Siege

Thursday 11/21/24

I have felt like I am under siege lately. Everything is going as bad as possible. The few things that had not broken down have broken down (the heat situation). I'm losing methods of communication (the phone/texts/calls situation with my friend). I feel like all will go wrong in the worst way and then that's coming to pass. But, as I said yesterday, these are things to deal with and remedy. One step, one day, on thing at a time. I did speak to the plumber yesterday. He should be coming by next week to scope things out and come up with a plan that will first involve the electrician. Under siege even in the shower right now--it's not a pleasant experience taking one. There are no little things of comfort, the stuff that people take for granted. A warm shower, a comfortable bed. Lights.

Yesterday I wrote of the nightmare I had just had. I was at the desk by four in the morning. Same as today. I have these things to try and finish and some other to do, though the doing of the latter--or, really, any of it--was, as I knew, to result in nothing. At least right now. It's very hard to do huge amounts of work that require so much time, energy, effort, ability, to have it be for nothing. To find that motivation. Which I do, but believe me, it's among the hardest things ever.

To keep myself on point, as I was trying not to give in to being done with it all, I forced myself the day before to go to Starbucks, sit at a table, and write a list of things I wanted to tackle--to finish and to write--the next day. Knowing, again, it'd be for naught. In the here and now.

So there I was at four in the morning yesterday. I worked straight through--I'll go into what I finished and wrote later--until 12:20, because the Monument opens at 1. When I say straight through, I mean nothing else. The most intense, concentrated work you can imagine. There are no distractions, no fiddling about.

I hadn't done great with any stairs of late. A combination of this being so very hard to go on, an issue with my right hamstring which I didn't want to make worse, and the new hours of the Monument, which are inconvenient for me. I don't understand why the Monument opens at 1. I believe it closes at 5, with the last climb being at 4:30. I haven't been over there that late. I should try that just to see what it feels like--being there in the dark. That might be soothing. But you'd think, given that most people who climb the Monument are either tourists or field trippers, that it'd make much more sense to continue to open at 10--where were the summer hours, up until the end of October (which itself was not very logical)--and, if you could only be open the same amount of hours, to just close earlier. How could you even go to the Monument now if you were a school class?

The Monument is obviously important to me and what I'm trying to do and my health and my quest and with the war I'm in, so I've adapted. By the time I get back, it's not long off from being dark. Sometimes I can't get there at 1, and it basically is dark when I've returned.

I worked yesterday for the eight hours and twenty minutes straight, then did what I often do, with little variation, if any. I already had on my workout clothes, which do change, but they're the same sets of workout clothes. I'm sure there are a number of photos in these pages in which I chart my fitness of me in what I had on yesterday, which is typical for this time of year and through the winter: Gray Boston College sweatpants, maroon Gloucester sweatshirt, Boston Bruins beanie.

I step out into the hall, I put on my sneakers--but I don't tie them yet--and I do a set of push-ups. Now, because I'm making a point to stretch, I transition from that position to sitting on the ground and I begin my stretches. Then I get up, tie my shoes with the help of the stairs in front of me--putting one foot up on a stair, then the other--and after I do some more stretches in a standing position against the wall. The reason I do the set of the push-ups before I so much as tie my shoes is because by the time I'm downstairs, my arms are then ready to do another shorter set, which I do in the back hall. There's a reason for most things I do. I aim for maximum efficiency. This is not a period of leisure or fun in my life. This is worse than hell, and I am the force of nature that needs to get out, or, really, transform all of this into something much better and glorious.

Before I had opened the door to go outside, I phoned my mother. My conversations--the few that I have--tend to happen when I'm on the go like this. I'm not on the phone while I'm at the desk or inside, really. For a number of reasons. It's awful being in here for one of them. Today is my mother's birthday. On Tuesday night, two of her friends had taken her out, so I wanted to see if she had a nice time. That was one of my reasons for calling her. Another reason was because I'm alone, I'm hated, feared, envied, I feel like I'm under siege, I see what shady people are doing, what they're up to--you're not as clandestine as you think; it's me you're dealing with here--and it's a friendly voice. Even if I don't go into what is happening or where I'm at that day. My mother lives in fear that one day I'm just going to be dead.

Nearly every time I go to the Monument, and nearly every time I return, I take the same routes, which are different--slightly--each way. Isn't that funny? It's just what I do. I think it keeps me locked into the routine. Something like this, doing it every day, has to be a routine, because it won't be fun. There's not a way to make it feel fun. So if you make it feel like less of a routine, this thing you have to do, it can be easier not to do it.

I step out of the building, and I take a right which brings me to another street in less than ten steps. I walk down that street a bit--about a quarter of a block--and then I take a left on another street. I did this yesterday, and was outside for maybe forty seconds. I took my turn on that second street, and there was a woman ten yards in front of me. She was yelling. This woman was about thirty-two, looked like a young professional who could have lived in the neighborhood, was dressed that way, thin, white. She was going off. Had earbuds in. I'm talking to my mom on the phone.

This woman was also on her phone. She was looking back over her shoulder. Very animated. Her face, her body. I chad come around the corner and it was like she was in the middle of whatever she was in the middle of. She started screaming about leaving her alone. Shouting things like "Stop it!" and "Go away!" and cursing. Fuck this, fuck that, fuck you. I thought, whoa. But I didn't pay it much mind at first. I go about my business. I will help someone in need--there are some instances of that in these pages--but otherwise, I'm trying to deal with what I'm trying to deal with, get done what I'm trying to get done. Everything is routine and regimen and work right now, and trying not to let go of the rope.

The woman crossed to the other side of the street, but kept looking back over her shoulder and going off. By this point I was looking around--while talking to my mom--trying to figure out what was happening here. She seemed to be addressing somebody, but there was no one around. Each day when I pass down this particular street, I might encounter a couple people. It's a short street street--well, this part of it. Sometimes it's no people. Or a construction worker, an Amazon delivery person, a plumber.

She continues to yell, and she's looking right at me. Saying things like, "Fuck off you stalker! With your white male fragility! Following me for a half mile! That's right, turn, asshole, go a different way!" And when I looked at her, she locked eyes with me and kept saying these things, which is when I realized, "This lady is screaming at you."

My mom is like, "What is that?" I said, "It's a woman yelling. At me, I think. About following her."

I said what I was wearing. It kind of stands out. Not because it's fashionable. Bruins beanie? All maroon sweatshirt? I don't exactly blend in with a crowd in my workout clothes and I don't think it's all that easy to confuse me for someone else. If there was anyone else, and this woman wasn't just, well, whatever you want to call it.

My mom--because this is kind of person she is--says, "Poor woman," which is also somewhat what I was thinking, but she's also saying, "I'm going to call the cops, you with your white man entitlement." She was using those phrases, those buzz words. You saw what said above about everything going the worst way possible, worst fears coming to pass, this personal dystopia, and I thought here's something else, it's happening again, you're going to be accused and arrested as the wrong man and the police will come and in today's world. I was also thinking, "There have to be cameras on you, you've been outside a minute, everything from the desk is time-stamped, the Word documents and when they were saved, the website." This is going through my head. That's where things are at and the headspace I'm in. When I first thought she was screaming at me from across the street, I thought, "I'm not going to alter my routine because of this person," but at this point, I'm like, yeah, I'm banging a left and going down this tiny side street to Hanover and I'll make my way to Atlantic Ave. that way (which is tantamount to cutting a corner, and as one would suspect, I don't like to cut corners in anything, even on my walks, because that fosters bad habits).

But again, like being under siege in all areas. I had just gotten outside after all of that work and there was something new and awful awaiting me.

I got to the Monument and I did five circuits of stairs in a half hour, which is boring old average both in numbers and time. A couple guys staid to me at different points, "You're really crushing it, man," which made me think, again, about how easy it is to recognize me in this clothing. "Oh, look, here comes the guy with the maroon sweatshirt once more."