070614 feeling bad too many people-moving-around sounds in the restless house restless summer lightning silenced by AC real communication silenced by the prison system drug tests wal mart cat litter keeping busy look at me-- awake at night in this prosperous nation, failing. but it's ok to feel bad even not to sleep god knows we're all supposed to be at peace, otherwise what would be the point of all these prosperous wars? god knows you're supposed to grab a 44-ounce styrofoam baby bottle and suck and suck and suck until you're not afraid to feel bad but it's ok i'm now a little afraid of the devices. now there is no dark to be afraid of anymore. the dark looks like a little city-- blinking lights, sleeping lights, steady lights, LED's, red, green, silvery, amber, blue tiny signal towers across the room in every room the other night i had one of the dreams where she is back, running things, spending my money, and there's that sunken feeling, that deflated despair, that sickly, miserably understated soul death--the lowest-key nightmares i've ever had--only this time it was ever so slightly different. I don't know if it's cause Anne suggested it, or what, but I almost got a hold of it--I almost got lucid and took over. It was like halfway--I got this suspicion that maybe it wasn't real, but I wasn't sure. In fact, it was almost like clinging to a fantasy. But cling to it I did, even with pessimism and still the sinking feeling, but it paid off, I woke up, the jelly-slow relief came slinking in, and looking back I was like yeah, that was one step closer. now i don't want to go to this stupid job anymore because they want all this shit--character references, transcripts, my fucking car insurance, what the fuck. and don't even get me started on random drug tests. It all just makes me feel so totally worthless. references. letters of recommendation. dude what the fuck. i hate that. here we are right back again with schmoozing and networking. i haven't even smoked weed for like two or three years, but now i want to just because they have random drug tests. fucking bastards. before you know it, i won't even be able to type something like this and still get a job. if it was just me i'd be all like woohoo fuck you. but the kids. gotta pay for the fucking kids. there's got to be a better way. ok. so find it, douche bag. 071714 How many beers are being poured right this instant? How many people are experiencing the worst betrayal of their lives tonight, right now? Every year from now on, they'll say, it was July seventeenth, I'll never forget it.... How many people are coughing up the last fragments of their lives right at this moment? How many people are negotiating with the sand and gravel of the streets, anonymous lights, fear, sweat, uncertainty? You can't be afraid of life. It's okay. It's just life. 072014 like fucking 3 am again dude Right now it's bouncing in an unholy Pantaloon of soon. the girl in my dreams was sweet and a little bitter, but in real life i imagine her not riding bikes with me in the hall, not laughing about how much the hockey game costs and then instead just moving in close to me as we sit on the windowsill and listen to some lady i used to work for play guitar, while the whole nation is wrapped up in the latest rocket launch waiting to see what happens. in real life, before she even gets a chance to say it, i say it to myself and remove all doubt: You're broke and you're gross. and your teaching license is going to expire.. and how are your kids going to go to college, so they'll be poor too, thanks to you. and your cat stays out all night, so is it really your cat, or does it just visit you regularly. but the girls think it's your--their cat. Whose fault is that? and you bruise and bully your way through the day in your mind, exhausting yourself but you don't feel like you can really sleep, because you don't feel real. all these drivers and devices blinking around your ears, and still you've got nothing to say. you poor stupid bastard. 072014 J-j-j-just learnt that I almost, um, for, like, *sure* lost exactly seven IQ points due to fumes from leaded gasoline in the early 70's. I guess it's lucky I mostly lived a little farther out of the dirty stinky parts of town, or else it might have been fourteen points, which would definitely have been enough to cement my fate as a violent offender, or someone who would have to be taken care of the way I'm supposed to be helping to take care of the people at that place that I guess I, like, work at. I wonder how much smarter than me my kids would be if they had had zero lead. I know that at least a couple of them had non-zero readings. You know what's weird is that this is all considered basically okay by the like, newspapers (huh?) and Internet and basically the invisible rubber-bands that keep us all in line, going on and functioning as if nothing necessarily could have ever been any better except unless of course if it was something that was your fault, and then in that case it is of course all your fault, you stupididiot. But stuff that supposedly was out of your control, like breathing tetraethyl lead molecules, or being circumcized, you're just supposed to not care about that. Or having a non-normal sex drive. Or having the wrong size or shaped penis. Or not having gotten enough love when you were a little pissant. None of this was your "fault," it wasn't your "fault" that your parents yelled at each other, or failed to yell at each other enough and just sighed each other to death. It wasn't your "fault" that your mom was fucking crazy. Who the fuck knows, maybe she breathed in too much lead herself. Or maybe it was the paint. Sixties paint. Or whatever. Maybe it was the water. Or the dirt. She grew. Plasma, cell growth, tissue, whatever, she was an organism that survived and had babies. You were one of the babies. It's not your fault that we're all supposed to be so impressed any time a scrawny cedar manages to get a foothold in a crack in solid granite. It's not your fault that we're not supposed to sit and wonder what grand kind of soughing evergreen it could have been if conditions had been better, if the water, if the soil, if the bugs, if the ice age. Life, any life, is just supposed to be this miracle. It's not your fault. Hey look, I'm sorry about the IQ points. But at least you didn't have your genitals mutilated on purpose by the people who loved you the most. 072614 one problem with having a job is it gives you an excuse to stop looking. the [drinks] are to relieve stress and anxiety, but they ultimately increase anxiety. I wake up at 4am EVERY DAY in the midst of some form of low grade nightmare. I feel old and weak and vulnerable. alcohol intake is exacerbating that. and it's probably not helping my ass much either. 072914 IN case anyone's forgotten in the last couple of years, *everyone* is special ed. That wasn't just cutesy interview talk. Everyone, even my neighbor. She comes over here all twitchy and bitchy because I put the mulch down over the weeds. And I can see by the muscles in her mouth, how she stands, where she looks, her word choice, her diction and cadence, I can see she seriously thought this was a confrontation that needed to be made. Her eyes are tired. I'm not going to get into it. I'm going to calmly validate, reassure, and move on. Everybody's special ed. Me too. Cuz I'm still heavy since yesterday, dealing with her after a day of feeling disconnected and impossible. All the web searches on suicide end up taking you to articles about how to not kill yourself. Which is kind of nice, I guess.