6-22-08 Seriously, is it just me?

I'm walking out of the bodega with my laundry over my shoulder as someone is trying to come in. I don't want to accidentally bump into him, and so I say, preemptively, "Pardon me."

Dude turns around and follows me out the store and a few feet down the street before stopping and watching me walk away. I make it about half-way down the block before turning around, and he is on the phone, occasionally looking my way as I continue to my apartment building.

6-13-08 Strangers

Go to see the movie the Strangers and spend most of the film with my hands over my eyes. The ending actually was easier to watch as it just devolved into simple slasher fare.

Back at Katie's house I wander through the rooms with the lights off, daring myself to feel afraid. We play Lego Indiana Jones and let the angst of the film dissolve in cute, square-ish looking pixels.

5-22-08 What's Really the Matter

I've been distracted and a little depressed for the past few days.

I wake up most mornings recently at my place with a new, red, angry looking bug-bite on some part of my body, and sometimes many on many different parts of my body, which naturally led me to the hypothosis that I might have bed-bugs.

I washed all of my clothes and sheets and my futon cover in super-hot water, and then dried everything, and in the process I found one little fucking bed-bug (but we know that there's more than just one, right?), which I stabbed to death with a scissors before washing it down the bathroom sink.

He was dark brown and flat and roundish-shaped, with squirmy little legs, and even though I try to feel compassion for living things, bugs just tap right into that animal part of my brain that wants to kill, and I feel depressed because I know the kind of hassles that are going to go into fixing this, and the bites itch, which just bums me out even more

5-15-08 Paranoia, Still

The guy who works behind the counter at the corner deli near my building stands outside, bluetooth headset in his ear, and sees me as I wait at the stoplight on my bike. He's a big dude, heavy, medium-height, middle-eastern, hair cropped close to his skull. "Hey, man, can I come along?" he jokes, straightfaced, pointing to my bike, and I joke back that he might not fit, but maybe I could carry him on my back, and we decide that him riding the crossbar would work best.

As I ride away, I feel vaugely uncomfortable without being exactly sure why, except knowing that, for whatever reason, I don't entirely trust him.

4-24-08 I May Be One of Those People

As I may have mentioned on these pages, I used to live in Queens, a few blocks from the spot where Kitty Genovese was killed, and I've long been fascinated by the story of thirty-eight people who sat in their apartments and did nothing while a young woman was stabbed to death.

This morning, I awoke to the usual pounding on doors and yelling in my apartment building, followed by running up and down stairs and more voices raised in anger. Annoyed, I turned up the radio until I couldn't hear the yelling anymore.

When I left my apartment building at about 7:45, there were drops of fresh blood in a trail down the stairs, leading to a puddle of blood about a foot wide in the entryway of the building.

4-14-08 Seriously? Fuck Darth Maul. And Muggers.

I dreamed about fighting with Darth Maul all night. Every time I would wound him or cut off a limb with my light saber he would heal or regenerate a new limb, until finally I grew so annoyed with the whole thing that I cut him up and liquefied him in a blender, and even then, as I awoke, the mush formerly known as Darth Maul was beginning to clump together in preparation to recombine and continue fighting.

My horoscope said that I might be confronting issues of "assertion and aggression" today, and everyone who looked at me on the subway for more than a second seemed like a potential enemy, until my adrenaline levels got so jacked up I was practically shaking as I got off at my stop. Someone was mugged there a little over a week ago in the early evening, and the thought of it makes me so angry I wish sometimes someone would mess with me so I could stick a knife in them, but I'm glad they don't because then I'd have to deal with the karma and the guilt.

4-13-08 Duly Noted

I'm walking home from Katie's house after dark, two gentlemen are standing on the corner, one of them talking to an older lady. I walk between the two men, and one makes eye contact with me as I pass. "What's up?" he says, as I continue down the street, and I'm at least smart enough not to turn around. Continuing, I hear, "Yo, I thought that nigger was gonna step to me," and I try to impress on my memory the fact that not everyone has the same personal space, especially after dark in my neighborhood.

1-30-08 "It just keeps getting worse!"

The panic rises higher and higher as the phone calls from numbers I know I don't want to talk to increases. The actions I take seem to make the problems more profound, and more intractable. I talk to Katie and know that I am dreadfully, horribly boring in my anxiety, and feel ashamed of how ineffectual I am being, and yet seem completely unable to stop it.

I once lived in utter squalor, in a run-down, disgusting apartment off-campus, doing drugs and getting poorer and poorer, and even though I'm clean, all I can think right now is, "it's coming for me again, and this time I won't escape."

12-11-07 - There is no good in tarot cards.

I've been freaking out all day about the turn that my life has taken since my separation from Stephanie. Things seem to be spiralling out of control, and no good seems to be coming my way, just more and more darkness and frustration.

I did tarot reading after tarot reading, and all I got was cards like the Ten of Swords (reversed), the Ace of Swords (reversed), Nine of Swords (reversed), The Chariot (reversed), The Lovers (reversed) - not that that means anything to most people, but just basically shit piled on shit, all in a shit sandwich.

I think (I hope!) I'm just scaring myself, though, and I probably just need to stop doing tarot readings before lunch.