Tuesday, December 30, 2003
A few ppl read this thing, and God bless 'em. But nobody has anything to say about what they have read. Dealing with noisy neighbors without actually engaging in noise jihads is a subject I'd like to learn more about, for one. I hate noise precisely the way I hate gum crackers and ppl who eat with their mouths wide open (I am thinking of one singularly odd individual at this point.in.time. See, it takes a lot for me to find a fellow fringe-dweller genuinely weird, and this person is just that. Told me, after ingesting all of the medication he takes for his bipolar disorder in one dose, that he has at least three people, from three distinct eras, residing within his consciousness. Weeell, okay, I thought--but that's not why I began to avoid him. My best friend from high school is a multiple; my closest female friend at this point.in.time is both bipolar and borderline herself, and of course, there is my own Chinese menu of interpersonal chaos to consider. Yes, I would have conversed with this fellow, and paid attention, taken notes, da**it. But he was chewing with his mouth wide open, and I didn't know if he was gargling pus or mashed potatoes.)
So, let us forget George Bush, about whom I could not make an intelligent comment if I watched the news and read Matt Drudge for three days nonstop. Tell me--how do i win this noise war that is being waged in my own spiderhole?
(And for you intellectuals, this: whaddya think about the Iraqi-isms that are invading the lex?)
Sigh. Time to get back to trudging. I never would have hung in 'Nam.
Outgoing,
bwjld
Monday, December 29, 2003
Oh--no 'edit' option here. So, in reference to the pimp dog neighbor, he is a male, and therefore not a "she-ho", but a "he-ho" instead.
And this: I cannot find any compassion for 'Greg'. I mentioned this to the ppl I spoke to yesterday. Said I was troubled by it. Actually, I'm not. No, not at all.
That creepy freak. That damnably creepy FREAK. He shows up at the spidey on Friday night--I was sleeping, white noise machine on--and there is that GOOFY BASTARD, grinning, acting like nothing's gone down, and thereby expecting to be asked in. "What do you want?" is what I say. Comments are exchanged, and no apologies are offered. Then, he proves his ratmanship: he went and told a bunch of ppl at AA that I was a heartless, ppl-using b****, who will kick a person to the curb the minute she's, meaning me, done with them, exhausted their assets, whatever. So I go to AA yesterday seeking to clarify this childishness, and yepper: he has done just that. "The word's out," he said. Suppose I played into this game a little too heartily, for although I didn't use any names or physical descriptions, I told a couple of associates what had happened--and everything was confirmed for me. They'd heard about it. They'd heard about the Eskimo woman, whom they felt had been taken much the way he tried to take me. One guy, whom I've known since summer, told me that this guy Greg was "definitely out there", and he found him "evil". Someone he didn't want to be around. As opposed to me, oddly. I'm simply a touch eccentric to this fellow, and not at all evil-seeming.
This is an inferior system, and I don't know if the paragraphical break I intended will go through, but watch things change and stay the same: I am so flipping lonely. My last ex, Michael, an RN who has gone through four jobs in a year and a half (suspicion of narcotics theft, botched counts and so on), has indicated he has been by the spidey several times, but was left with the impression that no one was home. He indicated in his last mail that he was working, much as I am, four consecutive nights from 7p to 7a, and with a longish commute thrown in there, had not much time to do anything but eat, sleep and work. He suggested that we could find "something" to do this weekend. I mailed back, reasonably, I thought, that I'd like to see "Bad Santa". Comic relief for a couple of former no-goodniks like us. Looks like, however, old Mikey had something else in mind, b/c he never returned my email OR stopped by. And I was there, boozeless, more than a tad irritated at the noise I was forced to endure (the only other thing I could think of was go to a local bar and risk yet another AI--equally offensive situation). I'm just tired of Michael shining me on, even though I know --suspect; THINK I know--that all his old, Viagra-chomping arse wants is sex, and I am not ABOUT to give up what I have come to believe is a sacred thing, and know is a risky, possibly unpleasant physical situation. Really, I'm not that much of a catch. Those who do catch me release me minutes later--wolverine in a bear trap, left to limp away bleeding, further injured, and yet still really REALLY pi**ed off. The Neurontin I was taking for rapid mood swings, and haven't SEEN now for about five months, helped a lot with the management of the feelings just alluded to. That, and 80 migs Prozac. And ongoing therapy. I've made the requisite appointment, grateful that I wasn't dropped for going AWOL.
I did something bad today. This a.m., I was sitting in the local Jack-U (convenience store), drinking a big mother coffee and reading the paper, and Sister Boom Boom Ugly-A** and her quarter-pounder "man" come in. She sees me, turns her broad back, and proceeds to tell the clerk how her New Year's Eve was gonna be "bumpin'", what with their new stereo system. Now I may not be all that myself, but the handsome neighbor from across the street and all-around pimp dog backsliding she-ho has indicated he finds me attractive, and would like to get physical with me. This man is married. Apparently, he finds that no hindrance. And batsh*t creature I used to be would have, with the assist of a couple of forties, promptly screwed him just to pi** her off. Ppl like that man love to brag on themselves and their conquests. Funny: I could never relate, though I'd be interested in seeing the wife whup the water buffalo on crack but good. I'm not interested in assault myself. Anyhow, the bad thing I did involved an alarm clock. I can always claim absent-mindedness, or brain cramps resulting from ongoing combat fatigue.
iiiiiiiiIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNCOMMMMMMMIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnng!
Blue ties, ala our dear Georgie, are supposed to be the next big thing. For whom, I wonder. Wear em with a pair of used-ta-be gangsta pants, and two pairs of underwear sticking out, and "G-E-O-R-G-E" inked out in olde English around the navel....hmmmm
head for the mountains. Have a beer for me.
bw
Saturday, December 27, 2003
That damnable creature Greg. The other day--Christmas proper, it was--he went OFF, in fireworks and italics, because I had elected to purchase and consume a couple of forties. This crap coming from someone who once encouraged me to buy some vodka and drink it in his presence. In retrospect, this would not have been a prudent thing to do, and I am glad that I did not do it. This person with severe BPD, gender issues, and the sexuality of a goat was talking about effing this sweet little girl who's presently in rehab in the mouth. He took the liberty to clean and rearrange my spiderhole while I was working, and seemed deathfully affronted when I was not pleased (most men seem to resent this behavior in women; I don't know about gay friendships/relationships, but I read it as pure borderline: him wanting to possess me/chastise me/make me feel a bit the fool and experience himself as some kind of Svengali). I am so rudderless that I get involved, in some odd way, with these characters whose pathology not only rivals my own, but exacerbates it as well. This must stop. He was talking about the old glass thermometer he had found while cleaning, then asked me if I wanted my temperature taken. Sheer ugggghhh. Talking to me that way always. Threatening to tell his ex-wife--the owner of the farm where he is employed for room/board--that I had been drinking on Christmas, which would not be helpful insofar as getting horse therapy is concerned. Acting like the schoolyard rat. Laughing at me. Saying I'm "funny", which is one of the most inflammatory comments one can make to someone like myself. Denigrating my physical appearance AFTER I had shot him down. Numerous times, I might add. There is this funny thing I want to describe here, funny in its sheer bizarre flavor, but I don't have the time, and I'm not so sure that doing so would be a good idea. I want to keep this job as long as I can, and I don't think it's gonna happen. I submitted a medical excuse for the one time I was absent. I had tried to call out sick--de feet, de feet--but I guess about sixty ppl had beaten me to that. I'm not the fastest bee in the bunch--about in the middle somewhere--but I don't lie about no being able to find the items I'm supposed to, and fill out my paperwork, and take appropriate breaks, and all that. I just know the manager, who is not here today, thinks I'm a weird one. He's career Army, even though he looks about 17. No tolerance for b*tching about feet. And I do have good reason to think that someone here has been looking at what employees put out on the Web. Won't explain that right now; will later. Probably after I'm termed/pink-slipper/otherwise let go. And the irony of this, is that once the feet became inured to the physical element of this job, I found myself liking it. No one messes with me., at least not directly, and that is optimal for a social retardate like me.
Oh, and the neighbor. i did something small, un-Christlike, but possibly karmically correct: This creature had the thump-thump bumping again this morning, so I first played counterpoint with some "new country" (which I ordinarily detest), then set my shrill little alarm clock for a quarter to twelve. It rings for an hour. It is very loud, like locusts in microcosm. But I have complained about this person; she has come on belligerent to me; and with the exception of today, I haven't sought overt retailation. There's enough war in this world. i will not stoop to the dark arts, although I feel a pull that way. It's just not in me anymore. Christ saved me from the street, but I don't feel His hand rewiring my brain so I won't be so darn bugged by the constant aural interference. Yet. If he would do that, I guess I would stay.
Ideas? BTW, I am not shunning the comment-maker who asked me about the value of my habit of labelling things/persons in psycg terms. I haven't yet had the uninterrupted time to go that far or dig that deep.
Happy New Year. Nothing could possibly suck like 2003.
Head for the mountains. Dean for president, or something.
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
The trial pair of contacts I got on saturday died. Since my case had been stolen here at work, I took them out and put them in medication lids, set out "right" and "left". Guess they must have absorbed some of whatever those lids are made of, b/c I couldn't put them in. Am now wearing a pair of a coworker's throwaway glasses. Geeky aviators from the seventies. His eyes are as bad as mine are Oh hell. I'm not here to be attractive.
This very strange guy Greg, whose BPD is far worse than mine, is worrying me like a bone. He completely fell tpo pieces this morning when he was asked to fill out an application for a foaling position at one of the nation's biggest TB farms. He lost his ability to drive; that was scary, for I was thinking I was gonna have to take over, and I haven't driven sober for years. Though he claims not to have drunk alcohol for over 9 years, this is not a sober man, or a well one either. He doesn't know what he wants to have sex with, talks awfully about women, knows this bothers me on many levels, and is adamant about rubbing up against me when we sleep on my little make-a-bed on the floor. Once I got up, tore the covers off in the middle of the night, and the sonofabitch was naked. Not pretty. I ordered him to put on some clothes, and he got mad. Break time seems to be over. More on this later.
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
How is it that time flies when you're not having fun?
I got some good, hard sleep today, although a chemical assist was involved. A coworker and I snorted some Lortab, and I drank a few beers and then it was four p.m. and raining hell. I wanted to keep on sleeping through this night. My feet are chewed up, incredibly sore. Feels like I went a few rounds with a wolverine, and the wolvie won. Could use some more of that Lortab, and/or those calluses I shaved off yesterday. They served a purpose I was too vain to appreciate. I think the area I shaved--right over bone--has become a bit infected. I have cinnamon oil at the house, which serves nicely as an antiseptic.
What I learned about calluses cannot be applied to my soul. Unless "Prozac" and "Neurontin" are analogous to hard, dead skin over bone. My soul is not bone, though. I wish I could know what it felt like to be completely pain-free across the board, just for one day.
This is gonna be a painful night, I can feel it. They brought two new herds of pickers in last night, and all of those carts and fat people meandering about like stoned cattle--the ones they (A dot C) already have could have done the job faster, and with far less frustration.
That was a good sleep. B/c the girl I hung out with this morning had to be up all day today and was high to boot and driving from an hour away (a town called Morehead), I kind of chanced it that she'd show tonight, and so, thumbed in the drizzle, almost enjoying the depth of my ill-feeling. This guy picked me up, then tried to pick me up! I asked for his phone number, and he said he had a girlfriend. Bummer.
Feel like hell. Don't wanna do this. Want my body to heal.
Back to the pit.
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
I was a nincompoop last night and left my plastic bag of goodies, including both apartment key and contact lens case, in addition to about three bucks' worth of change, on one of the picking carts last night, and now, of course, it is gone. Some numbnuts saw the change. Two wrongs usually make at least four, so there I was back at the crackerboxes at five thirty in the morning, waking up the hungover maintenance guy to let me into the apartment. He insulted my ADD seven ways from Sunday, and left, with instructions to return his key to him later on after making copies (I just typed "cookies" for "copies": ADD to be sure. ) Then I lay down on my bloody sleeping bag to try to rest (the thing has not been washed yet), but my pulse was racing, and pretty soon, the thumping from downstairs started kicking in. It's hard to describe how I feel when this happens; it's as though my body clenches up and my brain is slowly burning, like a mine fire. Must admit, I'm a bit scared of the water buffalo on crack who lives down there with a man who is one quarter her size. Ride 'em cowbawh. I don't think I'm gonna be able to hang tonight. Can't see, can't think; although Greg has virtually declared that he'll be there at 8 in the morning Thursday to take me to my medication moderation meeting, I don't wholly trust him on that issue since the big disappear he pulled. Alcoholics tend to lie a lot. We exaggerate our accomplishments--or make them up--with a mild buzz on; later, we get our asses into trouble with agencies and people and have to divert, deny, distract, and sometimes elaborately con in order to get a little breathing room. And we do it again, only the prevarication is more elaborate. Sometimes, this is fun--conditionally. If only one has a soft place to land. Recently, I have been told some of the most outrageous STUFF by this Sophia person, and, of course, Greg. The ex Michael, who is also a no-show, had some interesting stories himself--'Nam, drugs, bikes and crime.All three of these people claim to have beaten by parents, drunken parents, as children. Nobody beat me, though: they just made me go cut my own switches, and when I sniveled about ostracision, ordered me to fight back when I didn't know how.
George is gonna kill Saddam. "Saddam" is supposed to mean "confrontational one" in his native language; hence, his preference for the use of that name. But what does "George" mean? Drunk, old maintenance man? I think the dude was pissed off this morning because he was still hungover--or still drunk--at five a.m..
I guess I need to go on back to A.A. for awhile. There, I found a few ppl I could connect with. That, and get my ass back into therapy and on meds. Simply not doing a bad behavior doesn't mean its antecedents have all gone away.
Monday, December 15, 2003
I slept long and hard, with an assist from a few (read "ten") beers to help me through some neighborly noise, and still I am damnably tired. I had plans re: my cashed paycheck--cleaning supplies among them--and nothing got done. That guy Greg, the one who first glommed onto me, then onto this Eskimo woman Sophia, subsequently disappearing for about a week, is suddenly banging on my door this afternoon. I had feared the police-like knock would belong to my ex, Michael, who claims to be hard-core 12-step, but I guess old Mike had made a promise he couldn't keep to me. He was probably off running around with some over-40 bimbage he trolled for, and found, on Yahoo. Anyway, to rein in the old ADD, Greg shows up with this wild story about how Sophia manipulated him into hiding her in his ex-wife's (long and twisted there) guesthouse AGAIN--she hadn't gone over very well the first time he did this; the ex-wife was rather pissed). Note: I forget where I am. Can't backtrack on this thing, so suffice it to say that old Sophia hauled her saggy old Inuit ass (this woman has an artificial Afro and one front tooth missing, and a pair of glasses that seem to have been rescued from the 70's, and no inhibitions whatsoever, the way weird Greg tells it)--again, I've derailed myself here, so I'll stick to the Hemingway version from this point on. So: Sophia crawled into his bed naked, where he was equally skyclad, and they f*cked each other. I knew that this would happen. I actually found the image funny. I laughed. Greg has problems that need professional intervention; he may in fact be an underdiagnosed borderline, given that he does have a childhood history of physical and emotional abuse, and confusion regarding both gender and sexuality, and the ever-present substance abuse thing. For some disturbing reason, I'm quick to forgive ppl more futzed up than I. He's an odd one, and makes no compunctions about this, although he really needs to shave his head. Got one of those monk 'dos going on, and regardless of what gender he wishes to screw, he'd have better luck if he took what is left of his hair off. Must be the woman in him, I guess. Now, the other guy I'd been going on about--the colleague, and as evidenced by his descriptions of how much he used to drink, fellow drunk--did not show up tonight. He had some money in his pocket. I warned him about the cops in this burg, how they loved to bust ppl for public intox (as opposed to the Phila police, who ignored it unless the publicly intoxicated person was peeling their clothes off in the middle of a major street, or something like that--they'd ask to drive you home. There was REAL crime in Philadelphia). He doesn't have a car either, and I'm figuring he went off on a bit of a bender, at the least. He also implied last Friday that he was seeing someone, so what happened could be anyone's guess. He might, like so many other people, just have the flu.
bush is really in for it now, and not from me.
Saturday, December 13, 2003
What is the use of being really attracted to someone if you know that you usually can't HAVE sex, and if you just happen to be able to pull it off (a little unintentional humor there), you WILL get screwed. And how is it that the chemistry YOU think you feel can be so intense, you are certain the other person feels it too? I used to, as a kid, have trouble distinguishing between pure nerves around the would-be object of my affections, and some sort of mutual attraction. The chemistry thing. However, as I grew older, and apparently more physically attractive myself, I tended to find that said chemistry was reciprocal--that is, the young man I thought cute/sexy/hot thought much the same of me, meaning that he would inevitably fuck and leave me, and when we'd run into one another in the clubs, it would be like we'd enjoyed a leisurely game of chess in Love Park. But no, Let's do it again. See, I suck at chess. Not much of a challenge there. (And why did I do this sort of thing for centuries? It was part of the punk package. People just DID stuff like that. Also, las drogas helped. And yeah, there WAS that bit about "low self-esteem".) I've since gone through spates of non-reasoned promiscuity, all of it conducted under the influence. I'd LOVE to drink beer with this one guy, see what happened. But there's this grody cyst between my arsecheeks, and pelts of wiry fur sprouting on my inner thighs. Add granny pants, and yum. Can I see you again? Please? Sex with colleagues, drunken or not, is always awkward. There will be the taut silence, the crimping of the mouth on meeting, the quietly frantic attempts to find someone to talk to, some busy task to engage in, when it becomes apparent your paths are going to cross. And if you both manage to ride it out (even if one party couldn't find it within themselves to give half a fuck), eventually the subjects of secret, yet very significant, others, and ruined friendships--yeah, RIGHTY-O--eventually arise. You, meaning I, will either become depressed and start to drink heavily and lose your, meaning my, job, or stumble happily upon a new object of affection, with whom you--I--will play out that whole high-school tawdry scene. I've been fired for this kind of shit. I just can't drag what's left of my mind up to a place where it can be useful. After so many blows to the teeth, I find that sorrows starts to taste the same.
Friday, December 12, 2003
I am my own best evidence that the feelings/thoughts/behaviors associated with borderline personality disorder can be pharmaceutically mediated. I am taking neither Prozac nor Neurontin, and the margin between baseline and "other" feeling states has become both very sharp and easy to traverse, time-wise. I can identify trigger moments for these oscillations, and I could tell someone else what is (had been) occurring, and basically, why. But I can't do much except identify these phenomena as they arise; and then, I will say to myself, You are being borderline again, and there isn't much you can do about it, save wait it out and know that it will pass, even though there may be repercussions, and even though those may register to you alone. Or not. I am setting myself to fall hard, even though no forbidden substances are involved: I do not attend to the things and ppl that I should. Instead, I flip through pages of holograms whose relevance I am not able to identify--that guy Greg, for example; the two guys at work, my ex (who wants to visit; I don't want him to right now, but don't really know how to tell him this, even though it is very possible that he doesn't really give a bat's behind). I can't even make lists right. Things flare on the screen behind my eyes, and are gone. Their traces are quickly forgotten. And, with the sleep I do get--rough, contourless, incomplete--my memory is shot full of holes. My body and brain are being rusted. I believe I have developed a plantar wart on one foot or the other. My bad knee is worse. And the cyst on my perineum has filled up again. Things like that are only *so* fascinating. Then, they are seen in terms of how much they will cost me to fix. Consider the following the next paragraph, as the format here doesn't let a writer write as they please, and entries sometimes come out more jumbled than anyone could have intended. Stream of not-quite-consciousness, indeed. I badly needed to leave a note for the landlord about the noise from downstairs. Today it began at 9:30 a.m., and continued intermittenty throughout the duration of my attempt to get some sleep. I use a sleeping bag, head to the pillow to the floor. Sound travels best through solid material, and there it was: her ceiling to my floor to my focking pillow. And even though I turned onto my back to decrease its conductivity, the thumping noise continued. Every time I *thought* I was falling off, it reupped. And there I was, on my stinking sleeping bag, trapped between personalised, brute rage, and a kind of fear of this downstairs neighbor, who resembles a rhinoceros with gorilla on the side. Yeah, she could whoop me, and I guess I'd have to let her, given the leanings of the local po-po. Seems they'll arrest you for taking your own back in this town.
Not too long ago, I was trying to think of this place as the place where most of the necessary intrapsychic repairs was to occur. AA, DBT, some other alphabet soup or other. I would be therapised to the point where I could begin to therapise my self. Now, in usual borderline fashion, I am hating it again, even though I know I would encounter similar difficulties were I to go anywhere else, even home. bbbbbbbuuuuussssssshhhhhh, come take me away.
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rant of career screw-up, social retardate and bad references walking, all grown old
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