airplane

cake

#0111

If a distracted state can be sensed in writing, the reader might sense one now. I am writing within a very small restaurant on the outskirts of town. The service is smoking, the sections are not. Seems a bustling little joint on the edge of two cities. There is a girl washing windows to my left. I'm sure the establishment has worked for its regular crowd; and earned these fine waitresses. I am dining in a conglomerate of successes. I am discouraged by my own level of success, and number of triumphs i experience in a day. Winning out is the result of organizing something. But, organizing anything seems such a strenuous, uncertain task. When organizing a band, so much rests on each individual member. There is compromise, or there isn't, and there is truancy. Finally you've got a barren profile site that looks like child's obituary.

I was able to piece together a remake of Missile Command recently. It was, just because it could be done. It's a sad rendition, but I didn't add anything to it after getting the basis coded. What I wanted was a stress reliever, and there's something about a solid piece of programming that can grant this. A new open source racing game has taken its place, which is also very solid. I live for gimmicky desktop entertainment. If I had a desk job I'd have a lava lamp sitting on my desk, along with a variety of ball bearing games. Or, just an iPhone or two.

The world spun around and spit me out, or at least it feels like it. I have not felt as cool and sane as right now since before my diagnosis. My psychiatrist has changed my main medication to something a little more barbaric. I say barbaric because if unaided by counteractive medications, this medication will chase you around your world. I speak of restlessness, ants in your britches. I braved three days and three nights without the counteractive medication, and ended up in a hospital. It was hard to show the doctors and nurses just how bad I was feeling. That is, toward my task of break dancing on the ceiling. The room was tight and I needed to pace. I was in check by the professionals visiting my room, made comfortable, blocked in. Plus I had someone to run my mouth to, rather than run to the next county. I joke but it was hell, and I demanded action. Perhaps asking for a shot of something by name wasn't the best way to get things done, but I did get the pills in short order. Only a bit longer to absorb, two days to take hold, and I'm able to sit, stand, crouch, lay without doing the worm on my floor instead. The success lies in the psychiatrist who allowed me to dictate, to some extent, which medications worked for me. Snappy guy, but unfortunately he is moving to New Mexico. The good ones are hard to come by. Yes, all good things must end. Murphy's Law or some shit, I tell ya.

Completing one of these entries is an rare accomplishment nowadays. The trend has been to merely cope. I'm told by the cover of a self help book, that this is not enough. Today I needed to get in touch with my spot on the web. The medications have made it so that I can relax, so I did, I must have looked lazy. But, I had a lot of catching up to do. As did I here, that I didn't do. I'll get there. And when all is said and done, I'll still be relaxing. Peace.

#0110

I am the poor. I dream of holding a winning lottery ticket for modest reasons. Even, say, a $15,000 ticket would let me hold my practical wants. If I could sustain a higher income, I could afford to be a consistent smoker. Being poor isn't so unhealthy, it would seem. The government sets aside a sum of money for groceries, when you're poor. That is, if you can shuffle the papers they need from you fast enough. Now paying more attention to the cost of food items, I'm amazed by some things. The cost of a dozen eggs is a mere dollar. I remember when the price of generic cigarettes was just that. Now, the price of one pack of name brand cigarettes is the same as a carton of generics in the early nineties. There's no telling what I might do with a multimillion dollar payout from the lotto. It might take the magic of life away, or away the magic that certainly is here, being poor.

At base level, what I want is a car and a guitar. By coincidence the two things rhyme, but after all, I fancy myself a bit of a musician. I'd want the road to the high tech recording studio to be long and wearisome, for the sake of experience. I would buy my girlfriend a keyboard, and rent a practice space. To back up a little, let's assume a small payout. I'd buy a car and commute to the far away town in which my girlfriend lives. Just like when gas was a dollar a gallon, and cigarettes followed gas prices. They got confused somewhere along the way, but for many years, this was the rule. We did very well for the longest time at a long distance from one another. The split was less bitter than it was sweet. Our breakup was over the telephone, and believe me, we cannot fight. If we tried to fight I expect us to be very bad and unconvincing.

And so, we're back on the telephone, taking another stab at a long distance relationship. The prices have changed, but the people have more or less stayed the same. I don't have to define "poor" in any other meaning to the reader, given the reading level here. I have a poor mentality toward women I can see with my eyes. Most of them are tall, shapely, and blond. It's just a trend. Or, is it because my girlfriend shares these features? She not only refuses to forgive me for mingling with cashiers and passerby, she is flattered that I attribute it to like physical features. There's an example at the closest McDonald's restaurant. A cashier complimented my t-shirt one afternoon. I'd noticed her around the store for more than her sassy attire. McDonald's can't be that bad of a place to meet people. It's friendly. They've got a well-balanced clown on their side. And, on the subject of money, it's the cheapest place to eat on earth. Two dollars and eleven cents will get you two double cheeseburgers or chicken sandwiches, which are small, but sufficient. I'd go in there and get myself some more often, but I don't always have my lines rehearsed. Ahem.

Being poor and eating poor go hand in hand. Perhaps I shouldn't take this too much to heart since, McDonald's is poor eating. And just about piss-poor. I write of the food bank. It's the place to which Cub Scouts' canned food drives let out. You enter the cold garage and are offered a piece of raisin cake, usually. Based on your income, you can select a number of items from a wall of goods. Believe me, it's uncomfortable. Not proctology uncomfortable, but you want it to be over just the same. I've been there three times, and it doesn't get easier. I was lucky the last time. I got all the ingredients for my signature soup. Also, cheese sticks. There have got to be companies unloading surplus to this place. Quite a lot of healthy cereal, and a number of what appear to be rations. Boxed UHT milk, powdered milk, canned pork, spud flakes, and five pound bags of frozen french fries, all given as "commodities." Most of this was quite exotic to me. Not in a tropical vacation fare sort of way, but still.

My situation isn't so bad. I am single, save a girlfriend in the wing. I live alone, and enjoy an abundance of my own time. I have a computer that would make you think I'm rich. I'm rich from what I take on, often through the computer. There was a man in the food bank the last time I was there. He was ahead of me in line. I overheard the manager say to a worker there, "Twelve members in his household." He was Asian, most likely from Laos. For twelve people in his household, he received twelve items. Seemed like a drop in the bucket. When I don't want to bake my fries because they don't taste as good as McDonald's fries, I will think of this man opening twelve cans of beans or whatnot, for one dinner with his family of fortunate ones.

bust out the binary

Chronic laziness has spread to most parts of my daily reading. Tylenol has precautions, but then, so does capitalism. I lost most faith in anything followed by all.

#0101

Last New Years I was in a control room at a television station. I quit the next day, not entirely interested in how much I had cost the company in mistakes. The nation was and is on watch, so gaping black pauses were sure to be considered. In dealing with a new computer automation system, a sleazy cash loan franchise got air at zero past midnight. I tore out of the parking lot at quitting time, and disconnected the phone in my apartment.

I'm not a habitual drinker, nor social; impulsive maybe. I needed to be pressured by an attractive teenager to max out my credit card on vodka in and around the holiday season this year. My thirty-first birthday came around, my young neighbors helped me celebrate. I pretended to be middle eastern, which is not a running joke here in the Midwest. I posed for their camera phones, speaking much of the Spanish I have committed to memory. We were told to return to our rooms, that the laundry nook was not our personal party space. It would be bad form to write an age on the groundskeepers, here. They are elderly twins, female. They either live in or occupy a high room in the building. They live post new age, caught fancies of the computer age and the Internet. Two computers take up two desk spaces, and are perhaps networked via e-mail.

I finished up my birthday celebration, potent with joblessness. When the white lights and curious phone messages sank back out to sea, I saw the groundskeepers about an eviction notice I'd found taped to my door; which itself was framed in various offensive pencil markings. I am given twenty-eight days from the beginning of next month to find another place. I was given a send-off from the ladies upstairs. First she made some grumblings about how she doesn't believe in mental illness, or at least not in me. She cracked the spine of a yellowing paperback by a doctor I'd never heard of. In all case studies, niacin supplement decreased showings of schizophrenia. Though, niacin sounds so much like cyanide.

I was offered a few bites of foodstuffs, and some unfiltered cigarettes. I was not given direct reasons why I was being evicted, but I didn't really want to discuss nor refute any of the preceding new years celebration's contents. I showed nothing smug, or of surprise to the women. Without saying so, they assured me I'd be in their positive thoughts. One said, I needed to be around young people. Also, that my apartment faces north and I'm not getting enough sun. Perhaps they'll get one of those mini orange trees and transfer health on me through it.

It has become the truth between myself and the sun. A new medication, enforced, is shutting me out from most of the afternoon hours. I collapse in a heap of sleep with a dose of sedative fit to pad a hospital stay, each day. I awake in the night, metabolism crawling at the fridge. Another thing about it: I am not used to having back problems. I contracted spinal meningitis when I was sixteen, so people ask me about having back problems. I say they are cured, but few understand. Flopping out of half the day doesn't help my posture, especially since the prescription was sudden. I'm beginning to sympathize with others who complain--with equal caution as I'd expect when discussing a spinal infection.

Following through with publicizing matters, I'll have a few items to donate once things begin to wind up here in this apartment. I see this shelter as just another focal point from which to stand aloft and see the galaxy, except mixed up a bit from where you are, for instance. Things don't always look up for me, or for anyone, as I'm told. I have a number of alarm clocks collected here. Most of them are not set, and one is flashing 12:00. I'm hoping that in post apocalyptic radiation it might mutate into a VHS player.

#0100

The carpet and draperies might be the only things louder than the family that has taken up a table behind me. The section is deserted, save us, and the two primly attractive young girls on the other end. I just gave the café a compliment, too. I gave up smoking --in part, I told her, for the restaurant's smoking ban. I think now that it should have bartered me some privacy. This is still the best I can do for twenty-four hours, without hitchhiking. Earlier today, I dined at a different diner with my dad. With this, he stared into my eyes with every pore on his face. He recommended solving my automotive crisis by hitchhiking small distances. He'd let the subject go for twelve years, where on the week of my eighteenth birthday he drilled in the possibility of a vicarious journey across the hitches of these great motorways, through me. I have gone hitchhiking, when I was younger than eighteen. I hadn't run off from home. No, I was in the magical land of Canada, visiting an uncle in a rural area. I am in one piece and now twice my original age.

It's a saturday night, and I rarely write in this tense. Nor do I ever freely bash anyone teenager style. Hell, I wouldn't know the shorthand. Two, perhaps three, individuals followed me to this café nonetheless, and will be roasted in a honey glaze, later on. Lucky for my writing, I am not glazed over from any sort of van ride. I chose not to hitchhike. I really didn't have the energy to bestow a condensed personality to a car full of impulsive young ones. A black cat had crossed the sidewalk path, earlier in my journey. Flagging down cars might not be the best way to avoid the man who lurks down every alley. It's, best to stay inconspicuous. These guys really do look like the cartoon silhouette on the neighborhood watch stickers, except with a tilted baseball hat. There's no neighborhood watch sticker on the door to this restaurant. There is only speed dial to "taser guns mean big fun!" I stopped at McDonald's before coming here, another saloon waiting to happen. I ate a $2.49 meal in place of the more expensive one I could have eaten at this café. I was pretty sure I had spotted my nemesis on a date. He sure cleaned up well. But this couldn't be him, not juvenile enough. I'm sure he'd assure me, he hasn't been a juvenile since such and such a year. I nervously ate my ice cream cone, given first! I am terrible with faces, and the right hat can really set things off. In any case, I continued on my journey feeling as though I had avoided great peril. Or, at least I had reduced the chances of seeing another man of my nemesis's description, such as the man, for sure, himself.

Or so it would be thought. En route to the restroom I spotted the same twirled cap as at Mickey D's, entertaining two smiling ladies. No fault of his, his double date, or double identity to me that night, I was unable to concentrate. I headed home, checking, paranoid, over my shoulder. The preceding two paragraphs are stamped in bringing the inking of this entry to the present. I have made again the trip to the restaurant, still somewhat spooked. After all, I was called, "Bitch!" only ten steps from the parking lot, from a small van. There's a hope I hold on to, that my fears are unfounded if not irrational. In a city of this size, they are not necessarily irrational. However, so much intimidation precedes the fights that even fizzle. I wanted to pull some of the same acts of profanity and command over the young Christian family of four seated by me last time. There's a older southern belle and her localized mother eating waffles at the next table, now. At least they're hip and metro enough for breakfast at night. Her accent is really something to meditate on, as well. I've brought this entry accurately to the present, the ink in my pen is nearly flowing backward.

Aside from the southern exotica one table down, to be honest, this town isn't offering me much in the way of attractions. Perhaps worse than a young person's Internet scathing, the way that they do... is a deep dark secret Internet log, like suicide note material. Thus far, I'd allow anyone and the mentioned culprit to my fears to read up, though intuition toward context is a must in comprehension. Ha. This all reminds me of how the smartest boy in my grade school class chose to work on farms and railroads later in life. He was cultured in the underground, could appear ignorant, but was for sure crass by choice. He did not need to be told when someone was complimenting him. There is a creature (and this is not a complement to my nemesis) that can require more translation. The creature has a higher comprehension level per capita, equal intimidation level on average, and avoidance tends to center around something inexplicable rather than self preservation. I'm talking about girls. My current attention is on one girl, and I suppose this is healthy. She is an ex-girlfriend from many years past, but we have skipped the stone of knowing for the many years between then and now. I see here in my notebook that I have written all sorts of explanation as to my re-burning for her. She calls me every day with caring in her voice. She's not particularly creative with her time, which I guess is something I wouldn't ever need to validate by my standards. The longest career move she took was working with retarded people, so I guess I'm pretty well covered for any care-taking I may require. She's got this totally hot way of smoking a cigarette. Though, she tells me she's fat now, having gained a great deal of weight since last seeing me. She's kind of built me up to the kill, licking my lips in anticipation. In spite of her pain over it, I will probably only perceive that her face has shrunk a little. People seldom change much in the watcher's eye.

I am invited to move with her, and at a time when my well being feels threatened in my surroundings. It's easy to be skeptical, that it's a fix. I am weighing how much it is an offer, and how much it is a suggestion I am pushing for my own purposes. I consider these in every question and statement I make about it with the girl. I would be five counties between myself and a fist, but then, maybe five feet from an array of tentacles... "I'm kidding, Girl!" I sounded a bit like Woody Allen on the phone to her in the end. I was neurotic, cathartic, even sincere while kidding. I'd heard her voice before, it said, "Make sweet love to me." She gave an itinerary of how it were going to be. Only a hoop or two and we'd be in Shacksville. I was to visit once, and if all's well we move in by her birthday in October. There is more than this, I know. There is nostalgia, which will serve to remind us of our ages. This is potentially a terrible turn-off. We ain't that old, but the numbers look big. A related hurdle is familiarity. I doubt anything will prove mechanically impossible, that's not what I mean. The way we might still clash will sting double having tasted it twice. Once now and once in the past. Then again, we may not take that road of emotions. We might strip down and mock relationship past to that good old time rock and roll.

As luck would have it, the girl's ex-boyfriend showed up on her door, drunk. I imagined him wearing leather and it being pouring rain. I just wonder if it will be my job to stand beside her with a pitchfork, in the future. I didn't like imagining this, I wanted her to deliver the job while reading the Great Gatsby. How ever it went over, I tossed it aside like the many times it had happened to me. Times she's had an existing boyfriend, she's shown up on my doorstep with two suitcases, intoxicated to see me, and I'm not complaining, however... It's actually relieving the girl has gotten herself some needs.

As far as she goes as a whole, she's never hurt me. She's kind of a dough doll though, easy to dig a nail in. I've quote only unquote cheated twice in my life, both times she was living three hundred miles away, she with a brand new boy friend in her basement. We came to a warm, small worded resolve on the telephone that Spring, and moved forward. A couple of years later, two years into basement boy's reign, she confided in me that she had not had sex since last having sex with me. This was refreshing. Dropping off my newly ex'd ex in high school, she was proud to tell me about her new boyfriend's virginity breaking on my bed at last weekend's party. She doesn't like to talk about these things, she's a lady on and off the streets. Sometimes there are couples that I'd rather not imagine in the sheets. Then there are couples that make me say, "Huh, I wonder about all that." We exist out there, the two of us are not a new nor a pestilent animal. I tell her not to worry, that I know she's pretty and probably more spectacular than she's giving her herself credit for (or that I can do justice). She'd probably hate it that I am writing about her, very modest. I could still face her with a manuscript of this entry, my opinions untouched. She fears in ways I do too, but like most with me, is quick to call me out as crazy. She's been called out as crazy as well, takes more medications than I do. There's a chance in Hell that if we don't drive each other crazy, we'll at least do the domestic side of reaffirming one another's state of unreality. That's a lot of worms to end on, but if we do work out --it will be nice to have it drilled in that our minds have gone by the time that they do.