Dear (_____)

Dear pain,

You've taken sleep away from me.  The paranoia that breeds across my maps is all rooted to you.  I never know if the next morning is the morning when a swollen disk pokes a nerve or a frayed nerve get's caught in gravity's rotation and snips a cold bolt down one of my legs.  That paranoia, that anxiety, that never knowing if all of the days waking without you are a lead to some sort of crescendo two days long.  pERMANENT INURY BRED Memory. 

You don't scare me often.  I hope, when next you arrive, you bring some frost and ankle deep snow too.

huddled,

Hobbes

Over The Last Weeks

What we've learned is that we are not a multi-tipped novelty pen.  What each one of us does, all of our others are accountable for.

The pain, torment, rage, and (I am crying waterfalls and I don't want to) absolute hatred, are experienced because of what our others did out of kindness, compassion, sympathy, empathy, love, and understanding...

When I tell you I can't speak about something and then go on to speak about it- it's not a joke a or a hide to try to find something to target you for or insulate myself.  There is a cost.  There is a very real cost.  Often psychological, sometimes physical too.

I am terrified that if I "go into a shell" folks will think I've lost it or something.  I am, unfortunately, beholden to wherever my body happens to be and if that means it is in a cage that also means we are too and I cannot be in there with them because they all should not be in there.  When we are in there, rebellion is inevitable.  What is the only way out?  What is the one way they can each live their own?  It is not a dual blessing and curse.  It is unfortunate.

I am blending in and being as human as possible.  As citizen as possible.  As reasonable as possible.  It hurts tremendously to see that effort fall flat and be exploited  by some, it is ecstatic to see that effort be rewarded by some and flower into map expansions and discovery of new ways to exist and new ways that others exist and new planets and star systems and, fuck me, galaxies.  It is incredible to feel the weight of the sight of others frittering about on the 400 degree oil of life and ourselves, warming our palms near the electric coils, spreading stories of boogie beasts beyond the 60 watt LED light bulb in the sky because the truth is you have to stick close or you will be left behind.  Large enough to fry and small enough in the greater consciousness to slip right through the metal lattice and join the disposable.  Faulty.

When you finally get a chance to turn the music off and see pain for what it is.  When you don't have to protect other people from what you know you are.  Every damaged person worth their weight in time is worth listening to.  The songs are the same.  The cadence's are similar.  The verses are close.  There is a world spanning web of sunsets and sunrises and star anthems and moon odes and solar salutations and a disturbingly familiar scent to the blood that breaks away from a palm while you are trying to wash a glass and a reflect on the evenings high-points and the metal gush of the air mixes with the scented soap as it shatters in your hand for reasons you don't understand.

I have been helped by some that there is no way I can repay.  Literally, with the expanding fabric of life and space time (I've been over the calculations before) there is no way I can repay them before I or they perish, that is what's up.  They offered big and I took only what I needed from what they offered.  I don't understand why, attempting again and again to emulate that truth I continue to ...  I don't understand ... what am I getting wrong each time?  It's not every time, but when it goes poorly, it goes straight to the poor house!

I know I am not entirely sane.  I know I can learn fairly quickly.

I know I have to communicate better.

Everything is not okay.

The margin for error is small.

The people that I hold closest know.  Because we've been speaking with each other and developing language protocols through literally thousands of interactions.

It is unfair to expect anyone, outside of that set of individuals (not the ones I've met face to face or otherwise, for the longest) to know the language too.

What I've learned to broadcast is not ubiquitous.  Thirty two years on planet Earth, and we still have not been able to crack a universal code.  I don't mean to cry, but I am in tears that there is so much more work to do looking ahead to remain human.  I like it here.  I enjoy it because I can be like them and sometimes, when they are willing to play with me, they can be like me too.

I know my schizophrenia is a constantly evolving symbiotic organism (said through thick medication).  We understand it.  I understand it.  You're breaking up!



Please don't leave me!









Kill them all.

Please don't leave- kill them all.









I like to help.  Pay it forward.  Play when you can.  Know us.  If we can't play, say so.  We are shadows.  If you insist on addressing us as a galaxy system to visit, you would be well to address the star inside the nebula and the planet and attendant moon (if necessary) and... or just the comet.  You can also call the sign Hobbes.  I'm sure he'll answer.

The construction was developed over six years.  Before the period of the shatter, layers of designs were gardened to safeguard us.  After the period of the shatter, layers of designs were welded together to safeguard you.  I'm sure it'll answer.





Crews are at work, thirty four hours a day, reviewing diagrams to build a better future.

One spark at a time.

One death at a time.






LET'S GO!




///There's still a lot of work to do, if we are to survive.  We are game, if you are willing to play with us, just know: there are rules.

I Know It's Going To Be A Rough Day and That's Okay

I've been trying to arrest my emotions for two days and here we are at day three.  I can't allow life to seize up and die.  This morning, poking the tines of my work into the middle of a sunny side up egg on a piece of medium tough toast with a shake of a salt and a dollop of syrup beside it, I am afraid.  I used to call Annie, I used to call Alexis, I used to call my psychiatrist, my therapist, myself, when fear gripped me.  I haven't been able to eat willingly so I am preparing to chop up an egg into a little toast and see where it goes.  Maybe we will cut up a clementine into quarters and have that in lieu of juice.

My emotions are still all over the place.  Stitched together with some will and a little self motivational glue and a little music.  I know I am going to cry today and I won't be able to stop it, but I will make myself go to work as best I can.  There will be a lot of difficult exchanges of conversations today.  "You look awful."  "Are you okay?"  I know and no.  Walking through hardware stores and to the bank and to the grocery to buy more food to force myself to eat.  I cannot allow myself to curl up and die.  I cannot allow myself to see people.  I have to turn everything inward to generate enough power to keep my sun from collapsing into a singularity.

Hysterical laughter tearing through my lungs and tears staining the floor between my boots while I stand in lines.  Eyes red and sunken and lips cracked from grinning and grimacing.  Doubling over in hacking coughs and dry heaves that will not stop.  Questioning, screaming, begging the snowy sky why there is no magic pill, but there is a magic bullet.  It's not going to be easy.   Please don't talk to me.  I know I am a mess and nothing will help more than time alone.  Thank you for understanding.




///Philip Selway - "Coming Up For Air"

What Half The Country Said

I can't stop bursting into tears every few hours.  Food won't stay in me when I do try to force myself to eat.  It's heart rending.  My body is physically rejecting reality like an immune system trying to defeat a bacterial infection.  Half of the country would prefer you don't exist.  Half of the country said that you are what's wrong with the country.  Half of the country said you are worthless.   Half of the country said do us a favor and keep it moving.  Sickening.  Half of the country said your life is good enough, you should be happy no one is tying you to a tree and that should be good enough for you.  Half of the country said we don't want to be bothered with you anymore.  Go away.

I wish I could fucking disappear.  Just evaporate into thin air.  Maybe you voted for him because he had that one campaign promise that you could really get behind.  Maybe you voted for him because Hillary is a woman and you just can't have a woman in an office with that much responsibility.  Maybe you voted for him because you flipped a coin and whatever it landed on was what you were going to vote.  Maybe you voted for him because you truly believe some of what he says or you thought he's a strong leader capable of leading America back to some made up glory from the past.  Whatever reason you found for yourself, whatever mental gymnastics you made yourself do: what you said with that vote was fucking get out of our lives because we are sick of you and this country is not for you, it is for us.  I want to kill myself.

You may continue to justify your vote with "well, I don't believe that and I don't think he really thinks that.  I love minorities.  I'm friends with them.  I love women, they should have the same rights as men and jobs..." oh of course.  "He only said that to get people riled up.  He tells it like it is, but he doesn't mean what he says..." you are so full of insane bile it is nauseating.  If you are willing to overlook everything he stands for to find the one thing you can hold on to and make yourself okay with casting a vote for him you are saying you are okay with everything else about him and can get behind everything he says.  You cannot pick and pull little bits here and there and throw blinders on toward the rest of the hatred and disgust.  That's like riding in a car with some people who are on their way to beat someone to death and shrugging because you're in the car to get a lift from your house to the store.  What the fuck should you care who gets beaten lifeless, it wasn't you holding a chain or bat, hell you didn't even get out of the car and turned the radio up when they stopped.

What you said with your vote was disappear.  I wish I could.  My body will stop convulsing soon.  I'll get back in to the movement of life.  Half of the people I see I will wonder what hatred is hiding underneath that smiley "good day, to you" mask.  What part of his hate speech is inside you word for word that you've managed to mask with "I like his healthcare ideas."  What part of his hate speech is inside you, but with a gentler paraphrase because you would never say it that way exactly.  I will wonder what fears lie behind half of their eyes.  I can't kill myself.  You'll always be there and disappearing won't change how you feel.  My pain will always be there and I'll have to learn to live with this latest greatest example.  I'm just tired of fighting and trying to fit in around the margins near the shadows.  What you said with your vote will never not be disgusting, will never not bring tears to my eyes.  You say get over it, we've come so far since slavery.  What half the country said with their vote with proud chests and big smiles begs to differ.

What Makes You Laugh 3

What has been cracking me up over the last few days is a thought problem.

Everyone works to advance themselves in one way or another.  What happens when you find yourself in a field you can excel at, but have an Achilles heel for?  I am not a negotiator, but the field that I find myself in and doing very well with does not reward merit.  It rewards negotiation.  You are only worth what people are willing to pay for you.  If you would like to price yourself out of their range, you are more than welcome to do so.

The field does not operate in the same ways the rest of the customer service field operates.  If you want a job you can have one and if they ask what you would like to be paid you are welcome to write down whatever number you choose and they will come back to you with the starting and only number and you either say "yes" or you say "no."  Very simple.  Very straightforward.  Very easy.

I have been laughing trying to gauge what I am worth to other people.  In this field, what you are worth is an algorithm whose nuances run deep, parallel, and cross cut with sudden violence and stark contrast with blood and bone on the line should a miscalculation be made.  There is no room for guesswork.  Or is it that there is infinite room for guesswork because time is money and time is beholden to whom.  For whom does the bell toll these days?  For how long can negotiations continue and if you did get what you wanted, when would you feel armored and steeled and learned enough to ask for more?  To demand more.  Hell, if I know.

Given what I know, where I've been, the way I carry the fire like it is my pants on fire when the client's is, the willingness to tax flesh and artery until the tread falls off to make the date agreed on, I still have no idea what those values register on someone else's Richter scale.  I still have no idea what dialing my number means to them when they want something done right, done thorough, and finished to the dotted "I."  In terms of valuation, I don't know what I'm worth, but I'm pretty, inexactly, sure I am a cost effective means to whatever ends are summoned.

I am well trained and well versed in many modes.  Control is lacking, but only because it is not easy to corral 700 horses in one direction at the same time; we manage.  Adaptable, robust, and the commercial ends.

It does crack me up.  Folks tell you so-and-so should be paying you "X" amount of dollars.   Person "C" should have paid you this-and-that.  What is stopping you from paying me what I'm actually worth?  I'm not going to say no to money.  I'm not going to ask for more.  What's stopping you from returning a smile to me the way I gave one to you that you will enjoy much longer than the life span of the paper that passes from my hands to vendors?  That is what has made me laugh lately.

You hear the same thing from so many different people and it makes us wonder if my asking for more money will actually change anything in the right direction.  You've seen my body of work.  You know what I can and cannot yet do.  You know what you can ask me to do.  I know what I can ask us to do.  We are all familiar with one another and are either friends or thoroughly acquainted to a degree that we can rely on one another to follow through on our word.  Why don't you trust me yet to do what I say I can do and have done?  Why do I have to ask for more?

You've seen me operate enough times.  I've worked with you enough times.  If you believe I am some sort of benchmark to keep, you are mistaken.  I am skewing the market low.  What really, what really, cracked me up (because I had no option beyond cackle laughter) was thinking about all of the over paid clowns you rowd and rail about.  Wondering why this clown is somehow ten times more efficient, ten times more reliable, 60 times more faithful, five times more communicative, 100 times more driven, and ten times more accessible and somehow..............   somehow..........  worth less to you than the other, menial, infantry clowns you employ.

Grade S infantry?  "No, I will settle for grade D and pay them like a scientist apprentice."

Maybe, I'm just not cooperative enough.  Eventually the question will boil over and we will have a discussion to resolve points that our sextants align.  In the face of heartache, the only option is irrational, hysterical, laughter.




///Stereolab - "The Free Design" live

Nearing the End of the Third Week With a Fractured Jaw

With roughly 75% of the range of motion returning and constant pain beginning to subside for several hours at a time I feel pretty good about not going to a hospital on this one.  Had there been a clear break in the bone I definitely would have gone to get whatever metal was needed implanted and get wired shut.  Sometimes it baffles me how interconnected the bodies musculoskeletal system is and I am constantly reminded of how layered its concert is.

I didn't realize how many different ways and how often I shift my jaw and slide my teeth against each other when I am processing information or thinking through conversation or using my eyes and ears to take information in.  Left, right, backwards, forwards, clenching some sections of teeth and relaxing others at the same time.  Everything from pulling on a door knob, to swinging a hammer, to stretching, sitting down, standing up, turning my head, opening a mailbox, to driving a stick shift is tied to the muscle groups around the neck and jaw.  Suddenly hundreds if not thousands of long memorized motions and activities that you could perform with blindfolded confidence are thrown into doubt.  "Is this going to hurt?"  "How will this affect the healing cracks?"  "Will this pull apart soft scar tissues not yet stabilized and calcified into bone?"  In the third week I am starting to regain some confidence.

For most of the first and second week the pain never felt less than a five or six on a 10 point scale throughout the day from waking to sleep.  Depression became a huge factor.  You are not sad because of what happened or how it happened.  You become depressed because you cannot laugh without shooting pain.  You become depressed because you cannot fall asleep because of sudden spikes of pain that cut through your over the counter pain killers like the barrel of a bat slamming into a light bulb tucked inside a pillow case.  You become depressed because the muscles of your tongue and throat put enough pressure on the angle of your jaw, right on the side of the cracks, to make your eyes tear up when you swallow what you can.  Everything you casually associated with happiness in sleep, smiling, laughter, rest, sustenance, is hot wired and reprogrammed to fear and ache and apprehension and anger and it weighs on you hour after hour after hour until depression becomes crushing.

In week three many self imposed restrictions are beginning to lift.  I can get through the day and night without a single pain pill.  The constant background ache has dropped to an occasionally noticeable two or three.  When I press on the impact site gently, the bone doesn't flex and make crunching sounds.  In the second week I successfully set the condyle back into its natural position.  I couldn't help crying for several minutes afterward.  It was important and necessary as my bite was out of alignment from front to back.  Once I did that the grinding noise right at the ramus's tip finally stopped and when I bandaged my mouth closed with a thick elastic wrap my teeth sat almost as evenly as they did before.  I think that dislocation is probably what saved the angle from snapping clean through.

I can almost yawn again.  I still have to brace my chin when I sneeze.  At the end of this third week I can chew very soft pasta and cheese and drink thick soup relatively pain free, but I am taking it extremely carefully to be absolutely certain I don't retard the healing process or get too enthusiastic about my food choices.  It felt so good to finally be able to scrub my beard again without fireballs of pain shooting through my face.  Nothing changes the complexion of the day like starting it off with a good deep beard scrubbing, good god I missed that.

All of my anger and hatred toward the people that did this to me is gone.  What really makes me happy is not caring what happens to them.  Being able to let their aggression go and not have a second thought about retaliation or feeling like I'm owed something or that I owe them something.  The transaction is over.  What matters is what you decide to do next for yourself.  What matters is that lying in bed your jaw doesn't sag and fall to one side like a screen door with one hinge.  What matters is that you survived and you can physically laugh again without fear of splitting bone apart from the spirited ways in which you normally like to jump on life's comedy.

I still cannot laugh too much or the pain piles up and grows to wince worthy proportions and twists my face sour.  I still can't make some facial expressions.  I still can't sustain hours of conversation, but then again I was never particularly great at making conversation as much as listening to it, but it is still something to get used to realizing that I can only say so many words before I have to rest and close my mouth tightly.  I still can't clench my teeth in consternation.  I can feel some lingering instability and pain in the healing dislocated joint when I run up or down stairs or shake or nod my head too vigorously.  Hopefully these things and instabilities will pass as week four progresses.

I know there is potential for some level of permanent pain in the joint since it was not reset by a professional and was not wired shut to ensure speedy and complete recovery of the fracture site.  There were evenings when I slept and would wake with a start in the second week so abrupt I could feel the joint strain and hear the angle click and flex.  There was a day when I woke to a spider landing on my cheek and a slapped at my face and new before the pain even registered that I screwed up big time in doing so and set myself back all of whatever healing occurred through that day.  Common sense tells me this too, as my back injury from two and a half years ago still bothers me from time to time and sends numb sensations down my right buttock and thigh if the barometric pressure is too far off from my body.

Some of the nerves likely died as well as there is noticeably diminished feeling along the left side of my jaw bone.  I expected as much.  I expected the worst, but progress has been good and some levity has returned to day to day life.  I am not out of the woods yet.  Two to three more weeks to go before I'll try to bite into a piece of meat that hasn't been blended to the consistency of mashed potatoes.  At least three more weeks before I try to bite into an apple.  I think I may attempt a sandwich next Saturday... a grilled cheese or peanut butter and jelly.  My tummy can't wait to have fun with food with my mouth.

The food has been spectacular.  At first, the only things I could eat were nutrient shakes and very thin liquids for the first two weeks.  Very finely blended and extremely water heavy meals put through the blender and then only a half cup or so every few hours because the pain was too intense to do much more than that.  Since then the horizons have begun to grow and meals become more intricate.  Right now it's an assortment of pastes and soups of varying composition, from fresh bell peppers ground into bacon pate with rice and spinach soups drizzled all around to sweet bean mashed potatoes with soft sharp chedder shredded over the top alongside peas carrot beef mash and oreos in a little cup on the side blended into a desert syrup.  Nothing makes lunch quite like peanut butter and jelly paste beside a cup of milk.  It has been a little bit of a challenge and through the first two weeks I lost 25 pounds, but as time is getting on, some of the weight has come back.

I still feel weak from not being able to work out or move much, but some strength has returned and will only increase as the healing progresses.  At the end of week 3, I feel alright about the future.  There's a decent chance I will be close to what I was before my jaw was fractured and dislocated.  I know I will never be the same, but I am alive and can continue and I am happy for that.  Happy with that.  It kind of mirrors my mental problems that I deal with and constantly manage without medicine.  I know I will never be better than I was, but I can try to make sure I don't completely unravel and if I can be close to as sound as I was the day before then I have done the best I can.




///Deptford Goth - "Objects Objects"  the bass filled silence between the searing walls of the chaotic

Nearing the End of the First Week With a Fractured Jaw

The fracture or break is very high up the ramus and very close to my ear.  Every time I poke it hard enough I can hear and feel it flex a little so I try not to touch it or shift my jaw left or right when I do yawn with my teeth locked together.  Of course I didn't go see a doctor.  I have no health insurance.  What's the doctor going to do?  Wire my teeth together and tell me to get plenty of rest and not move my jaw.  I can do that without the wires and the $5000 bill.  Sure there may be other fractures along the side of the jaw bone, but inspection says they're only fractures if they do exist and not clean breaks.  Thanks to wisdom teeth that were never removed growing up because they were so badly impacted the surgery was out of the question for one reason or another by the time I was screened for them, the inside of my cheek took some thick lacerations at the point of impact.  I think one or two of molar roots may have cracked causing swelling and pain in the angle.  Time will tell.  Hell, if my wisdom teeth on that side die and eventually fall out, I'm all for it.  Who am I going to be kissing in the next two- three years anyway.

The first week of a liquid diet and I'm down 17 pounds.  I'm not fat, but I always feel fat, so it's helping my body image issues a great deal, oddly enough.  I keep thinking over the evening last Saturday.  After a great pow-wow with a buddy and his friend who had to leave a little earlier we decided to head out and grab some ice cream and, I was thinking, a pack of smokes on the side for me, happy to be alive and a little agitated, but more than anything else, happy to be out for a walk in the deep night air with a gorgeous moon.  Hopping along, we came across a bunch of teens loitering in a schools front yard and a police van telling them to disperse and we walked on, exchanging glances.  They were obviously doing it wrong.  Mulling in the shadows instead of out beneath the street lights on your way to get some tasty ice cream and smokes and then hop back home to finish the night off with a few beers and your friend.

They were doing it wrong and it was funny and in my happiness and joy with the night and my pal and the prospect of ice cream, I shouted to them so, with a few more curse words and some gestures, but simply poking fun at how they choose to spend their time when they could be walking to get ice cream instead of haunting a schools front lawn.  They shouted back and I shouted back, because there's so much more to life than trying to intimidate people all of the time.  There's friendship, and the moon, and ice cream, and cigarettes, and the fun a Saturday unperturbed by anyone who dares believe they can rain on my happy day with a friend I haven't seen in far too long.  Who cares if a couple of happy travelers don't clutch their purses or speak in hushed voices as they pass you by.  You're a bunch of kids on a schools closed front lawn trying to intimidate and strike fear into the "mean streets of Pittsburgh" from the shadows.  Ooga booga!  It was hilarious.

Those boys took it the wrong way and decided to follow and encircle us.  "All of this happiness must be stomped out!" is what I think they said collectively.  I had no desire to fight.  Those roads are way behind me and ice cream was ahead of me and the police were just up the block a moment ago.  I do not live in a world where I will trade ice cream for police questioning.  Ever!  I figured there'd be some yelling and shoving and they'd go on their merry and moody and belligerent way after pushing us around and we'd continue on ours and get those evening treats and continue our happy Saturday.  It wasn't to be.  I was hit from a blind angle right in the left corner of my jawbone just beneath my ear and dropped like a bag of rocks for a few seconds.  My friend, struck too, was lucky enough to get hit from a direction his head was more or less facing and did not suffer more than cosmetic damage in a black eye and a cut or two.

I didn't realize the discomfort I felt the following day was far more than a bruise on my cheek until the day after when the pain got worse and worse until I couldn't chew anything, much less open my mouth.  I guess those boys won.  My happiness silenced by a fractured jaw bone and quite possibly broken molars inside the bone itself (hoping that's not the case, but we'll know in another week or two or if the violence of them being forcefully shifted a few millimeters out of their homes has caused inflammation that will take some time to heal [or if infection is underway as we write *cue doom music*]).


I keep thinking through that fateful stretch of night.  I keep asking myself why the hell would they do that?  Keep telling myself it was entirely uncalled for.  I know why I was sucker punched.  Their fear.  That moment when my friend was hit and they thought "now or never because if this other larger guy wasn't going to put up a fight before he just may A: decide to put up a fight now, B: shout or call for help, C: both a and b."  I keep wondering why they didn't just yell back and go their separate way.  There was no chance they considered he and I, a couple of drunk 30 year old men out on a walk together, to be a threat to them.  Why would they do that?  Why would they attack us so viciously?

And then it dawned on me.  Thinking back 12 years.  How righteously furious I was then for dozens of reasons, some complex some as simple as I wanted an excuse to pass on the hurt inside of me to anyone who gave me an excuse to.  Ready to fight anyone and any inanimate object that didn't "respect" me no matter how pointless or stupid.  I didn't want to rob you.  I wanted to hurt you as badly as I could get away with.  Year after year after year, getting more angry, more sensitive, more irrational, but always questioning it, breaking it apart, tearing down the engine, trying to figure out what the hell it was making this bomb of my body go tick tick tick.  I still haven't figured it out exactly.

Through years of study, years of violence toward others sometimes warranted, often times not, culminating in things I will never be able to take back, I left those courses behind me.  Thirty years old all I care about is writing, getting home in one piece, spending time with my cats, seeing my friends when I can, and taking care of the only body I have left until my brain breaks apart or my body just will not run anymore.  I could care less who respects me and who doesn't.  I could care less who breaks my jaw and who decides to be merciful.  Save for a handful of very specific, very important, exceptions, if I ever get so mad that the only language I can speak is the original dialect, violence itself, I will speak through breaking my own skin and nerves, not someone else's.  The simpler truth is that for most of those kids, they will never learn or even begin to learn how to learn that things could be different.  Some of them will end up dead.  Others will circle their private drains until their live's dwindle and die out.

Those idiots aren't there yet.  It was stupid of me to believe a 12 year gap in understanding what a good night with a friend really is, and what it can mean in the face of a world, in the face of my world once dominated by violence.  They didn't silence my happiness.  If worst comes to worst and I can never quite use my jaw the way I could before that night again, I have always wanted to learn sign language.

Do I hate them for it?  Of course.  Would I like to find one of them, knock him senseless, wrap him duct tape and put him in the bed of my truck and take him home?  Would I like to duct tape his arm to a sheet of plywood after gagging him with #0 steel wool and use my belt sander grind away the first knuckle of each digit of his immobilized hand and then shatter the wrist of his other?  Would I like to drive down river and dump his body at a drainage gate?  Of course.  That would achieve nothing.  I'd be happy for a while until the next week when the pain set in again and I would need to find another one and that life is not for me as long as I continue to refuse it and allow the rest of myself to flourish.  Maybe they'll learn.  Maybe a few of them will think about and ask themselves essential questions.

Happiness and love are precious and not to be squandered under all but the most extreme circumstances.  Especially not in this world's economy.




///=sigh= I could really go for a slice of pizza right about now.  I'll melt some ice cream instead.