I'm Sick Of My Own Voice

Thursday Night

It's weird to look out a window at night notice that the darkness is not much different from the day. It's not the historical blackness one remembers when they think of the night. A world lit only by moonlight and stars that I have never in my life experienced. I am used to an artificial glow brightening my life.

I have been feeling really fat lately. For a while I was drinking Yakult every day and I stopped because I didn't think it was doing anything, but maybe it was because I have been feeling very bloated. I move my belly around with disdain and am convinced I must be gaining weight. Last time I felt like this I was so convinced I could not believe the scale when I weighed myself, so I had to buy another one. I am still unconvinced. I have largely maintained the same weight over the last year (or whenever I actually gained the weight I had lost after Scott, gained back after moving to Houston, lost after becoming bulimic, and regained during quarantine.) I'm 180lbs and as with most other problems in my life I know it could be worse. Ryan has told me there's nothing to be gained by comparing my misery to others. I know there isn't. You should know this, too. You can't feel bad about feeling bad. Unless you're a billionaire...but why would you be reading this?? But if you are you should go fuck yourself and stop hoarding resources. Billionaires should feel bad.

Anyway.

Last week was weird. 

I fell back into a sleep schedule similar to the one I was experiencing before I was prescribed the right level of Ambien. A level of sleep I don't appreciate functioning on anymore. I wasn't able to work all week which was upsetting both because I could not be preoccupied with anything other than the news and I do not get paid if I don't work. Luckily, I have been allowed to make up those hours this week. My bosses are being as kind as ever. I'm slowly regaining the momentum that was lost. But I spent a lot of the week worried about my parents and my friends culminating in a nervous breakdown over my "utilities privilege." I wailed ridiculously at Collin that I was "a monster!! Just as bad as Ted Cruz!!" 

I tried washing my hair in the sink with boiled water and it had not worked well. Through the day it started to feel grosser and grosser. Everyone seemed to be moving on and cleaning up, and I wanted to be one of the functioning people. I did laundry, took a shower, and sunk into a deep bath of shame and self-loathing. "I knew it was wrong and I did it anyway!!" I screamed at Collin from a ball on the couch. "I'm a hypocrite!! I'm an asshole!! I'm hurting people with my privilege!!" The thought "I just want to be a good person" raced in my head against a voice saying "then why aren't you?" Finally, meekly slung over the arm of the couch I moaned, "I can't even kill myself because the carbon footprint of my body disposal wouldn't make anything better. I just need to blink out of existence." It was the first time in months I had started to consider killing myself again, but I don't really want to traumatize Collin. It's such a small house. I don't know. Maybe it would be just the nudge he needs to make him move out of the place.

I considered going into the kitchen and getting a knife and dragging it across my arms. I should probably be stabbing. Skin is hard to get through so the force of a stab is probably better if your blade isn't sharp. I think a lot about going out like Elliott Smith and stabbing myself in the chest. That's a motion with a lot of conviction behind it. I imagine the body doesn't usually think stabbing itself is the best course of action.

Friday Night

God, I'm so edgy.

There was somewhere else I was going with my train of thought last night and then I fully committed to being sleepy and trailed off to bed, losing whatever grander inspiration I might have had. I should get better at writing down vague impressions to come back to with the hope of completing something worthwhile.

I think I'm just trying to come to terms with things never getting better enough fast enough.

I also spent the week yearning for Taco Bell.

Like the most garbage food I could think of would be a reset.

And it seemed that they did not reopen.

I didn't actually go to one to find out, because I felt if I went to a Taco Bell in the aftermath of a nervous breakdown and it was closed I would have an outsized reaction. It would be inappropriate. So I looked it up online first, and they appeared to stay closed.

Which makes sense. Austin was under a boil water notice until Tuesday, I think. What is time? And shipments were disrupted by the winter storm. Things probably had to be thrown out if the buildings lost power. Things don't just go back to normal. Taco Bells don't just reopen.

There are people with real trauma.

I've spent a lot of the last few days being really angry about not being able to help. I have been really angry that it's something I even need to be upset at myself for. I've just been a complete bitch about people celebrating HEB and other highly profitable businesses giving money toward charity. It's not that I don't think it's good for them to be doing so. It's more that I don't think it's 100% done out of some sense of community, and I think they probably didn't go far enough. It also shouldn't be their responsibility. They probably didn't go far enough because it wasn't their responsibility. I'm not entirely sure I know whose responsibility it should be at this point, because it always seems to be very rich people and very rich companies giving relatively small amounts of money compared to their reported wealth that we lean on in times of crisis. It's either them giving almost insultingly small donations or normal people giving as much as they can. I just don't want to lose sight in HEB and Deep Eddy swooping in that Ted Cruz flew to Cancun. I worry that we get so swept up in things that make us feel good and the understandable appreciation for compassion in moments of dire need that we inadvertently let the people who got us to that place off the hook. There's just no time to hold anyone accountable. There's no capacity. It's draining. I don't really know if I have a point beyond trying to assuage my own guilt for not doing more. I think I do. But I'm never sure.

I'm beyond grateful to AOC. She just seems to work so hard. She's not perfect, but no one is, and I don't think that's what I'm asking of anyone. I just don't know what government is for if not to help people. I guess to take money and oppress people? To bomb people? To keep people from coming in and taking jobs?

I stopped writing because it felt like every day was the same level of uninteresting despair. The vibrancy of life was just an unmanageable chaos and when I tried to pull something from it it quickly went cold and gray. I could only obsess over the body I felt increasingly trapped in and the cat that I feel such responsibility for. Existence was largely reduced to the private moments of joy with Collin and The Kitten absorbed by the white noise of the world outside this small house getting worse and worse. There was everything to say. There were too many things to say. None of it seemed good and the good didn't seem appropriate.

So I started writing again feeling like I could relax a little. Hoping I could get some of that sunken feeling out and then write about class or catch you up on the television I was able to find energy to watch. Now I sort of regret the whole exercise.

I need to start volunteering.

At Home With Amy Sedaris is fun and there are not enough recorded quotes.