THE WRITER MUST EAT -> patreon.com/trn1ty <- blah! ideas with no tangibility; ideas with irrelevant supports; ideas without value; ideas' witlessness; ideas' witnesses; ideas- <^> 2023-12-31 I switched to the Helix text editor. I can't figure out syntax highlighting but everything else works so well it doesn't really matter to me. Emma gave me an Acer Aspire One to loan indefinitely. It's really nice. I'm running Alpine x86 right now and can't figure out how to get XOrg or Sway working. It also uses a hard drive rather than solid state storage. I'm gonna have to change that. I don't know what its power draw is. Probably a little more than the Raspberry Pi, but I'm happy to be out of the hell that is Raspberry Pi Linux distributions. More Rust stuff compiles on x86 than on arm64. This is the best life has ever gone for me. It's not perfect but it is really pretty good. I've been less down lately too. I think when I live alone I'm gonna go nocturnal and get a night job. I just don't know what night jobs exist. Maybe I could find some way to work from home. Home. I'm gonna have one. It looks like I could be a night stocker at a grocery store. Hm. I'm really optimistic for the future. Looking back on this year is trippy. Maine feels like a bad dream. I can barely remember 2022 so I probably won't do one for it. : the story so far (2023) Season 2: maladjustment January Episode 01: "breaking bad" Trinity arrives from New York tired and near broke and starts looking for ways to quickly make back its savings. It attends a party hosted by one of its friends. February Episode 02: "speak" The ongoing stress from arranging its get-rich-quick scheme causes Trinity to start making people bark for it. Episode 03: "the eye of the needle" Trinity starts talking with someone new. [...] and [...] start looking for an apartment. Episode 04: "of an age" Trinity tries marijuana for the first time. Trinity goes axe throwing with someone from the party and the meetup goes longer than planned. Episode 05: "mary jane" Trinity realizes it's gonna need to move out of [...]'s and the consequences of its get-rich-quick plan. Trinity starts smoking weed habitually. March Episode 06: "phone baseball" Trinity's marijuana habit gets cozy with her mental illness. Trinity goes vegan and starts writing a book. April Episode 07: "isolation" Trinity builds a new computer and moves in with [...] and [...] to help pay the rent. Episode 08: "trigger discipline" Trinity discovers a dangerous new line of work. Episode 09: "the void stares back" M-- moves in with the party host from episode 1. Trinity starts smoking and learns its wisdom teeth are growing in. [...] is fired. May Episode 10: "tablet baseball" M-- and Trinity find a fun new way to destroy evidence of Trinity's propaganda studies. M-- overworks herself to pay rent and starts sleeping over at [...] and [...]'s. June Episode 11: "i got my tooth removed" Trinity gets her wisdom teeth out and M-- pays Trinity back for her computer. M-- and Trinity go to [...]'s. Episode 12: "fuck teeth" The drugs wear off and Trinity struggles to figure out how to treat its wisdom teeth sockets, gets a dry socket, and is wracked with terrible pain. M-- goes on a date. Episode 13: "a hunger artist" Trinity goes back to work before recovering from its wisdom teeth surgery and struggles to find anything it can eat. M-- finds things of theirs missing and suspects [...] is to blame. Episode 15: "make it double" M-- continues to overwork themself and go on dates with [...]. Trinity goes to the train tracks to think, gets a second dry socket, and realizes its wisdom teeth aren't healing. More of M--'s things go missing. Episode 16: "portland" M-- and Trinity go to the Pride festival in Portland, meet some of M--'s old friends, and realize they're stranded in Portland. M-- gets a skateboard. Episode 17: "see you tomorrow" M-- goes to [...]'s and, overwhelmed by the situation in Lewiston, stays there a while. Trinity starts talking with an old flame and gets a scooter. July Episode 18: "seven" Trinity realizes M-- isn't coming back and entertains leaving Maine before having an epiphany at work and walking out. Episode 19: "deadly" Trinity keeps applying to new jobs but realizes it can't get a job in the timeframe it needs. It turns to temp labor. Meanwhile, M-- tries to leave [...]'s. Episode 20: "sins" Trinity finds a new, higher-paying job, with added risk, and buys Greyhound tickets out of Maine. It starts talking with another new person and has apprehensions about its work. August Episode 21: "sean and josh" Trinity gets used to its job and starts downsizing, including giving away its television collection. [...] and [...] start fighting about their division of labor. Episode 22: "one last time" Trinity meets Usagi again before it leaves for Florida. M-- comes back to Lewiston. Episode 23: "the bus out" Trinity nearly misses the bus to Florida. It spends a couple days on Greyhounds and finally arrives in Orlando. Episode 24: "the best week ever" Trinity stays at its girlfriends'. Episode 25: "stranded" Trinity misses the bus back from Florida. September Episode 26: "fast forward" Trinity narrowly makes it out of Florida before a tropical storm hits. It goes back to Maine to pay off some debts. Episode 27: "reunited" Trinity meets M-- in Lewiston and begs for its fast food job back, but gets hired on different terms. Episode 28: "decay" Trinity goes back to [...] and [...]'s but finds them in a domestic spat and the apartment falling apart even worse than before. Episode 29: "the first time the third time" Trinity goes back to its usual job in a less usual place. [...] and [...] get evicted. Episode 30: "negotiations" [...] and [...]'s landlord starts to threaten them for money. A familiar coworker joins her new workplace. Episode 31: "toni" Trinity struggles to find a place to sleep. M-- breaks down. Episode 32: "riverbanks" Trinity makes improvements to Toni but struggles to stay cool, meets a guy at work with an abusive girlfriend, and meets up with its high school crush. Episode 33: "no helmet" Trinity takes increasing risks and puts in its two week notice. Toni leaks in the rain. October Episode 34: "the postal service" Trinity mails packages out from Maine and receives equipment for the move. [...]'s girlfriend gets worse. [...] stops returning Trinity's calls. Episode 35: "live fast, die young" Trinity relapses back into smoking. [...] and [...]'s car rusts out on the highway. Episode 36: "ramona flowers" [...] breaks up with his girlfriend. [...] starts to get angry at Trinity. [...] finds Toni's location. It starts to get colder. Episode 37: "the great escape" Trinity angers [...] to the point of his walking out and comes clean to [...]. [...] visits Toni. Trinity boards the Greyhound to Illinois. Episode 38: "transit" After some days on a Greyhound Trinity finally arrives in Lincoln, Illinois. Episode 39: "carnality" Trinity can't find food in Lincoln. [...] takes Trinity on a date. Episode 40: "springs before winter" Trinity finally makes it to a new place, meets its idols, gets a library card, realizes it needs an address, and starts attending Sangha. November Episode 41: "number four" Trinity takes a familiar job in an unfamiliar place. [...] takes a similar job. M-- struggles to find work in Maine. Episode 42: "safe and sound" Trinity struggles to adjust to comfort. Episode 43: "in this economy" Trinity, [...], and [...] struggle to pay rent. [...] and Trinity meet a presenter after a talk at the library. December Episode 44: "what goes around" Trinity starts to overwork herself to afford rent. M--, with a new job and in a new place, starts to get antsy. Episode 45: "comes back around" Trinity starts to break down and limits its caffeine intake, realizes it'll be able to afford to live alone and starts getting its paperwork in order, and sprains its foot : the monster logs 2023-12-16. This bus route is usually free. They lack the usual buses and so use smaller buses that can't accomodate bicycles. But today it's seven quarters and I believe this will persist. So I've paid my dollar and seventy five cents. I'm going to work, but first Wallgreens (is that possessive? Wallgreen's? Wallgreens'?). I haven't decided which Monster I'm gonna start with. I'm not big on planning. Best to see what the future holds. This driver is taking his time counting something out at his seat. I'm not big on being late. I won't be, because I make sure to take the bus to work on a route where, if I miss it, I can take the next bus and won't be late for work. But I don't like being later to things than I plan. Best to be able to see what the future holds. This bus is dirty, not in an unpleasant way but literally covered in dirt that has been brought up on the exterior by splashing slush left over from snow. It's unseasonably warm out and I'm still wearing my usual winter layers. I planned poorly. I can't see out of the bus windows so I'm forced to look at the front windshield to have my bearings. I don't like to do so in case the driver thinks I'm looking at them and feels prompted to talk. I'm not big on talking. I'm a little hungry, not sure why. I ate at the apartment, a peanut butter sandwich and some oatmilk. Protein. I'm a little tired and I do know why, I slept enough last night but not late enough, today's gonna be a long day. 1400-2230. Eight and a half hours, boo hoo, but the part I dislike is working with the night crew. Night crew is dirty in an unpleasant way. Their lazy approach to food safety is disconcerting and their idea of fun is watching puppies decapitated on Facebook while standing around until forced to actually labor. I'm not particularly disturbed by cruelty but am by the work ethic and the slack which I'm forced to pick up. I've been managing my will to death in healthier ways lately but working with night crew, even the thought, makes me want to taste the handle of a machete. I only took one caffeine pill today, 200mg, knowing I'd supplement it with a Monster. The bus is nearly to my stop. I'm here at work before work. My tray is dirty with old salt and oil because nobody here knows how to do a damn dish. I got Khaotic at Wallgreens, confirmed to have no apostrophe. It opened with a crisp snap and I'm holding it in my mouth. It tastes a bit like fruit punch, better than fruit punch, some amount of citrus to it. Another sip. Pineapple? Time to read the label. Blah blah blah no flavor description. Ingredients. Battery acid, horse piss, orange, peach, tangerine, pineapple, grape, chemicals to kill and sugars to addict. Plus caffeine, another 160mg for the liver to chew on. Lunchtime. Shitty fries, less shitty onion rings. Ketchup because I want to feel like a child again. Unrealistic, I have friends. There are people who don't work here, who pay for this. Why? There are no onions in the onion rings, just an onion flavored paste. Their usual sauce for onion rings, some type of horseradish, has cow milk so I can't eat it. Dropped a ketchup laiden fry, now there's sauce on my pants. Fucking hell. Nobody here can make a sandwich to save their life. I asked for heavy mustard. I wonder where it is. Probably a glob in the center. Or in a bucket teetering on a door so it can fall on me like an office prank. I wish I worked in an office. This sandwich is okay. Probably the sugar content is what makes it bearable. And salt. I wonder if anyone who made this sandwich washed their hands or even changed their gloves between handling raw meet and my lettuce. The Monster is the best part of this meal by far. It doesn't take much. I'm accompanied by Gorillaz' album The Now Now and awful Christmas music playing over the speaker here. All hail consumerism. This Monster was something like $3.50. The price makes me sick and so does this food. I wish I wasn't here. The Monster has a sweet citrus tang. It's nice. Fuck you. 3 stars out of 5. 2023-12-17. The days go by so fast. Bloom by Radiohead off King of Limbs. I don't know if I can justify $20/week on Monster. Whatever. Bus stop. I have a metro card now. I couldn't figure out how to use it so I used quarters. Bus now. This is a good song. Today's 1100-2100. Now's 0955. I'm sitting between two seats like an asshole but there's nobody else on this bus so an asshole I can be. I'm halfway through reading Kafka's In the Penal Colony. I've now finished it. I want to fuck Franz Kafka so much it's unreal. I just realized the bus announcement mispronounces one of the street names it passes, French but pronounced as if English. The bus is clean today. It's now my stop. Now I'm at work. I got the Monster at a Kum and Go but didn't take care to note the price. Rehab: Wild Berry Tea. I've not had this one before that I can remember. But first a large hash brown. I don't feel much of anything about it. This snap of the can is less crisp. This is good stuff. I think I taste raspberry. Strawberry? The tea for sure. Description label: none! Just some infographical blurbs about vitamins, coconut water, electrolytes. Ingredients. Tea, apple juice, ginseng, coconut water, acai, "natural flavors". I definitely taste the ginseng and the apple, and the sweet aftertaste from the coconut. They're playing Christmas music, shitty as always. This isn't carbonated and it's nice and smooth, easily chuggable if so desired. I don't really desire anything right now. This Monster sates my thirst nicely. 9 stars out of 10. 2023-12-18. My stomach hurts. I'm sitting in the apartment in my jacket but without my boots. United in Grief, Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, Kendrick Lamar. Estrogen held under my tongue. Time to get going. I bought a ticket in the app for the bus in case the metro card didn't work. The bus is free. There's no way to tell whether or not the bus will go to a stop that's closer to me instead of this stop down the street, today it is. My boots are cracked. Lasted a month longer than the last pair of Docs I had but four months is dogshit for a pair of boots, especially leather. A cow died for my feet to be really comfortable for four months. I wonder if this issue is specific to the service worker model 1460s because I don't see it on-line and people who frequent Doc Martens on-line communities aren't the type to be employed. I don't really want a Monster today but I'm gonna get one to try anyway. The caffeine will help my energy. I've had my hash brown, time to have Monster Ultra Strawberry Dreams, a mouthful but at least descriptive regarding the flavor. The can is hard to open, I had to use a key as a lever. Purchased at Kum and Go for like $3.25. First sip. It tastes like Ultra Zero, which I haven't tried as part of this review series but with which I'm familiar as my least favorite Monster flavor. Another sip. I don't really taste much strawberry. Maybe an aftertaste. Description label. Stuff about strawberries being aphrodisiacs or whatever. Awesome, I'm gonna fall in love with tiredness and overwork. Ingredients. Citric acid, natural flavors, ginseng. Fucking mild natural flavors I guess. It's bullshit that the FDA lets corporations get away with listing "natural flavors" like that means anything. I guess if I drink a lot of it the strawberry is more apparent but it's still not super noticeable. I would prefer this to Ultra Zero the same way I would prefer a knife in the shoulder to the kidney. I took my earbud out to have a conversation on the bus but my usual coitus with my secret admirer silence is interrupted by the most ear shattering, tone deaf Christmas music this restaurant can muster. Today's gonna be a bad day and this Monster contributed, somewhat. 3 stars out of 9. 2023-12-19. The can opened crisply and easily. $3.31. I'm interrupted only by paying patrons and Christmas music. The label. Nothing of significance, as expected. A sip. It tastes bad. Not as bad as I remembered but still unpleasant. A couple more. The level of indistinctness of the flavor comes close to the disdain I have for it. Ingredients. Citric acid, chemicals, "natural and artificial flavors", chemicals. What are artificial flavors, even? Monosodium glutamate for umami, citric acid for sour, sugar for sweet. Two other flavors I can't recall. Savory this is not, nor sour. Nor bitter, now that I remember it. Only sickeningly sweet, not with sugar but with molecules derived from it. Maybe there's lemon in the taste but I know it's just the citric acid. This is Monster Zero Ultra, the subject of my loathing when it comes to Monster flavors. I love the can design and love to drink it because it's a fashionable accessory. This potion brings out not only my despite but also my vanity. Boomer Monster memes feature it and I've had this while mowing lawns and doing general unpaid but useful labor. Today is the day I will tolerate this Monster enough to at least score it though give it a just review I cannot because I am biased by years of trying to tolerate its overwhelming fructose taste. I don't like this. 2 stars out of 10. 2023-12-20. $3.31 at Kum and Go again. When I was a kid I had four a day, now I don't know how I could even afford that. The hash browns are greasier than usual. I hold them up to the light and see the yellow oil glisten in the white sun. The potato on the inside looks like albino maggots, little curds of shredded spudd injected into the cheapest flour-like that could be found by some company based in Orlando. My girlfriend lives in Orlando and it said one of its favorites is Aussie Lemonade so I picked this up. As far as I know this flavor is new, I remember seeing it for the first time in a gas station in the middle of nowhere in the deep North where the attendant listened to country music and had a deep Southern accent. Finished the festering potatoes. The can was hard to open, dug into my fingertip. This is really good. Carbonated which I didn't expect, lightly so and pleasantly. I taste the lemon, maybe some lime too? A look at the description. Tartness - the fifth flavor - and sweetness. Ingredients. Lemon juice. Shocking. This is really good lemonade, really good as lemonade and not just as Monster. I'm worried this whole review thing is a waste of money. "Death by a thousand papercuts". Rent has been budgeted and utilities shouldn't be bad. Still, I worry, and Monster makes it worse. The caffeine doesn't affect me anymore. What's the point? This Monster makes me less drear but my doubts worsen. I don't know what effect this has on me. My head swims with the weight of the world. Stress tightening around my encephalus. I don't want to work today, but I will. I don't like this job but I am tied to it for the foreseeable future. Ruby Falls by Guster off Ganging Up on the Sun tries to help and doesn't. I'm tired and never sleep enough. Time slips through my fingers like sand through a sieve. My stomach hurts, in part from unease and in part from sugar. 10 stars out of 11. <^> No rights reserved, all rights exercised, rights turned to lefts, left in this corner of the web.