I have, as I explained to the man who took my application for assistance with rent this a.m., been caught in an endless spin cyclefor more than a few months now. Or 'agitate'. Or tsunami, hurricane, something that my sleepless brain cannot quite fix on at this time. (Have also been taking, and now discontinuing, this medication that I begged like a dog for, Stupamax, that makes a body incredibly dull. In actuality called Topamax, the stuff has been used with success and in much larger doses to help chronic alkies get off the sauce: I imagine the mechanism of action there is to wipe the circuitry clean of the concepts 'drink', 'drunk', 'beer', and the like; also, perhaps, to cause the individuals such torpor that they simply cannot get up off the couch to go to the liquor store.)

I wanted the Stupamax for weight loss. Got that, a little, but also lost a lot in the way of memory and volition, and had at least one serious amnesiac episode. Oh, and I have been evicted from that horrid place in which I was residing more or less gratis. Dig this: it's supposed to be a non-profit here in the Lex, established for persons with chronic emotional issues (even though I was turned down my third time out for disability--judge said that my 20+ year-long slow dance with depression was most likely the result of my more or less ongoing substance abuse--whatever, dude), and with all that considered, has NO clinical director--no one on board with a shred of expertise in psych matters. My neighbor was evicted as well, for hollering at a homeless person who had successfully gained entrance to the building; the chinless fuck who works one night a week with the supersedated psychotics upstairs, and who should be pushing up weeds by now but for some reason is not, accused her of causing a 'major' disturbance, and now she, and I, who did complain with some degree of regularity about the intolerable noise of the schizophrenics thudding around up there, have eight days to find somewhere else to live.

I hated it there. The building, its associations, the neighborhood itself, with the good old terrorist-funded beer and eightball store across the street, the car stereos, the street prostitution, small-caliber gunfire every so often, that sort of thing. And I was rotting, drinking way too much--any much is too much for me, and I don't have any useful insight on why I continue(d), but I did--and doing nothing but getting fatter and older and more and more depressed.

I think that this is the first writing of any sort tht I've done in almost a month.

Was it Nietzsche who said that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger?

I disagree--that's a blatant generalisation based on the experence of one person. Here, what hasn't killed me has fucked up my defenses, ruined my best ammo, knocked out my immune system, basically worn me down.

Sometimes I really wish I'd get cirrhosis, if I don't have it already. Can't drink now, must save the last three paychecks from my temporary part-time pretend job--but the desire will remain, until that big bus with my name blinking on its forehead comes--finally comes, finally--rolling down the line.

Sorry about the tone, about going AWOL. It's just me, doing the best I can with what I've been given, with what remains.