That’s what I keep reminding myself should I decide to contact a doctor. I slip and say I took 20mg of Lorazapam yesterday but in fact it was 2mg. 20mg would be 10 pills, and in the moment that may have felt like just the extinguisher to put out what was boiling in my head and heart. Worst anxiety/panic attack in at least a year. I think this new 4-day work schedule might be to blame, along with the changes in habits it has driven me to. On days off I eat virtually nothing until late in the day, then pour beer onto what is basically an empty stomach. That’s not professional drunkardness. I know too well how to drink without hangovers or side-effects but lately I’ve let those rules slip in favor of thinking hey, I have 3 days straight to do as little as possible while at the same time thinking I know I need to resurrect my web businesses to attempt to supplement the lack of a living wage that this 60-hour a week commitment pays. I lose money every single day I work here and the only remedy is to find other sources of income. I used to be very good at that but things have changed and my once magic touch is now a forgotten spark. One solution to wiping out my credit card debt (the first such debt I’ve had in over 20 years) is to quit this job and cash out all remaining vacation and pension and retirement savings. With that I would basically be at breakeven but with no income.
But the anxiety yesterday, that was classic, like old times. Sweating, not shaking visibly but feeling like I was shaking inside. Eyes glazed over and creamy, not watery but a more viscous phlegm-like substance. In time the emergency Lorazapam did it’s work, though burning embers still littered my innards. The 2mg pill I took is probably over 2 years old. I don’t know if that particular pill loses potency over time, especially when being carried and rattled about in a messanger bag. Does it lose its very material and become less potent on that basis?
IIII definnnnitely feel better today versus yesterday. Sleep, formerly a reckless adventure without aid of booze, has become a more business-like pursuit. I could credit this to the decisive drop in quanity of booze I intke versus previous years. Or I could be lying to myself. Lying is the only way to excel in life.
…
But enough of this. I’m at work on a Saturday, seed wasted only once today. Yesterday it was over an hour before anything happened at this job. I decided I should plan on using this typically dead early-morning time to do my own thing, whatever that even is anymore. I’m happy to see that the live radio and video stream is going strong, and even seems to have error-check buit in so it restarts after crapping out. I’m also happy to see that the new sunswick.com is taking shape, albeit in stits and farts.
I was making sense of my regular journeys past the stripper’s house. It turns out I dated a lot of women who, at some time in thier life had been a stripper. But one in particular had been career, until retiring to a steady job in the props division of a production company. I had a mild but not-lacking-in-intensity crush on her for years. Her body seemed perfect for mine, her smile a gem. When we did connect anytime people saw us together they would take me aside and comment “Dude, you scored.” Yes, she was beautiful. But that only runs so deep, to use the tired cliche. Her beauty turned to venom and even fear when the wine kicked in. It was scary at times, and I feel lucky that no weapon was ever pressent when things got really out of control.
But I hold a torch for her for one reason. She was the last attempt I made at a so-called traditional, long-term relationship. For me things start slow and develop over a few weeks or months. You slowly learn a person’s traits and quirks, as opposed to being fed a datadump of this information or being expected to survey it online.
Things did not end becuase this approach was failing. No, things got weird when it became clear to me that though she had retired from stripping she was likely still doing tricks in the wider workd of sex work. It would help explain the outsize amount of money she had on hand, an amount far in excess of what she could have made at her props job. And the cash. She always had bags of cash. Nothing sketchy there, right?
No hope remains that we would ever rekindle our attempt at romance. She was mean, nasty, and I suspect prone to violence when drunk.
But somehow that more innocent dynamic comes back to play. Snce ending it with her I indulged in seemingly endless encounters with insatiable young women (some not so young) all who saw something in me that I could not locate. The Japanese Waif was unapologetic in her fetish for white cock. THe Sperm Derm I never quite figured out where her immediate attraction to me came from. She was living with a dude who was about as opposite of me as a guy could be, big beefy jock who lived at the gym. But she left him in the lurch so many nights to come be with me for some of the coldest, most mechanical sex ever. The real accomplishment with her is that she got me to cum on her face, which I’d never done and I don’t think I ever want to again. She also got me to pee on her, which I found surprisingly tender and real. It made her happy.
There were others but the stripper stands alone as the last attempt I made at giving a shit about keeping something going long-term. I pass by her house and nabe hoping she will see me, not to make contact but to remind her that she had so many lies to keep track of with me and I called her out on a bunch of them. Most men she’d know, it seemed, would never do that.