Yeah, I'm Kind of Weird

Last night, before crawling into bed, I turned on my iTunes (I like to have music playing while I sleep). First thing that came on was "Jump Around" by House of Pain.

"Perfect," I thought.

What Happens When You Are Not Stimulated

One day, a girl came to the register with a pregnancy test. I rang her up and she chose to pay with a credit card. She inserted it into the card reader and left it there. I told her, "You need to pull it out."

To myself, I thought, "Like he should have."

Undetermined

I'm trying to make myself
self-evident with you
but I'm not quite sure
what we're about to go through
It is not knowledge I need
but hope
if I am to grow from this seed
I feel like I can't win
but don't want to just watch
wondering what could have been.

El Mago

I have a long-standing fascination with illusions. There's just something alluring about seeing something that isn't really there, or something that distorts reality. I'm not talking about Magic Eyes; those things are stupid. But classic optical illusions? I'm all over it. I'll stare at them for an hour. One of my favorite characters I played in Dungeons & Dragons was a wizard that specialized in illusions. Illusions are powerful; they can change reality itself.

These days, I wonder how much of my life is an illusion and how much of it I've created. Pursuant to the same point, how much of it do I believe? I'm coming to think that quite often I fool myself into believing things are a lot better than they really are. If reality isn't up to snuff, I'll change it to suit my needs. It's fun, but behind the veil, the glamer doesn't exist and the world doesn't react to it. In time, the illusion fails and I'm left seeing a bleaker picture than I thought possible. One that is all too real.

How much of it do I create myself? And if I do, how do I stop it? Do I want to stop it? Is reality that bad, or am I imagining what is false to justify a different kind of fiction? Does this even make sense anymore?

I look around and see everyone else with their roots in strong truth, no need to invent a grinning mask. At the same time, what is my truth? Life itself seems to throw various illusions my way; what I thought was one thing turned out to be something else entirely. Perhaps reality and I have an adversarial relationship. But I don't feel like anyone else has this problem, so who do I talk to about this? All too often, I say, "This would only happen to me." And it seems that too many people agree. Maybe it's all a lie. Maybe I don't know what to believe anymore.

But I have been driving around with the windows down, and I kept one rolled down even though I'm not driving it. It's getting warmer, and that's no illusion.

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Now playing: Messiah - You're Going Insane
via FoxyTunes

I Feel Helpless

There is a guy who comes into CVS more days than not and buys multiple 40-ounce bottles of King Cobra. I'm pretty sure he's homeless.

Today, he bought a can of soup and he wanted to pay for it with his food stamps. He tried to use the card machine, but was too... something (drunk?) to understand my instructions. I had to do it for him. He couldn't read the screen, saying his glasses are broken. Then I saw him using the touch screen, and his fingernails were so brittle one literally crusted off on the screen as he was using it.

I could smell the alcohol on him from a distance. He shows multiple signs of his liver being shot, almost assuredly because of his alcoholism. I wonder how much longer before his organs start to shut down on him. I don't think it's long.

What, exactly, can I do about this?