So I quit watching/listening to the news about 3 weeks ago: it has been amazing.  One of the best things, psychologically, that I could have done.  I strongly recommend it, dear reader.  Unbelievably refreshing.  This week, I started keeping my phone on Do Not Disturb.  Which I also strongly recommend.

N.P.: “After Dark – Kombinat100 Remix” – Tito & Tarantula

Wicked depression.  Crippling anxiety.  The running, screaming existential fantods.  And all that before my feet even hit the floor this morning.  This is what this pointless sobriety hath wrought.  Well, no more, dear reader.  No.  This is ridiculous.  My mind unaltered is far too dangerous of a thing to be allowed to just run free for hours, let alone days, at a time.  Bad Things happen.  As with any machine capable of great bursts of speed and danger, brakes are essential.

N.P.: “Au coeur de la nuit” – Die Form

Five minutes into today and I was already not a fan.
But Jose is back, thank Christ, with his Army of Gardeners.  The lawn has, at long last, been quelled.
Got a lot done today, but it still didn’t feel like enough.

N.P.: “Spirit in the Sky” – Bauhaus

I’m frustrated, dear reader.  I’m working my ass off but not getting nearly enough done.  No matter what I do, I still just see the list of things I didn’t do at the end of the day.  I just think if I’m going to spend the entire day sober, I should have more to show for it.

N.P.: “Symphony of Pain” – Accept

Tomorrow is Street Cleaning Day in Fecal Creek.  That would not be news in most small towns, but Things Are Different in The Creek™.  [Ed. note: the ™ is there because I’m very proud to report the town of Fecal Creek is presently considering that phrase, originally uttered drunkenly by yrs. truly in the parking lot of The Paddy Wagon on an icy, foggy December morning, as the new town motto for 2021.][There is allegedly a $10K award associated with the winning slogan, so fingers crossed, dear reader.]  I’ve only been through one official Street Cleaning here, but from what I observed during my first, it is not a good time to be anywhere on the streets, or really anywhere outside at all.  Yes, the Anhedonia County workers clean the actually streets with up-armored street-cleaning tank/trucks.  They will also be scooping up any furniture/household items/computer/surveillance  equipment you may care to leave out.  For free.  Turns out Street Cleaning Day is also the beginning of the season for the Homeless Eradication Program, so any homeless you wish to be free of can be left on the curb with the unwanted furniture and electronics tonight with confidence that they will Be Gone by 2/17.  That’s the other weird thing about Street Cleaning Day in Fecal Creek: it is 24 hours long.  Meaning they put out notices telling citizens that whatever you intend on having picked up, you need to have out on the street at midnight on 2/16, and then Stay The Fuck Inside until midnight on 2/17.  Lest ye be Picked Up, would be the dire inference there.
I stuck some furniture out there, plus a printer, plus a couple of relatives.

N.P.: “Materia oscura” – Die Form

Today was good.  Foggy and gray…looked like Moscow outside.  Got a bit of writing done.  Training on the new software some more tonight.  I’m starting to get comfortable with it.

N.P.: “thrown rocks (on empty dreams)” – elephant bass communication, Edward Ka-Spel

I dislike people now significantly more than I did before the pandemic.  I’m confident the feeling is mutual.
Managed to do some decent writing late last night…hoping for a repeat tonight.

N.P.: “What A Life” – Son of Dave

Got a bit more sleep last night, which is good…today’s psychosis is much more manageable than that of previous, sleep-deprived days.
In other  news, where the hell is Jose?  Jose is the leader of The Army of Gardeners, which, like the gypsies at Dracula’s castle, are fiercely loyal and employed to maintain the grounds around here during daylight hours.  But Jose’s been missing for a minute.  It’s typical of him to go back to the Hyper-Catholic homeland at Christmas, but it’s February and the lawn is looking a little egregious.  I don’t have a picture of Jose to post here…maybe I’ll try to put something together in Paint.  Anyway, in the meantime, if found, please return Jose.

N.P.: “Diggin’ a Hole” – Big Sugar

Another sleepless night.  No NyQuil.  By the time it became clear that I would be needing chemical assistance to sleep, it was far too late/early to deploy NyQuil.  Took a Benadryl at 4:30 and slept for an hour.   Which is not nearly enough.
How long, dear reader…how long?!  How the fuck long must this insidious insomnia go on?  Too many more nights of this nonsense and I might finally crack.  I’ve felt on the verge of either a breakthrough or a breakdown for a while now…either way, something’s ready to break.  Perhaps this causeless yet ruthless sleep deprivation will be the straw the stroked the camel’s sack.
I think I still have half a bottle of super-shitty absinthe somewhere around here.  I might take a snort off that bottle at bedtime.  If I can’t get sleep, I might as well get weird.
Of course, none of this would be an issue had I been able to travel down to Tijuana in August to purchase enough farmacia to tranquilize the entire Mexican Army, enjoy a bit of blood-sport at the bullfights, and perhaps go say hola to the girls in the red dresses down at ¡Adelita’s – Cuatro Pisos de Putas!  Gosh darn this wretched pandemic.
I just want to sleep.

N.P.: “Rock This Town” – The Brian Setzer Orchestra

Through the greenish haze of the Ny-Quil, I found myself watching a marathon of Storage Wars.  I know I’ve bitched about it to you before, but the most bullshitty part of the show is the way that they post the price these fools paid for the locker, and then, without actually selling a single thing.  These doofuses just go tearing through boxes and spit out amounts: “Oh yeah, can get $40 easy for that…20 bucks for this.  This here’s easily $100….” And then on the screen, graphics tally all this nonsense up, and once the “projected” amount of profit exceeds the cost of the locker, the graphics ding and flash in celebration of the financial success we have just witnessed.  But they haven’t made a dime off of any of it…they’re just standing in a parking lot with a pile of someone else’s crap.
But last night I noticed that all these storage lockers are in places like Van Nuys and Chatsworth.  For those of you lucky dear readers who may not reside in California, those are the places outside Hollywood where they make all the porn.  It’s actually referred to as “Porn Valley.”  So I’m looking at these creepy, quasi-antisocial dudes lurking around storage lockers waiting for a chance to buy what’s in them sight-unseen, and I’m confident that they are all failed porn producers.  Or at least porn producers on a hiatus of some kind.  Hell, I dunno…maybe the whole home/amateur porn thing has done so much damage to the legacy “traditional” porn community that these dudes are having to slum it with the only gig they can get now on Storage Wars.

N.P.: “You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks” – Seasick Steve