Breakfast
This morning, the sides of the toilet, the wall and floor around the toilet, and my pyjama bottoms were all smeared in shit. My flat reeked. I felt OK. I won't post any pictures for this diary entry.
After cleaning the bathroom, I took a shower and got dressed. Breakfast was difficult. In the refrigerator is a half-loaf of stale bread, a limp and moldy green cabbage, 2 cans of Indian Tonic water, and some batteries. On the counter is a nearly full bottle of wine and a carton of eggs.
I haven't bought groceries for a week and food is running low. That's not as bad as it sounds. There are more than 100 restaurants and food stands on my street within 100 meters of my flat. This is some of the best food in the world, so that's where I usually eat. It's expensive but I'm eating better than I ever have in my life, as long as I don't try to cook my own food.
I used the edge of the counter as a wedge and broke the French bread in half. It was like a piece of wood. French bread is called a 'baguette' here, and it is the long, skinny un-sliced kind that some American supermarkets sell in their bakery section. When it is eaten still warm from the bakery, it's soft and delicious. There are 3 bakeries across the street, and it was delicious the day I bought it at one of them 3 months ago. I nuked one half for a moment in the microwave. I stood over it and watched it because I accidentally set some bread on fire microwaving it the other day. Even after heating, it was still so hard that it hurt my teeth and cut my mouth when I chewed it. Next I cracked open a raw egg and sucked it out of its shell. (I burned a hole in my last pan last month after forgetting about the water I was trying to boil. My eggs are free range family farm eggs delivered by a retired couple.) I wiped the egg drippings off my face and out of my beard with a towel that hangs from a cupboard handle.
I made a cup of Earl Grey tea and went over in my head my situation and what happened last night.
I see monsters. I'm losing my mind, and I can feel it going. Maybe having a girlfriend will ground me, help me keep my head together. Maybe I should see Céline from one of the Paris Fashion Week parties. Or maybe I should see that grad student, Pinar, who offered to practice French with me if I go up to her lab. But there's no chemistry with either of them so it doesn't matter.
I have barely slept in 2 weeks. First I was pushing myself to finish writing an article before the submission deadline, but after the second Paris Fashion Week party I went to, it was the thought of a strange woman that was doing this to me. She never told me her name, but in a dream it was Ariadne so I call her Ariadne.
I drank 3 bottles of neomorphine cough syrup at 8 pm last night hoping that it would help me sleep. Two hours after quaffing the medicine, I felt the fantastic opiate buzz. It didn't bother me that I had the worst case of opiate itch of my life. Side effects didn't stop there. Soon after that, I had sharp stomach cramps and waves of nausea. These must be the effects of one of those 'inactive' ingredients listed on the bottle. I gave up on trying to read because that made things worse.
I lay down on my pallet and wrapped myself in my rat's nest of blankets. The room was spinning. I turned off the light and tried to relax. Soon, I felt like something had built up deep inside my body and was ready to explode out of at least one end, maybe both. I jumped up and hurried to the toilet. A spray of watery diarrhea and gas exploded dangerously far from the toilet bowel.
This lasted all night. Get up, assplode, rinse off in the shower, go back to bed, and repeat that sequence about 10 times. Of course, I didn't sleep, but cocooned myself in my blankets listening to the voices in my head with vague interest. They were constant. The effect was like being in a crowd. You can hear that 100s of people are talking all around you, and if you listen to the loudest ones and those nearest you, you can hear their voices distinctly. They were all very ordinary. What I heard and could follow was mostly in French or English. Other languages I thought I recognized were Spanish, Chinese, and something Middle Eastern. Sometimes there were conversations about distinct things. Usually I could only hear one person in the conversation as though they were on a phone or just talking loudly to themselves the way some schizophrenics do. Once I distinctly remember a male and female voice arguing back and forth to one another. They were having a lovers' fight.
At some point, I found myself in sleep paralysis. This time, I decided I would check out the neighbors in my building. I went through the top floor. There are 2 other apartments on the top floor besides mine. Sleeping people. I worked my way down a few floors and heard a woman singing. It was very strange, eerie and very beautiful. Her song had a haunting melody that I would have put onto paper and become a composer of music if I knew how to write music. At the same time, the sounds had become like fractals. They seemed to grow and expand as complex components of subtle musical textures. It was unlike anything I have ever heard in waking life. I don't remember but I think I might have cried as I listened. I never saw the singer. I'm curious to know who it is.
This morning, the sides of the toilet, the wall and floor around the toilet, and my pyjama bottoms were all smeared in shit. My flat reeked. I felt OK. I won't post any pictures for this diary entry.
After cleaning the bathroom, I took a shower and got dressed. Breakfast was difficult. In the refrigerator is a half-loaf of stale bread, a limp and moldy green cabbage, 2 cans of Indian Tonic water, and some batteries. On the counter is a nearly full bottle of wine and a carton of eggs.
I haven't bought groceries for a week and food is running low. That's not as bad as it sounds. There are more than 100 restaurants and food stands on my street within 100 meters of my flat. This is some of the best food in the world, so that's where I usually eat. It's expensive but I'm eating better than I ever have in my life, as long as I don't try to cook my own food.
I used the edge of the counter as a wedge and broke the French bread in half. It was like a piece of wood. French bread is called a 'baguette' here, and it is the long, skinny un-sliced kind that some American supermarkets sell in their bakery section. When it is eaten still warm from the bakery, it's soft and delicious. There are 3 bakeries across the street, and it was delicious the day I bought it at one of them 3 months ago. I nuked one half for a moment in the microwave. I stood over it and watched it because I accidentally set some bread on fire microwaving it the other day. Even after heating, it was still so hard that it hurt my teeth and cut my mouth when I chewed it. Next I cracked open a raw egg and sucked it out of its shell. (I burned a hole in my last pan last month after forgetting about the water I was trying to boil. My eggs are free range family farm eggs delivered by a retired couple.) I wiped the egg drippings off my face and out of my beard with a towel that hangs from a cupboard handle.
I made a cup of Earl Grey tea and went over in my head my situation and what happened last night.
I see monsters. I'm losing my mind, and I can feel it going. Maybe having a girlfriend will ground me, help me keep my head together. Maybe I should see Céline from one of the Paris Fashion Week parties. Or maybe I should see that grad student, Pinar, who offered to practice French with me if I go up to her lab. But there's no chemistry with either of them so it doesn't matter.
I have barely slept in 2 weeks. First I was pushing myself to finish writing an article before the submission deadline, but after the second Paris Fashion Week party I went to, it was the thought of a strange woman that was doing this to me. She never told me her name, but in a dream it was Ariadne so I call her Ariadne.
I drank 3 bottles of neomorphine cough syrup at 8 pm last night hoping that it would help me sleep. Two hours after quaffing the medicine, I felt the fantastic opiate buzz. It didn't bother me that I had the worst case of opiate itch of my life. Side effects didn't stop there. Soon after that, I had sharp stomach cramps and waves of nausea. These must be the effects of one of those 'inactive' ingredients listed on the bottle. I gave up on trying to read because that made things worse.
I lay down on my pallet and wrapped myself in my rat's nest of blankets. The room was spinning. I turned off the light and tried to relax. Soon, I felt like something had built up deep inside my body and was ready to explode out of at least one end, maybe both. I jumped up and hurried to the toilet. A spray of watery diarrhea and gas exploded dangerously far from the toilet bowel.
This lasted all night. Get up, assplode, rinse off in the shower, go back to bed, and repeat that sequence about 10 times. Of course, I didn't sleep, but cocooned myself in my blankets listening to the voices in my head with vague interest. They were constant. The effect was like being in a crowd. You can hear that 100s of people are talking all around you, and if you listen to the loudest ones and those nearest you, you can hear their voices distinctly. They were all very ordinary. What I heard and could follow was mostly in French or English. Other languages I thought I recognized were Spanish, Chinese, and something Middle Eastern. Sometimes there were conversations about distinct things. Usually I could only hear one person in the conversation as though they were on a phone or just talking loudly to themselves the way some schizophrenics do. Once I distinctly remember a male and female voice arguing back and forth to one another. They were having a lovers' fight.
At some point, I found myself in sleep paralysis. This time, I decided I would check out the neighbors in my building. I went through the top floor. There are 2 other apartments on the top floor besides mine. Sleeping people. I worked my way down a few floors and heard a woman singing. It was very strange, eerie and very beautiful. Her song had a haunting melody that I would have put onto paper and become a composer of music if I knew how to write music. At the same time, the sounds had become like fractals. They seemed to grow and expand as complex components of subtle musical textures. It was unlike anything I have ever heard in waking life. I don't remember but I think I might have cried as I listened. I never saw the singer. I'm curious to know who it is.
