I Wake Up Screaming

"I wanted to be like the Europeans."--Orhan Pamuk, location 1856

Seasonal allergies and my father's sinuses is also a contingency not planned for, the grease ball's throbbing head with my mother's nerves, her father's intestinal issues rolled into a palsied post 50 flesh, waking itself at 4 in the morning to watch Grable and Mature conduct their insider studio celebrity jokes with perv kisses and stocking feet, titillating beef shots, watching Laird Cregar (who I never heard of) do a formulaic twist as a stalker, obsessive worshiper.

Hovering between my tormented genius, over-educated competency and decomposition, even online, the mental health consumer, for those of you with a Linked In account, laser in on me. They know it would not take much to leave me adrift and stranded as they are themselves, or have an intuitive antenna attuned to vulnerability, as Sheldon Novick knows, and Sarah too, the graduate intern of years past, I harbor a degree of guilt over certain cases of undeserved outbursts, not meant in all cases to intimidate. (I never truly had an axe to grind with Henry James aficionados, which isn't to allege that I am not in *Hallmark Mandy's* sandpit, that of recrimination in being argumentative.)

He is literally incomprehensible, however, worth dropping or making fun of, another argument against radical equality, even as I adopt a new online mentee whose skills are sharp, who probably doesn't realize he should tell me to go fuck myself and report me to the NAACP. My smile is bemused, my psyche not necessarily seeking reconciliation with the hatreds  of learned experience and an affection for the energy, empathy, of the young and up and coming. Even though he wasn't the primary actor in the illegality of Liberty Resources against me, I truly hate Jimmi Shrode, his sissy and shrill voice of disdain, his ugly and gluttonous homosexuality, the black lacquer on his hand bitten fingernails, his occasional use of green eye shadow even more repugnant, the depth of a hatred that is such that it goes too far and would abate if I could leave Riverside. Other than closing my disability center down because of its corruption and institutional bias, the very last thing I want in my life is to vacate these premises without making my predicament more the worse, and I'm at a loss even though I have threatened the parent company.

Legal action against Presby is no guarantee that I can preserve my last years with dignity.