I guess I was off by a day yesterday. It’s day 4 without booze, and I slept no better last night than before. I begrudgingly popped another half a benzo pill after 3am. I’ve seen these pills referred to as “life savers” but I did not intend to take them like the candy by that name. But then I am not taking them like that. ½ a pill a day just to get to sleep, when I don’t think these are pills precisely designed as a sleep aid. But I was having all the electrical hiccups again. I think it might actually be the nuclear strength coffee I get here at the ghetto coffee shop. So I am doing something different this time. Hubert’s Lemonade. In the past the booze washed away the caffeine, or so goes my current theory. I want to drink again but I know I should not, for whatever difference it makes to the universe at large.
I had a moment of silence at a familiar intersection today. It was familiar but today somehow it looked altogether new. I don’t remember the street numbers but it was near Rainey Park and Costco. It was silent. Silence is rare around here, and it did not last long. It felt like a tiny town, or a sleepy suburb. It reminded me of North Pointe, the subdivision where I grew up in Tampa. When I used to go back there after living here for some years I could never believe the quiet, especially in the middle of a weekday. The streets and sidewalks themselves seemed to crackle under my feet. Stepping on a twig or an especially crunchy leaf sounded like a building had collapsed, so abruptly did the noise of its constriction crash through the silence. An occasional telephone ringing or a television blaring carried for blocks in this environment. I just could not believe the silence. Today’s brief moments at that intersection near Vernon Boulevard were reminiscent of that.
“Suburb” is a funny word. If I remember its derivation correctly it was originally a derisive term for living quarters for those who could not afford or handle life in the more desirable city, “sub” meaning less, or diminutive. But that changed over time. I should find that essay again, on the origins of the suburbs. I sometimes think it inevitable that I would return to the suburbs. That would suck but so does life sometimes.
OK, I just resolved an incredibly irritating technical glitch over which I had no control. So fucking annoying the shit we put up with as non-genius programmers of global centrality.
So last night I got yet another message from the New York State of Health. After two messages the night before saying “Congratulations, you’re in!” I got another followup message last night offering more sanguine sentiments. My coverage will, once again, terminate on November 30. How do they make this so completely obtuse and confusing? I now have the privilege of looking forward to another hour on the phone with these fucking individuals who are guided by a malfunctioning web site and computer system that tells them what to do before they do anything themselves. How is this allowed to happen?
OK, feeling irritable and blood pressure rising after a pretty mellow day thus far. Fuck this.
…
Next day. Friday. Got a few things done but mostly dicked around at Fishdom, a game I cannot seem to give up on. I think I’m at level 460 out of something like 1200 total. I’ve played the game so much that I felt jealousy and betrayal when I saw an advertisement for it. The ad appeared while I was playing some other game. I was cheating on Fishdom. The ad showed Fishdom in action. Basically you just blow stuff up. When I saw the game in the ad being played by some phantom player I felt betrayal, that this game to which I had given so much time was at play in the hands of another.
I got over it.
No booze for another day, as much as I still want it. I feel the bottomless appetite returning, but I’ve controlled myself. I eat to stay alive, not for sensuous delight. I absolutely stuffed myself to the gills last night. I don’t remember doing that for a long time. Took a benzo just to avert messing with another wasted night attempting sleep. The electrical hiccups returned but I got through the night more peaceably than of late.
I was starting to think that my apartment was coming alive. I felt it singing to me. I went to bed and wrapped a pillow around my head. The sound of the air filter and the fan, combined, produced a kind of steady humming music. At once it sounded like the tune to “57 Channels and There’s Nothing On” and then, mercurially, it segued into a song I recognized but could not name. I turned off both air filter and fan to see if someone in the building was playing music loud enough for me to hear. Nothing doing. This was purely an affect of the air filter and the fan intermingling in their droning. The music was sweet.
So I was thinking about this today, the anthropomorphization of my apartment. As I thought about this the coffee grinder turned on. By itself. For no reason. There was no one else in the apartment but I had to ask myself, Did someone let themself in? Is the kitchen once again inhabited by someone other than me?
I stepped into the kitchen. Nobody there. Just a small machine grinding coffee like it was nobody’s concern. There happened to be a half cup or so of coffee beans in the grinder. Otherwise the machine would have gone straight to that urgently whirring sound it makes when it has grinded all it could grind.
The coffee grinder is a dumb device. It does what it is told. Or so I thought. I asked the grinder: “How often have you turned yourself on when I was not present, if ever?” There was no response.
I will unplug it after each use from now on. But what kind of fire hazard does a device like that represent? I let the convection oven run overnight a couple or three months ago. I thought it was a bullet dodged (I still do) but no harm done… Until a week or so later, when I noticed that the plug had melded with the extension cord. I cannot unplug the convection oven from the extension cord, making me ask if the oven itself is safe to use. A friend who seems to know about such things says it is fine. I should ask him about the grinder.
Anyway… my domicile has come alive. Sakes alive! Heavens to Betsy!
At the ghetto coffee shop, where I’ve given up on the coffee in favor of Lemonade. I think what depresses me about this place is that I don’t think I will ever make friends here. The people who work here are not interested in their customers, except for the daytime girl who seems amiable enough. But I’ve heard her complain about the asshole customers who come and go. “Can you believe they ask me for fucking Ketchup and I’m like, It’s right there?” There is an interesting woman I see here once in a while. I happened to see her today. She might be my age and, from her broadcast phone conversations I take it she does work similar to what I do: Freelance web stuff at home. She seems to be a graphic designer. I overheard her talking about a $30,000 gig. I’ve had those. It’s not as much money as it sounds like when you put in enough hours to bring your hourly rate to about $8.50. She looks like a pain in the ass, and even a bit of trouble. So I’ll probably pursue her with abandon.
Going back to real work, and to scope out another ghetto coffee shop. I think I saw a new place on 36th Avenue.
