I just don't have it within me to put up with anyone's shit anymore. I was never any good at it to begin with, having always been abnormally sensitive to external stimuli and cursed with an extremely low frustration tolerance — both probably a legacy of an early childhood spent malnourished in a dark closet, and not at all helped by an adulthood spent mostly as a homeless drunk. It sucks, really, because I'm a lonely guy who doesn't know how to live with himself and feel comfortable around other people without a steady flow of alcohol loosening me up and filtering out all the (considerable, in an urban environment) background noise.
It begs the question: Just how am I supposed to stop being so insecure, terrified of people and life, full of self-loathing, lacking an internal rewards system (the stuff that makes enjoyable activities and life goals possible), and high-strung to the point where I feel like I'm in Fight or Flight mode even when I'm sitting in front of my computer in my apartment all by myself ... just how in hell am I supposed to manage all that, when I'm either homeless or living in a dodge-city-brothel housing unit in the middle of an urban Failed War on Drugs war zone, standing in lines for social services with peers who are growing increasingly violently unhinged, and working jobs that are daily gauntlets of disgrace, drama, and dysfunctionality? And my friends! The one who has it together bores the crap out of me — because she's a mom and a homeowner she's too busy to hang out with, and we just don't speak the same language anymore; and the other, the one whom I have a rapport with, has her own set of problems that she's still in denial about — which makes it impossible for a stressed-out guy like me to properly handle.
Jackoffs fired me over the phone a couple days ago, which I expected. And, while I'm glad to have dodged that corporate-culture bullet, I regret that I left my concessions job on a sour note — in reality, it was a good job working with decent people and for bosses I got along well with. No biggie, because I'm starting work for Funtastic down at the Waterfront Park this afternoon, probably standing in front of some overpriced ride scanning tickets and feeling once again sorry for the customers that have to shill out so much to amuse themselves away from home. Yup, carnie work! I worked for these guys once before, almost twenty years ago, but little has changed. It's boring, tedious, thankless work, that's murder on flat feet; but as nightfall approaches the world changes, gets distorted by a lens of flashing multi-colored lights, screams of gleeful terror, and the cacophony of gaudy music ... and is transformed into one of the more innocent and benign Ray Bradbury stories. Not only that, but if I work the whole event I'll have enough money to pay the bills through August.
I should be glad, right? I won't have to punch that dismal bum's time-clock, canning at least half a day every day just to pay the bills. The local shitter job market is even robust enough for me to be confident that I'll have another regular job before I'll need to return back to that vomit, even with my lousy recent work history. Well, I'm not; look at the time I'm posting this! I haven't managed to catch more than maybe an hour of sleep, even though I've started going to bed between 11:00 PM and 12:00 AM. It has to be withdrawal from alcohol, which if I've read and recall from past experiences correctly means there's a good chance I'll be a volatile, restless, sleepless son of a bitch for up to six months. I guess I'd better seriously try meditation ... but I get freaked out by getting out of breath every time some New Age dove coos at me to inhale deeply and then hold it; I start freaking out about chronic pulmonary diseases, and the session's over and I'm more distressed than I was when I started.
Seriously, to hell with the meds, the mantras, and the mindfulness! Just give me a run-down shack alongside a river nestled in some woods somewhere, far away from the stresses of all the banality of monetary evil, social contracts that seem better suited to control than consensus, and hordes of troglodytes masquerading as human beings ... just get me AWAY from the noise and the people (even the good people in my life who are either not there or a pain in the ass), and just maybe I'll be able to sit down and start sloughing off the scales of my diseased thinking ... and six months from now I'll stroll back into town a better person. The person I want to be when I'm not looking over my shoulders and gritting my teeth.
