Doing the .MOBI from the kitchen, which is the local .MOBI, because all seats are filled at the ghetto coffee shop (a first for me) and the rain is too much to travel any farther in. This feels like cheating, which perhaps signals that this .MOBI business means more to me than it should. But it’s fine. The kitchen and this chair are a fine posture for me.

I got a couple of fancy pillows, to see if I sleep any better because of their fanciness. Unaware of this when I ordered the fancy pillows I found they came with instructions that they must be placed in a dryer for 15 minutes before first use. I do not have a dryer and it took a few days to get around to taking them over to the Joy Laundromat, where I thought I would have to leave them with an attendant. I thought this only because some laundromats don’t let you use the dryer without doing a wash first, and I assumed this was one such laundromat.

The woman did not care, just waving me toward the dryers with a smile. The place was completely empty of launderers, I guess on account of the rain. So I had the place to myself. WOW THAT WAS AWESOME.

It reminded me of the last time I did my own laundry at a laundromat. Or attempted to, at least. It must be over 20 years ago, upper east side, when I lived in a huge apartment complex that had a sizable laundry room.

I got there just as an individual was finishing up putting his laundry in the machines. He had gone to every single washer, every single dryer, and put one article of clothing into each. I might handle this differently today but I felt a sea of rage boil up inside me. But rage did not translate into human interaction. It almost never has for me. I take my angers out on inanimate objects, by screaming at computers or electronic devices. People get a pass.

This is one of the many ways I do not speak the language of anger. I can speak its words, maybe even better than most. But words are anger’s weakest component. Anger needs volume, screaming, fists raised threateningly and doors slammed loud enough to wake a nation. I don’t speak that part of anger’s vernacular.

Some people who encountered that asshole at the laundromat would have confronted him with some sort of anger, perhaps measured but maybe not. Others might have taken the passive aggressive route of removing the one t-shirt he had placed into one of the machines and putting it on the floor, replacing it in the machine with their appropriately full load of laundry. Others might have sternly but angrily suggested he combine his loads before punching him in the face.

But most would probably do as did I, and take their laundry to the full service place which happened to be across the street. At the time I had never left laundry at such a place, and the fact that there was a 24-hour turnaround time for full service should have been obvious to me but it was not. I left the laundry there and went to a Walgreen’s to purchase socks and underwear. This was because I had none left at home. Why else would I be doing my laundry?

I could blame the asshole at the laundromat for taking every single washer and dryer in the place, forcing me to discover the 24-hour turnaround time of full service places in such a way that I was forced to buy new articles of clothing to wear to work the next day. Or I could blame myself for not speaking the language of anger forthrightly enough to confront the guy and commandeer just one machine in the place.

I’m gonna go with blaming the asshole at the laundromat, whoever and wherever he may be.

…

Sleeping has been like a Zen sailing trip on the fluids of my mind. I went without any pills or booze last night, for the first time in I don’t even want to think how long. I can’t count the emergency room stay since I was pumped up (or down) with Librium. Even for that I probably slept ten minutes, being woken every so often by the increasingly comforting sounds of the incontinent geezer who shit himself seemingly every ½ hour. He would be promptly surrounded by nurses, who called him “Pappie” and wiped him up as quickly as they could. It was I who rang the bell to summon those nurses. Pappie didn’t care.

The hypnic jerks last night were excessive. Ironically the conventional wisdom on those things is that alcohol increases them, but I’ve never noticed them with booze in me. Of course there a lot of things I don’t notice with booze in me, maybe ludicrously spastic hypnic jerks have been among them.

On the other hand I swilled a fairly steep amount of coffee yesterday, and caffeine is also a jerk-exacerbater. So maybe that was it. I kept jolting awake, like I was being stabbed with an electric rod.

Most people I know, when I tell them I am not drinking for a while, just roll their eyes (inside, not visibly) and think “See you at the bar in a few days.” The longest I’ve made it in the last couple of years was 3 weeks, and I don’t remember that period as being anything. During these periods of sobriety the first thing I want to tell anyone I see or who calls me on the phones is “I’m not drinking.” But I’ve done that enough to know that no one cares, and that I sound like an asshole even saying those words. It’s like saying I have a new girlfriend. Most people just ignore it or change the subject, which is probably wise.

…

I was playing with the Monkey Puppet in a Barrel today. I have its routine all set (“its” versus “his” or “hers” because the thing does not look gender-specific to me). When someone asks the Monkey Puppet “What’s your name s/he responds: “I am Monkey Puppet in a Barrel. What do I look like? Rhinoceros Puppet in a Bucket? Ostrich Mannequin in a Suitcase? Lion Statue in a Salad Bowl? Jeez, you have ask Monkey Puppet in a Barrel my name, it seems obvious to me. I bet you saw me and thought I was Cheetah Cupie Doll in an Ice Bucket.”

See that how’s comedy works. You take a loony turn of idea and it is easy to just replace words. Easy. Of course sometimes you need your Monkey Puppet in a Barrel to get started.

…

Waiting to see how this possible move to 4B would work. I could do a lot of the move myself but will need backup for other things. It’s just amazing how the guy who mostly talked to me like he wished I was never in his life has turned around and made an offer about as generous as one could do in his position. Of course there could still be a catch. Maybe the sky really is falling on this apartment, as I’ve been told, and the bathtub upstairs is ready to fall through the ceiling. Now I can think about that when I take my long showers. What a way to go. Crushed by a Millennial’s bathtub.

…

Thought I had more to say but I’m as restless and undisciplined as ever. Did dream up what sounded like an interesting story in my half-conscious journey last night. It starts with the above comments about the language of anger, and how I don’t speak it. It ends with me being clobbered at a bar by a woman who had just shown me bedbug bites on her crotch. I had gone to that bar because I heard it had a pinball machine. But there was none, and I would learn that the pinball machine had recently been retired because this woman had destroyed it, kicking it while it was down and wrenching all its pinballs asunder.

I guess the story about an angry woman I met at a bar is a no-starter. Like a lot of dreams it sounded smoother as it happened.