"Confessions and Lies" is a project of rants, accusations, self-reflections, diary entries, automatic writing, short fiction, and experimental notions by Neil Oldman of Daydream Misfit.
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19) Guy at the End of the Bar: “Y’all don’t know how to fuck. Most men don’t get off the best way. You gotta know a woman’s body. Handjob, sure. Everybody likes letting her suck it. Good pussy is good pussy. And no man complains getting his meat clinched inside a buttery asshole. But for the best sex, you gotta work the tarnt.”
Bartender: “Yeah?”
Guy at the End of the Bar: “Yeah. That’s the secret. Most men don’t know.”
Bartender: “Are you saying ‘taint’?”
Guy at the End of the Bar: “Noooooo! It ain’t the taint, it’s the tarnt. It’s in the belly-button. You don’t know shit, do you? You got feel up her navel to lube it up good and lick it, coax it so it opens up like a venus flytrap. Work your dick in slow, right? It’s snug as fuck. Best thing is it sucks like a mouth, gets wet like a pussy, and squeezes like an asshole. It’s shallow, so you can only get three inches in or so, but that’s all you need – probably all this guy’s got – “
Guy Sitting Next to Guy at the End of the Bar: “Yeah, you got me.”
Bartender: “How come I’ve never heard of this? I’ve been with – like, a ton of women.”
Guy at the End of the Bar: “Because they don’t give that shit up to just anybody. They keep it secret cause they know it’s all we’d want otherwise. Most men never get any. Best part is her bean sprouts, they’re shaped like bean sprouts, like a – whatchacallit on the coral reef – Animosity? Eenie-Meenie? Anemone! Like an anemone that slurps out and tickles your balls while you fuck her tarnt. But you gotta be super-careful. You gotta pull out when she cums. Otherwise those flytrap-teeth lock on and she’ll shred you, and you come out looking like a fucking octopus hot dog. I know a guy it happened to. Had to have six surgeries.”
Bartender: “You learn something every day.”
Guy at the End of the Bar: “I hope you’ve been listening. Oh man, look at the girl in the crop-top who just walked in. Check out the tarnt on her.”
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18) Their faces were twisted up. I shook when they barked. Then, left to sit in that vibration.
This morning, I'm thinking of memories of seeing people getting angry with my dad as a child. Things I didn’t understand until I was older.
I remember once, maybe I was seven, my dad drove us to some huge brown house on a beach. We lived in the center of the state, so this would have been a two-or-three-hour trip in a grumbling 1970s car with an 8-track player and windows down for lack of working a/c.
The house had a long staircase of dark wood planks dusty with white sand. I remember the inside being clean and modern white and orderly, in contrast to the crumbling and unkempt old house my family lived in, a 1930s build dad had inherited but didn’t maintain. But I was young and the status of it meant nothing at the time. I just knew I was in strange waters.
The owners of the house were absolutely incensed. I think it was a man and a woman. In my memory they're a shadow. The strangers went off on my dad right in front of me, and they all argued for a while. I was a fragile little thing, anxious all the time, like a guitar string agitated by the slightest movement. I was terrified.
Someone handed me a magazine and sat me on a plush white couch. My dad and his friends disappeared into another room. For most an hour, I sat there alone. I don’t think I looked at the magazine much. There was an enormous storm window looking out onto the beach, and that’s what captivated me. It was the biggest TV I’d ever seen, and a nature show on. I sat mesmerized.
When dad reappeared, everyone was happy. He was sniffling. The shadow murmured kindly noises at my back as we walked back down the sandy staircase.
Dad was a musician, and people liked him. Maybe that’s why these images of people yelling at him still stand out. Mid-afternoon at the backdoor of a college town pool hall, some party at 2 A.M. a child had no business being at, the porch of an old house with broad oaks on the river -- strangers dressing down an adult man in front of his child.
He was charismatic. But he was also the kind of man who didn’t understand you’re not supposed to bring your kid to your drug deals. Funny thing, though, as I recall, not once did the people angry at him for bringing me not eventually end up inviting him in to take his money while I shivered on strange couches in front of strange TVs.
(I also have many memories of circles of hippies or college students gathered around fires or in smoky tapestried rooms with joints being passed and me taking my toke every time one came around, from 5 years old. Strange to remember the way the drug users in the 70s treated my presence as opposed to the way the drug sellers did. As a father now, in middle-age, it's hard to remember how to remember all these things.)
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17) Imagine someone scrolling on their phone. A painting comes up on their screen. They spend less than a third of one second looking at the image. Somewhere inside, they smile. They'll never know someone labored over that painting for 50 hours. Someone fretted and lost sleep. Someone agonized. Your life is like that. The universe is just doomscrolling at 2 am, and there you were, and there you went.
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16) I saw a social media post from an American man who was describing his experience with Japan's medical system to his doctor. The man had an accident while visiting Kyoto and received excellent care for a knee injury and had a long stay in the hospital with close monitoring and daily physical therapy. When he returned, he told his physician the story, and that doctor expressed alarm and declared that the man's treatment had been a really inefficient use of the Japanese hospital's resources.
On reading this, I couldn't help but think about the experience of going to a restaurant and receiving good service. You know, a restaurant where you're seated quickly, and the server is attentive and timely, and the orders are taken accurately, and the food comes out delicious, and the atmosphere is upbeat but not overwhelming, and the seats are comfortable, and the interior design creates a nice sense of elegance and ambiance, and you leave with a full belly, happy and feeling like you've been treated well.
Because hey, providing you with a good experience is a REALLY inefficient use of the restaurant's resources. If they were slower and less-well staffed and used lower-quality ingredients and didn't hire professional back-end employees and skimped on extras and decorated from Wal-Mart and didn't care whether you enjoyed the meal, they could charge the same price but make higher profits! That would be efficient.
It's so strange to me that we're so picky about some businesses, but we allow the medical establishment to get away with awful service. America acts like a battered spouse, afraid to speak up after decades of its hospitals treating them like a ghetto Popeyes.
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15) I recently took my desktop post-it notes of "Ideas" and "Working" and married them with my Notepad docs of "Ideas" and "Working." Then I found my old Google Docs of "Ideas" and "Working" and merged them all together with the new list. Now I have one document for "Ideas" and "Working!" Which is six pages long.
I love to be productive. I take great pride in knocking an item off my list. But for every one I remove, I add two. Like Hydra, right.
Some "Ideas" are fully-fleshed out. Like my novel. If I ever get 6 months of not having to work two jobs, I'll tackle that draft. Some ideas are snippets like "Laundry Day, Candid, Legs at Pool, Monkey Toes." Some are just words or combinations: "Qui Lyme Pi," "Quadrapox," "Funeral for the Beat." Some are to-dos like "BFF on DM: Halloween Pinups (Vamps+Witches+) DM, Markup, blog, email, Reels / Tiktok, FAA," but at least I know what that means. Some are incomprehensible like "Return to Intricate," but I don't get rid of them because I think at some point I'll remember what I was trying to tell myself.
I like that I will never run out of ideas. I'm always working on multiple things at the same time. Stories, images, the website, prints, schemes, machinations. I never get bored.
I just wish I had the life I wish. I wish I had all day to make wishes.
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14) Update on the Cologuard: It was positive, so they scheduled a colonoscopy for October 2026. My cardiologist cleared it. Then they called and said that because I had triple-bypass surgery in March 2026, they would need an office visit before they could do the procedure. The earliest available appointment is March 2027. Then they can reschedule the colonoscopy again. This is American healthcare. Incredibly long waits, death panel insurance companies, high costs, and on top of that, not everyone even gets care.
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13) To My Biggest Fan
When I started writing again a few years ago, I had this idea that I’d place some articles here and some stories there, and they’d earn me a trickle of income which would grow steadily until it became a stream. I experimented with trying to generate ad revenue on websites, and I wrote product descriptions on blogs to earn affiliate commissions, and I monetized my social media accounts and offered subscriptions. My thinking was that while these residual income streams were small, they would build over time until they equaled a subsistence wage. Then! Then I could quit my two “real” jobs and focus on my passion projects.
Earning a dime here and a dime there meant I’d need to have 500,000 successes a year to make $50,000. 1370 times a day, I’d need you all to read my something or other, like, leave a comment, share, click the ad, and hopefully, buy the t-shirt. Just go viral on the reg. Easy-peasy.
After a couple years, I’ve – well, suffice it to say that it seems that you all are not as invested in this project as I am. The stream isn’t even a rivulet.
Now, I feel like I’m doing my part. I’m writing the writings. But while the algorithms are against me, and the public doesn’t appreciate my genius, and my stars are crossed, I bear at least a little responsibility for not meeting my goals. After all, I spend most of my days creating whatever I feel like creating. I refuse to niche down. I don’t really care if you like it, even. In the end, I write what I’m compelled to write.
And that is piss-poor marketing. I’m supposed to be a BRAND, asking what problem you need solved and then selling you solutions. But remind me to drink degreaser if I ever think twice about taking that approach. I am not a marketer. I am a human being. Aren’t there enough grifters out there pimping their online course and ebook telling you how to live the dream of making a living by selling other aspiring writers online courses and ebooks?
Ultimately, I’ve had to face reality. And I’ve decided to change tactics. No longer will I try to build a fan base one by one in order to nickel and dime my way to a meager living. Instead, I am devoting all my resources going forward to seeking out my one true fan, and that billionaire – you, if you’re reading this – will become my patron and finance the next two decades of my creative career.
There are 3,428 billionaires in the world. And I don’t care which one you are. I need you to be my biggest fan. Whether you’re in the United States, China, India, Sri Lanka, Abu Dhabi, Liechtenstein or Vatican City, I just need you to pay my bills. You’ll be providing me with $50,000 a year for the next 20 years with an annual inflation adjustment.
I think this is a modest request. I’m not trying to get rich here. I just want to be able to focus on writing and not be exhausted from the daily drudgery of labor. You’re about to solve all my problems. That must feel great.
At this point, before you’ve even heard my pitch, you’ll be thinking like the wise investor you are and asking “what’s in it for me?” And the answer to that, boss, is “wow, great question.”
You won’t be getting a slave. I’m not going to write with you in mind. I’m not even going to take suggestions. I’m going to keep doing whatever I want to do until I die. A creative accountant could probably write off the money you’ll be giving me as a charitable donation. But the idea that you’re going to get ROI or own some percentage of me or dictate to me? Yeah, no. I’ll give you a dedication in one of my books, though. That seems only right.
Here’s my thinking: If I were a billionaire, I’d do things like call up a movie studio and say “Hey, I’ve got two hundred million dollars to blow and I think there aren’t enough great action romantic comedy thrillers anymore, so get me Inde Navarrette and Mason Gooding, we’re shooting on location in Dubrovnik with David Leitch directing.” And then there would be one more great movie in the world, and it would be because I wanted that, and I know how to be cool.
Or I’d buy up office buildings in major cities around the world, gut and renovate them, and offer free studio space to up-and-coming painters. The spaces would have a nightclub feel on the bottom few floors, then gallery space, then artist-only access to several floors of studio space with free supplies. Really encourage productivity and self-expression. Not worry about whether the thing turned a profit. Elevate the experience of existence because why wouldn’t I?
Or I'd throw down a million, so a writer could spend the next 20 years not worrying about his bills but instead hacking his way through all his awesome ideas. I can’t think of a better investment.
What good is wealth unless you use it to be awesome?
That’s it. That’s my entire pitch. I’m not going to kiss your ass or anything. Still, I'm so convinced this is going to work, I'm gonna go ahead and quit my jobs and start the long process of finishing the rough draft of my novel. You see, on the surface it’s a zombie apocalypse genre piece, but it’s really about a lifetime living on the autism spectrum. It won’t make a dime. But it’s important to me.
Google, if you could get this in front of all the billionaires as fast as possible, so I can sort through their offers…
In case, I'm not kidding, Buy Me a Coffee. Make it a Trenta.
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12) I don't read Zazm. I have my reasons. I'm still interested to see whether the machines kiss in the end.
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11) For my cardiologist, 4 months after triple bypass surgery. Although I've tracked my blood pressure readings, I haven't logged my eating, exercise, and sleep as they relate. Here I'll chronicle one day because it shows some of the typical trends. Saturday, July 18th.
I woke at 7 A.M. after around an 8 hour sleep. After using the bathroom, I took my morning meds (Coreg 6.25, Tamsulosin, microdose Aspirin, Valcyclovir). I measured my blood pressure before eating breakfast. This morning it was 138/93/66. It tends to be high in the A.M., but this may be in part because I take it soon after waking.
I ate a breakfast of Cheerios, strawberries, and cow milk.
By 8:00 I started my morning exercise. This day, I walked my neighborhood hills, a distance of about 3.3 miles in 49 minutes with some intervals of jogging. I am about 85% of my pre-surgery stamina and must walk up the higher hills. If I feel chest discomfort or strain, I back off. I sometimes notice feelings in my chest, but those have come and gone for many weeks and are not like the angina I felt before. I alternate days of high-intensity with days of leisurely walks or step-aerobics. I believe that the Coreg limits my heart rate and the duration for which I'm able to maintain more intense activity.
Upon returning at 9 A.M., my blood pressure has dropped to 96/64/98. To confirm, I check it again at 10 A.M. and get a reading of 98/75/80. This is a standard pattern after exercise with my blood pressure dropping substantially. In part this may reflect my kidneys' inability to manage fluid volume after kidney failure in 2021, although my medically-resistant hypertension predates that event.
For lunch, I had Surimi on bread with mayonnaise, a higher sodium meal than I typically allow myself.
Around 12:30, I hit the wall and became very fatigued. This is also typical, almost a daily occurrence. I believe it is in at least some part caused by the beta blocker. I lay down for a nap on the couch. At 2:00 P.M. I awoke. My blood pressure measured 140/87/63. Is the blood pressure elevated from my body retaining sodium, from being recumbent, from apneas, or simply from "waking up" hormones?
I then showered and went to do delivery driving for the night. I ate no further meals apart from snacking on cucumbers. I hydrated with decaffeinated, artificially sweetened tea. I was in and out of a truck and in seated, standing, walking, and stair-climbing positions for six hours.
Upon return home, my blood pressure measured 133/85/67. I took my night meds (Coreg 6.25, Lisinopril 10 mg, Rosuvastatin, microdose Aspirin) and went to bed by 10:30.
My blood pressure has been erratic since coming off HCTZ after 16 weeks. Some days it is high all day, sometimes low all day, sometimes low in the morning, high at night or high in the morning, low at night. But more often than not, it seems to follow this pattern: it is high upon waking, lowers as I am active, then spikes again before bedtime. Could this be fluid regulation or the fading effects of the Coreg 11-12 hours after the previous dose?
I don't know that the Lisinopril has much effect, and my blood pressure had been well-regulated by half the current Coreg dose with 12.5 HCTZ and no Lisinopril. On those two medications, my blood pressure never exceeded 125/85, although it sometimes dropped to 100/70 or below, accompanied by breathlessness, fatigue, and dizziness on standing.
See also my Aldosterone reading of 4 (possibly lowered by Lisinopril), Renin reading of .17 (possible lowered by Coreg). Kidney related: GFR 75 (low), Sodium 145 (top of range), Chloride 109 (high), Creatinine 1.2 (top of range), Protein 6.3 (low), Potassium 5.0 (top of range), Albumin and BUN normal.
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10) Follow-up on the Cologuard. I finally shit in the box. The test was positive, so I have to get a colonoscopy. But I have to wait until 6 months after the triple-bypass, which was mid-March. They've scheduled me for October 1st.
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9) I had a friend who I thought did delivery driving as a way to make extra money. One night we were sitting at our local bar sharing a pitcher, and he confided something to me. "I run drugs, dude." I scoffed at him and told him he was full of it. "No man, it's true," he said. "One day I was delivering this guy his chimichangas, and when we met at the door, there was like a wall of weed smoke, and I joked that it smelled good in there, and he was like 'come on in and hit this' and I said 'okay', and we got to talking. Dude was an operator, and he sized up that he could trust me, and he told me to come back the next day if I wanted to earn some money. That's how I got started. Turns out that 'delivery driving' is the BEST cover. As long as you're carrying a big red pizza bag, literally no one questions what you're doing or where you're going. I've delivered pizza-boxes full of weed next door to houses with police cruisers parked in the driveway, and the cop's over there watering his plants and waving hello to me and telling me to be safe on the road. I've walked into the retirement home carrying packages to hand off to the janitor, and everyone's like 'down the hall to the right' with a helpful, cheery smile on their faces, not knowing why their patients' blood pressures keep going through the roof or why Miss Betty's rolling like a maniac. No one's ever unhappy to see the delivery guy because everybody likes getting deliveries. It's like the 'Wells Fargo Wagon' song in Music Man. People are singing out loud because they're excited they might be the next to get a delivery. You've never seen that? It's got Opie in it. You don't know what you're missing. Anyway, you put a stupid DorkDash hat on, people let you go wherever. Military base, the projects, the mall, the boonies, guards at the jail, they treat you like Switzerland. You've got no enemies. No one ever doubts your uniform. Gate's always open." So of course I wanted to know how I could get in on that action. And that would turn out to be the first step in forming what would become a criminal empire.
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8) Many years ago, I saw a documentary about penguins. They were out on the ice, and it was mating season. The film focused on one individual couple pair. The way I remember it, the narrator said the words "the male must keep his female serviced, or she will surely stray." And that stuck with me and has informed my sex-life and my relationships ever since. When you learn that to be a partner is also to put yourself in a position of service, a lot of problems go away.
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7) Partial list of celebrities with dead eyes, presumed to be of The Horde: Fred Armisen, Amy Poehler, Johnny Depp, Aubrey Plaza, Billie Eilish, Kaya Scodelario, Rooney Mara, Cillian Murphy, Bella Hadid, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jeremy Allen White, Mary-Kate Olsen, Ashley Olsen, Lana Del Rey, Eminem, Kanye West, Victoria Beckham, Kylie Jenner, Dane DeHaan, Timothée Chalamet, Mia Goth, Cara Delevingne, Alexa Demie, Tilda Swinton, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Saoirse Ronan, Kristen Stewart, Mia Wasikowska, Jena Malone, Alison Brie, Mackenzie Davis, Ezra Miller, Dakota Fanning, Hunter Schafer, Alicia Vikander, Mia Farrow, St. Vincent, Sky Ferreira, Robert Pattinson, Vincent Cassel, Suki Waterhouse.
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6) When I won the lottery in 1998, my smartest decision was to move to a new state and not tell anyone I was wealthy. I knew that otherwise I would never know if people were treating me based on who I am or by what they thought they could get from me.
While I was excited to get such a huge pile of money, my biggest concern was that I not become one of those people who blows through all the cash and ends up destitute. I bought a small shack on a plot of farmland outside of town, so I'd never have to worry about a good night's sleep. Then I found a psychic in the phone book and started seeing her regularly to get investment advice. I put my remaining winnings into the stock market and got a job as a convenience store clerk in order to pay my meager monthly bills.
In March of 2000, the psychic pointed out an unusual planetary alignment, so I sold all my investment holdings for a hefty gain. After the DotCom bust, I reinvested in Apple and Amazon and others and rode the market as those stocks boomed. When the psychic had a bad dream about a house falling into a river, I sold everything at the exact market top in October of 2007. I got back in at the bottom in 2009 and held for over a decade. When the psychic died of a mysterious respiratory illness in 2019, I sold again and avoided the COVID crash, buying in again at the bottom and earning massive returns through the 2020s.
Anyway, that's how I managed to turn millions into -- well, I'm not going to put a number on it for you and the lurking taxman. The psychic visited me in a dream recently and her ghost warned me of a tsunami of ramen noodles, so I liquidated all my stock again at what will turn out to be the market top in 2026. This is not investment advice. But I'm sitting on more cash than you can imagine.
I continue to wear patched blue jeans. I drove a 2003 Kia Rio until it finally died. I bought and still drive a 2014 Ford Fiesta. I don't flaunt my wealth. I make small anonymous donations to people I think deserve it. But mostly I use my money to support my passions: collecting comic books and developing chemical agents which will neuter all human males and bring an end to Gaea's suffering.
The comic book thing is pretty straightforward. I finished my full run of Amazing a decade ago, and I've been working on upgrading each copy to 9.5 or above. I don't even like Superman, but I hired a remote assistant and together we're cobbling together all those issues, too, just for fun. So. Many. Reboots.
But my true passion is getting revenge on all the people who picked on me in childhood by chemically castrating their male heirs. My team years ago developed versions of our -- proprietary blend -- which can be administered in Monster energy drinks, coffee, beer, anything with a strong enough flavor to disguise the faint raspberry taste of Orcidololopril-498. From there, it was just a matter of hiring private agents to pose as bartenders and new "friends" to confirm that each unsuspecting patient received a proper dosage.
When you're autistic and you spend enough time around people, almost everyone eventually drops their guard and loses their mask. It's like people are compelled to let you know their contempt for you, like they'll just die if they don't reveal how beneath them they think you are. So you learn that people are basically bad. Bad monkeys. I learned this lesson when I was poor, and I learned it some more when I was rich and no one knew it. You discover that everyone is just pretending to not be evil, and you stop wondering why the world is the way it is when it doesn't make sense, and then you start to have diabolical notions.
The team is very close to having airborne variants of our chemical agent ready for mass-distribution by aeroplane. We've been testing chemtrail distribution for months in the skies over Texas, and we're happy with the results we've engineered so far. It turns out spraying corn gets it into just about everything.
When the testosterone-driven impulse to plunder the Earth's resources, war over territory and influence, and erect monuments to man's murderous greed and ego are purged from this world, Order can have a chance to recover. The green shoots coming up through cracks in the sidewalk are only the beginning.
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5) There's a box from Cologuard I'm supposed to return still sitting in my office. I keep moving it so it's in my way and I have to step over it to remind me to -- fill it -- and return it. To this point I haven't opened it.
I saw a meme intimating that there are two types of wipers: sitters and standers. And that each group is entirely unaware of the other's existence. As a former sitter, I can understand people get locked in their ways and stop using their imaginations to improve their lives. But having tried both methods, standing is clearly superior. At the very least, lift yourself into a half-squat so you get a good angle. I feel like I'd have to be a gymnast or yoga-master to contort my middle-aged back and arm to reach around behind myself while seated.
Usually, and this is often because I go a few times a day, I will shower after. At first, I liked to make sure my outside was thoroughly clean. It always seemed like toilet paper was just kind of a half-measure and never actually got it all and I was just fooling myself. Then I realized there was always just a little bit inside, too, so you had to soap up a fingertip and irrigate, and that made you feel fresh. Then I realized that the whole rectum often had residuals and that you could flush that stuff out with the shower head and an extended middle-finger. Eventually, I got to the point where I can navigate my whole arm through my intestines and back up my esophagus and wave at myself in the mirror with my hand sticking out of my mouth.
Ultimately, though, I realized that to be truly pure, I needed a method to avoid defecation completely. I started calculating the specific number of calories it takes me to survive and have trained my body through intense exercise to be a nuclear furnace which burns every morsel of food as I eat it, including fiber. I've reached an equilibrium where what I consume exactly equals what I need for energy. On average, I have a bowel movement once every six months now.
What can I say? I like being clean. You people disgust me.
***
4) Eleven weeks after triple-bypass surgery, and I'm still struggling. This third month has in some ways been more difficult than the second. Physically, I'm better. I can walk the walk I used to walk, my neighborhood walk I mean, forty-five minutes to an hour, up and down hills.
I tried jogging, but since I'm not allowed to do push-ups until my sternum fully heals, my softened pecs bounced and hurt and made me more understanding of the merits of a sports-bra. I can march up and down the stairs twelve times. But I still get a little winded. Not as much as when my blood pressure was low, 110/70. Then I'd get dizzy standing up.
Now my blood pressure is running high. First thing in the morning and last thing at night, it spikes to 140/95. Ish. Doctor is still tweaking my meds. The thing with blood pressure meds. "Hey, these meds may make you feel terrible, but at least they don't control your blood pressure." Am I right?
I get tired every afternoon and stumble to the couch for a half-hour coma. It's hard to wake up on time in the morning, and when I do, I don't feel like exercising. I'm eating right and avoiding salt, but I'm still slowly gaining weight. I make my own healthy turkey-sausages and bean-burgers and flax-seed chips. But I'm still fatigued. Too much so, all the time. I'm not horny for anything.
I haven't mentioned the worm yet. I first became aware of it in my teens. There's a thick, black worm that lives in my intestine, and it sucks all my energy. It wants me depressed. It likes when I sleep thirteen hours, so it can eat my life-force. I don't talk to the doctor about it, but it's a problem. Please don't say "Ivermectin" or "SSRI," those makes it bigger. Same with meditation. Anyway, it doesn't surprise me that after open heart surgery, the worm is having a gay old time in my gut, controlling my every thought and feeling! Opportunistic little shit.
Did you know they call the gut the "second brain?" It's really interesting, actually, 90% of the body's seratonin is produced and stored in the intestinal tract. Anyway, I'm supposed to be doubling my Carvedilol, but it makes me so tired. Who can live like this? It's either take the meds and not be able to function or not take the meds and walk straight into a stroke.
Bodies are frail and foolish and fragile, and if we're made in God's image, He's a fucked up, decrepit, falling-apart flesh-bag of bones, meat, blood, and pus. Why does He have skin-tags and hemorrhoids and sinuses, and why do I have to have them?
Even sexy people are disgusting, if you ask me. Even with their stunningly ignorant smiles, a stray clot away from vegetative.
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3) Last night I had a fever and dreamed fitful dreams. I was seized by the gravity of the Darkness beyond measure of physicality and tumbled across the void for decades, gently, a journey on which I saw many things which changed my mind. Planetoids, echoes, burdens, multiplicities. Once I saw a feather of light become a sun. Once I saw a vast mouth die into itself. After the learning, I arrived, stretched thin and wound like a ribbon, to the central thought which animates the spark upon the wick. Through it I squirmed claustrophobically inside a soily burrow toward that dim light, unable to feel my limbs and unable to breathe. Every moment was the imminent collapse of external structure and internal frame. I was like an earthworm, my bones long since jellified, yearning to surface. Above me at the tunnel's opening, there came to gaze a grave eye, and she said to me to not stop now, because nature still had need of me. That I should join the willing mass in our natural purpose to eat the fruits of the land and make manure as we walk. And at once, cast high into the new sky like a geyser, I saw from the position of the vulture circling, far below, the factory of it, the churning miasma of naked pink flesh a million strong, making mewling noises, pressed up against one another as we march in endless circles, knee-deep in our own excrement. I accepted the evidence of my eyes and rested there a while in my fever like a cloud before I rained down on the green lands.
***
2) I'm not one to shit on my ex, but...
We ended up getting a cat and named it Doreen. My ex never adored her like I did. I think she was weirdly jealous of the cat's affection, as though Doreen was plotting to come between us. I'd try to be reassuring, but I guess in my ex's worldview it wasn't possible for someone to have the depth of feeling to love both a partner and a pet at the same time, that somehow my petting the cat diminished the love I had left available for my partner.
My ex was in charge of feeding, and I realized after some time that Doreen was always hungry and had gotten very frail. Doreen became a little aggressive at the table, and I took to feeding her myself when I got home from work. I asked my ex about this, and she said, "we can't afford to feed her twice a day." I told her we could do without ordering food delivery one night a week, and I started bringing home extra cans and bags of food.
A couple weeks later, Doreen, who was indoor/outdoor, went missing, which she had never done before. I was really worried, and my ex acted concerned as well. After a few days, I started to give up hope. But one night, I heard meowing and scratching at the back door. Doreen was dirty and starving and she had hitchhiker seeds stuck in her fur which took hours to pick out. She looked like she'd walked for miles. My ex was unexcited to see Doreen return and acted strangely nervous about it.
While I was at work the next month, my ex -- without telling me -- took Doreen to the vet and had her declawed. I was shocked when I came home, and all my ex would say was "she scratched me," even though she wouldn't show me where. When I became upset, she said Doreen was lucky to be declawed because she almost had her "depawed" and that she "knew a guy." For two weeks, I had to try to keep Doreen from jumping or climbing while she healed. One night, I found a printed diagram of feline skeletal anatomy among some papers. My ex had made a red circle around where the foot meets the tibia.
Anyway, Doreen and I now live in Florida. If anyone wants the name of my ex's employer...
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1) One thing I don't talk about much is my grandmother. She was a serial killer.
Mom's relationship with her was strained. There are no photos. Once I got $5 in the mail from her for Christmas.
Her name was Lena Griggs, and she lived in an old white house in Choctaw for thirty years after our grandfather died. My parents took me to visit that house a couple times when I was little, but I don't remember anything about the woman, just a fence along a dirt road with grass growing up the center, and green blackberries, and a nest of yellowjackets.
So it came out in the 1980s that my grandmother had murdered several men. Out in that old country house, she'd take in laborers passing through looking for work at neighboring farms. Apparently, she used pesticide mixed into food, a little at a time. Buried their bodies near the crick - she would probably have had to chop them into pieces and use a wheelbarrow - and planted rows of beans over them.
One year there was a huge storm washed everything out. A fisherman spotted exposed bones up off the bank. They found four bodies. There might have been more. It was in all the papers. She was sick and died in jail before there could be a trial. She denied everything.
My grandmother was known to be a kind-hearted woman. There's a hobo sign, a cat, used to direct travelers toward a "kind-hearted woman," the sort of friendly old widow who might provide a meal. I think about that. And I wonder sometimes because I believe I am a kind person. But who knows what we're capable of.
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