Family Annihilator. The Second Call

Just having a friend changes his brain chemistry.-- Robert Downey Jr, endearing drug addict, The Soloist denouement


Late Christmas afternoon I took a lengthy shower that went absolutely perfect in terms of lateral transfer, no bad launches back onto the Quickie sling, and then yesterday, I had a Herculean struggle not to just write my notice and be free of this company, as if my remaining 4k and my ability to flee in the middle of a Nor'easter was an absolute necessity. Nicotine depletion and lack of salmon oil cannot be blamed, and the minute I was able to slide my usual supply of Aeros out of my mail cubicle, I went to sleep feeling absolutely powerless. Strange sort of deterioration and dependency loop, I suppose, lay expert that I am, as the first hit of tobacco worked, and then did not. I wonder what it is I think shall change. Much like the late Steve Jobs, my personal hygiene is a game of touch and go compensation. Always has been, and I am genetically prone to clutter, adverse to consistent tidiness, which earns me the appelation of *dirty cripple* from Geri, the building custodian, a very dark skinned stereotype of the minority domestic caste, which has been slowly being eliminated in the age of Obama. The fact that I stink and in her experience, most of the wheelchairs users here have to fake real grooming, enforces her perception that we're monkeys who need constant henpecking for our good, which in turn reinforces my social fear of censure from black women who will more readily exploit me as an invalid with a target painted on my back. And I believe, at fifty years old, that I can break these chains with analytical journal articles, self-manufactured issues, and one last hoorah out of my once promising, tortured intelligence, illuminating this and that aspect?

Who am I fooling? Myself, like Richard Conte's Eddie? The elderly Baptist ladies have not slid one card under my door, and in 18 years, I always received three on average, so my tantrum over the radiator did, then, have an impact, though yesterday I did not cry out, just set off possible danger from hypertension. Aunt Mary wants me to move in with her after she relocates to Aston to be with her grandchildren, but since Pauline, my ailing and fiercely faithful grandmother, is not quite failing, this is not very possible. I love my mother's sister, really, and she is the last relative on whom I have not ventilated my gills, if you will, unless I bring up the fact that Trudy Richardson's nascent innocence, hired shortly before the building renovations, nearly killed me, in conjunction with my treasure trove of broken promises and liabilities from this closed and segregated subset. If I knew then what I know now. Living with Mary still is not optimal; she and her husband did enough saving us from my father's desire to abandon us during one of my mother's suicidal lapses, and Mary and Methodist husband, with whom there has been repressed friction since the early days of babysitting and first base, deserve their peace. Charitable tyranny is possible you see. I'd settle for a clean garage and a sofa bed, like a bevy of online strangers would enfold me with such compassion. Worth an inane giggle; let's return to the film, shall we?

Hey Rosella. Your tagline won my concession, but I eliminated a grapes of wrath migration long ago.  Waves.