Miles away from Understanding

"With unemployed New Yorkers topping 400,000 for the first time in at least 25 years and their average time out of work hitting seven months, extreme unemployment won't soon disappear. And it's a growing trend nationwide. An estimated 845,000 Americans have been jobless and looking for work for more than 18 months - more than double the number a year ago, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics."

From today's New York Daily News. Isn't this great. Do you think I really want to be in the Vocational Program at WECARE, as if they're going to find me a job. So I can spend month after month sitting in their stupid classes, taking their never ending bullshit. Watching grass grow in concrete. I can't stand that shit. I really can't stand that shit, and that's what they at WECARE's Wellness Program is slanting me to. Back to the Vocational Program. Punishment for not being able to find a job.

This entire program has outlived it's usefulness, especially in this recession. I feel like writing an editorial to the New York Times exposing these motherfuckers and their useless game. Still, it will not do shit, I believe. I don't know, its just that when I read the dismal news about the city and the job situation, I almost feel like giving up. I don't know if I'm going to continue with the Vocational Program when they stick me back in. I just might take them to fair hearing again and demand to go back to the Wellness Program. Still that will be short lived when they grow tired of me doing that every three months. But I know the deal now. If I reply faster than ten days, I don't have to go in at all. It pays to go all through the system, up and down the long ways, so that you can navigate the entire waters. Nothing catches you by surprise any longer.

Awww fuck it. I sit in my little room at 1:00am typing away on everything and anything. I've bled my brain dry. I've blogged, wrote articles, edited my Novel, wrote poetry, Tankas, Haiku and emails. There's nothing else to write. I'm mind weary. I'm too tired to go on. I crawl into bed, and remember my conversation with my mother earlier. She wants to see me thinner the next time I come down to see them. Thinner. Wow. I think to myself. I pull off thirty stomach crunches until my stomach starts to burn. I'm exhausted and pass out, sleeping fitfully for seven hours, waking up at 11:30am.

I get up and get behind the computer again, I got another email from the National Insurance Life company. They liked my resume and have a sales position for me. A sales position based on commission. I suck with sale for commission. I used to be a great salesman when I worked my own company, but I don't think I can call upon these same skills to selling life insurance to old people, under the rules of an organization and under the thumb of a head salesman breathing over my shoulder. I delete the second email from them. I'm not interested.

It sky is overcast, darkening my already dark windows. I hear rain falling against the air conditioner's ass outside. I turn on the only light that I can stand in my room, the microwave light, and it goes out. Son of a bitch. Now I'm really in the dark, and tonight, I"ll be double so. Fuck. I dress and head downstairs to the office and find one of the office workers and ask for a work order form to fill out to fix my problem. The worker gets up and looks around, and around, and around for the forms, and finally finds one. As he fills it out, I leave to return to my room. I walk up the sixteen flights of stairs and I'm completely surprised as to how easy it was to do. I made it to the eighth floor with no problem, barely breathing hard, my legs tight but not actually burning. Wow.

I slip home. That's my plan, not to work out, but to work out whenever the time is appro- priate. Increase the exercise in the day, not exercise all day. I think that I can do. I'm already into it. I might be able to keep it up. And I'm not going to be skipping meals which is another way to pack on the pounds if you can believe it. Not eating causes the body to behave more efficiently when it comes to burning calories, slowing down the metabolism even more.

Lastly, and this may be received with mixed emotions, I've stopped taking my ABILIFY and WELL- BUTRIN, just to see what would happen. They say that many crazy people do this, and then go nuts without even knowing it. But these two are known weight gainers, and they are extremely obvious if something goes wrong. One is an antipsychotic, the other an antidepressant. Together I should be able to see if I need them anymore. If I start seeing people or getting amazingly depressed I'll know that there is a need. Dr. A. believes that I'm being over medicated by the Doctors at ICD and I'm beginning to think so too. It's time that I take ahold of my life now that I've stopped drinking. I think much of my mental imbalance came from unchecked alcoholism. My pink elephants were my psychotic episodes, my depression was based on lowered levels of alcohol in my bloodstream.

Without alcohol in my system for a long as it's been, I think it's time to lose the crutches in dealing with life and my emotions. We'll see. Without these weight gainers, maybe I will be able to melt the pounds that have been impossible to assail before. I hope.

I'm working on my blog, typing away and then before I know it, something is on my forehead. Small, evenly spaced things that are pressing against my skull like hard fingertips. I blink. It's my keyboard. My head had dipped downwards. I was falling asleep. I sat up and started typing until it happened again. This time my forehead and face went into the keyboard before I had awakened. What the fuck? Wasn't it too late in the day for a Second Morning? I crawl into bed, and before I know it, I am out like a blown candle.

Hobobob