nonsequitory whines

Last night I saw a tail. It was long. Longer than a mouse's, shorter than a cat's. First tail in weeks.

Rats are not big mice. They are more like hyena.

If birflu hits as hard as the PR/Fundraising arm of the WHO has been saying it will, the discourse on chickens is going to change. No longer will chickens merely be comical white meat delivery systems. When millions die as H5N1KMULTRA feeds on tamilflu, farms will be abandoned and chickens will become feral. If America can't send its multi gabillion dollar military into New Orleans to save her sisters and brothers then we have little hope that they can quarantine/kill their, let alone all, the occidental chickens in time to stave off a complete chicken discourse rethink. Maybe I am overestimating White America's love for the people they see as soldiers, performers, athletes, and criminals.

I am hungry and bitter and old and bland. I am hungry all the time. When I was in my teens my sister talked about the "starving student look". She loved tall skinny boys in soft sweaters. Since she was my totally cool older sister I thought the starving student look looked good too. I was tall and skinny and loved argyle anyway.

My sister is dead now. It was years ago that she joined the earth. Between 36 and 38 ovarian cancer killed her and the child growing inside her. She had been trying to get pregnant for years. Cancer is a motherfucker.

But enough about cancer. If you don’t have cancer anecdotes of your own yet, you will. Unless you live in the mountains on a diet of potatoes and wasabi or live in a place where you normally die before cancer time.

I am hungry all the time and it's no fun. I lack the youthful glow that allows some to make a slight build look good. My face is gaunt. I am sadder more and since I am broke I eat shit foods. I count dimes and nickels for subway fare. It's amazing how much easier it is to be healthy when you have money. I am constantly begging my moms for money and my mother drags out that begging process because she is senile and thinks I am 12 and need a lesson in money management. Seriously. Maybe I am and I do, she can be surprisingly lucid at times and it is true that if you give me 20 dollars you can be pretty sure half of it is being spent on some sort of drugs.

There was a time I made, if you include bonuses, 50 grand a year and had no extraordinary expenses. I wasn't happy though so I quit that job years ago and now if I hit the wrong buttons on the candy machine and a Coffee Crisp comes out instead of Starburst I feel defeated. I do not have the energy to take it in stride. This happened to me yesterday. It was my last unbudgeted dollar twenty-five for the next three days and I spent it on a wafer covered in choco flavored corn syrup instead of a pack of tropically flavored chewables. I hated every bite of the candy bar but I finished it.

Things I can buy with a dollar twenty-five. Can of tuna, yogurt, a bagel, piece of fruit, can of pop, concentrate juice, new pen, I can print 11 pages at my local library, I can buy greens if they are loose leaf, twenty minutes at an internet cafe.

Things I can't buy with a dollar twenty-five. Meat that is not in a can, broccoli, any food except junk at my PepsiUniversity, Greens+, meat that is not heavily processed, a subway ticket, a loaf of bread, a carton of milk, vermin killing devices, dish soap, pot, cocaine, booze, I can buy glue but not airplane, I can wash my clothes but they will have to hang to dry.

I get my toilet paper and hand towels from public restrooms. Condiments and candle holders from restaurants. I began shoplifting again but it is not as fun as when I was a kid because now I really really want the things I am taking. Like good cheeses. I love to steal a nice block of five year old cheddar. I bum smokes, not because I smoke, but because I cannot afford dope and it is the closest thing to a drug that is available.

I am a bum. I don’t shave often but I should since my facial hair does not grow in evenly. My teeth are yellow enough that strangers sometimes mention it. It doesn’t seem to affect my "dating" life. My clothes are dirty. My apartment is messy and my kitchen is disgusting (think Ganges as I am dealing with a pooh and water problem).

There has been construction outside my apartment for months and it will continue for months. They start at 7 in the morning. Break at 8:45. I wake up in the morning and walk out onto my balcony, that is covered in the "No trespassing signs" collected on drunken mushroom cocaine fueled wanderings, shirtless in the freezing winter, and scream "good morning and fuck you" curses at the construction workers who are just doing their job. Well fuck them ya know, and fuck me. I bumped into a brother that works on that site and he recognized me from my tirades and laughed and I laughed because I am pretty sure he has his own static and I am pretty sure he could rend me limb from limb if he is not kept jolly.

I am thankful for friendships, music, the memory erasing powers of passion, and file sharing. Despite all the complaints I still get happy all the time. I call it forgetting.