4/2/09
If you, gentle reader, thought I was strange for not checking my voicemail on a regular basis then you're going to be astounded to learn that I don't check my email on a regular basis.

Of course I'm telling a half-truth. I've gotten out of the habit of checking my personal email and mostly rely upon the email address provided on the front page of heptapod.org. Imagine my surprise when I checked one of my private personal email accounts and discovered 213 new messages, the number is relevant, and one of them was a request from somebody to follow me on Twitter. My Twitter account doesn't know about this address. Clearly it's some spammer.

Still I find myself curious but for the sake of my own sanity and remnants of privacy (hey toil, did emma give you my powerword: irl name for the low low price of an oreilly css book? have fun sucking jordan's cock!) I refuse to pursue that line of inquiry.

On occasion I enjoy going to the Manitou Pancake and Steakhouse for breakfast. Usually on Sundays and hopefully with company since it's a place where I don't feel entirely comfortable eating by myself.

Why? I dunno, it's irrational of me. Such a declaration is a motif for this little piece of writing.

One thing that I noticed was one of those quarterboards for some fatal childhood disease. In the center is a photograph of a poor kid with pale skin, raw red eyes and no hair staring defiantly into the camera despite the encroaching and inevitable fate. There are always a handful of quarters and in my life I've never seen anyone put quarters into these displays.

When I recently went out for breakfast there, I believe it was the time I went with Jaybird, I noticed that the photograph had been switched out.

Why?

Did the kid finally succumb to the ravages of disease? People didn't give enough quarters in time to save them? Perhaps it's simply something far less grim and they decided to give another soul some face time. On the gripping hand, and not being a Motie I do not have a gripping hand, perhaps the kid really did receive a new lease on life. Fortune forfend that someone say a new mortgage on life since surely it would've been foreclosed upon by this time.

It's one of the little things which gives me pause. My crazy half starts raving that I should shut up and give a fucking quarter or actually do something rather than sit around in a dark basement feeling sorry for myself when folks have it aleph null times worse than me. At this point it simply becomes a mental treadmill and the only one who is right is the one who perseveres because they have more wind in their lungs than their opponent. Illogical and irrational thoughts constantly trouble me whether or not they deal with sad, pale, bald kids or black cats who are unstuck in time.

Just talking out of my ass, what else is new, I think I may have discerned a motivation for the madness of King spivak. Not knowing that things can change, not having an exit strategy and basically feeling trapped simply because I'm too caught up in the grim reality of right now rather than looking forward to a brighter future. At least I'm not looking backwards, after all nostalgia is the most noxious kind of poison, but most times I apply blinders and never see there's a way out.

Wednesday was awful, I went through a lot of anxiety which needlessly drained me and left me open to more pernicious and insidious enemies which have been successfully kept at bay for nearly a year. As I write this (4/1/09 @ 8:59 p.m. MDT) my psyche is raw and I'm still feeling the aftershocks of anxiety rather than feeling a measure of relief at the day being done.

With a deep breath and a moment of silence I tell myself that tomorrow will be a better day. Hopefully I am right and will make it happen rather than leaving things up to chance.