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.