THE WRITER MUST EAT -> patreon.com/trn1ty <- blah! ideas with no tangibility; ideas with irrelevant supports; ideas without value; ideas' witlessness; ideas' witnesses; ideas- <^> 2023-10-04 2023-09-28 I woke up a little after midnight at my workplace to my coworkers finishing close. I put my backpack on and scooted out and down the hill to find the old lookout point one of my former roommates had mentioned once. The path was blocked by three boulders placed so as to prevent automobile through-traffic. I walked by them and up the hill through the path. The streetlight faded behind me and soon I was alone among the dark silence save for the chatter of the crickets and varied twig-snapping of unseen nocturnal creatures, the friends of Nowhere, Maine. I came to a pile of strewn trash among, if it had been warmer, which would have been flies I suppose and bits of nastiness that are begotten by nastiness. Hoping this was the only bit decrepid in this desolation I walked further. It was cold and I was tired so when I saw the needles and blood I made no reaction even after my slow realization of what had happened there. It was not a place of honor, there was nothing to be had or found there, and had I known better I would have fled immediately to avoid the fate that had befallen what was left of whomever that had found ruin among the brush and uncaring wilderness. This was the fate of the addict when they find an apathetic owner of a chainsaw and these were the pieces that, should I chose to indulge in mainlined drugs, will compose myself as well. Dogs or cats or foxes or wolves had got to what was left but what had happened was apparent. The baby stroller and diapers and formula pouches told the rest of the story. I stood for a while comprehending this mess, processing without being able to process. Nor it being safe to do so. My grandmother has no sympathy for addicts though even she wishes they'd get better and supports the free dispersal of naloxone for those that need it. She doesn't see why an addict should redose rather than purchase warmth or water, not to mention inhabit a crack shack rather than find work and hearth and life. She's smart. She's never looked down drunkenly at an empty bottle or experienced lethargic purple haze and stupefied daze that accompanies the shortening of a rolled joint. She's never craved a cigarette like I have. She couldn't imagine it. She couldn't imagine my knowing the feeling. She can't answer my questions for her - how sober lukewarm shelter could compare to pure happiness coursing through a vein, or how hydration could compare to not needing to care about any need, physical or emotional. Perhaps money can't buy one love, but there are things a person enjoys more. At least at first. I've been through the downward spiral slipping from shelter to smaller shelter like a sieve, looking only for acceptance and a place to sleep and finding scarce the former and only more expensive the latter while my pay doesn't increase nearly as quickly as the cost to live. One shot would kill me years later after hundreds more, perhaps not as directly the first as the last, but the first would be my death all the same. I know this. The sound ice makes when it hits water and feels the sharp difference in temperature accompanied by the whoosh of butane and naked laugh of the crazed fiend hungry for more pleasure, more solace, a hoard of catharsis never to be experienced, only kept like a rat keeps food for winter, and the drawing in of the needle and the flick and snap of the glass and rubber band and push of it in and the mind out and let the reason bleed out of you in transparent drool and snot and let the eyes droop and heart swell with unearned passion. As much as it would be my comfort then it is my recurring nightmare now. And it's not inevitable, because I will make it out of this hell before it chains me and loses the key. Hyperlinks relating to moulage https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/narrenturm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moulage https://www.unmc.edu/newsroom/2014/01/07/unmc-history-101-medicine-in-wax/ https://blog.unmc.edu/2013/09/04 /dan-brick-lays-the-foundation-for-realistic-simulation/ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd /The_Dead_Pearl_Diver_by_Benjamin_Paul_Akers_2.jpg https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/ulysses-s-grant-statue Hyperlinks relating to CrowPi2 programming https://github.com/WiringPi/WiringPi http://wiringpi.com/examples/blink/ https://github.com/Elecrow-RD/CrowPi2/tree/main/known_issues https://github.com/Elecrow-RD/CrowPi/blob/master/Examples/segment.py https://www.adafruit.com/product/877#description https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_LED_Backpack https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/ht16K33v110.pdf http://wiringpi.com/reference/i2c-library/ [Xlib](https://www.x.org/releases/X11R7.7/doc/libX11/libX11/libX11.html) <^> No rights reserved, all rights exercised, rights turned to lefts, left in this corner of the web.