Art, Inspiration & the Push (Part II).

It took some time for her to become a point of focus — and there are levels to it. For one thing, she has transformed into a rather alluring goth over the years, a feel and look that has always inspired my passion with respect to women, at least when it’s authentic, and in her case, it most certainly is — hence Gerty’s insight so long ago that she was right up my alley.

Physically, to state the obvious, she’s hot as fuck. I have cast her in the starring role of countless kinky fantasies of mine over the years. She is also someone who, as seems clear to me from her Facebook posts, actually thinks for herself — a depressing rarity among the human population, it seems to me — and she is a rather rebellious soul in general, which only increases her attractiveness as far as I’m concerned.

And artistically, to get to the point, she’s fucking amazing. One day recently, as I was bored at work, I was scrolling down my Facebook feed when I discovered she had dumped a load of her artwork online. I scrolled through it and was truly amazed. Alongside her darkness and beauty, she has astounding artistic talent. I’d known this for awhile, and at some point even confessed to her online how I envied her ability to draw the female figure, and draw it so expertly, but had never seen so much of her artwork at once.

It gave my brain a boner. I should have bought her a drink, danced with her, got caught in her web. If a girl cam give both your brain and body a boner, after all, that’s something you should embrace.

Another life lesson, hopefully learned.

In any case, that helped inspire me out of my artistic slumber to some degree, at least with respect to,the underlying and fueling urge, but it also made me feel as though my own talents utterly paled in comparison.

Which again, we shall come to later.

Other inspiration came from a place closer to home, however. This inspiration shit has really covered the spectrum.

Some time ago my mother, sisters, and some old friends began attending these classes at a winery. As far as I’m aware, it essentially deals with sipping wine and being taught how to paint in a hands-on fashion.

Then, likely inspired by this, one of my sister’s friends — Mickey, who is Gerty’s older sister — started holding parties where everyone would watch an episode of Bob Ross and paint along with him. I believe I was invited at least once to one of them, but predictably, I never attended. I’m rather antisocial, for one thing, and producing art in front of others strikes me as rather nervewracking.

Three cheers for introversion and anxiety.

Eve, the eldest of my two younger sisters, has always been very talented musically, a form of art I’ve at best dabbled in through gutair and piano but certainly never taken the time to discipline and develop. Similarly, she never really pursued the visual arts that much.

Until recently, that is.

I’m sure the winery thing and the Bob Ross parties got the ball rolling, but she’s been going through a tough breakup with her exboyfriend, with whom she shares a house, and has found a new outlet in drinking wine and exploring painting. On that note, I’m incredibly happy for her — I know creative expression serves not only as catharsis, but as a transformative force; a sort of psychological and spiritual form of alchemy.

She needs this.

And as has been revealed through her posting her work on Facebook, her talents are improving with nearly every piece.

Rock on, my sis.

Yet like a selfish, sensitive little child, however, I began to feel this envy and jealousy creep up. Like with squeaks. Like with the luscious and seductive Maria Cox. Given this familiar, childish reaction, I feared a pattern I’ve begun to identify in myself was doomed to play itself out.

Someone shows me up, or at least I feel they show me up, and rather than use it to motivate myself to do better or at least try harder I break down, accept defeat, and run away like a weak, pathetic coward. Rather than perceive them as an inspiration, I perceive them as better and accept defeat.

Not exactly what one would call a winning strategy.

It didn’t used to be like this with me, either. When I was a child, even a teenager in high school, I could appreciate the creative talents of others without judging myself against them. After all, it isn’t supposed to be about winning a goddamn conpetition, its supposed to be about working to perfect your own art and feeling that intrinsic satisfaction in the process and, in the best case scenario, feel that life-is-worth-living sense of satisfaction in the result as well.

So we come to my last weekend.

For some time I’ve wanted to take up the practice of oil painting, as I haven’t painted much at all since I was a kid and the stories about painting along with old Bob Ross episodes sounded fucking wonderful to me. While I’ve enjoyed my chalk pastel works, I find I’ve grown bored with them. Everything looks the same and it simply doesn’t inspire the passion and produce that sense of satisfaction it once did.

So for about a week or two now I’ve been amassing a folder on YouTube dedicated to art, hoping it might not only inspire me to produce more art, but also inspire me explore media and techniques I either haven’t explored in eons or perhaps never explored before.

The issue is that I’ve been watching countless YouTube videos — Bob Ross mostly, but more recently videos regarding techniques, supplies, tricks, and things to avoid — but I’ve been doing nothing with it. Just trying to store up data in my head. I kept telling myself: just fucking do it. If it sucks, and I expect that at the very least it initially will, no one has to see it. Then try again. Showing off isn’t the objective here. I had already made the decision not to post any artwork on social media for awhile, as I don’t want the influence, be it likes or the lack thereof. What I want, what I need, is the satisfaction of creative expression, art for the sake of art, at least predominantly.

This last Friday and Saturday, my days off of work, I felt very low. It seemed as though I was on the brink of depression but never quite slipped into it and instead remained locked in this neutral, indifferent state where nothing seemed to move me at all, nothing really maintained my interest or fired up my passions. I drank Friday and then refused to allow myself to do so on Saturday, instead just drinking coffee and smoking a bit of weed.

On Saturday, I felt as if I had to really push myself to do anything. I watched Joker, which was incredibly depressing, though an excellent film — not unlike Requiem for a Dream in that respect. Later, I had the supplies laid out on my counter nearby my laptop — paper, paint, cups of water, a small canvas board — but did nothing with it for what seemed like forever. I went back to watching the art videos.

Finally, I got enough caffeine and cannabis in my system and mentally pushed myself to play. I was soon to discover that some of the paints were really old. When I squeezed the tubes of those elder acrylics the result was an ejaculation of clear goo sprinkled sparsely with particles of the relevant color. Thankfully the new ones, save for the brown for some reason, were still good. Its just that there were only five of them, which was not a wide selection.

I had some oil paint, which is what I really wanted to try (Bob Ross inspired my interest here quite directly), but I didn’t have any paint thinner for the brushes, I didn’t have any liquid white, and I had to be very careful with my money until I got my check. So I did the best with what I had, at least to the extent that my inner numbness would allow, and that involved playing with acrylics.

As predicted, I produced nothing of value, but I got more of a feel for the brushes and paints on the canvas, so I saw the activity as valuable nonetheless. Afraid that my attempt at using acrylics and the sad result might discourage me and turn me further away from art, after I was done with the paint I decided to try some other form of art. I remembered I had some Sculpey and tried molding a face as I simultaneously watched Djangu on my Roku. Then I dug out some charcoal pencils, took out my sketchbook and tried drawing.

Again, nothing I physically produced was great, not in the least, but I felt better knowing I was sort of pushing myself at gunpoint to do something artistic. Even if I wasn’t inspired.

I’ve drifted too far from this world of art, its been too long, and I need to find my way back and push myself to evolve this time. I need to keep writing, too, but it’s just not enough anymore.

Art, Inspiration & the Push (Part I).

For some time, I’ve missed the kind of focus I used to have with respect to producing art. Its not that I dislike writing, which I’ve invested more time and energy in over recent years, its just that it doesn’t produce the same kind of satisfaction, scratch the same kind of itches in the same places that art always did for me. And I’m itching like a flea-infested fuck wearing a sweater straightjacket coverall.

And as for all my enduring focus on writing, has it really improved my writing as a result? I still screw up tenses. Fuck up spelling. I fear a lot of my writing fails to have adequate focus and structure. I can’t write fiction worth a damn. And my attempts at writing a book about my strange, seemingly paranormal experiences?

That’s all clearly gone to shit.

To make matters worse, I’ve failed even more at further developing my art, and I can’t seem to get over this hump. Or perhaps “climb this mountain” is more adequate. And this, this despite my inspiration lately: inspiration that, if I manage it the right way, might light a fire under my ass and get me pouring my soul through imagery again in new and different ways.

This inspiration has come from at least three sources.

One is Squeaks, a young girl I work with. She has a dark, bitter, judgmental part of her, but she conveys it in this giddy, childlike way that amuses me. Her voice frequently gets painfully high-pitched, however, at least to my hypersentive ears, hence the name I’ve given her.

She is yet another child of abusive, otherwise negligent parents that clearly should not have been parents, though thankfully she lives with her boyfriend — who I call Count on account of the legitimate, natural fangs that motherfucker has — who seems like a good kid that truly cares for her. Unfortunately his home life isn’t the greatest, either.

At the very least, they have each other, though, and I think they make a good team.

Whenever she works in back drive thru I catch her doodling on a sheet of paper or a napkin — though calling them doodles doesn’t seem to convey the degree of skill she has. I’ve also seen her sketchbook — but again, to call them mere sketches…

She draws these spectacular cartoons. She often starts with lines and shapes and then starts building on the details as they always teach in art courses. I should probably do more of that. They are high-grade cartoons, for sure, and the way she colors them, often but not always using the computer, makes them look professional as fuck as well.

It makes me happy that it brings so much joy to her despite the endless onslaught of pain in her life, too, and though she has no interest in pursuing it through college or a career, I hope she eventually changes her mind and decides to invest her undeniable talent in some way that brings satisfaction to her. And perhaps even brings joy and inspiration to others in the process.

After all, as I believe I’ve made clear by this point: her artistic talents have clearly brought joy and inspiration to me…

Though admittedly, also envy and jealousy. Which well come back to. But there are, as I said, still other sources of inspiration.

There is, for instance, this girl I know from high school; she was a grade or two behind me. I’ll call her Maria Cox. I knew her brother, Johnny Cox, who was in my class. I also knew her close friend, Gerty, who was an anxious girl with a rapid-fire mind with whom I got along pretty well. I never got to know Maria too well, however, and despite affectionately calling her “Little Cox” whenever I got the chance, I don’t think she was too amused by it. Nor do I feel subsequent interactions made her perspective on me any better. Still, I always liked her — though, at least consciously, not to the degree that I do presently.

I remember little of her in high school save for the school dances I attended. While each dance held its own particular flavor of drama, a rather consistent element was that Maria would always end up along the wall, in the darkness of the gym, crying. Typically, or at least I always assumed, some ass-hat of guy she had come with had ditched her or in some way broke her heart.

I always felt bad for her. I always felt the urge to comfort her.

Even so, I never got to know her too well. I saw her now and then after graduation, but for the most part, only in passing.

I bumped into her once in a nearby town and she asked to borrow fifty bucks; I lent it to her. This was back when I was far more naive than I am today and still tried to trust and believe in people. She promised to repay me, and it was some time before I saw her again.

When I did, I was hanging out in a booth in a fast food restaraunt, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, and writing in my notebook, as I often did. She came in the door, walked right passed me without so much as a glance, and sat a few booths behind me with one or two other people. They said something to her I couldn’t quite hear, but her response?

That I overheard.

It was essentially that “his” parents were rich, that “he” didn’t need the money, both of which are untrue, and so on — essentially providing a list of excuses to the others as to why she need not pay me back. That I found more than a bit douche-like and it soured me towards her for some time.

I can be a bitter, grudge-holding douche.

The next time I saw her was a good time later, and it stands as the last time I saw her as of the time of this writing.

I found myself at a bar with some friends and found out that one of the guys I went to school with was the lead singer in a metal band. We talked for awhile on the porch and then I meandered back inside. That’s where I saw this sexy, darkly-dressed girl expertly, seductively slow-dancing with some guy. It took me a moment to realize it was Maria.

In retrospect, I recall her looking good. Really fucking good.

Shortly thereafter she approached me and asked if I wanted to buy her a drink; I confessed I had no money (which I believe was true) and left it at that. Ever since, I’ve regretted not taking her up on her offer.

At some point after I got on Facebook years upon years ago she came to be on my friends list. Though I can’t recall at what point she became insatiable to me, it must have been some time after that. I remember seeing Gerty at some point after joining the Book of Faces and she said with confidence she knew who I thought was hot, she knew who I wanted to fuck. I asked her who, and when she mentioned Maria, I flatly denied it.

Gerty’s response conveyed that she thought this impossible. Not unlikely, mind you, but downright bloody impossible. Every guy wanted to fuck Maria, she seemed to believe, and on top of that Gerty knew she was right up my alley — evidently before I was able to consciously acknowledge it myself.

Maybe I still held a grudge at some level over what I overheard her say that day in the restaurant and denied my intense attraction towards her to myself, burying it far from consciousness.

It did not remain there, however.

Anxiety Dreams (9/26/20 & 9/28/20).

9/26/20,
7:02 PM.

It appeared that I was in an apartment kind of like mine with at least three people very close to me. There was a lot of discussion and moving about. Someone had given me amnesia and those around me seemed to be acting as if it hadn’t happened, though I’m not certain they were in on it. I played dumb, pretending that I remembered even less than I did, however, and even pretended that I didn’t know that I’d had amnesia. At one point, I even falsely claimed to be confused about what day it was.

I wasn’t entirely sure where this dream came from. My parents had come up earlier that day and I’d gotten insufficient sleep, hence the nap afterward that gave birth to this dream. They visited to drop off their truck, which they’re letting me use until either they purchase a vehicle for me or one for themselves, at which point I’ll inherit the truck. I was driving the cursed car Friday, the previous day, when the brake pedal went to the floor.

In any case, perhaps they were represented by two of the three people in the dream, but damned if I know who the third person was supposed to be.

9/28/20

Its dark out. I’m walking down the sidewalk passed countless people going in the other direction, and evidently I was heading to work (though its not nearly close enough in real life for me to walk there). I suddenly realize that I forgot my bookbag, however, and at that point the scene abruptly changes.

I’m now suddenly at work. I’m standing just outside the open driver side door of the truck, which is running, and its parked at the side of the dumpster closest to the building with the truck pointing toward road. I decide to move the truck, to back it into a parking space so I can just pull out when I leave. The parking spaces by the dumpster are arranged differently, however, with a set arranged in front of the corral doors and a set facing the corral doors. There are other cars parked in some of the spaces. I decide to back into one of the spaces facing the corral.

When I step into the truck and sit down in the driver seat, that’s when the lucidity abruptly kicks in. Everything seems hyperreal and my consciousness is very acute. In the context of the dream, I’m confused, wondering if my consciousness felt so altered because I was drunk and high, which would clearly indicate I shouldn’t drive. I try to convince myself that I’m just moving the vehicle a bit, that i,should be able to manage it, but I suddenly feel very resistant. Then the alarm goes off and yanks me out of the dream.

Forgetting things is supposedly a telltale sign of an anxiety dream. Though its not exactly amnesia, as in the first dream, forgetting my book bag and suddenly remembering it as I walked to work could be a different manifestation of the same thing: losing memories, losing baggage.

As for my lucidity, it tends to happen (and I’m more apt to remember dreams I’d had in general) when I have broken sleep, and I certainly did this morning. In this case it seemed to kick into gear when I sat down in the truck and I felt some anxiety.

Is adrenaline what triggers my lucidity, or does it stand at least as one of my triggers? Is that why it happens so often when I’m inside a car in my dreams — as driving causes so much anxiety in waking life? Or why real-life anxiety, often enough about my car, often seems to trigger my lucid dreams and false awakenings?

Aims Discerned at a Low Point.

9/15/20.

As of late, I’ve been attempting to slow down on the drinking again, so have been doing so every other day. Monday night, I drank three 24s and woke up abruptly the next morning, angry that I’d yet again posted on Facebook under the influence. Nothing horribly bad, but as often happens, the moment I slipped out of my dream my viscious, automatic thoughts kicked in, fueled by intense, self-loathing emotions. I cursed myself aloud and vividly imagined punching myself in the face, stabbing myself, and so on.

I got out of bed and made breakfast, as despite having gotten only about four hours of sleep — which, given the booze, didn’t exactly constitute sleep — I couldn’t relax myself enough to doze back off. I posted nothing on Facebook all day. I didn’t have a hit of weed on break, as I often do. I was dragging feet all day at work, drowning in depression, misery, and self-hatred, and only began coming out of it in the fourth quarter of my shift.

On my mind all fucking day?

Dismantled thoughts on how I need to get my shit together. This involved a few key areas in my life.

On the top of the list, of course, is the drinking.

I really tried to be honest with myself when I asked myself the question: Why do I drink? I do it to escape from the ego, to not care about things to the point of depressive and self-loathing agony and anxiety to the point of paralysis as I tend to do, to be temporarily happy and be motivated to create — even if the creations, typically poetry, often embarrass me upon sobering up and awakening.

The negative aspects of drinking are pretty damn plentiful, however. Waking up and feeling like shit, not remembering things I watched on YouTube or Roku, my embarrassing texts, messages, and Facebook posts which I always promise myself, while sober, that I will no longer make. Sadly, drunk me doesn’t always feel obligated to keep those sober vows.

And I always damn myself for breaking those promises rather relentlessly upon awakening, even if whatever I wrote or posted wasn’t objectively bad. It doesn’t seem to matter. I still feel embarrassed and ashamed about it, I still fall down a spiral of self-loathing.

Honestly, I think Buddhist thought helps explain some of this. With respect to thoughts, emotions and sensations, Buddhism holds that there are typically two potential reactions we default to: we pull them close and engage with them, or we disengage and push them away.

The problem with disengagement is the horrific rebound effect. Thoughts and emotions seem attached to the ego like fucking elastic, as the better you are at pushing them away and the longer you are capable of doing so, the more violently they snap back. Drinking seems to function a lot like pushing them away, as too often after sobering up, even while asleep, the vicious nature of my automatic, judgmental thoughts and the wretched intensity of the emotions associated with them strike back at me with uncompromising vengeance.

As long as we’re talking about bad habits and potential addictions, there’s also the issue of Facebook.

There are positives about Facebook, of course. I can connect with people my antisocial ass may have never communicated with again, I can lift my depression at work through finding funny memes and then share them with others. The negatives may outweigh the benefits, however. I’m simply on there too much, constantly checking to see if their are any likes or comments. It seems to feed my already-present issue of caring too much about what other people think. So I’m clearly addicted to social media.

Then there’s the job.

There are things I like and appreciate about my fast food job. Currently, I like almost all the people I work with. I’m trusted, and the nature of my job as night shift detail maintenance man gives me a lot of freedom: I can smoke essentially whenever I want, I work alone so there’s no boss always looming over my shoulder, and I can escape people and go outside more or less when I desire.

Even so, its far passed time that I move on.

My aim should probably be a factory job, but I fear I would hate it even more than my fast food job. That was certainly the case with the only factory job I’ve ever had. Still, that’s where the money is at, and though I’ve never been much of a materialist, I require those funds for true independence.

I can’t keep relying on my parents to bail me out financially. I have to find out a way that I can stand on my own two feet. My parents won’t be around forever, and I don’t want them to die still concerned about my well-being, either. I’m going to be 42 in November. This has gotten light years beyond pathetic. Its time to get a big boy job.

There are, of course, issues and obstacles here. In all liklihood, it would have to be a no-experience-necessary, entry-level position. On top of that, I would probably have to quit smoking weed and taking CBD. Drinking wouldn’t be a problem with respect to getting job, but it is a problem, as I said, and if pot is taken away, I fear I’d fall into reliance on booze even harder. I could get on antidepressants again, but they can be pricey, they require those loathsome doctor visits. That and my general distrust of the pharmaceutical industry makes me wary.

Being 2020 and all, there is also the pandemic to take into account. Its not a great time to seek out a new job. If my car breaks down now, my job isn’t as likely to fire my ass and I know people that might be able to provide rides until I get it fixed. If I get a new job and this happens, particularly if it happens in a probationary period, if it simply causes me to be late I might be fucked, much less if I have to call off, and no one may be available to provide me with rides. Then I’d be out of a job. In other words, I’d be even worse off than I am now.

Which brings me to my need to move, preferably closer to my family.

While I prefer rural areas, I also hate driving, and so like the convenience of being able to walk places. So if I could get an apartment or trailer in small town where my job was within walking distance, that would be optimal. That way if my car went to shit I still had the capacity to make money, even if I didn’t immediately have the money to get it fixed.

Last but not least, there is my issue with change in general.

I want to try and change again, but I’ve had massive fucking issues in past. You know how someone can make empty promises, lie to you or let you down only so many times before, however much you might care for and want to believe in the person, you just can’t trust them, rely on them, believe them, lie faith in them anymore?

That’s how I’ve come to feel about myself.

Zombie Girls.

It been three days now since I remembered so much as the vaguest portion of a dream.

9/19/20.

I believe I’m at work when a girl walks in the door and comes around the corner. I know her and find her beautiful, but am taken aback by how good she looks in the black dress she’s wearing.

9/20/20.

Its daylight and I’m either walking around or riding a bike or something, and I’m passing by this crowd of people on the street. Out of the crowd steps Claire, who seemed happy to see me, and we have a short conversation.

I awoke from that last dream frustrated that Claire was back in my head again. At the very least Kara has seemed to have faded away from my waking life. When she quit, she deleted me from Facebook and then a new Facebook account of hers kept popping up in my suggested friends maybe a week later. I ignored it and eventually it went away.

Today, shortly after I started my shift they threw me back in kitchen for awhile, assembling sandwiches. I peeked out into the lobby and saw a beautiful, dark-haired girl in a red flannel sitting at the booth by the door. She looked a bit like Kara. She seemed to be filling out an application. Great, I thought, another beautiful girl I’m going to fixate on like an idiot. Shortly thereafter, the girl steps behind counter.

It was Kara. She’s back. She’s starting tomorrow.

Zombie girls. That’s what Claire and Kara are. They won’t stay dead to me.

I was as happy to see her just as I was happy to see Claire in the dream, but in both cases I’m simply not happy that I’m happy about it. I’m sick of the infantile jealousy, the greedy desires — I’ve just had enough of it. And I’m so tired of external factors dictating my internal states.

Even if self-transformation is unachievable for me, some control over my emotions would be fucking nice.

Violations.

8/31/20

I hate training people.

Given my position as detail maintenance man, it doesn’t happen too often, thankfully, but it happens far more often than it should. Glen, the morning maintenance guy, has been here for some time, as have I, the night shift guy. For some reason we can’t seem to find someone reliable to cover the weekends, however.

I got along with the last two guys, both of whom were from Kentucky, although when I caught word that both were Trump supporters I made an effort to avoid political discussions with them. This was easy enough, at least for the second guy, as his accent was so heavy that it was, often enough, all I heard. I’m not trying to be a dick, but often what he said seemed like alphabet-soup-of-the-mouth to me. I’d often give neutral or ambiguous responses and focus on working off of what little I could understand. I didn’t want to tell him his communications were garbled to my ears — again, he was always polite, and I only wished to return the favor.

Both had a tendency to not do their fucking jobs, however, which got on my nerves — and which is ultimately why they don’t work here in our fast food grease palace anymore. This is also why they hired the new guy, who I’m tasked with training for the next two days, and who will then be trained in the mornings by Glen.

So far, based on direct, personal experience, he seems like a cool guy, and on top of that, a hard worker. He’s also not a white guy from Kentucky, but a black guy from here in Ohio — Cleveland specifically — and that’s a nice change of pace.

They went for something different in hiring this guy, and its infinitely better, at least in terms of his work ethic and general personality.

I was just beginning to like the guy roundabout mid-shift when Marjie, one of two assistant managers now, pulled me aside and gave me the news. Evidently, when store manager Kelly’s boyfriend came into the dining room and saw him, he claimed the guy was a child molester.

Fuck, I thought to myself: please don’t make this be true. Particularly because

As soon as she told me that, my mind flashed back to earlier in the day, when we were alone out by the dumpster corral. Feeling nervous in the awkward silence and feeling the need to fill the verbal vacuum with something, anything, I asked him why he left his last fast food job to come here.

“To be closer to my son,” he said, and, at the time — which, again, was before I heard Marjie’s news — I felt he said it suspiciously awkwardly, like he was hiding something.

I will not rush to judgement until all the facts are in. I will not rush to judgement until all the facts are in. I will not rush to judgement until all the facts are in…

Earlier, I caught Marjie in the office, behind a closed door, screaming into her phone. More than once, in a barking, threatening voice, she bellowed: “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE. GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HOUSE.”

Me and the trainee were nearby, and he turns his head to look at me. “Is she mean?”

“No,” I said with a bit of a laugh. “She’s actually pretty cool. She usually only gets like that with her boyfriend.”

The boyfriend she has had issues with forever, and finally kicked out of the house — only to let him move back in again. And she’s back to square one in that respect, as she’s been complaining about him again lately, saying how she wants him to move out.

And I personally like the guy, I should say — its just that she doesn’t seem to like him once they’re together again, but seems to forget that fact once they’re separated again. It just frustrates me. And that frustration wouldn’t be so intense, perhaps, if this wasn’t a recurring theme in countless people I’ve known throughout my life. This is such a tired, common, frustrating story to hear. And yes, not to sound sexist, but in my personal experience in most cases they have been women. I’m not saying my very limited sample represents the whole, but that has been my experience.

None of this I told trainee, of course, and all of it was true, though it turns out that this was not who Marjie was screaming at through her phone behind the closed office door.

No, it was her brother. Her brother by marriage, she later emphasized, and after she told me what she told me, her placement of that emphasis made a lot of sense.

Her and Kara had hung out. The girl has gone through a rough patch — I’m beginning to suspect her circa two and a half decades of life has been composed of nothing but a series of relentlessly rough patches, as a matter of fact — and she really needed it. A night out with friends. Some fun. Marjie brought her out drinking with aforementioned boyfriend and the aforementioned brother and she seemed to be having a great time. Marjie even complimented her boyfriend for helping her out to make Kara seem comfortable. They drank, they taught her how to play pool, and she was joking around with Marjie the whole time, smiling, laughing, and thanking her for bringing her out.

So then they go home and Kara elects to sleep over at Marjie’s house, which is evidently not something she typically does. A suggestion of trust building in her toward Marjie. And Marjie went to sleep, and enter: her brother.

Apparently he’s always joking around, getting handsy with Marjie, grabbing her boobs, which Marjie told me without shame and with a shrug. He’s not blood, she tells me. Still. Given that they were all getting drunk that night, Marjie told him specifically: do not touch Kara.

And so he touched Kara.

And she won’t talk to Marjie about it. Or to Kelly. She’s afraid they won’t believe her, that they’ll get mad at her. I feel a sinking in my chest. A knot in my gut. My blood begins to boil.

“It sounds like there’s history there,” I say to her, and then Marjie mentions Kara’s stepfather. Molestation. She told her mother, and she didn’t believe her.

This was the history I suspected. Traumatic, repeating history, where the past is always present and shows her no mercy.

I felt sick.

Later, I’m at the sink in the stock room, detail cleaning the filter boxes for the fryer vats — an activity that I know will take some time — when Ronald comes back to do dishes. This necessitates us being close in proximity, of course, and I don’t know if I had ever stood that close to him before, at least for that length of time.

That’s when I realize it. I can literally feel it. He’s one of them. I can feel the energy around and within his body drawing off the energy around and within my body, particularly on my left side. After a few minutes, it feels like energetic chunks are missing from that side, if that makes any sense (it probably doesn’t) and my energy feels uncomfortable, weakened, and lopsided. I feel violated, and I’m not exaggerating. I try to talk nice to him, but I don’t have to say much, as he just won’t shut the fuck up. I eventually have to escape the situation. I run back to the break room to check my phone, which is charging, and then go out the back door for a cigarette. All hoping this horrid feeling in my energy corrects itself given the distance, which was not happening, and to kill some time so maybe he’ll be done with dishes by the time I get back.

He isn’t. So I tell him I’m going to get out of his way and clean dining room and he should just tell me whenever he’s done.

As I’m cleaning tables, I see Paula outside, who is here off the clock, and is stoned, waiting for her curbside order. I ask her for a hug, which probably seemed weird, but my energy felt slightly better afterward. I only hoped I wasn’t leeching off of her as he was leeching off of me.

It struck me how violated I felt, as intolerable as it seemed, must be nothing next to what Kara has experienced. Continues to experience. For one thing, the energy violation may have been unintentional. Clearly that’s not been the case with the violators in her own life. Not merely has her energy been violated, either, but her body, and apparently again and again.

It constantly astounds me what us humans are capable of doing to one another. Kids being raped by caretakers or neighbors is a disturbingly common story I hear, and while it reminds me how lucky I’ve been in my own life, it doesn’t improve my outlook on our fucked up species. I constantly feel bad that I can’t grow close enough to Kara for her to trust me, but I’m not certain she can bear to trust anyone anymore given how often that trust has been violated, and I sure as fuck can’t blame her.

And what would I say to her? What could I do for her to make things better? What could anyone?

The Cursed Car Meets Roly-Poly Trash Panda.

After I called off work on Monday, Tracy texts me, unprompted, asking if I needed a ride Tuesday, the following day. I accepted and she dropped me off at the shop, where the car was done and waiting, even paid for thanks to my parents — though this added weight to my guilt. The mechanic, Lex, I’ve known for a while now, and I’ve always found him a kind, trustworthy guy, and his wife is an incredibly sweet lady. As she handed me the keys from across the counter, I said to her, “As much as I like seeing you guys, hopefully, I won’t be back soon.”

Finally, it was over. At least for a while, so I hoped. Happy to have my car back, I start it up and turn out if the parking space and approach the exit of the small lot, and as I do, I hear a haunting, familiar sound. A cracking sound. Convinced I was being paranoid, that it was all a product of my overactive imagination, I continued onward to the exit and then had precisely the same experience that I had had on that Sunday. I put my foot on the brake and though the car stopped, it went to the floor — just as I had experienced when the brake line busted some time ago.

In disbelief, I open my car door and look to confirm. All too easily confirmed. Lex must have heard it all the way from the garage, too, as he came running up, a look of panic, frustration, and embarrassment on his face. He drops down to the ground, takes a look at it, asks me for the keys, and then drives it back into the garage.

Back in the office, his wife asks when I start work, and I tell her in about twenty minutes. She drove me to work and we decided that when the car was done she’d park it at my work and leave the keys under the seat. I tried to relax over a cigarette before going inside, taking my temperature with the third-eye gun and waiting by the time clock.

Two minutes before I’m to clock in, my phone starts vibrating. Its Lex. I pick up.

“Bad news buddy,” he says. “When it happened again, it cracked the frame.”

He explained that when the frame cracked, the break line had also busted, which was why the peddal went to the floor. He said he was fixing the brake line right now, and he should have the frame by tomorrow — and assured me, with apparent emphasis, that it would be done by tomorrow. The part would cost 250$.

At this point, I felt exhausted, furious, drawn into that all-too-familiar dark well within my psyche. After I clocked in, I went about my usual — gathering trash, collecting them in the gondola, and then rolling it out to,the corral to,the side if the store, which housed the dumpsters. There, I made another call to my parents. I’m almost thankful I got the answering machine. I gave them the rundown. Later, my father texts me, referring to the “cursed car” and how he thought we should start looking around for a new vehicle for me.

So I was back to my parents rescuing me financially. Back to relying on friends for rides. Back to feeling ashamed for not being able to stand on my own, thankful for the friends and family I am lucky enough to have, but feeling guilty for taking advantage, no matter how necessary that was, given my pathetic, stagnant lot in life. A lot which I was stuck in because I was apparently incapable — due to lack of focus, lack of ambition, and an incredible reservoir of ceaseless anxiety — to overcome; to rise above.

After texting Moe, he agreed to pick me up and drive me home after work, and we bullshitted a bit in my apartment, which certainly helped my mood. I then had to call my dad the following morning to take him up again on his offer to drive me to work. He picked me up at 2 and, on the way, spoke to me of the plan him and mom had put together.

My parents had just sold their truck, as they had inherited the truck of my uncle, who had passed away. Their thought was to sell my car, get me that truck, and that they would buy a new truck. Despite the guilt, it was a relief. I never thought that I would feel so happy at the prospect of getting this car out of my life, but here I was. The thought was that this would happen in a month or two; the car only had to last me that long.

Despite the fact that Lex had yet to call me back, my father drove us not to my fast food place of employment, but to the shop instead, where Lex said he was about done with the car. My father paid (again), we said our goodbyes, and I waited a short time inside.

The door between the lobby, office, waiting room — whatever you want to call it — and the garage was open, and from that perspective I saw them take my car for a test drive. I’m not sure this was a typical proceedure, but felt even if it was, Lex felt it necessary to do it this way on this particular occasion due to what had formerly happened. Evidently it was a good thing, too, as the car came back shortly thereafter and whoever it was that had done the test drive said something to Lex regarding something about the transmission, something they had failed to do, which Lex sounded frustrated about.

A few moments later, I was told the work on the car was finished. I went outside and the car was already running, driver side door open and waiting. I adjusted the seat settings and nervously backed up and approached the exit. Aside from what was clearly an entirely fucked up alignment, which I believe I then and there decided to have some other shop align, all appeared to be fine and fucking dandy, though given experience, an undercurrent if skepticism remained that I was utterly unable to shake. I made it passed the exit this time — at last, success! — and made it to work, in fact, with no other issue along the way.

I at first decided to get an alignment at a shop in the town I live in on Friday, the first day of my weekend, but discovered upon calling them on Friday that they — of course, of course — don’t do alignments. Trying to control my frustration, and determined not to return to Lex’s shop so soon, I figured I would bring it to another shop, this one in the town where I work, early on Monday, the second day of my work week. After consulting with a friend of mine at work, whom I will call Jiffy, as well as Moe, both suggested another shop in town — even closer to work than Lex’s shop, which was already incredibly close, and essentially on the same road. I decided to go there for an alignment the following Monday.

Before I was able to do so, Sunday evening happened.

As I’m leaving work at 11, I’m going back and forth about stopping at Circle K to get a lemonade and some bean dip for the big bag of tortilla chips I still have at home. I feel this strange fear telling me not to stop, to just drive straight home, but I decide to ignore that gut feeling and stop at Circle K anyway. I park, leave the car on, take my other set of keys, and lock it. I go inside, get a lemonade and settle on a jar of Salsa Con Queso. Once back in car, put it in reverse, stop, and put it in drive.

I step on the gas — and I’m still going backward.

Did my dumbass not put it in drive? I check. Its certainly in drive. I step lightly on the gas again: I’m still going in reverse. The shifter is all loosy goosey, too. Frustrated, I drive it in reverse to back of the lot, my door still open, and put my foot on the brake a short distance from one gas pump. I’m still screaming fuck and other obscenities, and in the process I think scared some little kids in the back seat of the car at pump. Guilt on top of rage now. I can’t put it in park at first and I can’t just keep my foot on the peddal, so I use the emergency brake. Then I turned off the car.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Try to breathe deep.

I get out and look under the car, then pop the hood and look down into its guts, as if I would even know what I’m looking for or would even know if something was out of place. Then I sit in back in the car and try to start it again.

Nothing. It wouldn’t start. Lights on the dash lit up, but nothing else, not the faintest noise.

I take out my phone. Should I try to secure a ride home or call AAA first? I saw that Sean had sent me a meme over messenger. Without commenting, I bitched about my car having issues again. I felt bad asking him to drive me home yet again, so I looked on the messenger list, and Steve was recently on. I asked him if he was busy. He said he was picking up Ronnie, a kid who I often close with. I asked if he could drive me home. I didn’t get an answer before I decided to call AAA, and I was on the phone with them with when Steve arrived at Circle K with Gus, Ronnie, and Sean.

After talking with the woman on the other end of the line, she said the tow was on its way — and I was the same tow company that had cone for me a week earlier, when the car took a shit by the exit at work. ETA was circa an hour.

Sean got his girlfriend to come up with the car and Steve took Ronnie and Gus home. As we waited, Sean said how it would be funny if it was the exact same guy that towed by car from before, too.

It fucking was.

And so they drive me home, with Sean offering a few hits from the pot-pen on the way. It was like pouring water on a fire.

Even as we were still waiting for the tow truck to arrive, I realized something: my car had essentially lost power. Unlike that dream I had, there were actual lights on the dash when I turned the key, but just like in the dream, it made no sound when I did it.

Was that dream really a preminatory one? Not an exact flashforward, of course, but a mishmash of happenings-to-be involving my cursed car? Or am I looking too deeply, seeing what isn’t there?

And of all things, why have premonition involving this goddamned car as opposed to something, anything else? Because it serves as an effective metaphor for other things, simply because its an emotionally-impactful circumstance, or because its the point at which every thing in my life goes downhill and embeds itself deeply in a mound of shit, potentially ending with my life in ruins, even my death?

Carl Jung seemed to cradle the idea that if we repress some issue — an internal, psychological issue — and we are adamant in ignoring it, it will manifest as an objective circumstance in a concerted effort to grab our intention and force us to face it once and for all. He also wrote that:

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

I’m powerless, I can’t move forward in my life, I’m stuck in reverse…

If this isn’t all superficial bullshit, if the dark of my mind, my unconscious, is truly striving to drive in a message to me, why can’t it just state it blatantly, directly? Why must it be in words I could never hope to misunderstand or, as the case seems to be, in symbols and metaphors I could misinterpret and perhaps only see the significance of in retrospect? And where is the guidance? Not merely what fucked up and endlessly frustrating things are going to happen, but what I might do about it? Not merely signs as to what will go wrong, but what reaction is most appropriate, what the most promising path to follow might be?

I felt so stuck and fucked, and not in the good way.

I called the shop the following day, feeling embarrassed, frustrated, but, most of all, depressed as shit. I called just to ensure they got the note I’d left on the front seat of the car. They had. His wife, who picked up the phone, went and got Lex, and he seemed deeply sympathetic. “One thing after another with this thing, huh?” I couldn’t help but agree. Apparently, it was just something to do with the shifter, some little, cheap piece I can’t remember the name of but looked up online later. He said he thought he had one laying around and could have it done by the end of the day.

I called off that day, a Monday, just as I had the previous Monday, and for the same reason — because my car had to be towed Sunday, albeit a different Sunday, and I was tired of having to ask people for rides. I didn’t tell my parents because they’re worried enough about me and this car lately, have done more than enough for me lately, and now that I had my check deposited I thought I could actually pay for however much this was going to be. I did need a ride to the shop the following day, however, so I called Moe again. He dropped me off the following day, and I just made it up the steps to the shop before the door opened and Lex’s wife was waiting there, keys in hand. He didn’t even charge me. I was incredibly thankful for that.

All was well by Wednesday, which is today at the time of this writing — for the next fourteen minutes, anyway. As I was driving home from work this evening, I suddenly saw something moving in the road up ahead. A raccoon. The biggest, fattest trash panda I’ve ever seen in my fucking life, munching on something — something cast out of a car window by some pathetic litterbug, no doubt. I swerved to the right to miss him, he moved to the right to dodge me, but my car and the obese fuzzball were evidently destined to meet with an impact that made me wince.

The car appears to be fine for once — time tends to fucking tell — but as for roly-poly trash panda, I’m not at all confident. If he isn’t dead, he’s hurting like hell and probably wishes he was.

Yay for more guilt. There’s always room for more guilt. Its like fucking Jello.

At some point, the apparent bad luck, rage, anxiety, guilt, depression — it becomes so absurd that even as my blood boils, I have to just laugh and shake my head. And then go home and channel my boiling blood through my fingers as a means of catharsis.

Until this fucking car is out of my life, I hope this is the last chapter with respect to its constant need of repairs. When this began, I was so happy to have this car. I never thought I’d be so happy to see the end of the road with respect to my relationship with it.

Penny & How We’re Not All the Same Inside.

7/21/20

Being around the right person, getting a hug from the right person, can kind of leave you buzzing, and as I drove down the long, dark stretch of road between work and my apartment I let myself become one with the warm, soothing feeling she left me with.

I missed that woman so damned much.

She had messaged me early on in my shift, asking what I was doing that evening. Unbeknownst to me, she had spent the week in Ohio and had to return home the following day and wanted to see me, which made me both excited and frustrated. I had gotten little sleep before waking up around 6:30 to hitch a ride with the tow guy to the shop to get my car fixed. It was done about an hour before I started work at 3:00, at which time I was already too damned tired, and I had to work till 11:00. Even so, I desperately wanted to see the girl. It must have been a decade.

After some complications, Penny decided to meet me at work after my shift ended. Seeing her after so long was strange — she was as beautiful as ever and now sported a pair of geek glasses, which I found to be a sexy accessory. It was her vibe that perplexed me, though, and it struck me immediately. She seemed to be weighed down by this sadness, this sense of hopelessness, with a splash of anxiety, and perhaps due to all that was far quieter than I had remembered. I was afraid I’d be anxious and she would have to keep jabbing me with questions to keep me out of my shell, to keep the conversation going, but it turns out that the shoe was on the other foot.

She took us to Swensons, which was a restaurant I had never been too, prompting her to ask me if I ever journeyed outside of my bubble. With respect to the corporeal universe, that was a dead certain, “nope.” My anxiety acts like an invisible, electric fence that keeps me bound to my well worn paths. After years of fighting it, I’ve finally come to some degree of acceptance of it and solace in it. By no means does the fact make me proud, but there it is.

Penny? She never had that fear of the road — in fact, she loved to travel.

After moving to New Orleans well over a decade ago, she had become a bartender and loved her job. And though she told me its changed, or at the very least her feelings regarding it, she once loved the area, too. Then she got knocked up by a guy she had dated on and off for eight years and his first reaction was to insist on an abortion. Despite being pro-choice, she didn’t consider that an option in her case, so he instead decided to make a toast to miscarriages in the bar one night.

In short, he’s an epic fuckface.

He’s never met the kid, who I believe is now two years old, and it doesn’t seem she went after him for child support. Her father said that he’d help her, so she moved out of state and into a house with him, and he leant her the money to attend college with a major in cosmopology — strictly because he had something against her bartending. Then her sister moved in with her kid, despite the fact that she said she’d never want to move in as they were house-shopping — so the dining room became her room.

Overall, Penny feels trapped, surrounded by people and clutter, utterly unable to be herself. No realm accessible where she’s really in control. She still drinks and smokes excessively and is presently on both heart medication and medication for anxiety — the last of which struck me as odd, as she never seemed anxious back when I knew her, though I could certainly sense it now. The drugs she partook in back then evidently masked it, and her current circumstances have exacerbated it.

Her father finally let her run away to Ohio for a week, and when circumstances made it so she would have to stay an extra day, she messaged me at work. She’d be driving the nine hours back circa ten the following morning.

After a quick stop at her house to get her blood pressure medication, which she had forgotten to take, she drove me through the area nearby the all-night restaurant I used to work at and the old crew used to hang out in. It was, in fact, where I first met her. The place, I had just learned that day, had closed a year or two ago, and as she drove around it, it made me feel rather depressed. The building looked tattered and torn, like the post-apocalyptic rendition of the place I once knew.

As we went along, she told me of a few new places that had opened and many more that had since closed. Now the whole area revealed itself to have that run-down, abandoned, post-apocalyptic look and feel to it. As we finally came back to the five-way intersection, I stopped doing what I had been doing — asking her questions, trying to keep the conversation going, not saying much about myself or my own thoughts or feelings unless it related to and built off something she had said. Suddenly, I sort of relaxed into a monologue, only half-realizing it. It had been a long day and I was tired as hell, so maybe that had something to do with it.

I told her that while I love my niece and nephew, I’m glad I never had kids. I’m concerned enough about the state of the world now, and I’m leaving no children behind; I’d be an insanely paranoid parent. My hopes for our species is pretty much gone, and it kind of made me happy that I was more than halfway through the natural, average life-cycle. Soon enough, I said, I’d be dead, I could leave my concerns behind, and just kind of leave the rest of the world to do what it pleases. I was still worried about my niece and nephew, I added, but other than that…

And I let myself trail off, as if I were suddenly waking back up, realizing what I was saying, that I was saying it aloud as opposed to merely thinking it to myself — and it was the vibe I suddenly felt from her that pinched me awake. I could feel her eyes on me, feel emotions from her I couldn’t entirely put my finger on, define, translate, articulate to myself.

Once we got back to my car, all the lights in the lot were out. We continued to just sit in her car, talking. She brought up something that I hoped she’d talk about sober and which she had mentioned in our drunken FaceTime conversation about two weeks back. In essence, she had described how she simply didn’t feel connected to her child, and as I gently pushed, she elaborated.

When she was pregnant, parents that she knew kept telling her how she would naturally change, that she would feel connected and attuned to her crotch-goblin, but Penny never really did. Her child is entertaining sometimes, she confessed, and she guesses she loves him, but she just doesn’t feel what those other parents predicted. On some message board for atheist parents, she found she wasn’t alone, either, though it certainly seemed to me as if this newfound company provided little comfort to her.

It reminded me a lot of what comedian and actor Bill Burr had to say about the birth of his first child. I ranted to her a bit on her own behalf, saying how most people failed to understand that not everyone is wired like they are, that everyone’s not the same inside, and there’s nothing wrong with it.

Though I’ve certainly never been in her particular circumstance, I explained, I’m not wired in a fashion even vaguely similar to most people I’ve known, so I feel I know this fact intimately. One simply can’t help how one feels, who one essentially is, though they can do their best to manage who they are, their maternal emotions or lack thereof in this instance, and this was precisely what Penny did, what Penny was doing — taking responsibility for the child the very best that she can regardless as to how she doesn’t feel.

It seemed she was finally becoming fully engaged in our conversation when it was time for us to depart. I asked her if, despite the suggested social distancing, we could hug, and she was all for it.

It felt nice being that close to her again, nice having just been around her again, and I hope she hits me up next time she’s in Ohio.

Car Problems & a Potentially Preminatory Dream.

It was eleven in the eve on Sunday, just last night, when the first shift of my workweek came to a close. As was typical, I was eager to get home, isolate myself from the world, and recharge my social battery. It was to be a night without drinking, especially given I had overdone it on Saturday. I was looking forward to some revitalizing, sober sleep — or more sober, anyway. I’d still be smoking some weed, of course.

I’d parked by the corral that houses the dumpsters, started up my car and began driving towards the exit. I was just passed the third drive-thru window when my tires began squealing, and I feared I had hit something beneath my car. I got out, looked under the car, and saw nothing alarming. I got back in and tried to go forward again with the same result. When I got out the second time, I realized what must be the problem.

It was the driver-side tire. It was pushed up against the fender, and my fear was that it was going to fall off. I walked around the building, tried calling the store and knocked on two doors before someone opened the back door. It was Sean, the closing manager and fellow stoner.

“I hate to ask you this, but you know infinitely far more about cars than I do,” I said. “You mind taking a moment to come look at my piece of shit?”

As he followed me, i,explained what had happened and we approached the car, he mentioned that even at that distance, it didn’t look good. He got underneath it, checked it out, and told me he thought it might be a wheel bearing, and we both decided that I should try backing up. I did and the tire seemed to straighten out, but when I tried to go forward, the same shit happened. I called AAA and he said that him and his girlfriend could drive me home. Then we waited over an hour — just him, Gus, and I — for the tow truck to arrive, watching people come around from drive-thru once they realized we were closed, having to drive around my dead fish of a car to get to the exit.

As we waited, I again wished I had the capability to just walk to work — at the same time saying how I’d never want to live in this cesspool of a town. Still, I constantly have issues with my car, and whenever that happens, I feel fucking powerless. I have to ask people for rides, which makes me feel like shit. Whatever is wrong with the car is typically more expensive than I can handle, so I have to ask my parents for help. And I’m grateful I know so many good people and I know damned well I’m quite lucky to have the parents I have, but I’m still left feeling like I’m taking unfair advantage every time this shit happens and there is little to no way I could repay their generosity in an equally meaningful way.

Its sad. Pathetic. I’m 41 years old and I still can’t stand on my own two feet, at least not without leaning on friends and family in my constant efforts to stabilize myself. The guilt kills me. My lack of independence and personal power make me feel ashamed as fuck. Had I made better choices in the past, I might be in a better job, maybe be in a relationship that would offer what is commonly regarded as a more mature support system befitting someone of my age, but here I am. Here I fucking am.

Upon arriving home, I smoked a little and watched the last two episodes of the second season of Barry, took a sleeping pill, and then got to sleep around 4 in the morning. I awoke abruptly at about 10, an hour and a half before my first alarm was set to go off. I felt wired, but made some coffee anyway, and then gave the shop a call to inform them what happened.

Before I called off work, before the shop called back, and before I made the shameful call to my parents for financial assistance because I didn’t have enough money — despite the fact that the estimate was surprisingly and thankfully under 200 bucks, I might add — I suddenly realized some disturbing correlations between all this and the dream I’d had on August 13th, just four days ago. Last night I had stopped the car right passed the third drive-thru window, just as I had in the dream. The same tire I had issues with in real life, namely the front, driver-side tire, was the very same tire that was apparently stolen in the dream. In real life, I’d obstructed the path of a line of cars in drive thru, just as suggested in the dream. And though in real life my car still had “power,” I myself certainly felt powerless during the true circumstance.

Now, this may all be coincidence. I dream of car issues rather frequently, after all, and it often involves issues with losing power in the car or issues with the tires in particular. Even so, the specific correlations are hard to shake, as is the fact that strange synchronicities have previously occurred with respect to my car issues.

Perhaps time isn’t as unidirectional as we believe it is. Maybe just as the waking experiences a few days before a dream tends to influence its material, the experiences we’ll have a few days after it has a similar infuence, as the unconscious aspects of ourselves perceive no real distinction between past and present and can draw from either pool of data with equal ease.

I don’t even pretend to know anymore.

Powerless & Stunted (8/13/20 Dream).

8/13/20:

In the dream I awoke from this morning, I had somehow gotten a new car — new to me, that is. It was this old, long, 70s-style car, and I drove it to work. For some reason, I parked it by the third drive thru window, where we tell people to park if their food is taking extra long to make and we want to keep the line moving. So I got out, did something inside, and when I come back outside, it was dark out. I suddenly noticed that my front driver side tire was entirely gone.

I wondered to myself: Did I drive it here that way? Will I still be able to drive it home on three wheels?

I then realized that cars were lined up behind me in drive thru, but to the side of where the drive through pad is — not directly behind me, that is, but behind me and to the side, presumably because I’m blocking the actual lane. No one was honking and the line didn’t seem to be moving, however. The cars didn’t appear to be on, either, or even occupied. Even so, I felt guilty about the thought of them having to drive around me, so I hopped in my car and turned the key — and nothing happened. Not even a sound resulted. The car wouldn’t start at all.

Cars generally refer to one’s body, sense of self, or sense of motivation (one’s “drive,” if you will). The potential interpretation here is this: I’m powerless (car wouldn’t start) and unable to move forward (stolen tire) in some area of my life, presumably where the issues in the dream took place — namely at my place of employment.

And the drive-thru?

From my Googling, I found the following:

“If you have a dream about a drive thru it means that you are worried about all of the choices that you have to make in life. A drive thru will present you with all kinds of different choices you can pick from and a lot of people spend a lot of time (more time than necessary) hanging out in these areas searching for what food to eat. However because this is dream interpretation these choices are not actually related to food, but what you want to do in life. The more possibilities you have ahead of you, the longer you will spend there in the dream.”

All those cars were behind me, however, and pushed to the side, and all were as seemingly “powerless” and “stunted” with respect to driving as my own car was. If my own car reflected my present circumstances, did the line of others represent my past ones, never fixed but left abandoned by me in the past?

I have been fighting this anger and depression again for the last two weeks, increasingly bored and miserable at work, and I don’t know how to stop it. I keep being reminded how old I am, especially with respect to my surroundings at work. I keep thinking to myself how I wish I would have gotten stuck at another job, something at least vaguely associated with my passions, or at the very least where I made good money and had descent insurance.

My anxiety leaves me too afraid of change, though, and I feel I lack sufficient motivation on top of it. If I can’t change or advance, I’ve been thinking, I wish I could at least find some solace in things as they are.