the dennis nausea problem

i visited dennis briefly today. he is going through old stuff - he collects computers and computer parts - and getting rid of some of it. he wanted to get rid of an old laptop, and i had said i wanted one. so he asked $25 for it, and i gave him $40. that was still nowhere near enough, but at least we were settling it in cash.

i haven't got a chores/projects barter going with him, or rather, not very well. he had asked for a ride to huntingdon because his truck has a transmission problem and he isn't comfortable going that far, but i said no to that, i didn't feel comfortable with that particular favor. i had originally said yes, but over the next couple days, i was dreading it more and disagreeing with the idea - he wanted to go to the historical society, or something, for some of his family tree research. i am trying to define what type of favors i will or won't do, and i decided not to do that one. i expected it would take a long time, it was a long drive, and i feel wrong about encouraging him to work on his family tree project whenever i am more worried about his being unemployed. (if only my mom and dad could hear me now. they have said the same things to me in the past, nagging me about getting a job, and if i mentioned to them that i had spent a single second on any activity other than job-hunting, they'd say 'job hunting should be your full-time job.' and now, here i am telling that to someone else.)

well, when i visited dennis, i made a strict rule with him that i would NOT go inside the kerosene-smelling trailer. he is tolerating that rule, and i apologized many times about it, but i don't want to smell like kerosene and get sick.

so we stayed outside, and he showed me some things - he gave me the computer, i paid him, and he showed me his family tree chart and also a bow (i had expressed an interest in eventually bow-hunting, but it is the lowest possible priority right now, and i'm not actually doing it) which was so big, i couldn't pull the string all the way back. i forget what the string is called. it was my slightly injured right shoulder, from the skiing accident in college. the shoulder would not let me try any harder to pull the bowstring.

so, i hugged dennis twice - i asked him if it was okay for me to hug him as a friend, and he said that hugs are always welcome, and he doesn't get many of them. i mean it when i say that i think people ought to at least get a hug, even if you aren't having a sexual relationship with them.

but a couple things were still happening. even though we were standing outside, away from the kerosene, i still got sick from some things. first, he has a tooth infection or something that he told me about a while ago. i could smell it when he was talking, and it smelled like death, almost like vomit or roadkill. i smelled like that the other day because i had a stomach virus (or an unknown problem that made me very sick all day long) and i was lying in bed, miserable, for hours, drooling saliva. it was that disgusting vomit smell of dried saliva. so i almost gagged while he was talking to me because i could smell that.

i think his mouth infection is caused by chewing tobacco. he was chewing at the time while he was talking to me. and it wasn't just the vomit-saliva-roadkill-tooth infection smell, it was also probably the chewing tobacco itself, in his breath, nauseating me. tobacco and nicotine will cause vomiting, especially at high doses, and if you're not used to it. so the vapor of his breath carried enough nicotine and tobacco (whatever other drugs/chemicals are in tobacco) to sicken me.

chewing tobacco is processed in a way that produces nitrosamines. however, they say that the swedish chewing tobacco, called 'snus,' is processed differently and doesn't have the nitrosamines. nitrosamines are the chemicals that supposedly cause cancer.

so i was nauseated while listening to him. and also, after hugging him twice (in a non-sexual way), i feel something going through my clothing, mostly around the shoulders, where i was in direct contact with him. i think it might be nicotine which is on his clothing. i don't know if that is from the sweat, and the nicotine is going out through the skin into his clothing? or if it's just from handling containers of tobacco and the tobacco itself. he has this substance on him which is causing a problem when i touch him. i can feel the tickly sensation of a drug going through my skin, on the shoulders where he touched me during the hug. i recognize that sensation now after two years of living in a drug-contaminated apartment.

this is a major problem. i believe in hugging people and giving them a basic level of human contact. i don't believe people should be 'untouchable.' i want to remain dennis's friend, and learn what kind of boundaries we should have with each other, what level of physical contact and what level of emotional connection we will have. but i really am getting sick and getting contaminated from dennis's and other people's drugs. that seems very unfair.

i don't know how to explain it in a way that dennis would find believable. here is what i require: go to goodwill, buy all-new clothing (get the cheapest stuff - sometimes you can get stuff for $0.25), take a shower, put on the goodwill clothes, making sure that they do not contact any household surfaces - they must stay inside the plastic bag at all times until you put them on, and THEN hug me. and the shower - he might have to get all new towels and washcloths, too. this is how my life is, in a contaminated house - i know ALL ABOUT IT. you have to buy new towels, new clothes, new washcloths, new socks - everything. i've experienced all of that. i've thrown in the garbage huge amounts of clothing. this is a major disaster, and he doesn't even know, or believe, that he is contaminated with something.

i don't know what to do about this. i will have to put on 'hazard uniforms' of some kind when i visit him, some clothing that it won't matter if it gets contaminated.