Hey, so I woke up late,
having stayed awake late,
or early, almost until the
sun came back up, nothing
unusual there, only did I
get anything accomplished?
Sure, yes, I now have an
interview next week, some
time either Tuesday, Wed
nesday or Thursday. I have
recorded a couple new months
of poetry for the YouTube side-
channel of this very project –
I’m on my last month. After
I’m done with the months of
September (have read months
2005-2015, so only have 2016-
2023 to go of the final month,
then a few additional 2023
months that were not yet
completed when I went
through those particular
months at the time in
full), my floors are
clean, some laundry
(which I now do in the
sink) is clean, I have
managed to yet stay
inside, in my little
hotbox, rather than
go out and spend any
of the last money I have
this month (and next month,
since I have been able to now
work a total of ten days in
August, September and Oct
ober, and these the only days
I’ve had the luxury of doing paid
work since mid-June of last year,
my paltry government funding
which pays for the rent at my
SRO and for my telephone bill,
with hardly anything left over,
is in jeopardy of being non-
existent), so that’s good,
right? I’m concentrating
on the good stuff, accent
uating it in a perhaps hyper
bolic manner, but whatever
works to keep my mind off
the dead-end bleakness of
it all. And nothing’s bleak.
My boyfriend is amazing,
even though he’s been
in the opposite hemi
sphere for, what, 100%
of the nearly four years
since we’ve decided we
were a couple (I will
never, ever, ever,
denigrate the notion
of a long-term relationship
again as long as I live, because
that’s what I used to do – nope,
I do not believe in karma). So,
these are the diatribes or the
attempts at mild-mannered
catch-ups, or touch-bases,
I set out to do – by the time
we’re at about here, I realize
there’s no turning back, the
sarcasm (if we’re lucky), the
pessimism, the lack of hope
is so overblown despite the
attempt to really break through
and into the many amazing poss
ibilities, the infinite radial paths
upon which I could casually stroll
or even skip my way out of this
spot and into obvious progress
and happy endings. I look
down and all I see are my
bare legs crossed with a
pillow above and between
the laptop upon which
I’m pecking this ridiculous
ness and below them are
the blanket that acts as a
facade atop my badly bro
ken bed. It is cooler than
it’s been in quite a while.
There’s that interview
coming up next week
(how can mentioning
and in fact repeating
this fact not resemble
a deja vu in which we
all know the obvious
conclusion to that
familiar saga. But
no, no, no, I’m trying
to tell you that I’m act
ually in good spirits; or
was. Is the act of sending
you these updates the problem?
They do not help if, by design,
this is the best I can do. That
much I know. Even as I attempt
to be upbeat. I’ve got chicken
legs in the refrigerator which
I can cook now along with some
rice, and a rice-cooker within which
to make the rice and a skillet atop a
single electric burner upon which to
fry the chicken. The room is relatively
clean (I’m not mentioning one fact about
it that I’m just not going to mention, besides
the broken bed, besides the fact that it’s an
SRO, and that I reside in this SRO in the hood
in my favorite city and cannot get into a new
place and therefore cannot see my guy in the
same vicinity as me until I get a job and move
into a new place) – and defeat. Not defeat.
Never defeat. Defeat is death. And I’m yet
alive. Right now, in fact, I feel very alive,
even as I stew over all of the obstacles,
and try to sort of calculate, based on
history, what might come next. I
will get there. It’s mostly (mostly)
silly for me to think of time as a
quickly ticking timer that counts
down to an ever-swiftly nearing
zero. Like if I had a real kitchen
and were baking something in the
oven. The ding ding when the timer
hits zero does not mean the end of
life or the apocalypse, but that the
bread is baked, the pizza is done,
your potato is ready, etc., etc.
All good stuff. Because I am
nothing if not hungry.
