sad day

12:49 PM 7/3/10

The work schedule's gotten messed up at both jobs this week, so I didn't get as many hours as I wanted. 'Not getting enough hours' is a new thing for me. In my old schedule, I was working the least desirable shifts - evening, overnight, and weekend - the ones NOBODY wanted. Everyone wants to be off work on weekend evenings so that they can 'go out' places, which is something I don't do. I'm still on weekends, but I'm on the mornings and evenings at both jobs, and I'm competing against other people who are willing to work those shifts. And when something gets messed up, it's possible for me to lose hours, when before, there was only one person who would work the unwanted shifts that I was working.  This week the wrong manager made the schedule, and he doesn't know how to do it, so he put people into times when they weren't available, and the same thing happened at Weis, too - the schedule was already made but then some other managers wanted to re-do it and they put people into the wrong time slots - so it was messed up at both jobs. I've been working whenever they can fit me in, at McD. The Weis schedule got settled a bit better. But that's the reason why I'm sitting here at home on a Saturday morning, able to write a blog, instead of working.

I've stopped drinking cream in my coffee. Two things have happened: the rash on my face has mostly gone away (but not completely), and my sexual arousal did too. I don't know why the cream was having an aphrodisiac effect. (How will I ever finish my online romance novel if I'm not sexually aroused all the time?) I was getting hives all over my face, and that has stopped happening. (*On re-reading this, I should warn you that this is a, what's the word I'm looking for? Foreshadowing. When something hints at what's about to happen in the story.*) I wasn't allergic to milk when I was younger, so I'm wondering if there's an antibiotic getting into the milk, because I AM allergic to antibiotics, and they give me hives on my face.

I seem to have PMS today. My period is threatening to start, but hasn't actually started yet. I feel sad and homesick. I was thinking of West Virginia, wanting to go back to my parents. I was driving my car into Bald Eagle Valley, the next valley over, through Milesburg - in this part of Pennsylvania, the mountains are these big, huge, long lines, with big valleys in between them that go on for miles and miles. Everything is all lined up parallel. In West Virginia, the mountains are these random little bumps everywhere. There aren't any big huge long parallel mountains with huge valleys, like here. I actually love the West Virginia mountains more. A lot of people say that.

In the Bald Eagle area (now that I've said I don't have a rash on my face, I just started getting some hives again right now) it's a much quieter, less populated area than State College. It's more rural and probably poorer. I felt sort of depressed driving through there. I had this feeling that I didn't know where we were going, where the society was going, what goal we were going towards. The small houses and trailers all seemed depressing and small.

I have conflicting feelings about 'the sight of greatness.' Ayn Rand wrote about something that I understand. Sometimes, you want to see something 'great,' like a large building, or a bridge, or some gigantic structure, or a beautiful statue, or something. Something manmade and big and important. However, the conflicting feeling comes from knowing that a lot of those things only exist because of government money, borrowed money, and fiat money.

Another feeling is the Harry Potter feeling. Sometimes you want to go someplace 'where everybody knows your name.' I don't mean being famous. I just mean being known and accepted and cared about by everyone around you. I don't feel connected to most of the people around me. People in my workplace come and go - every few months, new people get hired, and old people quit or get fired. The group isn't stable. I'd like to be in a group that was stable, and increasing, not losing lots of people. We'd increase by giving birth, and we'd increase by taking in new members. This is the desire to have a healthy community. The turnover ratio in my workplace has always felt too high. (So much for that 'no rash' thing. Now it's all over my face AND on my shoulders too. Maybe it actually is poison ivy residue, which I suspected after I took a walk a few weeks ago, when I might have gotten a little bit on me. But it seems to be a reaction to my food, because it happened after I ate.)

'Sometimes you want to be a kid again,' the voices said. You want to know that someone is above you taking care of all the difficult things and protecting you, so that you don't have to worry. That's part of the Harry Potter feeling, except in the HP world, it's not just one family, it's the whole community that is protecting you and taking care of you, and the whole school, and all the teachers.

I just drove my car through and looked at the trailer park. I actually like trailer parks: they're a relatively cheap way to live. I don't like the huge mansions built for hundreds of thousands, or millions, of dollars, so that you can go into debt (and then bankruptcy) for the rest of your life. Trailers are affordable and realistic, and you have more control over them than you have over an apartment. I've actually been planning to move into a trailer eventually. Even if I were rich, I'd want to live someplace small and affordable so I wouldn't waste my money, because the reason for being rich is so that you don't have to keep working at a slave job forever.

But today the trailer park made me feel more depressed. It seemed far away from State College, from the area that I was accustomed to living in for the past 12 years or so, since I came here in 1997. (Great, now the hives are appearing on my arms, too. Apparently this food sensitivity is going to take a little more troubleshooting work than I thought it would.) It felt like the mountain cut me off from that whole valley, that whole area, where everyone that I care about lives.

Actually, I'm only connected with one person outside work: Peter. Everyone else is at work. I have *NO* outside-work friends, except Peter. Every now and then, I make some halfhearted 'friends' with co-workers who don't really understand me, who I can't really open up with. Like one lady at McD who recently gave me her phone number - I hope I haven't lost it - it was on a piece of paper in my work uniform pocket. I like her, she's nice, but I don't think she would really listen or be interested if I ever tried to explain my life to her.

'My world,' they call it, in the descriptions of the enneagram five sexual type. I think that was in one of the books at Barnes & Noble, the OTHER book, the one that isn't Riso and Hudson. Some other author whose name I don't remember. It was actually her book that convinced me I'm a Five, because her description fit me a lot better. The Riso-Hudson description of a Five makes it sound like all of them are either scientists or babbling weirdos. The other book describes them as people who feel overwhelmed, especially by human emotions, overwhelmed by how much they need people, and by how much other people need them. I've always been afraid of getting 'burdened' by people - if someone needs you too much, asks too much of your time, wants you to be too involved in their life and their needs - and if that happens, I withdraw and I try to get time alone, away from them. And she wrote that the sexual type Five wants people to understand 'my world.' The world as I see it. The world that I live in. My life and everything around me and what it means and the story behind it. My biography. How I got here. Why I do what I do. Why I care about what I care about. Why I believe what I believe. The intimate bonding happens when you tell people these things that no one else understands.

(Rash is now on my neck and throat. I hope it doesn't form bleeding cuts and scabs. Hopefully the hives will just die down on their own before I have to go to work.)

I get voices who use the word 'secrets' to describe the things that I have to tell people. I got angry the other day when they used the word 'secrets,' because these are NOT secrets. I had a much more insulting way to describe them. I said, 'They're not "secrets." They're just things that most people are TOO STUPID to understand.' (I was in a bad mood.) I have a reason why I'm angry about it. I was thinking back to years ago whenever I was desperately trying to tell EVERYBODY that someone was hacking my computer, harassing me at the workplace, and messing with my telephone, at home and at work. Nobody believed me. My family said I was crazy and they told me that I needed drugs. That's why I'm angry and I say they're too stupid to understand. When you try to tell people that you're being attacked and harassed, and they don't believe you, that makes you angry. And it was NOT a 'secret,' not even remotely. I tried to tell it to LOTS of people. If you are desperately trying and begging and telling it to lots of people, that's the exact opposite of a 'secret.' A 'secret' is something you deliberately try to hide from everyone, because if they knew about it, they could hurt you or take advantage of you somehow. I guess technically it's a 'secret' now because I get hurt every time I try to explain it to people who don't understand - it hurts my feelings and frustrates and angers me. So technically I do 'get hurt' if I try to tell people my 'secrets.' But not because they're using my 'secret information' to 'take advantage of me' or something like that.

If I had more time, and if I could get testimonials, maybe from off the internet, I would explain the argument 'Drugs don't stop you from hearing voices.' Many voices-hearing people know about this. They have used drugs and said that the voices DID not go away, or maybe even GOT WORSE, when they used drugs that are supposed to 'treat schizophrenia.' The only thing that happens when you use drugs is you become such a zombie that you become willing to surrender, tell lies, and pretend you're not hearing voices anymore, just so they'll leave you alone and stop forcing you to take drugs. I think that's what happens most of the time when people say that the drugs made the voices go away. They didn't go away, they just made you willing to stop talking about them.

There is only one way that I can think of that drugs might affect the voices. Salicylate poisoning - the Feingold Diet talks about salicylates in food - and other chemicals and drugs, in food, in pills, in herbal drugs - all of those things can affect your hearing. My hearing ability changes drastically from day to day. Sometimes I have lots of ringing in my ears. Salicylate poisoning (it's also in aspirin - if you want to experience this, take a couple of aspirins, and you might notice ringing in your ears - I don't want to tell people to take LOTS of aspirin, because that's dangerous and it can cause bleeding and other problems, I forget what) can happen to people who are chemical sensitive, people who can't produce enough phenol sulfotransferase, an enzyme that breaks down poisons that enter the body.

I remember one time a few years ago when I bought a watermelon at the grocery store. I don't usually buy watermelons, because they're so huge that I can't eat the whole thing, and it will spoil after sitting in my refrigerator all week. But I bought one, and so I ate lots of watermelon for a couple of days, every time I had the chance to eat it, so I could get rid of most of it before it spoiled. It had enough salicylate in it that my ears were ringing really loudly during those couple of days that I was eating it. I was almost deaf from it. My hearing ability was greatly reduced. It was temporary, and it wore off as soon as I stopped eating the watermelon. I recognized it because of what the Feingold Diet taught me.

I've noticed that sometimes when I take drugs, the ringing in my ears changes. That could affect how you hear voices.

However, when I took Prozac, it quieted my ears ringing, if I recall, (I might be wrong - it was so long ago, I can't remember for sure), but the effect was that I started hearing voices perfectly clearly! I do remember that, for sure, even if I don't recall whether the ringing went away. The audio quality became sharp and had no more staticky sound to it. I was able to hear voices BETTER than ever before. Not only that, but I could remember everything they said. Usually, I can't hear them well enough to understand what they're saying, much less remember it. A lot of it is quiet mumbling, below the level that I can hear. But when I was on Prozac, I could hear everything, all of the foul, hateful, murderous, disgusting, evil, cruel, sadistic, loathesome, insane things that the voices were mumbling - I could hear every evil word they said. This was not a good thing.

About bonding with people. I was going to write something above, but I got off track and started talking about other things. I was going to say that I've only bonded with Peter. Every other semi-friend that I've had, I've let go of, over the years. I've had a couple housemates, for instance, and I lost touch with them. I just didn't feel that they really understood me or were interested enough in me.

That seems unfair and one-way. How can I expect someone to be interested in ME if I'm not interested in THEM? That's unfair. It's like expecting someone to focus only on me, and not care about themselves. So actually, maybe it means that I want someone who seems interesting enough that I'M curious about THEM, too. It happens when I get a crush on a guy. It's the 'merging' thing that they talk about with the sexual instinct. That person becomes so fascinating that I want to know everything about them. I want to know what kind of music they listen to, and even if I hated that kind of music in the past, I'll open up to it and start liking it, and I'll associate it with that person forever, so that I'll always remember, for the rest of my life, who it was that got me started listening to that particular kind of music, or watching that TV show, or whatever. I remember it was Eric who showed me how to use the internet, how to use email, how to tell the difference between an email address and a web URL (I used to think that you could type JoeSmith@yahoo.com into the URL of a browser, for instance, or send an email to www.google.com), how to play games on a PC, and he's the one who got me watching the sci-fi channel.

I haven't gained as much from Peter in that particular way, because Peter's life is deprived. He lives a half-starved life without any stimulation. He is deprived of social contact and culture. And he knows that he is, too, and he doesn't like it. It's because they don't have a car, and it's because he has diabetes, and kidney dialysis, but it's also because, for whatever reason, there aren't many people who understand Peter, either. He had one friend at Wal-Mart when he used to work there: Big Dave. Big Dave is the guy at Benner Pike Wal-Mart who greets you when you walk in, during the overnight shift. His name tag even says 'Big Dave,' if I recall. (I might be imagining this, though.)

Big Dave understood Peter because Dave is into mysticism, psychic powers, karate and other martial arts, and other things like that. He's a Native American, and Peter likes the Native American spiritual culture. Peter interprets it all as being psychic and spiritual, but at least he still believes in it. Peter is religious in a pagan way. Because of that, I can tell him that I hear voices, and it might still seem scary and strange to him, but to him, it's the voices of spirits, sometimes evil ones, sometimes good ones - but at least it's something we can talk about once in a while, if I need to. With Eric, it was too scary to even talk about - it triggered a screaming shouting argument and intense fear and anger. Peter can at least accept it, which is why I'm with Peter. But that's why Dave was Peter's friend. Dave believed in the psychic-spiritual world and he believed in studying martial arts so that you could control your mind and your psychic powers, along with your physical powers. Dave and Peter understood each other right away, by looking into each other's eyes. They could just give each other a look, and understand everything. Unfortunately they don't get to see each other anymore now that Peter doesn't work at Wal-Mart. And Dave lives really far away in the opposite direction from Peter's house and Wal-Mart, so they don't hang out together away from work either.

I was saying I haven't absorbed as much 'culture' from Peter as I have from some other guys I've been with. This is also because we just don't spend much time together. We spend a few minutes together here and there. But I haven't been going over there as much in the past few weeks.

One problem I've noticed is that I really do get bad drug reactions from going over there. Either it's from kissing and touching Peter himself (we almost never try to have sex, but we still hug and kiss each other), or from their couch and their floor - there are drug residues there, including insulin, and a few times I KNOW I've had an insulin reaction, but that was when I was helping him fix his insulin pump and I was directly touching it. And the insulin was really hard to wash off, too. It seemed to go through the skin really slowly. It had a hard time penetrating. (Argh, the 'double meaning' censors aren't happy about 'a hard time penetrating.')  That makes sense, because all of the 'official wisdom' claims that the insulin molecule is too large to go through the skin (this is untrue). The insulin molecule DOES go through, but it takes forever. So I was washing my hands, but the insulin molecules were still inside my skin, somewhere between the inside layer and the outside layer, and they weren't entering the bloodstream yet, but they also couldn't be washed off the surface of the skin. So they kept on penetrating for a long time after I washed my hands. I could feel the tickly sensation in my skin where the insulin was, and I felt dizzy and unable to think, and sick at my stomach, and my bowels felt loose - I wasn't 'hungry' because of low blood sugar - I was the opposite, I was sick and reluctant to eat, and the LAST thing I wanted to do was put food in my stomach, so I can understand why insulin-poisoned diabetics refuse to eat when their sugar is crashing.

I also don't absorb Peter's culture because Peter is sick and unhappy and on drugs most of the time, and that gives him a 'poisoned spirit' - those are the words that 'the voices' used now to describe it. He is unhappy and unhealthy. He isn't alive and full of energy the way he was a long time ago when he was healthier. It's not something I WANT to absorb. I don't want to take in all of the bad feelings that Peter constantly suffers from. It's not his fault, it really is because of drugs and illness. But, I like to absorb things that make people happy, or, even if it's something sad, it's a 'good sad' feeling. Like sad music that moves you and helps you express your feelings. Peter doesn't even have that, really. All of his feelings, even his bad feelings, are trapped and suppressed because of drugs and sickness. I know how that feels, but I've never been as sick as he is, so I can't imagine what it would be like to live like that ALL THE TIME. I only know it from times when I've briefly been sick or on drugs and numbed into a zombie.

I like to absorb people's hobbies, their knowledge, their life experiences and memories, the places they go, favorite songs, favorite stores to shop at, favorite TV shows and movies, books, people they know, clothing styles. I like to learn about their belief systems, up to a point, but I prefer that their belief systems are similar enough to mine that I don't have to fight with a drastically different belief. It's something I tried to do with Martin whenever I was being forced to try writing letters to him (and not getting any replies, for whatever reason, not even a 'Stop writing letters, leave me alone' kind of reply). I wanted to learn everything about him, including things that I normally didn't like, such as sports. I hated sports, I always did, but after reading about how Martin liked them, I suddenly had more of an interest in sports whenever Peter had it on TV when I was over there. I was able to tolerate it. ('Sports' refers to things like football, baseball, basketball, the kind of sports that are on TV. I liked skateboarding, and that's a sport, but that's because my brother John used to skate when he was a teenager, and he still does, I just don't know how much of it he's doing nowadays).

I've been thinking of making my own web page that isn't on MySpace or Facebook. It would probably be here on WordPress because I like WordPress so much. It would serve the same purposes as MS and FB, except that it wouldn't have the social networking function as much, although you can use WordPress for that. I'd have my real name on it so that people would see it if they googled me. I'd want it to be one of the top results on Google. I'd write the 'favorite books' kind of stuff on it, and TV shows and movies, but I'd also have some other pages with more detail, but not a huge amount of detail - it wouldn't be a 'book-length monologue.' It might have a medium amount of 'secret' information on it, for instance, I could put photographs that I wouldn't necessarily want my family to look at, but I probably would not put blatantly erotic photos - I don't know. 'Nude' isn't erotic. It's just nude. I'm a nudist, and nudity is neutral. Just being naked doesn't mean that you have to have sex that very instant, because if that were true, animals would constantly have sex, 24 hours a day, because they are always naked. 'They' want me to have some naked photos available on the internet, and I'm just wondering what's the best way to do that. I don't really mind, but at the same time, it won't be on Facebook or MySpace. And it won't be on my eagledove9 flickr account. My parents and my aunt and my brother are looking at that one. I actually set up a Retmeishka flickr account, but haven't posted photos to it yet. But that's what it's for, nude and semi-nude pictures, and pictures of me in general, and maybe eventually pictures of other people. Anything I don't want to upset my parents with.

By the way, just so you know: My babies will be born on YouTube. This is no joke. I am going to do a natural childbirth and follow the rules of the order, and it is going to be videotaped and posted on YouTube. Again, I am serious. There will be photos of me during my pregnancy too as my body changes. You'll believe it when you see it.

I'm writing just because I enjoy the writing process. Typing is enjoyable. The hours are passing by, as I wait for ... oh no, I thought I was going in at 4:00! I have to go in at 3:30, not 4! Argh, that means I have to leave the house at 3:00. I'm glad I remembered that!

I'll go ahead and post this then.

Oh, darn it, I didn't get to mention the one thing I was going to talk about. I was going to say that Peter knows about Martin - I told him about it, when that was going on. And I also told him about Curtis, quite some time ago - I told him that Curtis existed, but he doesn't know any details. Peter isn't able to sit still and listen without interrupting, on a subject that upsets him, and he cut me off when I started to tell him about it. But if anything actually happens with Curtis in the real world, I will tell Peter that it's going on. It isn't going to be a secret. And I didn't have enough time to write about this, but, that's one of the reasons why I've not been seeing Peter as much for a few weeks, because I have been preoccupied with the obsession, and it bothers me not to tell him about it. I will have to tell him about it and it will make me feel better. I want him to know what my problem is. We have talked about this kind of thing before. And I shouldn't say he 'can't listen without interrupting,' that's not really true. He's able to listen enough to understand whatever I need to tell him. I just have to catch him at a time when his blood sugar isn't low. He can't listen to ANYTHING when his sugar is low.

Okay, I have to go get ready to work.