Today is a bad day. It's only 2:12, and
I've spent most of it asleep. I don't know what else is in store, but
it doesn't matter. At around 1 in the morning, I get an email from
another useless Craigslist person telling me that I've been strung
along in hoping for some help for another 3 weeks. They think there's
nothing wrong with keeping someone waiting who's clearly deeply
emotionally invested in creating something meaningful and profitable.
I woke up at 6 in the morning feeling very tired, and texted the head
of a construction company who contacted me yesterday to work on some
apartments as a scab that I wasn't willing to risk getting injured on
a job site without health insurance. It's been nonstop raining, I was
in no way prepared to spend 9 hours pretending the 9/hr was worth it.
He thanked me for letting him know, and then said, “good luck.”
My email this morning read, “You have accepted the terms and
conditions for working at Clustertruck” in 3 separate emails,
pressing the thumb down on the point that there is no escape from
anti-union, anti-legislation business practices, and you better get
in line or starve. I'm trying to find the headspace to drive out to
the land to drop off more money for my builder who, 3 different times
now, I thought was supposed to be done building the bathroom, but
something always comes up.
The Craigslist asshole reminds me of
when I tried to be “robotic” in my understanding of how people
operate. He echoed the tone and metre of my ex-girlfriend sophomore
year of college. “Why, it's unfortunate you feel that way” is one
of the most detached and ridiculous phrases you can provide someone
when you've pissed them off. I do believe you have a responsibility
to cope with your own feelings, but I'm not and have never been under
the impression that any one person is an island and we don't affect
each other. I feel like a girl who's been waiting for her long term
boyfriend to propose after he said he was going to a dozen times.
Then when he breaks up with me, he doesn't understand why I'm upset
because “it just makes sense for him personally” to pursue women
he wants to fuck more.
I'm confused on what people think my
motivation is. I'm very angry that people think I'm not entitled to
my anger. I don't think they appreciate the threat. I don't think
they look to the future. I don't think they even believe they have
lives that overlap and are of any consequence. So when I spend 3
weeks of “deliberate patience” to hear, “actually, I was lying
all along” that's a net negative to not only my disposition, but to
my concept of why I'm bothering at all. You know why I want to sleep
all the time? Because enough of those moments back to back tear me
shreds. You know why I signed those terms? Because the glancing blows
some editorial from what a labor activist writes isn't going to bring
down the exploitation machine we've built into how we work together.
Turning down the scab gig at least wasn't me actively pursuing one
more cut.
I don't need to conduct my life with
any sense of purpose or joy. I can turn into the manipulative and
indignant. My last attempt to refrain from inflicting that on the
world is to try and sleep. I've already pulled out, stayed up all
night, and stuck to my shows. I've picked a library's worth to read,
and lined up the instruments to practice. I'm moving to the middle of
nowhere. I've whittled down my “friends” into the handful of
depressives who are as glued to facebook as I am and subset of adults
who barely bother to use it at all anymore. When you recede far
enough, you either kill yourself, or you lash out.
It gets worse though. An episode of misdirected anger is one thing, but what happens when you can no longer feel one way or another about it? Something I said hurt? What are you anyway? Another liar? Another person who's given up. Another bag of cliches pretending we're closer than we actually are? Another pseudo-competence for any realm beyond your own preservation? You want to chastise me, or lecture me, suggest a book to read, or wring your hands that you can finally be done listening? It's all on the table. Who cares? I speak to avatars and pixels. My appeals thrown in my face. My ideals trammeled beyond recognition. My words as hollow as my next irrational attention-seeking panic attack.
It's a bad day because writing isn't
making it better. I'm going to hunch, and huff, and linger. I'm going
to press too hard and dig too deeply into pimples and scabs that
aren't popable or pickable. I'm going to just stare. I'm going to
stare at the life I'm not living and the people I'll never meet. I'm
going to stare at the empty and afraid faces who have the gall to
tell me they understand how I should behave.
