Rabbit forever

Honestly, I still don’t believe that you’re dead.

I think you took off into a life you always wanted instead.

When we get the death certificate, I will probably still question if it’s fake.

If other people can believe in heaven, what’s the harm of thinking this way?

To keep feeling like you’re out there somewhere and I might ever see you again. That you’re doing better now — doing what you want.

You’re still gone. That’s the point, isn’t it?

###

You lived a miserable life.

That’s just the truth — at least as far as I knew you.

It’s not something you typically say in an obituary. But it feels important. The world should know what really can happen to a person. How their life can really go. People don’t always get a nice ending, or a nice journey for that matter.

I’m still conflicted about just what you might have done differently to have a different life.

Trying to side step the stigmatized bullshit mentalities of the past. Knowing you can’t blame drugs, or “bad choices”, or mental illness like that. There are plenty of examples of enormously successful people who went through worse situations, who did more drugs, more made more horrible choices, who had more debilitating conditions — and they still would have a different story come time to write their final page.

So what really happened to you? How will I ever know if I can only go on the information I have at this point?

It’s just a guess, a hypothesis I can never prove or disprove. A way to make it make sense — but I know I could be wrong.

Did you just piss off someone more powerful than you early on, and they never let you have a better day?

Did you just not know how to care — or show care — for people?

Did you lean into your suffering because you wanted people to care about you, but that just pushed them farther away instead?

At the very least, what can I do different? I tried to encourage you, to wake you up, but you didn’t listen, didn’t hear me, didn’t respond, didn’t change. If you had just told me you were happy as you were, it would have been fine. But you were always so unhappy. It made me unhappy too.

People have told me I’m a misery, and I think they were wrong, that they just don’t understand me. Is that how you felt? It seems like we had different things to say. Different reasons for our ultimate unhappiness. Am I just this way because you were that way? I don’t mean to be unkind or unscientific, but I don’t want to be you. Not the “you” I knew. I don’t think you did either.

Unhappy and stressed as I am, I still have a happiness that you never seemed to show. I still find some sense of wonder in things. I love to learn, and I nerd out to cope. You would smoke cigarettes and stare out the window, pace a track along the carpet, lay in bed. You shut everyone and everything out to cope. I wish I knew why. Should I expect what small light I have to die out eventually, too?

###

You did have so much going for you. 

You were smart. Your own family said you were a genius. Built a computer at the age of 16, which would have been about 1972 or 3.

You went on to study to be a doctor. Got the highest grade in organic chemistry that college had ever seen.

But something went “wrong” your sophomore year. At least that’s how the story goes. 

You said once the real problem was your parents cut you off a semester before college ended. You never got to graduate.

You’d go on to get other degrees at other schools — an associate’s in customer service administration, a BA in computer science — but that original path was destroyed for you.

You were capable of flying small airplanes. You knew how to talk on a CB Radio. You used to take apart small gadgets like the speaker phone and put them back together again. Remembering the one holiday when you rigged a model train around the ceiling of the room. That light you built with an old CD drive and a Coca~Cola can — when it spun around it put shapes on the wall.

You had a creative soul. What happened to it?

I imagine you had an idea that life could be different, someday, and as the years went by it became more and more clear that it would never change for you.

Had you taken that initial path, would you be at the level your siblings are today?

Would we have spent a lifetime traveling the world? Eating the best food? Doing all the cool stuff? Wanting for nothing? You would have had the best healthcare, the best of anything you could afford. Networking with people who could open doors of opportunity. Having them know you, know me, since childhood. To be known and loved. To be cared about by a whole community that encircled the globe, who had the means to change the world if they wanted to…or at least that’s how it seems from this distance.

Or would you have been just as ghostly, just as aloof, and I would have always been a bastard child that was forced upon you?

Realizing if you’d had another life, I probably wouldn’t have existed at all.

Either way, is it better that I lived my life like I have? How many other people can say the same? To know poverty and to have also stood at the gate of another life, close enough to see through the bars with my own eyes, even if I wasn’t let in? So I can tell you from experience what can make a difference in someone’s life, and that everyone deserves to have their basic needs met…if anyone really cares about people being their best selves at all.

P.S. It isn’t just about money. It’s also about love. People need both for the best possible results. If our basic needs were handled differently, we might need money even less, but we’d still need an evolved sense of love.

###

I think you tried to be a Dad. You tried to step up. It just didn’t work out, and like me, you don’t like things you’re not good at.

You said yourself that you had no paternal instinct. You weren’t meant to be a parent.

I can’t be sorry for existing. I wish you had to foresight to see the ways you made things more difficult — the ways it could have been different if you just had a different attitude about me. About everything. 

But that anxiety and depression was all supposed to be part of your mental health struggle. I can’t be mad at you for that.

There’s no use in harping on how it might have been different in the past, except to try to make better choices in the future.

One of the last things you ever said to me was that you “just wanted an A”. You also said you’d gotten As your whole life, jumped through all the right hoops academically, and in the end it didn’t matter. If you had any kind of philosophy, it was a sort of nihilistic futility — but you still wanted to be seen as a good person, even if nothing mattered, even if everything was kind of fucked up.

###

I don’t want to set your soul in stone — as if this is all you ever were. As if this is it. Whatever I say is just how it was. That doesn’t feel fair to you — to anybody.

I’m sure there are other versions of you that have existed throughout your lifetime, I just didn’t get to know them.

For me, you have mostly been a warning.

What I don’t want to be. Don’t want to do. A relationship I don’t want to get trapped in. The wrong way.

I never want to be obsessed with a man, like my mother was with you, who goes on to call me a troll and a gold digger. Who never loved me. Who would refuse to marry me.

Now, of course, I have to worry you were right about her. How am I supposed to know? I spent even less collective time with her than I did with you. I spent more time talking to family on the phone than we ever spent in person. It’s easy to think I never really knew anybody, and they never really knew or even cared about me.

What would you say if you knew your siblings explicitly told me not to contact “my family” about your death until they’ve settled all the “logistics” themselves? They’ve already had your funeral, although they were abroad and did not attend. It seems no one attended. You were buried by strangers; funeral home staff. My mother lives in the same town as you and as far as I know, she doesn’t even know you’re gone yet. What will she even do when she finds out? Act exasperated — have something to tell her friends — but then what? It’s not like you hung out. If you had, maybe you would not have died alone only to be found by an outreach worker how ever many days later. 

There was no love there between you. Only circumstance.

I don’t want that.

Did you ever love me? Or did you just want to be seen as a good Dad? 

Did you ever even know me? The memory of dinner with my high school roommate. Her dad had just gotten out of prison after 13 years. You exchanged factoids about us as we sat there. You got everything wrong about me. He knew more about her and hadn’t even been in her life. After, in the car, I brought it up. I was upset. Hurt. You said you “didn’t know much about me, but I was expensive, and that’s all you needed to know.”

Is that how you still felt to your dying day?

Why?

Almost any other parent would have loved a little overachieving artsy punk science nerd like me.

Why was I never good enough?

Because you felt like you weren’t good enough?

You never learned that being resilient, not giving up, still caring, and not expecting or defining perfection but just celebrating the good is what would have made all the difference. It would have changed the atmosphere of the story, even if the events were the same. Even if we were always going to be poor and uneasy about the future and with justified reason to be so unhappy — we could have been unhappy differently. Just didn’t know how.

You drove me half crazy with your own anxieties. Put that pressure on me. And meanwhile never clapped when I won. Did not care when I did well. It’s almost like you resented my accomplishments because you had been that kind of kid yourself, and it had gotten you nowhere. How dare I be loved when no one loved you for the same things?

I do feel sorry for you. I see how the cookie might have crumbled over generations. Still, I don’t want it to continue…if I ever have kids of my own.

###

What will I tell those kids about their grandfather? Or any other family member?

It terrifies me that I’m in a position where no one wants me to tell the real whole story of anything. Maybe they did the same to you. Maybe that explains it all.

###

I don’t want to be scared out of living my own life.

I do feel like I’m existing for a greater purpose, a deeper meaning.

If only I could have instilled that in you, would it have changed everything?

I was always the parent while you were the child. It’s what the social worker/therapist person told us when you got custody of me. 

I tried so hard in so many ways to have a better situation with you. But I was still only a kid.

I am prone to putting blame on myself even when it’s not my burden to carry. I want to extend something towards you, a feeling of grief, sorrow that not only are you gone but frankly your life sucked —you never even got to go to Myrtle Beach again. All I could possibly do to right this atrocity is write characters inspired by you. Explain this phenomenon through some kind of sci-fi story. Hope it has political resonance. No one should be left behind like that.

I could never seem to reach you when you were alive. I want to give you some kind of dignity in death. I just also want to tell the truth…the whole truth. I’m trying to do that even as I admit I don’t know what the whole truth really is or was.

Is this a test, only a test, or should I be calling it Coca~Cola?

###

Rabbit forever.

###

July 4, 2022

People are dead again.

Remember there's always bigger, more important things than my personal bullshit again.

Somewhere a parent is crying over the body of their dead child again.

A totally unnecessary death again.

Wondering - again - why anyone would do such a thing - again.

My ears hurt again.

Fireworks blasted off directly on the street again.

3am again.

Wasn't even the 4th of July when it started again.

Motorcycles ripping past again.

Booming bass so loud it strips my ear canals again.

Followed by cycles of dead silence again.

Fear of eviction again.

COVID cases on the rise again.

Don't know what I'm going to do again.

Still alone again.

Don't want anybody in my life because if they showed up I'd never want them to leave again.

With children, or not, how are you supposed to not live in fear again?

Trying to make sense of the world again.

People are demonizing human rights advocates, activists, and protesters again.

Holding back so I don't sound like a cliche dismissable conspiracy theorist again. 

Feeling disposable, expendable, unwanted, trash again.

Knowing I'm not, but how am I supposed to convince people that hate me to love me again?

You can't make people love you again.

Did I tell you someone set off the fire alarm for no reason again?

The company that manages the property changed, so I thought maybe that would stop, but it's the same old shit again.

Nothing matters again.

I got my hopes up that I'd make music, a video game, an electronic narrative that would help people, but I've had a hard time again.

The project has me reviewing everything since the start of the pandemic again.

I'm overwhelmed again.

I should try again.

But right now I just feel tired again.

So here's another bad kind of poetry just to feel like I've done something again.

Probably won't be read by anyone again.

Better than nothing - ever - again.

Nightmares, Again.

12:15am

 

Fell asleep about three hours ago. 

Had a nightmare:

People were knocking on my door. Of course I didn't answer.

They went outside and started chanting "black lives sucks" or something similar. 

People didn't know what to do.

They couldn't beat the shit out of them because then they'd end up in jail.

They didn't want the energy of the area to explode, so they didn't even want to start yelling at them.

Police didn't intervene.

All anyone could do was let the nazis yell in the middle of the street. 

They clearly wanted something horrible to happen.

Something that would make headlines and get poorly described by the media.

Trapped in people's memory as a bad story about bad protesters again, or something.

Some bullshit.

It's like fight club, but life isn't a story, and this one serves no purpose except to get people in trouble.

 

It's like living in nightmare even after you wake up.

If that really happened, what should people do?

Clasp hands and encircle the assholes like the Whos in Whoville and start singing some bright, high pitched love song at them until their fascist, bullying hearts explode?

 

I'm not sure what else to say right now.

I'm just feeling down.

It was one thing when events weren't happening like they used to - but the world is opening back up - and I'm getting left behind. There was an event tonight I normally like to go to. Spring and summer bring a lot of fun things to this place. I'm just going to have to suck it up, but I'm missing out. My life is passing me by. My back is getting fucked up. I'm just getting older and older in a room and no one would know or care if I died. 

It isn't tucked away on a forgotten lane in the middle of the woods somewhere. It's smack dab in the middle of a party that happens almost every night. I don't know if it's better this way. At least life can happen around me? Wouldn't it be nicer to talk to the trees instead of the light poles and concrete? The bricks and passing cars? What's lonelier? In the middle of the woods, there really wouldn't be anyone around for any reason. There's not even the hope of a chance of something or someone good coming your way. You'd just be stuck in the mud, literally. At least you know other people exist here. They're still alive, living, going out, doing things, having fun. You might not, but they are - how much different would the world feel if I had spent the pandemic truly all alone on some deserted road? If you think I'm a little crazy now, ha, I bet that'd be way worse. Trade offs. Whatever. I'm rambling. I don't know what to say. My computer is pressing into my arms in an uncomfortable way. The lives being lived outside are pulling at my mind, distracting me. My back is hurting. I should take some naproxen. Surprised I slept for three hours. Did I accomplish much today? Rants about the system. Trying to perfect a way to talk about how I understand the world. As if anyone really wants or needs me, specifically, to do that, but whatever. 

A lot of banging of doors in the hallways today. Can't tell what the fuck that's about. I'm just starting not to care about anything. I don't like the feeling of shutting down, shutting everything out, so you're not even really here at all. It feels wrong. I just have no other response. 

I might end up homeless. I might end up dead. The future might be nothing but bleak for me.

I'm supposed to be able to control that, make it so that doesn't happen - you know, same story - find a job, do art, follow your heart, and everything is supposed to work out or some shit.

For right now, I'm going to play a video game and just pretend I don't exist. 

And for someone who cares so much about human rights, I gotta say I wish humanity in general wasn't such a dumb fucking asshole.

 

Save It For The SciFi [no more f*cking false alarms please]

6/3/2022

10:30am

The fuckers did it again last night.

Someone has repeatedly and wrongfully set off the fire alarm for the whole entire building where I live.

There are personal, normal sounding alarms in each unit.

The building alarm is an even louder, particular noise.

Over and over, they've set it off to no consequence. There's no reason.

How the building hasn't caught the person on camera, I don't understand.

Sometimes I wonder if it's the fire department themselves. 

It goes off for what feels like forever, and then sometimes goes off again or in small spurts like someone has access to a control panel and is just playing with it. 

One time, in an email, management said someone set it off from a certain floor but nothing about whether they got caught or what the fuck.

Otherwise, there's never an explanation.

How can this keep happening?

 

It's one thing to do stupid shit that falls into some grey area - like the loud sounds that tend to be around me. It's another to do something so blatantly wrong. Repeatedly.

If I live in a world that just doesn't care so much, why the fuck isn't life a lot easier? A lot nicer?

If there are no rules for people to get all worked up about breaking, shouldn't that relieve some stress - not cause more?

I'm probably thinking about it the wrong way - so many "adults" are just playground bullies and selfish, thoughtless, heartless brats - I'd feel bad for them, because it must be something about how they grew up and were damaged in the process - but I'm too busy trying to defend myself against them. They just don't care, and not in a cool way. They prove it every day. And worse, sometimes they have the power to do things like run the country.

Deliberately or not, this feels like a sick joke about "who are you gonna call for help when you can't trust the people who are supposed to help anyone?" Trying to pressure you into a different kind of bad situation just because you're all alone.

Some moron used to set it off on Halloween for maybe two or three years in a row when I first moved into the building. Don't know who it was then, either, but that stopped happening. It was so different when you just had to go outside, and it's not like it happened three or four times a fucking year. Now whoever it is is repeatedly putting me at a personal risk of getting sick and possibly even dying. Not to mention the stress response to the alarm itself. I don't know if I've gotten COVID at any point so far even though I've stayed inside. I'd need to get an antibody test to be sure. But I got sick months ago - I'd describe it as some kind of sinus infection - lasted for two weeks - just from going downstairs for a minute to get a delivery. The one time I was wearing only one face mask instead of three. I got sick after there was something burning outside too, but that was clearly irritation from whatever the hell that was.

There are always people going in and out, people who didn't wear face masks at any point, people crossing paths. When the clubs are open, the surrounding area is like living in the middle of a party. I'm not trying to spoil anyone's good time, but I am trying to live my own life and survive. Whoever is doing this is so stupid that they're fucking evil. Real stupidity has nothing to do with your IQ. Being deliberately evil is truly stupid.

I had a nightmare about it - in my dream, I was looking out the window with my phone in my hand. Someone was sitting on the ground across the street. They looked up at me, and I got a text message that said to try and use the fire escape (in real life, there is no fire escape attached to my part of the building). The person in the dream got up and walked away. I thought I heard a knock at the door (in real life, it might have just been my cat getting out of his chair). Woke up.

 

I feel harassed. I have nowhere else to go. I have to put up with it. It isn't right.

 

Running out of things to say about it. Just feeling nauseous and angry. 

I've got to worry about an income, whether it's worth it to get involved with this one program if they might not always even have work for you to do, and I guess all this other bullshit is supposed to make me feel like I should think about trying to leave instead - but again - I have nowhere else to go. I don't want to leave anyway. I just want to live my life.

I feel like a kind of philosophical refugee here. It's more than just familiar, the longest I've ever lived anywhere. It's the only place I can imagine being - at least for all the things I thought it stood for.

It's so beyond fucked up that anyone has tried to mess with me - mess with the area - whatever the fuck they're trying to do. It's been hell. As if some people decided to torture anyone who needed to stay inside. My situation could easily be so much worse - how would they know? They don't know me. I could be someone stuck in a bed - I've met two different people in a position like that. I could be someone who has worse health issues. I've gotten sick and been in enormous pain just being in here. The horror of my back going out and then they pull some shit like this. It makes me hate them and I don't even know who they are - and then I hate that they made me hate them so much. It's almost absurd. A circus of bullshit. It's just wrong. 

There are so many theories that have run through my mind. If people don't feel safe outside, or inside, do they just implode? Imagine a villain got hold of the CIA's psychological research and is employing tactics on the general public. Some sick overgrown child who didn't even know anyone enough to love them despite the usual frustrations of humanity and who is just playing a game with us all.

I've wondered if it's a real estate scheme. This is supposed to be low income housing. I've been specifically told there's a 99 year lease. It's not like someone can buy it up and turn it into a club - though I wonder why the hell they made this place into apartments in the first place. It used to be a club years and years ago - it's a historic building, it used to be a lot of things - but a club honestly would have made more sense with the area. If you live deep inside the building, maybe it doesn't matter, but my room has always felt like a torture box. I got jobs at night, cleaning, to compensate. I adapted, I didn't complain. I miss a lot of my old life, even. Walking to and from work, smoke breaks, singing, a sense of independence I have lost. Mostly just felt down for not reaching my potential more quickly, not really understanding what the fuck was going on with the world around me, but I still feel that way now anyway.

It doesn't make sense someone would push you out just to have your space. There are - at minimum - 16,000 empty apartments throughout the city. I'm sure there are empty apartments within the building itself, even. There's a campaign to house 3,000 people - half of the over 6,000 they've counted as homeless - and landlords are pledging units. If I had to guess, it would just be more convenient for someone if I wasn't here. I pissed someone off, they don't like me, and they have a lot of friends - or can pay people to do horrible things.  But that's a guess, I don't know. Just trying to make sense of what's felt like straight up torture. This area had issues, but nothing to this level before 2020, before the pandemic. 

I've wondered if the whole city is being punished for decriminalization. If that's what it's really about. Someone was mailing me letters - which they never used to do - at the start of the pandemic. They always had a "drug free america" sticker on them. My imagination has run in wild loops around the horrible thought - have you ever seen the movie Fail Safe? - and then this war broke out - I don't believe so much in psychics, but I do understand what it means to take an educated guess and to be right enough that it gives off the illusion... I keep telling myself, reminding myself, I don't know. I could be wrong and I hope I'm wrong. But it's so easy to lose track of what's going on with how the news cycle moves - it's hard to see the big picture. I'd imagine someone with a home and family and a 40+ hour a week job just simply not having the time to know what the fuck was going on about anything. Trying to pay attention is exhausting, and what can you expect when people are already exhausted to begin with? And what if that was the point?

I should stop right now. I'm having a panic - I wouldn't call it a panic attack - but a panic response. I start going off about every little idea, dumping out the file folders in my brain, searching for some kind of answer. Soothing myself but continuing to freak myself out at the same time. When it gets really bad, I tell myself to "save it for the scifi" and I don't normally do more than make an audio recording, which feels safer than writing it out. I just don't know what to do. My mind goes back to that quote by Zora Neale Hurston: "If you are silent about your pain, they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it."

 

I did not enjoy this. There was nothing fun about this. This has been a kind of hell. And just because it could always be worse doesn't make it right.

 

Whatever the hell is going on, I need to balance out the horror stories with the potential good. I don't know either way, so it's just as possible that maybe this is all for a reason I'd admire if I only knew. But it does feel like something is going on - this was not just an organic string of events - whether you're talking about my own personal life, the street I live on, the city I live in, the country I live in, the world at large, and everyone in between.

 

I guess I should address the obvious before I move on to my job search for the day.

The alarms: why do we need them in the first place? How much more dangerous is everything when they either malfunction or we turn them off all together?

I see a connection between the alarm and authority response, too. If the authorities are malfunctioning, is it better to disconnect them and have none at all? Will something else, worse, naturally takes its place? Why can't we just repair the problem - come up with a whole new alarm system? Time, money, effort - wouldn't they be worth it if the system is so necessary? Someone might say the building itself isn't worth the cost of the new alarm, but that's a cruel judgement - regardless of whatever figure the government comes up with to justify costs, people are priceless. Human life is priceless. (And making horrible things happen to try and "prove the point" for why we needed alarms is just evil.)

 

Almost noon already. I can never get into a rhythm with my life. I spent so much of my childhood living the same exact day every day that you'd think I'd love the more chaotic structure but my body doesn't respond well - I'm always tired. (Though, who am I kidding? I was always tired back then, too. I'm always fucking tired. If something is wrong with me, why hasn't anyone ever noticed?) I never know what the hell is going to happen. I don't know if I'm going to end up awake all night - bass thumping through my brain so loud I can't think, or more recently, awake in a silent void that can fall on the area when the clubs aren't open. Either way, awake all night, or possibly falling asleep at a crazy early hour like 11pm and waking up at 7am for a week until for some reason that shifts again...I can just never get a real grip on the passing of time. And that would be more fine if it didn't feel like a ticking clock, always getting closer to eviction and homelessness - if I can't find a job. A remote job. A remote job I don't need to be awake and at my best at 6am every day for... or at least, not one where I'd need to be smiling and pleasant for anybody. 

Ugh, someone is smoking - I think - something - that just smells awful - again. I would think it was weed, but it always smells the same - must be the worst weed in the world. There's a moldy dampness to it, like they've been storing it in their sock. It always smells the same. Comes wafting in through the window - or at least I think that's where it's coming from. I wish they'd at least get better shit. Whatever that is, sucks.

I could go off about the sad irony that I was using cannabis with intention, studying it, and trying to help myself medically when all these people just want to fuck off for fun, and yet I haven't had any for forever...but that's bitter. Everyone can benefit from things that make you feel better. It just seems like few people care about anything the way I do, and I could really use some good RSO right now...my back is still hurting, and my thigh is still numb. It'd also be nice just to mentally release long enough to enjoy a day or two. Everyone needs that - everyone should have more good days than bad.

I'm going to try and take that exam and see where this one opportunity leads me. I don't have much choice. Maybe try to find a couple more jobs to apply to first. Maybe make something to eat. Do I need to eat right now? Might just be thirsty. Being a human is ridiculous. It's amazing any of us got this far. 

(It's okay if you laughed at that, I think it's funny too)

***

6/4/2022

2:49am

I don't check my door often, but I did tonight. 

They put a notice dated 6/3/2022 saying the fire alarm was set off by a malfunction - that someone has messed with the alarm in their unit and that's what set it off. They're saying they will inspect people's apartments if the "error" is still showing on Monday.

I want to call bullshit so badly.

How are you supposed to trust anything if you think they'd lie about that?

And why lie?

Because it's a liability or something? It's on them if someone keeps getting inside and setting off the alarm. It's on them if they're letting it happen. If it's even some sick joke involving local authorities who should be helping people, not torturing them... If. If. If.

But I can't prove that. 

I can't lose my home.

I can't do jack shit.

The bass was awful again tonight.

Yes, it's Friday. 

There's a carnival in town.

What could I expect?

But there's just no reason for the bass - it's not even the music - it's just that one low frequency of sound - to be so fucking loud.

If someone came over and stuck a drill in your ear, it wouldn't matter how many times they did it, wouldn't you still cry out every time? Wouldn't it drive anyone crazy? Irritated? Angry?

If the point was to get me to move out, don't you think I would have done that a long time ago if that was an option? Why the fuck would I stick around if I had somewhere else to go? Just to have this negative impact on my health and well-being on a regular basis? What the fuck.

It's crazy to think anyone is supposed to be having fun in this nightmare.

It's got to feel different, sound different, if you're down on the street and possibly drunk.

I'm sober and stuck in a box.

This is not fun.

I gotta say, though, at least it makes some sense for them to be so loud outside.

It makes no sense whatsoever that my own building would be against me in any way.

People who have worked in the office always said their goal was to keep you housed.

It's supportive low income housing. It's supposed to be more helpful than even the average apartment building.

Why they hell is this happening?

I don't want to leave this city, but I know it'd be like moving to a whole new place if I just moved into a different area. 

I started out on the other side of the city, and since I left I don't see anyone I used to see before.

I don't know how many people just moved away entirely, but if they still live here, it's like we live in separate worlds.

Of course, now that I'm always in my apartment, I just live in my own world.

A box that gets banged on. Hidden in plain sight. 

 

I'm so sick of people yelling. It's never anything nice, not even real words most of the time. Not even some argument that could make some sense. Just mean bullshit.

Sirens. Can't tell who is making that noise or for what purpose.

Motorcycles. Car engines. Trucks. Whatever makes that horrendous sound. Sometimes with a pop pop pop. Like it's the closest they get to being a roaring animal. Why would anyone want to be them? 

Bass. Just the bass without any music overlaid on top of it. Is it supposed to make people want to leave? Does this seem to ever work? I don't think so. I don't think anything will ever make people just go away if that's what somebody wanted. Just look at the pandemic.

There will always at least be tourists who don't know better, who haven't been here, who want to spend money and feel free and will move on to the next - maybe those are the only people they want, anyway.

Someone is always doing negative, stupid shit, as if they're a dysfunctional child trying to get attention and I just don't have the patience. I don't even get the kind of attention I need and I'm not being an obnoxious brat about it. I form sentences and make valid arguments. They bang on the side of the building and make horrible noise.

(I should be more considerate of the idea that people have different abilities - some aren't good with words, or maybe they lost their ability to make coherent arguments over time - and that's why they make noise instead. They can't form the thoughts or communicate them for some reason. This is the best they have. Or I'm being naive and it's obviously just a bunch of bullies like it feels like it is - they make noise because someone can write that off different than they could an actual statement - you wouldn't argue with me because I would win... but still, the communication issue could be a factor. It's hard to know what's real on this street anymore, and what's some kind of deliberate act for some purpose - and I don't want to accidentally play into someone's negative agenda, as much as I can help it.)

It's 3:05am. I didn't eat a proper meal today. I had a 10mg protein bar, some trail mix, and three cheese sticks. Usually I have noodles, peas, cheese, and spices once a day. I didn't drink one of the 20mg protein/300mg caffeine/BCAA energy drinks I have. Made a mix of great value and crystal light drink powder with ginger and cinnamon when I woke up this morning. I think it's like 380mg caffeine total. Still haven't finished it. I only took one naproxen.

Back has been sore mostly around the spine and on the right side. Helps when I don't scrunch up into one position for a long time, which I tend to do when I'm stressed, especially working on the computer. Maybe a 3 or 4 out of 10 on the pain scale. Back of my right thigh is still numb, but I want to say I think it might be getting better. 

I applied to four jobs today. Didn't hear back about rental assistance for July and August. They're raising rent starting September. 

Dunno what else to say or go off about. I should be using my time and blog space for important things. I've talked about that already. I go off on pseudo-speeches on my audio diary and this is more for inarguable details. 

Someone is playing a guitar. Not super loud. That's nice at least. 

I also needed a sense of escape badly, wanted the feeling of walking around a place, so I downloaded a free game called "Dawn". It took three hours to download and only 30 minutes to play, but it's free, and really very pretty. I love how things glow. I'd really like to make video game versions of my stories. It'd be my personal masterwork: Writing - story/plot, dialogue, character development. Visual art: illustration, animation. The music. And gameplay. The whole package. A one woman/person show. 

(Side note: a lot of consideration about ideas and accessibility. It seems to me that making a short video for youtube might be the most accessible thing I could do. A million people might read a story, but 10 million people would see a short video online. You can write about anything. I want to say things that feel like they need to be said. So, as much as I love the video game idea, I can't help but think that might not really help in terms of accessibility. It'd be fun and a cool way to tell the story, but even less people would probably end up experiencing it. I still want to do it, but a video - which can still have animation, music, story elements - might be best. Maybe I can design a game with the videos - choose your own adventure - and you click on the next video based on how you want the story to go? I'll think about it...)

I've downloaded opentoonz and blender, gimp, cakewalk, and davinci resolve - so far I've mostly just fucked around with cakewalk. There's a lot to learn before you can really just put things together. I had to get a lot of extras just to figure out the pitch. But it's all free, which is awesome. What a time to be alive. And how horrible to be left out of all this advancement just because you don't have a computer, internet, or feel like you can't figure out how any of it works. I was using a broken chromebook that wouldn't update for the last two years. I couldn't have done this stuff if I wanted to. Now I have so much I have to learn how to use - it's like starving and losing all your teeth to malnutrition, and then being sat down in front a feast and you still can't eat. 

I want to say that I will find a way. I will get tried, and frustrated, and sad, but I will keep trying.

I just don't want to play into the same old bullshit that makes people feel like their life is all their fault.

No it's fucking not. 

It's not always about people who "tried hard enough" and people who didn't.

That's not the whole equation.

And just relying on some fortune cookie sentence about not giving up isn't going to save me.

It helps.

But it doesn't mean everything will for sure work out just because I want it to badly enough.

And that's important for people to realize if they're ever going to have empathy for people who are struggling.

If they're ever going to realize just how truly LUCKY they are to have "succeeded" in anything at all.

And maybe to even figure out why some people "make it" when so many talented people don't. It's as if you're "chosen" based on an agenda - not because of your own skills or perseverance alone -  and they only let enough people "make it" to give the illusion that anyone could. To keep you trying - to keep you working some other dead end job with this little dream in your heart of someday - because otherwise you'd just give up on the system entirely. And if you perpetuate the line that "you just have to try hard enough and never give up" then you're encouraging that mentality - and that's really (at least a big part of) why they make it. They say what someone wants them to say, on top of their talent, their portfolio of work, their resilience, drive, dedication, energy. They are the "good example" they want people to emulate, to imagine they could ever be, and as Chuck Palahniuk wrote:

“We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.”

Similarly (I thought Gloria Steinham said this, but now I can't find the origin...):  

"If you're not angry, you're not paying attention."

When people are angry, justifiably angry, they are more likely to call for and enact change. 

As the protests of 2020 showed everyone - if you were paying attention - it's also devastatingly easy to demonize people who are angry - even justifiably angry.  

The system doesn't want you to be angry. It wants you to be scared, obedient, and easy.

It might sound too vague to talk about things in these terms - "they", "the system" - we've been prompted to dismiss statements like that. But it's also designed so we don't know who exactly to blame. What everyday person knows the names of every person in leadership? Every CEO? Or even the main company that owns dozens of others? Can name those responsible for every preventable tragedy? Who do you hold accountable when you don't even know who anyone is? Or when the blame should be split - good intentions, bad results vs. bad intentions from the start. What does fair accountability even look like? How can you talk about what is so obvious in front of you when you're not given words to explain it? That's why it's so vague. But it's true. I can tell you it's true because to prove it, you only need to look at who benefits and who struggles to survive. Who is scared, and why, and who is living a full life, has full agency and autonomy, can do whatever they please, and isn't bothered in the slightest. Not because they've temporarily drugged themselves into that oblivion - people who have nothing to lose - but because they can afford not to care. Everything people commonly say is wrong with our planet starts to become increasingly visible then, not just some intangible idea but hard fact.

There's so much goddamn money floating around the world - this arbitrarily assigned unit of value that no one can ever confirm even really exists in the numbers reported - who is to say? why do we just believe them? we have no choice and no way to know otherwise...never believe anyone who says we -  as a whole country or world or collective - just don't have the money to solve a problem - if money was all it would take. They don't want to just house people. They don't want to just give people food, education, healthcare. Universal basic income. If we didn't need money so badly, their tactics of control would fall apart.

If someone works for a company, they might identify with their workplace. "I need that job and don't want to have to consider, every day, some horrible thing that company is doing to the world." It's not evil of them - the system is what's evil - because they shouldn't have to compromise humanity in order to survive. But they have kids and bills and fear, so they'll hate the people complaining instead. Meanwhile, that worker was never the real issue, they're a brick in the wall holding the castle up. Same if you're talking about other groups beyond companies - groups that hold up systems of supremacy or cruelty or bigotry - the smaller moving parts act in defense because they feel personally attacked. But instead of joining together with those who point out how dangerously flawed things are, how they negatively impact those outside of that group or company or whatever, they keep the horrors in place - they think their livelihood is at stake - and don't see how our collective survival is wrapped up in each other. Imagining they will be protected somehow for defending their situation. Meanwhile, we're all pretty fucked - some more than others.

Guitar person has turned to a harmonica.

Bob Dylan was in town recently for a concert. 

I'm sure they've gone on to the next show now.

But it was cool to imagine them wandering around town.

I wonder what they thought.

3:27am

Don't know what to do with myself now.

It's the weekend. Not that it means a whole lot for me personally, but still.

The energy in the air just says to do something fun.

You'll die anyway, either way, might as well enjoy as much of your life as you can.

 

***

6/4/2022

11:03am

 

Adding to this post instead of making a new one because it's all related to the same thing and I want to keep the thoughts in one place.

I got plenty of sleep. Sometimes that still doesn't matter. Because - nightmares.

Overall, I haven't really dreamt - or had dreams I remembered when I woke up - much in the last decade.

I just didn't hit that level of REM sleep or just had to wake up so quickly, they didn't have time to stick, or maybe cannabis did have an impact on that - but of course when it comes to PTSD - reducing nightmares would be part of the point. Some combination of all three.

Anyway, I've been keeping track of my dreams since getting locked down into my apartment in 2020. There were a bunch of nightmares that took place in different contexts and environments, but it was the same basic thing: people trying to get into my space, sometimes simply as way to get somewhere else, without face masks on. I'd plead with them, tell them how I haven't left and was afraid of the virus, but they'd barge in anyway. I must have had a dozen different dreams like that.

For some reason, I don't have those so much anymore. People aren't even wearing face masks at all in my dreams lately. It isn't a thought. As if it's a world that never had COVID at all.

Other things go wrong, but not that.

I've had a series of dreams where I said goodbye to different, specific people. 

Loads of dreams where I'm back in a living situation that was familiar to me in school.

I'm trying to remember them all...someone is yelling outside.

Anyway, last night, it was a nightmare.

I don't need to go into details. The point I'm trying to make is more that these dreams feel so transportive to me.

So. Fucking. Real.

I might seem caught up in the obvious - yeah dummy, that's what a dream is like.

But the feeling really lingers. If you were watching a movie and suddenly, literally, found yourself inside that movie, then got back out again - that wouldn't just be an everyday experience. 

I'm holding onto the dreams, the moments, where I said goodbye to people because it really feels like that's the last time I saw them. I guess, at least for one person, maybe that's because the dream was better than the actual last time I saw them. But still...

Someone is using the call box outside, downstairs. It's weird that it's so loud I can hear it ring. Maybe someone is just making the noise on a speaker - for whatever reason, that's happened with other sounds. Like they want you to think something is one thing when it's another. Some game being played out.

I'm not in the call box. Never have been. But management recently asked me if I wanted to be put in it - I told them no. It occurred to me that people might be exploiting the box somehow - but then you'd also be able to trace who called who and figure things out if people were fucking around, wouldn't you?

I sound like an old ninny, so concerned over getting people in trouble. I'm not. I have no interest in just getting people in trouble. I just want to feel like there's a way to know if someone is being cruel. There's a way to figure it out. 

My first thoughts of the day were about the fire alarm incident. It's not just about the alarm - management did an inspection of my apartment and replaced my alarm at the end of April. While they were here, they gave me some concerning information, and specifically mentioned something about "in case of a medical emergency". They replaced my fire alarm and left. Overall, it seemed like a positive interaction. I believe I got a grocery delivery the next day or the day after. So there was a human interaction then, too. Then, about four days later, on May 1st, I was in that horrible pain. It was really a "medical event". Under normal circumstances I would have gone to the ER. But I was scared of getting COVID at the hospital, scared of leaving my apartment, and decided to just wait and see if the pain would pass. It did. Or at least I think that part of whatever is better now. I'm just having this more general pain my spine and the numbness in my right leg. The fact that they specifically mentioned the idea that there could be a "medical event" struck me the moment they said it, but also rang in my head especially when I got sick so soon after. I can't say they had anything to do with it - I've wondered if there was something on their shoes? But I sure as hell am not stoked at the idea they'd come into my apartment again. 

Someone is running some kind of machine outside. Whatever. My headphones are charged, it should be easy enough to drown them out. The lengths it seems people have gone to be deliberately awful - distracting - it must have cost me a lifetime of thoughts at this point. Not that anyone really cares, right?

 

They stopped before I even reached up for the headphones. Good. Nice. 

I'd like to keep them charged for tonight. Saturday is usually louder than Friday.

How can I complain too much? It used to be pretty much every day of the week back when I worked at nights to avoid it. At least that life made more sense, though, didn't it?

A train of thought on that: I'm 32 now. I've lived in this same apartment since I was 25. 

What kind of future should I expect for myself? What was ever possible?

The only way I could "meet" anyone now is if I talked to them online.

I probably won't ever have a family, then. Unless I somehow become independently wealthy and adopt?

And I wouldn't, couldn't, have a kid in this room. Someone who needed to sleep. Someone who I didn't want to have to hear people yelling or possible gun shots or whatever amount of chaos. People burning shit outside.

As an adult, I'm fine. I guess. This hasn't been easy, but I'm alive. Maybe it has ruined my life. I'm supposed to think and then take those thoughts and put them into words and build whole worlds out of it. All I can do is bitch because it's the easiest thing to say. Turning on a faucet of emotions and letting it spill out endlessly - not taking pieces and constructing anything. But whatever, I just wouldn't put a kid through it. Their development would suffer from never being able to get regular sleep, they'd be distracted, and subjected to the same shit on a different level that I was as a kid - just people yelling around you, angry things, on a regular basis. The energy of misery in the air all the time.

Someone is saying "fuck you" under my window right now. 

It's one thing to curse. I loved that my gram cursed. I curse.

But it's the tone. The purpose. The total stranger who you don't know so they're unpredictable. Fuck that.

Of course it'd be awesome if I could help where I live - somehow - instead of just feeling trapped in it.

I've supported the 3000 Challenge, though honestly I feel like people need more time and I'm not sure where all the money is going -  my life would cost $10,000 a year. Even when I calculated for someone who would be moved into a more expensive apartment, calculated for electric and services - it didn't really add up to the total they were asking for. And at the same time, one year doesn't feel like enough. Even if people were signed up for disability or section 8 - something that would help continue to pay the rent and keep them housed in that space once the program ended - it just doesn't feel like enough time in case they don't get awarded those services right away. Or if they are on the borderline and just don't qualify. Then they're back on the street in a year. People do need more than their rent paid - you might have a home now, but you need toiletries, cleaning supplies, basic things that aren't in any way a luxury. Without them, you get sick and your home goes to shit. They might need people to come in and help them. Maybe that's what the money will be for...but it doesn't explicitly say that, so I don't know.

It runs through my mind that there are millions of people who grew up in chaotic, dangerous, desperate environments and who might have turned out a lot better than I have. I'm still living out some narrative my school gave me about breaking the cycle of poverty. But I can only speak for myself. I was a sad, lonely kid. Plain and simple. But I wasn't worried someone would shoot me. I didn't have constant noise interrupting my thoughts. In some ways, maybe it was too quiet. There needed to be more music. I infused that into my world more as I got older, but 10, 11, 12 years old was a militaristic experience. No matter my age, even through college, I was always surrounded by people, but felt alone. A phantom floating through the hallways, slipping past people. Even as an "adult" I mostly just went to work and came back to my apartment. There were some fun nights of long conversations and endlessly smoking cigarettes, but there was a physical price for drinking - one I don't think other people necessarily have to worry about. No matter whether I'm in school or "the real world" I feel so alienated. School was too conservative, and this world is too chaotic.

There's been a cacophony of sirens the last few minutes. Sounds like every kind they've got. That happens a lot though, and when I look to see what's going on, I don't see any incidents that line up. Don't even know for sure if it's the actual authorities or someone pretending to be. I don't look outside anymore.

There goes one of those stupid motorcycles with the popping noise. Pretty sure it's a motorcycle. I have seen a station wagon making motorcycle sounds, so who knows. I try to let it pass like an unpleasant thought. Sometimes the sounds echo in my ears long after they've driven away. 

12:10pm and I feel tired again.

Haven't had caffeine yet today, I'm sure that will help.

It's like getting back on a carousel. Gotta do it if you're gonna do more than sleep,but you just spin in circles going nowhere until the mechanism runs out of fuel. 

Goldfish can get really big when you put them in a big tank. What happens when you put a big goldfish in a little tank? (She asked, metaphorically speaking)

 Why the fuck can't I just fulfill my dreams? I said before, I have story ideas. Just write one. Isn't that all you're/I'm supposed to be doing?

 I just feel tired.

Some energy vampire has sucked the life out of me. I could fall asleep in this chair.

Options:

a) get up. chug an energy drink. keep writing.

b) get up. chug an energy drink. end up looking at stuff online, the news, and probably ranting about some down to earth topic - but not writing scifi stories (this happens a lot).

c) get up. energy drink. put on music and dance around. maybe your body is breaking down and that's why you're so tired. you need some exercise.get blood flowing.

d) get up. energy drink. all these ideas start running through my mind - the possibilities of the day. I could paint a watercolor background, upload it to opentoonz, overlay an animation, and then add music I made in cakewalk - then upload that somewhere and if I made a series of them maybe I could ask people to support my art and then I'd have money for rent and supplies and wouldn't be so goddamn doomed. (I get these idea rushes a lot and often nothing comes of it - I end up doing option b)

e) go back to sleep. try again later.

f) oh yeah, I downloaded another free game: kibbi keeper. Dawn only took 30 minutes to play. these games are made by students so it's more than just fun, I like thinking about how I would make a game myself. maybe I could start the day this way - it is Saturday, and I have a lifetime of Saturday mornings spent cleaning instead of being a kid to catch up on...

g) I'm honestly going to pick option f and see where I go from there, but of course I realize I should be looking for jobs until I land one. Income. Income. Income. Find an income. Well, art can do that too. But so risky, unlikely, so I've got to apply for things I have to just hope I can do. I can't just not apply. I have to. Have to be a miserable person just doing what I can to survive because that's what people are forced to do in this world. How absurd of me to think I might make a living doing anything I actually want to do, at the pace my body and mind is prepared to accomplish it. Keep the dream alive, sure, but know it's a dream. Something like that. Something sad like that.

also h) at some point today, cut up the ginger and put it in the freezer...gotta do that before it goes bad....

This Is How They F*ck You: An American Poverty Story

7:57am

I feel like I barely got any sleep. My audio recording said 6 hours, 51 minutes.

I started that at 12:52am and was writing until 1:46am.

Might have fallen asleep by about 2...so somewhere between 5 and 6 hours, not even.

I could be wrong, but it's as if there's someone with a siren - not a cop or an ambulance or a fire truck - who likes to just drive around making noise. 

If that's true, I don't understand how it isn't easy as hell for them to get caught.

Wouldn't be the first time someone has pulled shit like that:

In February, a man pretended to be a DEA agent.

In May, a guy pretended to be a cop.

There's supposed to be a small substation a block over.

I haven't understood why anything goes down that shouldn't.

(Suddenly remembering the hazardous materials truck blasting bass the other day...or the motorcycle/cars that rev their engines so loud it's like they rip out your ear drums...or what seems to be people in cars sitting outside of clubs some nights blasting bass - thumping thumping thumping in your head - it doesn't even sound like music. Are they trying to make it seem like the noise is coming from the clubs? I don't know... just a memory overload of bullshit from the last two years...)

Unless the idea is to punish people for wanting police reform.

Don't understand why many of the police themselves wouldn't be on the same side as the protestors...

but I guess I'm an "idealist" right?

 

There's a tightness and discomfort in my back.

I don't want to just keep talking about that, but it's distracting.

I can't tell if things are getting better.

The physical therapist I watched online said you want the sensation to work itself back up your leg and into your back (if it's a nerve damage problem).

The back of my right thigh is still numb - but maybe a little less than before?

My hip and back are burning a bit.

I don't know, maybe I'm just fucked.

This is how people get fucked.

Broken down beyond a point and then thrown away because you couldn't get help in time.

One problem causes another.

 

I woke up to an email that said I didn't get another job I applied for.

For all I know, I'm on some kind of list and they just dismiss me outright.

 

I guess I have the option to do this three part exam and see if that place hires me.

It's just unreliable - according to people on Reddit,anyway.

Sometimes there might be work, sometimes not.

I wish transcription paid more. I actually enjoy doing that.

It takes me an hour and a half to do a 6 to 7 minute recording.

I've done about 4 or 5. I get high marks on my work.

But the pay is so little, I haven't bothered to cash out.

Eight hours of work for something like $4.

I just get the experience.

I'm debating whether I should just go back to bed.

Feeling kinda nauseous. That happens a lot. 

My headphones needed to charge, but I can listen to binaural beats now.

That might also be why I didn't stay asleep.

Part of me thinks: does it matter? I'd just have weird nightmares anyway, probably.

Can't win.

Ah well, whatever.

Oh hey, well...I guess that's good news.

I got another email that says they're offering people $100 for finishing the exam right away, and then finishing the paperwork.

Still could be more trouble than it's worth.

$100 isn't going to solve my problems right now, and could just make everything worse.

Maybe my first book should be called "This Is How They Fuck You: An American Poverty Story"

You're just supposed to keep your head up, right?

They don't tell you it's about keeping your head up - above water.

8:27am now.

I could chug an energy drink.

I could try to go back to sleep for a little while.

I could sit in a chair (I'm sitting on my bed and the edge of the computer is digging into my arms).

Brush my teeth. Take a shower.

I don't want to do laundry right now because of my back.

I've got to think of another way to do it before I need to wash my clothes again.

I've been washing everything by hand throughout the pandemic. 

It takes hours, and always leaves me exhausted. 

It's not just because of the virus and avoiding cross-contact with people.

I can't afford the machines either.

My thoughts are starting to circle around it being my dad's birthday.

It's too easy to just never know what's really going on anymore. 

As if I ever really did, right?

I got the impression that someone had the bright idea that I should "go home"

as if I had a "home" to go to.

As if I was just one of these kids who left the place they grew up and now their adventure was over and they needed to retreat back to their families like good little children.

But that isn't, wasn't, my fucking life.

I'm not trying to "just make money from my sad story" though, of course.

I have no intention of writing some kind of memoir.

I'm just upset at the thought. I have been for a while.

I guess I could rant on about that, but I don't want to.

Often find myself trying to refocus. 

Ask myself: "what's the most important thing I could be doing right now?"

But at the moment, I'm just repeating myself.

I don't feel good. I'm tired. My back hurts.

Stay awake, go back to sleep?

Find an income. Quick. 

Find assistance.

Lucky I've had any at all.

Always so lucky.

Everyone should have gotten help.

No one should have been this stressed or afraid.

Stressed to death.

No exaggeration.

 

I never get more than a few days of feeling like maybe I have a chance.

Maybe everything will turn out better than I could have possibly expected it to.

It always goes back to feeling like I'm screwed.

 

This might not be the most poetic thing I've ever written.

But frankly, who cares?

It is real.

It would be nice if my reality was more poetic.

Maybe that's why my writing in college was any good.

Ideas hung in the air like fruit, easily picked and consumed. Free.

A universe that encouraged you to think.

No one cares what I think out here.

Everything just seems unnecessarily mean.

 

June 2022

It's June.

I love PRIDE month. It reminds me of the qualities I find awesome about humanity.

So that's positive. 

I don't know how long I want to take on this entry.

I wanted to start writing on my blog again.

It's a new month, and I have a new computer - thanks to a local organization.

No excuse now to not at least get back into the practice on a daily basis.

Or to keep track of my life the way I used to.

I've been keeping an audio diary.

I have thousands of recordings.

It's easier to free flow with my ideas.

I don't have to stop and edit or correct the format of a sentence.

And you can hear my tone of voice in the recording

I feel like it adds meaning that can never really be replicated through text, only hinted.

But there's thousands of hours of work -

ideas, stories, worries, research, archives...

I guess it's a trade off.

What do I want to keep track of right now?

My job search.

My health.

My emotional status.

Project ideas and progress.

Current events.

Did it ever matter that I wrote it down?

Did writing on this blog ever really matter?

There was that one time, years and years ago, when some teacher in Canada said he used a piece I wrote for college in his own classroom. His high school students were reading Catcher in the Rye. (I forget if I'm supposed to italicize that book title or if capitalization is enough.) He sent me the paragraphs they wrote, comparing my life to Holden Caulfield. If I remember right, one of the kids said I was more resilient because I didn't dwell on my struggles the way Holden did. Makes me laugh inside thinking of that now.

Laugh in a sad, cosmic irony, way.

My back has started giving me some trouble. I had this horrendous pain that came in waves at the start of the month. I stopped eating for a few days, not knowing what was wrong - I threw up. I had to sleep sitting upright in a chair. I've been taking naproxen all month. It was my mid/lower back, on the left side. It felt more like an organ issue, but I only have theories of what went wrong. I'm fairly certain extreme stress exacerbated the problem. It was scary. It was the kind of pain that has you just begging the universe to make it stop.

 

Now it's the start of June, and a few days ago I noticed the back of my right thigh is numb to the touch. I looked up some exercises for sciatica last night. There's been some lower back pain, especially if I stand for over an hour. It's a different kind of pain - not in waves - more bone and muscle soreness than whatever the hell was wrong before. It's hard not to think the issues must be somehow related. My bed is sunken in - that can't be helping. I haven't been very active. I've been depressed and also haven't left my small studio apartment in two years. I feel like I've been saying "two years" for longer than two years...

I'm trying to stretch more. I have a stepper thing I can pseudo-walk on. If I drink enough caffeine I can dance around without a lot of effort. Just worried things will only get worse. I never want to feel that off-the-charts-pleading pain ever again if I can help it.

 

Also, my tooth has crumbled more. I'm down to about 1/4th of it left. Part of me wishes it would just make a clean break and leave the gap. If someone were looking real close, there's a silvery lining all inside what's left of the tooth. It's as if the filling was just covering a hole, and whatever was meant to fill it had slipped out years ago. I got the filling when I was about seven years old, and it still is strange to me that it fell out in 2020 after all that time - and no one had ever mentioned anything to me - not even that I had bad breath or something. The dentist had taken multiple x-rays of my mouth when I got braces in high school - but they either never saw anything amiss or just didn't think it worth addressing.

 

Oh, I learned something silly but related about myself last night too, thanks to Reddit. I have a "sacral dimple". I didn't know it was anything, much less had its own name. The internet says 3 to 8 percent of the population has one, but it's not a concern unless there's a compounding factor like hair, skin tags, or skin discoloration. So unless, again, people forgot to tell me something - it should just be fine. I've got a dozen reasons why my back would start to hurt - it does feel like people just left me out of the loop of my own life sometimes, though.

 

Looking over what I just wrote - it's too much.

Who the fuck cares.

No one is going to read this.

That sounds angrier than I feel - I mean it more in an exasperated, shoulders shrugging, kind of way.

I just wonder why I bother.

I was going to play audiosurf for a little while before I went to bed.

After all these years, it's still an awesome game. Simple, colorful, easy, fun. And I find it therapeutic now that I haven't left the house in so long. It's the closest I get to that zen sort of feeling from a long drive on an empty road in the middle of the night, just singing along to the music. It lets my brain release in a way it hasn't been able to for ages.

 

Before I go, some important things: I'm applying for work. 

I got an invitation to take an exam for a remote job.

I would be more excited about it, but people online report some issues that worry me. There isn't always work to do - which means you don't get paid. Some people have gotten let go suddenly and not known why. It doesn't feel like a secure position and I just worry I'll end up wasting my time and be worse off than I was before. I've applied to other jobs, but so far I've been rejected by pretty much all of them. I think I need to end up with a paycheck within the next two weeks, or I won't make it for July. To have suffered through all this time only to end up on the street anyway just feels so fucked... There might be more rental assistance, but that has had some issues. I hate being reduced from someone who might have big dreams and big ideas to a desperate person just begging to survive. I switch thought processes on a daily, even hourly, basis. One minute I'm trying to save the world, the next I can only think about how I'm supposed to save myself. I know I'm not the only one, and that makes it even worse.

Almost every day I watch the news.

I cry.

I go on rants about what's wrong with the world, wondering why, as if I were a therapist or a social scientist and could unpack what the hell is going on in our collective minds. Trying to find an angle for evolution that I've never heard someone speak of before - though I'm sure every idea I've had has been elaborated on by someone long ago and I just never heard of that book or theory.

 

I make food, grateful I have any. Wishing I had a more interesting way to express that gratitude.

A kind of humanist spirituality. 

The same for the names of the dead.

Some kind of ritual to just acknowledge the people who will be forgotten because time always goes forward - just something to hold space, a moment, for them, and for how fucked up it is that they died that way.

A way to send nice feelings out to people I miss and wish good things for.

A way to know whether people have grown, changed, and how.

A way to know the truth about anything.

It seems religious systems have found ways to address this desire in people. I just don't really have something I can do that fits. Make art, I guess. But that almost feels self-indulgent - some reflection of myself instead. I want to focus outside of myself, not on what I can do with my feelings. Maybe this will make more sense later.

 

Since I sound a little funny talking this way, I just want to say I haven't had any cannabis in ages. It's not like I'm getting sappy or too in touch with my emotions over something that lowers your inhibitions. I've got nothing but caffeine and naproxen.  I wish I could prove that not having cannabis was effectively doing more harm than good, but I would have needed an unbiased medical professional studying me all these years to really prove that. If people are right and inflammation is the real problem when it comes to pain, illness, and even mental health issues, though, then it makes sense being without cannabis is hurting me. Also why the naproxen helps so much. I just can't afford it, or I'd still be taking RSO. I've also quit smoking cigarettes since 2020. I bought some pineapple cider at one point that summer - two years ago -  but it just made me feel sick and I haven't bothered since. Sometimes I still want a cigarette, but I think I mostly just miss the times and people and places I remember and getting to have that mental break that came along with smoking. I miss who I thought I was back then. I don't honestly give a shit if I never drink again. If I could only have one thing, I'd rather have cannabis. That does feel like a medical and spiritual resource to me, far more than just something "fun".

 

As a side note, I have wondered if - in terms of preventative health care vs. the system we have now - you might want to consider that cannabis, and anything else that makes someone feel better, is good for reducing inflammation and can stop issues from getting worse, but can also potentially cover up your body's natural alarm system so when something goes wrong, to the point that you don't even know until it's too late. In other words, you want a situation where you have a quality doctor you can trust who sees you regularly your whole life and can know when things change in you. Clearly, our current system is not set up that way and often prices people out of being able to survive.

 

Again, I stop myself and wonder why the hell am I talking about this?

Why is this what I'm focusing on at all?

Every choice you make, every moment you spend, comes with an opportunity cost.

There's always something else, maybe more important, you could have been doing instead.

Is this really the best I can do with my time?

Why not get out all the ideas I keep perfecting?

Talk about the homelessness crisis. 

Talk about the psychology behind every horror story I see on the news.

Talk about why people don't seem to understand each other.

Talk about false flags and psych ops and ways people are being divided.

Talk about what I see unfolding in the world and how we must think different to circumvent disaster.

Always asking who benefits most from things being exactly as they are right now?

Why wouldn't those with the most power to change things just do that - change things?

Isn't that more important then my back, my health, my feelings, my - whatever?

It all seems like a lot to get into.

I could go off on subject for hours - I do it every day. 

I have the recordings to prove it.

But I don't feel like I've perfected my thoughts, yet.

If I talk about these things, I want to really have something substantial to contribute to the conversation.

What do I have to say that hasn't been said, and said better?

How can I say it in a way that's any different - that would get the kind of attention it needed?

Especially from people who didn't want to listen in the first place?

And why do I particularly have a place to speak on these things - as if I should know anything?

It's just my fucking opinion, man.

And I could always be wrong.

 

It's like I've been practicing writing this book about life

and when I finally do it

I just don't want to fuck it up.

 

And like I said, my inner wold shifts on even an hourly basis.

One minute I'm miss writer/artist/activist bitch.
The next I'm just worried about getting evicted and whether anyone will care if I died.

 

A moment ago there was a sound outside like a car accident.

I froze in my chair.

I feel like an asshole.

Under normal circumstances, I would have at least looked outside right away.
But I don't really trust anything that happens on my street anymore, especially if it seems dramatic.

Again, normally, I would have gone outside or called 911 if someone seemed hurt or needed help.

A rush of "responsibility" running through me.

I have to tell myself there are other people outside. There are people who will call if there's a problem.

Otherwise I feel like I'm bring tricked into something.

And what am I supposed to do? Go out and get sick?

I could die. It's not a joke. Not an exaggeration.

Is it selfish? Am I an asshole?

I did end up looking outside anyway. 

Nothing there - no car.

Five people gathering in the alcove across the street, chatting.

A couple people in front of a bar across the way.

Cars parked along either side of the road.

My neighbor just threw something at the wall by the sound of it - so they're there.

No one needed me. The world did not end without my help.

For better or worse, I guess.

The image of someone, car smashed in, tire popped, face pressed up against an airbag, flashed through my mind like a bad dream.

But there was nothing there.

I guess I'm stuck on this page now. 

The gears are turning, reprocessing all these things I've been composing in my mind.

Poems unwritten, sentences unsaid. 

I want to just get it all out at once, but like trying to smoosh beads through a funnel, that's just not going to work. 

I need a starting point, and then - one at a time - they might spill out as they should.

And again, I'm tired.

It's oddly quiet.

I wanted to play audiosurf - that can open the flow of my writing mind sometimes too...

but part of me just wants to go to sleep.

Try again tomorrow.

My body is aching. Maybe a 3 out of 10. Not the worst pain. But uncomfortable.

It's almost 1:30 in the morning.

Happy birthday to my dad.

We don't talk anymore.

I don't talk to anyone anymore.

Someone makes a sound outside.

A bottle on the pavement? But it doesn't smash.
Sounds like it bounced.

If I put the binaural beats back on, I probably wouldn't be able to hear it at all.

My brain is starting to scatter - you can see it in the writing.

I don't know what to say.

I'm unfocused, a little pained, and tired.

Sad mostly.

I could deliberatly chug caffiene. 

Pretend I'm in college and have a paper to write.

But I would probably end up just jittery and staring at the screen.

It makes it sound like I have no ideas or projects, no direction, but that's far from the case.

Why don't I just pick a story I've come up with recently and run with it?

Why not?

The CEO who plays god

The tax bracket gladiators

The sad robot and the lost child

The compound at the end of the world

The home invasion

Potluck

What's in the Water?

The Shapeshifters

Or elaborate on some old story that I never really finished or perfected:

Unicorn at the Glue Factory

Night in the Astronomer's Garden

Vegas Story

Season to Sleep

Comfort Road

The Fish

The Lake

Chicagoland

The Wild Alternatives

Another One for the Rocketship 

I've got a whole lifetime of work.

I don't know why I don't finish it.

I don't know why it's not easy or even energizing to throw myself into it.

Let me put it this way: I love music.

But even then, it's like I forget to listen to it. I forget how good it makes me feel.

I forget until I put it on again, and then I wonder how the hell I live without it.

But it's so quiet right now, I don't want to ruin it (as someone weirdly beeps their horn outside).

It just doesn't feel right to spoil such a rare moment.

I've been so harassed by sound.

I'm so tired.

So uncomfortable.

I just want to lay down.

Maybe I'll wake up again at 4am.

Like I used to when I was younger.

It's 1:42 and it's still early to go to sleep compared to what I'm used to.

My life is all over the place even though I've been in the same room.

I'm just rambling now.

I want to stop typing.

I feel bad about it.

I but I want to lay down.

Talking in circles makes me look foolish.

It's realistic - it's genuine - but foolish.

Just stop. Stop and sleep.

Try again later.

What if there isn't a later?

Well I'm fucked then, aren't I?