Of Sidewalk Chalk & Pen Pals.

During these weeks of isolation at home, Moe told me, he would sometimes walk out onto his front porch and look around. One day, he was rather confused when he saw this kid just sitting on the sidewalk. Sometime later, he would see an entirely different kid doing the same damned thing. This happened a few times, he said, and he was taken aback, as he never knew there were so many kids in his neighborhood.

Prolonged cabin fever during this period likely forced them out of their houses, I figured as I continued to listen to his story, but I was still curious about the sidewalk-sitting behavior. This soon made sense, as he explained to me that when he went out to the sidewalk to look, he found that these kids were writing things on the sidewalk with chalk — messages to other kids. They would write, for instance, that they hoped whoever read it was healthy and safe, then they might leave information like their email or social media identity if whoever saw it would like to get in touch with them.

In a way, it was seeking out a penpal.

Becoming penpals is something I’m not entirely sure people do anymore given the growing archaic glow of snail mail. When I was in elementary school, way back,in the 1980s, at least twice I remember them instructing us to write letters to unknown recipients, who’s return letters we were then expected to read and respond to.

During one of these exercises, finding penpals was not such a controlled process. We were to write a letter to our potential pal, provide a return address (either of our school or our personal residence; I can’t recall which), secure it to a helium-filled balloon, and then in a collective ritual we would go outside, strings helds tightly in our hands, and let all our balloons go at once.

We’d watch them rise into the sky. We’d watch as they were carried by the wind. We’d watch them until they disappeared from our sight.

Some of us would receive no response, of course, but others would receive responses by snail-mail, and it was always exciting to discover where our letters ended up and who ultimately came across them.

There was one occasion in which we got to meet one of our pen pals in person. I don’t recall whether it was by the balloon method or the direct method, but for obvious reasons I’ve deduced that it must have been the direct method. We all met at Mentor Park, a park within bike-riding distance of my home and a place I often visited anyway, and played on the swings and that long and crazy slide. I even remember a photograph that was taken with my pen pal and I. In my memory, he was a short, blond-haired kid who was superficially kind, but I was too embarrassed to talk to him much. I had written to him about my interest in time travel and my intentions to eventually build a time machine, which was an obsession I had for a portion of my childhood. I didn’t anticipate meeting him in person and now that I had to, I was rather embarrassed about my passion for the subject. I remember telling him that I had only written about the time travel thing because I had confused him with another pen pal I had, who was obsessed with the topic. He didn’t seem to buy it at all, which bothered me and made me feel like a weirdo, an outcast, and a liar, but he was pleasant enough anyway, and we played and had a good time nonetheless.

We had the option to keep contact with our Pen-Pals, but I was too ashamed by the whole time travel thing to ever write him again. Perhaps needless to say, he never wrote to me ever again, either.

Penpals, whether directed or by balloon, did not bring me to like minds, it appeared. Nor did chalk artwork and messages, as it turned out, though in my case, that was never really the objective.

When I was a Li’l Ben, my parents would take my two younger sisters and I on trips to visit my paternal grandparents in Port Allegany, Pennsylvania. There, our grandparents would sometimes supply us with these huge pieces of colored chalk and we would excitedly write and draw on the sidewalk. It was a lot like drawing on those huge rolls of paper mom provided for us at home, where we could just spill thoughts and free-flow with our creativity, only in this case we couldn’t keep our artistic expressions; it would be washed away the next time it rained. It never struck us to ask someone to immortalize our artwork with a photograph of our passionately-graffitied pavement, for some reason; we just solemnly accepted the transience of our masterpieces. It never struck us to leave messages for other kids, or other people in general, either. So far as I recall, it was strictly done for the purposes of catharsis, to answer to the ever-raging impulse for creative expression.

Things are different now, though, and I’m not quite blind enough to be ignorant to that fact. Kids today are growing up in a context I could have never imagined in my extreme youth. The internet, and social media more specifically, is a big factor in this context, of course. Posts on social media, reacting and commenting to the posts of others on social media. That kids today would, in a time of crisis and confinement, return to the chalk-on-concrete mode of expression I enjoyed in my youth but, unlike me in my youth, use it as a means of communicating with their sistren-and-brethren-to-be like penpals, is a sort of beautiful mutation, if you ask me.

Moe described how the kids would get so bloody excited when they saw the artwork and messages on the sidewalk. How they’d leave their own artwork and messages to contribute to the evidently growing trend. It made me smile. It filled me with glee and hope. Alongside improved air quality and animals enjoying a landscape depleted of humans, this represents yet another silver lining to the chaos of this first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Confessional & a Member of the Minority (a Flashback Sequence).

4/16/14

“Ben, are you gay?”

Leave it to a ten year old.

“Nope,” I said with a laugh. “Why?”

I forget her reason for asking that question specifically, or even if she gave me one, but the usual question came up: why I don’t have a girlfriend. After all, girls are always talking to me, she seemed to be suggesting.

“I’m sort of like an atheistic priest,” I tried to explain to her. “A sort of confessional with a pulse.”

Guys, girls, friends, strangers: people have always spilled to me, telling me their secrets, confiding in me, and unless I’m at my occasional point of overload I enjoy it and the insight into their character that it offers me. Over time I have learned not to leap to the assumption that simply because a girl talks to me, or even likes me, it implies she’s interested in me in any additional way.

She seemed to ignore that, electing instead to latch onto my atheism. This, she told me, was why I didn’t have a girlfriend: I don’t believe in a god. An interesting allegation, but one I’ve heard before. I tried to dodge it, I swear, but she somehow cornered me into a theological discussion.

In her eyes god exists, as does the devil, and everyone has a guardian angel or a guardian demon. She detailed it all. Curious. I told her it was her right to believe all that, but I just wasn’t convinced. She asserted it was just true.

“You have every right to feel that way,” I told her, adding as playfully as I could, “but personally, I think its crap.”

Since she asked, I told her my current viewpoint on the matter of the paranormal: reincarnation I find a likelihood, apparitions and out of body experiences come along with the package, but I see no suggestion of Good, Evil, god or devil, angels or demons. Its too black and white for such a Technicolor world.

The conversation made me feel incredibly awkward at first because the last thing I wanted to do was seem like I was trying to push any viewpoint on her. I wasn’t. Never would. That isn’t my place. It isn’t anyone’s place, in my opinion, but perhaps least of all some weirdo, balding maintenance man her mother works with. Without doubt she’s a bright kid, though, quite capable of holding her own in an argument and certainly mentally equipped enough to handle foreign viewpoints. But still. I felt like this conversation was somehow crossing a line. I wanted to talk with her about it and she wouldn’t let me exit the conversation, but I had that lingering fear that I nonetheless should not be having this conversation.

Maybe I just worry too much about doing or saying the wrong thing. I hope that’s all it is, but it never seems to make me worry any less. Kids are people, too, of course, and in my eyes they are without doubt the most oppressed and misunderstood “minority” on our blue-green Island Earth. I like talking to them most of all, I’ve noticed, because their minds are still open. They aren’t afraid to ask questions and are the most likely to actually explore possibilities. That’s why I wanted to be a teacher.

Never would I tell a kid what to believe, but if they ask, I’ll tell them what I believe without hesitation, and I always hope that doesn’t cross some line.

Does it, though?

Not a Leaf.

On my way out of my apartment complex yesterday, I turned the corner on the sidewalk and a bird, who apparently didn’t notice me at first, suddenly did and frantically flew away. That didn’t scare me. What did make me jump, however, was the leaf blowing in the wind that I mistakenly thought was a second bird. I laughed at my own anxiety, shook my head, and proceeded to my car.

So when I was finally at work, had taken out the trash, and was enjoying a cigarette out by the dumpster, I thought that what I initially thought was a mouse was in fact a leaf. After all, why would a mouse just hang out in front of the dumpster — unless it was dead? I looked again, though, and it was indeed a mouse. He was alive, too, with his head down, eyes mostly closed, unmoving, unaware or unconcerned regarding my presence. He didn’t seem hurt. He seemed to be breathing rapidly, but usually mice are moving around too swiftly, so I realized I didn’t exactly have a baseline to compare his breathing too.

I decided not to bother him.

I finished my smoke, took another look at him, and went inside. When I next came out to the dumpsters, he had moved a short distance, but was doing the same thing: head down as if he were only half-awake or in some meditative trance.

Was the weather confusing him here in Ohio? Was his little body confused as to what season it was? Was he slipping in and out of hibernation? It took me a bit to realize that couldn’t be it, as mice don’t hibernate. Did the fuzzy littlefucker just have a hard night? I mean, I’ve certainly had mornings like that.

I checked on him again when I took out some more trash, he had moved a bit but was back in mouse meditation. As I was by the dumpster, I heard a guy come by walking his dog, and he was trying to pull back the dog from something — hopefully trying to get the pooch to leave the mouse alone. The mouse survived. I checked on him once or twice more before break. Ultimately, he was just gone.

Maybe in his meditation he achieved enlightenment and transcended this plane of existence. I like to think so.

Single.

I wish all of me would get on board with remaining single for the rest of my life.

No little part of me thinking, “well, maybe…”

No little part of me always on the lookout for the right girl.

I wish all of me would come together and accept that I’m simply not compatible with anyone. And that’s okay. Just fine and fucking dandy.

I’m sick of getting jealous, feeling envious — its essentially the greed in me. Just childish, shitty, emotional reactions I should have outgrown by now.

Noodles & Manliness.

Sometimes its hard to tell if something someone says is a compliment, a put-down, or just an innocent observation.

A few days back, as I’m getting my wakey-wakey bean juice, Kara tells me I smell like Ramen noodles. Though I’m uncertain at first as to whether that constitutes a compliment, she later tells me, “I like noodles.”

Good. No one likes a pastaphobic.

Today, as I’m again getting some java, she says, “You smell like a man.”

So: progress, I guess. Unless she’s a feminist, in which case a noodley aura would be more optimal.

Aliens, Doomsday, Zombies, & Why I Like The Walking Dead.

I began watching The Walking Dead (TWD) towards the end of the first season or the dawn of the second, if I remember correctly. Though I may have known about the show beforehand, it didn’t spark my interest, and it wasn’t until a friend strongly recommended that I take a looksie that I paid it any mind at all. I don’t recall who that person was, but I do know why it took such a strong recommendation: I’ve always found the mere thought of zombies as highly improbable and incredibly lame. In fact, I still do.

They aren’t the lamest monsters in the cultural mythos — vampires and mummies push them, at the very least, to second place (and really, aside from their characteristic apparel, how distinct are mummies from zombies, anyway?) — but they are pretty damned lame nonetheless. Granted, my judgement stems from the kind of zombies one finds, for instance, in TWD and Night of the Living Dead, mostly because I don’t have a hard-on for the genre and these are the zombie sources I’m most familiar with. These types of zombies, at the very least, travel in herds, which can be a threat, but they’re generally slow-moving and operate not on intelligence, but base instincts, and so are more easily thwarted than an intelligent creature, even if one gets into a sticky situation.

As I’ve said before, just think of this type of zombie trying to ride a bicycle. If you have vivid enough of an imagination, you’ll soon be giggling like an idiot and see my point. By and large, they aren’t that frightening.

There are, I have since learned, other types of zombies — ones that can run, for instance, or can infect animals other than human beings, some of whom are potentially frightening even if devoid of a zombie virus — so perhaps my judgement of their lameness was premature and based on my lack of a broader, more thorough understanding of just what a zombie constitutes.

In any case, zombies were not what got me interested in TWD and has kept me a steady, unwavering fan all throughout the years, even as twists and turns in the series have apparently alienated others along the way. I like the show because, in my humble opinion, it basically follows a logical process with respect to how shit would go down if such a doomsday scenario — or any number of doomsday scenarios, actually — befell us as a species and civilization.

Initially, after civilization fell or even as the collapse was taking place, there would be isolated individuals and small groups such as families who would be left to fend for themselves in locations such as their homes or, if they were so lucky (as Sasha and Tyreese) in bomb shelters. After they exhausted the resources available at their locations, they might keep their home base while making supply runs to neighboring areas and then moving increasingly further out as food becomes more scarce. Conversely, they may immediately — and in either case, ultimately — become a sort of nomadic tribe moving from area to area, hunting and gathering food and supplies, much like our nomadic, hunting, gathering, and fishing ancestors. Along the way they would likely lose members of their tribe and potentially gain members — lone individuals or small groups of people. In fact, the turnover rate might be mind-blowing.

To pause for a moment, this is another thing I kind of respect about TWD, even if it is a central reason why so many ultimately came to abandon the show, most notably with the introduction of the ever-narcissistic and potentially-psychopathic Negan and his merry band of sycophant Saviors: characters will die, even if you like them. Cases in point: Glenn and Abraham. Other characters survive, even if you initially hate them. Case in point: Gabriel, who failed to close the gate to Alexandria, letting Walkers in, and much later failed to lock the prison door, letting Negan out. The character has come a long way, and I no longer wish to baptize him in a deep fryer, but he seriously has a fucking issue with locking doors that must be addressed.

Characters will also change: there is character growth and decline, and often enough it’s pretty damned difficult to ascertain which it is — whether they are ascending or descending, given their ever-changing circumstances. As Rick (who stands as a prime example himself) said right before they entered Alexandria for the first time, if I remember correctly: “the rules keep changing.” On a level, they most certainly do. With respect to life’s constant flux, at the very least in the post-apocalypse, however, the overarching rule is clear: adapt or perish.

To continue: these tribes will also undoubtedly encounter other such tribes, some of whom are held together by vastly different value systems (Woodbury, Terminus, The Saviors, The Whisperers), in some cases leading to small-scale wars between them. Eventually various groups with resonant ideals and value systems will come together in the attempt to establish stable settlements and communities, much as in the case of the Alexandria Safe Zone, Hilltop, and Oceanside in TWD. Those communities will later come together in order to establish alliances, probably for the purpose of trade and to build up a collective force against the contrary forces represented by other communities and alliances, much as was the case when Alexandria, Hilltop, The Kingdom, and Oceanside ultimately worked together in order to defeat first The Saviors and then The Whisperers.

Simultaneously, there may have been groups that were prepared for such an event, notably those of high status in the former society — the rich, for instance, and those in government — who may have managed to sustain a smaller representation of that former society in isolated locations or underground installations. They may try to guide the re-emergence of human civilization from the ashes, much as The Commonwealth appears to be trying to do in the show so far, providing information on agriculture, building houses, generating electricity, and so on. The Commonwealth, so far as I am familiar with it through the show, seems to resonate quite strongly with how Graham Hancock believes civilization was gifted upon surviving groups of people by some surviving faction of a former civilization after a cataclysm, possibly caused by fragments of a comet, that wiped them out some 12,000 years ago.

And this is kind of where I think TWD television show and its offshoots are aiming to journey and explore, particularly in the interactions between such stable, surviving factions and those who have endured yet managed to survive through the collapse to the point where they can begin to rebuild civilization. As with the Saviors and Whisperers, there will be a clash of value systems and ideals.

Or at least I hope this is where it’s going, as this has been one of my main complaints regarding such stories, too, I might add: there always seems to be an effort on the part of survivors to get things back to the way they used to be, clearly ignoring all the issues inherent in the way things used to be — which is to say, of course, all the issues inherent in the way things currently are. They never seem to consider or deliberately organize a better version of society. They never stop and think, “Our old society led to its inevitable downfall. Now here we are, about to rise from it’s ashes: shouldn’t we be more fixated on not repeating the same mistakes, on trying to make a better world rather than just rehash the inevitably catastrophic pathway provided by the past?”

Yet if we can take a minute to rewind and hone in on TWD solely and specifically, the aching, underlying question has always been: what started the zombie virus? Some naively thought that Fear of the Walking Dead might answer this question or, at the very least, provide some hints, but no: answers were not forthcoming. All this despite Robert Kirkman’s voiced disinterest from the motherfucking get-go in providing data on the origins of the virus. Still, I thought, even if it was not a consideration of his own at the dawn of the comic — and I find it hard to believe that it wasn’t — he certainly must have considered it since.

Kirkman, who wrote the comic and then guided the series, confessed early on (once the comic and the show had gained widespread appeal) that he sold the idea in the form of a comic by telling a lie. The lie was that aliens had released the zombie virus so that it would be easier for them to invade afterward. Finally, after the comic ended, he gave the alleged source of the virus: it was from outer space, but not seeded here by an alien intelligence. Rather, it was a “space spore.”

This might seem anticlimactic, but consider what potential relevance this might have for the Fermi Paradox. There are many hypotheses regarding the origin of life, but one involves what is known as Panspermia. It can be directed or undirected, and what Kirkman suggests is that, at least in the case of the zombie virus, it was undirected. This means that a comet hit a planet harboring life — specifically, the zombie virus — and as a consequence flug material from that planet into space. This material housed life: specifically, the zombie virus. And this material ultimately served as comets that crashed onto other planets, impregnating the native life with the zombie virus.

A dire kind of cosmic spitting and swallowing where one planet’s ejection becomes another’s infection. This could be one of the leading reasons why we haven’t (officially) detected advanced, technologically-quipped, extraterrestrial intelligence.

While Kirkman’s ultimate answer with respect to the source of the Zombie virus captured my interest and spawned considerations, the comic’s inseminating lie has proven to be far more impactful in my case. The bigger question in my mind here, as a consequence, is this: realistically-speaking, would aliens intending to invade earth for the purposes of colonization do something like spread a zombie virus?

Other sources, which I tend to read and watch during my more paranoid moments, when I feel sure the end is nearing, have already largely answered this question. One doomsday video, if I remember correctly, said that if aliens wanted to colonize and rid the earth of humanity or at least reduce our population, releasing a virus first might make the most sense, and I can see the logic. One might wonder why, if they were more intelligent than us and possessed superior technology, they would even be worried about such a resistance, but the answer it quite simple: if their objective is to colonize the planet, they certainly wouldn’t want us trying to defeat them with nuclear weapons, for instance, which would have dire consequences for the cosmic real estate they wished to plant their flag in and designate their own. On the other hand, a lethal virus would be a nice, clean way to eliminate us without such a potentially devastating response.

They could engineer a virus to only infect human beings. If this virus was engineered to kill humans, the vast majority of human beings may die out, leaving behind only a small human population that would have a difficult time putting up a resistance to the colonization of high-tech extraterrestrial intelligence. There’d perhaps be viruses with other consequences that might work just as well and perhaps better, but the zombie scenario doesn’t really seem so out of the question. It may, in fact, be optimal. There may be survivors of any such virus, but there’s an added benefit when it comes to a zombie virus: whereas the zombie virus may have not gotten you, the zombies themselves might, so as a consequence it increases the rate of infection.

That alone would provide a legitimate reason to engineer such a zombie virus. And if it was like the virus in TWD, where everyone is infected but remains asymptomatic unless you’re bitten or die, even better. Over the course of the seasons, we have seen how the Walkers in TWD have decayed. How long could a Walker live, though? They only reproduce by biting, and the human population is both limited and increasingly better at fighting off the zombies. Since all humans are infected, however, once any human dies — through disease, old age, heart attack, whatever — they’ll become a zombie. If nothing else, such a zombie virus would both immediately lesson the human population and leave the remainder a threat to themselves.

Kirkman’s lie could make a good deal of sense.

Puppies, Gus & Coughing Customers.

3/25/20

I’m changing trash out in the lot, not in a particularly great mood, when this guy starts talking to me. We have a short but sweet conversation, and as he begins walking down the sidewalk his dog, Harley, is pulling at his leash, trying to get to me. Not aggressively, just eager to be petted, if I interpreted the canine vibe correctly. And I didn’t want to pet him because of, you know, the plague and stuff. So that sucked. But just seeing a dog? My mood is all better.

Puppies are my antidepressant. I wish seeing people made me feel that way.

3/26/20

There are times when I think I’ve hit emotional bottom. I feel full of anxiety, depression, rage. I feel entirely out of place in the world and feel worried about us as a species. It couldn’t be a worse time in my head, I’m almost sure.

Then I go to work, Gus talks to me and I realize how much further down the spiral goes.

Relatively speaking, I guess I’m doing okay.

3/26/20

We have new speakers at work that allow us to hear the customers from the kitchen as they place their order. A woman just came through who was hacking up a lung so badly she was struggling to articulate what she wanted. You could feel the terror in the air rise just a bit with every cough. When she finished it was as if, in the distance, I could hear the Jaws theme as she approached the window.

So I went on break a little early. And yeah, I know, like that’s going to help if she’s really got the plague.

Look, if you’re sick, just stay home, you assholes. This isn’t difficult.

Brodie’s Bloody Nose.

I walk into the restroom at work and, peering beneath the sink, see the trash can filled with bloody paper towels. Later I ask Steve if Brodie worked today, and he said he did, but not for long.

“Was his nose bleeding again?”

Evidently, it was. Steve tells me his wife still isn’t concerned. Steve hasn’t seemed so concerned about it, either, though.

I know they can’t take the kid to the hospital now, with the plague and all, but I still can’t crawl into the heads of these two parents deeply enough to understand why they didn’t take him to the fucking hospital in the first place, when it first started happening. Maybe I’m just being a judgemental ass because I’m not a parent myself, but I’m concerned, and I’m just some guy he knows. If he was my kid I can’t imagine I’d care less — hell, I would have taken him a long time ago.

All around, this really hasn’t been a good time for restoring any degree of hope for humanity.

Coronapocalypse Now.

Dangerously incompetent leadership here in the US of A hasn’t helped the COVID-19 issue, though it appeared, for a short tume, to be getting slightly better.

At first, Trump would pressure-wash the crowd with his typical nonsense. He would play down the threat of COVID-19 and jettison blatant lies from his blubbering lips. He seemed to care more about the economy, more about projecting a superior and impenetrable ego, than he did about the grand population of people he was supposed to be serving. As is at the very least consistent with him, he seemed to be under the dangerous delusion that truth was synonymous with saying a lie with such unwavering confidence that others subsequently believed in it, in him, unquestionably.

Then he would turn and allow the experts to speak — and what they had to say contradicted nearly every goddamned thing he had said just a short time ago. They would try to emphasize rational concern, highlighting the fact that a rationally-based overreaction would serve us better than an under-reaction.

Every day, however, something miraculous seemed to be happening. To some degree, The Great Trumpkin seemed to be learning something. Though it appeared to be a slower process, the change was vaguely reminiscent of Dubya Bush’s response to 9/11: more focused and structured on the crisis at hand and seemingly finding a sense of value in bipartisan unity in that it was our only hope of pulling through the mess in question. His free-flowing bullshit and spin diminished and when asked questions he didn’t know the answers to, he often turned to either the experts or those which he had given authority with respect to the matter, namely Pence in this instance — and while Pence is just a different flavor of bat shit insane, he is more articulate and linear in his speech (which offers some relief) and represents, at the very least, a more predictable form of insanity — religious insanity — though it has yet to rear its ugly head in this context.

By and large, at least with respect to what I’m aware of, Pence is actually listening to the experts, though still defending Trumple Orangeskin and trying to rub his ego, however subtly, at every opportunity.

In any case, it was an improvement. The response of the US leadership wasn’t nearly as swift as it should have been, to grossly understate the matter, but at least they were finally showing signs of actually taking it seriously and catching up with the rest of the fucking world.

Trump’s lies and ego-stroking quickly came to dominate again in the subsequent days, however. The ass hat just can’t help himself.

The lack of sufficient federal leadership has forced the leadership of individual states to step up, inspring the leadership of still other states, which is one example of a silver lining, another being climate change: air pollution has significantly reduced, for instance.

Meanwhile, the populace has gone rather bat shit. Grocery stores were hopping. Shelves were empty. It was an all-out raid, the objective to buy as much toilet paper, sanitizer and bread as one could afford.

Sanitizer I can at least wrap my head around. Maybe bread. Shit sheets are another matter.

Another issue is all the misinformation out there. I fell for some of it, but not nearly the degrees of some if those around me — and they don’t seem to seek out or believe new information, adapting their perspective to it.

All people have to do is go to the CDC website and read the symptoms of COVID-19. All people have to do is listen to the experts. This isn’t like the flu, it us more serious, and this isn’t a hoax, eitger. Given our lack of tests for the virus, we don’t know how widespread it is in the US at present, and it doesn’t help that you can have it for 2-14 days and be asymptomatic yet contagious.

A lot of people are cranky because everything is shutting down, because they want people to isolate themselves, to self-quarenteen and not congregate in groups. It needs to happen in order to slow the spread of the virus. After all, if this all keeps going on the same trajectory in the US that it has in Italy, for instance, there will be too many patients and not enough doctors and resources to treat them.

They may quarenteen the country as a whole, which would actually be a good idea. It would save lives. It doesn’t sound as if Trump wants to do that, but he’s so often full of shit, I can’t bring myself to believe anything he says.

I work fast food, so I still work, and will continue to do so unless, perhaos, the country shuts down. Which is good, I suppose, as I have bills to pay, food to buy, and addictions to feed. At the same time, an introvert, this notion of self-quarenteen wouldn’t bother me at all. Its actually quite attractive. I could get some reading, writing, and art work done. I could recharge my social battery to a degree I’ve been incapable of for years.

In any case, for the meantime I continue to watch our circus of a world, continue to wonder what’s in store next.

Baby Steps & A Dream of Anne.

When I initially awoke Wednesday, I felt both a slight headache and the recollection of a dream that had just ended. My old exgirlfriend, Anne, and I were alone in a well-lit room, holding an involved conversation, the details of which entirely escaped me upon fully awakening — save for one moment. In the midst of our talk, which seemed to flow quite naturally and seemed devoid of any negativity, I suddenly realized how amazing it was that we were here, in this room together, speaking at all. I had been convinced we’d never so much as encounter one another again, much less speak to one another. Though I could be wrong, I believe that it was my act of contemplating on this point that led to my suspicion that it was actually a dream, which in turn woke me up.

I had been doing pretty well convincing myself that I was better off alone, that a relationship with a girl would do nothing more but introduce unnecessary complications to my life, but Kara conjured up my buried need and shot those naive hopes to shit. Now I’m having dreams regarding my ex-girlfriend, whom I haven’t seen in well over a decade. The girl that I’ve relatively recently concluded that I should have stayed with if I stayed with anybody at all.

Due to my dumbassery, I got drunk Tuesday evening on two 24s and some Southern Comfort. I awoke the following morning with a slight headache, as I mentioned, but a short time thereafter felt so ill I had to call off work. I woke up,around 11 and couldn’t keep food down until 9. I am in no way proud of this, and it actually kills me writing it down.

I know I’ve been tense and pessimistic lately, anxious and depressed. I’m really hoping I pull out of this soon.

When I awoke this morning, Thursday, I felt far better, far more rested, and I credit not drinking. I got high, of course, but I dont see that as a problem.

At work, Kara didn’t avoid eye contact and we even had a casual back-and-fourth, and its absurd how happy that made me, how much it relaxed me. Just after Tara, who was working back kitchen, clocked out, I had a short exchange with her — not too direct, but progress.

Baby steps. And it may be pathetic, but for now, I’ll take it.