Christmas Eve 2013

Had a marvelous Christmas Eve dinner at the home of Joseph Mailander and lovely wife Lynn in the company of Will Campbell and wife Susan, the beautiful Trina Duke and her fun and intelligent friend from across the pond, with whom I hope to collaborate on a work about Brecht’s days in Los Angeles.

Thank you to all. It was just what I needed.

Dinner was a succulent roasted leg of lamb, home made scalloped potatoes, fresh green beans, salad, and was beyond awesome.And as I left late that night I was blessed by Lynn and Joseph with an entire loaf of delicious zucchini bread.

Darkness Rising

This is by far the deepest and cruelest depression I have ever suffered through. I feel as if I have stumbled into a dark tunnel and the entry and exit have been sealed up.

With the benefit of hindsight I realize that when I moved into this house one year ago last October and the years of homelessness and motel life and bouncing from city to city came to an end, everything caught up with me and knocked me down hard.

I’m tired, I’m numb, and I can’t see my way out of this.

Red Moon District

From Underground Voices:

THE 2013 ANTHOLOGY IS OFFICIALLY OUT! It’s available online at indie bookstores and bigger chains (Amazon, Barnes and Nobles) and it’s 266 pages of good writing.

(That includes my original short fiction piece, “No Style, No Grace, No Mercy”, an L.A. boxing tale with an apocalyptic twist. — R.J.)

–

So …

UPDATE 7:14 PM: Nothing. Cold and hungry and thirsty, shit …

Looks like no food or drink for this lad tonight. After a long day of soliciting for aid I’ve come up empty as of 5:48 PM.

So …

$2.17

A gray and rainy day to suit my gray mood. Began the week with $100 on Paypal and after purchasing $50 of RX meds, making a payment on my doctor bill (more about that later), and buying dinner last night, I’m down to $2.17 on Paypal. Shit.

Draining the Christmas Fund

My new doctor is awesome. Yesterday I phoned in refills on two RX meds to CVS. When I got to the pharmacy there were not three but thirteen refills; turns out she had arranged to have them filled at their due date with three refills available on all. My previous doc required a monthly office visit for any medication refills and never gave additional refill authorization. The only downside is that paying for the meds drained fifty bucks from my wallet, depleting my Christmas fund significantly.

And speaking of Christmas, L left today on her holiday vacation up north to visit her family so I will be alone from now through the 28th of December, a situation that is certain to deepen my gloom. For more insight on that topic, see Joseph Mailander’s comment under the “Dead Beat and Shattered” post.

 

Dead Beat and Shattered

This morning, without a provocative incident to pin the blame on, my depression increased tenfold. I’m just tired. Two years of homelessness, bouncing between a return to the dreary trappings of the Golden Eagle Hotel in North Beach where I did nothing better than haunt a bar stool all day long, then back to the horrid Budget Suites in the Las Vegas suburbs, followed by a string of cheap motels and cheap food, has, I think, finally caught up with me and gobsmacked me. Hard.

The last straw was losing all of my possessions earlier this year at the hands of TC’s cruel and vindictive daughter and grandson, leaving the boxes and boxes of my material goods to rot in the open-air for over one year. That enervated me in incalculable ways.

I’m bushwhacked by 13 years of fighting fruitlessly against illness and pain. The last few months — especially after coming off a five-year dependence on oxycodone beginning in September — my pain has doubled, if not tripled. I walked one way to the store this morning and it was one of the most painful journeys I’ve ever made. My days of long walks are over; the bone spur that recently appeared in my left foot is evidence of that, and the fact that my feet are frequently so swollen from arthritis that I can barely pull on my cheap Salvation Army-bought shoes. I need new shoes. I cannot afford them. I cannot afford anything.

I’m dead beat and shattered. I cannot write. I do not know how to go forward any longer. These are tough times for the poor and marginalized in this country — nay, this planet — and you can count me in as one who is finally just too exhausted to fight back any longer.

Down, Down, Down

Thanks to help from a good friend, last night I had a decent supper for the first time in at least a week: salmon steak, mac and cheese, peas, garlic bread, all purchased at the Silver Lake Ralph’s grocery store. It was a nice balm after a day and night spent in extreme joint pain that my medications could not touch. I was also able to purchase some much-needed meds and med supplies at CVS.

And today, Monday, I’m back at square one: down to ten bucks on Paypal with no end of expenses in sight this week, including laundry, food, more meds to refill (remember, I’m on 20 RX meds and two required supplements from the vitamins and minerals that methotrexate robs from my system), an upcoming doctor visit this week — which I need near-urgently but cannot book until I know I have the $30 co-pay in hand — and a past due internet bill. Things will be changing for the better soon but in the interim I just hope I survive to see the change considering that this almost daily strain of worrying about and chasing after funds to provide for the most very basics is wearing me down, down, down.

1932-2013

A Mess

I keep assuring myself that I will endure, I’ll get over this, but this is one of those days I’m not so certain of that.

Shortly after this morning’s post I rushed to the bathroom and promptly got sick, partially from my meds but largely from the lack of food. The only thing I could afford to buy for dinner at the store yesterday was a dozen eggs ($1.50), no vegetables, no fruit, no bread. Not nutritious and far beyond my weekly minimum for eggs with my high cholesterol readings. So there was not much in my stomach to protect it from the bombardment of meds and up that coffee and those eggs from the night before came.

I returned to bed at 10:30 until one in the afternoon but my attempt at rest was largely thwarted by the red, seething, burning skin on my arms and legs. I need a  shower to  wash away the dead, exfoliating flakes but that will not be easy in my state and I really don’t have clean clothing to change into.

This is a mess, folks. I need food other than eggs, that will not do. Jesus Fuck, I can’t even afford to do laundry let alone eat and get more meds today and a doctor appointment this coming week. Some fucked up shit.