Cold and Alone

Well, that was Wednesday.

I spent it doing what I do best, hang around on the Internet. I sat naked in my hot box of a room and keyed away on my keyboard until I grew tired. Time dragged and I was happy to have a final day before going in to see the maniacs at that Roach Motel. There wasn't much to say, or do other than to carefully burn down another day, melt it down like candle wax, and think about how things could have been in my life, would have been in my life. I could have been living a tired old existence in New Jersey, playing the rat-race game, chasing my tail round and round, up and down, OR I could be homeless, then a shelt, then in an SRO, which, my friend, is where dreams can come true.

Let me ask you then, what would you do if something that you dreamed about for so long, something completely denied to you for so long, something so far removed from you for so long, was finally granted and granted in full, a fullness that you never imagined. What would you do? It's something to think about, for all of us, for everyone. IT is the elixir of life, picked from the vine, crushed into fine oil and strained and distilled to make the fine elixir that is poured like warm syrup over your head.

That's what I've been set upon to contem- plate, as I get ready to deal with the minions at the Roach Motel. As I ride the Way, I move effortlessly, like gliding through gelatin. When the train stops and I am let off I walk two feet above the earth. I am fluid, I am invincible. Just a few days off has recharged me, invigorated me. I'm a new man. Nothing can seem to get me down today. I march on, picking up a pound of cherries before entering the Roach Motel and get to my room in the morning, the computer room. I find my 'instructor', Ms, Droop, as she babysits us in front of the computers. These people here, who should be busy searching for jobs, are doing exactly what I'm doing, searching for shopping deals, and reading emails. There is little else to do. I'll start on a job search in a little while, but for now, I'd rather just sit still and play.

I found a website called Demand Studios, that needs writers to fill a large quota of writing assign- ments that they pay for. They have an arcane way of calculating how much you get paid per word, but you get paid. You get paid on the books, through paypal and I could use the income. That would be a good thing if it worked. I'll have to take the time to cultivate the site, and build on it. I'm behind on articles from my online magazine as is. I wrote a three part piece in one week, so maybe that'll work for me. I'll have a three week lead before my next article. It also gives me time to develop Demand Studios.

I have time to do all of these things, because I'm in the Roach Motel Vocational Program! The catch bin for the refuse of society. A limbo for people with no jobs and no skills. A place, much like a jail, where we can sit around and think, and be kept off the streets, doing our own thing. Which would no doubt be subverting the government, or cracking the fucking nuclear codes. Whatever, we must be stopped.

I leave on another half day, simply because I have an appoint- ment with my psycho- logist. She keeps me waiting as usual, and I see why. She has another client immediately before me, and if she kept him waiting, I'll be waiting. We talk about my July 4th weekend and I tell her about the great time that I had being free of the Roach Motel for five days. For some reason, today, I really didn't feel like talking so much. There were a lot of pregnant pauses that seemed to hang in the air. However, we did get a lot accomplished in my book.

I made it back home and got online. I realize that being online is my home. I could never exist in this room without the Internet. That is why I am so regular in making my cable payments, because to be here alone would be unbearable. I don't know how people dealt with it before. Just being alone in a city of so many millions of people. Getting up alone, going to work alone, eating breakfast, lunch and dinner alone, crawling into a bed alone, sleeping alone. Alone for every waking moment until even being alone is like having alone as a personage. Alone becomes your lover, your friend, your ally.

You get used to the bitter cold of loneliness, just like you get used to the bitter cold of the streets.

And you appreciate it when there is a break in the chill.

Hobobob