Everything feels desperate now. I only have one task to do and it haunts me minute by minute, hour by hour. All I know is Avoidance and the crushing, shameful awareness of that Avoidance. Earlier I tried to say to myself "Well, what if you were working and now you were home from work; what would you be doing?" or "Would this be any different?" but it just doesn't work. I feel bad and ashamed of anything I do that isn't applying for a job because anything else is unproductive and doesn't advance "the cause" (to put it melodramatically). I don't know what else I could be doing that could be seen/felt as productive when anything I do is pointedly NOT that.

"Ah, but wait!" contradicts my logical brain. "You could be cooking something; doing something challenging and new in the kitchen! You could be exercising; working on improving your body for the future! You could be cleaning; trying to get rid of the clutter in your life! You could be writing; trying to strengthen your supposed best natural gift!"

Once again Logical Brain makes the case (and is annoying as hell). I could be doing any of those things in an effort to improve my life or myself for the future. So it's a double penalty because I'm not doing anything good in my Avoidance; I'm just slacking off like a drug addict.

This is a job Linked In suggested to me. If I was truly moving forward and upward in my profession (or interested in doing so), this would be the kind of job I would be moving toward. Instead I'm looking at mailroom jobs, trying to stay in my stoner lifestyle.

http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=2531061

I wouldn't date me, I wouldn't hire me, I wouldn't befriend me and I barely have any respect for me; so why should someone else do any of those things?

I've been in heavy Avoidance mode for the past two days. I use TV or sleep to try to pass the time without feeling panicked; today, back at home, I don't have TV any more (the TV is on the fritz). I used sleep earlier; I lay down at 6pm and slept til now (9pm). But when I woke up, the panic gripped my heart and put a small bubble around it, like a negative force field that squeezes it. All I can think is "you should apply, you should apply, you should apply" or "you're not doing it, you're not doing it, you're not doing it" and the panic is the deadline marching ever forward like death, pressing toward me.

I don't know why it's so hard to apply. I don't know why. I feel like any other person could do it, just not me. I look at the ads and all I think about it what I can't do. I read the duties and focus on the ones I haven't done. I think about how there's probably 50 kids just out of college who do have the experience that I don't. And I don't apply.

Mostly it's about the cover letter. The cover letter is where you're supposed to puff yourself up, talk about how great you are. I don't work like that. I have a hard time being confident, let alone selling myself. It all feels like lies and the gaps between me and the job qualifications are a leap of faith I can't make.

That's really the problem. I need to write as if I can make that leap, as if I will make that leap; but I can't do that. I don't have any faith. I don't believe those things. And so I can't write the letter.

Mondays Are The Worst

Well, here I am at home again. Nothing accomplished. Today I took a shower and saw a movie; that was my entire accomplishment. Tomorrow I'll go to therapy again and tell the doctor I applied to nothing all week. I tried (kinda), but I just couldn't get myself to do it. (I'm telling myself I've still got 7 hours of tonight to do it but I'm not real hopeful.)

Want to hear an amusing idea? Today on the way back from my friend's, I saw a woman out walking (for exercise). I looked at her and saw a middle-class woman and thought: "You know what I need? I need some rich wife to support me. Or maybe a bunch of wives. They could each give me $50 a week and I could support myself." As I said to my friend: "Now why, you ask, would they give me that $50? Well, I haven't figured that part out." It just seemed that, for that moment, it would be easier to ask some well-off women to give me some money once a week than to try to convince some employer that I'm worth taking a chance on. I won't even take a chance on me.

[sick, sick, self-pity, blah, blah, woe is me, etc, etc] I'm going to skip that part so you don't have to deal with it (because I don't really want to deal with it, either).

Here's how everything has gone wrong of late (not that it's not totally my fault). Tuesday I told the doc I was going to apply to some jobs. I looked up some jobs but I didn't apply for any of them. Eventually the browser crashed and I opened it again and did other stuff and it crashed again and this happened a couple of times and I searched jobs again, opened up another set (fifteen or so - some the same, some different) and didn't apply to those; browser crashed again.

This happened through Wednesday and Thursday. Meanwhile I'm trying to read articles as fast as I open new articles and falling behind on that never-ending Sysiphean task. Friday I come here to my friends to pet-sit for her. On the way to her house it pours rain and I get soaked. I catch up on all the Daily Show/Colbert episodes but don't open my computer or apply for jobs. I stay in the whole night, don't talk to anyone on the phone or anything, fall asleep at 7pm for an hour, get back up and stay up until 1am watching TV.

I get up at 9 today (set my alarm for 8:40, snoozed it twice), feed the animals, watch some TV, get sleepy, go back upstairs and nap, come back downstairs and watch some more TV, go to the local store and buy a 24-oz Pepsi and a small box (single sleeve) of Oreos, come home, eat and watch TV. I don't know if I napped more.

At some point I open up my computer because I want to see if the troubled girls I've newly focused my attention on (found their tumbler accounts through an article) have responded or mentioned my contacts. I sent the one I've been writing (without an address) more messages and finish reading her entire blog (apparently only 2 months old).

I watch some English current events/quiz shows (old) on the computer, eat some more and go back to watching TV. I order take out and fill up on that. I just got up from the TV because the dog wanted to go out.

On Thursday, I spoke to no one and no one spoke to me - outside of my housemates, that is. No one texted me and I texted no one. I don't know about email; I haven't checked it since then, at least.

Today I spoke to no one - except the animals. I went out just the once to get some junk food. (I guess I spoke the proprietor and the delivery guy.) It's been windy and cold, so going outside isn't an enticement.

Today was my niece's birthday party and I was going to go up but I couldn't make the schedule work. I was going to borrow someone's car but it just ended up being too much work and anxiety in my mind so I cancelled. I was there just last week so that's something. Still, I feel bad. I would have liked to have been there, even if it was for a little bit.

The anxiety really hit me this morning; I was thinking about how I was going to figure out going to this party and then I started thinking about how I haven't applied for any jobs and that situation isn't moving forward and everything was just making me feel awful. I don't know how I got out of it. Maybe watching TV helped it go away. Or maybe it was after I texted that I wasn't coming.

I was also having this issue with my oldest brother. He would have given me a ride but I feel pressure from him - negative pressure - and I can't be around him. I wouldn't even have felt very comfortable being at the party with him. I can't talk to him because all that goes on in my mind is "YOU HAVEN'T APPLIED FOR ANY JOBS" "YOU DON'T HAVE A JOB" "YOU'RE LAZY AND YOU'RE LOSING MONEY" "YOU CAN'T SUSTAIN YOUR LIFESTYLE" and I feel terribly guilty and ashamed of myself. Mostly because he's the one I'm going to turn to when I run out of money and need help.

What I really want is independence from him; to not have to lean on him for help. That way I can shrug off whatever he feels about me or take it as both positive and negative - shame but also hope. This need for independence is what fueled me to line up a ride to the party on my own; I could have easily gone with them but I don't want his help because I feel like his judgement comes with it. I don't know how he feels and I won't ask.

Out with the dog just now I thought again that I should have just taken her along. In the past I would have done that with no problem only she's currently got a bad leg and I didn't want her to re- or more badly-injure it. My brother has a dog and there are other dogs in the neighborhood that are let loose at times so I just didn't feel comfortable taking her (and I knew my friend wouldn't want me to if I was questioning it). Still, that would have been the easiest way to solve the situation. (I even tried to think of other people in town I could have left her with, like my friend's parents, but it just didn't fit.)

So here I am, having spoken ten words to two people in all of today and not having accomplished anything else. I should have applied to two jobs - or five, or ten, or fifteen - but I just can't. I can't say I'm qualified; I can't say I'm ready; I can't say "I can do it!" I may be able to but I don't know that from the outside. All I can say is I'll show up and do what I can. That's not usually what they want to hear. (Although I've been trying to come up with a cover letter that says that in a kind of positive way so that I can apply on my own terms. )

This is the most productive thing I've done all day; and I'm about to go erase it by watching an episode of Law & Order that I've seen at least - at least - three times already - and I chose to watch it!! Stupid.

Signing off, I am -
An Asshole

I was thinking about watching some TV tonight until I got home and found the audio doesn't work on EITHER TV. What the fuck?!?

My own personal theory is that it got zapped too many times by static electricity when I went to change the channels. But that doesn't explain why TV #1 is suddenly functioning again: the picture had died to a vertical line; it's back full now (just no audio).

My other theory is that the cable is somehow bad. Or the digital converter (whose red "on" light isn't on and there doesn't seem to be a switch on the box anywhere). I guess I could check if it was plugged in but would the satellite signal even be getting through to the TV if the box wasn't working at all??

I don't know.

All I know is that I had been looking forward to maybe finding some good TV to watch and now suddenly I can't because the TV's on the fritz. Now maybe I would like the landlord to get us a new TV. (#1 was here when I moved in; #2 might be mine but I'm not sure; I just know I brought it up from the basement.)

Guess I'll have to go back to reading full time, like I did for a couple of years in the late 90s when I moved into a house that didn't have a general-use TV. I read what I could for those years and then a roommate moved in and put a TV in the living room and that was life ever after.

(Suddenly I'm getting angry thinking of an old housemate who came home drunk one night and woke me up to complain about my clutter. Fucking asshole. I was so pissed off.)

Shiver Me Timbers

Yesterday I was looking for some toothpaste. I went to brush my teeth and when I looked on the shelf where the toothpaste had been the night before, it was gone. Argh, my brother and his wife must have taken it for the kids.

Ok, now what?

I went and checked the parents bathroom; no dice. Then I went and checked my bag; I knew that I had had a sample size tube in one of the pockets at one point.

I started with an end pocket in my little duffel bag, digging blindly down at the bottom. My fingertip flicked across something; hunh, what was that? I felt somewhere else: Oh, it's a disposable razor. Then I took my hand out and realized I had just "shaved" off the tip of my finger. Ouch.

It bled like a bitch and for a little while I couldn't find any band-aids. I didn't know what I was going to do because I didn't even know where the clear tape was to tape a piece of paper towel around my finger. Plus my dexterity was greatly reduced because it was my dominant finger (duh; that's why it was on the front lines of my search).

I eventually put a band-aid on it. It filled up with a large bloodstain but it didn't bleed through or out. I can't remember if I changed it before or after the kids came home but I definitely did after because soon after I was rough-housing with them, I bumped the tip and I knew it was bleeding again.

I have to change it again because I just took a shower with it on.

--
In other news: I had this sharp pain in the fold under my big toe like a paper cut. Turns out it was a hair jabbed into my skin. Ever get that? This is only about the second time for me.

Also, I ripped my favorite pair of boxers. I heard them rip last night but didn't want to believe it. I don't know how to prevent it other than switching to boxer briefs (seem to hot) or always remembering to hike up my pants AND boxers whenever I'm going to squat down. That's how they keep ripping. I keep squatting down and they don't ride up and they rip.

I've bought some new ones lately, so that's good. I think I have eight new pair. For some reason I haven't opened them; I feel like I have this strange commandment to myself to only open them when I get a job and have someplace to go again.

We shall see.

Now I'm up late - and shouldn't be - doing nothing; online, half-watching Law & Order: Criminal Intent; writing here.

I should have been writing this afternoon. I have these letters I want to write and I never write them. I think they're powerful letters; I think they could have a great effect but I doubt myself; myself as agent of change, myself as author of the letters.

That was one of the things I thought of doing before this weekend; coming up, writing the letters, mailing them. I think I hesitate to send my letters for fear they will just disappear into the ether and nothing will happen.

Of course, for best results I should try to organize things myself or promote myself somehow but again, that relies on me believing in myself as Agency, something I'm unwilling to do.

I started writing a note the other night called "In Denial and Practicing Avoidance;" the denial was about my progressive balding; the avoidance is about not facing up to my responsibilities; taking responsibility for my talents and work ethic; for living up to the ideals that I espouse to others or to myself. If I say I believe in certain things, I should live up to those things. If I say I'm going to volunteer at X or Y, I should follow through. And I should definitely learn to look for, find and take a job that will pay money, regardless of what it is. I can get another job later; the important thing now is to have money coming in and be working, which will be important to employers in that they'll see that I was industrious and got myself a job, even if it was some bottom rung job that didn't pay a lot or have any prestige.

Of course, how do I explain all my downtime? All this time I took off and didn't do anything?

It wouldn't be as bad if I had done something else during that time than sit on the couch and watch TV; if I had traveled or volunteered full time or something; but I didn't do any of that. I spent the majority of time at home, zoning out and not thinking. It was a lousy existence; and as it translates to work (or as an analogy for one's work life), it doesn't say good things. So I worry about that a lot.

I've thought about doing the "whatever" cover letter. I think about it a lot. The problem is, I've only applied to three places; and I really do want a job; so how do I not self-sabotage? (I may already be shooting myself in the foot with my LinkedIn profile. I posted some picture of me with tousled hair and labeled myself a dreamer; that probably doesn't look good with employers of straight jobs.)

I was watching this show "Portlandia" and, although it's a comedy, when they talked about how "remember in the 90's when it was ok to not have ambition and people had these crazy part-time jobs, like they worked 2 or 3 hours a week at some coffee shop? That still exists in Portland!" I wanted to move there in the hopes that I could live that life and be accepted for that.

Of course what do I mean by acceptance? I'm accepted now, I just choose not to exercise it. There are people who like me and accept me, I just don't go out and interact with them. It's my fault I have no social life, not anyone else's.

God, that was depressing to write that and talk about that. I'm going to go do something else now.

For a second I changed channels to the "Electronica/Dance" music channel on my brother's cable system and there was some loud, fast dance music and I was excited. I thought about dancing and how I love to dance to fast dance music. I find it transporting.

I suddenly had this image of a life where I went dancing every night and shooting at a gun range during the day.

Crazy, right?

I don't know what my deal is; I have a problem getting a little job or a "regular" job but I have no idea seeing myself as some kind of luxuried dandy, coasting through life with an enormous trust fund. (The question becomes: where does this trust fund come from??)

I've been at my brother's for two days. It's amazing how I've been able to forget my own life and ignore all my worries. I don't know why I can; my life isn't any difference here than it is at home. Ok, that's not true. Maybe it's because I've got people here who love being with me or people to talk to all the time. There's also work to do: I cleaned the dining room table and cleaned a little of the floor today. I picked up some things in the downstairs but didn't do as much as I could have (or wanted to). I didn't do the load of wash I wanted to. I cleaned the toilet a bit but I didn't clean the shower at all. (The tub looks pretty good; I was kind of surprised.)

I was going to do all this today; the family was away yesterday afternoon until this afternoon. But I woke up today and didn't know what to do with myself - and wasn't terribly motivated to do the cleaning. I should have taken a shower but what I did do was lay down on the couch and go to sleep at noon or so and woke up at about 2 when the first kid came busting through the door.

Of course, I didn't have any money (or not a lot and I should be conserving it) so I didn't feel comfortable just going out and doing whatever. I had thought about going to the movies but I wasn't really into it (it's going alone and I have a hard time doing that). If I could have, I would have gone to the store and bought a bunch of food or maybe gone to a clothing store and bought myself some clothes. When I'm here, I like to buy them a bunch of food, like steak.

But I guess I just didn't know what to do with myself, which is always how I feel. I don't have a place for myself; a role for myself in my own life. I'm just...here.

The other thing I could have done was call my friend's parents and gone to visit them. That was an idea I suggested to myself before I left Washington. It would have been odd, though; I'm not that close to them, really. In fact, what I would want to do is go over there and ask his dad about his drinking and his life and what he thinks about getting older and death and whether his dad's early death has anything to do with it.

It's stupid because I'm way out of my depth on stuff like that. I like to talk about it but I don't have any real experience with life and relationships to know anything about it. I haven't built anything up and lost it, taken any real risks to know what real loss is about. I'm just a piece of wood, bobbing on the ocean of life.

Which goes back to the idea of avoidance: that attitude means I don't take responsibility for the direction of my life and what happens in it. I may be on a small wooden raft in a vast ocean but I can always paddle with my hands to try to push myself in a particular direction.

I couldn't sleep so I didn't sleep so now I'm exhausted and miserable. I'm going to my brother's today and so I was wound up about that (deadlines!) and then I started thinking about everything else (projects, etc) and I couldn't stop thinking.

I went to bed at 3am after watching TV half the night, thinking I'd sleep until 8:30 when my alarm went off, snooze it 'til 9, then get up and have two and a half hours before I had to leave. Thinking, thinking, thinking, I got up at 4:30 after being unable to quiet my mind.

I watched a half-hour of TV and then went back to bed at 5, thinking three hours was better than nothing. Churn, churn, churn; I got up at 5:30 and wrote a letter to my cousin and then one to my alma mater. Then I brought up my file box and did some filing and then some project notes. Then, finally, I went up to bed to lay down again.

I went up at 7:30. I was awake, awake, awake and checked the clock at 8:19. I lay there for 11 more minutes, then lay there for a couple of snoozes. Finally I got up about ten minutes ago; I just couldn't take it.

Oh - before that, I got up and packed my bag for the trip.

Up and down, up and down, up and down. Lots of things accomplished; no sleep. So now I'm up because I feel like I should be up, now, because this was when I was going to be up when I planned it out last night. I guess I can do some notes and apply for some jobs and try to nap for an hour but I don't know how I'll feel after that. Ah, well. The most important part, really, is for me to apply for more jobs today. I have a bunch already open on my computer and I don't want to double-apply for anything if I go use my brother's computer. So I'm going to have to note something about each job so I know I've already applied for it.

Here goes nothing.

Watching my British TV shows online (I've sent one application so far) and just thought to myself: "I'd like to go abroad and watch TV for a year." [smile] How pathetic is that??

Still, and all.
:)

--
They were talking about travel (it's an old episode and they're discussing the newer airport scanners that can see through your clothing) and I suddenly had this feeling of: "I'd like to travel somewhere;" "I wish I could fly somewhere." But I had that opportunity and I couldn't make anything of it because I didn't know what I would do once I got to where ever it was! And the further away anything was the more absurd it would become! Why would I go to Ireland or England if I couldn't even figure out a way to distract myself in Montana, or Seattle? (I realize one's a state and one's a city.) I had great dreams of visiting places in Latin America but I just couldn't be bothered because I didn't know what I would do once I got there. I even looked into volunteering in some parts and taking classes in another because I have such an impossible time meeting people and feeling comfortable around strangers that I figured at least this would give me activity and connection; otherwise I would just feel trapped and isolated, even if I was in the most friendly city on earth!

It's so stupid being me.

I just got off the phone with Divorce Friend and she's miserable. I suppose I should call her "Divorced Friend" now because her divorce became final last week. She called me up crying when it was over to thank me for my help.

Now all she has is anger and bitterness. She feels she gave away a huge chunk of hard-earned money to someone who didn't deserve it and now she's struggling to pay her own bills. I was just thinking that one of the reasons I would like to have a job and an income would be to send her money from time to time. I was just thinking up creative ways to send it to her so that she couldn't refuse it as being from me. (She wouldn't want charity, even though she could use it, and I don't care enough about money to have it be a loan - I guess in some ways I'm hippy-like, in that I think it'll be paid back through some other source.) (Yeah, right: more likely is that I don't think I deserve any money in the first place, so if I give it away and don't get it back, [shrug] so what? I didn't deserve to have it in the first place.)

God, work is so awesome in that way. And maybe it would be great to be the kind of person that felt that were valuable and worth something (worth money, I mean); I have a personal feeling of value about myself - I know I am worthy for some work; it just doesn't translate to money for me; I don't know why.

I applied for two jobs last night. My goal was to apply for five. So I missed that mark by a mile (in my mind). Plus, as I said last night, I fucked up one of the emails so that I sent it twice; first without the resume and then with. If there's a mark of incompetence, that's sure it.

Ah, fuck. [sigh]

Son of a bitch!

I just wrote a fun little cover letter and then, instead of saving it for a minute, like I wanted to, I fucking sent it, sans fucking resume. Goddamn it! I fucking hate this! I do something right for a change and then I fuck it up! God damn it I hate this shit.

I'm trying to apply for jobs and I'm procrastinating. My goal was(is) to apply for five jobs. I've got six or so open right now. But it makes me anxious to think about applying. I'm anxious all the time anyway, but I'm still having a hard time applying. I guess I expect to be judged and I expect to be judged wanting. Or I skip ahead and see myself fucking up and getting fired. (How's that for getting ahead of myself??)

Recently I've started thinking about my money running out and it's causing me anxiety. A low-level, constant thrum that makes my chest and stomach feel tight. Or constricted; constricted, I guess. I feel like bands are wrapped around my chest, pressing lightly on my lungs. I can't relax. In the past couple of days my shoulder joints have felt sore and made me wonder if it's some kind of anxiety-stress-inflammation tie-up. I know stress can do that; make you unhealthy. I just don't know if it targets particular systems like that.

I opened this, though, so I could write about something else. I've written before about how not having a job or money to spend makes one feel disconnected from society in the US since our society is consumer-based. Granted, I'm just basing that on watching television, since that's all I do; but it also affects my ability to go anywhere since most places you have to spend money to be there. If you're going to meet up with friends, where are you going to do it? A bar; a restaurant; the movies. You go places that cost money. When you don't have money to spend; you can't, shouldn't or don't want to do that stuff.

The recent manifestation of this for me is my email. I'm signed up to all these savings things and now they're just annoyances and, somehow, shaming devices. Groupon, Bloomspot, Daily Candy; emails from Barnes & Noble, Jos. A Bank, Best Buy. I can't buy any of their products anymore and I feel oppressed by all their emails and guilty that I can't partake in this savings bonanza.

So I'm trying to correct that. Last night when I was suffering through my second day of constant, low-level anxiety about work, I realized that even if I feel the anxiety, I can still apply for jobs and work on the problem, even if it doesn't make me feel better. (I don't expect it to make me feel better because I don't feel like I can affect my own life; I don't think I can get a job; one has to be given to me.) I don't know if I'll feel any better once I do apply - since I feel like such a lousy candidate - but at least I can say that I did apply and that's something, right?

I'm anxious.

Speaking of Fallow Fields...

I was reading a piece in Mother Jones (from 2000; they went out of business, right?) about the prison company CCA moving into Ohio's former steel towns and I thought again about what I thought of for Detroit and Michigan: greenhouses. They should start building massive (and masses) of greenhouses and producing..well, produce, in these broken-down towns. Maybe they could sell it to local stores; maybe they could just use it to keep their own populace fed; who knows? But people are always lamenting the quality of our foods and that America is getting away from being an agricultural nation; why not build it back up? Start in the places that are having a hard time now. Make it small and quality, rather than huge and industrial. Industry + food = fail. Time and time again. Bananas, tomatoes - there's a list of foods that aren't like they used to be because they've all become industrialized and internationalized and crappified. I recently read that a CEO's job is "to maximize profit for shareholders." You wanna explain how that coincides with producing healthy, good food? It doesn't. Industrialization is good for mechanized things like computers and cars. Food, not so much.

Recent Development

For some reason, one of my posts is getting all this spam activity all of a sudden. (Is it "all of A sudden" or "all of THE sudden?") It's really weird. I haven't gotten any spam in ages, almost like comment spamming didn't happen anymore. I think I even got that mistaken notion; that somehow spammers had moved on from comments and found some other lucrative field. But I guess that's just because my blog is so unread. Maybe they just discovered throwing their seed in my fallow field wasn't going to do them much good.

Kinda Dick-ish Foundation

Here's my creative idea for today: I have a bunch of socks with holes in them. I'm not going to fix them but I'm not going to turn them into rags for dusting and cleaning because I don't dust and/or clean. Even more infuriating, I feel guilty about just throwing them out; they feel to "whole" or something.

So how about this: how about I create a way to send these holey socks to some country where they don't have shit, so they'll find a good use for the pieces of sock that they get or they'll use some socks to repair other socks so that they'll have socks.

Of course, when I proposed this to my inner mind, my environmentalist friend (whose influence makes me feel guilty about throwing out clothes) influence said: "Well, that's kind of dick-ish." Ok, yes! I can admit that! Still, maybe it's a good idea! I'm not just throwing out material that could be used for something; I'm not wasting it by having it sit in my home and I'm giving it to a populace that's much better with their scraps (unless the whole world has been corrupted by cheap Chinese shit). So to me, it's a win-win-win!

The Kinda Dick-ish Foundation: doing half-measures, the world over!

As I see it, I have one task to get done today. It's a task I have wanted/needed to get done for about two and a half weeks now and I've either just been lazy, stuck or stupid when it came to getting it done. Stuck: I didn't leave the house. Stupid: I went to get this item and forgot it (and got other stuff) or found the store I went to didn't have it (I should have expected that). Lazy: I didn't want to walk to the store that has it.

All I have to do today is buy Q Tips. Just that one thing. And I've told myself to do it on numerous occasions and haven't, either because I couldn't get myself to leave the house or because I didn't want to walk "all the way" up to CVS, which is up a slight rise two or three blocks away.

Actually, there are numerous things I would have done today (and thought about doing) if I was feeling motivated (which I am, slightly). I have planned for weeks to mail some items to friends and family. I keep meaning to go downtown and get a check for my rent from the bank (I ran out of checks months ago; possibly a year ago). If I went downtown, I could take in stuff for dry cleaning and I could treat myself to lunch.

But then I get caught up. I shouldn't be spending money because I'm not earning money and I'm not earning money because I don't have a job and I don't have a job because I'm not trying hard enough to get one and the road winds down into more and more self-recrimination.

I think I mentioned the other day the opposing cycles of positivity and negativity. This is an example of where they could make vast amounts of difference. If I was positive, then I would go downtown and do my tasks; get energy from doing my tasks; feel positive about that; then could use that positivity to do more tasks, either in the sense of cleaning up my home or life, doing exercise, or sending in resumes and cover letters. If I was positive, I might have already called these places about volunteering in their offices, giving me a place to go each day and maybe a sense of belonging, which could energize me and give me the positivity to work out or submit applications. You see how they are each self-fulfilling prophecies? That's why I tend to work on the assumption that you are Person A or you are Person B, meaning you wake up with one kind of energy already in your head. I seem energetic today; it might be because I spent part of Wednesday and all of yesterday with Best Friend (and also took a shower last night). The left-over energy of connecting with and being with other people is brightening me today; yesterday it made me think today could be a very productive day. (There's no good color for it. I wanted it to be bright green but also easily readable but as you see, even with bold it's still off.) I slept a good bit last night (too much, in fact) but I got up today and ate an orange (good) and put clothes in the wash (better). But then I sat down here at the computer and started reading articles and now I've been doing that for three hours and the articles are just multiplying like hydra's heads as I click on this article and this article and try to read them and close them but then "ooh! This looks good..." It never ends. (Which, conversely, would be a good idea for an ad for reading: "Reading: It Never Ends.") One of my major problems in the world is all the information that I cannot take in. I would like to know everything (or close to it; maybe 65%) but there's no chance of that. I can't read/hear/see it all and - of course - sometimes I get bored or uninterested and want to do something else; only I don't have a concept of "doing something else" and so I go to sleep or something like that. Those are probably the times I should be working out, or cooking, or cleaning or ironing or going downtown. Those are the times for action.

Ugh.

Here's a failblog entry for ya: You know what I could have been doing all these empty days when I'm at home? Learning to cook! Duuuu-uuuh! Nice one, dumbass!

That came to me the other day.

I'm actually excited right now. You know why? 'Cause I have an appointment tomorrow, which means I have a set point in time that creates pressure on all my other time! It's a deadline! It's pressure! It creates conflict! But it's outside of my control, so I can't just let it slide and ignore it! See how excited I am?!? [smiley face!] It's stupid!!

It's annoying how good it makes me feel to have something to do; and it [sing-song voice] just confirms all the aphorisms about having something to do, et cetera, et cetera! [shakes head]

Man, this is dumb. I spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week having miserable days - and I can't ignore Saturday and Sunday, too. Saturday was worse than Sunday, since I showered on Sunday. But my failure to just fucking clean my clothes! meant that I couldn't (read: wouldn't) leave the house yesterday or today.

Today's big victory was that I didn't watch TV all day; I actually read for an hour or so. (Whoopee! [confetti])

Ah, it's all just silly. Or stupid. Or ridiculous. Or craven, cowardly, weak, pathetic, etc - any self-destructive adjective you wanna use. I gotta get over myself. It's so stupid and unhappy to be home all day doing nothing. I should be doing something so that at least I'll feel a little bit good about myself. I guess I just feel... Here's my thing: it seems like everything has to be perfect and super-efficient these days, so there's no room for the slacker. You have to be the perfect corporate employee, the best user of time, the most competent human; I can't fucking do that shit. I can't live up to that. So where's my place? What am I supposed to do? ("Become an alcoholic," whispers my evil mind.)

God, I need to change my mindset.

Oh, speaking of which; here was a revelation I had last night: People like me don't believe in the future, which means we have a lousy attitude, which means we can't get motivated to do the things that would improve our health, both mentally and physically. People who do believe in the future are naturally motivated toward it and so are drawn forward by their goals and hope. They are like two circles that exist next to each other and move in opposite directions. I don't know how you get from one to the other except through depression (from good to bad).

Watching a documentary called "An Alternative to Slitting Your Wrist." This guy is cooler than I am. Younger(?) than I am. Braver than I am.

He made a list of 52 things to do, the idea being that before he goes into the hospital again, he can do something on that list.

From what he's said so far, he's got worse problems than I do. He's had harder issues to deal with than I have.

His idea/message is basically no different from all the rest: Risk. Take a chance. Do the thing you dream of. He wrote a quote at the beginning that said 'Anyone who is desperate enough to commit suicide should be desperate enough to go to creative lengths to avoid that fate' (or something akin to that). I should look up this Richard Bach person.

The only place where I've thought about a window like that (for now, anyway) involves getting back to work. (He has a job. He says he's working too much, in fact. I don't think that's ever been my problem.) The idea I have is to write creative cover letters - mostly for my own satisfaction rather than the pleasure of the person on the other end. If they enjoy them, great. If I get a job out of it, outstanding! If it just gets me to apply for some fucking jobs, then I would be happy. (Well, somewhat.) I guess the point is that I have to do something creative and I have to be active in some way and I have to engage myself and communicate with the world somehow and I should be applying for work and this could cut across all those things.

[Documentary: He's talking about "quarter-life crises." Seriously?? You're in your twenties?? (Eh, I should lay off the guy.)]

Y'see, if I work off of his model, the job should just be to make a project for myself and follow through on that. It could be the cover letter idea or it could be another set of letters, organized in some other way: to governors, to famous people, to people I see on TV, to random people, to foreigners, to whomever. Just as long as there is an organizing principle about what I'm doing.

It could be futile, it could be funny; the point is that it would be an effort. That's the most important part; to make an effort. Letting myself waste away isn't doing me any good at all. And doing nothing isn't making me happy, either. When a friend called on Friday asking for help and I had to figure out a formula and try to illustrate something for her, I was excited, enlivened, engaged. I felt alive and real. That's the kind of thing I have to get back to. Engagement.

Failure Blog Update

Have I updated the Failure Blog lately? Did I write earlier today on here?

Today was failure central. I did my usual "get up, watch tv, nap on the couch" routine, only broken up by the short trip I took to the store to buy my "breakfast" of Coke, BBQ corn chips and Pringles. No wonder I feel like shit.

I watched TV for a while, napped on the couch from 4 until 7:30 and then went back to watch TV. I'm stuffed up and feel miserable and when I woke up from being on the couch I was sore and blech. But of course I'm sore and blech: I haven't been moving around or eating any natural foods.

Nor did I get any sunshine in the past couple of days. (Well, I might have gotten a little bit walking over to the bus stop yesterday.) So basically I've gone against all of the prescribed advice and I'm paying the price.

I considered ordering food about an hour ago but couldn't make myself do it. TV pickings are getting fewer and far between and I should go to bed but I don't really feel tired, I just feel...bleah. Off. Wiped.

I should probably eat one of the apples I have but I'm just not energized to do so. I almost did it about two hours ago or so - I was really motivated to do so - but then I got overtaken by laziness and didn't want to clean the apple. (How fucking stupid is that??)

I should get a banana.

My one win today was that I brushed my teeth, which I haven't done in days.

I should buy some Perrier or soda water to put my juice concentrate in. (The concentrate is expired but that doesn't worry me. I mean, what's gonna go wrong in a juice concentrate [that's been in the freezer all this time]?)

I should have taken a shower and gone somewhere. But where was I gonna go? (I wrote a post about that but I haven't published it yet because I went off track at the end and didn't finish it right.)

The extra..uh, "crunch" this weekend is the Superbowl. I'm not going anywhere and don't have anything special to do. The fact that there's this big celebration and I have no way to take part in it makes me feel lonely and sad.

I guess the real problem is that I don't have a method to deal with that ("combat it," if you will). I don't know what to do to circumvent the loneliness and feeling of not belonging. ("Okay," says Logical Brain. "What if you were to call someone??") Right. I thought of that yesterday; thought of calling Best Friend's brother and asking what he was doing; or calling another guy I know and asking him what he was doing. I thought of calling another friend who has had parties in the past and inviting myself to his house. But I just don't feel right doing that, even if it is a good option.

Maybe I could just go workout. Maybe I could go for a good long walk and get some sunshine and take myself out to eat (because my bank account has gone under the rent amount, so that's done). Maybe all of that would bring some kind of lightness to my mood that would make me feel a lot better and get me through the later evening when this national celebration is going on and I'm alone.

Here's another small win: I took my vitamins. I'm pretty good at doing that, but still: when you go off track, most things can fall by the wayside. So if you can keep up some habit that's good for you when you're doing everything wrong, that's a victory. I took them late in the day (maybe even after sundown), but I took them.

I'm going to stop now because I'm losing focus. "A Conversation with Henry Louis Gates, Jr." is on PBS and I'd like to pay attention to that. I'm curious about how he persevered; I'm always interested in people who overcome odds and I'm interested in how African Americans have experienced and survived the United States and I really should read more of them.

(He's talking about fellowships and I'm thinking: I should apply for a bunch of stuff like that - grants, scholarships, fellowships, whatever. But then my brain tells me: Please, dude. You haven't done shit in years. They're gonna look at you and say: You're an empty shell. You've got no grit or substance. People today are working hard as hell; you're a piece of flaccid meat.)

Eh, give up.

Dear Prospective Employer,

One of the greatest pains of being unemployed is feeling disconnected from larger society. Not only do you not have a place to go or belong, you can no longer participate in what is the chief activity of our culture: buying and spending. One of the reasons I want the job that you're offering is so that I can feel "normal" again.

But I must also confess this: I'm not the best consumer. I like to give my money away too much. Another reason I would like to work again is so that I'd have money to give away - to public radio, to the food bank, to the Red Cross, to the homeless shelter, to my sister-in-law, to friends and family in the form of unannounced and unexpected gifts that appear at random. (I suppose that's consumption.)

In any case, I hope that you can consider me for this job so that I can rejoin the flow of society and do my part to give back and spread my money around.

Sincerely,
Michael

Watching "Lockup: Raw" on MSNBC (channel is a default in this house) and someone being taken to administrative segregation ("solitary") twists and fights his escort. He gets tackled and carried like horizontally like a log to the end of his journey.

I wonder to myself is part of his fight is about a desire not to go to solitary. (I understand it's supposed to be a punishment but I wonder if it's really as horrible as it's made out to be on "Law & Order: SVU." I wonder how people who think it's no big deal would react to being subjected to it.)

So I had this crazy idea. What if some scientist created an AI psychology program to "talk" to prisoners as an experiment in improving behavior? A kind of Siri for prisoners.

Of course, there are all kinds of problems with doing experiments with/on prisoners. I wonder if this kind of thing would be very difficult. The aim would be to improve the prisoners' mental condition in the hopes that it would improve the society of the prison and conditions overall. By using an automated system, it wouldn't endanger or entangle anyone with the prisoners.

Of course, maybe AI wouldn't be enough and it would be better to have actual human psychologists doing the work. With the technology of today, a long distance video (or only audio) connection could be set up to talk to the prisoners.

In my original plan, the AI program would be set up specifically for prisoners in administrative segregation. I'm sure most people would think this violates the rules of "ad seg" but to my thinking if it's a voice only and it's an experiment to improve the mental health of the prisoner, it's still useful.

Another piece of the program I saw talked about prisoners doing art. I wondered if maybe the art could be given to the families of the prisoners to sell, so that they could be supported somehow. Of course, there are many arguments against this:
1. The profit could come back to the prisoners through their prison accounts, meaning they are profiting for work while in jail.
2. I don't know if part of imprisonment is supposed to be the prevention of someone from having work and making money. (Maybe it's implicit rather than explicit.)
3. The art could be used to communicate with people outside the prison; gang networks, etc.

I've tried to think (briefly) about how to get around these problems. For one, I thought maybe the art could be sold to profit the prison (but my mind just did a u-turn and said: "The prisons are private institutions run for profit!")(wait: is that all prisons or just federal - or even just some federal prisons?). Well, let's say if a prison is not for-profit, then sales of art are allowed to benefit the prison.

For the gang communication issue, I have a less clear solution. One idea was to mix up the sales and prisons, attaching works to prisons they didn't come from. This idea is flimsy, though, because gang members could search through all the works coming from all the prisons for certain cues that could be put on all pieces that are gang communications. Another idea would be to create a shell company (or more than one) through which the art is sold. The question that results from this idea is: why wouldn't this information be revealed, since it's related to state/federal business? How would you keep it undercover (for security reasons) so that it wouldn't become some curiosity news story (because it's very juicy for that beat)?

I think about prison now and again and every time I think about it, I think there's so much we can do to improve the prison experience or make prison time a true reformatory experience for a lot more people than it is now. For instance, if we're putting car thieves in prison among a population of double murderers who will break down their souls even more; how is that helping our society?

One of my recent thoughts had to do with food. I was reading a piece from the NYT about aging prisoners and how expensive their care is and I wondered how much of that has to do with the food that they're eating - but what can you do about that? We're having a hard enough time providing healthy food to our school children, y'know?

Still, I think it's possible. A lot of prisons are out in the middle of nowhere, which means there's arable land (well, maybe) to grow local produce on. Second, it gives low-risk prisoners an activity that's useful and fulfilling. Third, it's a savings for the prison if they can provide some of their own resources! It seems like a win-win!

Of course, it would take some kind of investment up front: an investment of time; an investment of energy; an investment of trust and/or an investment of money. The investment of trust - my phrase for a change in mindset - is the largest hurdle, to my mind. For a prison to invest time and energy in this project, they would have to believe that it has any relevance in the first place, have to see that it would help them; and I don't think of prison guards and institutions as places with a whole lot of faith.

Still, it would be a great project. Something to start small at one prison; I mean, you could even have a minimum-security prison doing farming and turning out produce and vegetables for medium- and maximum-security prisons! (It's like a farm team - get it?? Guffaw, I crack myself up.)

In any case, I think that the prison system could use America's attention, to try to change it from a system of abject misery to a place of possibility. Think of it as akin to parenting moving away from corporal punishment to the "time out" method. It's worked for thousands of parents who have raised happy, healthy kids. Maybe we could create a new class of ex-convict that could change our society somewhat.

It's just a thought.

Well, I'm officially a jackass.

I didn't take my own advice today and instead tried to use the drugs of sleep and TV to wipe away time. I also failed to eat early in the day to try to change my mood. In fact, the only time my mood perked up at all was when a friend called and I talked to her briefly. (Or maybe it was that I made and ate the first food of the day around the time she called. [sad face])

So now I have another day of failure following me into night. I feel miserable about myself and the drudgery of being me is like wearing a full complement of wet clothing. I'd like to take a shower because I feel dirty but I say to myself 'what's the point?' I'm not going anywhere. I don't have anything to do. It's a waste of time. Take a shower tomorrow morning.

Of course, I know that my mood improves when I take a shower; it's like wiping off the day before. But how will I feel if I take a shower now, after I've wasted the entire day? Ah, fuck. It's all a fucking waste.

--
I was thinking today that I can't seem to do the short-term stuff if I don't believe in the long-term. If there's no larger goal, why do the small stuff. "It's not going to help anyway," says my negative mind. Never mind that no larger goals can be accomplished without the small blocks being taken care of.

And I guess I have a larger goal, in that I want to be happy and live a happy life; and toward that end, there's simple things that I can do that can't be seen as parts of any fixed, larger plan except for my overall health. That's hard for me to focus on, mostly because I don't have prolonged experience with those habits and so [I choose] not to have faith in them. I put the "choose" part in brackets because I hate admitting that my misery is my own choice.

I think I'm going to end up with bone loss from sleeping too much. That's what it feels like.

Here's a question I came up with halfway through the night (after I had eaten something, which I didn't do for most of the day and might have had something to do with my mood): How do I keep today from being a bad day? (For tomorrow, it could be phrased: How do I keep today from being like yesterday?) Other people might phrase it as: How can I make today better than yesterday? but that, to me, is an upward spiral, a question that presupposes brilliance at the end of the trail. I don't presuppose that things will always get better. Still, trying to prevent things from being lousy isn't such a bad aim. As long as I can keep that view in mind. For some reason, my mind resists thinking positively.