so very alone…

When I moved into “The Cottage,” I did so with no small amount of gratitude and humility. And also a lot of shame.

But here’s a little formula for you:

(X + Y) * (216 * M) = -X

Where:

X = A Certain Amount of Gratitude
Y = Persistent Discomfort
M = 1 Hour

In short, even if you’re grateful for a roof over your head, if you’re uncomfortable for nine days under that roof, you start to get pissed off.

The bed sucks. Really, “bed” isn’t the right word. It’s a twin-size futon, and it’s old. I can feel the wood slats right through it. The only non-kitchen chair is a papasan with unraveling wicker. And the whole place smells like smoke

It’s like The Cottage was furnished by taking advantage of a Pier 51 fire sale, back in 1992.

Worst of all, though, was the shower. It was a miserable, dribbly thing.

But I have taken charge and have rectified that situation. I did this easily, and inexpensively, and I’m quite proud of myself for how I did it. I just did a Google search on “high pressure showerhead” which led me to…get this…highpressureshowerheads.com. For around $50 I got a replacement showerhead (I got the “Supreme”), and the directions on how to remove the flow restrictor thing. (I think they have to leave the flow restrictors in to stay legal.) It also comes with a roll of teflon tape, which was a nice and unexpected surprise.

My bed and chair still suck hard, but my shower is now literally the very best part of my day. I always shower around 11am, after everyone else has showered and left for the day…and the water heater has had plenty of time to refill (The Cottage doesn’t have its own water heater).

This gives me 18 minutes of bliss: about five minutes to clean up, and then thirteen minutes to just let the water beat down on my neck and back. Then the water turns cold.

Occasionally I masturbate during that thirteen minutes, but that’s private.

This has been, bar none, the best $50 I have ever spent in my life.

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1. Get a job

I admit that it wasn’t such a good idea to try to hold down two jobs at the same time. I ended up losing both of them within a week of each other.

2. Find a stable relationship

Enough said — for now.

3. Live in my own place

If things go right for me, I will never play Uno on New Year’s Eve with people who argue about baptisms for the dead. Even if I don’t get a job in this awful economy, maybe I can find a better storage unit — one that I can sleep in when it gets warmer.

4. Control my addictions

Believe it or not, I’ve actually made good headway in this department. I’m off my addiction to pharmaceuticals. It’s a good sign that I was able to get off Paxil. My hands shook for a week.

I still have a couple of other habits that I need to improve upon, but I want to keep this positive.

5. Take up oil painting

It’s possible that I have a brilliant artist lurking inside me.

6. Stop being so negative

Not that any of you care.

Isolation score: 6.5

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Something I said in a recent post isn’t exactly true. I claimed that I didn’t feel at home even in my own condo. That’s misleading. I don’t own that condo anymore. The bank owns it. Or maybe the bank sold it. I doubt it, because I trashed the place thoroughly before I had to leave.

I am now living in an apartment behind Jane’s parents’ house. It’s basically a studio loft above a detached garage, but Jane’s family calls it "The Cottage."

Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate living in The Cottage. Jane’s family is much kinder to me than my own family. All my brother had to offer was advice. Get another job and stop gambling.

All my sister had to offer was sympathy. The mean kind.

The biggest problem with my situation is that Jane’s family is very religious. They expect me to be religious, too. It’s part of the deal. I have to say prayers at meal time. I have to give the appearance of leading a Christian life. Bible study every Wednesday evening.

No television.

They don’t have a sense of humor about this stuff, either. Jane’s father — let’s call him Gerald — loves to give lectures. When I started one prayer with "Our kind and gracious Jupiter," Gerald gravely asked me to speak with him in the next room. In short, Jesus was not pleased with me. Jesus does not like me to worship other Gods.

And no one living under Gerald’s roof would worship other Gods. Did I understand that? Yes. Yes, I did.

Isolation score: 7

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I got punched in the stomach so hard I thought I was never going to breathe again. It may not be safe enough yet to give the context, but let’s just say I was in the basement of someone else’s house and I got blind-sided by someone who clearly doesn’t appreciate me.

I crumpled on the floor unable to get any air in or out of my lungs. The idiot boy was saying something to me, but I wasn’t paying attention. I wouldn’t have cared even if he had hit me again. I just wanted to breathe.

I tried to throw up. Some part of me thought that might help matters. No luck.

Finally, I got my wind back. What sweet relief! Having air in the lungs is truly underrated.

I left without telling anyone, and I haven’t been back since.

Isolation score: 5

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Christmas is over. If I can make it past New Year’s Day, I should be able to settle into a comfortable post-holiday numbness.

On a totally unrelated note, I had no idea that loneliness has no relation to having people in your life. I used to think there is no place like home, and now I’m realizing that home is no place. I don’t feel comfortable anywhere, even in my own condo.

When I was hanging out in the dark family room of a nearby house, I couldn’t resist the temptation to turn on the Christmas tree lights of the vacationing family, even though the tree was in an exposed corner next to two windows. In the dim lighting, I could see pictures of the family smiling. There was a mother, a father, a couple of girls who were likely in college, and a couple of young teenage twin boys smiling big enough to show their whole set of braces. They looked happy.

But are they?

I’m not so sure. I didn’t want to turn on a bunch of lights, but even if I risked turning on lights, I still don’t think I could have known. For all I know, one of the people in that smiling family could be the loneliest person on the planet.

I find that thought oddly comforting.

Isolation score: 5

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It’s been a week now, and Jane hasn’t said anything about that last post. Which means, I think, that she didn’t see it. Which means that she didn’t notice that I removed this blog from her reader. And I’m pretty sure she doesn’t check the site — at least, she never does from home. Of that I am certain.

Which means I can start writing again without worrying that she’s going to read this.

You know what, though? I only half care if she sees this anyways. Could it be a lot worse to be dumped by her than it is to live a lie?

Holy shit. I can’t believe I just wrote “live a lie.”

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I hate Christmas, I hate Jane, and I hate my sister. Mostly, though, I hate myself.

Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while. There’s a story behind it, and depending on circumstances maybe I’ll tell that story.

I know this comes off as cloak-and-dagger and cornball, but I have my reasons. I’ll explain soon if I can.

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There are those who have speculated that perhaps Jane is my sexual partner. It’s very important to me to make it perfectly clear that Jane and I are not having sex.

Also, I am not having sex with a man. Nor an animal. Nor an inanimate object.

Let’s just say that I am having sex on a frequent basis, and that it is with a woman of consenting age.

Here are some additional details. She is caucasian. She is shorter than I am. She shaves her pubic area. And she has larger than average breasts, one of which is approximately 7% smaller than the other.

But even the smaller one is larger than average.

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I miss Celexa. I know that it was augmenting my self-destructive inclinations, but at least I felt like I was going somewhere. Where? I didn’t know. But "somewhere," even an unknown somewhere, feels more purposeful than just idling the engine.

What the hell am I even talking about? That paragraph didn’t make any sense at all. I’m going to leave it there, though, because it illustrates my point.

No, it doesn’t illustrate a point. For a minute I thought it illustrated my point, but I look back now and can see that so far, I’m three paragraphs into a post that starts nowhere, doesn’t know where it wants to go, and doesn’t realize when it’s gotten there. I’m like a blind dog: I’d chase my tail, but I don’t even know where that is.

I think maybe I should just stick to just telling a simple story right now. I think I can hold a story together, as long as I just keep the chronology correct.

Mary and I had lunch yesterday, for the first time in about three weeks. I’ve been canceling the lunches, saying I have a lot of work to do, but yesterday Mary said she needed to talk.

So we went to a Thai place. I got chicken mussaman curry (their "one-star" version, which means it’s supposed to be mild, but it still makes my forehead sweat) with sticky rice.

She got something else. I can’t even remember what exactly it was, except the English translation for it was ridiculous. Something like, "Eggplant Delight." But I don’t think it’s important what she ate, to tell the truth.

Anyway, we spent the first five minutes talking about how I’m different (again) somehow. Like I’m less angry, but also like I’m not happy.

"Find me one happy person in the world. One." That’s what I should have said, but it didn’t occur to me until just now. Besides, what good would it have done? It’s not like Mary was trying to prove to me that there are a lot of happy people in the world.

Ha. Far from it.

Mary told me that one of the Sales guys in our company, let’s call him Joe, was making her life miserable. He’s one of the worst kind of people, she said: someone who’s good at detecting gay people, and is also homophobic.

No, homophobic isn’t the right word. Homophobics are the ones who are afraid of homos. Joe isn’t afraid of homos, he just hates them. Homo-hating. I’m sure there’s a word for it, but I can’t remember what it is. I should look it up. Later, maybe.

Anyway, Joe constantly teases Mary with references to gayness and hypocrisy and whether when the little Dutch boy who put his finger in the dike (dyke, get it? Ha ha) it (she) had wished for a little Dutch girl instead.

As Mary’s face got redder and redder, I had the most peculiar sensation: the awareness that I ought to feel something, but didn’t. So I faked it. I’ve been faking a lot of things lately.

I don’t think Mary expected me to do anything about Joe. She knows what a fantastic brawler I am (ha), and she knows that I’m not going to confront Joe, so really I think she just wanted to vent a little bit.

But here’s what Mary doesn’t know. Or maybe she does know and just didn’t let on, in which case she’s more devious than I would have suspected. Shit, where was I? Oh yeah: What Mary doesn’t (or does) know is that I actually have both motive, means, and opportunity to more than get back at him for what Mary’s done.

Here’s why. Devin (my boss) has emailed me about three times in the past two weeks, wondering whether there’s anybody abusing Internet access at the company. I think he’s looking for a reason to fire someone, because money’s tight. It’s easier to fire someone who deserves it.

Joe, like just about everyone in the company, surfs the web just about nonstop, looking at stuff that has nothing to do with what we sell. In Joe’s case, it’s all about politics. He goes to all the conservative sites, then to the liberal sites to troll them.

To tell the truth, though, Joe’s web surfing patterns are a lot less nasty than Mary’s. So he deserves to be fired, but she deserves it more.

But Mary’s my "friend," I guess. And I can make my life easier, Mary’s life easier, and Devin’s life easier if I out Joe.

Joe’s life, of course, will get harder. But he’s in sales, he’ll find another job soon. Maybe selling cars or real estate or something.

I’ve thought about this as much as I can for right now. I’ll think about it more over the weekend. I already know, though. Joe is toast.

I’m going home. now. I hope my sexual partner will let me just watch TV tonight in peace.

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Up until a few months ago, when I was sitting home alone in my condo on any random evening, I would wonder how many people in my neighborhood – or city, or county, or state – were having sex at that moment. The thought of all the happy people out their sharing their love with each other filled me with envy and remorse.

I don’t feel that way anymore. Sex is a drag.

At least it has been recently. For one thing, there’s no emotional bond. Based on previous encounters with Bertha, it seems like I should be feeling heightened affection for my partner — maybe even disproportionate affection. Instead, I feel empty, like I’m passing the time in a waiting room, only I don’t have an appointment.

An even greater problem is the physical act itself. It’s just not working. When I try to build up to orgasm, I remain flatlined. I grunt and thrust and push, faster and faster, and all of that effort just makes me sweat harder. My partner tries to say sexy things to help me out, but it all sounds ridiculously unerotic. “Yeah, baby, more, more.”

I just want to tell her to shut up and leave me alone.

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