Janice called me tonight to thank me for her new to her computer. She said she was astounded at how fast the computer was.
“I’ve always had to wait on my computers,” she said to me. “Now my computer waits on me.”
She offered to pay me, but I would have none of that. Charlie has done countless similar things for me over the years.
I couldn’t sleep last night after sleeping for about four hours. I was wide awake at midnight. I had two Klonopin to take which usually make me sleepy as they are very sedating, but I knew to save them for the next afternoon – ever mindful of that anxiety that always hits the most late in the day. I got online and applied for countless fast food jobs just for the hell of it – interested in if I would get some calls. I also applied for a job opening as a grocery clerk at Kroger -- putting feelers out there. The assessment tests on these online applications were interesting in what they would ask – only a moron would answer incorrectly the questions were so obvious in their solutions.
I wandered down to the convenience store well after midnight. The clerk was leaned against the counter looking bored. Only one other customer was there pumping gas in the parking lot. He smiled as I walked in saying good morning. A stereotypical country music song about love lost was playing on the radio sitting on the counter. I stepped back to the beer cooler to pull out a .99 cent 16oz Steel Reserve – my favored beer these days for it’s high alcohol content.
“Slow night?” I asked the clerk as I stepped up to pay and show my ID.
“It’s nice,” he said with a another big smile as he rang me up.
The police were out in force last night being the weekend. I am sure being ever mindful of weekend revelers and drunk drivers. I walked up through the extremely poor neighborhood beyond the convenience store. I passed a house where a man and woman were arguing loudly and violently – no doubt fueled by alcohol on a Friday night/Saturday morning. The lady stormed out onto the porch screaming at the man that she was going to her sister’s house. I shook my head in concern and continued on.
The park was pitch black dark when I arrived. The benches were still missing. “What good is a park without benches?” I mused to myself aggravated. I plopped down on the warm cement, donned my headphones, and drank my solitary beer. I was hoping this little ritual would make me sleepy allowing me to go home and sleep a few hours more before work.
Sunrise found me still sitting in that park this morning listening to the radio. I had made one more trip just down the road for another beer a few hours earlier – the effects of the alcohol had long since worn off. Coast to Coast bored me this morning with open lines – paranoid talk of jet chem-trails prevailed. “It is simple condensation,” my mind screamed listening to these conspiracy theorists proselytizing about the government manipulating our weather and the atmosphere. The government can’t even fix the economy and these goobers think they can control the weather?
7:30am found me sitting over in my father’s kitchen taking my very large handful of morning medications. I fear my father is going deaf. The television was turned up so loud as to be disturbing. I wanted peace and quiet after my late night out. We talked some about my jobs.
“Why don’t you quit?” dad pleaded with me. “You just can’t do all of that. You are going to get in a mess mentally.”
“I’ve felt better than I have in years!” I protested defiantly.
“You don’t need money, son,” he told me. “People like you shouldn’t be allowed money.”
“People like me?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“People who are mentally incompetent,” he said bitingly as he ate his strawberry preserves and toast as we sat at the kitchen table.
I sighed as I got up and left when my ten minutes were up without saying another word. We didn’t even say goodbye to each other – him miffed about my working. I still have a lot of obstacles to overcome was what I thought as I drove to work. The stigmas of mental illness are so palpable in my family. I mused this morning that my father was probably much more mentally ill than I. It was like a revelation to me for the first time in years. His need to control things borders on maniacal.
George wrote me today that he could receive magazine subscriptions in jail as long as they weren’t pornography, racially sensitive, or elicit. He did make a joke about me getting him a subscription to Hustler. I laughed as I read. I got online and ordered some gift subscriptions for magazines using my newly acquired debit card. I got him mainly news magazines such as Time. I also ordered George a subscription to Model Railroader on a whim hoping he would get interested in the hobby. He will enjoy the photography if nothing else.
I called Mrs. Florene and told her about this and she wants to pay me back for the costs of the magazines. I graciously accepted as they proved to be expensive. She was just glad I was able to do this for George so easily with the Internet. She said she was going to cook my favorite meal next week in compensation. Ah, fried cubed steak, rice and gravy, steamed broccoli, and biscuits. I love it!
I have mainly just been mailing George my blog posts, but I wrote a long letter this afternoon with my computer and mailed it out. I wrote a lot about my fears of failure as far as my jobs are concerned. I am worried any day I will go back to my old mentally ill self when a severe anxiety attack will befall me. I also wrote to George for advice about joining the “social club” that meets in the evenings down at the convenience store. It will be interesting to hear George’s advice on that in a few days – him being well versed in such interesting fellows. The fringe dwellers as I call them.
My very first phone call on my new cellphone was from Kim. I smiled when it rang as it was sitting on my computer desk after charging.
“What are you doing tonight?” she asked inquisitively.
“Me and Derrick are watching movies,” I told her. “Would you like to join us for fun, movies, and beer?”
“I would love that,” she said. “But I hate beer. I will be the designated driver. I might have one glass of wine.”
I smiled and told her how excited I was for her to be coming. We talked a long time about work – a common subject between us. She still makes jabs about me having the easiest job at Wal-Mart. She says I get paid for hanging out in electronics.
“But it is a very hot job!” I protested as I laughed jovially.
“Oh, you work mornings when it isn’t that hot,” she said goodheartedly. “Quit your bitching!”
I told her all about my best friend, George, this afternoon who is in jail for a DUI I said. I told her about what an interesting and good guy he was and about him possibly coming home on parole in October. She said she couldn’t wait to meet him. I explained to her about him being a fringe dweller and what fringe dwellers are.
“He can be crass at times,” I warned her. “George’s strong suit is not social etiquette.”
She laughed and then we got off the phone after finalizing our plans for the night. I am just going to pick her up at her house and she will ride with me to Derrick’s apartment. I hope Derrick doesn’t mind me bringing a friend. The more the merrier is what I always say. They both knew each other from work already so they have a rapport.
Do you think I will be able to do it? To bike the three miles to work every morning and home at lunch? I will probably get lazy and quit, but I am going to give it a good try. I mainly want to save the wear and tear on my car. It seems my car is going to have to last me many more years – dad having decided to hold off on buying new Hondas for a while yet. I will not be getting my mother’s Honda Civic for the foreseeable future. Charlie keeps pushing dad to do this, but dad doesn’t want more car payments. The payment on his BMW is exorbitant.
I got the tires on my mountain bike fixed this afternoon adding new tubes. I pumped them up with my fingers crossed and everything seems fine. I did a little maiden voyage around the block and it felt good to be back on a bike. I need a new larger seat, though, as the current seat hurts my boney ass. It is a really nice Schwinn bike and I hope to put it to good use in the next few months. It is much more economical than a scooter and it is paid for lock. stock and barrel.
I am $75 dollars richer this evening as we speak. I earned every damn penny of it. That was one physically taxing job. I am glad it is finished! It came up a cloud at one point as my grandmother would always say and I sat in my car listening to NPR until it passed. You could see the sun while it was raining and my grandmother would always say the devil was beating his wife with a frying pan. One nice thing about the rain was that it really cooled the temperatures off as I finished the job late this afternoon.
The man wants me to come back Sunday to trim the shrubbery on the front and sides of his house for $25. I told him I had to work all day tomorrow at my regular job and that’s why I couldn’t do it sooner. I also told him we were going to get his yard in tip top shape if he just keeps paying me good money. He laughed and offered me a beer. I laughed as well feeling good about the whole affair. I couldn’t drink, though, as I was driving. His lawn needs mowing so I hope he will ask me to do that next.
The late evening cicadas were singing and it made feel lonely for some strange reason tonight. I am usually enthralled by their singing. I’ve really been longing for a companion this week feeling eligible for the first time in years. I eventually would like to get married again and possibly have kids. That would have never ever happened if I stayed on my previous course in life. Who wants to marry a guy who can’t even support himself or make basic decisions about his life? I find myself thinking of what would make me enticing to a mate. A nice home. A good car. Decent looks. A job. Money. Sanity. All pieces to a puzzle I am slowly putting together.
A couple of black boys were playing basketball on the court and talking jovially. One kept bragging that he could shoot better than the other and the other protested vehemently. I smiled as I listened to their banter and drank the single solitary Steel Reserve, my sunset brew, I bought tonight at the convenience store. I bought only one as a concession to my blog readers and friends who care. I am really not an alcoholic and can drink one or two beers and be satisfied. I no longer feel the pain and anguish these days that stirred me to drink with wanton abandon all those years ago.
I am slowly growing acclimated to staying up all night and sleeping in the afternoons. It has been a slow and gradual process as I still grow very sleepy in the evenings after taking my medications. The urge to go to bed after dad leaves is very, very strong. That 2mg of Klonopin no doubt the culprit as it can be such a sedative. I love being a night owl though – a creature of the night. I have missed this lifestyle so much loving the dark of the evenings and the quiet calm it imparts. The world is asleep and I am up and about exploring the town and my little environment around me. I feel this is the only way I can deal with that anxiety that haunts me every afternoon. It is helping I believe. As I’ve said before, early mornings are always bliss for me mentally. I feel so well from about 8pm to noon the next day. My unorthodox lifestyle allows me to do this.
I drove over to get my diet Cokes around 1am. There were a lot of people out and about walking the streets tonight. My fellow night owls. Mom had a care package of another little note of encouragement, toilet paper, paper towels, cigarettes, cigar lighters, and Maggie’s heartworm and flea medications on the porch. I stuck the Cokes in the freezer to get cold when I arrived home. I then shoved them in my backpack and set out for a walk down to the park in front of that dilapidated cotton mill as I listened to my little Sony weather band radio. Tonight on Coast to Coast AM they were talking about space and the cosmos. They also had Major Ed Dames on for the last hour. A remote viewer which makes me laugh as he never predicts anything concrete. He just waffles around the questions asked by the host. It was an interesting show. More along the lines of which I like best. Not all that fantastical end of the world 2012 and government conspiracy stuff. I sat in the park drinking my ice cold diet Cokes smoking cigarette after cigarette as the katydids sang over the din of my radio. It was a moment of Zen. I felt all was right in my world. I was imbibing in all the things I love about life these days.
For some reason, I am finding myself unable just to sit at home content as I normally would be. I usually tend to be agoraphobic – afraid to leave the house for fears of an anxiety attack. I want to be out of the house finding my usual routines of months boring. Driving makes me nervous so I find myself walking everywhere I go. I have this strong feeling of wanderlust – this strong urge to be out of doors and exploring. It reminds me of my mother when she has trouble with her mental illness. She will sit in the backyard in the swing until dad gets home from work saying she can’t go inside alone – that the walls are closing in around her. I have walked more in the past few days than I have in months and my legs are sore to show for it. Maybe the exercise is good for me – the release of endorphins that improve my usual dour moods.
There was a previously unknown to me dollar in change in my backpack this morning. I was exuberantly surprised. On the way home early this morning after listening to my radio show, I stopped by the convenience store and bought a candy bar. The sugar rush was pretty awesome as I walked home past the poor neighborhoods the line the street up from the convenience store. It was either that or a .99 cent can of Steel Reserve lager. I felt laden with energy. I felt strangely empowered. I am finding myself laughing giddily in my own little world a lot these days. A more gentle sign of my mental illness. There is a mentally ill man who works in the hardware store next to dad’s pharmacy and he will laugh like this for no apparent reason. He is always grinning lost in his mental illness. I feel a kinship with him these days as I know what he feels. Laughter is good for the soul even if it is mentally ill induced. I have these strong moments of laughter and excitement that are intoxicating they feel so good. Dad would call these manic bipolar phases.
I am not far from soon setting out for a morning of watching trains. I have to stay up until 12pm and then I will come home and go to bed for the day – sleeping the afternoon away. I wonder what strange creatures I will see on the tracks today? I love people watching. I will live vicariously as the patrons of Kroger walk by with their plastic sacks of groceries and twelve packs of beer – wondering what their lives are like.
Dad left at ten after our medication ritual and Maggie’s food ritual. He was kind of quiet tonight, but I didn’t take it personally. “Tuesday’s are my hell day,” he said sitting on the couch as we watched the tail end of Hawthorne. For years, we watched The Weather Channel during the medication ritual as dad waited for my medications to take effect. The Weather Channel has fallen out of favor as far as our routines go. We have both grown disgusted with their gross hyperbole and over-sensationalization of minor weather events. I call it the death and destruction channel these days as they love to sensationalize disaster. Long gone are the days when meteorologists would report the weather in a sensible manner. And who in the hell wants to wake up with Al Roker?
“You have good taste in television,” dad told me complimenting me tonight. “You find interesting shows to watch.”
I took Maggie for a long walk through our neighborhood after dad left – grinning as I walked as I felt so calm and relaxed from my medications. My limbs feeling like Jell-O. My mind a serene marvel. Maggie was just thrilled to death to go on this little late evening journey. We walked all the way down to the elementary school and back taking the back roads to avoid the traffic on the main street that runs by my house. I reveled in the katydids singing in earnest tonight – a signature sound of a Southern night. It reminded me of all the times I would sit on my grandmother’s porch as the katydids sang before bed drinking iced sweet tea. We would try to spot out of town license plates on busy highway 280 as a game as we talked about the day behind us. Dad’s mother was a very special lady who took life at her own special pace. I still think my life would have turned out vastly different if she had lived longer and I lived with her on her farm in my late adolescence.
I am about to sleep for two hours and then wake up so I can listen to tonight’s Coast to Coast AM. I wonder what crazy shit they will talk about tonight? God, I love that show. It is so over the top and entertaining. I am listening to last night’s show again right now. They are discussing alien agendas and end of the world scenarios at the moment. You should see the grin on my freshly shaven face.
There is just something about a summer's night. Winter is looming closer and weighs upon my mind. It is making me savor every last minute of these warm, melodically beautiful evenings. Winter brings cold winds with the only noise being it brushing up against my windows that guard me from the cold. Summer brings katydids, crickets, and the sound of whip-o-wills. All things that bring joy to my heart.
When I was homeless, I often had dreams of migrating. The cold of the winter would make me want to live in Miami with warm, tropical breezes and blowing palm trees. If I would have had a car at the time, it would have no doubt found me well south of the Mason-Dixon line. Warm weather would then find me back in my beloved Alabama in the familiar haunts that were the woods I called home during those homeless days. Thinking about it makes me miss my usual camping trips.
Charlie came by last evening bearing two gifts of some incredibly horizontal Asian wall hangings. "Fantastic!" I said as we hung them on either side of my entertainment center. "They look so good, I think I am going to take them back now," Charlie said as he laughed. "Indian giver!" I cried, laughing back. I don't know what I would do without Charlie and the constant little gifts he brings me. Yesterday, it was huge amounts of toilet paper and paper towels. Today, it was art for my walls. He truly is the brother my father never had and treats us siblings as his own.
I wasn't listening to her. There I was, sitting on my porch, momentarily alone and comfortable, sunset, a cherry hinted cigarillo, in my porch swing, single mindedly enjoying the first katydids, just back from a leisurely stroll for the evening in an effort to lose at least ten more pounds. She came out asking me more questions as she commonly does, but I didn't want to play our game last night. "What is it about women that make them so nosey and make them ask so many questions?" I blurted out, callously, and then blushed. Snippety. I had crossed the line between conversational and brusque. You quietly left to go sit in the den and pout with me. I felt terrible. "I'm sorry," I said walking through my porch door. "I didn't mean to be so blunt." You smile and forgive me. I am taken aback because my ex-wife or ex-girlfriend, Carolyn, wouldn't have spoken to me for a week for doing such a thing. Your kindness and understanding made me feel inadequate.
Some people live for the drama of an intimate relationship. I abhor it. I can stumble through a delicate situation like a blind man in an unfamiliar room full of furniture. These little social tangos are the most exasperatingly complicated dance of rules, feelings, and heightened emotion. It takes a special soul to be able to put up with my social foibles and misgivings and Rosa seems to be the one. She can read me like a book and knows my moods. We finished the rest of the evening on the porch as darkness fell, cigarillos in hand, with Maggie at our feet. The katydids and you were comforting. All was forgiven.
