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I started off the year great. I got about 4 months of sobriety under my belt. No complaints, either. It felt nice, although a piece of me was missing... Anyways, the passed month I have dabbled with oxy, fent, and methadone a handful of times. Nothing crazy, more of a "chipping" ordeal. But within the passed 5 days I have spent a little over $500 on dones. Basically, I spent all the hard earned money I saved while i was sober. I don't feel bad about it, either. I am more so bummed because I can't spend anymore of my money bc I only have enough for rent/bills/etc. So, I have about 2days worth of pills and I most likely am going to take them all tonight. Typical, right? I do have two 8mg strips of sub, too. I will probably take 1mg -3mg a day until I run out, in hopes of seeking a small high too.. and then i'll hop back on the Kratom Train from here on out, until i can save more money and splurge again. hehe. This seems to be how my routine has been going for a while now. I honestly love it. I love everything about it.
If anyone reading this is going through any similar "issues" or can relate, feel free to PM me. Support is vital to this lifestyle.
I just felt like ranting while at work, right now. Feel free to holler.
Much love and cheers,
LS

What do I do? I miss my dog so much . He had cancer . It's been almost a month since I put him down.
His 12th birthday is aug 11 ... that's going to be a hard day ...
My boyfriend and I are going to break up soon. I can't handle it anymore. He's such a little shit head.
I don't want to to be alone .. I've always had my dog , no matter what at least I've always had him .. but he's not here with me .. there's so much going on and I have no one to talk to .. who can understand, who do I know that will believe me when I tell them that...
I knew my dog was going to die.
He told me . So I hired an animal communicator. I wanted to ask him what part of his body hurt so I could tell the vet. I scheduled an ultra sound and X-ray. He had just went to the vet , had blood work , he was fine. I hate the vets out here.
She shrugged her shoulders when I told her he was losing his bark . She said his stomach looks a little big but he was fine, I could go home.
So anyway, I learned from the animal communicator that he wasn't fine. She told me that he was preparing to die. That he was ok with it. That he sees it as a graduation .
He wanted me to know , THAT HE WASNT LEAVING. It was very important to him that I know that. She did an energy scan of his body and said his energy was very low and whatever it was had spread through his body . And he didn't feel good. She said she couldn't tell me when he would pass .
So after a visit to the holistic vet, I learned he had a tumor the size of a softball on his liver . And a possible mass in his lyrinix (voice box) .
Cancer. Thank you vet prescribed medications that kill the liver and your dog along with it. I paid money for those pain meds. They said it was ok ,just get blood work every now and then.
So 3 weeks after my phone session with the animal communicator, I had to put him down. He was in a lot of pain

He would of been 12 a month and a half later .
I've been trying to be ok about it. He was my child. My family .
He said he wasn't leaving ...
I feel him sometimes but not like I thought I would . Im a spiritual person, he feels so far away , I can hardly feel him at all sometimes. I'm getting angry . I can connect with other spirits but why not with my dog??
My boyfriend gets mad when I talk about my experience. He is never here anymore. He's choosing meth over me.. I need to leave ..
I woke up at 5 am this morning to him not in bed with me . He took off somewhere. We have nothing between us anymore.
I don't want to be alone . But i can't stay here... I'm dreading those nights alone . The heavy heart . I want to get high so bad. I can get roxys super cheap... I don't have any friends... maybe one , but he works all the time. He's not someone I can really talk to either.
There's work, I have decent job... I'm recovering from a sprained foot... when I go back it will help ... but a wave of depression always comes over me when it nears time to go home...
I feel lost and afraid. Afraid of the future. I know the pain I'm going to face with this break up. I remember all to well how I was before I met my boyfriend. How alone and depressed I was. I was praying everyday for god to put someone in my life.
It's been 3 years since we hooked up.. seems like this might be it ... I know it's what I need to do . I need to leave ..
I really wish I had that group of friends you can count on....
I miss my dog

Sorry for making you wait so long…

Now, where were we? When we last checked in on our little ball of "reality," so to speak, this is what we found:

"Stay in touch."

"Uh uh, no." He stepped in front of me as I scuttled toward the door. "I've tried looking you up before, but I guess I can't spell your name or something." (As a side note, I give my cell to damn near everyone. Who cares? I can always ignore or block you. Plus, I have a cool service on top to filter calls. I don't give out my landline [yes, I'm a dinosaur with a landline] but everyone has my cell anyway; hasn't changed in 16 years. Yeah, weird, whatever.) "How do I get you?"

I panicked. This was The Line. If I gave him my info, he was going to use it. If I gave him fake info, a) I was an ass and 2) I'd bump into him again, SOON, and he would totally call me out on that shit and iii) I…kinda…sorta maybe, perhaps wanted…I like games. I gave him my Facebook info. And bolted.

And didn't hear from him again until JULY.



Ready for more? Buckle up because here we go!

Some friends of mine host a pretty outstanding 4th of July party at their place every year: tons of food, a bounce house for the kids and real, professional, mind-blowing fireworks after dark. I love going to these gatherings since my lil' guy Lucian has some sensory issues; he can stay inside and watch from the living room without getting too overwhelmed and Amaya and I can enjoy the full show: music, lights, BOOM, the whole nine yards. This particular year, the party - always on a Saturday - fell on the 6th, and I'd planned to show up around 4 or 5 - not too early to be stuck standing around with annoying small talk, but not so late as to seem like I was just there to eat up the free food (and booze. Did I mention booze? Oh, so much booze…).

Around 11, the phone rang and I grabbed it without looking. "Hello?"

"It took me forever to find your number…" began the male voice, familiar but unidentifiable.

"Who is this?" I asked, anxious. I don't like male voices on my phone, especially ones which are familiar but unidentifiable. Those are the scariest.

"It's Halsten." I froze. My inner voices kicked into high gear: Yay! That jackass! Hooray! About frikkin' time! What does he want? What does he want? It's so nice to finally hear from him! It's about damn time to finally hear from him…What took him so long? What took him so long? I hope it's something awesome! I don't give a shit what it is. Whatever it is, yes! Whatever it is, NO.

"Listen, my friends are having a 4th of July party tonight. I'd like you to come." He paused and the air crackled with expectation.

Involuntarily, I found myself asking, "What time?"

His reply was adorable, "Anytime. Now. The whole day. Whenever you want. I don't care. I just really want to see you." Something inside me went all slushy. Something outside me went a bit slushy as well…

The Mean Me took over. I replied brusquely, "Yeah, well, I dunno. I already have plans for today - another party - so I doubt it. Maybe another time." Yeah, another time that had been before July, dingbat.

The disappointment in his voice was tangible, "Oh…well…may, maybe…you could come over after?" I asked where it was and after he mentioned a town about a half hour away and I laughed, he said, "Yeah, I guess probably not…" his voice trailed off and there was a flicker of sadness somewhere inside me. Suddenly, I wanted to salvage it.

"Go ahead and text me the address. You never know." I shrugged, as if he could see me. The change in his voice was instant as he eagerly agreed. Before he hung up, he again reiterated his desire to see me and …there was something there. Something different, something…that was …other than just him. My Tummy Voice - who is never wrong - cleared Her throat and I knew something was going to happen, I just didn't know what. I raised an eyebrow to no one.



Musical chimes of laughter filled the air as children darted about the yard, sparklers and water guns marking their territories. The goodbye of the setting sun baked His sentiments into my back, perhaps saddened to be leaving the festivities so early. His smile giggled off the edge of my wineglass as I rose it to my lips for an illicit kiss. I felt good in my skin.

Since the party was hosted by old school friends, many of the guests were also friends I hadn't seen since middle school. The old faces were a real treat. There was a lot of catching up to do. Halsten was barely a thought in my mind. The food was munched and the booze consumed, stories were told and boo-boos kissed. There was more cavorting by all as the dusk deepened and then enveloped us into velvety darkness.

BOOM! The sky exploded into a cacophony of color and sound and Lucian virtually teleported from my side to the living room. Once safely behind the bodyguard of glass, his eyes lit up with as much light as the night sky. I stood on the porch, laughing with a friend when a woman approached us, half-heartedly apologizing for her late arrival. My friend cocked her head to the side while extending her hand in greeting. "I recognize you but I can't place you. What's your name?"

What came from her mouth turned my blood to pure ice. Then this monster turned to offer me her hand. I recoiled as if it had been the claw of the Lord of Hell himself. It was that wretched pediatrician who almost killed my daughter. I looked at her in utter disgust; the last firework was clearing in the air.

"Let's go kids! We are off to another party!"

Being single, not only do I eat alone, but it is usually better to eat alone. Most people sound like pigs when they eat. Their lip-smacking, the slurping, the chewing, the little clicks in their mouths, the food squishing around, the saliva sounds, the scraping and clattering of their knives and forks against their plates, the dinging of silverware against their teeth, their grunting, sighing, farting, breathing, the sound of air passing around obstructions in their nostrils, the sound of swallowing -- all of it is psychological painful to hear. It turns my stomach sour. On the rare event that I eat under such conditions, I get sick to my stomach and I feel mentally exhausted from the struggle not to pick up the nearest chair and bludgeon the loudest offenders. I've stuffed earplugs in my ears, but they always fall out when I chew. When I eat with other people, I eat fast and leave.

Eating at restaurants can be a problem, depending on the company. I had eaten out with Drusilla before, and she had turned out to be a quiet eater. As for the other customers, you get what you pay for in terms of being in the company of people who eat like pigs. Fast food places are not tolerable, but loud background music or television helps. Otherwise, I go when the restaurant opens or later in the shift when there aren’t so many people.

We were on a ski trip, equally sharing expenses and responsibilities. Now, she was acting like it was her house and I was her retarded child. She had her own plans for how I would spend my time.

She had chosen the meal. There were turnips, beets, cabbage, and carrots all boiled together. Mercifully, there was no garlic or onions. Garlic and onions can kill me. Carrots are the one vegetable she bought that I like, but she ruined them by cooking them. It makes them mushy and bitter, and it breaks down the vitamins. Who in their right mind cooks carrots?

The same goes for spinach. I had picked out some fresh spinach leaves at the grocery store, and I had intended to eat the spinach lightly steamed and the carrots raw. As with the carrots, she boiled the spinach, rendering it an inedible lump of dark green sludge.

The food was done and brought to the table. We dished it out onto our plates.

“I am a purist,” she said.

“What’s a purist?” I said.

“I never use salt, spices, or sugar in my cooking,” she said.

I sighed. Two weeks of bland food was ahead of me. The only restaurants in town were overpriced tourist traps. At least the tiny grocery store in the town was cheap. It was the same price as the Paris Megasized grocery store. I knew that I would not be able to maintain my body weight under these conditions.

I tasted the plate of stew or whatever it was supposed to be. It had no flavor. True to her word, she had put no salt or any kind of seasoning in it. Eating it was going to be a chore. Luckily for me, there was a salt shaker in the flat. I upturned the salt shaker and shook it over my plate for a minute. My serving had become dusted with a light layer of salt crystals.

She stared at me, her eyes looking like they were going bug out. She looked angry, but I had tasted her cooking first. She had no right to be angry at me. She wasn’t a good cook, and the only person she had a right to be mad at was herself..

“Salt is bad for you. It will give you high blood pressure, stroke, and heart attacks,” she said with a pedantic delivery.

“My blood pressure is very low. In fact, I need extra salt because run every day and sweat it out. If I don’t eat salt, I will get sick,” I said.

“That is crazy. Who ever heard of such a thing?” she said.

Bossiness is not a nice personality trait, but when it is combined with ignorance, that person is intolerable. I do not appreciate such people questioning my actions. Drusilla does not have a background in medicine, nutrition, or fitness. I shook salt onto the stew for another ten seconds and added some butter.

“You should see a doctor,” she said.

“Why should I see a doctor? How is it even your business? It happens that I just saw a doctor, and she told me to eat salt. It’s a standard recommendation for anybody who does extended periods of exercise and sweats. Salt-free diets are for elderly and sedentary people with bad hearts,” I said.

As an endurance athlete, I’ve learned about nutrition. Failing to learn about sports nutrition will result in bad performance, sickness, and even death under certain conditions. Experts advise that staying hydrated and taking salt is vital. This is the reason salty drinks like Gatorade are popular among athletes. In contrast, the demands of people like Drusilla are dangerous because she is so sure of herself, yet she is horribly wrong. If Drusilla’s advice is followed, it can result in illness or death. When I just got into running when I was a teenager, my father once made me chug a gallon of water. I was not given salts or Gatorade. Within an hour, I had the worst headache of my life, vomiting, and couldn’t get out of bed for three days. It turned out that his bad advice had caused a condition called hyponatremia. It hadn’t been the first time my father’s moronic advice had almost killed me. By now, I like to think that I have learned to ignore the suggestions of fools, and I have a knee jerk reaction to hate anybody who acts like my father.

Every little thing I did was a battle with her.

Next, she complained about which hand held my fork. People who eat left handed bother her. I switched my fork ot my right hand without looking at her or saying a word.

“You’re holding your fork wrong,” Drusilla said.

I was holding my fork overhanded.

“My arm was broken during childhood and did not heal correctly. Because of my injury, overhanded is the only way I can hold the fork, and it’s painful,” I said.

“How can this be?” she said.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.

She said, “Did I tell you I’m married, And I have two sons.”

“No,” I said.

I looked at her hands. She wasn’t wearing a wedding now, and she had never worn one in my presence.

She said, “I remember telling you. Why don’t you remember?”

I said, “You didn’t tell me. I’m sure I would have remembered.”

That’s one thing I would never forget; as having an affair with a married woman can be fatal - well, maybe not fatal in France where more than half the population has affairs and even expects to share their spouse, but fatal back in the US.

This revelation was bizarre. We had told each other we were single when we first met. She was attractive enough on the outside, but the entire time I knew her, she did not have that rare inner spark, the self awareness, the right smell, the joy of life, the natural curiosity about existence that is needed to draw my interest. I had not wanted to be anything other than friends, and the supermarket diversion ensured that I would never develop any romantic interest in her.

I said, ”are you separated?”

“We live together, but we live as roommates. I do what I want, and he does what he wants. Divorce is expensive in France, so we keep the house and don’t split up the family,” she said.

“So you see other people?”

“yes,” she said.

“How do you have a love life when you’re still living with your husband?" I said.

“We have separate rooms. We each do as we please,” she said.

“And he doesn’t try to interfere with you?” I said.

“no,” she said.

“How old are your children?” I said.

“14 and 12,” she said.

I had wondered why affairs are so common in France while divorce is not so common. One could get a divorce and have the former spouse out of the way to start a new life. Perhaps it is because the French are too cheap to get a divorce and want a roommate to save on rent. Maybe children chain the former mates together. France is also notorious for its paperwork and bureaucracy.

I was reminded of Married with Children, a sitcom about an typical American middle class couple and their loveless marriage. The husband, Al Bundy, works menial and degrading jobs to support the wife and their children. The housewife, Peggy, is out of feminist writer Esther Vilar’s Manipulated Man. Peggy views her husband as a tool. He is both her slave and her free meal ticket for life. Peggy has the intelligence of a monkey and spends her days on the couch watching television and eating bonbons. Despite the fact that her husband, Al, bought her automated household appliances to make her household duties fast and easy, she never does her chores. She does not cook, the kids are undisciplined, and the house is filthy. Al is too worn down to notice or care. Peggy browbeats and abuses Al at every opportunity without ever showing gratitude for the fact that he has given her a life free of the burden of work as well as having given her the children she wants.

Marriage with Children served as a cautionary tale for the generation of boys who grew up with it. Marriage with children is the end of life as we know it, so what on earth was Drusilla doing going on a ski trip and living like she’s single? And worse, on a trip that might be taken to be romantic? Had I known she was married, I wouldn’t have gone because it’s disrespectful toward her husband, her children, and her marriage commitment. She ought to be on the trip with her family. If she wanted time away from her children, she should have left her kids with the grandparents, who are alive and in good health. I didn’t ask if her husband knew where she was. She must have been cuckolding him for years. He was probably sleeping around as well.

After two hours of talking, I was hungry again. I took a piece of bread, buttered it, asked she she wanted a piece, and put it in the microwave.

She went wild.

“What are you doing? What is this? You are using the microwave!” she exclaimed.

I have no idea what im doing with myself. I feel the urge to drink and get high almost everyday now, and when im walking around toen i catch myself looking for a place to set a tent up.
Its almost like im trying to set myself up for failure..
My time is almost up here at rehab, and not sure what to do afterwords. I feel limited in options, and maybe this anxiety is making me want to get closer to the streets. Maybe its all in my head, ive come a long way and hate to fuck it up because i have no back up plan(once i complete the full program).
So thats where im at today .

Dope is the rope we sometimes hang ourselves with but what better alternative do we have at our disposal.
A dead end job?
A career? that goes no where ?
Sorry,we're downsizing,but I'm sure you'll land on your feet.
Have you tried applying to so and so ? I hear they're hiring.
You're just not trying hard enough,son.
Why when I was a kid....
Get a government job,you'll be golden.
Have you thought of going back to school ?
You got to take the bull by the horns.
What's wrong with you ?
Learn a trade.
Be a man.
Stop taking drugs and see how your life improves
If they say no,kick the door in
The cops aren't out to get you.
You're just a fuck-up and will never amount to anything.
You got to play the system.
You're over qualified.
Start at the bottom.
Bite your tongue and go along to get along.

In other words,be a Fucking Slave to America Inc. and kiss your ass goodbye,cause they already own you.

CHRIST, he stinks. And he snores loud as fuck. That is, when he's not attempting to blow his fucking cerebellum out of his nostrils. Every fucking 20 seconds he's awake.

I listen to that Big World/Christina Aguilera "Say Something I'm Giving Up On You" song a lot. I think it bothers him. Good, I fucking hope it does.

What's left? Holy shit - he genuinely does not see how little he loves me. (He still hasn't figured out love is a verb.) I'm supposed to stick around, unfucked, untouched, with no tenderness...yet he wants me to tell him how great he is when every word out of his mouth is negativity or rejection of me...or himself...or our lives. Badmouthing the kids. And no efforts at all for improvement in any sector. I'm not looking for that around me. I'm not well enough for it. I need bliss, joy, serenity, not ugly bullshit.

I get we're both facing a damn near insurmountable amount of challenges. I know he's also struggling with depression and health issues. I know all of this will pass which is why I haven't done something either of us will regret...but I'm just hoping this moment here doesn't cause irreparable damage for me.

One of the comics at the February show said something I can't shake. Yes, bad me. I was flirting. Sue me. He said, "I just want to fuck a beautiful woman." I. Can't. Get. That. Out. Of. My. Head.

I couldn't pay my dumbass hubby to say that. I can't buy his time in bed. All he does is sleep. And get high. And bitch about how he doesn't get enough sleep.

And I have no one to talk to because I can't say shit about any of this and I'll be fucked if I can talk to him; I am not allowed to bring up any challenging topics, EVER. If we are in a "good" place, I can't ruin it and if we are in a bad place, isn't it bad enough already, geez?!

And he never ever fucking will. (Talk. Or work to improve this. Or fuck me.)

Why am I doing this? Why am I here? My jackass ex hurt me so bad and now...my HUSBAND?!? My fucking HUSBAND?! Who fucking cares what the goddamn excuse is? The bottom line is he gives no fucking shit about fighting to fix us.

I have done everything I can and it's fried and boiled horse ass I'm doing this all over again!! What the fuck is wrong with me?? This is a martyr level of forgiveness and I am not fucking Gandhi. I can not fucking do this bullshit any. fucking. more.

So this is day 42.

I tried meth yesterday for the first time. San Bernardino is riddled with meth and tweakers like the ocean is riddled with sea water. I tried a little bump from a friend and was very fidgety and tweaky. Slight euphoria. I liked methylphenidate far more. There is a better rush, intense euphoria, and beautiful taste and smoothness up the nose.

I was given a full line for today. I am currently in my business and finance trade while waiting to get into culinary arts which is why I came here. So I am doing endless, tedious projects on Microsoft Word and doing easy but plentiful business math all day. I figured tweak would be the perfect cure.

Well, I did one bump in the bathroom before class and I have to say I am speeding. My fingers are moving remarkably fast but feel fatigued at the same time? It's kind of confusing. I am not as fidgety. That is one thing I disliked when I tried it yesterday. I couldn't even really focus. Everything was so fast that I couldn't sit still and focus like I can on pharma stims like Adderall, Vyvanse, and Ritalin.

Anyways, all is good so far. A bunch of new inputs came in yesterday. I befriended two of them and comforted one and told him he can sit with me anytime he wants if he's alone. He seems like a quiet, nice, and awkward kid. I just know how it feels to be that new guy and scared. It's not fun and I'll be forever grateful to the ones who helped me when I first came in.

I've gone out the past three weekends and smoked and drank. I'm also smoking wayyyy too many cigarettes. Cigarettes are stupid. But as my therapist told me, I can't handle boredom or idle time. And that's where cigs grab ahold of you. I am not addicted, but I am not saying no like I tell my self to. I never feel the need for one, but if someone has one and invites me and I'm not doing much, I cave. Fuck tobacco.

I called my mom yesterday. I haven't spoken to her in a month after I went home and was falsely accused of stealing coins (lol). They still haven't found the coins... Anyways, we got good and I am much happier now.

My therapist told me that I have a self-fulfilling prophecy. He said that since my parents call me a drug addict and a liar and shit, that I am unconsciously doing those things to spite them and therefore making the statements true. I didn't deny it because if it is unconscious then how am I to know. I just know that's not how I feel on the surface level. But then again I was told I was rebelling because I don't know my real dad by a therapist once too. I always said I wasn't angry but after he told me that, I did get angry about it.

He could have at least paid child support...

Anyways, I typed this post in like 5 minutes without stopping lol. I'm going to sign off now. Thanks for reading, I love this community and I love you all. Peace .

Puritanical abstinence is a sign of spiritual disease. Variety makes the day better and more interesting. An enriched environment makes people smarter and improves the health of the brain by stimulates the formation of new neural connections and strengthening old ones. Fanatics can abstain from any of a variety of normal daily activities. People who go on pure vegetarian diets miss out on a wide variety good food, clothing choices, and tools. Vegans miss out on even more. They even object to gathering wild honey. The ATkins dieters spend more time obsessing over avoiding carb intake than they spend time exercising. Switching their priorities would allow them to run off the fat. Sugar-free nuts miss out on the best desserts in the world. Teetotalers miss out on the pleasures of alcohol. I like to drink, but sadly for me, I have a bad reaction whenever I drink. That reaction forces me to abstain from most alcohol which makes me virtually a teetotaler. Some people abstain from sex. The American politico-economic empire across the world enforces abstinence from all mind altering substances except for alcohol.

It’s part of the condition of sentient beings to seek out altered states of consciousness such as those provided by mental disciplines and the ingestion of entheogens. Cat’s crave the high of catnip, other animals seek windfall fruits which have been naturally fermented via the action of wild yeast. They eat the alcoholic fruits until they are drunk. Some animals seek out psychedelics. Humans have sought the same experiences since the beginning of time, and having it is an inalienable right that has never been interfered with by government action until recently in history.

The current drug Prohibition criminalises a normal and healthy (when the user exercises self-control) behaviour. The government does not have the moral authority to Prohibit anything. As with alcohol, opiates have recreational merit, and along with many other drugs, opiates arguably have spiritual merit. I can’t get drunk owing to the fact that alcohol triggers migraines, so I’ve taken up the use of opiates. Addiction is not healthy, and it takes a lot of time and energy to deal with, so I keep it to once every three or four days. Without addiction, there is no need to compulsively locate a source all the time, and travelling is easy.
....

We found the guest house easily. It was in an old part of town with centuries old buildings around it. Drusilla parked the car, and we got out and stretched. The temperature was mild, barely below freezing. The air was fresh. The town was surrounded by high, snowy mountains.

The key under a rock next to the door. Our apartment was a suite of rooms that had been partitioned off in a traditional French mountain house. The apartment was a full sized two bedroom apartment complete with a kitchen. We unloaded the car and put away the groceries. We had more groceries than we had actual luggage.

She offered to cook if I washed the dishes. I agreed. I’m not a good cook, but I’m a professionally trained dishwasher. I received my training when I had a part time job in college washing dishes at a Greek restaurant. I washed dishes quickly, thoroughly, and carefully. I only broke a single wine glass that entire job and never had a complaint about dirty dishes. I had been good at my job.

The local pub was still open. It was in a block of old buildings near our flat. The interior, the walls, the floor, and the ceiling, were all of dark wood, and the lights were low. Drusilla ordered a cocktail called “sex on the beach.” While she ordered, she looked into my eyes and had a look that I suspected was intended to communicate something meaningful. I wondered what it was she was trying to say with her eyes.

I ordered an apéritif, a drink served before our meal. It was a liqueur made from wildflowers that grow in the area. Our drinks arrived, and she leaned close to me and touched my knee. The taste of my drink was bitter like medicine. I almost gagged on it. I didn’t finish it. I didn’t want to risk a migraine. I didn’t want to talk to her any more either. I looked out the window and across the valley at the snowy mountains.

Afterwards, we went back to the apartment. She cooked supper. I offered to help, but she reminded me that all I had to do was wash dishes.

“Would you set the table?” she said.

I didn’t know why she wanted the table set. She was sending out bad vibrations. I suddenly felt like I was visiting a girlfriend’s snooty middle_class_pretending_to_be_upper_class parents. I had begun to think of Drusilla as a bitter and hypocritical prospective mother-in-law. The perception of being around someone judgemental and pushy yet ignorant was strong. She was sending out so many conflicting signals.

It’s not that I was embarrassed about the fact that I don’t know how to set a table. I don’t care how it’s done, and I do not need to know how it’s done. Maybe it was different for my grandparents’ generation, but nobody sets the table any more. Most people don’t eat together anymore either. Everyone picks out their own plates, serves their own food, sits where they want, reads a book or newspaper, plays with a phone, watches TV, or works on a laptop. As long as nobody is actually speaking into the phone or playing audio without headphones, it is acceptable. There is no rule that says you must focus on the other person sitting there, whether they are a friend or a stranger.

I suspected that it was my indifferences to irrelevant and outdated social norms that upset her.

Charles Bukowski pointed out that one of the problems with the world is that the ignorant are always dead sure of themselves while the intelligent always question everything including themselves. I had begun to suspect that her personality was, in fact, authoritarian and bullying. I don’t know how I missed this when I first met her. Drusilla is the kind of personality who goes to work as a government bureaucrat or some other soul-destroying job as a drone in the government or corporate sphere. They love rules and regulations and hate anything unstructured, spontaneous, or informal. Such people are not welcome in my life. She can go on living her life gathering and calculating accounting statistics for a rich corporation. I imagine the shareholders appreciate her dedicating her best years to their capital gains and dividends.

As a child, I was taught that table setting, on the rare instance it was done, was women’s work. Whether or not that is relevant, I do not work in the food industry, and I’m not a butler or a housekeeper. I took the trouble to get a PhD in a potentially lucrative field, Molecular Biology, with the expectation that I would NEVER need to know how things like setting tables are done. If it did come up, I would ask or look it up. Even better, on the rare event that I would eat a formal meal, someone would do it for me. That’s how it has been since college. My training is in a highly specialised academic field, and it’s a waste of time to futz around with drudgery like table setting. The last time I tried to cook a formal meal, it was for an American girlfriend, and she threw it out the window.

I found two plates, two forks, two spoons, and two knives. I put them on the table in no particular arrangement.

“You forgot the linens,” she said, with a scowl that I almost missed noticing. “We need glasses too.”

After a quick search, I found some glasses in a cupboard. There were a wide variety, each with a specific function which I did not know. Although there were several types of wine glasses, I picked two of the same kind and two large glasses for water. She bought a case of bottled water, but here we were in a town that has the freshest spring water in the world running from its faucets. I poured a glass of tap water for myself and set out a bottle of grocery store water for her.

The apartment had wifi. I had to look up on my laptop what she wanted me to do with linen cloth in this context.

Next, she got out the wine.

“Would you open the bottle?” she said.

I found a cork screw and opened the wine, waited for it to “breath,” and poured two glasses. Then I worked at my laptop while she cooked. My serving was small because of my sensitivity to alcohol.

“Please clear everything else off the table. No maps, no gloves, no books, no papers, nothing. That includes your laptop,” she said.

There was only one useable table, and that was the dining room table.

In the field of science, the concept of a work-life balance has been lost. Even though the pay is peanuts, work takes the priority in life. It’s expected that one continue to work at home after leaving the lab. That work includes data analysis, writing papers, and responding to work-related emails late into the night. Everybody is doing it; so that is the bare minimum needed to keep up in the competitive field. Failing to do it will result in job loss.

Had I known about the work conditions in academic science beforehand, I would have chosen a different career. Science was not like that only 15 years ago when the economy was better. Everybody who still has a job in today’s economy works at it with a clinical OCD obsession. Ones social life, hobbies, family life, fitness are sacrificed to keep a job in academia. (The combined suicide and attempted suicide rates among PhD students and postdocs is 1 in 4 researchers.)

I was on vacation, but it had been ingrained in me that to survive in science, I need to work compulsively every day and at all hours. I wanted to work on a project on my laptop. It’s a tiny laptop, and the table was so large that it was designed for six people. It was not in the way of the meal. Besides that, food wouldn’t be ready for another hour on account of the fact that she was cooking tough, rooty things that only an eastern European washer-woman would think to cook.

Back to the ski trip.

It was noon on Saturday, and I was still serving in Purgatory at the megamarket grocery store situated in a suburb of Paris I had been writing about during the previous five blog entries. I was there with a friend shopping for food that we would bring with us on a two week ski trip. I don’t like supermarkets, and I hate shopping during the weekend rush, but being here wasn’t my choice. Drusilla had been leading me around the store, and I was pushing the cart, trying to keep up in the heavy crowd. I felt like a retard on a trip to the zoo.

The next thing Drusilla led me to was the bananas. She picked up a bunch of enormous green Cavendish bananas. They were so green that they could not ripen in two weeks. They rot before they ripen. Despite that, ripe or green, Cavendish is disgusting for its flavor, its week-old garbage-like odor, and its potato-like texture.

Some varieties of banana I like, but I do not like Cavendish bananas. Their odor makes me queasy. The flavor is bland. I will eat them as an alternative to starvation, but I unless I’m on the brink of starvation, I avoid them. Also, bananas do not travel well. They are a terrible thing to take on a road trip. They tend to get crushed and turn into stinky black slime in transit. The place they were stored will reek for months afterwards.

There happens to be more than a hundred varieties of banana commercially grown, and some of them are delicious. Unfortunately, Cavendish bananas are the only kind of banana most grocery stores in the West sell. They are cheaply mass produced. Cavendish store for months on ocean cargo ships, provided they are harvested while rock hard and green. Other varieties rot or suffer from a mold disease during ocean transport.

Drusilla wanted those bananas, and she can eat what she wants. I won’t eat that crap. I won’t comment or argue. By now, I needed to leave. I would cut my losses and buy my own food in the ski village. I just wanted to get on the road. We were wasting the day.

She went on to pick out a lot of turnips, beets, radishes, cucumbers, cabbage, and other cheap and flavorless food that I had no intention of eating. The one rooty vegetable I like is carrots, but Drusilla does not like carrots, so we didn’t get carrots. All of this stuff was so cheap, I didn’t see the economic advantage of dealing with this supermarket, especially if all she wants is cheap stuff you can buy anywhere. Not only is it cheap everywhere in the world, but after hauling it, all 200 pounds of it, 500 miles across the Europe, it would cost us more in gas tro transport this crap than it would to pay a slightly higher price for the same thing when we got there.

Drusilla might have been a math whiz in college, but she is old and her brain appears to have ossified. She wasn’t thinking things through. She fails at economics 101. Math majors, at least in US colleges, learn some basic economic calculations including logistics and how to calculate the cost of transporting consumer goods. Her actions made no sense. I was only a math minor, and even I could do this simple calculation in my head while I was waiting behind the campers in the cheese aisle.

All together, the experience was killing me. This isn’t meant to pick her apart for not knowing things but to point out that she is pushy and forces poorly thought out ideas on others.

I had the feeling she was used to getting her own way, like the Queen of Hearts. I felt sorry for any man who would marry her. Her general lack of knowledge and inability to apply what little she might know wouldn’t have bothered me if she hadn’t been so insistent on saying the last word, on winning every argument, on having everything her way or else.

Most of what she picked was either toxic to me (like the garlic, onions, scallions, cow milk, pork) or just disgusting. Many of her choices didn’t even make sense. She ate the kind of food old people eat, bland rooty things, and she was willing to pay a fortune in extra gas hauling them across Europe in her car.

During the shopping trip, observing her food choices, I thought of a way to cure obesity. I could solve America’s obesity problem if people would just listen to the following suggestions. All one needs to do is eat a diet of bland, rooty things, and then America will be trim again. The food is so unappealing, that I prefer to go hungry rather than eat it.

If that is all I have to eat for the next two weeks, I will starve. If the food does not taste good, if it is not sweet, salty, spicy, or somehow interesting, I lose interest. I prefer to go hungry.

Overhead in the store were fluorescent lights, and they flickered slightly but perceptibly, at 60 hertz, the temporal periphery of my visual perception. The color spectrum of fluorescent lights is a bluish cast which is found nowhere in nature. It had now been an hour since we entered the supermarket, and I had begun to see bright afterimages and trailers.

The sounds in the store were also overwhelming. Manic announcements were continuously broadcast over the store’s public address system. People everywhere were talking, coughing, sneezing, blowing their noses, and making all kinds of other noises. It was making me dizzy. I would hate to see the effect this place would have on an Autism patient. I felt a migraine coming on. It was Saturday, family shopping day at the supermarket in the suburbs. The Suburbs are a projection of Hell on earth.

You can learn a lot about somebody by shopping with them, and you can learn even more about them by travelling with them. I didn’t like what I was learning.

We checked out and loaded the car.

“Why don’t you drive for a whle now?” she said.

“I don’t have a French driver’s license. I told you this last week,“ I said.

Even if I had a French license, I was in no condition to drive after being in that store for an hour.

“Why don’t you have a driver’s license?” she insisted with an undertone of accusation in her voice.

“I have a driver’s license, just not a French one. You know I haven’t been here five months, and I don’t know if I’ll even be here a year, so it hasn’t been practical. There is public transportation everywhere in Europe, so I don’t expect to need one here.”

She already knew I had just arrived in this country. She was like an aggressive cop or trial lawyer. I felt like, by not pleasing her, my liberty was at stake. In the field of psychology, there are people wwho have certain personality disorders, specifically clinical narcissist, sociopath, and psychopath, who deliberately make the people in their lives feel this way in order to manipulate them. I wondered whether Drusilla is a clinical narcissist. She was demonstrating the manipulative behavior known as “stone walling” and other manipulations.

“Come on,” she said. “That’s ridiculous.”

“You know I almost never drive even in the US, and you ask me to drive a car that has different controls for the first time in the middle of Saturday rush hour shopping traffic. I will be happy to drive once we get a couple of hours away fromthe cithy and there isn’t any traffic. We talked about my driving status weeks ago,” I said. “Why are you bringing it up now?”

“But you should get one. You should have already done it,“ she said. “Why don’t you drive?”

“Cars are dangerous and bad for the environment. The oil they use creates a demand that causes oil wars,” I said.

I continued, “I’ve only been here a few months, and I don’t know how long I will be here. My work contract is temporary, keeping a car in the city costs several hundred a month in parking and other expenses. A bicycle is faster for distances under ten miles. Owning a car is not a priority. “

“I still think you should get one. It is not that hard. “

“I’ll be happy to drive for a couple of hours when we get to a quiet stretch of road, but I haven’t driven a car for years, and doing it now in heavy traffic with a foreign car and unfamiliar road signs is a bad idea,” I said.

She was silent.

I gave up. There are certain kinds of people with whom it is futile to argue: religious nuts, the insane, drunks, people who insist that they are always right, and after today, French Women. She had surprised me just when I had started to trust her. She was pushy and aggressive. I was pretty sure I knew why she was single at the age of 50.

The drive was six hours. I did offer to drive. There was a safe stretch of highway for me to drive, a couple of hours through a sparsely populated area with little traffic where there are no traffic cops on the highways France who do ID checks on foreigners driving for a while to relieve their companion. She refused to let me.

She drove the entire way, and the highway took us through a valley surrounded by 10,000 foot mountains. She wouldn’t let me drive when I asked two hours later. We talked much of the time.

The ski resort was another hour away, and I wondered if she would make any more revelations before we got there. Whatever she might say didn’t matter. I realised had no romantic feelings for her. That was out of the question. What she expected from me and how all that was dealt with is another chapter.

For the last segment of the drive, we climbed through a quick series of Alpine valleys. The town where we would stay, Huez, is a village built on the foot of the mountain Alp d’Huez. It was dark, and the full moon lit up the snowy landscape.

I’m writing again from Shakespeare Café with an author friend, Yu Wang. She’s a Chinese expat living in Paris, and she’s written a memoir on that topic. Tomorrow, she leaves to tour Eastern Europe for the summer. This might be the last time I come here this summer.

Soon after we arrived, there was almost a brawl outside. Just outside on the patio where more customers are eating and drinking, a cigarette smoker was allowing smoke to blow in somebody’s face. They shouted at each other for fifteen minutes before the finally left.

Next, an annoying girl just sat near us. She is a human short circuit. She is twitching, bouncing her knee, and sniffling non-stop. Despite the similarity to opioid withdrawal symptoms, she has an air of self-satisfaction that junkies in withdrawal usually don’t have. Now, she is shouting commands across the café to her boyfriend or husband who stands in line. He is getting the coffee, and she wants to make sure he gets her order exactly right. Her voice is nasal and makes my skin crawl. I don’t think she needs any caffeine. I pity her boyfriend.

I wrote for a while, or at least, I tried. It’s the girl’s blood-curdling voice that is preventing me from working. She has a non-regional American accent and speaks in a loud, high-pitched drone. She is speaking slowly, and the way she pauses between random words makes it impossible for me to tune her out. I cannot hear myself think.

For informal speech, the word “like” has several established usages. It is grammatically appropriate, for example, when used as a comparative preposition, a verb, a subordinating conjunction (even if it is not always correct usage), and an adverb. When the speaker is conscious about how she says it, she can even say “like” as a quotative particle: “I was like, ‘dude, check out those Hare Krishnas walking down the street.’” But that only works once per conversation per week. Beyond that, the speaker risks sounding like a moron.

When I was a kid, “like” had already infected my generation’s speech, but a lot of old people would say “you know” every sentence. The “you knows” were annoying too. The “you knows” of my parents’ generation were generally high school dropouts. I couldn’t bear to listen to them.

While old people were still saying “you know,” in the 1980s, Valley Girls from San Bernardino, California had made obnoxiously excessive and inappropriate usage of the word “like” popular. Most kids were saying it often and inappropriately. They were generally saying it in place of the “you knows” of our parents’ generation, except it was worse. “Like” had become a filler to replace “um/uh” and pauses. Saying “um” is forgivable if done sparingly. Sometimes, you just can’t think of what to say, and saying “uh” is an honest way to acknowledge ones lack of fluency without being pushy. Now, “like,” on the other hand, is often used in an authoritarian way to keep people from interrupting while the speaker tries to think of the appropriate word while monopolizing the conversation.

When I was in highschool, the vast majority of kids who said “like” were native English speakers who could not string enough words together to form a smooth sentence. I don’t know if it’s mental laziness or lack of intelligence on the children’s part, but we did happen to be confined together in a poorly funded American public school.

Even as a teenager, it was torture to hear my classmates saying “like” all the time. It generally was not possible to avoid those children because my high school was the kind of closed campus that was modeled after a prison or perhaps a factory or a work house. We did not have the basic freedom to move around and escape bad surroundings and unpleasant people.

Thus, here I sit at Shakespeare café, and an American woman, who looks like she is nearly thirty, is saying the word “like” once every four or five words. In the past five minutes, she has even said “like like,” that’s double “likes,” several times. I don’t know how someone can graduate from college and still talk like that. I don’t know why her parents let her enter adulthood without first teaching her not to talk like that.

She is sitting with her boyfriend, and she barely lets him get in a word. He just sits there and whispers something in reply while she speaks non-stop for minutes at a time. He is quiet. I wish she could be more like him.

I try hard to tune out people like her. They don’t come here every day, but since college is on summer break, there have been more American tourists here.

She prattled for another fifteen minutes before leaving.

Finally, I could concentrate. I wrote for a while. I was going fast. I had written nearly a page. Suddenly, another barrage of grating “likes” assaulted my ears from across the room.

Liker 1 (20 something male voice) : “I was like … watching them both like …. this year, and like, Rick and Monty,.... is like totally …. more intelligent.“

The ellipses represent long, irregular pauses.

Liker 2 (20 something male voice): “Like yeah ….. like I watch them too.... But like Bojack Horsemen like is like … deeper, like you know?“

Liker 3 (20 something FEmale voice): “Like my brother ….. he is like totally into those shows, ….. but like I don’t really like watch them, but like um …… he watches them like all the time.”

I don’t know what Bojack Horseman or Rick and Morty are, and considering who their fans are, I don’t want to know. I don’t watch TV anyway.

I suffer from partial hearing loss. The fact that I could hear every single word each liker said while I was sitting on the other side of a crowded room should give an indication of how loud these people (American) are compared to everyone else (French). I was counting the likes and counting the total number of words each “liker” emitted.

Liker 1: “Like yeah, … like Bojack Horsemen, I like like (double like) Bojack Horseman. …. Bojack Horseman is like good like but like um it’s not like deep. It like pretends to be deep….. But, like, Rick and Morty is, like, more, um, like, intelligent.”

Liker 3: “Rick And Morty is like scientific.”

Liker 2: “Like, I agree totally. I like can’t um like um wait for the next like season. of Bojack. It’s going to be like totally awesome.”

Liker 3: “Like, have you ….. like ever noticed… like how often we say the word “like?”

LIker 4: “LIke yeah… um true dat… um I’m trying to stop saying “like” so often, but it’s like hard.”

Liker 1: “Me too. One of my teachers in high school ….. used to ….. li.. correct us and tell us to …. stop ….um .... whenever we like …. said it.”

(Liker #1 almost finished a sentence without saying “like.” Maybe there is hope for him.)

Liker 2: “Like I don’t even notice it … like …that much.”

I’d kill myself if I had to go back to high school and listen to that for another four years. The repetition of that one word combined with the irregular cadences and random pauses in their speech was excruciating. The longer they speak and the more they repeat “like,” the more raw my nerves become. To make it worse, their loud voices make it impossible not to hear them.

The effect is similar to that of nuisance barking. Nuisance barking is when a nearby neighbor keeps a dog that barks nonstop for hours each day. Selfish neighbors with small dogs are the worst culprits. Of course, it’s the fault of the neighbor for being a bad owner, but the dog often takes the blame. Nuisance dogs are frequently the targets of poisoning, gunshot, fatal bludgeoning, or theft. The owners of nuisance dogs are subject to fines and lawsuits. It is not uncommon to read about them in the “crime reports” sections of the paper after their dog’s nuisance barking causes somebody to crack and assault them for being obnoxious dog owners and bad people in general.

There’s not much that can make me snap, but loud, annoying babble comes close. The reader might have figured out that the likers were Americans. It’s summer break, and I can either avoid Shakespeare Café until the Americans go back home to school, or I can acquire a set of noise cancelling headphones for people like them. Short of that, there is no way to tune it out. I’ve tried relaxation exercises, meditation, deep breathing, yoga, and ear plugs.

Compared to other nationalities, Americans are difficult to be around for extended periods of time. I’m an American and lived most of my life there, so I know this first hand. My experiences with such people when I lived in the USA helped drive me to alcohol and hard drugs. I cannot mentally tune them out, and dependng on my situation, I cannot always physically leave them. Their behaviour takes a hard psychological toll on me, and drugs and alcohol made it easier to tolerate them and not snap and murder them.

I believe that people such as the likers are making life unbearable for so many others to the point that it is fueling the rise in opioid addiction in the US. Such people helped cause me to become reclusive there and eventually contributed to my moving to the desert where I lived alone and off the grid. It also helped drive me to leaving the country all together.

__

Back to the ski trip.

It was noon on Saturday, and I was still serving in Purgatory at the megamarket grocery store situated in a suburb of Paris I had been writing about during the previous five blog entries. I was there with a friend shopping for food we would bring with us on a two week ski trip. I don’t like supermarkets, and I hate shopping during the weekend rush, but being here wasn’t my choice. Drusilla had been leading me around the store, and I was pushing the cart, trying to keep up in the heavy crowd. I felt like a retard on a trip to the zoo.

I've reached the word count limit. I will continue later.

She likes to sleep with the radio on
So she can dream of her favorite song
The one that no one has sung
Since she was small

She will never know that she made it up
She had a soul and we ate it up
Thrown away like a paper cup
The music falls

The only flaw in her detailed plan
Is where she wins back the love of her man
Everyone knows that he's never coming back

He took her heart and she took his name
He couldn't stand taking all the blame
He left her only with guilt and shame
And then she cracked

Won't it be dull
If we rid ourselves of all these demons haunting us
To keep us comforted

In the dream I refuse to have
She falls asleep in a lukewarm bath
We are Left to deal with the aftermath again

On behalf of humanity
I will fight for your sanity
How profound such profanity can be

Won't it be dull
if we rid ourselves of all these demons haunting us
To keep us comforted

Won't it be odd
To be happy like we always thought we are supposed to feel
But never seem to be

Near where I live there's a viaduct
Where people jump when they're out of luck
Raining down on the cars and trucks below

They put a net there to catch there fall
Like that'll stop anyone at all
What they don't know is that when nature calls you go

They say that Jesus and mental help
Are just for those who can help themselves
What good is that when your living hell on earth?

From the very fear that makes you wanna die
Is the same as what keeps you alive
It's way more trouble then some suicide is worth

Hard to believe I fought the war on drugs
My hands where tied and the phone was bugged
Another died and the world just shrugged it off

I just spent 40 minutes posting on a previous post. I went to hit "post" only to come back and fine it did NOT post. Talk about seriously frustrating. I'm a bit pissed off about that. I don't have time to rewrite everything I wrote because my friend is going to be here shortly to take me to dinner and a play, but I wanted to see if THIS entry would post.

September 21-23 2017
Earth Frequency Activation
The feast of the Trumpets: The Last Trumpet
Astological/Astronomical Alignment
Possibly Extra-Terrestrial/Extra-dimensional
God or Gods showing authority in humanity's direction
Some speaking of Rapture, but that is always with an eyebrow raised.
All I know is that these dates are somehow significant for those on the spectrum.

part 5

I was writing about a two week ski trip I went on with a French woman. We had just arrived at a megacenter grocery store somewhere in the suburbs of Paris. We were moving around the store picking out food items.

I found the cheese section. One of the worst things about shopping is when people camp in front of what you want. You’ve already spotted that one thing you want. It’s only a block of cheese. You’ve been eating cheese for years, and by now, you know what kinds of cheese you like. You’re smart enough to know that your time is valuable; so when you can’t decide between two cheese, you either buy both, or you buy one this week and you buy the other one the next week. Deciding takes two seconds. The cheese you want is three feet away. You just need to reach it. It won’t take three seconds to open the cabinet door and take out the cheese.

Thus, I stood in front of the shelves of cheese that I wanted, the dry cheeses, but they were blocked by a throng of people who simply stood still in front of the cheese.

The people camped out in front of the door took up so much space that there was no way to get around them and open the glass door. They were chatting among themselves. Although they were looking at the cheese, what they are actually talking about had nothing to do with cheese. They were discussing the wallpaper in the mother’s kitchen. I said “excuse me” loud and in their ears, but they did not respond. These people would not budge, no matter what. I repeated myself and, again, no response. Whenever this happens, it’s usually a big family or a group of knuckleheads in college. Today, it was a middle aged family group. They would not make up their minds about the cheese, no matter what, so they kept yammering on about the Mother’s wallpaper.

I peered over their shoulders and looked at a block of dry manchego, a cheese that is nice for its ability to travel without needing refrigeration. It is made of goat milk and not cow milk, and therefore, it was easily digested. I tried to squeeze past the crowd that was blocking the cheese. They would not move. They just stood there staring at the cheese and gossiping about their mother’s wallpaper..

“Excuse me,” I said in French.

They did not budge. The cheese was just out of my reach.

“Excuse me,” I said again in French.

They continued to stare at the cheese for a few more minutes.

“Pardon me,” I said.

They did not respond.

“It’s not real estate people. Make up your minds and get the fsck out of the way,” I said.

This is probably the first time in my life that I have been driven to swear at strangers, but this is the kind of thing that rubs me wrong.

Still, they did not move. Finally, I shoved three of the lollygagging people aside and grabbed the cheese I wanted.

“Excusez moi!” one of the said.

I could not take much more of this, yet this is how the suburban world spend their Saturdays. I put the cheese in the cart which I had parked off to the side and out of everyones way. Drusila saw the cheese.

“Why are you picking out cheese and yogurt? That’s dairy. You just said you were allergic,” Drusilla said.

She looked annoyed but not curious and not puzzled. She had the surly look of someone who is convinced that she has had all of the answers to life’s questions since the age of eleven. Manchego is a well-known variety of cheese, and most people know it is made from sheep milk. Another Red Flag on the grounds of being intellectually incompatible and ornery.

“It’s goat cheese. I can eat it,” I said.

There is more to it, but I was too tired to explain. Even if it were cow cheese, I could still probably eat it. The reason is complicated, but basically, the proteins like casein, whey, and lactose that trigger the allergy are broken down in the chemical reactions that produce some cheeses, especially dry cheeses, and yogurts.

“Suit yourself.”

It’s excruciating to argue with somebody who questions everything you say and do and who is so sure of herself that she believes she knows all of the answers. I’ve never met Hilary Clinton, but the former First Lady came across the same way in interviews, the news, and even in her own books she has written.

Next, Drusilla found the cardboard tasting factory tomatoes. Then the potatoes. I suppressed a groan each time. She had stopped picking out food that was poisonous to me and started picking out things that were only disgusting and so cheap and heavy that it was not economically worth it to transport them 500 miles.

I’ve forgotten the exact costs of fuel and wear and tear on the vehicle, but very roughly, the cost of transporting 100 kilograms is 0.10$ per mile. By the end of the shopping excursion, we would have about 100 kilograms of food, and we were going to haul it 500 miles. Do the math. It cost $50 to haul all of these potatoes, rootabegas, tomatoes, bottled water (which she picked out!!!), etc. to the ski resort. That nullified any cost savings of buying the groceries in Paris. Even if transport hadn’t been expenseive, the unpleasant experience of going to the supermarket on a Saturday afternoon would have made it not worth it.

“Let’s get some fruit. How about oranges, peaches, kiwis, apples. Even lettuce is better than those store tomatoes.” I said.

I picked out some oranges and apples.

“no they cost too much…” she said.

“ I’ll pay for them.”

She shrugged. I got them. They were the same price as the same fruit sold in teh USA. Why does she have a job if the only food she will buy with her salary is the cheap, crappy rooty food that grows underground (onions, garlic, potatoes, beets, rutabegas, etc).

She picked out some grapefruit. The one fruit that is so bitter as to be inedible happens to be the only fruit she likes. I did not make a comment. Another Red Flag for liking disgusting crap that retirees in Florida eat.

I picked out some eggs. I got a box of thirty. They were cheap and that was enough to last two weeks.

“What are you doing with those eggs? Are you going to eat that many?

“yes,” I said.

She peered at the carton with her beady black eyes.

“They are not Bio eggs,” she said.

“They’re free range eggs;” I said.

“That’s not good enough. They have to be BIO. BIO is the same as ‘organic‘ in America. It means they are free of pesticides, hormones, and have special growing conditions.”

“In the US, the “Organic” label means nothing. It’s just an advertising gimmick everybody uses, no matter how the food was grown. That’s not a good thing to go by. It is just as likely to have pesticides and growth hormones as any other label. Consumer groups have studied the claims of ‘certified organic’ labelling in the US. Only a little was what it claimed to be but a large proportion was not. You have to research each product to know for sure. I have not researched the “BIO” certification of French groceries, but I had assumed it was bogus like the American Organic label.

“Get the BIO,” she said.

“Do you trust BIO?”

“Just get it,” she said.

I had been warned that many French women were bossy.

I couldn’t care less about BIO or organic. Even non-organic French food is of better quality than American “organic.” Concerning eggs, you can tell that it is better by the color of the yolk and the flavor of the egg. It is orange and the flavor is richer. American eggs yolks are lemon yellow. The shells of French eggs, BIO or not, are stronger too. It takes a solid tap to open one, but an American store egg cracks with the slightest pressure. But, I just didn’t care. I couldn’t care less. I had enough of that place.

The truth is that unless you raise the eggs yourself from your own chickens or have an egg lady, which I had while Iived in Portland, who raises the eggs herself and delivers them to your door, you have no way of knowing

“BIO is was trustworthy. French food has better oversight.”

“OK, fine.”

The BIO eggs were sold in packages of six and ten, costing 3 and 5 dollars, respectively. They cost three times as much as the “free range” eggs which I had been eating since I arrived. I cannot justify spending so much on ordinary eggs. There’s a famine in Africa.

I knew Drusilla was an intelligent woman in terms of IQ and ability to learn, yet it was clear that we were not intellectually compatible. She was failing to correctly process new information - she was “always right,” in her mind. She had a lot of bad and incomplete information that she took as gospel. In turn, she tried to push her bad ideas onto me. She expected me to hear and obey without questioning her. I have since been told that this was normal female behavior in France.

We all have blind spots into our own shortcomings, we have internal inconsistencies, and we are hypocritical in some ways; and this woman had already revealed more than her share. That wasn’t the bad part. It was her aggressiveness in maintaining her bad ideas that made the behavior unbearable and made her unattractive. This is why I don’t trust most old people. Old people are in “ruts” in their ways of thinking, their personalities, and their ways of doing things. It all gets worse with age.

Anyway, it boggled my mind that someone who cared about the BIO hype so much as to fight about it would shop at a large chain grocery store instead of any of the numerous coops or small markets in the area.

I feel like that word is awfully demeaning isn't it? "Recovery" that is.

it makes me feel like I lost all of my learned skills and am re-learning how to do anything in life.

and people look at you as somehow being lesser than, despite the fact that it's usually the other way around

you hear shit like "get healthy again" or "get your mind straightened out" or "get back in the swing of things" like I'm some fucking science experiment who has to take baby steps in order to be able to go anywhere in life.

like wtf? And people don't trust you anymore. My brother doesn't want to smoke weed with me because he thinks it might make me do heroin

and I feel like I get a fucking audit from people who know my past every time I interact with them. I can tell they're like trying to see if I'm fucked up or not.

last time I checked, I'm still pretty fucking good at my job. Last time I checked, I still treat everyone respectfully and politely. Last time I checked, I don't get involved in someone else's business unless they ask me to

but, apparently, you shoot a couple bags of dope in your arm and suddenly people don't care about any of those truths anymore. They just assume I am incapable of doing anything while on drugs and just need to "figure things out"

oh, I think I got things figured out quite well actually. I like to get high. I just can't realistically chase certain highs anymore. But I still am damn straight going to use lower forms of intoxication. Because, in my opinion, I earn the right to.

im just tired of dealing with people who don't understand that drug usage does not equate to automatic failure

but when you are labeled as a failure by some people solely for using drugs, well I guess that kind of settles it in their mind

The way I see it, unless I did something to negatively affect your life, what drugs I used are none of your fucking business.

Here I will attempt to share a memorable experience from nearly a decade ago.
I had just acquired this connect a couple weeks prior. I was going to their apartment almost once (or twice) a day so they certainly knew who I was in a short period of time (a reliable customer). This place was the epitome of a "trap house". Literally, it was the 1-stop-shop. They had pretty much everything from weed (swag), heroin, from cocaine to meth, and pharms, powder, liquid, etc. They even had cigarettes that were a couple bucks cheaper than gas station price. Sometimes I would go there just to buy a few packs of smokes lol. They lived in a poverty stricken environment. It was grim, frightening and sketchy. The absence of positive thought was the only consistent thing. Negativity and ego driven assholes lurked in the abyss of this apartment complex. Twas the Projects.. and I had been getting their x tabs for 3$ a piece and reselling them for 10-15$ a piece; That was my side hustle. The first time I was brought to their apartment, this 1 (of the 3) guy pointed a gun at me. (Absolutely retarded. Mind you, I am not the same person as back then)
So..On this late night, I was on the way to pick up 150 x tabs with my buddy. As I pulled down the street, we were approaching the apt complex. All of a sudden, I get a call from the guy demanding to not come to the "trap" but to just park at the gas station right across the road. (Side note: I hated dealing with these types of dealers.) Anyways, I parked at the gas station and a rickety, old maroon truck pulled up behind me. My buddy coincidentally knew him (the x runner) so he got out and got in the truck. Basically, I figured it'd go smoother since he knew the dude personally and I was already rolling. I thought he was just going to grab the bundle of x and hop back in my car, but no, they drove off. I guess they had to go pick it up or something. So now I am sitting at a ghetto-ass gas station, by myself, at 1:00 am, rolling my balls off waiting on more, with about 2 ounces of bud in the car and a few xannys. Mind you, I am the only white person lol I did not fit in to the scene.
30 minutes went by, still waiting, and my phone had just died. I was sort of worried, but again I was rolling balls and fully reclined, music on (probably the mars volta) and chain smoking the fuck out of my pack. I ended up getting out of the car to buy some orange juice and another pack of smokes since I doubted they would card me in this area. As I was waiting in line, this crazy lady called me out and said something along the lines of "Man you sure are bugging, I used to sell the fuck out of x until I got busted and went to prison. Just got out..." I just bashfully smiled and got the fuck out of there. I was 16 at the time. I got back in my car, rolled a joint to kill time and before I knew it, all the orange juice was gone, all my cigarettes were smoked, and I had been sitting there for over an hour.
At this point of time, I am actually freaking out. Like should I leave? Do I look for my friend? How long do I wait? What happened? Panic...
As all these thoughts were rushing through my mind, I checked my rear-view mirror and what do I see? A cop car pulling into one of the gas pumps. My heart started racing faster. I looked out the other mirrors and realized there were two undercover cars parked on the other side of the lot, and one SUV at the other pumps and the same SUV model parked across the street (near the entrance of the apt complex). It looked staged. The cars were blacked out, and new. It was a set up. Then I saw a guy walking towards my car. Clearly an undercover. I remember every step he took towards my car was a time I fumbled the joint and bag of herb into the center console. Such butter fingers. I think I dropped the joint in the crack between the car n center console haha. so nervous.
The UC was dressed in a fucking Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. So retarded. I mean come on, we were in a ghetto and he is dressed up so fake; totally did not fit the scene but then again neither did I. The only people at this gas station were people who looked dirty and rough and then there was me, A scrawny white 16 yr old in a decent car. He flashed his light in my car and asked me what I was doing there. I told him I was just getting something to drink, and was going to get gas but realized I left my money at home. He told me I need to leave, that there is about to be a drug sting happening at this place (probably not in those words). I left immediately.
As I was pulling out of the gas station, the truck with my buddy and ecstasy passed by, coincidentally. what amazing timing, my phone was dead. So, I nonchalantly followed them. We went about 3 miles and hopped onto I-45 and drove for about 4 or 5 exits. And then we did the transaction behind a business (that was closed). It was so fucking sketchy and so crazy.
I wonder if the sting was set up for us. Even though we weren't buying a lot, I know that they were selling a lot and were reckless so maybe it would have been an easy target. Or maybe it was just coincidentally another deal that was bigger about to happen. Either way (and most importantly), we were safe.
The dealers (not the x runner) I was buying from is locked up for like 50 years, the other one is dead, and the other guy is locked up for life for shooting someone aka murder. Soo, fuck them anyways. Terrible people. Oh yeah, also the reason why it took [my buddy and dealer] so long was just typical dealer stuff; unprepared n bullshitting - nothing relevant.
To conclude this rant, we drove back to a buddy's apartment with the goods. Sold ALL of them to about 15 people, and partied for like 24-30 hours or so. I remember that the comedown was so miserable and one of the last times i would ever take a tab. this was also before i discovered pure molly (ok, maybe not pure). And also, the "x runner" ended up making some life changes, as did I, and we are now friends among the same amazing group of people. Honestly great people nowadays. Anyways, there is my rant from about 11 years go.
Cheers.

Hey guys. I've been very busy here at Job Corps.

The program is very beneficial in the big scope of things. Free training, free food, free driver's ed, they offer a free college program at Valley college when you complete your trade, free living, you get a 100$ clothing allowance twice while you're here, free eye doctor visit and glasses, etc.

The people here are the downfall. Twenty-something year olds act like they're 16. Relationships that form within 2 days of being at the program and last just as long. Prison type hustling (selling cigarettes, noodles, honey buns, etc.). Drugs are scarce to non-existent. Security is super tight.

I've managed to drink alcohol multiple times on what is called "mall runs". A bus comes for us and drives us to Inland Center Mall and Walmart. They drop us off and pick us up in like 1.5 hours. So me and some friends get liquor or beer and buy gum, mints, food, etc. and have a good time and come back trying to be sober.

I smoked bud this last weekend which I said I wouldn't do for the entirety of the program. 3 blunts, edibles, and hits off a wax pen. Boy did I miss THC. Most especially that feeling at the tail end of the high where everything is perfectly trippy, I feel a comforting loneliness in my head, I mumble replies to people to more quickly return to the silent, peaceful state my mind is in. Then I go and listen to Flume and go to space. It was amazing.

They drug test you when you first get in. If you fail, you must re-test in 37 days, and if you fail THAT one, you are terminated from the program. If you pass the entry screening, you do not get drug tested again unless you are "blue carded".

The "blue card" system works based on suspicion. If you smell like weed, your eyes are red, or even someone anonymously snitches you out to security with a slip of paper, you can be blue carded. When you are blue carded you get drug tested. If you fail, you are terminated. If you come back smelling like alcohol, you are breathylized. The limit is 0.0. If you are over 0.0, you are terminated. NO alcohol is tolerated.

It's quite crazy to think that if I am caught for drinking I will be homeless on the streets of San Bernardino. And yet, I am drinking and will be drinking today actually. Funny how my impulsive mind works.

I will post more information tomorrow.

Please ask questions in the comments and I will reply. This blog is a way to communicate the ins of this program that I wish I had known going in. It is also a way for me to express myself. I enjoy writing and I need a friend who I can talk to. Even if it's just the internet. Even if no one reads this.

So the year of 2017 has been full of awesome changes and a new appreciation for myself and my abilities. I have started actually monitoring the food I eat and walking for 5-10 miles a day. I started a small work out routine which I have been expanding on in an effort to get into even better shape, it feels good to be at least somewhat active and helps me hold myself in higher regard.

I have also been tripping a lot and exploring the city i moved to. I really enjoy living here and am very happy to have moved and everything seems to be going great. I have lost about 10 pounds just by walking and eating right.

The main reason for this entry is because of the concert i went to last week. For about a year I have been really into this band called "the birthday massacre" their goth style guitars, 80s synth pop sounding, female vocal stuff is hard to put into words. It basically covers everything i ever wanted in music... singing female vocals, heavy guitar, a sort of synthesized background music often with long instrumentals... its like candy to my ears ive never had such a love for a band. Its like anything they do i will like instantly. This caused me to go back to the type of music i liked about 15 years ago sort of goth nu metal whatever you wanna call it.

So Ive spent about a year listening to all their albums, they have been around since 2002 so theres a decent number of them... still amazed that they cant make an album i wont listen to in its entirety over and over. So by the time they tour i can basically name all the albums all the songs they rapidly became my favorite band of all time.

Fast forward to before the show and I planned on a very strong candy flip, the strongest ive done. I abstained for 2 weeks from L and 6 from molly. I took 5 hits of the same L ive had for months 3 hours before the show and 300mg of molly an hour and a half before the band took the stage. I was really excited more so then i have been in a while for anything... and ive done some really fun stuff but this just seemed so personal. No one got me into this band no one even really knows i like them so much so it was very much the first time ive done something just for me because i really wanted to.

Anyway before they come on im obviously peaking, looking back on it now thinking of course it was an overly emotional experience for me... most people couldnt see in front them them on that many psychedelics. But when they took the stage I was literally captivated and took video and pictures, video is so good you can see the singers eyes and facial expressions.

Now Ive discovered so much about myself in the almost 2 years off dope and being single i thought i knew everything there was to know about me. The whole thing really threw my view upside down. This whole time i thought i was fine with being alone having no real connectivity to anything. I was fine with my even emotions and predictable everything but she literally made me feel like a teenager. I forgot what it was like to actually get excited to see someone, to have their small acknowledgement mean everything to you... Like im not obsessed with the singer, i could see if i were younger confusing this for being attracted to her, it was just weird to feel that way again. It was nice to feel that way again, ill never forget what it was like to have that happen... i literally forgot for so long.

I wish i could write her and be like "at 30 years old you taught me i can still feel, after everything i went through, im capable of lowering my guard so much a small event can have a massive impact"

fuck it. that's right, FUCK IT.

Now don't get me wrong, there are some drugs that I just cannot do anymore. That is, if I want to maintain any form of responsible and normal lifestyle.

The following is a list of drugs that will take me down HARD:

Heroin
Methamphetamine

That concludes the list.

Honestly, outside of those two drugs, I think I'm just gonna continue to get high. I mean, really, what is the big deal? I try to wrap my brain around that question every fucking day.

What is the big problem if I occasionally use recreational drugs?

And I guess maybe Im just frustrated that not everyone looks at it that way. They immediately conjure up the worst case scenario in their minds and assume that is what definitely will happen.

As if I'm just gonna take a bunch of sleeping pills and ibuprofen on my way to an overdose, HERP DERP saw it on Erowid HUHHHHHHHH

get the fuck out of here. I feel like a douche for saying this but honestly, I'm pretty fucking good at taking drugs. To the point where I wish the people who were worried fully understood like just how much I research this shit and thought I put into it.

It's not like I'm at a party and just going "yeah, let me do that"

no, I plan this shit out. At first, I was just trying drugs to see what I liked, and what I didnt like

Some stuff I didnt care for, some stuff completely became my life.

But the point is, I had to try them to figure all of this out. I'd rather be at this point knowing what I know now instead of not knowing anything about drugs, if that makes any sense.

It's not so much that I can't stop using drugs, I just struggle to find reasons to do so. I don't want to be a role model or do the whole white picket fence with two kids shit. I just want to go through life having a few laughs and just straight chillin. How is that harmful to anyone? It's not even harmful to me!

"blah bleh blkah YOU don't even have any goals or ambition, such a waste of potential!"

ok guy, here's a goal for you: Let me figure out a way to not have to listen to people tell me about goals and potential.

Seriously, that's it. That is my major goal in life: Have everyone leave me the fuck alone.

Boom, now that that is out of the way, let's look at how to go about this.

Option 1: Be a heroin junkie

Well this option certainly does the job pretty well. Being left alone that is, heroin is really good at that. It takes you to a magical place where all your problems float away and nothing bothers you. Unfortunately, you generally wind up enjoying this feeling underneath a bridge somewhere and the other 90% of your life is absolutely horrible. And, I already tried this route. Not sustainable

Option 2: Kill myself

A bit more extreme measures here, and this is definitely an option that would always be a backup plan to option 1, and they kind of intertwine a bit. Not really much to gain here, and depending on which book from the previous millennium you subscribe to, could actually lead me straight to hell. I have no desire to kill myself, and can't really see it ever becoming an actual concern at this point, but it is always an option. Not trying to be morose here, just covering all the bases.

Option 3: Become a lifelong criminal

Now we're getting somewhere, I could just be a criminal for the rest of my life! I have this weird relationship with stealing things, it's like I know I can do it but I am reluctant to because I have always been trying to not rack up criminal charges. But if I just say fuck it and don't worry about my record, yeah I could definitely just rob houses / businesses for a living. Total scumbag move, but again, its an option. Go to jail, get out, steal, get high, back to jail. They still gotta feed you 3 times a day you know.

Option 4: work full time at a job I hate for the rest of my life and use drugs as a way to escape my shitty reality

seems to always be the fall back plan. Could be worse I guess

Option 5: Go back to college, get a good job, work super hard, put money away for retirement, have kids, settle down

That's what they're expecting me to do...

Nah but seriously, I just don't want to do that. And that's really the crux of this whole post.

That is what I should do with my life. I don't want to do that.

So where does that leave us?

I guess some would say that I need to "grow up", but I don't really think I'm immature or anything, and I definitely try to be a good person towards other people. I just don't want to do anything more in life than I have to.

And when did that become such a travesty? I feel like society has shifted towards this like belief that you should strive to live your life like the fucking Dos Equis guy from the commercials, The Most Interesting Man in the World.

Yeah, that guy probably never got off work, went home, smoked weed, watched a Sixers loss, and went to bed. I'm sure that is definitely NOT going to be in any Dos Equis commercials any time soon. But you know something, you don't have any idea what goes on in my head 24/7.

I've tried to avoid having to admit this to myself, but I'm fucking weird man. In a lot of different ways. Drugs just help me forget about this. I might not be the most interesting man in the world, but I like to think that I am capable of providing very unique and accurate insight towards things that I come across in my life. And, sometimes, I feel like that is something that might be more valuable than being the coolest guy on Instagram or w/e. I like to talk to myself because I'm usually saying something worth hearing. But it's really just me hearing it, but when I say it out loud I feel like I'm saying it to someone? Im still not sure why I do that, again, weird shit.

And the worst part is, you would never even know it. I'm such a pleasant person on the outside. Get along with everyone, say please and thank you, hold the door for an old lady type of shit.

But I'm fucking weird. On the inside. And I know it. Usually it takes people a little bit before they realize it and subsequently my friendships don't usually last very long. Relationships are twice as worse. I don't have friends, I just have people that I do drugs with sometimes.

Idk man, I know a lot of shit about a lot of shit, but I still can't figure out why I don't live a normal existence. And I can't decide whether it is better to be different, or if it would be a lot more simpler to just be like everyone else.

I don't know what im trying to say anymore. I talk to myself a lot, but it's more just a way of vocalizing my thoughts to hear them out loud to sort of form this like quasi-relationship with this person who doesnt exist but totally gets me and doesnt think im weird or anything

My god, it's like I love myself and hate myself at the same time. I love my brain, and my thoughts, and my ability to learn things at a fast pace.

But I hate my actual self, my actual life, my actual place in the world. And I don't even have much to bitch about. Sure, itd be nice to be a bit taller. It'd be nice to have a perfect smile. It'd be nice to have a full head of hair. But all things considered, I should be a lot more happy with myself than I am.

But it's nothing physical that is making me like this. No, this is something that is coming from inside.

I'm miserable with drugs

I'm miserable without drugs

And I can't fucking take it anymore

I helped my friend who's a drug dealer move. We getveverything packed in the car fine but we are exhausted. He had done coke so we go to this supposedly secluded spit to shot some coke. I do my shot it's a big one bells ringing. I didnt see the cop till he c was screamin with a gun to my head. Great needles everywhere we are fucked.

My buddy had a quarter of u 4770 on him, coke, and a little fentanyl. Too his credit and my everlasting debt he said all the drugs where his. I claimed I was sober and in NA. Trying to be of service to my fellow addict blah blah. They bought it and I drove away. Unfortunately my best friend didnt. I'm doing everything I can to get him out. But his bail hasn't even been set yet.

But man I saw my life ft lash before my eyes. This one black cop was cool and gave me 3 MG of kpin out of my script while I was handcuffed. But I almost lost it all and became a felon.

I woke up this morning with my heart racing and the most terrible dread that I have felt since the morning after my son died. I dreamed that I was on a trip in a foreign country with a good friend of mine (the one that I actually went to Ecuador with last time). We were in a small hotel and we were trying to figure out what the local customs for New Years were so that we could go out and participate. We were having fun, in a bar trying out our language skills and laughing a lot--everything was light and easy--fun. Then I went to go up and find my room to get something and though the hotel stayed the same my companions shifted to my sister and another friend and I was with my older son who was about 2 or 3 at the most. He was running around as usual, a blonde hurricane of joyous energy bouncing off the walls and I was alternately scooping him up for hugs and trying to keep him from destroying the place. We were packing up to leave and once again New Years figured in the dream because I did not want to travel on such a alcohol soaked holiday.

My sister and friend were heading to the car with bags and I was trailing behind. I had been holding Tyler's hand and I was also trying to carefully sneak my dog (in a bag!) out of the hotel without anyone noticing. Suddenly I was aware that I did not have Tyler's hand anymore and I said, Has anyone seen Tyler? The minute I said it the panic started to rise in my body and I dropped everything and turned around. My sister and friend gave me looks that were disapproving as if to say, "why would we be in charge/ You are the mother!" The shame now accompanied the dread but it was the dread that fueled my panic. As I raced back through the hotel floor by floor calling out, bursting into people's private rooms asking if they had seen a little boy, I noticed that the hotel had all sorts of floors I had not seen before--some were under construction and blocked off with cleaning carts in front of the stairwell exits, others seemed to almost be hospital wards for elderly men. I pushed my way into each one and continued calling. No one had seen him and everyone was disgusted that I had let him out of my sight.

Suddenly a little blonde boy who was not Tyler ran laughing through the room with his laughing parents in playful pursuit. There he is, some of the people cried! But no, this is not my son, this is another boy, their boy. It was an overwhelming horror. The same one that I lived through when Caleb died. I could not believe and yet I knew the truth. I had not protected him. I had not been vigilant. I had allowed myself to be distracted. I had lost my son. In the dream I could not breathe because the reality was crushing me. When I woke I was experiencing a panic attack and could not breathe again. I talked myself down. You are in your bed. You can slow your heart with deep slow full breaths. You did not lose Tyler. He is 29 years old. He is happy. He is alive.

Still, I cannot shake the dream, nor the horrible guilt and shame that seems to live deep inside me and may live there until I die. I could not protect my beautiful little boy. I failed to do the one thing that is most important that a parent do and that is to see to the survival of their children. It does not matter that I know rationally that this is not always possible, that this never in my control, that Caleb was already a young man making his own disastrous decisions. This shame exists on such a deep level that it rarely even surfaces anymore. But what this dream showed me is that it is as strong a force as ever.

I will go through my day. I have 10 people coming to dinner tonight and I stiil have to shop and cook. It is my book group. We will be discussing the Armenian genocide and the Native American genocide because these were the themes of the books we read. I will be discussing the lives of people that lost everyone, some that saw their children killed before their own eyes --not one but all of their children. I try to have perspective. My son is in Greece working with all the people that have lost everything from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq; people coming over land through Iran and Turkey and then by sea to Lesbos. I try to place my grief next to theirs in an attempt to quantify, to tell myself, yours is not so big. Bullshit. Grief cannot be quantified. It is surreal sometimes to carry grief. Imagine what these parents have seen, including losing their children in the final passage at sea. My nightmare simply put me back in this most primordial space: a mother must protect her child. Period. When that fails, when she fails, whether it is large waves at sea, a soldier's gun or a drug overdose makes no difference in that almost biological place in the psyche: she failed.

Tales of M. Married with Children

Writing from Shakespeare Café again. It’s a nice day. The heatwave is over. Four times out of five, the atmosphere in the café is nice.Today, just as it was a few days ago, it is not. It’s Americans again but only one this time. It’s a twenty something year old female, blond, blue, and loud. She will not shut her mouth. The loudness of her voice is appropriate for a noisy bar or something but definitely not a quiet café. Everybody can hear every word seh says. I can hear every word she says, and I am on the other side of the room. I also have significant hearing loss.That should give an idea of her behaviour. Everybody else is either speaking quietly or is silent. I don’t know if it’s always been this way with American tourists. Until a few years ago, Chinese tourists acted that way, but suddenly, the bad behaviour stopped. I think it had to do with being newly wealthy and the time it took to learn how to behave. They are now polite, quiet, and generally well-behaved. Americans are by far the most obnoxious nationality of tourist.

Another reason I didn’t enjoy cooking is because my last American girlfriend wouldn’t let me in the kitchen - of my own house, and before that, Psycho Suzie, another girlfriend, said everything I tried to cook was disgusting. That is when I quit trying to learn. Thus, for most of my adult life, I ate out.

We were still in the suburbs.

“In that case, I will cook, and you will wash the dishes. We will buy groceries, and we should do it while we’re still in the city. It will be cheaper than the grocery stores at the resort. There is a grocery store nearby that I like,” she said.

“Okay.” I said.

I’ve been trying to cultivate a sense of civic responsibility and a social conscience since I was a teenager. Despite amount of time I’ve spent on it, I’ve only been minimally successful. In terms of commerce, it’s usually limited to avoiding Walmart, MacDonalds, and supermarkets. When given a choice, I pass them by, even when it means that I go hungry half the day with dangerously low blood sugar and have to pay more money for the same thing at the local grocery store or co-op when I finally find one.

Drusila was driving, and I didn’t see that I had any choice. It would only be this one time that I had to go, so I didn’t complain. One must be able to adapt, and being a good travelling companion was my priority.

She drove quickly through a grid of sharp turns and pulled into an enormous covered parking garage a couple of hectares in size. (It was huge.) She drove nearly as fast around the maze of parking rows in the garage for ten minutes until we found an open space and parked.

The building this belonged to was a Walmart sized supermarket. It reminded me of my Walmart days, and I was not pleased. That was the second Red Flag.

Usually, the kind of people who go these places, especially on a Saturday, are harried families with children and other suburbanites who are insensitive to the effect that chain supermarkets and other huge corporate franchise stores have had on the livelihoods of mom and pop grocers and other independently owned businesses.

She asked me to get a buggy for the groceries. I never use buggies when I buy groceries, but would make an exception and not complain. Still, I was worried.

I could list dozens of reasons I hate shopping buggies, but the short answer is this: the wheels squick on the tile floors. Squicking is sound that is like the sound made by tennis shoes rubbing on the waxed floor of a basketball court but a lot worse. It is high pitched and does not stop. I can’t stand it - it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard. This sound is different from the loud squeaking of wheels with bad bearings or unoiled casters. If it were only so simple as rusty bearings in the buggy’s wheels, the solution would be to find a buggy that does not have bad bearings. That’s not possible because all carts of the same design make this sound on a given floor. That was an additional half a Red Flag for Drusila.

I found the carts. They were in a blocked off section of the asphalt parking lot, and they were arranged in long trains like freight cars in a rail yard.

I pulled on the end cart of one of the trains, but something was wrong. The cart would not separate from the train. I tried another train. It wouldn’t budge either.

“Drusilla, help me please,” I said.

I waved at her. By now, she was way over at the store entrance. She came back.

“You have to put a token in it,” she said.

“Where do I find a token and where do I put it?”

“Why don’t you know how to do this? Here,” she said.

That sharp voice and rude comment worried me. Although I didn’t believe it, I had been warned that French women are bossy. Another Red Flag for Drusila. Fifteen minutes into the trip and she had already racked up three and a half Red Flags. You can learn a lot about somebody by grocery shopping with them.

She took a token from a token machine that was operated by a cart attendant. It was several meters away from the carts, and its purpose was not obvious. I was puzzled as to why somebody was being paid to operate a machine that dispensed cart tokens.

I looked at the cart and tried to find the place to put the token.

“Give it to me,” she said.

I handed her the token. She put the token in a slot in the handle of the cart, and this action freed the cart on the back end of the train.

“Now you know how to do it when you come back,” she said.

Today, I had already learned that supermarkets have taken to securing their carts with token operated locking mechanisms. It was not this way when I last used one during childhood. To make the system more obfuscated, one has to beg the token from a cart attendant. There are a lot of the things about how modern society works that I don’t know about, don’t care about, and would prefer to live to the end of my life without ever knowing. Learning to use the carts at supermarkets is one of them.

I hadn’t even entered the store, and I had realised that I would have been happy to have shopped on my own and to have payed an extra 10 percent at the village general store at Alpe D’Huez. I’ve avoided the suburban lifestyle since childhood. I was surprised that suburbanites such as herself had made it to the party at the city center where I met her. It was difficult to deal with the supermarket and this woman’s nonsense, and I feared that it would trigger a migraine.

We entered the store. She walked fast, and I pushed the cart behind her, trying to keep up. I felt like a retard on a trip to the zoo. Drusilla was my caregiver.

Crowds, families with children running around, noise, thousands of carts - all of their wheels squicking incessantly on the tile floor, glaring fluorescent lighting, signs, advertisements trying to steal my attention and get my money, shelves and shelves of tens of thousands of different things I would never want to eat -- the totality of it all overloaded my senses and was oppressive. It reminded me of a bad trip.

It was not possible to move in a straight line for more than a few steps. Progress was slow. We had to dodge people who weren’t looking where they were going, and we often had to stop and wait for others to quit clogging the aisles. Many were simply standing with their carts and blocking the aisles. They were stopped, gossiping with companions, chatting on their phones, disciplining their children, counting coupons, and reading sales papers, among other things. The vast majority chose to undertake these activities in locations that would block traffic.

Close to the entrance were vegetables. The very first food items she put in the buggy were onions and garlic.

“I can’t eat either of those. I’m allergic,“ I said.

“Nobody’s allergic to garlic or onions. Come on, they’re good for you.”

“I will probably die in my sleep if I eat thme. If I survive, I’ll be sick all week. I really am allergic.”

“Come on,” she said.

Another Red Flag. She is bossy and has a contrary attitude.

She walked fast, weaving through the crowd, always headed deeper into the center aisles. An important rule when grocery shopping at supermarkets is to avoid the center aisles. They are full of crap, and the good food is on the perimeter. I trailed behind, pushing the huge buggy, which was slowed by the dithering shoppers and buggies that had been parked in the middle of the aisle.

Next, she found the peanut butter, Nutela, and other spreads. She grabbed a jar of peanut butter.

“I’m allergic.”

“Come on,” she said with a distinct note of impatience in her voice.

She took off again, weaving through aisles that were so crowded that there was barely room to walk unless you turned sideways and sucked in your stomach. I was left trailing behind with the cart like a Special Needs adult.

Then she took me to the dairy milk.

“Lactose intolerant…”

The witch huffed and walked away.

Invasion of the Fat People

i’m writing this afternoon from a British-owned coffee shop, Shakespeare and Company. I like the view from here. I sit at counter facing the large windows. Just outside is a patio full of tables. A brick lane runs between the patio and a garden. Today it’s full of red and purple blooming plants, among them is mimosa, roses, hydrangea, and lavender. A breeze carries the scent of lavender into the coffee shop. Beyond the garden and across the river Seine is Notre Dame Cathedral. All around are tourists and gypsies who earn money off them. Many of the tourists are bright red from the sun.

I sat here and wrote for a while, and just now, I noticed something strange. Several customers have blue hair. No, that’s not what’s strange, but blue hair is unusual for France. The customers are louder and pushier than normal. Maybe that’s just because it’s so hot today. Most of the males are wearing shorts and T-shirts, and the females are wearing Rompers, shorts, or dresses. Such clothes reveal a lot of skin. OK, I just realised what is wrong. All around are a lot of thick thighs, cellulite, and large butts on both the males and females. I see swollen ankles as well. Most also sport big bellies, spare tires, and flabby arms. Their cheeks are chubby like fat-cheeked babies. They have multiple chins. I see a college aged male with a gunt (urban dictionary definition but it’s on a dude). He’s swilling beer - in a coffee shop. It’s a pale ale - on a hot day. (Beer drinkers might have found that pale ales are virtually on drinkable on hot days. The flavor does not mix well with the heat.) So are his fat friends. Many of them have the musty odor that only fat people emit.

I’m counting - three quarters of the customers are obese. Since coming to France, I have never before seen so many fat people congregated in one place. The French have a very low obesity rate, and in Paris, it is a one in twenty or so. That is the normal rate for humans in a developed country according to epidemiologists who study the obesity epidemic. I feel like I’m back in the US where two thirds of the population are obese. I was fat for a while too, so I have first hand knowledge.

It’s shocking. it’s been three years since I’ve been near so many fat people in one place. I experienced hunger and malnutrition when I was a child. There’s a famine in Africa and Yemen. These people stuff their faces. They eat until they are literally sick, but they still don’t stop. They continue to eat even though the strain of the excess causes their bodies to break down prematurely over the years. Throw out your conscience with your MacDonald’s hamburger wrapper.

Why here? What has drawn so many fat people to one place? I listen. Their voices are inappropriately loud for a small, typically quiet café. Now I realise that everyone here is speaking English. One male keeps doing a loud doofus chuckle every time his buddy says something. He responds with a comment reminiscent of Beavis and Butthead. Huh huh. I just heard a “Creaky Girl.” There are a lot of “likes.” Now, here’s a “no worries.” They all have American accents. I can’t place the accent to a state, but it sounds like a generic east coast accent. They are a tourist group of Americans. It’s hard to say which nationality of tourist I hate the most, but American is at the top.

Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton - hereditary power, self-entitlement, ignorance, greed, consumer culture, bad manners, pushiness, rudeness, police brutality, drug prohibition, and a national obesity epidemic all come to mind. I have no plans to return, not even to visit.

Red Flags for Drusilla

Until this time in my life, my experiences with dating women, all of which were in the US, had been terrible. Generally, the only girl who would talk to me was the lone drunk fat girl who was left at the bar at closing time. Even she begrudgingly acknowledged my existence. Aelys and I were not compatible in lots of ways, as the reader might have guessed. Beggars can’t be choosers, and I took what little I could get.

For those with an IQ around 160, which is four standard deviations above the mean in a normal distribution of IQ scores, the concept of being intellectually compatible changes. Roughly one in 30,000 of the population is intellectually compatible with me if “intellectual compatibility” is defined by having similar IQs. In terms of education, I’m an expert in some subjects, very knowledgeable in a few others, and know a little bit about some more subjects. I also have skills. I can perform a couple of athletic feats as well. Despite all that , I have plenty of limitations compared to others. I’m acutely aware that there are lots of things I don’t know anything about and can’t do. I don’t feel superior.

An ironic characteristic of ignorant people is that the more ignorant they are, the more sure of themselves they are. This has been seen in US politics a lot recently. It’s also true for expert professionals such as MDs and PhDs. Mastering one body of knowledge creates the illusion in their minds that they know a lot more about the world than they actually know. Being ignorant is okay as long as one is aware of it.

The extreme self-assuredness of the ignorant is seen a lot in relationships too. When one partner in a relationship has the sense that she can never be wrong, when the spouse for example insists she is always right no matter what, even when she claims 2+2 = 5.

I felt out of place when I lived in the USA, a country where people celebrate their own lack of education, where even the leaders mock science, where Trump is a role model, where research scientists are unemployed, and where dating is a humiliating and degrading experience.

In Paris, perhaps not so many women are impressed by money, fancy clothes, Rolex watches, or expensive cars, as their American counterparts. At parties, not so many were bothered that I didn’t dress like a YUPPIE. I had not yet learned that pushy ignorance is not just an American trait. The result was that I was finding that Paris is like the Disney Land of romance. Once you buy the ticket and walk through the gates, you find yourself in a marvelous land where fantastic creatures offer you spectacular new amusements. I would soon be overwhelmed by this change.

I had felt an oppressive loneliness since I got to the city, despite liking the city itself. There was a sense of urgency, of an unfulfilled relationship, I missed companionship, even that of Aelys but mostly of our cats.

I had started spending time with Drusilla, who was showing me around Paris. We went to interesting restaurants, to parties, to movies, to tea rooms, to museums, and for walks.

Only weeks before, I had been in California where it was sunny and warm. It was winter and it was cold here, but now that I was making friends with people like Drusila, an inner warmth and lightness of being made me not mind the weather and darkness of the season. Adapting to my new job became easier, and the time I spent with her decreased the stress of settling in a new country. I felt a sense of optimism with life. I was living the dream, and I was spending time with someone I liked and might grow to love.

Later that winter, she invited me skiing with her. The trip would be for two weeks. She had already made the arrangements. All I had to do was show up and pay half. Organising a ski vacation was still beyond my ability to navigate without stress in a new country, so I appreciated that she was doing this.

Having to maintain a daily drug hobby makes travelling uncomfortable. I was new to France, and had given up a habit of injecting heroin a few months prior to coming here. Without the burden of needing daily access to a supply, I was ready to spend a couple of weeks in the Alps with her, or so I thought.

The day to leave was here, and it would be two weeks of skiing at Alpe d’Huez. I was looking forward to the trip, spending time with my new friend, traveling in another country, skiing, and learning about the culture. I wanted to work on a project a little during those two weeks in my spare time.

Not only would it be the first time I would see the Alps, but the trip promised to be full of other new experiences as well.

I packed the night before. I was too excited to sleep. That morning, I met her on the outskirts of the city and got in her car. On the way out of the city, she had an idea.

“If you agree, we can cook our own food. It will be cheaper than eating at restaurants every day. The apartment (gite) has a kitchen,” she said.

“Sounds good,” I said, “but I’m not a good cook.”

“Why not?” she said.

Her voice surprised me. I thought I heard a note of anger and condescension. I had never perceived that in her before. That was the first red flag, and we had only been driving for five minutes.

“It’s complicated,” I said. “but I never had a chance to learn.”

There was more to it than that, but I would not tell her. My father said cooking was for sissies. The only thing men are allowed to cook is bacon. He was always frying bacon, which I had long realised was strange because he was a Jew. Perhaps out of guilt, he cooked the bacon strips until they shrivelled into hard little black curls that smoked and caught fire.

Because the kitchen did not have a ventilation fan, and the kitchen windows were nailed shut, the greasy smoke filled the whole house. It would send me into a fit of sneezing, no matter which room I was in. The house always stank like burnt pork. My father made me eat it sometimes, and when he did I usually got sick from it. Scorched pork is full of free radicals that have been linked to cancer. To this day, bacon, even when it is cooked correctly, and pork in general makes me sick.

Aelys, my last American girlfriend, was not a big girl, she was average in size. Despite that, whenever she walked across the room in the cabin we lived in, she caused a panic. The floor shook. Dishes rattled on their shelves. The cats got scared. A couple of times, I thought we were having an earthquake and crouched in a doorway. She was not pleased at my reaction; but, it wasn’t just me - our cats had run for cover too. (When I walked across the same floor, it did not shake; I am not graceful, and I am a lot heavier than she, so I could not understand why she clopped around like a cow.) Also, she had a habit of eating while standing up, and when she wasn’t eating, her jaws were often working on a piece of chewing gum. In a word, she was bovine.

Walmart is a chain of warehouse-sized stores in the USA that sell a vast range of discounted merchandise. Their merchandise is notorious for its poor quality. It tends to break or wear out quickly. From the shopper’s long term economic perspective, it is better to spend more money on one good thing that will last than to buy twenty of an inferior version of the same thing at Walmart. Like MacDonalds, Walmart has a reputation for putting Mom and Pop stores out of business, of abusing its employees, of bulldozing forests and historical buildings to erect more store locations, and of ruining scenic views. Many Walmart employees are paid starvation wages. Hilary Clinton sat on the board of directors of Walmart in the 1980s and 1990s. This was a formative period for the Walmart corporation, and she doubtless played a role in making it the monster it is today.

I had never been to a Walmart until I met my Aelys. As a child, they didn’t exist where I lived, and by the time they started popping up, I already knew about their reputation. I had not been to a MacDonalds since I was 12 until I met her. She loved Walmart and trash food. Her whole family used to make a day out of shopping at the one and eating at the other. She bullied me into going a couple of times. Each time I ended up with a migraine.

People watching at a Walmart is an unforgettable experience. The way they dressed, styled their hair, behaved in the store, and talked were all interesting, but one thing that stood out was the way people walked, when they did walk, that is. Most of the Walmart shoppers were obese. Half the people were in motorized wheel chairs. Outside of a hospital, I had never seen so many people riding medical equipment.

Of the ambulatory, a large proportion walked in a way that Aelys calls the “Walmart Lurch.” The Walmart walker leans forward, setting her weight on her elbows which are planted on the bar handle of a shopping cart. In this hunched position, she walks the store aisles in a slow, lurching motion. She is usually a behemoth of a woman, and she can look quite ridiculous walking bent over this way.

The experience of people watching at Walmart left me with a vague feeling of guilt, grief, and a migraine, not unlike when I was little when my grandparents used to drive us through the worst slums of Chicago to gawk at the extreme poverty and degradation of the ethnic neighborhoods. Thus, people watching in the USA has been an overwhelmingly depressing experience.

At the fashion show party, I spent some time people watching. Instead of leaving me shocked at how far the human race has fallen, the deportment of many of the women was impressive. After my experiences at Walmart, this was a pleasure to see. I could picture them as children being instructed on correct posture and gait, walking around with books stacked on their heads. They moved with grace. Also surprising, there weren’t many fat people, and the few who were obese were not ostracised for being different. The obesity epidemic had not yet spread across the English Channel to France.

Eventually, a woman in a low cut burgundy cocktail dress offered me a glass of champagne. She was striking. A ruby cross hung where the gleam of its rubies drew the eyes to her breasts. She had the fine and delicate features of a classic beauty, a model, high cheekbones, a sculpted nose with almost the Greek bridge. Her body was svelte. Her limbs were well-formed and had good muscle tone. She was elegant and her movements smooth and balanced. I imagined that she had trained in ballet as a child (she had). Indeed, most people here, and Paris in general, had a graceful comportment that I had rarely seen until I came to Europe. Her eyes had a gimlet quality that I found strange. I had recently seen a television show called Game of Thrones, and she reminded me of one of the characters, the Scarlet Priestess.

Drusilla and I talked for most of that evening. She had many of the same hobbies I had: skiing, running, and climbing. She worked for the fashion designer Dior on the Champs-Elysées in accounting, not modelling.

She looked older than me, maybe in her late 40s or early 50s, but she had taken care of herself. She was not decrepid like most Americans are by the time they reach that age. Her body wasn’t thick. Her face didn’t sag, and I suspected that other important bits didn’t sag either. There were no wrinkles other than faint crows feet around the eyes.

I was thrilled to have met someone I was attracted to and who seemed interested in me. Within a few days after the party, we were spending time together. I enjoyed her company. She was intelligent and interesting. She was also more than ten years older than me.

As with intellectual incompatibility when one has an IQ on the extreme end of the curve, incompatibility based on age differences loses its normal meaning when one has an unusual IQ. Age is sometimes just a number, as long as you maintain a healthy mind and body. I didn’t worry that she was older.

For a moment, I thought back to my Walmart days with Aelys. I thought about her mother. Mens sana in corpore sano is a Latin phrase that means ‘healthy mind in a healthy body.’ It has been understood as far back as Roman times that the state of the body is linked to the state of the mind, hence the expression. Aelys’ mother weighed 500 pounds and she seemed to like being that way. Her mother had also not read one book in her entire life, by her own admission. But those aren’t the things I hated about her. Her mother did not approve of my reading of scientific papers and literature in my spare time, and whenever she was around, she was always making comments about it. It is her personal choice to spend her spare time eating fat food and watching television, and as bad as those habits are, it’s none of my business (unless you consider the fact taht the obese cost taxpayers 60% more in medical care than those of healthy weight, and then you realise that your own hard earned money is being used to subsidize her bad choices). Likewise, what I did was not her business. I had never said a word about her weight or her lifestyle. I feared that it was only a matter of time before Aelys followed her mother’s lead.