8:18am
Day Shelter
I started smoking cigarettes again yesterday. I am trying to feel out my response. On one hand, I kept saying the most major accomplishment I had in the last five years - which I mean the most major thing anyone seems to care about - whether I really care or not - on a some kind of social level - even though a lot of people are more likely to be my friend when I smoke as much as some judge you negatively if you smoke - well anyway, that big "accomplishment" was quitting smoking.
On the other hand I feel like I was missing a piece of myself and every cigarette has a ghost of the friends and conversations I used to have chain smoking back in old town, at milepost 5, in college...
Before college I was taught to be mad about cigarettes and I remember flushing my dad's down the toilet once. Meanwhile it's like my body was always exposed to copious amounts of nicotine and now it needs it to function at 1000%.
I smoked an entire pack yesterday. I was surprised I didn't even feel it - I mean, I didn't feel like I got nicotine poisoning or something. I felt good. Back when I smoked regularly I had two packs in a night once and got super sick the next day. That's the most I must have smoked in a short period.
Today, I drank them like water and I felt as awesome as you could feel being someone living through a both spoken and unspoken era of genocide and fascism in the midst of prosperity and abundance.
That was super wordy. I mean this has to be a standard of living - the way I found myself at what I think is a really nice shelter and how much help you can get and the resources available for people - it could be so much worse being unhoused. People should not be forced to live this way but it has also provided so much help. If this was on purpose - that's fucked...(laptop died).
I have a shower at 9am. The back of my neck is already starting to hurt. I left my fucking phone and charger in the charging station ... wait... did I? They gotta be in there...I remember putting them in. But I thought I remember taking them back out again too... Everything went into my backpack and my pockets. And then into my cart. I shoved a bunch of stuff into my suitcase - some clothes - there was just the thermos and the water bottle....I'm pretty sure I left it in the charger station.
I guess it's like...I better have left it in the charger station.
Whole day could get totally taken over freaking out about this and I can't do a damn thing until 8pm so ... chill I guess.
On another level same story with what I am doing with my life. I was applying for disability since 2024. I have a hearing in June. I guess I am just going to be sleeping at the night shelter, taking showers and doing laundry at the day shelter, and finding places to rest, sleep, do my stream - protest with music? - until June. Then hope I get awarded disability assistance...
....and live in an apartment again
....where I have to start over - I don't have any furniture and lost most of my stuff...
....where I have to set up internet and the electric bill and all that again....
....who knows where the apartment will be...I really need the project section 8 program that lets you pay 30% of your income no matter what your income is. If you make $100, your rent is $30.
....my existence was really just to get money to a landlord. That's what happens in a world that does not care what you think or the art you make or what other cool things you can do. Someone just wants to know how you are going to help them - usually to make money or do something that would have cost them money.
... feeling like people are testing you out - see if you'd be a caretaker, see if you'd be useful for something they don't like doing. How they can make use of you.
It's 8:43am and my laptop battery is draining. I don't know where I will be able to sit when I get out of my shower. I need a seat by a plug and this couch with no back is kinda killing me. I am worried about my phone. I am worried about running out of money. I need to express how deeply I need to the cigarettes right now. How much I also need to be someone who does what I want to do as much as possible and as much as it doesn't fuck with anyone else doing whatever they wanna do. It comes down to what the point of this life even is.
The imagine of a circle of extremely wealthy people "teaching" the "meaning of life" to poor people who complained about disparity - because ultimately we all come to the conclusion life should be enjoyed as much as possible and the more people want to forget a past that keeps track of all their mistakes, the more they want everyone to just...let it all go. Some balance there between memory and living in the moment, of justice and peace, of carrying hard truth and still finding moments you're glad you exist - that's enlightenment (to me).
It looks like the laptop will die as soon as I am supposed to shower. Then I get dressed and I can leave or stay. I can go to the library. I can go to a different library. I will probably just write in my notebook all day. If it's going to be nice I don't want to be tethered inside. My phone plays my music though so that sucks. I need to buy a speaker.
I need to just let myself have a good day that was worth living - that's the best way to spend the day.
4.4.26
The entire stream shut down when my battery died yesterday.
Looks like there are no kbps here for today either.
I have no much shit to say and I just need to sit down and put it out there and I have been storing it up in my head.
What's most important?
Can't focus at all -
sunshine is currently warm and comforting and bright in my face - right in my face
the beatles are playing in the grocery store - dunno if the microphone is picking it up
I started smoking cigarettes again - and am debating playing some mind game with myself about it so I can make a pack last longer than an afternoon -
they're fucking $13 a pack now too
My sister randomly donated $160 to me on March 31st -
I bought $20 in groceries right off the bat because I was hungry and food stamps had been out since March 15th. I didn't mean to drop $20 on food but that's how that worked out.
Then I paid the close to $50 a month for my storage unit.
I paid for another month of now internet - that's $10.
I got auto charged for Suno for $10.
Medicine for $10 and another for $18.
I have $20 in my pocket.
But there should still be another $20 ...
I've bought three packs - looks like 13.45 or 13.76 depending
9.65 was a pack too and I paid the rest with cash...
Do I regret it? I don't want to waste my energy on this back and forth bullshit about smoking.
I imagine an astronaut that just tells me to try to enjoy my life as much as I can
and then this deranged kind of doctor who lost their mind and they had wanted to literally separate the world based on what they thought was healthy and who they would let live together
Instantly feels like it discredits me or something and I am fighting the feeling - again, why it seems I need to make up some boundaries about it or just not smoke at all - and just not smoke at all forever for the rest of your life just feels like bullshit - there's no way to sustain a pack a day in my current situation though.
And I don't want to spend my life talking about quitting smoking without even enjoying smoking - like I have seen happen to other people - fuck no.
Want a whole change of vibes and frequencies please.
I really want to smoke a cigarette, drink some caffeine, and write on my laptop outside (for the 30 minutes until the battery dies I guess) .... without hurting my back because I had to find the most uncomfortable place to sit so I could have sun, cigarettes, coffee, and the laptop at the same time.
don't just complain because you're stressed - give yourself a minute
9:56am - the sun is overwhelming me to the point I can't think and I just need to pee
my back around my shoulders and the back of my neck feels like it's on fire
I just want to be in love
I just want to be in love
I just want to be in love
with an actual person
who is going to be there
who is going to love me back
and who is going to find a partner in me to navigate life
the same as I would feel about them
and we would grow as old as can be
and die together in the end
not to be - at best - the girl you call when the one you wanted won't answer the phone and I was available and pretty cool and in the end you'll die with her and I will be alone - or some such scenario
It's easy to forget what love even ....
I need to pee.
I want more battery life first is the immediate frustration - that and the awareness that there are SO MANY BIGGER PROBLEMS IN THE WORLD and I feel infantilized being so worried about just needing to pee
or wanting to be in love
or whatever I am personally just going to be doing today
We talk about this dynamic all the time - my personal life and the world at large and how it's all important but in different ways and contexts
Try it at the library - I can sit nearby, go in to charge and pee, come back out.
so...until later
4.5.26
Email to someone:
It is 1:18am. I know I was sleeping - I had a nightmare - and woke up to the sound of someone yelling whore out of nowhere.
I have been having trouble charging my devices and staying connected to some kind of internet. Even when I pay for the xfinity hot spot I don't get service everywhere and the places I found to sit down tend to be out of range for some reason.
The supermarket and library and the day and night shelters all have their own internet. Also ran out of data which kicks back in on the 10th of the month for some reason. So now I really have to be online for my phone to function. It's a problem if I am outside in general. It's supposed to be nice all week and the sun is warm in a way my coat could never be. Something happened at the library that just really got to me I guess and I feel an aversion to going there right now.
Essentially I made a room reservation (which they then put on a paper on the wall). Then a guy used the room without even signing up (the library had made a big deal about it) and then the guy apparently farted in that room for two hours and when I came for the private room time instead of just giving me the clearly unused room just next to him, they made me take the room he was using and it was like his farts were in my mouth it was so strong. There was an open and unused room right next to him that they could have just put me in. It was violating and petty and I just gradually stopped going even though I spent every day there initially. I was sick too and wasn't trying to be in small spaces. I have pretty much stopped wearing a face mask at this point.
I need to really pour out a lot of thoughts but I want to sleep while I have time right now.
I think I pulled something in my lower stomach. Or it was messed up before and feels like I tore something open when I was stretching earlier. Hurts when I sneeze. I hope it's not some kind of hernia. My body feels a bit deformed...especially my ankles. The swelling is crazy. This shouldn't have happened to me - shouldn't have ended up under duress in my apartment that way for that long, shouldn't have lost all friends and had no one who was going to be around for me, shouldn't have been medically kind of left like that and didn't get disability assistance earlier and now having me trudging everwhere is like some kind of demented physical therapy. I needed different people in my life five years ago and to have different help - I have to think about it because I am not sure what would have been a better situation. I feel used to make arguments - like: well this is why we need the right to XYZ.
I feel like this is already too long and it's barely the tip of what I want to say. I guess I am trying to say I keep having pain and issues while my body tries to build muscle again - I am so slow when I walk and need to pee a lot. I am having trouble doing my work and keeping my devices connected and charged. I am having some trouble emotionally that I haven't gotten into - something kind of unlocked a couple days ago and I don't want to feel that way - I can't function at all feeling like that - but it's like a state of shock melted and I feel more depressed than I was registering that first month after I got evicted.
I need to sleep. It's almost 2am. I have a lot I want to say and I need to just collect all my thoughts.
I guess I am going over the last five years in my mind and then how things are right now and I just keep thinking "this is wrong".
