NOTES FROM AN OCCUPATION

Tuesday, May 6, 2025

Yesterday was a day of hell.

I realize now that keeping one eye open toward the grim reality of tomorrow is not good for me, at least not as a default. I need to stop staring into the loaded toilet of America's future. There is nothing to be gained from the daily examination of democratic decay.

It's like that new Cronenberg film "The Shrouds" where people can watch a video feed of their loved one's bodies as they molder in their graves. No thank you. Ignorance is bliss.

I thought it would help to study revolutions and see how people in the past dealt with situations like the one we find ourselves in, but it did nothing but make my blood boil with impotent rage.

This watching and waiting for the cue to pick up a pitchfork and light a torch is a kind of torment. I can't keep sifting through the bones of America hoping the cult has a mass awakening or the rebels give the call to action. It's making me sick.

And yesterday I was tested at every turn.

My gym, the place I go to reset my mind and body was invaded once again by that loser with the heavy cologne. Walking in the front door felt like being punched in the face by a fist full of burning incense. But I needed to work out so I moved as far away from him as I could and kept going.

Then, this same creep decided to go over to the stereo and crank the hiphop nightmare music to such an agonizing pitch that even with my high grade ear plugs in, my skull felt like it was being squeezed in a jackhammering vice. I put my head in my hands and started to cry.

Luckily the coach came over and asked me what the problem was. Sadly, I lost my cool and shrieked "The music is too fucking LOUD!" And everyone in the room looked at me like I was that creepy old guy who just wants to ruin everyone's fun.

But the shitstorm was just getting started:

First there was a nightmarish trip to the laundromat where my hope for humanity was wrung out and shoved down a garbage disposal.

And then the coup de grâce: an AA friend asked me to take over his "cake commitment" at the meeting last night. Of course, I said yes immediately and organized the rest of my day so I could swing by Vons and pick up a cake.

The details of that particular horror show are too tedious to relate, but it ended up with me spending $25 bucks for a cake which turned out to be a week old display model that disintegrated as I tried to cut it into slices for the meeting.

At one point I had slimy brown frosting covering both my hands like a pair of gloves and the table in front of me was a landscape of desiccated crumbs.

So I did what any (in)sane person would do. I walked to the bathroom, washed my hands and fled the meeting. I couldn't bear to witness anyone actually trying to enjoy the dried shitcake I'd spent $25 for.

Today I have a brutally bruised finger from the seething bicep curls I yanked my way through at the gym, a painful throbbing in my chest that could either be the costochondritis (inflammation of the cartilage connecting the ribs to the breastbone) or the first stirrings of a heart attack.

Either way, I am checking out of "the occupation" hotel. My head is going deep into the sand. I am putting my fingers in my ears and singing "la la la la la la la."

(p.s. Maybe I'll feel different tomorrow. Today it can all burn to the ground)