What Fresh Hell

 As it stands, I don't expect to survive this Trump term. Figure January 20, 2029 at the latest. Until then it all depends. For now be happy for me that I've lived long enough to be this disgusted. In 1983 I took the breakup of my marriage so hard I tried to kill myself twice in one month (I should've been more careful); now I'm waiting for the start of yet another four years of societal meltdown. The PATRIOT Act should have been enough, but now some morons have voted for Trump three times when they should've known better. What fresh hell will your world throw me into next?

Now this degenerate curmudgeon is sitting inside away from the Arctic windchill basking in free heat and puffing on a cigarillo that cost 27.4 cents. ($1.29 plus 6% tax divided by 5 = $0.274; we lack an easy way to type out fractions of a penny, but pretty soon we won't have pennies themselves.)

2:50 PM EST would be too early to start drinking yet if I hadn't gone on naltrexone and been good for a year, and I don't feel any real need to do so, so I won't. it's cheaper that way. I didn't feel like I had to drink last night either, it's just that I've been disgusted with life and too wintered out to feel like doing any of the better things that'd be on my list if I'd bothered to make one.

Last night I had about two shots of 50% ABV rye whisky and half a 4.5% can of porter. That took about 90 minutes to imbibe. My tolerance is still very low and thanks to the naltrexone getting really smashed wouldn't have been any fun, beyond a certain point it feels like the poison it is, so it's so far so good; I got a slight buzz and stopped in the middle of a perfectly good beer, so not only did I not get a hangover I didn't even get dizzy standing up. I gather that's what naltrexone is supposed to do, keep it optional and non-problematic. To go back to hard-core boozing I'd have to go off naltrexone, which is free to me, while decent whiskey costs about $20 a bottle.

I stopped boozing last year because I couldn't afford it, and drinking like I had been is still not cost-effective. Note that I can now afford to drink as ethanol as I was doing, though so far it'd have to be cheap-ass vodka instead of the "surprisingly good for the price" whiskey I prefer; that's my idea of degeneracy, a point I'd rather not go past yet.

For one guy I know his self-drawn line was that he'd become totally unable to afford pain pills, so to keep on being an addict he'd have to resort to buying smack with fentanyl off the street, which he resolved by blowing his brains out in his basement. That was his choice and I respect him for it, but so far I've not let myself get into such a bad situation. (Not over "substances" anyway.)

Luckily for me alcohol is cheap, common, and legal, so I have that $10 a gallon vodka option to fall back on, and unlike him I don't consider it weakness to seek help for my problems if lowering myself that far still seems like a bad idea.

So far it still seems that if I took a poll on whether those whom it may concern would rather see me become a degenerate drunk or just get it over with, with those being the only choices I've give you, most of you would rather see with crippling alcoholism (there's even a subreddit for that) than put myself out of everybody's misery. That still seems like a fucked up priority to me, given what's a fucked up situation in the first place , but then I avoided becoming a crippled drunk last year by drying out, and then lucked into a 30%-of-my-income apartment.

Last year my obvious "or else" was giving up living inside and going to a place like California to be a tipsy derelict. I wasn't quite ready to murder myself and I did have a plan to make being homeless bearable -- joining a gym to shower and work out, finding a safe place to camp away from fentanyl junkies, etc., -- but fortunately I was able to find a way to dry out for as long as need be that didn't involve any of that Twelve Step bullshit that's on my "die rather than commit" list of sins so that's what I did.

And it worked. For a while.

But October 2023 was still over a year before the next Presidential election, and putting up with this world you give me to live in didn't seem totally pointless. But y'all normies had to go and crown Cheetoman again, which would make being homeless (drunk or not) even harder than it was last year; from what I understood about what those people had to put up with in 2020 I've decided I'd really rather not. Now you've done it: you've made being homeless sound worse than death to somebody who used to consider homelessness rather inconvenient but not a disgraceful tragedy. It's hard enough to foresee a worthwhile future in my life as it currently is.

The electorate of the USA has put me in yet another existential crisis I don't need to go through. Things were bad enough already. This is what I mean when I say stupid people shouldn't vote: there are plenty of Americans who'll benefit from Trumpism, but most of those who voted for him are not among them. The USA is about to become a corporate oligarchy like Russia, after a few years of which it'll descend even further into failed state status.

Forty years ago, when Reagan had just gotten elected to a second term, people would reassure me that my dread of the future was a paranoid exaggeration, that the American people were too smart to let things keep getting worse. In 1984 people told me a situation like Trump's first term was extremely unlikely. But 40 years ago you also didn't expect the Patriot Act, or the 20 Years War, or a global pandemic. It would never come to that, normal people said. "Stop being paranoid -- and maybe go on medication."

How could the US electorate even allow Trump to get nominated in 2016? What so great about a "democracy" that would let something like that happen?

Cippola's Third Basic Law of Stupidity is this: "a stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses."

Keep in mind that we're not talking only about Trump base here, we're talking about Trump being on the Presidential ballot AT ALL. Say what you will about the Founding Fathers, but when the Constitution was written they simply could not imagine a situation when the American people would let such a raving moron run for President.

One good thing about Putin and Orban and the other autocrats of the world is at least they're not spluttering idiots. Hell, as dictators go Xi Jinping is not as horrible as Mao, for example.

You've really fucked me over this time. The only question is how soon it will get really bad. I've already stopped reading the news for the most part, shutting myself off even further from the world around me; I've already decided that total abstinence from alcohol (and 5/$1.29 cigars) is more trouble than it's worth. You've shown me that aiming for limitless longevity is ridiculously silly, in fact four more years of things as they are now might well be too much to put myself through.

And y'all tell me there's something wrong with my brain.

You people disgust me.

 

"Spamming or other bot-like behavior."

 

61 [M4F] - Kentucky/Anywhere - Inspire me, damn it!

Trigger Warning/TW

In this iteration I'm looking for a younger woman, say 30-45, who's experienced, intelligent, engaging, and a bit intense. Bisexual and/or bipolar are optional pluses; mental and even physical scars are probably required. Visible scars and piercings usually mean you're trying too hard, as does dressing & acting all sexy & seductive. And makeup is usually a turn-off, except sometimes blatant red lipstick has the right associations. And I don't really care how women dress as long as they don't look like cartoon characters who stepped out of Vogue or something. You yourself should be enough.

As for me, I'm not suave, or charming, or witty, and I'm not interested in trying to impress anybody with anything. The only selfies I've managed to take lately come out fucking hideous or just plain depressing. (I take much better photos of other people, I've even got an actual "analog" camera I bought from a pawn shop in 1993.) I'm in okay shape for a man my age in my ZIP code, which ain't saying much; "if I'd known I was going to live this long I'd have taken better care of myself." So you'll probably be glad to know I'm not very interested in sex, two antidepressants take the edge off that urge, but you might be disappointed to know I'm pretty much a pauper. You'll have to find a sugar daddy and/or husband elsewhere.

Which you'd be welcome to do: I was never much good at normal typical relationships (insert " " where they seem to fit), monogamy felt too restricting until I just aged out of fucking around, and for over half my life I've felt sorry for anybody who wanted to be monogamous with me. That last thing really matters, because it puts too much pressure on me: I do what I do so you get what you get, to put it bluntly, so if somebody else can do what I can't or won't that's fine with me. It's been over 30 years since I gave a damn where else a woman goes. Go have fun and then come back, or get around to me when you feel like it, whatever. When it comes down to it I could be perfectly happy with the right married lesbian, for example. What matters to me is loyalty, not fidelity. (And you can pretty much take it for granted I won't be fucking anybody else: at my age I'd have to try too hard, and it's been years since I've felt like bothering at all.)

What I am looking for is a friend, an ally, a confidant, a comrade in arms... A partner in crime for honor among thieves. (There's got to be a less cliched way to put that but whatever.) Someone who's easy to look at, usually easy to be around, who can make me want to know her and who's up to knowing me. This is one reason I want somebody with a history: it's only in the past few years that I haven't been having one myself. Normal people with normal lives bore the hell out of me, and I generally tend to scare them or at least make them uneasy. I'm not a serial killer or anything, at least not in real life, but for most people out there I might as well be. "Yea though I walk through Uncanny Valley..."

Oh. By the way.

• Trump is a total buffoon who's got to be somebody's puppet, there are no leftist politicians in the Democratic Party, and (to quote my then 17 year old niece) most people aren't smart enough for anarchy.

• I've got no idea why there's something rather than nothing, for all I know there might be a Creator involved, but the God of Abraham is such a total bastard I'm glad that's all fiction. In general that kind of faith is somehow beneath me.

• What's wrong with genocide is that it's mass murder, not that it focuses on any particular kind of people: there is no race, religion, or whatever that's more special than any other.

• People who'd beg the court for life without parole instead of execution should be put out of their stupid pathetic misery.

• It's not that life is nothing but pain, but forcing existence on another human being is frankly immoral.

You get the idea? And that's just what I tell the world that hasn't met me yet. Put it this way: in my troubled youth people who worked in the mental institutions they put me in usually accused me of trying to shock people with my "controversial" statements, they just could not accept that as far as I'm concerned I'm just talking basic common sense. I might be "emotionally unbalanced," I've already confessed to taking two antidepressants, but there's nothing crazy about my opinions or my general take on life. I'd rather die a lonely miserable death than suffer fools at all. And sometimes it seems like the world is full of nothing but.

Now. To compound what might rule out responding 99.4% of the bare handful of people who've even made it this far: don't bother me if you can't step up. I'm comfortable with this getting no answers at all, and if anybody does answer it'd be okay if we try but just don't click. The only people I've known who I might imagine addressing this to either died years ago or just plain gave up. (And that they're not with me now is my own stupid fault.)

Okay? Okay.

("Here kitty kitty!")

An Inside Joke

[An attempt at fiction.] 

It’s 2:17 PM on the second Sunday in October. My sister turned 60 a month ago. Her youngest daughter, the one I don’t know, drove me down here in her father’s car: Robin and Steve don’t want me driving, not even in a rented U-Haul, because the word is I’m a hazard behind the wheel. The only place I give vent to rage is on the road, and only when I’m driving. Nothing ever really happened, the one time I totaled a car it was from plain inattention, but a passenger read my mind one July while we were on Interstate 64 and called the police in the next rest area we came to.  She’d made up some story about me being suicidal with a gun in my pocket.

So it behooved John Law to pull us over, take me into protective custody, and hold me for three days in a locked mental ward to see if I was committable yet.  Who the passenger was is irrelevant except that I didn’t know her well and she hated guns. Her fantasy that I might hurt somebody sounded convincing enough to the police; she alleged I was a danger to myself because it would be hard to prove I’m not. Or so she thought. 

I told her to drive the car to my place, we lived in the same neighborhood, and then never come near me again. She did, and disappeared. For all I know she changed her hair and I couldn’t recognize her. Faces and names don’t matter much to me, not unless they mean something to me, and almost nobody does.  I made a vow to never go out of my way for a stranger again. “No good deed…”

For three days I practiced reading Proust (I always had my ebook reader with me), kept politely to myself, and acted calmer and more level-headed than I usually bother to be. Then when they let me out I sold the old Chevy on Craigslist for an even $1000, buried my pistol for archaeologists to find if I don’t come back for it, sublet my apartment to a relative of a friend of the landlord, and after 35 years went back to roaming the country. Sometimes I hitchhiked, sometimes I rode the bus; sometimes I stayed in motels, sometimes I hung mosquito netting from a clothesline in the woods.     

The problem was that my sister is in my medical files as my next of kin, along with my psychiatric diagnosis and a bit of my personal history. So some desk worker at the hospital called my sister to let her know where I was and why, and when she called me to hear my story I was stupid enough to be honest with her: I’d been having the fifth or sixth bad day in a row,  that just happens sometimes for no reason at all, and I was probably cussing and muttering to myself about how pissed off I was at all the shit I have to eat. It wasn’t serious, these things come and go, but I can see how it might scare somebody. So the dizzy Scorpio who’d asked me for a ride set me up to get me off the road. A public service, I gather.

And my brother-in-law, who knows me too well, decided that I shouldn’t be driving. Or carrying a gun. Because of my “anger problem.” And if I didn’t agree my sister would get on the phone on Monday, the second day of my stay, and start trying to have me committed. It might have worked, or maybe not, but I like to stay out of trouble. 

So after a few months of wandering the Interstate system, when it started getting cold at night, I decided to move inside for the Winter. But at that point I couldn’t afford the first month’s rent and the security deposit anywhere, and staying in motels would eat up my SSI check so I’d never get ahead, so I had nowhere to go but the sofabed in my sister’s finished basement.  The deal is I pay them whatever it costs to feed me, keep $100 a month for pocket money, and give the rest of my check to my sister to save for me so I could afford to get the hell out by April 15th, IRS Day. Just because that date is easy for everybody to remember, and far enough away so I’ll have a nest egg ready. Oh, and set up a way to get my psych medication there, and never miss a dose. Because my family cares about me and they want what’s best for me. And there’s nothing I can do about it.

So here we are, my mysterious niece and I, at a folding table outside a vegan restaurant.  Neither of us is vegan but she has a friend from high school who manages the place, and they do have good carrot juice. (The secret is the spices, they say.) And carrot juice does well with clear tequila, which I’ve taken to carrying in my “man bag” (‘so it’s purse, fuck you’) for special occasions. And I’m sitting across the table from her, downwind, because I keep playing with a big cigar like I’m thinking of lighting it. I probably won’t, I’ve just taken to fidgeting (hence the booze), but “those things are disgusting, just the thought of them.” Just on principle. And my sister and her husband have always been very big on principles, and they raised their kids that way. And I have been made to understand their thinking, though I was slow on the uptake till I needed to be otherwise. So I’m only allowed to smoke anything outside, and only if it doesn’t bother anybody else. 

So here I am, a bald old man who’s obviously suffered, around the corner from “a prominent research university.” Waiting for somebody I sort of dated for less than a month 39 years ago, a graduate student in something to do with advanced mathematics I can’t understand (I was a poet, you see), whose Facebook page mentions she works in the same school she studied in, whose website informs us she’s been a tenured professor since 1996. And lists her email address. And surprisingly she remembered me, and more surprisingly she admits it. And she’s got nothing else to do this weekend. And she’s always wondered how I turned out.

The last time I saw her I got barred till further notice from Baltimore’s premier gay disco. Because while she and her sister were getting on people’s nerves with their interpretive dancing I started singing along with MacArthur Park. Loudly. Off-key. Leaning against the wall by the dance floor as if I might just topple over. The girls were instructed to help me exit this establishment. Immediately. When I showed up a few days later, hoping to find that cute little twink I’d noticed that night, the barkeep recognized me and told me I was not welcome, nor were my girlfriends. 

She remembered that, she said in her email. And she still thinks it’s funny, though she’s sorry I got in trouble. Oh. “and by the way,” she’s been 12  Stepping for 30 years, and she does Pilates, and she’s vegan. And she’s surprised to hear that I’m not dead of AIDS or suicide or a car crash or something. And I’m the craziest person she ever dated, and the smartest townie she met that year. (“What a waste,” she’d say.) So she just has to satisfy her curiosity, since I popped up. 

And the only person who was available to drive me was the youngest niece, who was an infant when I “ran away from home,” who I’ve seen only a dozen or so times in the past 28 years. Who’s very patient with me, who also has an ebook reader. 

We look like we might be related, she and I, if you see us close together and catch us at the right time, but otherwise we might as well be different species. She looks like a typical suburbanite of her generation, in flowing peasant skirt, a T-shirt about an emo band that broke up before she was born, a paisley headscarf keeping her long brown hair from flapping in the breeze, and brown suede hiking boots over argyle socks.       

While my head is shaved clean, my Fu Manchu mustache is cut off evenly with my bottom jawline, and I’m dressed to impress: a hot pink Oxford shirt, untucked and with the top three buttons open, a black heart pendant on a leather thong just below my Adam’s apple, and camouflage pants bloused over a pair of black leather combat boots that were GI 30-odd years ago when they were first issued. ($27.99 on ebay, with $14.99 shipping.) The boots sport pink paracord laces to match my T-shirt, and I’m wearing every ring I own. It’s a little joke only certain circles would understand, and they’d hate me for making fun of them. 

    

 

Through Early Morning Fog

 

These so-called cigarillos come five to a pack for $1.29; with 6% tax added, rounded up as taxes are, they're 27.4 each.  Being classified Disabled and on a fixed low income gets me a Lextran photo ID and 50 cent bus ride each way with one transfer per leg included, so if I smoke three of these in a day but don't go anywhere I'm ahead by 17.8 cents.  By the math of secondary poverty anyway; what expenditures are not required for survival and contribute nothing to future gain should be avoided, if prolonging your misery is your primary goal.  The deserving poor have no vices, they thank God for what they have rather than complain about everything that's out of reach, they greet every morning as a precious opportunity to practice virtue, and they look forward to not being tone deaf in the heavenly choir.  To hell with that.  My Daddy did raise a fool,  but some things didn't take.  

  

So after being out of bed for about two hours I put flame to the threat of cancer. And I started typing this. 

"Writers write," it's said.  And those who want to be read should practice every day, even on those days when all that presents itself to digital transcription does not accord with the writer's particular goal.   If you can't write a sonnet then make a shopping list; if you can't come up with fiction then bang out a journal entry.  Most professional writers these days go out of their way to credit their muses and their editors, their spouses who support them and those who take their musings and make them readable.  I have neither, so all my output may be labelled Before.  When you have no expectation that anybody would pay for what your write you needn't have an After.  

 

So this is my life.  It's what you get. 

   

My father spent his whole life trying to make something of himself, to do something useful, to justify his presence.  When he finally got disabled enough from a spine shaped like a question mark he didn't sit around watching TV and washing down his many medications with cheap beer like a normal shlub,  he went back to college to work toward a four-year degree.  He was taught the obligation to accomplish something and have something to show for it.  He didn't live long enough to finish, but if anybody was keeping track got good marks for effort. 

 

That didn't take either.  Before I traded pimples for stubble I gave up on that idea.  It was obvious that whatever striving I did would be done alone, and that all I'd gain is more to lose.  "The bigger you are the harder you fall."  There was no reason to believe I'd go splat and then get up, that I'd pull myself up from the potholed pavement and wobble away to heal -- only to try it all again; nor had I any expectation that inching forward toward worthiness would justify the damage even gainful effort does.

 

To just get through the day.  That's the only goal I could afford,  the surest bet there was to make.  For a long as keeping on wasn't too much trouble.  And anyway nobody but me would deserve to give a damn.

I will not sell myself, I told myself repeatedly.  I will not be punked out by The System.  If I must be a fool I'll be nobody's fool but mine.  Their road is best not taken.  What did that get my Dad?

 

So here I am, 61 years old, waiting comfortably to die.  In a small apartment that rents for 30% of my income, leaving enough unspoken for to waste as I see fit.  What I manage to squirrel away in Savings is my profit to date; I might on occasion invest in something that might get me more, so in the future there might be days that are easier to get through, if there might be a future.  But getting old is getting old, I'm tired enough already.

And what, you might ask, brought me to this?  (If there is a you, indeed.)  The answer is simple: there has been a catastrophe for the world in general, one that I could never do anything to avert: a sociological tsunami, an electoral earthquake.  They have elected him again, that stupid charlatan, that raving idiot.  The Orange King off in the head, the senile fool they should have left drooling in his rocker. 

 

The new world order is collapsing into nonsense; the future will be worse than my times have ever been. 

 

People do not make their lives out of whole cloth but from what scraps they find where they can think to look.  Every person is a quilt of whatever comes to hand.  And when every rag is tatters there will be few prizes won.  Under these conditions you'll be lucky to even warm yourself. 

 

I've seen too much of that already, and there's always more to see.  But there has been beauty in it, though diminishing each day, and there has been enough of me to be enhanced thereby.   I could usually tell myself  that there were compensations, that all I had to do was look to see something pretty.  But it's already late November and that joy is almost over with, soon the ice will settle. 

That fool will be sworn in on the 20th of January, in the middle of my Winter,     when my sap is at its lowest. And what the equinox will bring is longer days of horror, more hell I'll have to hide from.  The world out there will suffer the demise of its "democracy," and I won't want to see it.  My skin is just not thick enough.  And I'm too damn old to go through four more years of that.

You've really done it this time.  By that you did me in.    

You should be proud of yourselves.  You've proven me as right as I'll ever need to be: I did not want to be like you, I saw where that would lead.  At the end my father was round down by pain, curled up from his crumbled spine, taking nothing with him and leaving less behind.  That's what all that got him, that's all there is to get.  And what about you?  What kind of future do you see?  Is the humping you're getting worth the humping you're getting?  Do the words "in vain" mean anything to you yet?  How stupid are you, anyhow?  (No, I don't want to know the answer to that, I'll find out soon enough.) 

 

So.  These are the words I've got to write, this is all that comes to mind.  For now anyway; until you're sure I'm gone don't expect me to shut up.  Hearing myself type is my favorite noise, and my present state of mind and the likely immediate causes for it are my favorite subject.  It's all about me.  But you might as well start considering anything you read from me from now on as a bonus, a blessing, insult added to injury.  From here on out know that I've understood that it just ain't bloody worth it, nothing I can say will really mean anything to you.  Nothing ever has.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Caring Costs

Earlier this month a Facebook friend asked for $18 for her old dog's prednisone; of course I came through for that. How could I not? This one Facebook friend once spent $500 fixing a feral cat's fucked up foot, getting his shots, etc. etc., because I asked her too. That's hard to beat. Then because I knew she's broke and Thanksgiving means turkey I put in a pickup order for one at her local Walmart, $14.37 well-spent.  (I've got my own turkey, and a ham, and a pork roast, so I'm set to feast all I'd really want to.)

And then just recently somebody posted that they're broke and need food, so because my SNAP/EBT is now pretty low I decided to put off buying things I can do without like vitamin E and no-sew buttons for suspenders and sent her Paypal for $26.85, leaving Checking with a nice round number that ought to do me for a month. That'll have to be it for "charity" for a while, but eh. I look forward to having my credit paid off and nobody needing anything so I can build my savings back up, but for now I'm still better off than the last year or so on Kees Rd. For one thing the thermostat is set for 75,  I don't need to bundle up inside. There's no sense in complaining about my life these days.

Of course I could have spent what I've given away this month on cheap booze and spent half my time all tipsy like I did in 2020. But then I spent a couple hours every morning hung over, which was stupid. It was that having 2 or 3 or 4 dogs to walk when the weather was suitable meant I had to be mobile and sober from say 1pm till after dark most days, so I had a responsibility I didn't want to shirk. Technically I could've afforded to never bother being sober if I'd bought rotgut vodka instead of bottom-shelf bourbon. You might think otherwise, but I find no moral virtue in being sober simply for its own sake; it's a matter of having responsibilities, or not. Like when I was house-sitting for this one lady friend for two months I never got too loaded (or too hungover) to take care of her dogs, to feed them and let them out and have quality time with them. (I dimly recall one bad dream about being too shitfaced to get myself and the dogs out back while the house burned, that was all that took.)

Anyway. I might make more attempts at fiction available so y'all can verify that in fact I can't write for toffee, on which you should feel no need to comment; as far as I can tell people's opinion of my intellect is low enough already. And I don't anybody to really  the essays I post to Facebook, except for a couple of similarly bored old men everybody's got better things to do. Fine by me, I write as if it's a symptom of Tourette's, because holding it in is harder than it should be. I'm not smart, just fucking crazy.

I've already outlived one ex-partner's father, who went out about a month and a half after his 61st birthday.  To outlive my own dad would take another three years, which at the moment seems like too much trouble for no purpose. Maybe I'll try harder for a longer time if I ever do after all produce some fiction that somebody whose intellect I respect might conceivably pay to read, or maybe if I can afford to get implants to snap my dentures onto so they can get rid of this annoying plastic palate, but either of those seems pretty remote. Readable writing would be a lot of work, and that dental work would probably mean paying off my Discover card for the rest of my life, and I've gotten this far for this long without either. And I never will have a cottage with a fenced yard for a dog or two. So this is apparently the la mas vida dulce I can reasonably expect, and under another Trump term yet. Fuck getting crippled and senile in that kind of society.

Anyway. I've got plenty of coffee and a CorningWare percolator. That should keep me awake long enough to read more highbrow shit and/or get more out of my Hulu subscription; last night I went to bed before midnight and spent 12 hours in bed, reading when not sleeping. Hibernating. Peacefully and painlessly. Till the vernal equinox that'll be fine & dandy, if it's possible, if nothing happens to fuck me up or stress me out. If I can't expect at least that much out of life...

 

 

A P.S.

 So I still need laxatives to poop, with that it's easy enough. 

 

Which reminds me of something. Quality of life is very important to me and after watching all the degrading debilities my crippled parents went through, especially towards the end, I've got pretty high standards for myself. By my standards I see people everyday in this building who by my standards are better off; of course that's none of my business, and I doubt anybody will last my opinion, but just for me that's how it is. For example I think I might be able to put up with not going walkies very often, but I insist on being able to get to the toilet by myself.

So anyway, I had to get out and do something, but it's clammy and wet out here, dreary very dreary, so it wasn't much. I've decided those five for $1.29 cigarillos are okay for now so I bought a pack, then I found out that apparently the markdown Halloween candy is all gone already, and then I marched my achy old ass all the way around the block. I figure that's about half a mile, maybe more. It wasn't actively raining so halfway through I took off my vinyl raincoat, sweating isn't fun.

Mentally speaking so far I seem to be handling recent events okay, okay for me anyway, but then it's just the prelude. Getting through Inauguration day is going to be an ordeal, that's also the four-year anniversary of my beloved Joey's death, so I reserved the right to get through that however I damn please. As for after that, we'll see. As I previously said, don't expect too much.

Sometime between now and then I'll get my new glasses, and I'll find out if Medicaid will pay for my hearing aids, and this Friday I'm going to see what the dental school can do about my dentition; and ordered a pair of glasses with fancy progressive lenses, which ought to be here in the next week or so, and tomorrow I'll call the audiologists' to see if thy have any news yet. For now my day to day functioning isn't very impaired. I'm even resisting going out to buy myself  an allowed pint of beer, which ain't that hard because it seems fried ripe plantain has a laxative effect, something I'll have to keep in mind.

 

All I can say is that I should be able to carry on okay if nothing bad happens to me. I don't know how much more stress I can take, and I don't want to find out.

 

I wish you all good luck. We're going to need it. 

 

 

"I Think It's Pretty"

In my latest dream, before the storm warning announcement woke me up, I was explaining to someone that I'll just have to learn to get over bad things that happen, or at least the relatively small bad things anyway. I've already spent the past two POTUS terms being slowed down or sometimes staggered by what they call current events, not to mention the innumerable annoyances that went on in my so-called private life, and I'm still here to remind y'all that 'you had been warned'; it might be fun to stick around long enough to remind you that 'you can't blame me for this one either' till I'm sure you've really had enough. Maybe I'll try to refrain from suggesting things you might try to improve the situation or just aid in coping, fools never listen to good advice either. (Hi Jonah Earl Thomas!) And it might be beneficial to me to ease up on the 'doomscrolling', I did enough of that during the first Trump pandemic.

And I have decided that it's okay to have an occasional dose of ethanol from time to time, but I'll keep taking the naltrexonel--the original dose that didn't stop my bowels completely--because the original motive for drying out was lack of sufficient funds, which after the end of this year will be rectified, and because there were a few things that needed doing, which have been getting done: the credit bills are getting paid off, and I have just one more appointment scheduled, a dental visit this Friday, and then this year's To Do list should be over. It would've been finished earlier if I'd known that this state's "satanic socialist" governor had indeed ordered that Medicaid pay for hearing aids, glasses, and more dental work than was previously covered; of course that can't last very long, so I'm going to try to hold on to some savings and to keep my credit bills down and my credit score up.

My decades-long reliance on SSRI, bupropion, and caffeine should keep being enough to get me through most days, and the added naltrexone should help keep my weight down and render booze optional instead of a daily must-have (and even during the 2000 lockdown I wasn't starting the day off with a drink). Unless something happens that really knocks me down, simply continuing to have a mundane existence won't be an insuperable problem. For as long as I can say motivated anyway: the past few years of aging has been wearing and wearying, and there've been no lack of opportunities to just give up already.

I've proven to be resilient enough to carry on so far; it's maintaining motivation that's been the main problem. That requires both a goal to strive toward, getting assistance when needed, and a few rewards along the way. And the list of things I had been doing, of resources I'd been counting on, has been steadily diminishing along with my energy (there is a correlation anyhow), and I can tell you that running on bitter spite and noxious fumes hasn't been much fun for the past decade or so. It ain't been easy, and I can't see that improving.

So if anybody out there has some investment in my person or feels a need to offer me something you're welcome to let me know. And episodes of mutual commiseration might be a good idea as well, and there might be some assistance I can render you if need be. (It can be fun to be helpful, and I do have a conscience to assuage.) But I must warn you that if your problems are worse than mine and/or your are resources fewer you'd do better to turn to someone else. I'm depleted enough already, already it's gotten difficult to maintain those contacts that had been established. (In fact most days it's all I can do to be around people for an elevator ride.) I've always had trouble keeping up my end of things, there are probably several people reading this who can attest to that, and it's not like 61 years of weathering have done me a lot of good.

But. However. As I rarely tire of demonstrating, I am by nature a self-absorbed semi-solipsist with chronic depression (leavened by fits of unjustified elation and a tendency toward useless paranoia), and being "realistic" is complicated by my on-going bad attitude. If you can't handle my "negativity" you'd best fuck right off. Nor will I venture any promises to keep carrying on, not for my own sake much less for any of yours, unless my situation unaccountably improves. Or unless somebody needs me more than I need them, which has been so rare an experience that I might no recognize it if it plops down right in front of me. (And even my lordly dog lived with somebody else who could afford to do right by him in that way, another debt I've had to carry.) So I will continue to do the best I feel up to, given whatever givens I'm up to overcoming.

All I'm saying is if you want something from me it better be good. I can't be bothered very much, and there are often days when I won't bother at all. And, as has happened in the past, if I'm ever all you've got you're in very bad shape -- so maybe you should just quit. My usual condition ain't been much fun to be in, so being more pathetic than me maybe ought to be illegal.

Until further notice I shall be accepting suggestions for good things you might offer me and/or good things we might do together. Of course I can't promise to take anybody up on anything, but there must be things I'll do well to consider. But you'll have to go first: in my current position suggesting or requesting anything would feel too much like crawling, and I did way too much of that before turning 30 in 1993. Surviving on spite requires a good deal of pride, and if you take into consideration all the things I won't suffer and can't be bothered to do you'll realize what a proud son of a bitch I really am, in my own special way. I've had to be. That has been obvious for quite some time, though few of you are able to see it.

Y'all who might need to have heard all this will do well to keep it in mind. You can't expect me to keep repeating myself for much longer. And even I get tired of putting up with my shit.

I'll post a link to a blog entry containing this so you'll have an easy time saving it for future reference.

From The Archives: Nov 1, 2010, 5:23:49 PM

 Why I Support The Death Penalty

Davy

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Nov 1, 2010, 5:23:49 PM

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The following quotes are from Wil Wheaton's "The real war on Christmas"
essay on Salon.com on Dec 22, 2005, quoting respectively Wil's father
and Wil:

"They get satellite television, and weights, and free meals, and
jobs, and a library ..."

"And raped, and beaten by guards, and sold as slaves by prison
gangs," I said."

Think about that: any self-respecting person would think that's worse
than death.

This, besides that they're stupid enough to commit what are usually
stupid crimes and stupid enough to get caught, is why I have no respect
for the average convict: because they don't have whatever it takes to
put themselves out of their misery (and ours). No, they'd rather suffer
behind bars, with the only recompense being making other people behind
bars suffer too. So why is Society spending so much money, time and
effort on these people? Put them down, I say.

Note that I'm aware that innocent people get convicted, that the
penalties are exaggerated (prison over a couple of joints is unjust),
and that a lot of them have their charges "upgraded" by political DAs
aiming for higher office (having two joints in a baggie does not mean
you plan on selling either of them); the point is that even somebody
who's been framed should know better than to put up with prison time. I
don't have much respect for non-criminals who choose to suffer like
that either. If they're guilty it's punishment, if not it's euthanasia,
and in either case it's better for all concerned.

Wise up: in the present-day U.S.A., as everywhere else on the planet,
life is cheap. There would be much less war if it wasn't, much less
cancer and much less stupidity; nobody's life is worth a plug nickel,
not even mine. Anybody who thinks otherwise is an idiot duped by
bullshit propaganda.

So why do we have prisons? So that people "on the outside" can enjoy
sadistic fantasies about the horrors that its outcasts undergo and so
that really marginal types can get jobs inside them -- especially as
guards who can give free reign to their own criminal sadism. Most
people don't think cons can really be rehabilitated, that prisons are
for punishment, but they don't think further to learn why they're so
willing to pay so much for these fine penal establishments. Think about
this too: you pay for food because it tastes good, you pay for booze
because it makes you feel good, you pay for gas to run your cars... So
why do you let so much of your tax money go to the penal system? Why
else but to make these stupid cons suffer. (You sadistic bastards.)

Death, whether as penalty or reward, is preferable to prison. So I
suggest that the death penalty should not only be kept, it should be
expanded to cover a whole host of non-fatal felonies as well: any crime
that merits more than say 2 years in the slammer should result in a
sure, quick and painless death.

Okay, perhaps there should be an alternative to prison or death: I
propose penal battalions in our United States Armed Forces. Instead of
taking our their violent stupidity on normal citizens or fellow cons,
if insist on being too soft-headed and/or too sadistic to go for simple
execution, let the criminal types have their jollies at the expense of
non-Americans our Government has designated The Enemy. The government
can always find some foreigners to "liberate."

In any case, face it: it's so easy to get wise to you that even I can
do it. You might give facing up to yourselves a try too.

Ya got all that?

***HUGS***

Davy

From The Archives: Sep 5, 2011, 12:13:54 PM

 

David O'Lantern

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Sep 5, 2011, 12:13:54 PM

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Lately I've been preoccupied with the realization that I've never had a
single close friend, that it may well be that nobody has ever felt any
deep and abiding affection for me. And that this might well be my fault.

Or perhaps "fault" is not quite the word for it; perhaps I should say
that this fact of friendlessness is due to some fact or facts about me,
that perhaps I'm simply not the kind of person who has friends. That if
it's a skill I'm unable to learn it, if it's a talent I don't possess
it.

It could even be that it's the rest of the people I've been surrounded
by for 40-odd years who are responsible, that I'm alone on a planet of
people who are unable or unwilling to appreciate my "special" qualities.
(This won't be a very popular idea.)

Regardless of responsibility, the facts are that I am alone now and that
I have always been alone. The available evidence indicates also that
this condition is now permanent. If there ever was a time when having at
least one close friend was possible that opportunity will not recur;
however interested I might become in a person it will again come to
nothing. No one is likely to want to be my friend, or at least likely
enough to tolerate or disregard whatever deficiency or disability causes
this condition. The distance is unbridgeable: I am cut off.

This idea is not new, merely the acceptance of it. Years ago and for
many years I railed against this fact, refusing to recognize it as
irrefutable and seeking to escape it. As one might expect if we are
truly a social species naturally inclined to be sociable together.
Assuming of course that I truly am the same species as those who are not
my friends: subjectively it has always seemed that that is not the case,
that I am a species sui generis. Perhaps I'm a mutant, a "sport," a "bad
seed." Or perhaps my space ship crashed and left me stranded here, or
maybe I've blundered over from an alternate universe that I'm unable to
get home to.

Certainly it's always felt that way, ever since I can remember: any hope
I've ever had of not being all alone here had more to do with finding
another such mutant or mutants with whom I might bond reciprocally and
mutually, not that I would ever prove to be a "regular, normal" person.
It did not take me long to learn that one should not strive to surmount
the realm of natural fact, that it's simply not possible for a pig to
fly. (However worthy of flight the pig might be.)

What's changed lately, besides that this knowledge has finally sunk in,
is the realization that however this isolation has felt at times it has
always been possible: however hard to bear it was I have borne it
nevertheless. Regardless of how others might perceive me I have my
persistence to be proud of. I gather that this quality or achievement is
not at all common, that most of those who might read this cannot or will
not say that: you would have been unable or unwilling to endure such a
condition for over 40 years, you would have crumpled and crumbled long
before. You would be reduced to self-abnegation or self-destruction, or
worse, gibbering idiocy.

But I remain. I, I, I am a rara avis. Hear me type: I think it's pretty.