Sunday 4/24/22
A pointless day. Began writing an introduction for Glue God: Essays (and Tips) for Repairing a Broken Self, the computer froze again, and I lost it, so now I have to begin again. Not now. Later. A few months ago a brown stain appeared in the kitchen ceiling. Yesterday it was bigger. Had to contact the people upstairs--again--regarding damage to this hell space of a unit from their unit. I updated the On air, Op-eds, and Beatles writings sections, so those are current, at least, even if nothing else on the site is. I wrote a new story. "Ashes, Ashes." It needs work. Dealt with various idiots on a dating site, though I've not been out on a date in like seven years. One woman asked what I do. I hate this. I don't want to go into it. I don't want some idiot who can't spell then tell me they're a writer too and we have so much in common. I don't want to engage with toxic, passive aggressive, bipolar, manic, walking disasters from Yale with their cats and their closet alcoholism as they pick and pick and pick and try to suck you down to their miserable level. The loaded statements from these people. The poison dripping off their sentences, like you don't see it. It's so obvious what they're up to when they come upon someone whom they know is much smarter than they are.
I don't want to deal with any of it. I don't want to be grilled about what "kind" of writing I do, which almost always happens. People won't let me answer once, twice. They have to grill and dig and push and push after I've already answered, but they are just so damn invasive. They won't stop. How do I explain any of this or what I am or do? They won't accept it anyway. They get angry and frustrated. "You mean to tell me you write blah blah blah and blah blah blah?" After I've left out almost everything as it is and they were incredulous about those two things, given how different they were, and they don't even know what the word incredulous means. Then what? Invite them to this site so they can join my already massive horde of stalkers after they realize I'm not interested? Yeah. That's what I need. More stalkers. I'm supposed to try and reroute this into some positive direction so we can find love or friendship or who knows what else? And when I already know that you are someone without a capacity for wonder, without an open mind, who approaches everything with a tight set of expectations in place? You have to know me first, I have come to know. This is so backwards, because it can never work this way. I can never meet anyone in this manner. They have to know who I am, what the work is, and come to me. I am not going to do anything with anyone right now. I know that. So why do I bother with this? I have no idea. Later? Sure, okay. Then I'll just have to always wonder if someone is being kind to me or with me for the wrong reasons. Will cross that bridge-over-Lethe when I get there. Hopefully it's more temperate, at least.
"I presume you love it," this person says about my job. I say no, I don't, and why would anyone presume that, when there are so many different reasons to do something? She's outraged now. And she's too simple and stupid to think through any of this on her own or to allow that anyone could be at all different from how she is, if this is even how she is, and I bet you anything it's not, because she probably has some job that is a job and it's just that, which is fine, but it's not how she's talking, like she's fucking Don Quixote or George Washington or the goddess Athena. So she says, "You don't love your chosen profession?" She just wants to fight, splutter idiocies about living her best life, fuck me up the ass with an endless dildoic assortment of cliches. I'm all done at that point, and it's the "Great, good luck." People are just so simple. So basic. Void of imagination. Empathy. A clue about anything beyond their own limited, prosaic, perpetually shortsighted lives. And now they are so narcissistic, these toe fungus ogres of unearned ego, but with absolutely jack shit to say, let alone anything original, anything that ever suggests that an actual individual exists within that sack of skin, because of social media, and so we have a world where people have never been more stupid, more lazy, and more narcissistic, too. Which is the hat trick for the death of culture, society, ideas, sanity, truth, reality, the individual, real connection, and the human mind. What a goddamn combo that is if you're not like that. Good bloody luck to you. Can't even imagine someone doing something that's not for fun, or that they're in a certain situation, let alone a historically unique situation. If that's hard for you, then just about everything else in life is downright impossible, and you'll never be able to do or get any of it. I always think: Why be alive? What is the point if that is what you're doing?
This sounds crass, but it really is no wonder to me that people just become bodies and holes to each other, only they don't put it that way, but Jesus Christ that is the basis of almost every relationship. Bodies, holes, and comfort--never being challenged. Enabled. Told what is easiest to hear, no matter how false it is or even how false someone knows it to be. You think, "What do you offer me?" Substance? No. Intelligence? No. Empathy? No. Wit? No. Courage? No. Steadfast purpose? No. An inspirational model? No. Knowledge? No. Expertise? No. What is left? Bodies. Holes.
Everything in this life comes down to utility. What you offer someone, what they offer you.
Oh--today marks 2121 days, or 303 weeks, without a drink. That's some kind of miracle at this point. I also cannot locate my copy of The Compleat Angler.
