I have begun to worry and thought I'd put my concerns out into the darkness of the internet. For isn't a problem shared a problem cut in half?
So here's my trouble: you know when you suddenly enter darkness or are thrown into pitch black, that, all you can see is blackness? But, if you wait, and shapes begin to appear? You begin to see the outlines of things—chairs, lamps, bookshelves or, if coutside, garbage bins or the boats by the water. This return of vision, night vision I suppose it is, calms your pounding heart. It gives you a sense of orientation, control and power that you can now negotiate your way through the area.
But lately, when I am in my own darkened rooms or other inky places, I've noticed flickers, shapes of things that are not apart of the normal landscape. They do not evolve out of the darkness into chairs, garbage cans even rats. In fact, they do not evolve at all. No matter how much I blink my eyes or command them to focus, my orbs refuse to bring me clarity. As if this wasn't fretful enough. But what I find even more worrisome is that lately even in the bright of day I am seeing flickers of forms, movements of some things dark, unclearly shapened, things that should not be there in my rooms or even in the questionable environs I find myself in.
I will be honest. I am heavily medicated. I've wondered if this visual aberration wasn't a side effect of one of the various neurological drugs I must take. But the seeing of things not there is not listed in the copious side effects on the small-print inserts that come with my prescriptions. When I mentioned my concern to Dr. Panchek, he barely glanced up from my chart. He merely snapped it shut and moved the conversation on to how I liked my new abode.
"Rats," I said. "There are rats in the alley outside my window."
"And how do you know they are there?" Dr. Panchek asked. I knew what he meant. How could I tell the difference between real and imagined was what he was getting at.
"By the bites," I said and left it at that.
to be continued...
Wickie
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Threatening artists
Insomnia. Runs in the family. As do other maladies.
Currently I am doing what artists do, trying to cover the bills. This need has lead me or rather driven me to every conceivable kind of work. I've cleaned alligator meat as well as toilets, washed dishes, cleaned toilets again, then houses, cat sat and did I mention cleaning toilets? There are all these theories of the artist as a cultural threat, a subversive. I don't know what I think about that. Perhaps I am too busy like most artists just trying to pay my bills and not get evicted. The occasional wealthy lover helps, but then that brings its own can of worms (those I've never cleaned. Not yet.) Maybe this notion of being a social threat has to do with too many of us sucking up all the food stamps, as though we were able to even get them. I got them when I was in Boston. They gave me about $40 a month. In San Francisco, I had to stand in about a block-long line, then go through a metal detector, then wait with hundreds of other indigents for about eight hours, be treated like scum by the worker and finally get rejected. Or maybe artists are a threat to society because we are draining the free health clinics (the ones that are left) of all their services. I've used them in Boulder, Colorado, Boston, Massachusetts, North of Boston and San Francisco,California. I sat for hours in crowded waiting rooms. When finally called, it was not unusual for the staff to talk to me (it always seemed incredibly loudly) right in the waiting room about very private health matters. Privacy really is a privilege. Or maybe this idea of the artist as a social threat comes from the times when they cut off my electricity (or when I couldn't pay for heating oil) and I used candles to light my room or I kept the gas jets going on my stove to stay warm. Maybe us artists have caught too many places on fire so that's why we're considered dangerous. We're pyromaniacs. So, the next time you see what looks like an artist —some broke-ass, worn-down-shoed motherfucker—slouching your way, you better run. Because we might rob you because we've just been rejected for food stamps, take a chunk out of you because we're hungry or we just might burn down your place to try to get warm.
Wickie
Currently I am doing what artists do, trying to cover the bills. This need has lead me or rather driven me to every conceivable kind of work. I've cleaned alligator meat as well as toilets, washed dishes, cleaned toilets again, then houses, cat sat and did I mention cleaning toilets? There are all these theories of the artist as a cultural threat, a subversive. I don't know what I think about that. Perhaps I am too busy like most artists just trying to pay my bills and not get evicted. The occasional wealthy lover helps, but then that brings its own can of worms (those I've never cleaned. Not yet.) Maybe this notion of being a social threat has to do with too many of us sucking up all the food stamps, as though we were able to even get them. I got them when I was in Boston. They gave me about $40 a month. In San Francisco, I had to stand in about a block-long line, then go through a metal detector, then wait with hundreds of other indigents for about eight hours, be treated like scum by the worker and finally get rejected. Or maybe artists are a threat to society because we are draining the free health clinics (the ones that are left) of all their services. I've used them in Boulder, Colorado, Boston, Massachusetts, North of Boston and San Francisco,California. I sat for hours in crowded waiting rooms. When finally called, it was not unusual for the staff to talk to me (it always seemed incredibly loudly) right in the waiting room about very private health matters. Privacy really is a privilege. Or maybe this idea of the artist as a social threat comes from the times when they cut off my electricity (or when I couldn't pay for heating oil) and I used candles to light my room or I kept the gas jets going on my stove to stay warm. Maybe us artists have caught too many places on fire so that's why we're considered dangerous. We're pyromaniacs. So, the next time you see what looks like an artist —some broke-ass, worn-down-shoed motherfucker—slouching your way, you better run. Because we might rob you because we've just been rejected for food stamps, take a chunk out of you because we're hungry or we just might burn down your place to try to get warm.
Wickie
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