THE WRITER MUST EAT -> patreon.com/trn1ty <-
| \ | | blah!
|\ | `\|\ | the rantings and ravings
|/ |(_|| | * of a depraved lunatic
<^>
2024-08-08
It's the wee hour of the morning, nearly 0333 in my time zone. I'm hunched over
the keyboard like an alcoholic with its only bottle of whiskey, a heroin addict
with something arbitrary like some stick or something. I've been somewhat, kind
of, unemployed - not really, as I have a job at [...] I'm starting on the
ninth, but I put my two weeks' notice in and took them and now I've no
obligations as a result of employment 'til the ninth. Something primal has
awakened in me. My roommates don't know how to use the microwave. Here's what
they do: they pop the food in, watch the turntable spin inside the little view-
port, watch the cheese melt or ramen boil or butter soften, and when it
finishes they hit STOP and take the freshly heated food out of the microwave.
We are all scared of the microwave. I never used one in Maine, [...] never used
one in [...], nor did [...] here... the [...]s did use microwaves, I believe,
but [...] uses the microwave like a fox figuring out how to get a rabbit out of
a snare, hovering around it despite setting a time, eager to get the contents.
These are the sort of things I notice, not having a job. The terrible little
details. The microwave display is always on, as there's always a remainder, a
little bit left to go before someone hit STOP. I imagine the next user would
hit START, run the time out, add another minute like when you find the parking
meter already has one or two quarters in it. 0:11 just now. I hit STOP again.
0:00. STOP one more time. Now the display is off. The little things I notice.
I've been reading Bukowski lately - Bukowski! Most dirty old men keep their
dirty old thoughts in their head, the sly tricksters - Bukowski takes his and
makes a million off the publishing, goes to the track with it and loses half of
it on a horse that had low odds in the first place. Capitalism takes the skim
off workers' creams. Then spends the rest of the money on prostitutes - a
girl's gotta eat. I get off to guro silently in the wee hours of the morning,
alone, hopefully. Bukowski attends an orgy, loudly announces his ejaculation,
shoots a hearty stream of cum into a lass he doesn't know has syphilis. Love is
a dog from hell. Yes indeed. Maybe I'll attend orgies, get syphilis in my
fifties too. Maybe I'll end up like one of the chicks he'd really dig. My ass
is nice but not Hollywood nice. I don't want syphilis though.
: so why did I get in an argument with one of my roommates?
Well, why not? There are a lot of reasons why - it is a good friend of mine,
despite everything, and I have a deep respect not only for its professional
work but for its character itself. Those are two of a million but this isn't
about the why not, now, is it?
Why? Because I was pissed, right pissed, and I could feel the frustration in my
fingertips carving needle-like cuts into the air that was how abrasive I felt.
Like a low-grade sandpaper. And I knew my speech would cut worse than my
movement did - the pen is mightier than the sword, after all - and I knew I
would say some things I would regret. And I did. And I felt like shit before,
like even shittier shit - diarrhea? is that how you spell that? - afterwards,
and in the middle I felt quite rotten too. And my roommate was probably right,
but I think in a lot of ways I was right too. But the real crux of the matter,
the real Why Then, Why There, Why In That Manner, was that I was properly
pissed.
I was pissed because, for the dozenth time, it was telling me I should get a
job other than [...]. A better-paying job with a better environment, better
people, better food safety standards... yeah, yeah. The first time, I laughed
this off. I couldn't afford to take time off work like that. Missing a
paycheck? It would have killed us. Maybe I was right. Then, later, I shot the
requests down - no, I don't want to move up. No, I don't want to find a new
job. I don't have the energy for a job hunt and a full time job. Implying a
part time job would do it for me. And I believed it would have. A nod. Dude,
/you/ get a job. It was trying. And trying for high roles, the upper eschelons
of employment - five, six figure salaries. It was qualified. It had one for a
bit. It was living at its parents, got a good job, brought a partner over, got
an apartment - that was the context for my coming here, being able to come
here. Rich friends put me up in their living room. Except the contract wasn't
renewed, my burger job kept us afloat but started to weigh me down enough to go
under. It was working, off and on but mostly off, a shit burger job like mine,
elsewhere, helping pay the bills while managing to find it in itself to spend
something like six hours a day on LinkedIn and Indeed and god knows what else
hunting for a way to better its position while watching me, a beginner-level
cook, quite talented at my own job, doing nothing to better my status, sinking
into a sorry mental state. Have you ever seen a friend die? Slowly, not fast
from a gunshot wound but from a thousand papercuts - bad job, bad friends, bad
drugs, bad account balance, bad overdraws, bad bad bad. I had the job and a
fiend on my back that usually was the cause of all these things; bad mental
health. And it was clutching me like a non-swimmer deathgrips a lifeguard. And
it was watching me go under again and again, coming back up for air only to
sink deep into a black sea - drowning. And it knew if it stopped swimming,
stopped looking for a way to get us out of this situation, it would drown too.
But I didn't think about any of this. At the moment it told me, again, that I
should start looking for a new job, all I thought about was the fact that I was
paying all its bills, had been paying all its bills, for a while. Something
like eight or nine months but I probably said ten. And who was I to get the
burden of paying for an expensive apartment, meant for two people making decent
wages? A burger worker making one person's shit wage? Formerly homeless,
bitterly so - still living out of a backpack in my roommate's living room, in
an apartment I was paying for, while it got to sleep in the side room all to
itself and its partner? We were living paycheck to paycheck and had been for a
good while - my paycheck. None of which I got to see myself anymore.
"Says the unemployed one?"
My inkling of a plan, the little plan I had, was to wait until enough people
here had jobs that I could go part time at [...]. Then, a proper job hunt. Take
some time off, do some writing, get a high paying job, have income, dump
savings into finding a bigger place for the [...] of us, meanwhile having the
disposable income to go out, do stuff. This all hinged on someone else getting
a job. I and one other had jobs, the roommate did not, the others weren't
likely to be able to find jobs soon. So while I had a burden, I assigned in my
own head a burden upon it that it didn't know about.
And then it started saying god knows what while I lay on the futon reading an
article on my phone and when I tuned back in it was talking about how it wasn't
quite sunshine and roses to have someone occupying the living room 24/7. And I
was blinded by my last paycheck having gone, as did all the past ones from my
at the time current employer, to the apartment, and to food, and to bills. It
was mad about me occupying the apartment I was paying for?
"So, what, do you want me to move out?"
Meanwhile, before I had arrived in [...], the living room was mostly its. It
could go to its office, work, need a change of scenery, go to the living room,
work. Luxury, maybe. But the common area was now de facto the Trinity area.
Then [...] started saying something, and [...] piggybacked off that, and my
brain started shorting as the broken neural pathways formed when yelled at by
my parents fired and fucked with the rest of the system, and I kernel panicked
and rolled over and started crying. Blah blah blah. Of course, there was a
little more to it than that, but I had worked a nine hour shift that day and
had to go in early the next day and really? The only thing I was focused on was
work, despite being at home. Work and the idea of being able to not work so
much.
I think my job interview for [...], the first job I had in [...], happened
2023-10-30. I might have had a shift or two, nominally an orientation (that I
had given myself many times), before 2023-11-05. Then 2023-11-09 I started on a
somewhat regular schedule. And then I worked (counting all the shifts marked on
the calendar)...
2023-11 6*5 + 7*2 + 8*8 + 9 + 11
= 30 + 14 + 64 + 9 + 11
= 128hrs
2023-12 4 + 6*10 + 7 + 7.5 + 8*5 + 8.5 + 9 + 10*2 + 12
= 4 + 60 + 7 + 7.5 + 40 + 8.5 + 9 + 20 + 12
= 168hrs
2024-01 4 + 5*3 + 6*9 + 7 + 8*6 + 9
= 4 + 15 + 72 + 7 + 48 + 9
= 155hrs
2024-02 5*6 + 6*15 + 7 + 8*4 + 8.5 + 9
= 30 + 90 + 7 + 32 + 8.5 + 9
= 175.5hrs
2024-03 5*5 + 6*5 + 7 + 8 + 8.5 + 9*6
= 25 + 30 + 7 + 8 + 8.5 + 54
= 112.5hrs
2024-04 5*2 + 6*3 + 7*2 + 8*5 + 9*6 + 9.5
= 10 + 18 + 14 + 40 + 54 + 9.5
= 145.5hrs
2024-05 6*5 + 7*4 + 8.5 + 9*10
= 30 + 28 + 8.5 + 90
= 156.5hrs
2024-06 2*2 + 6*3 + 7*4 + 8.5*5 + 9*7
= 4 + 18 + 28 + 42.5 + 63
= 155.5hrs
2024-07 2 + 5.5 + 6*4 + 7 + 8.5*4 + 9*9
= 2 + 5.5 + 24 + 7 + 34 + 81
= 153.5hrs
total = 1350hrs
This includes [...], a second job I worked in January and February to help pay
the bills. Nine months. That number is very abstract to me, an alien concept.
A single digit. But now listing the months, the hours. Ho boy. That wasn't
sunshine and roses.
I think it was right that I was a lousy roommate - a godawful one in fact. I
got home from work exhausted every day, often went to sleep right out of work,
was irritated and unfocused and very often high. I don't think I would have
survived without this stupor though. And I don't think finding a better job
would have worked, at least not until recently. But then my informed logic
turned to a schizophrenic delusion and well after it was necessary I responded
like a hurt animal to the suggestion that I get a new job. And, well, it turned
out poorly.
Another reason I was pissed is it kept talking about its apartment.
When I got to [...] I didn't have a mailing address which complicated my
getting a job. I used the address of this apartment but knew come tax season,
one or two months away, I needed a valid address. The lease of this apartment
said the only ones who could receive mail here were the ones on the lease, and
I wasn't on it. Not only was my using a false address dangerous for me but, if
the apartment landlords knew I was staying here, it could have potentially
meant eviction for [...] and [...]. It was paramount that I find some way to
receive mail legitimately.
I went to the post office to try to get a P.O. Box but I needed existing proof
of address - which they would verify. Fuck. [...] said it would ask its parents
if I could use their address but didn't and I felt too self conscious to ask it
to do so. I called multiple homeless resources looking for someone, anyone, who
could just receive my mail and let me pick it up. Nothing. My last option was
this homeless shelter way downtown in the city so after work I walked an hour
and a half over. By the time I arrived night had fallen and two hobos outside
were gathered around a barrel fire trying to keep themselves warm. A bad sign.
The place looked like a prison, with barbed wire and giant iron gates keeping
everyone inside. I buzzed in and waited in a room with armed guards discussing
the worst crackheads they had seen that day, laughing about them. They started
talking about this thing called Kratom which they called gas station heroin. I
scrolled reviews while waiting to be called for intake and found multiple
accounts of queer guests being abused there; trans people misgendered
regularly, everyone called slurs. Whatever. I just had to pass and go through
intake and maybe I would get an address. In intake it was clear I would have to
boymode. Alright whatever. Then I asked if I could use the place as a mailing
address. I would have to sleep there, probably once a week, in order to be able
to use the facilities. Fucking useless. I was not sleeping there.
[...] and [...] picked me up. "Why did you go in? This place looks like a
prison. The reviews say they abuse queer folk. This was fucking dangerous."
No shit.
Later my at the time girlfriend heard about my going to the shelter and, I
heard from someone else, was angry at me for taking a risk like that. I had
taken a lot of risks by then, and a lot of them had come at once due to being
homeless and, honestly, suicidal. It broke up with me because it didn't want to
hear its girlfriend was found in some ditch somewhere. I understood.
So eventually my roommate talked to its parents and I was able to use their
mailing address. I got my W-2 and proof of address, then eventually a bank
account and the other fixings of a real United States citizen. And I was not on
the lease. It had had Its apartment for about four to six months at that point.
After five months of paying for this apartment, or something like that, plans
shifted and sputtered and realigned and it was decided:
[...] would leave with [...] to go to [...] and get an apartment.
I and [...] would be joined by [...], and continue to live here.
[...] arrived. [...] arrived. For a short time, there were five. Then [...] and
[...] left for [...]'s parents, as they decided five was too many for an
apartment of this size. I started to move into the side room, now to be my
room, formerly the office. I planned to get furniture, posters. The apartment
would be [...]'s, [...]'s, mine, jointly. I would get on the lease and start
using this apartment as my mailing address. I haven't received mail where I've
lived since 2023-04, have never been on a lease. I was really excited.
The plans fell through. For reasons that were very fair, [...]'s parents didn't
work out. [...] and [...] came back and I let them take the office as they were
two and I was one; it didn't make a damn bit of sense to make them take the
living room. I moved my backpack, not yet unpacked, back to the living room. It
was nice to have [...] and [...] around again - they're good friends of mine.
I was kind of bummed to not have a room though. At least I would be on the
lease.
Plans shifted, sputtered, started. I would not be on the lease. It would be the
four of them, the rest of them, as I already had an external mailing address.
The five of us would live together until we found a house, at which point we
would all be on the lease. And though we were five, though I had paid for the
apartment longer than it had, the apartment was once again [...]'s, and I was
once again in the living room.
The way it saw it, I had made a great many choices to get here. I had
volunteered to come to [...] to help my friends out with rent, stayed and
continued to do so, was fine with [...] and [...] coming back and using the
room I was gonna get, and was just the grouch in the living room. The way I saw
it, I would come home from long shifts exhausted, agree to whatever I had to in
order to get back to sleep, wait for the sun to come and go back to work. I had
a lot of choices and did make them - but I don't know if I would agree that I
was given time to think them over, or that they really were choices at all, to
be honest. If I didn't come here I would have died in a Maine winter. Instead I
suffered in a [...] winter, then in the spring, then in the summer, to try to
make sure my friends - who are damn near my only friends - had a safe place to
live. Then I got back from work and was irritated at [...] for all of this and
telling me I should get a job I didn't hate now that I could and I decided if
it didn't want the golden goose in the living room honking occasionally but
paying its rent for Its Apartment, I would head out. But I didn't have anywhere
out to head. Back to homelessness? To a cage, or to a cold street, or to a car
in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere? That's why I resolved to kill
myself and why I ended up going on an acid trip instead. And I don't really
feel so bad about it all anymore.
My parents weren't that great to me in ways that were way less great than any
of my friends' parents. I left once I hit 18 with a bunch of boxes filled with
random shit I grabbed from my, at that point, basically trashed room that had
gotten five years' worth of messy from the five years' worth of depression I'd
spend there at the tail end of eighteen years' worth of constantly being yelled
at and severely grounded over minor faults (for example, a year and a half over
holding a spoon wrong). In a lot of ways I have matured since then, in a lot of
ways I am stunted in ways that alienate me from my peers - lack of
socialization and being used to neglect and abuse are a potent combo. I know my
upbringing and what I did to get out of it - I got a job, paid peanuts to rent
a room at a friend's house, cut off contact with my parents entirely, barely
scraped by and ate candy for supper most nights. I know the roommate with which
I argued had, if anything, a harder time - every step of the way. Given the
cards it had I probably would have folded. It's easy for a bird to change
countries. But this fish made it out of a fishbowl. What the fuck does a fish
do to get out of a bad fishbowl? It can't swim out of there. It has to jump.
There are a million things that could go wrong. Hit the floor, die. Hit the
wrong water (too salty or not salty enough), die. Hit water that's too hot or
too cold, go into shock, probably die. I've spent my life going everywhere I
damn well please, partially because I had the right connections and a streak of
being in the right place at the right time. What the fuck would I have done if
I didn't have that?
It got a good job, got a good apartment, made it to another fishbowl. If this
was my second fishbowl I would lay claim too. Its good job was shit for it, but
it got out of the fishbowl. It gave a lot to do so. For the longest time I was
pissed at [...] more than anyone else because we're in its home turf, near its
parents. Everyone else came from places around the country. It was the one, I
thought, that didn't ante up. I didn't really figure the price it already paid,
the rounds before I sat at the table.
My behavior was a result of overwork, overstress, lack of pay, preexisting
mental health conditions. Its behavior was a result of overwork, overstress,
lack of pay, preexisting mental health conditions, and me. I think that's where
the difference lies. That's why I'm not so bothered by it anymore. I've
apologized, it forgave me, I'm still a bit ashamed. Life goes on regardless. At
some point, still, I'm moving. I'm working on saving and getting my driver's
license. [...] and [...] think they would prefer to not live with me, at least
for a bit, which is how I took it, though they said something about
"considering the history" or whatever to leave it ambiguous. I've given my
phone number to a lot of people without getting a call back and I think I can
tell by now when I'm not gonna be getting a ring. At least I'll be able to know
somewhere in [...] the people I loved are living together and have a good shot
at good lives.
I'm not sure where I'm moving just yet. [...], or maybe this state. I gotta get
a license first. I've been procrastinating studying, but only because it's
really boring.
I hope I did a decent job of explaining the argument and the context around the
argument. [...] is still my friend and a close one. This isn't a grudge I bear.
A part of the intent of my writing this was to explain also the context around
my blah posts of the last ten months.
It's 0600 now.
And now 2100, a sleep, a day, and two four six shots since. I'm adding a note
here: One Step Beyond, by Madness, rocks.
I am considerably drunk so now is a good time to write. About what, though, I
don't know. I just hit my Escape key probably fifty times trying to Escape from
INSERT mode only to realize I was in NORMAL mode after the first hit. God, I
love vi(1).
[...]: you should write about Moxie. You should write about drinking Moxie
after an amazing run of drunk sex. Have you ever had drunk sex?
I've not quite had drunk sex, except one time after playing strip poker, though
we were both somewhat sober by the end of it.
[...]: You and [...]?
Yeah.
[...]: You should write about on-line friends. The experience of having on-line
friends.
Alright, I'll write about on-line friends. What is there to write about? I'm
living with most of them. On-line friends... now off-line friends. Meatspace.
Of all my on-line friends I've fucked a couple, some way or another. I feel
like Bukowski. I love sex, though. It's fun. It's a connection. Maybe I should
write about sex.
So how do I feel about sex? I've had sex a lot more times than I've cum during
sex. Sex hurts in a good way, the biting. Sex is a jumbled frenzy, a soft free-
for-all, a terrible blue whale in the ocean to admire from afar and hunt
forever. Sex is a smooth churning waterfall, a soft boiled egg. Sex is a
poached egg. It feels so good, so so good, amazing, fatty and protein and sweet
and amazing and then it ends and it was just an egg. How the hell did an egg
feel so good? Because it was sex, dumbass.
[...]: xenofem.me users cannot convince anyone that they've actually had sex.
That's true.
I stare at everyone's asses. My enemies, my friends, my lovers, my
acquaintances. Just looking! I like looking at asses. I've never had
penetrative sex, no matter me or someone else doing the penetrating. Surely
someone is pentrating somewhere. What am I talking about? I am drunk.
flags decorate the walls
some of which i am
some of which i am not
the calendar decorates the wall
i'm on it
my work is on it
i'm married to my work
my bitch wife
i beat her
i come into her,
i treat her like shit,
i smoke, i drink,
i fuck her,
i eat too much ice cream
i fucking hated my job
i left her
she's gone
i think about her
how my fingers worked
slowly dissecting her
my work carving into her,
chopping her up
i get paid
prostitution
what does it matter
we all have to eat
[...]: Holy bingle.
<^>
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