[799] Survival of the Fittest

I feel like I don't matter to anyone.

There we go, first blog from the land, and that's the line that caught me earlier today as I was sitting in Planet Fitness, waiting for a coworker who was never going to show up.

I'm so far down this “my own home” line. It never ends. That's honestly never something I really anticipated. I expected to find myself picking and choosing little vanity projects and “for the sake of killing grass and bugs” things. I thought I'd find myself motivated to push that boulder just a little bit more up the hill when I got home each day. I thought I'd nailed a cement sign named “patience” into my skull that would keep me even, as I navigate the fallout of my house being not-so.

I have to be detailed, at least for a paragraph or few. What happens is that you budget for $300 in supplies, and maybe 2 days of labor at $125 a day. The project might be able to start this weekend, and be done by Monday. It doesn't get started this weekend, a truck is broken. In earnest, you offer to drive, pick up the supplies, and help in the afternoons. You offered to help over the weekend, but they won't need you, they'll be able to knock it out. Keep in mind, these are the good, reliable, honest guys. Life is just happening to them in ways particular to them, as it is to us all. Each day that goes by is attributed to the broken truck. But wait, there's more.

Your reliable builder is having a hell of a time. He's getting divorced. He's being denied access to see his non-biological granddaughter. He's got brain lesions that cause him to get wildly nauseous. His guys disappear on him, and the people he's looked after in life throw things in his face and threaten to play out scenes from Western shoot-outs. He's visibly constantly dealing with the stress of what's going on around him, and he wishes to return to his former glory of doing things quick and “perfect.” This means when I get home, late, because country traffic is as real as city traffic, I see him spending time shaving edges and reattaching drywall that was attached yesterday, because some cosmetic imperfection was getting to him. Have I said dozens of times it's about function over aesthetics? Yes. I'm watching the labor tally rise as more days get added.

I've got yellow spray foam hung like tacky Christmas lights all over the place, soaked foundation and open water and mud pits around grass that needs whacked. I can deal with the mess, it's an active construction site. But there's no way to predict the future, apparently, until half a job has been done. Need 5 2x4s? Okay. Actually, it's 10, or 12, or 15. And let's get them from the most expensive place, because it's a little closer. Oh, actually, the truck is down, so you could have gone to Lowe's, picked up what we needed, brought them at your leisure, saved money, and tuns out that could have been calculated 2 weeks ago when I first looked at where x-thing lined up with y-thing. You bought caulk? I bought caulk, and forgot this stockpile I've been creating, so guess we have double! I just picked up the order that was put in, but also, I could have picked it up cheaper, and in bulk, and everything extra has been sitting in the exact same place for months.

I'm here now, on my computer, downloading well in excess of what any major internet provider would allow me to. My main structure is so tightly sealed, I've changed the temperature 3 times and felt the impact before I could get through each paragraph. I have, at least snack food, in and around my mini fridge. The toilet can flush, albeit with iron-rich water. I have about the space it takes to sit in front of my computer and half of my bed that I can truly occupy, but there is a slice of heaven here.

Everyone's got a story. That's the horrid cliché I threw out to the coworker who never came. She made it 5 days. But her “real” motivation, to be a bird floating about the wind never knowing where life will really take it, she wouldn't share with me until the severity of the disappointment and hollowness started to sink in. She's one of the few I like at work. We started going because she was wearing plastic wrap under her clothes talking about how it was supposed to help her sweat and lose pounds. She's gregarious and take charge, but when pushed, steps sideways. I thought I had a chance to start a good habit, and good basis for ongoing conversation and friendship. I got another person to tell me my influence doesn't matter, and I need to keep my distance.

When I talk about not having real problems, I mean it. I don't even know what to call how little I feel about the endless void that is attempting to “solve” things. I revel in my absence. I need water. I'll need to eventually sweep out and mop up the drywall dust, sawdust, dirt, kill the bugs let in from the garage door being open, because, “it's nice weather!” In that way, the space still doesn't really feel like mine. The country music and touch of cigarette smoke. I'm still not alone alone. I'm still not learned enough in the ways of building things myself. If it were up to me, I don't know that I'd go back outside. My pool is going to be indoors, and if sun makes it in through the roof, bravo.

“Life isn't meant to be lived alone.” This, some line from some show I can't remember. I don't know that I want to live “alone,” as much as I can't take the heartbreak of trying, and not being able to find people anything like me. The ones who resemble me, capitulate. The one's who like me, overwhelmingly, find the reason I become “too much,” whether they want to bolster that opinion with a rape allegation, or stick to more traditional ghosting behaviors. You see stupid fucking memes, I may start only calling memes by the proper title “stupid fucking memes,” that speak to being judged whether you try or not, whether you speak or not, so do it anyway. Victims puke aphorisms one speculates are meant to inspire. Let me tell you, you're full of shit. You don't want me loud and proud. You won't engage with meek and contemplative. Ra ra rally around your bullshit, but it's no secret why I'm so eager to shove your little parade off the list of “people” I care to paint my brain with.

What's left to do but watch? My TV habit feels less like an occupying of time or analogy, and more like an imperative. When your plans come to fruition, maybe, and well-independent of your goddamn opinion, why continue to make them, or believe in your capacity? When your relationships aren't merely superficial, but perpetually excessively and painfully so, how do you approach them with anything but a kind of reserve and cynicism? It doesn't mean you don't like people. But they're people. The gym is there when they won't be, so can you fall for it? If everything I own gets destroyed, the shows are out there. There's a billion guitars I could play. Hell, my supervisor referred to her house burning down as, “Well, there's our spring cleaning,” and hers is a strong point to be made.

It seems like the list of things I don't care about grows longer all the time. I don't care that the coworker blew me off. I care that she, a dozen times, lied about her enthusiasm or willingness to do it. I care that the story of my life is more often meeting people who don't want to get through to the other side unless it's on their horribly, if-at-all, communicated terms. Their picture of our mini-adventure has to stay in tact, because, god forbid they catch something I write, and the illusion of their self-deceit be laid bare, as they have to acknowledge there's another person over there.

I'm home. The quiet hum of my computer. The even quieter flow of air. I can see the bugs flitting about in my security cameras. Everything I need to pack up for the day is in one spot. I was tired, and maybe just a touch short with my builder, swatting away bugs and finding the first tick of the season on my jeans. I want something to feel complete. I want to speak to something growing that matters and is worth building upon. I happened to watch the first half of Wild Wild Country about the cult in Oregon in the 80s, so many people on the same page about starting a “new” society where people would be taken care of. Naive to the corrupt soul that is man. Naive to the other minds in the surrounding towns with their own ideas as to how to respond. Am I in a cult of the remnants of my personality? A cult of one, pursuing “truth,” so discussed in the pages and pages amen?

The happiest point in my day was hearing my darling friend only got house arrest instead of 2 weeks imprisonment for her 2nd DUI. In some bizarre coincidence, she's the 3rd or so friend of mine to be a girl, with a, let's say nuanced relationship to alcohol, who won't be driving for a while. The people in my circles have their own foibles. I'm always curious why there's stories like that abound. I get it, cultural and social decay and whatnot, but, back to me, if I mattered, if my ideas were compelling. If I had a thing or two worked out about budgeting, or sacrifice, or honesty about the nature of the investment and commitment to changing things, not for the sake of it, but with meaningful intention, maybe I wouldn't be out here, alone, tip-toeing around my proclivity to dismiss feelings, and begging my hollow frustration not to say the wrong thing about the progress made so far.

I don't know fighters. We're still in the #metoo era, right? Survivors is where it's at. I know people who “survive” the harsh environments they leisurely travel to. I know people who cling to their job after the initial plan might've caught snags. I know people happy to play along and play adult. They won't make any more or less waves than they have to row over or hold their breath until they pass through. I doubt that's how they see it. They have a cause, or a vision, or a worse-off that they can advocate for and donate to. Heroes, no doubt. Nothing says stirring up things in service to the good more than facebook donations. Maybe make it $20, or $50! I'm getting older, and they let me have a “real job” for 2 years so far!

Ugh, I just want to complain and shit on everything, but the hole is still there. I'm not that invested. I'm indefinitely indefinite. When I get what I want, I'll still be hungry. When I find a friend, they'll be house-arrested, or dancing in every way but aerobically.

I'm home. I'm alone. I have my shows. I have my dusty-stuff waiting to be wiped down and given orders. I have the scent of no-frills plywood, and musky blankets, who speculate about when they'll get to see the washer and dryer in circulation. I don't think the world has anything on this royal baby. Inching along, always whining.

I put Byron's gun to my head the other day. I had no intention of firing it. It was arbitrary, and 1 beat Taxi Driver because his mirror was near by. I have plenty of desires and things I look forward to. I like myself. But I do, legitimately, persistently think about death, where the idea is just this dumb little plaything that prompts me to do dumb shit like that. Do I want to be a person who would never do something like that? I'd rather be the person who knows he's not going to pull the trigger. I wish I could have as good a handle on anything or anyone else.