Tuesday 5/21/24
A day of tasks. Getting money coming in.
There are so many horribly unpleasant things I need to do. In this record and in correspondence (which will boomerang back into this record). Ugly, ugly, ugly things. Things that are going to make people very upset and unhappy which they so easily could have avoided. I really don't want to be doing these things. But I have no choice at this point. It sounds strange to say, but I need to find a way to not hate doing this. Because there's so much of it to be done.
I was thinking recently: I never show up in someone's day and make it worse. I don't start anything with anyone. There's no acting out. No unkindness from out of nowhere. I will react if I have to react. But there's nothing negative that I start. No "little comment." One knows what I mean. No matter what I'm going through. And I'm going through something that God wouldn't get through. Or whatever there is. He or it would have been done a long while ago. That's not some boast. But I know that nothing and no one could endure this. I won't have a cruel word for someone, though. I won't take a shot. There won't be some passive aggressive comment. Some dig. I'm talking in my personal life (which in rare instances has had some overlap with work, but after starting as solely work). Evil publishing people who would run me down on the road if they could, and have essentially done way worse than that many times over? That's a war now. And the last thing any of that was was unprovoked.
There are people who know me--or have known me--who indulge in this kind of thing with me. I think I've known one person who I would say was not against me to some degree. Or didn't resent me to some degree. It's because of what I am. What people know me to be. And what that brings out in them. But if those people were now to search their memories over the last three, four, five, ten years, they wouldn't be able to think of a single instance--much as they may wish to be able to--where I've done any of these things I just mentioned. It's not who I am. Who I've become.
I know one person who might so much as ask how I'm doing. My family won't even. It could be life or death--I mean, it gets there--and people can certainly know, because after all, things are pretty clear and I'm pretty clear. By way of biggest understatement. But there isn't even so much as a "How are you?" or "Are you okay?" That kind of concern or affection wouldn't be expressed to me. Not even that. It just wouldn't happen. And it doesn't. It doesn't exist. Someone could have a guarantee that I'd be dead tomorrow, and that's still how it would go. That's not something in my head. That's something I live. That's simply the truth. It's a truth with which it is very difficult to live, when things on that score are already hard enough.
So. What else? I'm just marking a little time right now. Not going to get into much at the moment. Listening to a little The Adventures of Horatio Hornblower--the radio series with Michael Redgrave. I remember the first time I was reading all of C.S. Forester's Hornblower books, and Bush died. It wasn't just that Bush died that was upsetting--it was that it barely got mentioned. This quick, matter-of-fact report. I was a little shook up that day when I read that. Or rather when I didn't read much more than that.
I did fifty circuits yesterday at the Connecticut gate stairs, as well as 200 push-ups, and walked three miles. Today I ran 3000 stairs at City Hall and did 100 push-ups. I tried to see if I could do any of these diamond push-ups, or triangle push-ups. I'm not sure what they're called. You put the tops of thumbs against each other and the tops of your index fingers, and then place your hands that way on the ground. I didn't know how this would go, but I could do them. They're for the triceps.
Anyway. Going to need a lot more productivity tomorrow. This hasn't been nearly good enough.
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