090122 Lib & Cel cleaned their rooms on the eve of the first day of school last night. The legos are now in a bin out in the hallway. Childhood is officially over. 090422 to give off the energy that you need to give off in order to get what you need, you can either be happy or be on drugs (either one works (up to a point)) being happy lasts longer, works better, has better side effects, and doesn’t turn into a monkey’s paw, but you know you do you (ps drugs can mean a lot of different things) (pps don’t be unwilling not to be invisible (ppps be visible)) 090522 i tend to be drawn to people who reside at least some of the time inside dark clouds this is dangerous because i am a light fairy “in the pain cave... that’s where the work is to be done” wonder if growing up so called is a matter of shifting (gradually and then all at once?) from pleasure seeking to seeking pain (perhaps as a further exploration of pleasure or pressure or any number of other unknowns) What I later noticed I had said to the guy on the Bugline trail who asked to borrow my frame pump: “If you’re getting resistance, it’s probably working.” What slightly, but only slightly, blunts that stinger: Sometimes it’s not obvious if you’re getting the *right kind* of resistance. 🤷‍♀️ 090822 it’s like this: i don’t miss the loneliness (seattle, for example), but i miss the bravery the loneliness forced me to (at least temporarily) find. I miss the inventions that necessity was the mother of. Some of them made me stretch and reach out; Some made me dig further and further in, like a lost lil bug in a rug. but you have to have room to let your loneliness grow. If you let the wrong person into your home or your heart, their branches will crowd out the sunlight your loneliness so desperately needs but then again, you can do this to yourself with your own branches too, if you’re not an attentive enough gardener dude it’s a lgbtq+ whatever you want to call it revolution right now. rennaissance. whatever you want to call it. don’t miss it. don’t miss it by being such a know-it-all wise-ass chicken-shit polite snob that you think you’re above it all. (or by letting yourself scare yourself into believing it’s too late?) the jupiter layers of my cat’s chest fur 090922 what’s important to you? what do you actually *want* to read about, talk about, signal to others for informational interchange about, *work on?* It’s the ninth of the month and I have like a hundred bucks left in the budget. OK. Rent has basically doubled since a year and a half ago or whatever, but what else is going on? I haven’t even really gone crazy this month on too much gratuitous bullshit. Could it be that prices on everything have gone up substantially but my wages are basically stagnant? Yeah, that’s a reasonable hypothesis. ***I’d actually like to go back and actually learn how to write, now.*** Is that possible? Is that a thing that could be made to happen? > In fact, faced with the popularity of CPAPs, which can cost $400 to $800, and their need for replacement filters, face masks and hoses, health insurers have deployed a host of tactics that can make the therapy more expensive or even price it out of reach. > Patients have been required to rent CPAPs at rates that total much more than the retail price of the devices, or they’ve discovered that the supplies would be substantially cheaper if they didn’t have insurance at all. > Experts who study health care costs say insurers’ CPAP strategies are part of the industry’s playbook of shifting the costs of widely used therapies, devices and tests to unsuspecting patients. Shit like that honestly sometimes makes me wish I could just kill myself instead of continue trying to keep going to various disinterested doctors to combat the growing list of pains in my ass that threaten to agglomerate until life isn’t worth living anymore. you know it’s just humiliating when you go to the grocery store, and they’ve marked up butter to over $4 a fucking pound, and *when that affects you.* It’s like up to a point, it’s all just numbers, it doesn’t ultimately mean anything, it’s just a game where you compare the numbers, but then when the numbers start to not add up on your budget anymore, but you’re in a position where you’re kind of screwed if they don’t, then that’s when you feel like you just don’t have good options. Even if there are some potentially viable options left, they seem like they’re gonna suck, hard, and maybe not even work. It just fucking sucks feeling like you’re not in control of your own life, or dream, whichever this is supposed to be and I know i haven’t been as “THERE” for millie, or perhaps for any of them, megan for sure, as I could have been. should have been. that’s part of the reason i got so mad at anne, is cuz she saw that and tried to tell me and i thought she was full of shit, just mouthing tv quote shit that you’re supposed to say while eating a too-expensive muffin in an alternate-reality chicago that she can live in but i can’t and phones and the constant surveillance of the internet are ruining our brains? i don’t know, but my brain for sure, and if not then my brain then just my fucking gonads, my ability to live and eat and breathe and just exist and be thankful for it, just to fucking live and be full of life. it’s a great writhing, twisting, all-encompassing, grotesque, omnivorous parasite and we can’t even feel its hot saliva anymore as it breaks us down. or we *can* feel it, and we’re addicted to it. we’re addicted to being digested dude, i’m not pissed off at everyone. i’m just scared of not being able to be, not being given the privilege to BE someone anymore. I felt like I had it for a while, i had it by the scruff and i’d swung my leg over and was riding, feeling the undulating feline waves of its muscular back, and now i’m being swatted off, toyed with like a mouse first to be sure, and left to either starve, or rot, or be digested or survive, i guess. i guess that’s an option. It is in books and movies and TV shows, so you know. I don’t know if it’s my fault; but i can’t seem to legitimately, definitively figure out who else to blame, and so... i mean i’m here already anyway, might as well yell at me. gotta take it out on someone, right? “repetition and routine were saving my ass” said that dude in that good/bad/good book. take the dog for a walk. even though you’re a cat person now, ya pussy :) hey, a person can be both a cat person and a dog person in the same life, you know. At different times, at the same time, whatever. Completely unrelated: only 14 more days til bi visibility day. look at it this way: I could berate myself for not having enough money now that rent’s gone up again and inflation has caught up with me and made me realize i can’t just continue on without making any changes when the world around me changes—or i can congratulate myself for realizing that. at least. before it was waaaaayyyy too late and i’m bouncing checks and throwing myself on the mercy of the cheap-suited court. Some of us do better with rewards than with punishments, you know. Like as in they actually *work* better, not just that we *like* them better. If there’s a difference. You know they act like inflation is some kind of cosmic accident. Some quantum-entangled crypto-mystical astonishing coincidence—like what intelligent designers say is impossible—but what if it’s more mammalian and fleshy? What if it’s just the people with the billions commanding the people with the millions to turn the screws on the rest of us, the people with nothing, to make us in turn keep our thumbs on the ones with less than nothing? What if it’s on purpose, is all I’m saying, you know, just asking questions here. Or what if just enough of it is on purpose to make it convincing when they cry sympathetic tears about the parts that even they didn’t see coming? The parts they gleefully rub their hands about while egging us on to blame the president, or the previous president, depending on whose side you think you’re supposed to be on in the big simulation, the big reenactment, the big society, the massively multiplayer online racketball game and like, if i were to try to contact anne and explain myself to her--why don’t i--is it also because of the fear? i convince myself that she doesn’t get me, wouldn’t get “it” whatever “it” is going to be this time... because the last time i trusted a woman who wanted something from me in a time when everything felt like it was turning to shit, the last time i let down my guard like that.... or is it because i don’t know what the something is She wants(ed) from me, what she expects(ed) from me; or is it because i do; or is it because i think i do but i suspect i’m probably wrong because i don’t know shit and can’t trust myself? or because i’m just embarrassed that i care, that i think about it, let it bug me, after all this time, and i’m gonna look stupid if i bring it up now ok, new subject it is nice how ashlee cares for people, volunteers caring things to them seemingly effortlessly. i want to be more like that despite being nervous about where i fit into the social rituals of how it’s supposed to be done, and which parts are “expected” from “each” “gender” you have good ideas but if you don’t *do* any of them, nobody’s going to give you credit, you realize this right? here’s one actually: DON’T try to tell some awkward prefab story about a hifalutin concept; DO tell the story of the people in the moment, what they did, how they did it, what happened next, etc 091022 look i just want to be cared for. i want to learn to care for, though i already know, i already have a head start. but i want someone to really mean *i hope you feel better,* let alone *say* it. meanwhile tom, when i text back to say i’m too sick to join him and *russ* (sounds like a dog, sounds like a couple of straight guys, wasn’t loving that *specific* aspect of it, but the bike riding with friend(s) i *was* looking forward to), all he texts is “OK, another time!” which to him may very well mean “OK, another time!” complete with the exclamation mark, although I remembered it an hour later as “okay another time,” and if it *does* genuinely mean that to him then that’s fine as far as it goes, but what i *really* want is for someone to also add on “I hope you feel better,” and *mean* it. Is that so much to ask? Maybe it comes back to me being able and ready to dish that out, awkwardness be damned, before I earn the right to spoon it in. 091122 what you do or don’t want to read at any given moment seems indicitave of *something* not sure what though. Also reading things that are written in different ways with different rules can really open up what you give yourself permission to do; for example the self-interrupting sentences and POV oscillations in *Didn’t nobody give a shit what happened to Carlotta* My biggest problem with reading is that i love to do it, to get into that warm, all-encompassing, time-doesn’t-exist room again, there’s nothing quite like that, but at the same time it often leaves me feeling inadequate because i could never create that room for someone else, because i lack the discipline, focus, observational capacity, memory, and/or sufficient motivation. I try to make myself feel better with vague words like “poet” or “fragments” or “posthumous” but, yeah, those are wearing a little thin as I wheeze and snuffle one day after another closer to utter pointlessness and infirmity. btw it’s not jason’s fault he’s not who you didn’t fully realize you were wanting--needing him to be. it’s not his fault he (consciously or not) groks empathy will kill you in this world. but you still gotta find--by being? the guy that knows that too but also decides it’s worth it because all you need is an old poet or a new queer to tell you, otherwise, you’re already dead anyway 091422 it’s one thing to accuse people of wanting a strong leader to follow it’s quite another to heap on the scorn without even trying to come up with a better plan i am desperate for human contact, expanded human contact into a social sphere that is healthy and recharges; it’s really that simple. the rest of this, with that, i could handle 091522 i’m in some kind of pain, maybe in some kind of danger. was weirdly short with megan today during her short visit. maybe whatever sickness i have is also affecting my brain & mood. something’s gotta change or i feel like i’m going to lose my job due to just not actually doing it when there’s no one directly forcing me to i am frustrated with myself, that this is still a place i still find myself if i don’t come out of whatever shell i seem to be stuck in , like soon, i’m going to fucking lose my shit like for real i absolutely need a haircut. and a therapist. but haircut first i need people and hate them and hate that i need them but i still love them but right now i just can’t the girls didn’t understand what i was actually talking about when i texted them for help deciding what kind of haircut to get or how to describe it. it’s not their fault they didn’t detect the distress call, didn’t hear the keening threnody but it sure felt to me in the moment that it was their fault and they didn’t love me and no one else did either or ever would again or ever could whatever , all dramatics aside i’m just worried. about them about me about all of us. and i never get enough air at night and i’m FUCKING CONSTIPATED and my FUCKING PHONE petulantly REFUSES to help me say certain WORDS FUCK THIS I DON’T NEED THIS KIND OF SQUIRRELING ASSAULT ON MY CONSCIOUSNESS 091822 ok, call me a fucking moron, repeatedly, over the course of about 6 or 7 months, and slap me in the face while you’re at it that should do it thanks cel said i should find someone to date so we could share incomes. Good luck, she said, start tonight. millie’s here because she has an appointment tomorrow. she helped clean up after supper without being asked. i gave her a little hug and said thanks she hopes and so do i that alexa will be ok overnight i can see how she’s making the transition by bonding with alexa; they can reassure each other into... whatever’s next 092222 took some of millie’s adhd meds she doesn’t use anymore. Pretty good. Not bad. Will have to take a break from mary jane cuz I’m like $700 over budget and the end of the month’s a loooong week away, but hey. I can make it work. I can claw it back. Need to make a game out of it: WHAT CAN I NOT BUY TODAY. Literally every single day. Damn this 30 year old keyboard is actually pretty nice for just typing words on. Not bad. Not bad at all. It suddenly got cold today. Tera finally came in and her little pink pads are cool as gelato on my bare legs. Took her upstairs and she trotted in by Lib, who quietly opened her dark door and chuckled softly in welcome. Cel’s bus got rammed by a car today, but she wasn’t on it. I love how she was genuinely worried about her friend who was on it. The school said “nobody got hurt” but that was literally a lie. They called them into the office to downplay it. Cel said the fucking guy actually said “You know it was just a silly little accident, right? You’re not afraid to get on the bus, right?” Fuck schools. God I’m so sick of schools. I love having my own room. It’s truly precious. Just fucking look at it. It’s so simple and precious. Homey. Millie left it a fucking mess but it’s ok. I think she’s doing ok. Thank god she’s just in milwaukee so she can come over diet dinner for example tomorrow night. She just seems so wispy and vulnerable out there. Thank god she has Alexa to take care of (her.) I think she’ll be ok; as ok as any of us will be from here on out. Gods it sucks sucks sucks always running on bits of straw and cartoon dreams. Nothing comes standard anymore. You can get a car but you gotta win the lottery to get a steering wheel. You can get a house but you gotta be born a literal queen to get the fourth wall. String up a sheet or something. Health insurance is great unless you have to use it. speaking of mary jane, she really not that great anymore. anyway. sad but true. remember when “stoned” was a thing you could “be,” and it was really something? like, an actual different state of being, not just normal life with a moody filter over it? yeah i kinda miss that. but then i guess that’s part of what got me into this i guess you could say “mess” in the first place...? time is, the years are, just going by so fast. it’s horrific to think about, to really think about. they just race by, they’re howling in my ears, just a second ago i was the “old man” of 30 getting teased by tish along with dan. playing in a “band” lol. glenn died, that asshole, then i was married, then i was in hell, and now this. the girls are my only redemption really. 092322 isn’t that what we do? try to reenact what accidentally made us happy the pile of pillows thrown on the bed that made the perfect pile for relaxing and reading, the first day in my “new” room; now every morning I toss self-consciously, hoping for the same mountain, but of course—it’s never the same, mountain, river, wilderness, anything twice --- frustrated bloated melancholy regretful lost aching bored disappointed nervous by myself at night for the first time in i don’t know how long lib & cel sleeping over at millie’s (what a concept) they *walked* to pizza shuttle there’s something *just right* about that and also something that feels vanishing, swift, log over the falls but maybe that’s just me\ 10 year old computer that can’t drive all the pixels of the monitor so it looks as blurry as a... 20 year old monitor, 30 year old keyboard, yeah, this is probably the perfect balance. not so quaint that you get frustrated masturbating about how archaic it is; not new enough to constantly seduce into doing something else. it’s perfect. barely obsolete computer is the new typewriter? well, not exactly, but then nothing ever is exactly the new anything else. i don’t want to die but i sure as shit don’t want to keep living like this. i’d be the guy that comes around 7 8ths of the way thru the movie, does something more symbolically than practically heroic, then dies in a spray of bathos and bloody laff track. the queer old ineffectual who the high school girl was so inspired by all those years ago who look at him now—honey, i ain’t got shit, i’m sorry to disappoint you but i—and then it’s 7 8ths of the way through the movie and his time is up and so he goes out, blare of trumpets, swell of violas, glitter, sunrise refracting across the lens, naked chest, pathetically glorious, dies with a smile on his face he was my favorite character, you would only say ironically, smiling as if sincere, with a certain quiet ironic pride at being the person who would say that. Lucky you, you have friends who can laugh at you. teaching (online) is like working at a post office you don’t have to go to. it’s *fine,* There’s nothing *wrong* with it. I can’t *complain.* And yet I long to get fired, to just get that over with so I can be—what? If I can’t be the other thing without getting fired first, I’m probably going to end up in another post office. Not probably. Just am. I know things. I know how to read a book. I know how to be blown away. I know how to be a pirate. I’ve dreamed all these things into existence, many times before. Why then am I currently so powerless? Is it because of the raging narcissism and self-loathing? Is it because I’m a steady 198 pounds and can’t get any more deep than popcorn, ice cream, and red wine? Is it because pot doesn’t work for me anymore? Is it because legal meth kind of does, but won’t for long? I don’t know, i’m bored of boring myself to death. There’s got to be a better way to die. I have to get out of this weird fake cabin tent of a non story and into an actual story. I’ve got to. Why do I not give myself permission to do that? Is it that? Or is it more simple; is it that I don’t know how? Or that I simply just can’t, and never will, and that’s the punch line, after all these goofy fucking years? If this is middle age, brother it sucks. This ain’t no risible sports car purchase. This ain’t no hair cut. This is some straight up bull shit. God damn it, i have to get back to the past. i have to get a message back somehow, so i don’t do this to myself. *it’s not about writing, it’s about the story* you don’t need to learn much else about writing; there’s no time left actually anyway you just need the story 092422 so, so, so many texts from millie freaking the fuck out because she thinks she’s seen a roach. can’t tell from the grainy pic but fuck, yeah, it probably was, in that ancient building with the mouldering carpet and secret rooms blocked off with plywood. i hate that i can’t do anything about it. i hate the idea of her having to be stressed about shit like that on top of everything else. it was one thing for me with my $150 Independence place, but it’s just truly reprehensible how much shit, and i do mean SHIT, costs now. Nobody gives a fuck about the non-rich. I guess there’s a few people trying; Heather Cox Richardson thinks Biden is trying, but I mean. How long can that last? some things are going well for her. She likes the new job. She’s seeing plays. She seems to like her department. But then this. “I’m not mentally strong enough...” “I don’t know how the fuck I’m going to sleep...” I just want shit to just basically be ok for her, so she can start learning how live without being stressed and miserable. Like when she was little. Well, that’s dumb; she was stressed and miserable in ways that I didn’t even detect at the time I guess. But still. She was robust, she was sunshiny, I did see that. I know that’s still in her. I think what I need to do is be strong enough to believe she can handle this. Plus, *not gonna lie,* I also would like everyone to be basically OK and stable enough for *me* to just be able to relax a bit and enjoy what *very* little I’ve managed to accumulate or accomplish, with what little time I’ve got left. To, I don’t know, recline a bit, read, listen to some music, not be eating my guts out from the inside with powerlessness? Is that so wrong, to wish for that? 092522 soothe me, old keyboard, mildly obsolete computer. lull me with your cream alps switches, well-worn but freshly cleaned. millie’s freaked out a little less today, but still righteously pissed, as she should be. Money money money money. I spent some I shouldn’t have on pizza shuttle after lib & cel & i waited an hour and a half for the guy from aaa to find us down in the third ward and wedge his way into the avalon cuz i locked the keys in there for the first time in--? Kinda messed up the weatherstripping a bit, but 🤷‍♀️. The girls liked him. He was nice. He said, “They need pizza now!” Head pounding, ears ringing, all the shit I gotta do. Like look into how to get a loan and buy a house. Can you even imagine? Ugh, what I would do if I didn’t have mom (& don’s posthumous) help. Well I won’t dwell on that low-level shame right at the moment. Gonna finish a book from the 70’s instead, and think about how to restore those old speakers, in her basement, from the 70’s. They need new 3.5 inch wide dispersion tweeters. Can you imagine? Why do I think the clean tight bass and achingly true to life midrange of a classic Fairfax cabinet is going to make me happy? Um, probably because, momentarily at least, it will. When I can find time to relax and actually enjoy it, if I can do that without spending extra money, throwing it away like maple propellers clogging up an oily gutter, never to grow into anything  but maybe picked up by an idle kid, waiting for aaa, and thrown at her sister, spin spin spin, thwack, heeeey!!! 092822 the pulled pork is finally done. the whole place smells like pork, and a chaotic melange of seasonings i threw in there, not the least of which, blackstrap mollases millie’s continuing to come to terms with the battle against roaches (a small likeness of the battle against cancer; you can’t win, you can only learn to cope and sometimes escape to another plane) cel has friends and rides the bike in the basement every day and suddenly lost her baby fat libby has two-different-color-jelly-bean hair and seems to be straddling reluctance to grow up and a stoic kind of wry sarcasm. it’s her turn to be the one i’m most worried about, millie’s “real life” stuff notwithstanding. she seems close to loneliness and that can be like being close to a fire or a great dark cold body of water. megan’s proud of herself cuz she’s hosting a punk show and vending at it, in december, at a “legitimate venue” in chicago. she said “i’ve been working nonstop” i said “yeah that sounds like you” i talked to my dad today on his 83rd birthday. he seems about as ok as he can be. only forgot what we were talking about once, and said, “Ruth, help me out....” has some kind of balloon thing in an aorta, or is it an artery, doesn’t seem too scared, is looking for the right surgeon. mom sent me a thing about student loan forgiveness. i hate to say it, but even if i get the 10k, it’s barely going to make a dent. i will, regardless, be in debt until i die. cockroaches, man. cockroaches. 092922 it’s like, it’s like, you’re trying to choose a stick, but you don’t know if it’s for poking something or for adding to the fire. how you supposed to know what you’re looking for? i dunno, yknow, i think i got elevated cortisol levels or some shit. Like there’s threats, you know, not only on the horizon, but right here outside the campsite, like right there in that zone where the blackness soaks in and fills up all the liquid space between the trees, where the fire’s orange abruptly ends and the trees become invisible that’s probly why i been sick for over a month now however in the small good things department, separating out small, quiet, peaceful things from busy and noisy and edgy things is really nice lately... like this old computer to type dumb shit on being completely separate from my “work” and “every fucking thing else” and “the constant frenzied keening of the internet where even moments of quiet wisdom must come across somehow as a caterwaul of desperation and shitcovered chaos” computer downstairs... like my bed... like the headphone amp & dac combo that i “shouldn’t have bought” being up here now, sitting on the nightstand, doing nothing but powering my nice open back headphones that i “shouldn’t have bought” such that for the first time in years i actually sat here in the dark at bedtime and listened to some sounds. it’s a childlike experience, it rewires your brain and evens out some of the oatmealy lumps in your energy patterns and makes you feel like maybe you are an organic being after all. still. and maybe despite everything you can sleep and maybe tomorrow even love again in some small way. stranger things have happened. i’ve read about them and heard about them in songs. i probably have covid. oh and the led glowing through the chassis of the tiny amp makes a lilypad pattern on the ceiling, like looking up at wondrously close-up stars from safely under the warm surface of the lake