"I am not going to hurt myself today."  I woke up telling myself that, silently and with a miserable sense of resignation.  I don’t know why te impulse is there.  Especially when I feel so much pain that I would do anything to escape.  It makes no sense.

My cat always stays close when I am sick or miserable.  He can sense it.  Cats are smart.

Cats are devious.  He actually steals pastries.  He stole a quarter of a doughnut once.

So much to do, so much to say…

I would love to trade places with the cat, today.  Just for a day…  maybe more…

To just lounge in the sun…  sleep all day…  and feel adored for doing nothing…

It seems a good life, if a trifle banal.

I got a bunch of pictures developed for my art scattering project.  I’ve also considered a free art show, where people can take the selections for free – I would do this at the beach, along a particular walkway that sports a lot of bench art.  To sell, I would need a permit, but to freely give away art, I don’t think I would need a permit for that.  I could even have Charlie there playing music to draw people over.  The issue is this – I would need a nice enough day to do it.  The pieces would have to be matted in advance, and I would just have to be ready to roll on a day with good weather.  A warm fall day would definitely draw people to the beach.  Especially in this neighborhood… 

I need to start carrying my camera around, again.  This sudden burst of creativity is a rebellion against a general lull, of late.  I stopped carrying my camera everywhere with me.  It doesn’t even have batteries in it, at the moment.  Need to fix that – there’s good weather today.  Not long ago, I felt like something inside me had died, and I felt like piece by piece, the rest of me was bound to follow.  I seemed ill equipt to stop the slide.  But, I am a little more optimistic, now.  I am trying hard to force one foot in front of the other.  I was a junkie for years, and that’s a hard fucking life.  I I can hack that…  I can force my way through the things that need to be done, and I can make myself do things that I know I will feel good about.  Things that feel like ME.  I think I may finally be starting to get back to myself, to some degree.  It’s been a stumbling process, since the kick.

My personhood was buried in madness, pain, and dope for years.  I hated the person it made me.  HATED her with a passion…  and, to be honest, I still do.  But, the person I used to be has started to surface, in various ways, and to greater degrees, as I have recovered from the kick.  But, of course, I am not that person, anymore.  And, I am not the person I was when I was all strung out and unmedicated – in some ways that seems blurrier and more distant than the time that came before it.  I am both of those people, and neither. 

I am the remnants of a hundred disasters, and whatever’s left will either knit together to form something new, or not.