Dreadful Typewriter

 I'm not sure if I should just make a checklist or something, but I keep thinking "I want that" and then forgetting it, only to remember later when I've spent my month on something else. I may update this list from time to time. Here it is: A proper burr grinder coffee maker, not sure of brand yet A new laser printer And/or a Canon portable printer The Lamy 2000 Makrolon fountain pen, extra-fine nib Possibly to be superceded by the Lamy Black Forest Studio pen, same nib size, which I'll probably get real soon now A vacation at the beach (solo, as isolated as possible as is my practice pandemic or no pandemic)--NOT Virginia Beach I hope, not sure I'll make it to Florida A washer and dryer. Will probably have to wait until I move to some place with it already installed or with hookups To wash my car. Get the car inspected you dope. Money???? Oh well that's what I came up with so far.

 Well. I've been talking to my sister again. She still lives in Miami. She was still with the same guy as she'd been with when I left in 1999, and they'd gotten married a few years ago. She seemed to have turned her life around somewhat--she had stopped drinking and doing drugs, was taking care of her health, etc. She wasn't working, they live in a cruddy studio in a cruddy apartment building in a cruddy area near Little Havana, which considering their income (apparently the husband works as a security guard and does the same as a second job, she seems to think he has lots of money but I doubt it) they are lucky to have. Unlike as it turns out the rest of the people in their building they were paying their rent, so they weren't thrown out in the recent eviction frenzy.  But, that situation seems to have caused her to fall off the wagon. One of her sleazy neighbors plied her with wine and beer, she was inviting these losers into their tiny home "because they had...

I think the problem I'm having with Virginia is I can't find anything to say about it. I've lived here for 11 years now, and I just can't get this place. It's what I dreamed about as a child living in the city of Miami: forests! mountains! four seasons like in all those books I read -- especially autumn! and snow! But as I kept on living here, slowly the dream died. Maybe if I'd moved to another city I'd feel differently, but I moved to a small town--a "microcity" it is true, with a small, liberal, cultured population--and I feel like all I do is go to work and then go home. At first I traveled around a bit, but then I got a job and either had no time (long hours), no money (low pay), and then I started getting sick, so I ended up stuck indoors most of the time. I still haven't completely recovered from being sick, I think. I'm out of shape, basically, but everything seems so far away, and there is still the no money and no time thing. I al...

You know what? Feck it, I might as well just stay here. It's right for me, for a variety of reason. (Note: I've said this sort of thing before!)

Posting on here because it seems to be the easiest method of blogging these days. Also Twitter, my addiction for the past few years, seems to be having a problem . Oh noes, I am forced to actually write my thoughts in a format that accepts more than just 240 characters per entry! I may spontaneously combust! I have actually been trying to blog on my Real Site. So I set up a Wordpress blog, because that's what the hosting service prefers (though they do offer other programs). But I find Wordpress to be exhausting to use for some reason. It's easy to use, that's not the problem. It's just exhausting. Too many choices, maybe? I also made a site on Neocities, which I have promptly abandoned. I don't know if I'm still into that sort of thing, website building from scratch. My real problem is I don't seem to be able to think of things to write about. Well, I do, until I am confronted with the blank page. Then all my thoughts vanish. I felt this writing urge die we...

Well guess who I found, or rather, who found me -- my sister, who I threw out of my life back in... 2003? Because I just couldn't take her any more. Anyway, I signed up on the Site Unmentionable, for reasons, and figured while I'm there, I might as well use it to look up some people from the past. Of course, that went absolutely nowhere, because I'm inept at Faceb--I mean the Site That Shall Not Be Named. Which is a horrorshow of a place, it's as cluttered and unnavigable as Myspace was. (I set up a site on Myspace once and then couldn't figure out how to use it, not being a teenage white boy into Eminem and party drugs.) Anyway, I would check in every once in a while. Put up some cat photos. And then, I found a message, which was put there back in July. Oops.  To make a long story short, we contacted each other, she still calls herself by the same wacky name she was using back then, still lives with the same guy -- they actually got married about five years ago, so...

I've been tooling around on Google Maps Street View, looking around the area that gave birth to me (in a cloud of sulfur and flame, probably) as it has looked for the past few years. (Some of the shots go back to, like 2015, some are from a few months ago.) And I think I've figured out the problem: this area where I now live, the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, is just too peaceful and pretty. It's even gorgeous in places, and has all those things I thought I loved--at least when I didn't have to experience them every year: seasons, mountains, rocks that were "real" rocks, endless thick forests of Real Oaks and Real Maples and all that sort of thing and well I hate it. I hate the forests because they are dark and scary and full of things like bears and deer (who are Larger than I thought they would be), and also dark. I hate the seasons because they feel like a relentless clock counting down the years, and also winter is too fucking cold and driving in the snow...