"Why are you asleep when I'm awake ...?"

Sunday, December 21st, 2014 — Advent: Four years ago

  

This is why I do not turn off my PMs when I despair anymore. This is why I love Saga. Now. And forever. Four years later. Two years after she told me her final good-bye.

Why are you asleep when I'm awake...? Min allra käraste Älskling,

What happened sweetness? Why did you turn off your PM? Did I do something? Did you get sick of my 'I'm stupid-rant' or was it anything else? Did you get sad and offended when I wrote that you "claim that you are plain?" I DIDN'T mean that you are plain as in boring, you know. For you are NOT - God! you are so MUCH all at once and I don't care if I drown or OD. I will still ask for more...

Please tell me for I get so worried over you!! My stomach is in a knot and my heart goes

thump,thump...thump,thump...(pause)...thump,thump,thump,thump!!

I'm like the nervous mother and you're the child running too far away on the playground. And I can't find you and I get hysteric and crying and...wait. I think...There's a Sappho here:

"Afraid of losing you

I ran fluttering
like a little girl
after her mother"

Maybe the roles are reversed. Maybe you're the mother and I'm the little girl that is trying to get you to stay... Please stay, Melissa! You sustain me, you inspire me, you make me endure myself! You're the one that can make me say: 'Today I chose to love myself, for on the other side of the Atlantic there is a girl that loves me. And if she sees something in me worth loving, then I guess I'm not that bad after all...'
My Darling Melissa, don't punish us by not being present. Or do, if it makes you feel better. Anything that will make you feel better is okay. Even if it means you won't talk to me ever again.

أنا بحبك, jag älskar dig!

"Without warning

As a whirlwind
swoops on an oak
Love shakes my heart "

And you have my heart, for as long as you want it.

Din Saga

Sandwich Bar

So, I finally saw "In a World," and it's about ...

It's about me.

It's about this crazy, crazy, LA-crazy family, where the Dad totally dominates the family, wrecking everything in his wake, particularly his daughters, because ...

Because he's the Dad, and that's all he can do. He has to be strong, and he's forgotten that the reason he's strong is to be strong for them. So, instead, he's so strong, that he just rolls over them, hurting them in big ways and in bigger ways ... because getting hurt by Daddy is never a small thing for a little girl, no matter how old she pretends to be.

And that's the whole movie. How hurt we are by Daddy, and how much we just want to be loved by him, but instead, when we reach out for that, he's so strong, and so right, and so ... angry.

Well, one scene, the girl's sister ... doesn't almost cheat on her husband, her plain , ordinary, average-joe husband with this movie superstar.

She doesn't almost cheat on her husband, who's always there for her. But she taped an interview this guy, and her husband finds it, and she comes home that night, just so full of work, and all the stuff she's dealing with on her job, just totally oblivious, until he puts the tape on the table, and walks out.

And then, ladies, then it hits her, and no matter how much she begs and screams and cries, he's not going to stay now, not any more, and she realizes what she had, when she loses it, when she's losing it, right now, and there's nothing she can do to get him back. Ever.

And she learns, right then, how much she's taken him for granted, how much a bitch she's been, and how she doesn't deserve him, how she never did, just plain, ordinary, steady hubby and his sandwich bar for supper, because that's all he knows how to make, but he does make it, for her, and she just breezes past him and takes him for granted but no more.

And now.

And now it's over, because she can't ask for him back, because she no way deserves that, a second chance. She's screwed it all up royally, and there's no getting him back. Why would she inflict herself on him anymore? She can't stand herself, and she wouldn't want anybody to have to deal with her, so why would she ask him?

I was her.

I was worse.

Christmas day, I cheated on Saga, ... as Saga's world was falling apart, and I had no idea why, I just knew it was, and I tried, and I tried and I tried, and I couldn't help her, and ... I wasn't helping, as much as I tried. I couldn't go away, because she had her distance, and I couldn't force her, so I just tried, and I failed.

And then ... I cheated on her. It was an open invitation, and ... I took it, just like that. And...

For Saga, it was the worst thing I could do, but was I thinking of her...

And the sad fact was, I was thinking of her. As soon as I ... did ... it. I ran right to her, and told on myself.

And she was like: okay ... fine with it. Oh, it's okay, live a little, you should go out and see other people and she was actually ...

Until she found out who it was.

And then everything went to shit.

And she tried after that, but she couldn't ... anymore. She couldn't ... with me ... anymore because ...

Because ...

Because ...

And then she said 'Let's be friends,' and ...

And I scream, and I cried, and I wailed, and I lashed out, and I ... hurt her, with my words.

And she said 'I deserve it. I deserve your anger. Hurt me.'

And I couldn't. And I couldn't beg her to stay with me, my heart, my happiness, because she wasn't happy anymore.

Love isn't 'my happiness is more important than you, so you stay with me, no matter how it makes you feel, because I'm happy with you ... sort of, so you be miserable with me. I mean: you stay with me.'

I looked at myself, wanting to beg her, to force her, to make her stay with me, and I said ...

I said.

"I will love you forever, Saga Louise. I will love you forever."

And I knew what I lost. I lost Saga.

I lost someone who knew how to press my buttons. She would say one word, baiting me, and I'd fall for it, and tease her, and play with her, and come to find, she was playing me, playing with me, and so loved watching me spin up like a top, all phfina-righteous, all phfina-smart and -funny, and -smexy, and she would do that to me, watch me spin up, and just smile her simple little knowing smile, so full of warmth and wisdom, and I'd stand there, flabbergasted, just amazed at her, and how smart and beautiful and sweet she was, and could any human being be like that?

And I'd write something, and she, having taken literary criticism, would read more into what I wrote than I knew I had put in there, and more than anybody else had ever seen, and she would model for me, and let me write her stories, and she would be the heroine, the star, and I would be the knightess in shining armor, riding in to rescue from whatever dragons wanted to gobble her up.

And we were so, so happy.

It was a little bubble of happiness. We floated along, me, in my little yellow sun-dress, and her, feeding me lingonsylt, giving me little kyssar on the cheeks to lick off the mess she made, feeding me, and wondering wherever in the world I made up the recipe for 'Swedish Chicken' because there was no such dish in all of Sweden, and she knew.

In the movie, the husband comes back, and, he surprises his wife, he's set the table with candles, and a sandwich bar, and when she comes in, expecting to find nothing: just emptiness and loneliness, but he's there, and t...

She just throws her stuff on the floor, then she grabs ahold of him and throws him on the floor and fucking ...

She goes a little crazy on him.

Just a little.

But that's the movie, and it was so sweet, and so endearing, and so empowering to women, for women to find their own voice, in a man's world, not need men, to be themselves, but also not trampling over them. To be a woman, and to have your own voice, doesn't mean you have to scream, or step on, or coddle. It means you can be yourself, and be confident in that, and also let the man be himself, with or without you, and if he wants to be with you, if that's his identity, his happiness, and you want to be with him, then that's okay, but if you want to be who you are, and you don't need a man to tell you who you are or allow you to be you or anything. If you want to be you, then you can be you, and that's fine.

The women in In a World, are so strong, or come to be, without losing an ounce of their femininity, without losing an ounce of their inner beauty.

And that's that movie. It's beautiful and affirming. Watch it.

Saga.

Saga was thirty-two, and she worried she was too old for me.

But the thing is, that wasn't it.

I'm older now, too. Four years older.

But I don't feel older.

I feel like I'm still that fifteen year old girl they carted off to the hospital in an ambulance, heavily sedated, because she lost it. The girl that everybody was looking at, then, six months later...

Six months later when I got out of that hospital, everybody avoided, because she might just go cray-cray again.

And I'm stuck there. I don't feel like I'm a strong, independent woman with her own job, in charge of a department and the people who work in it. I don't feel like that at all. I feel fake; phony. I feel like I'm faking it, and that somebody will find out, and ask me to leave, in front of everybody, and I'll have to walk out, my head held high, because if I don't, then they'll cart me away again, and I won't let that happen again. I'll kill myself first.

And that's where I teeter, balancing on the knife's edge with the abyss to either side of me, and Saga's left me, for good reason. For good reasons. I didn't deserve her. I never did. And the two years she spent with me were two blessed years of laughter, and love, and trembling fear and anticipation, and a zest for life, and a joy of being with someone who knew me more than I did, who looked up to me, as I looked up to her, who was my strength in my weakness, who was vulnerable so that I could be her strength.

Saga Louise.

Thank you.

Thank you for being you.

In a world where I am surrounded by the abyss and the only thing I could lean on was the knife, you were the only light, the only breath of air for me for a long, long time, when I couldn't breathe and I couldn't see but darkness.

I wish I could have been a better person for you. I'm praying for you. I'm praying that you find your health and happiness, right where you are, right in your home, with your family, with those who love you more than the sun and the sea and the sky.

In a World ... where nothing makes sense, you were the only sense. You were my eyes that saw me as I see me, but saw me as somebody sweet and smart and feisty and lovable, and you loved me, your little kitten, din litten panter, and held me, and let me scream and scratch and cry, and loved me to health and happiness and self-fulfillment and all you asked for was ... nothing. Your love was sweet and fierce and selfless. You were my Sun, and I was blinded in your light that warmed my dead soul back to life. You were the grown up, so strong and firm and sure, and I was a little baby. I could be. You let me, and you loved me, just as I was, and, at the same time, you never, ever let me get away with my shit. You held me ... you held me up to the person you knew I was, not the self-indulgent person I let myself be.

And now ... you're gone. And now, ...

I'm afraid.

I'm afraid I'll have to grow up, and face the world, and be mature and responsible, and drain the joy out of my veins and see everything in greys, and marry the right man, a kind man, and have children, and raise them, and fall in love with them, and be ... satisfied, happy, even, content.

I'm afraid I'll just fade into the person I'm supposed to be. That I'll just have to grow up and square my shoulders and face the world: a strong, independent, responsible woman.

I'm not afraid of that. Which by what I mean is, that will happen or it won't, and I'll be that eccentric spinster-aunt, just like Emily Dickinson.

But I'll look back at my life, this ... married woman with kids and grandkids, or this spinster-aunt, and ... I'll wonder where that girl went, who was me. I'll wonder when she died, and why she died so quietly, so quietly that nobody noticed, not even me.

And I'll go to me grave wondering that, or worse, not wondering that, because I'm so caught up in the craziness of this world, and won't even realize it when I fall off the bus, because I'll be crossing bradlick road and just be another fatality statistic that week when another SUV slams through the red light, again. 'Body of young woman; identity uncertain due to disfigurement from force of impact.'

Doesn't even make the news anymore. I was walking and then, BAM! I heard the crash of cars exactly where I had been, thirty seconds ago, and I would've been a goner, if not for those thirty seconds, and my guardian angel watching over me, hurrying me along through the intersection before the two cars smashed into each other, both of them running the red at high speed.

But why is my angel saving me?

I'm afraid that I don't know that why. Saga knew, but now she's gone, so I have that responsibility, now, for myself.

I'm not a very responsible person. I was just a girl looking for her daddy and mommy to love her, and ... I just never grew up. And try as I might to pretend I am that grown-up person, I just ...

I'm just not.

I wish I had that bubble.

But the world doesn't wait for bubbles for girls much too old to be blowing them now.

Grimasch om morgonen

Saga, Saga, Saga!

Each time I think your name, I die.

(and, yes, in the Shakespearian sense, too. You can look that up, sweetie)

Years ago...

YEARS ago, you gave me this song, "Grimasch om morgonen," by Cornelis Vreeswijk.

Do you know that every gift you gave me, your words, your looks, your love, I have treasured in my heart? Always?

Well, a while ago, something happened, and I thought I lost this song.

I thought I lost you.

I did, didn't I?

But, now, today, right now, I found the song again, and I've played it and played it and played it, and smiled, through my tears, remembering you and remembering me, with you.

I remembered how I sparkled and shined for you, and how I was your baby.

I still am your baby, Saga, but now I'm lost and confused and heartbroken, I don't think I sparkle or shine much anymore; I think I'm just here, and you're just there, and ...

... and that's that. The end.

Even as I don't let go.

Saga, you said you'd love me forever. No matter what. What is the what that ... did this?

Two songs I'm listening to "Strange & Beautiful (I'll Put A Spell On You)" by Aqualung, because you put a spell on me, sweetie, and I don't know how to take it off. And "I Really Want You" by James Blunt, because I really want you. I really, really do.

But ...

... well, it's Saturday. I guess I'll go to work, nothing else to do, ... or watch the latest Star Trek flick. I hear it's good.

I guess.

Kevlar Soul

"Så länge hjärtat mitt slår
så minns jag dig när
du stack ett hål
i min kevlarsjäl.
Och så rev du mitt sår
och jag blöder ihjäl.
Kom, gör ett hål i min
kevlarsjäl..."

"For as long as my heart beats
I will remember you when
you pricked a hole
in my kevlar soul
And then you're ripping at the wound
and I'm bleeding to death.
Come, make a hole in my
kevlar soul..."

I miss you, Saga.

Come talk to me

The wretched desert takes its form, the jackal proud and tight
In search of you, I feel my way, though the slowest heaving night
Whatever fear invents, I swear it make no sense
I reach through the border fence
Come down, come talk to me

...

Ah please talk to me
Won't you please talk to me
We can unlock this misery
Come on, come talk to me

Peter Gabriel, "Come Talk to Me" Us

— `phfina commentary:

Okay, what are you doing? Why are you reading this post? Go! Go out and buy Peter Gabriel's CD Us (and while you're at it, get Lana Del Rey's Born to Die ... she wrote that album for us, girls; she really did).

I mean, okay: is that guy even human, or is he his name: an angel? There was not one false note on that entire album, so sad, so serious, so super-silly with his "Kiss that Frog" ...

Wait. Is 'kiss that frog' the same as kissing a 'python' because if it is ... okay: eww!

So: "Come Talk to Me." I mean, it starts beautifully, and stays that way: the (bag) pipes strike a mournful chord, and they never, ever stop, the continuous drone in the background of that entire song reminding us all of the hurt that is happening throughout the world, all the time.

And Peter offers a really stupidly simple solution to it all: "Come, take to me."

No, not: "Hear me while I tell you all the solutions to your problems, you idiot."

He didn't say "Listen to me." He said: "Come, talk to me."

And where are we coming from? We're coming from our wretched desert, where Jesus went off to be alone.

We're all alone, all of us so filled with our own pride, our own self-worth, just like that tight jackal, that we can't even hear what another person from the well of their loneliness is saying to us. We'd rather rip their throats out than sit down, look into their being, and listen to them.

But Peter, he reaches through that border-fence that we erect around ourselves, and begs us: "Ah, please, talk to me. Come on, come talk to me."

Sweetheart. You are hurting.

But talking to yourself, locking yourself up into your wretched desert and erecting that border-fence only feeds that hurt.

Please, talk to me. Come on, come talk to me.

I don't have answers ... I mean, I have tons of answers, all the time, and I'm damn sure I'm right, too, 'cause I'm a weak human being, too, so please forgive me my frailty ...

I don't have answers; I don't have help or relief from your pain. But I can reach out through that border-fence, and listen, and cry, hurting with your pain, and love you.

You are alone in this world. I know this feeling very well. Please, talk to me.

I love you.

Comfort(ably numb)

Hello?
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone at home?

Come on, now
I hear you're feeling down
Well I can ease your pain
Get you on your feet again

Relax
I'll need some information first
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts?

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship's smoke on the horizon
You are the only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying

When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain you would not understand
This is not how I am

I have become comfortably numb

Roger Waters, Pink Floyd, "Comfortably Numb"

— `phfina diatribe:

I am, truly, dead.

Today ... was February 14th, now it's the Ides of February, and I find myself wishing my name was Julian or Julia and I was a special mayonnaise salad, and it was a month later so my big hulking buddy could do me a favor.

You'll get that later. Or you won't. Not only do kids these days don't read, they also don't make associations of what they haven't read to their lives.

One of the many reasons why were are all swimming in this cesspool.

GOD! I'm old to be saying: "In my day ..." and "kids these days ..." ... what a year does to you!

Did you know today was St. Valentine's Day?

I didn't.

How could I not?

My nieces gave me a card with a poem the older one wrote:

Roses are Red
Violets blue
Honey is sweet
& so are u.

Isn't that sweet?

But it didn't register, even the heart shape it was cut out into and the hearts inscribed in red pencil on it. I said: "Oh, how nice!" and that was that.

At work, in a predominately female profession with three super hot azn chicks, were flowers give and displayed? Oh, yes! Was there much cooing and preening going on today about all that? Oh, yes! Did I notice a whit of it?

No. I went through my day today in a fog. I got home, I don't know how, I could've been mass murder serial raped for all I know on the way home, because I went right to bed and pulled the covers over my head and went right to sleep.

I haven't slept in the past two days. Wonder why.

Last week was the story of the leper. How they were to be cast outside the camp and how they had to wear a bell and proclaim: "Unclean, unclean!" And the priest, Fr. P., told the story about St. Damien journal as he tended to the lepers, and how he knew he had caught the disease when he spilled hot water over his feet from his tea kettle ...

... and he saw it happen, but felt nothing.

And Fr. P. went on to explain how that is what sin is, you commit a sin, you feel pain or guilt the first time, but then the next, it's less, then less, then less, ...

then nothing.

I felt nothing today. Things happened around me, but I wasn't aware of any of it. I wasn't aware I was breathing, or that I had a heartbeat.

Do you know when I realized it?

A friend.

A friend told me Saga was thinking of me, and today, and how she forgot about today being St. Valentine's day, and how I so generously forgave her that.

This year, there was no St. Valentine's day. There was no generosity on my part, and nothing I could forgive.

But this mutual acquaintance told me Saga has things to say to me, and that's when my dead heart quickened.

Oh, what cruelty! Why am I given a heart that must beat on? Where everything I do hurts somebody, and if I choose the path of no-doing, I hurt everybody?

And that's when I realized I was dead today, when I felt my heart beating at the mention of Saga, and things she has to tell me.

You have to be alive, to realize you are dead. Another cruelty.

Of course, when somebody says, 'I have things to say to you,' that means something. For them. And for you.

You know what that mean. It means they say their cathartic things, and then they are forever free. Released of the burden of these things, these horrible things they've been holding onto, about you ... about me, that is, and they will say these horrible things, aimed right at that dead, cold, still beating heart, and then released from their burdens they skip off, happily, into the sunset.

And then you, me, I mean, are left behind, with that burden, forever knowing what you were to the person who was and is everything to you.

Saga, say your things to me, be released from these burdens, and then be free, skipping off into the sunset, happy and content.

Me, I'm fine. In fact, ...

I'm comfortably numb.

I don't feel my cheeks, my tongue is thick and useless, and my arms are two stone weights I can barely move. All I am is a funeral waiting for the actual date to make it official.

'Date.' Heh.

Happy St. Valentine's day.

Today's First reading

Job [`phfina] spoke, saying:
Is not man's life on earth a drudgery?
Are not his days those of hirelings?
He is a slave who longs for the shade,
a hireling who waits for his wages.
So I have been assigned months of misery,
and troubled nights have been allotted to me.
If in bed I say, "When shall I arise?"
then the night drags on;
I am filled with restlessness until the dawn.
My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle;
they come to an end without hope.
Remember that my life is like the wind;
I shall not see happiness again.

Job 7:1-4, 6-7

— `phfina's analysis

I've been praying a lot these days, and I've been reading from the book of Ecclesiastes, `cause, you know: it fits.

Saga asked me: 'What do you want me to do?'

Because why? Because I said, don't do things for me or because of me, don't be afraid of me: write to me, or don't write to me, as you want to. And I said: 'Listen to your heart.'

Big mistake.

Her heart told her that I will move on with my life.

Well, no duh.

That's what it is, isn't it, to be alive: you're in movement. Only in death do you stop moving completely. So, Saga — wise, insightful Saga — listened to her heart, and saw me, and said, 'she'll move on.'

It wasn't the response I was hoping for. It wasn't the response I wanted.

But it was a real, heartfelt response from her.

So, now: the question is on me. What will I do?

I know what I want to do. And I know the fairy tale movie thing to do: 'And `phfina somehow righted every wrong, swept the fair maiden Saga off her feet, and rode off into the sunset where they lived happily ever after.'

But then there's the `phfina alternative. Find somebody, find anybody willing, shoot up, with shots, and shots, put her hands around my neck, and beg her to strangle me as she fucks me to death.

Go out with a Big-O bang, totally numb, whimpering into the darkness of death.

And then there's the Saga response: life goes on, and so will you.

I think. I think her response is the saddest, because there's no remorse in it. I mean, there is, and reading her words, I can feel her heart break in every word, as I feel mine, breaking with hers. But, so what? You mope, and you cry, and you then get up, take a shower, and go to work, and go to school, and life goes on, and so what.

Why?

Why, Saga?

Why did you tell me you love me? Me: weak, little, frail me? Knowing my psychoses? Knowing, in advance, what this break up was coming? And why? Because girl after girl you've left, because 'it's not right,' this forbidden love, 'it's not right.'

Did you want to be able to look back and say, 'And this one, this one was my lover for a time'? And: 'she wrote me things, such sweet things, such naughty things, that I will always treasure'?

No, you didn't say that. You took a risk, and dared, and hoped, and filled me with such hope, and life, Saga, life for more than a year where all I had had was emptiness and despair, and a sure knowledge the only way out was out, and it wasn't how, it was just a matter of when.

And then you came into my life.

But with all those girls before, when you left, and left, and left them when your conscience gnawed away at your soul that what you were doing was wrong.

Did you think, when you blurted out, in anger, that you loved me: 'This will be different'?

Doomed from the start.

There is no 'different.'

Here's why. 'Different' is 'well, she'll be different than the other girls' or 'I'll feel differently' or 'the situation will be different.'

'To be different' is 'to compare' and 'to compare' always has as its basis the thing you want to be different from.

So, what's always in front of you, for 'different', the thing you want to be 'different' from. The 'failure' and with that in front of you ...

Doomed from the start.

One thing never changes in 'it'll be different.'

You.

You look for a different relationship, a different girl, a different job, a different major, ...

but you're always there. And so what happens? Just like the last job, you get those prying curious people who annoy the hell out of you, just like the last girl 'God, I hated that when Sophie did that, would you just say what you mean and stop hemming and hawing like stupid little girl who can't make up her mind?'

They are all the same, because ...

Because you are there, and you haven't changed, and you make them into the exact same circumstance you just ran away from because you couldn't stand anymore the situation you created, and everybody was your puppets, pulled by your string.

You know this, Saga! You commented on it yourself when, in Bells are Ringing, poor Sam ate the bitter words of her own regrets about heartbreak in relationship after relationship, and here she is now with Chris, looking for something 'better' something 'different' when Sam is still the same old panther Sam, hunting down sweet, tender Chris girls, knowing they will, each and every one of them, break her heart.

'Different' doesn't work.

'Better' ... isn't.

'Change' never happens.

The only thing that works?

You.

You have to become new. Not different. Not 'not like I used to be,' but ...

New.

You have to become a person you love, admire, respect, and are happy with when you see her in the mirror.

Then what's different?

Absolutely nothing.

People are still people. It's still cold and grey outside.

But you.

You are new. And the cold and grey are ... a delight. The cold makes you feel alive, and joyful.

And people? What they do is funny, now, or sweet, or silly.

And that girl.

That girl, so intense, with her penetrating blue eyes and straight black hair and no fashion sense whatsoever, but there's something about her that ...

I've got to get that girl into my bed, because her words have already captured my heart, and I've got to fuck her brains out until she's beyond exhausted, so she no longer thinks and thinks and thinks herself into her sadness, and hold her through the night, cuddling with her, kissing her hair and she moans in her nightmares, ...

and love her.

Right or wrong?

I don't know.

You don't either. You know now, because nearly everything you do is wrong, you being you.

But when you are a new you.

Then what is right? What is wrong?

What is wrong, for me now, is living in bleakness, and agony, and is it wrong to love and to be loved?

Yes, it is wrong to love, and to be loved.

Because to love and to be loved ends up in sadness, and heartbreak, and Saga says she can't love me, it's wrong.

I can't ask her to love me. To ask her to do this would make her sad and conflicted, and if I asked her to do this for my happiness, I'm saying my happiness is more important than her life.

What do I want to do?

I want to ask her to throw aside her scruples, and to love me, and fuck her compunctions. I NEED LOVE HERE!

But what about her? Wasn't it agonizing, this period of reflection, and then this conclusion that she just so loved to be brave enough to tell me? And do I honor her, her insights, her wisdom, by saying: "Fuck that, and fuck me, right now, cause I need to be held, goddamnit, and I need you to tell me what you have told me time and again, because without you I'M NOTHING!"

What do I do? Oh, God, what do I do?

Well, right now: I'm doing the taxes. And I'm stuck, cause writing down those numbers, so clinically, and seeing all that money going out, and seeing so much less coming in.

I'm stuck.

I write down those numbers, and I measure my worth.

Is there such a thing as a 'negative yardstick'?

In this post-Ayn Rand world, our worth is in what we produce or what we consume ('mooch'). And the producers? Live the high live with soirees and fetes and hobnobbing with other producers.

And the moochers...

Soylent green.

It's starting to happen. It's been happening in the 3rd world, it's happening in the Old World. It's happening here.

And how we eat people is to force the wife into prostitution or the daughter or to become a boy so 'he' can work in the ... um, sneaker factory or farming in WoW or work in the sulfur mines or ...

Or work for the producers as fuck-me-up-the-ass-boss secretaries.

It's in Ayn Rand's novel, but it's not fiction, not anymore.

So that's what I'm doing.

And Saga is right.

I will move on.

Hell, there's already a line forming, and if there weren't all I'd have to do is go to the meat market, whichever one works, Whole Foods or a gay bar, or hell, the super bowl's tonight, and I'm Irish, a pub will do very well, and 'whistle' by batting my eyelashes and get bent over the produce counter by one of the producers.

Producers don't waste time with dinner on the first 'date' anymore. It's a waste of time and money for a good old hard fuck that is there for the taking, whether she wanted it or not, and obviously she did.

Back to taxes. I have the hard task of writing numbers in column A (income) and column B (deductible expenses) and coming up with a number in column C (taxable income) even though B is greater than A.

Not so hard to do: just be honest. I'm not a zero; no: 'zero' is too high for me.

I'm a loser.