Acquiescence

I've been here before.

Asking for help. Taking whatever I can get.

Warden isn't dead, but I could no longer feed him. Regrette, too. They are back at the shelter, perhaps adopted by now by some caring soul(s). Perhaps I will get my feet back under me, and they will still be there, and I will take them back. Perhaps I know deep down that that will not ever be true. Curt Jimenez can't pretend that the way things were will ever be the way they are again. If I ever have a job again, I must know that it is as subject to sudden change as the weather. A person living such an existence cannot take on such things as dogs.

I have sold things. My computer. My accordion. My food processor. Were it that I had anything else of any value, these would most likely be gone as well. I think of Rick's voice in my ear--I am practicing detachment! The things I once loved are detaching themselves from me slowly, one-by-one. They have gone, as easily as they came. Rick would have told me that they were never mine anyways. The library still exists, and will still let me in to warm up and check my email, see if anybody has work for an old con. Nobody does, it seems.

So what of this blog? Alas, it is one of the few things that I don't think anyone can take away, even once my landlord stops taking pity on me, so maybe I will keep up with it, to whatever degree I can. I don't know that writing is therapy, but it is something. I have not brought much good into the world. At least this little blog might be able to supplement that sad legacy a bit.

Who invented the wheel?

I wonder how many times it took to figure out that a circle would work best.

How many times, Curt, can you move forward like this?

First, a triangle.

Then, a square.

Afterwards, a vision quest.

But still. The ride is bumpy. Lumpy. Something is not right.

Why is it that a hole lets so much air in?

Relativity

If you are worried about me, don't be. So many have it worse than me, why should I pretend that my suffering is special, that it makes me exceptional? Think about it--I've never sold my body for money or drugs, I almost always have enough to eat (sometimes very delicious things), and I have a roof over my head, for the time being at least, even if there is a little drip drip drip that I can hear but can't see that torments me just a little bit before I fall asleep at night. Perhaps my ceiling will collapse, and I will sue my landlord! What a boon that would be.

Warden had a few great years with me, and then it was suddenly over, before hip dysplasia could set in, before his teeth had rotted so irreparably that I would have to throw his kibble in the blender. He would regret then never having listened to my urgings for him to chew his food, if only for the sake of his teeth. But he took such pleasure in scarfing! He tried so hard, and in the end, it never even mattered!

What further ailments and sufferings await me, if I don't get so lucky to be hit by a car, or better yet to just *poof* have the old ticker poop out on me in the middle of the night?

If this is punishment for wrongs committed in the past, why are there such bright moments in between the miseries? Is it just to make the little hells be magnified? If it was all just suffering, would it feel so bad?

Every time I start to believe that everything is relative, I realize fully that it's not. And then the knife turns again, a little deeper into my soul.

Reasons I Did Not Post

Yesterday, The Ghost fired me (again).
Warden was struck by a car and died.
I got into a fight with Guy and he called me "burnt toast unworthy of butter" and I kicked him out, but not before he set the couch on fire.
I got second degree burns on my arms and chest.
I am despairing. I am in a very dark place.
I am letting you all down.
There is nothing anymore.
I have failed in every aspect of my life.
I am a big loser and always will be.
I am down and out, forever.
Don't look at me, you'll catch what I've got.
It's alright if you pretend you never knew me. I understand.
That is all.

Rung-less Ladder

I have been trying to stay warm. I have been doing this by drinking more hott beverages. And by staying very still underneath blankets. This is the time of year when delivering papers is the worst. Staying up late, on account of Guy and his video games, and waking up early, only to feel kind of burly.

The Ghost doesn't care how I feel, or how my hands feel, or how my nose feels like it's not even on my face! What does that guy even do, besides yell commands and poke chap stick onto his lips? Can I even work my way up in this business? After I excel at delivering papers, do I get to deliver magazines? Then "hott" magazines in paper bags? Then, normal mail? Then, government mail? Then, international mail? I doubt it. OMG. This ladder has no rungs! A rung-less ladder is the wrong ladder to be climbing up--I am just realizing--gaw!

I think it's time for a raise for Curt G. Jimenez. Tomorrow, I think I will ask for a raise. Tomorrow, I will say, "Hey, Mr. Ghost sir..." Yeah, that's what I'll do.

Then, I'll buy a space heater. Or two.

Change

This year has not started off so well. It is no one thing, nor is it many things. It just is. Or I think it just is.

I have been thinking that maybe there is something wrong. Something big. Something that must change. I am not saying that it is Guy. I do not think it is Guy. Most likely, I think it is Curt.

Of course it is Curt. But what? Is it his job? His family? His dogs? God forbid, his hobby?

Change. Chains. Chains, changed. Change change chains.

Pink

I am wearing a pink shirt. The shirt was not pink, originally.

Guy thought he'd be nice and do my laundry. This was after he opened his eyes and said, "I will do your laundry, how about that?"

"Sure," I said. This was the seventh day of my new life and I figured, what the heck.

I am wearing the pink shirt because in my new life I am trying to be more thankful, despite the outcomes. Guy had good intentions. And my shirt is clean. In fact, the shirt has inspired a butter. Rose butter. Rose water and heavy whipping cream and just a spot of coloring.

They say it takes a real man to wear pink...right?

Cartwheels!

A short post today.



I am tired.


Last night, a very drunk man was doing cartwheels in the street. He woke me up.

"Do another one!" the girl with him would say, after every one. And he would do another one. And she would say it again.


They were not good cartwheels, but he finished enthusiastically, with a smile and his hands held high. Then he would almost fall over.


What an existence!

Containment

What I remember about Florida is that everything sounded like paper in the wind. The palms, the grass, even the people talking, so that it seemed like it was an artificial place, like a movie set, and that I wasn't me, but someone who spoke like paper when the the wind blew.

I did not know of butter then, not the way I know of butter now, and I had not yet met Homes, or killed Tony, and so the things I said were paper thin and I moved through time as if the days were much longer than they really were. And the whole time, I thought I was moving further away from disappointment, when in actuality, I had opened its door.

But my family traveled to Florida many times and every time, we stayed in hotels with green carpets and killed the cockroaches underneath the sink, in cupboards with laminate to appear like wood. It was in Florida that I called an old woman a b**ch at a swimming pool. I was six. Didn't know what I'd said, but knew that it wasn't nice and Mom pulled me by the ear out of the pool and I screamed the whole time.

Why did Dad take us there? He went to the races. He drank cheap beer from plastic cups and held ticket stubs like they were gilded in gold. He taunted jockeys he didn't like and gazed at the horses through binoculars he'd found on a park bench in Pittsburgh. He pointed out the horses that shivered with sweat and told my sister and I that they'd never win a race. And where was Mom? I don't remember. But she wasn't there.

I was the last to fall asleep. Of that I am sure. This is because I was afraid of the dark, of all the things that could be crawling around me that I couldn't see, but my feet were always too hot to keep beneath the sheets. I had to be brave every night, to stick my feet out into the darkness, where something could take them from me. Even after I'd grown older, and the darkness did not terrify me, I was the last to fall asleep because I listened to how the wind shuffled the palms like papers.

All four of us slept in a single room, in two beds. My sister and I did not sleep so that we pointed in opposite directions, our heads and our feet on opposite ends of the bed. We were not afraid of each other's breaths. I listened to everyone in their sleep. How Dad was the first to depart into his mind, his exhalations heavier, sometimes emitting a nasally wheeze. Then Mom, breathing through clenched teeth, producing a hiss. Finally, my sister, whose breathing became quieter. Shallow.

We were so close then, so intimate. All four of us in a small space, in a paper box. But we could not contain ourselves.

Ripening

I read that butter used to be buried in Ireland, in the book: The Ins and Outs of Butter. Buried in bogs, hundreds of pounds of butter, aging, rotting, attaining "bite" and ripening.

It's time to take my butter to the next level. That is one of the resolutions I made for 2011--to take my butter to the next level. I will ripen my butter. I will dig a hole into the hard ground and bury my butter and wait. I will be patient.

While I wait, maybe I will make medicated butter. Maybe I will crush pain killers into the heavy whipping cream. Maybe I will market this butter as the spreadable brain soother. Surely, this will take my butter to the next level.

Things are going to move forward much faster this year. I can feel it. I am ripening. I am nestled in a pouch. This pouch is part of a trebuchet. This trebuchet is ready to launch me from its pouch.

What a "Guy"

The thing with Guy is that he's gotten pretty serious since his logging experience. When I come home from work, he's asleep on the couch, except that he isn't. He says, "Hello Curt, how was work?" with his eyes closed. It didn't use to bother me, but lately, it has because why can't he say these things with his eyes open?

"Why can't you talk with your eyes open?" I asked him today.
"Because I am thinking about serious things and I can't talk and think about these serious things with my eyes open," he said.
"What?"
"Multi-tasking," Guy said.

But the thing about this kind of "serious" thinking is that it goes on and on. Sometimes, Guy doesn't move from the couch, not even when Warden sits on top of him and licks his face. Frankly, it's been freaking me out.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked Guy after I gave Regrette and Warden some peanut butter filled bones.

"I am thinking about this one time I was a kid and playing with all the other neighborhood kids and we were playing a game called 'Animals' and we had to choose an animal that we wanted to be. If you were an animal, what animal would you be?" Guy asked me.

"A cow," I said, "because then I could make all the butter I wanted," I said.

"You see," Guy said, "that's the way all the other kids answered. But I said I wanted to be a sad, white owl in a puddle of water. A sad, white owl that couldn't fly and became friends with all the field mice."

"Guy," I said. "How long has it been since you opened your eyes?"

"A very long time," Guy said.

Better Better!

Hello world,

Yesterday was the first day of my life!
I couldn't be more excited about this!

It is a new year for new and improved better better butters!