May

May is black.

Motherless daughters in the back.

Light of hope flickers down the hall;

it’s dim like it isn’t there at all.

It’s spring, but May feels like fall.

“Be good to Lisa,” you said in your death pall.

Like I was a person, a human being emerged from the black.

But then I went back.

14th Blogoversary

I think it was March 20, 2010 when I started this blog and I have no intention on giving it up.

There’s so many things I wish I could go back to and change. At least I have something to show in a fairly useless life, trite as my writing  is. I’m going to try to post more consistently ( I think I say this every year, but who cares?). Thanks for showing up, friends.

Everyone’s Trying to Croak

A couple of weeks ago, my best friend died for a second. It was only for a second though.  She was outside of her hotel and  about to get in an Uber when she passed out and passed away. 

It was only a second of death, not enough for going towards the light or seeing one’s life flash before her, but  it was death. Her heart stopped and the implanted defibrillator jolted  her back to this world. She didn’t wake up until she was on the way to the hospital. To add insult to near death experience, she received a bad concussion when she fell. Life is a bitch, indeed.

Meanwhile, the man feeding her cats, is also trying to die. It’s basically certain that he has lung cancer, but is only taking radiation for it. The doctor told him he could outlive the cancer, but the doctor is probably lying, especially since he’s doing minimal treatment.

Me, I’m avoiding doctors like the plague.

Fires, Death, Renewal

A new year and per usual, I’m filled with the perpetual optimism of existential dread.

Will this be the year I die alone, unloved, unneeded, forgotten?

Will my best friend die and leave me alone? Her kidneys appear to be failing along with the sarcoidosis.

Will I become homeless from a fire or being thrown out?

They offered a renewal. This year they’re only going to raise my rent by 100.00. I know I’ve been extremely fortunate, always finding a soft place to land in the end after my mother’s death, but when will my number be up and I will truly suffer?

While I feel that I was cursed from the moment of conception, having a brain that is mostly useless and a body and voice that further underscore the uselessness of my brain, I have actually been blessed compared to so many others.

There was another fire, but this one was in a house in the next neighborhood. Cops everywhere. I walked to see. I never actually got close enough to see anything, but the smells morphed depending where you were. In one place, it was smoke. In another direction, a noxious smell, but nearest the fire the almost pleasant smell of pine.

I’m so scared of it happening to me. It seems I’ve seen so many fires in my life and yet it hasn’t been me yet. While I have insurance, I’m still scared of everything going up, of never being safe again. The rare times I’m not home, I want to leave a window open just in case for my cats to get out.

I’ve seen a couple of fires started by grills, including one here. My old apartment went up a couple years after I moved, talk about dodging a bullet. If we had still been living there what would’ve happened to us? I think that was old wiring, which I imagine is what will happen here if it ever happens. Then there was that homeless guy who blew himself up with his kerosene heater. Or the time I came back from the drugstore and the building across from me was going up and threatened to take my apartment. There but for the grace of God.

Anyway, here’s to 2024!

Daily Prompt

What snack would you eat right now?

I personally would like a large pizza from Little Caesars or Pizza Hut. I’m not too particular, preferably with whatever they got (except anchovies or jalapeños). A side of World Peace and a Coke.

New Year

Christmas is over.

The lights gleam melancholy,

waiting for the new year.

This year’s disappointments

meld with the hope that

the new year will be different

than the one before.

False hope is still hope.

A Cow

She kept his words like Biblical edicts, mulling them in her mind.

Chewing them like cud.

She began to believe

that maybe she wasn’t dumb.

Maybe she was likeable.

Maybe she could belong.

But no, some things are not meant to be.

Like fitting in or being a member of humanity.

Broken

My heart is broken,

Ran right through.

Severed into pieces

And there is no glue.

You survey the damage

unaware that it was you

with a quick remark

aimed at a jocular fool.

You sweep up the remains

And chuck them in a bin.

You can feel parts of a secret love

Emanating from within.

Easily taken care of,

Just close the lid.

Forget the forgettable,

that’s the best way to live.

An Account of Thanksgiving, My Birthday, Silent Treatment

Thanksgiving was actually pretty decent thanks to Pervert J’s family being jerks. Pervert J is the geezer K sicked on me that time. Did I tell you about that? Probably.

Anyway, J is probably dying of lung cancer, a biopsy is needed to confirm, but his son decided Thanksgiving was a great time to vacation in Port au Prince. Lucky me, that meant J could keep Evil K from emerging at Thanksgiving.

J never seems sad or concerned about  anything. He seems to only have 2 modes: friendly and flirty/horny.  I have a suspicion that he’s either a sociopath, or lacks common sense to an almost hilarious degree. His wife of 50ish years croaked and he doesn’t seem to care at all, except to be relieved. He gave away a bunch of his hoarding wife’s clothes, giving bed bugs to at least 2 of his lady friends. And now the potential cancer he seems to not care about. An interesting character, indeed.

And K wanted him to pick me up for Thanksgiving dinner. I was not thrilled, but I was determined to not give K any reason to be mad, making sure I didn’t wear a jacket, and when I got home, dousing my shoes in vinegar.

I tried to think of everything and anything that had made her mad on previous holidays. I tried to help as soon as I got there, expressed immense gratitude, and every time a dish was dirty I washed it. J only came on to me once and I deflected with a ‘no thanks, ask K instead.’

I’d have been completely free of K’s anger, but J left, and she wanted me to hold a few of her elderly cats as she trimmed their claws. One is nearly completely blind and deaf. That one was able to jump down after wiggling free from me.

“She could’ve broken her leg!” screeched K. The cat hurried away with me chasing her. When the cat went into a closet, I turned and looked at K. thinking it might be better for her to retrieve the kitty. “What do you expect me to do about it?” she demanded. I finally got her.

Another cat, much stronger, dug his claw into me, causing me to yelp. ” Did he even break the skin?”

Later, alledgedly paranormal activity started to occur. The XM satellite radio kept going in and out. I figured it was because I was near the antenna. But it did it when I was away from the antenna too. So maybe…

Her father died twenty something years ago on a Thanksgiving.

My mother’s birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year.

Or maybe it was Oscar seeing that K. has not followed his request to be good to me.

I imagine it was her father.

My birthday was terrible. Not as terrible as the year before when I almost drowned in my bathtub after gulping down a bottle of vodka, but bad. I had spoken to K. The night before at 3 am and we only started texting around 2pm the day of my birthday, which I guess was too late. Apparently her phone was messing up but I didn’t understand and this caused her wrath. She said her phone had died, which I took to mean the battery died and she was talking about a burner. Since she had just resurrected her PC, for some reason I thought she meant she wanted a CD burner. Then she said something about a burner phone and I suggested a TextNow number for a burner. She flew into a rage. I tried to explain that I hadn’t understood that she meant her phone had broke and she accused me of being on drugs or not caring. She told me my present had arrived in the mail and she said happy birthday without any emphasis, and I realized that this is how it was going to be. I flew into a rage unlike any I had ever felt before and told her she was a ‘borderline cunt.’

Things went ok for awhile until last Monday. I asked for something, made a mistake, apologized, but not good enough, so now we aren’t talking. I’ll try to say something tomorrow, just in case Christmas can be saved.

I remember something she said on my birthday about how I should apologize even when I’m not in the wrong.

Maybe this is for the best. She’d probably just verbally abuse me anyway on Christmas. But I’m scared of being completely alone in the world.

Share this:

I recall that sage bard, Ice Cube, released a song in 1992, in which he too was lulled into a false sense that ‘Today Was a Good Day.’ A ‘good day’ to Ice Cube is no one opened fire. A good day to Lisa is avoiding K.’s ire.

She’s in Prednisone withdrawal and she was telling me around 2 a.m. about being scared. I asked her a little while later if she was feeling any better, but I didn’t hear back and assumed she had gone to sleep. I was preoccupied with setting my apartment to rights for my worker in case she came this morning. She did come, and I guess the joint passed because she let me go to Wal-Mart for cat litter.

I strolled through Wally’s Christmas decorations. I haven’t been out for a long time, usually just ordering everything from ‘Wally, the River, or the Bay.’ I didn’t have much juice in my phone or I might have recorded what I saw and have someone to share my internal monologue.

I avoided the Salvation Army bell ringer like he had the plague. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, but today it ain’t for me. I could moral grandstand and say it’s because of the occasional report of them discriminating against LGBT people. I don’t take that lightly, but in the big picture, they do more good than harm. I avoided him because it’s getting later in the month and because I felt like it.

Maybe it’s karma for draft dodging the Salvation Army guy, but I knew when K. didn’t answer my seen Messenger message that once again I had failed to show enough concern. It wasn’t intentional. The madcap race to make everything look better, sleep deprivation, being medicated enough to focus and gain enough willpower. It all converged; nay, conspired to make me a shitty friend while she has a potentially life threatening condition.

Later, I get a message from Z, our intellectually disabled friend she used to pay to feed cats. He’s in town for Thanksgiving until the 25th, home from the group home where he lives.

I pass this along to K. “Well, I’ve got appointments through the 25th, and you don’t need to be in the middle.”

I feel my eyes becoming incontinent, but text back, “Well, maybe you can call him.”

“Maybe you can call him.”

And this is K. who lords over everyone her 137 IQ, but has the emotional intelligence of a recalcitrant 10 year-old. So much for her online therapist helping her not to be a bitter cunt. Rome wasn’t built in a day.