The Gods Also Cry

Chapter 1

The most dangerous people are those who think memorizing shit makes them smart. Second only to that, are those who think not swearing makes them good.

When you start seeing through the lies, it never ends. The scope of existence and how people justify their stupidity. And the biggest idiots of all are those who work to generalize everything. Welcome to my world.

Thomas Covenant says that once you begin to find fault in everything, you will eventually turn that perspective on yourself and form a sort of suicidal annihilation. That was redundant, but what the hell. Mostly I want to wake up in the morning without the thought that it has gone to it in a hand basket.

I mean, what do you expect when you seal yourself off for months on end, with only the T.V. telling you that there still might be a world out there? I got tired of getting thrown in a mental hospital, so I figure if I’m alone, I can’t possibly be a danger to others. And that’s all they really care about … the being “a danger to yourself” is just thrown in for looks.

First off … why do we have to be so PERFECT? I stopped writing and thought it was a fail before I start, because my brain will repeat words from sentence to sentence or paragraph to paragraph, in sort of a special code array of its own. But I let people tell me that I need to use a thesaurus, and next thing you know I’m tired of having to go over and over and over everything to make sure I haven’t repeated myself.

Who cares? Am I being understood, regardless? I think so …

But if you can’t do it right, you’re not supposed to do it at all. I had this one friend as a kid, who was always the type that would tell you when you had broccoli stuck in your teeth. I could never decide if she was a friend, or an enemy that worked to get close enough so she could do the most damage.

I sang a certain way in choir, had a twang of sort to my voice. Until she asked me why I sang like that. What’s wrong with you? You’re supposed to be perfectly ordinary like everyone else. That was my first clue, and I should have paid more attention. Mostly I thought those with very little creativity would eventually go away. But they just seem to religiously procreate.

Remember I’m watching lots of TV and most are not like that. This is perspective on boob tube verses real life. Thing is, I’m looking at memory, too. But maybe after you’ve had your brain scrambled so many times from Haldol shots, there isn’t much in the way of memory left.

I am permanently outside of myself, now. Whenever I interact with anyone, I am seeing me from their eyes and from the outside, not from the inside of my experience. It’s sort of like how when you used to make funny faces when you were a kid, and your mom would threaten you that if you do that too much, it might stay that way.

Well, if you stay on the outside of yourself too much, you get stuck there. And then you start seeing everyone from an outside perspective that isn’t theirs, and it isn’t yours. It’s more like the universe watching on.

I just got done taking a bath, looking up at the ceiling and praying for a little rest. The inspector for housing was here, and said he’d mark down the hole they cut and patched in the ceiling, as needing work. He said he’d mark the light in the kitchen as something I plan to fix.

I don’t change fluorescent bulbs.

Grandma used to raise African violets, on these big metal shelves with florescent bulbs. I don’t remember exactly, but I think she told me to replace one once and I broke it. Something like that, because I’m scared to death of changing the damn things. But nobody gets it, and nobody seems to understand that there is a reason every business out there has professionals change fluorescent bulbs, rather than the cleaning lady.

But we’re not living in a land of very bright people. We’re living where people memorize ten tons of shit, and think that makes them smart. I don’t know what to do about it.

I would write a book, but then it won’t be perfect enough. I always thought she was right about that. But she’s not and now I’m left with the fallout. I’m left with a shell-shocked walking corpse that can’t even change a fluorescent bulb. Not only THAT, but one that fails to be able to explain to others WHY in any coherent fashion. You get this blank response, and know you’re not getting through.

I’m giving up on the internet for now. That’s been fun today, with Verizon Wireless fucking with my head. I think they enjoy that … maybe their red coverage map stands for the red-spreading of hell. Or maybe they are trying to say it’s a republican thing, and that AT&T are the weaker ‘blue’ states.

Seems the country has divided into red and blue. Like the same as the football or baseball teams you see … almost always one is in a blue uniform and the others are red. I could never decide. My favorite color was always yellow.

So now I’m scared that the retarded owners of this building are going to look at the housing inspector’s report, and decide it’s easier to throw me out on my ass, than it is to fix the hole in the bathroom ceiling. I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going to happen. I have that kind of luck. Or lack of luck. Mostly the elements of chance do not follow random constructs of mathematics.

Not that I believe in God … pretty sure the really stupid and really clever made that one up. But our math is off, within the measurement of degree, so the patterns that ARE there will never be distinguishable according to our limited understandings. Something like that.

I’m going to lie down now, and clutch my stomach desperately. This whole thing with reporting Verizon Wireless to the FCC, and then the possibility of losing my home, has left me a tad fucked up. Will have to stay in bed for the day.

The cat seems happy about the notion, and climbed into bed here beside me. There are days I realize I am just an old lady with her cat. And then there are other days when I wonder what went wrong.

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