long Overdue

Nathan Smith

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January 20, 2022

Well, well, well. The prodigal son returns. It has been way too long since I have posted on here. I feel guilty about it. No sense to continue to dwell on it now because at least I’m attempting to rectify the situation at hand. No one wants to read excuses and I don’t plan to give any. I just want to get down to brass tax and shoot from the hip. Lately I’ve been in an interesting spot mentally. I’m very disappointed with my job. Not because of the work of it but because of how I have seen the place take such a nose dive. I’ve been there for over 10 years. I guess in a sense I feel I’ve been duped. In the beginning I believed that they truly cared about customer service and helping our customers. Why wouldn’t you? It’s what should be the bread and butter of your business. I’m not going to go as far as the ridiculous saying that the customer is always right route, because let’s be real. The customer isn’t always right. Sometimes they’re a fucking asshole. As you read that you are probably judging me saying I must suck at customer service. Quite the contrary. I do well with it. I’ve dealt with said fucking assholes and at the end of dealing with them, had them eating out of my hand. That is customer service. Customer service was a large part of the company’s mission statement back then. Then, greed happened. The company started growing. Buying other smaller companies that were started to fail. As the company grew so did the complaints. However nothing changed and the company started to grow more. Then back in April, our company got bought by an even bigger company. Welcome to corporate America! You know what’s scarier? I work in healthcare! Isn’t that awesome knowing that greed means more than your health needs? It’s discouraging and disgusting. I worked my ass off for quite some time and honestly being a bit blinded by how bad our customer service had gotten. When I would hear complaints, I would shrug it off and internally defend the company. I would do that because I knew how good the relations were at the particular branch I worked at. This was due to the hard work and team work mostly between myself and my manager. As time has progressed, I would say it’s been the last 3 years or so that my eyes have been opened to just how awful the service is. I feel at this time that it is a moral issue for me working at this place. It’s a huge burden feeling like myself and my manager feel to be the only 2 people that are consistently dependable with our customers. No one else in the company feels to be at our level. WE have mangers that are fucking morons and somehow go from failing management in one department to managing another. Why are they still fucking here?? It’s a question I ask on a daily basis. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t give much of a fuck anymore. I still work and do my part but my heart is definitely not in it like it used to be. The sad thing is my half ass is better then the rest of the people’s full ass. I know that may sound egotistical and I hate that but what can I say? If you know your shit you know your shit. That is what makes it so hard for me to leave. My knowledge in the field. Sure I could go off to another company doing the same sort of thing but the sad part is they are all pretty much the same. Large with fuck off customer service. It’s sad because the reason they are so big is because that appears to be the only way to survive in this industry. If I were capable to create my own business in the field I would but there is a lot of red tape to go through. I can assure you. I’d have more fucking pride then to let mine get to the point of having a 1.3 star rating on google. I think that is about all I have to talk about now. This was cathartic and good for me. Probably not as entertaining to you but what the hell gotta start somewhere. I’ll be back soon. Love you.

Author’s Insight on: Head and Shoulders

Nathan Smith

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June 7, 2021

I put a lot of anger and hate into this story and you can see it by the aggressive nature and graphic details of certain parts. I had written this as a way to personally resolve being wrongly done. Bob, was the actual name of the contractor that I bought my house from. The last name is fictional. Needless to say, he’s a piece of shit and honestly, I felt a lot better about things by writing this. The funny thing about it is that I had a totally different direction I had been thinking of for his demise originally. While I was trying to work out how to do it I took a break and jumped in the shower. While I was in the shower was when the direction I ended up going came to mind. My original thought was he was going to go to Thomas’ girlfriend’s house and end up getting put in prison for statutory rape. In prison he was then going to be getting screwed. Either way, the ultimate destination was him being violated. I decided to take a risk and go with the path I felt was the bigger twist. When I write these stories, I write it out and do some slight editing. Just enough so it’s readable. Truth is, I get excited when I create a story and I want to put it out there as quick as I can. I suppose I take a sense of pride in being able to write an, in my opinion pretty decent short story. I don’t think it’s something every one is able to do. It’s honestly the only thing I have any true confidence in. I also know that it’s not an easy trade to make money in. I’ve always been terrified of writing a legitimate novel. I worry my attention span isn’t made for something massive. I guess I never really have tried. I also worry about the attention span of a reader. How many books have you picked up and never finished? I know there have been many I’ve done that with. I feel having a niche in writing short stories combats the attention span issue. Anyways, speaking of attention spans it appears this insight has started to go off the rails. I’ll come back next post with another insight when I regain focus.

Author’s Insight on: Writer’s Block

Nathan Smith

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June 2, 2021

This was the first story I had published on here. It was also one of the first posts in general I had written on here. My first few posts were just really thoughts on things and my perspectives about a couple topics. When I wrote Writer’s Block I had made up my mind that I wanted to write a short story. It was one of my favorite things to write when I was younger and part of the reason I became a fan of writing in the first place. I felt I had some unique ideas and a knack for short stories. I guess in a sense I felt I had a gift with it. When I was real young I could whip up stories out of nowhere. Were they great? No, not really but they were the building blocks to giving me confidence for something I felt I had the ability to do. The title for the story was simple as at this time I literally felt I had a writer’s block. I was staring blankly at the screen, struggling to think of an idea. I said hell with it let’s call a spade a spade and I wrote in the title. Then the story came into focus. I essentially started to write about how I felt about myself in a sense. In the past I didn’t seem to have issues with coming up with a story and here I was trying to do what I had always seemed to be able to do and it wasn’t happening. The idea then came to me to write a story about an extremely talented writer who takes his ability for granted. To be truthful, the ability that Rory has in the story is the ability I felt I had when I was younger with the exception of them being best sellers. In school I took a class called writing lab and it was the easiest class in the world. Literally, there wasn’t any instruction the teacher just said write. I would spend the first bit of time exploring my mind for ideas and once one would come I would just start typing. I had written countless different short stories during that time. The only issue with short stories is that I don’t always throw in the best details. My tactic is to provide a bit of a template and have the reader put their own image of the character in their mind. I don’t like telling people what to do and I feel like that’s what you do sometimes with vivid detail. Don’t get me wrong, vivid details are great but I suppose the truth is I struggle with conviction on what I think the character’s look like and therefore leave it open to interpretation. I do like to write about dark things it seems so usually there is violence or death involved in many of the stories I write. I’m not sure why that is. I also like to try to throw a twist of some kind in. I try to hide it well but I never know how surprised the reader actually gets when things unfold. I suppose it’s hard for me to relate being the author and knowing what’s going to end up happening so for me it’s not a surprise. Either way, I hope that when I add those twists they do catch the reader by surprise. There are definitely things I could do to make it a better story such as adding some more details and doing a bit more editing. I likely won’t as that would defeat part of the purpose of these insights. Part of it is for you, the reader to get some insight on the story and my thought process on it. The other part is me reviewing the work and seeing where I can make things better and to improve on future stories. Well, that about wraps up the insight on this story.

Been Awhile

Nathan Smith

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May 23, 2021

It’s been far too long since I’ve written on here. I had the itch so here I am. Oddly enough, typing this shit from my phone. Not sure where my wife put the laptop so I need to ask her when she gets up. Needless to say, this is not my preferred way of doing this but nonetheless we must adapt. I really just wanted to post to let everyone know that yes, I still do this but just have had a drought. I don’t really want to talk about politics much anymore just because it’s an endless war on that front. I do however have some ideas of other stuff to write about. I thought about doing some, what I’ll call author insights on the stories I have written on here. Sort of a storytellers about the story and where the idea came from and such. Not sure if you’ll like it or not but I figure until I write another story it would be best for others to know where the ideas came from on some of my stories. Anyways, I hope everyone’s well and I look forward to posting more in the future. Take care.

Sunday Edition

Nathan Smith

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February 28, 2021

Gordon snapped awake as if struck by lightning. His heart was racing and sweat was beaded above his brow. He felt gratitude and relief as he looked over and saw his wife, Charlotte sleeping beside him. What an intense nightmare, he thought to himself shaking his head. He peeled back the curtain to observe the beautiful starting rays of dawn. He was snapped out of his fixation of the sunrise by hearing his 4 year old son, Thomas, come into the room. “Dada.” He said as he walked towards Gordon.

Gordon smiled and picked him up. “C’mon buddy, it’s early and mommy’s still asleep. Let me put you back to bed for just a little longer.”

“Ok.” Thomas replied.

Gordon couldn’t believe it. He was never usually this willing to go back to bed. He brought Thomas down the hall to his bedroom and put him in bed. He kissed him on the forehead and told him he would wake him for breakfast. After putting Thomas back in bed he put on a bathrobe and his slippers and headed to the kitchen. He made his morning coffee and felt drawn to go outside. He stepped out and the sun was a beautiful orange ball as it crested over the horizon. It’s gonna be a beautiful day he said to himself smiling. He was amazed how great and positive he had felt. It was as if everything was perfect and there was no changing his mind on that. Oddly, he couldn’t even recall the nightmare that had startled so much to wake him. He looked down the street and saw a 12 or 13 year old boy riding his bike and delivering newspapers. He couldn’t recall the last time seeing this and it put a smile on his face. The boy rode closer and as he approached Gordon’s driveway yelled “Catch!”

It was a perfect toss and Gordon caught it with ease one handed. Gordon was not only impressed with his catch but with the boy’s throw. Gordon bit onto the newspaper and pulled the bag off put it in his bathrobe pocket and flipped the paper so he could read the headline. His jaw dropped and he also dropped his coffee mug and it broke on his stairs. The headline he read was Tragic Car Crash Takes Family Of Three.

Hearing the coffee mug break, the paper boy turned around and yelled “What? You don’t think there’s news in the after life?”

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