scorn and contempt for existence at 7:00 am

Ah yes, another day on earth, trapped in this hideous rotting case of flesh and bone, doomed to eat and shit and die. It’s a raw deal, but it’s the hand we’ve been dealt. It’s the only way it ever could have been. There are no possibilities, only realities. What might have been is all in the mind. This abrasive reality of ours is all there is. Mine’s a fucking pigsty. How’s yours?
I woke up this morning to a terrifying din of activity, a cyclone. My girlfriend had overslept and was in the middle of a freak-out, trying to leave the house with her clothes only half-on. I could only assume she was destroying everything in the front room, turning over ashtrays, spilling pills on the floor, breaking glass, frightening the cats, etc. I went back to sleep. It was just too fucking early. Although she’s a beautiful vision in the evening, she’s a human train wreck in the morning, a dangerous walking disaster zone like Chernobyl. Better not to see it at all. Better for both of us really.
The noise didn’t leave with her either. Yesterday she brought my cat, Otto, a toy filled with catnip. It drove him apeshit all night, causing him to run back and forth through the house, rip up a paper bag with his teeth, hump his little girlfriend cat’s face, scratch all the sand out of his litter pan, and even hang himself in the blinds. This last scene was especially pathetic. I found him tangled up with the cord all around his neck, struggling frantically to get loose. Sometimes I think Otto’s just not fit to exist.
We’ve decided Sara’s cat, on the other hand, must be suffering from terminal depression. She stares at us with extreme disdain. Sometimes she just falls asleep looking at the wall. She tolerates Otto, but I bet her favorite thing about him is that he can’t actually find her vagina.
Waking up in the morning is a trauma regardless. I can barely cope with it. It’s the nadir of the entire day, a hell of a rough thing to start with. I drag myself out of bed and look at myself in the mirror. I look like shit. I see an unshaved mess with a miserable expression and wild mass of nappy hair. I mumble something like, “God damn my face.” I feel even worse than I look, if that’s possible. It would be fine if I could just pull myself together and get dressed, but there’s no motivation. I just want to wallow in it like a slob. Even putting on my shoes can take thirty minutes. I get one sock on and then just stare off into space for a while, completely absent. Everything is daunting, completely impossible. In the morning life itself seems impossible.


March 10, 2009
Denver