Registering Pain and Clouds

My eyelids are heavy.

That's funny, because last night I could not get any sleep. I blogged until midnight, when Kim strolled through the dorm and told me to shut down my laptop. That's some shit, you know. Having some twenty year old telling you what to do with your own shit. I should be telling her what to do. I'm old enough to be her father.

That's the turn of the world now isn't it. The old will give way to the new, and they will take over everything from us, and we...well we'll just diminish to the winds.

The reason? Well we old people do unreasonable things. Or I do. Maybe I can't speak for you.

What do I mean about that, exactly? Well, just before I bought that unnecessary Norton's Antivirus Software I bought a high tech fingernail clipper made in China. I mean, the shit it THE SHIT. It looks like something from Star Trek, and it has a funky shape to it and everything. Its out of this world I'm trying to tell you. I'm so into using this thing that I clip at my finger AND toe nails, clipping away feverishly. When done, I've clipped my nails and toes to the bone. They are so short that my fingers hurt when I type and my toes ache when I walk. Now what the fuck? I ask you. What the fuck is the matter with me? Just goes to prove my point that 'old people do some fucking unreasonable things.'

But that means nothing, because I live in The Box, which has more antics than you can stand.

One day I'm standing in line at the nurses' station, and all of a sudden, one of the Female Hags...aka Fags, turns around and looks down at John's feet shod in sandals and screams out. As she backs away, I look down too, to see John's toes. He has no toenails. Just red, pink and yellow pools of blood and pus. What the fuck, John, I ask. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," he replies tiredly. "When the heroin withdrawal kicks in I tear the toe nails off my feet." I almost faint. My hand goes to the wall to uphold my weakening legs. You do what?

"The addiction is strong," he continues. "It gives me something else to focus on." The pain? I ask incredulously. "Yeah, the pain in my feet is greater than the ache in my soul."

That's enough for me. The Box is filled with those little tidbits out of life.

I finally lie down for some sleep. I ball into the fetus position on my bed and huddle around my MP3 player, the ear buds jammed deep into my ears. The music, 'The Best of David Bowie' carries me off on a dream that is vibrant and real. I'm still living it as I rise from slumber. I am still thinking that I am there and not in the here and now. The here and now being a cot in the middle of a dorm filled with men snoring comfortably. The lights are all on, meaning that it is after six O'clock on a weekday.

I rise and head for the bathroom, then the dining room, then the edge of my bed. I'm off to get breakfast with the little money that I have from yesterday's wages. I'm also off to get a new mini-mouse for my baby. I splurge on her, my laptop, because she is my lover and friend. I am kept whole by her, and I keep her running at the peak of efficiency. Recently my other mini-mouse broke, so then now it's time to replace it.

I head off to Starbucks first, catching the semi- crowded number 6 train uptown and emerging out onto gray skies. Heavy clouds had rolled in. I look up at them and smile. Remembering a conversation about how storm clouds look drab. Summer, sun drenched, cottony skies had the appeal of clouds at least LOOKING like something. A man on a bike, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, a ballerina, a pile of dogshit, but at least it had a chance of LOOKING like something. Whereas storm clouds always tended to be one great, big grey blob.

I hit Starbucks for a few hours, writing emails and watching people in the pre-rain gloom. I am content with my coffee and keyboard, my fingers racing along the keys. There is nothing that can bother me or unhinge me, other than it's time to give my baby her new treat. I skip outside and down the street, wondering about the skies and when the rain will fall. I need not worry about it. I'll be inside of the library soon, buried deep in it's belly, as if I was swallowed by a great fish.

I buy the new Mini-mouse and can't wait to use it. I head into the library and plug it in. It works like a charm as usual. My laptop is happy. I then begin to blog. I blog until I grow sleepy.

That's the funny thing about working for yourself. You work too long. All the time in fact. You just work and work like your life depended on it. There are no set rules. No Nine to Five do this, and then at Five oh One, don't do this anymore. You do it because it's always in front of you. You need something like an ailment to make you stop.

And then you get this:

"Great. We will remain in touch with regards to edits and changes that need to be made."

This is the reply that I got from the publisher of the We Can Initiative magazine that I sent articles to. Confirmation that my work was received kindly. All that work and there was something to show for it. We'll see what changes need to be made, but at least my work was pitched and caught on the other end. It's the little victories that build up to the major ones. You have to eat shit before you eat steak. That's the fucking truth. And I've been eating shit for so long it's starting to taste like steak.

Keep at it people. Take it from me: the little victories feel good too.

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