Hello and good morning.  It’s Thursday again, and it’s also the last day of August in 2023, to which I say, “Good riddance.”  What a crappy month.  The effects of the hurricane have all but completely vanished from here in south Florida, apart from the fact that, at relatively low altitudes, you can still sometimes see streams of fast-moving clouds.  They’re going roughly east-northeast now, as the direction to the distant hurricane’s center has changed.  At ground level, however, and especially during the day, we seem to have lost the wind, and now the air is dead again, humid, and quite hot.

Just sitting at the train station early in the morning, I keep thinking that insects‒probably mosquitoes‒are landing on my neck, but when I reach back to brush them away, they’re just beads of sweat.

I’m slightly annoyed about myself and other things this morning.  I awoke early, even for me, and after lying about for a few hours,  I got up, did some dips, and took a shower and all the usual stuff.  I could’ve walked to the train, I suppose, but I plan to walk this evening, and the weather is just disgusting right now.  Anyway, I recently discovered that there’s a Tri Rail related Uber coupon that gets you $5 off each way (only 2 times a day) when getting a ride to and from the Tri Rail station, so I decided to use that.

The youngish driver, in a Tesla, got there quickly, and we were making such good time that I thought I might even be able to get on the very first train of the day, with a minute or two to spare.

Then, we got to the last turn onto a main street just before the station, and the light was red, and there were three or four cars waiting to go on the cross street, but then they went, and the cross-traffic was then nonexistent…and the driver just sat there and waited for the green (there is no “No turn on red” sign at this intersection).  Now, I’m not comfortable enough talking to strangers to feel fine with saying, “Hey, traffic’s clear, you can go right now.”  So, I just kind of fidgeted in my seat.

Then, when we arrived at the station, the first train was approaching and the gates had just come down, so without sprinting around them and across in front of the train, I couldn’t make that one.  Even if I had run to and up the stairs, across the bridge, and then down, I think there’s almost no chance I would have made it.  So, I walked up along the near side of the track, grumbling, punching one of the pillars as I passed (mainly just to hurt myself a bit, since I was mainly angry with me) and watched the train arrive and then go away.  Now, I’m sitting waiting for the next train, which comes half an hour after.

As I said, my anger is really directed at myself.  I mean, yes, it would have been good for the driver to pay attention and realize he could turn right…but why do I care?  I wasn’t planning to catch that train in the first…

Oh, wait.  They just announced that the train for which I am waiting is delayed “ten, fifteen minutes” (not 10 to 15 minutes, for reasons I’m hitherto unable to guess).  So it really would have been better to catch the earlier one.  I wonder how much an Uber or Lyft to the office would be.

***

Well, I won’t say it’s cheap, but it’s cheaper than a cab would be, and my driver was right there at the station, so I’m going.  You might think that it’s nice that I can afford to do this, but I really can’t.  However, I have no one on whom I need to spend money, and I have no plans for the future, so it’s not as though I’m trying to save anything.  I might as well just burn it all up.

I’m so tired of being stressed out and irritated.  I wish I could just smile and not worry about things.  You would think that if, at root, someone doesn’t care if he lives or dies‒and indeed, leans toward preferring the latter‒it would be easy enough just to be sort of Zen/Taoist in attitude, but that’s not the case, at least for me.

Perhaps it has to do with the intellectual versus the emotional aspects of a desire/drive.  Someone who lacked a basic, emotional survival drive might very well intellectually want to live and yet be calm, at ease, unflappable, perhaps like Hannibal Lecter as portrayed in the books.  He’s not afraid of dying, or even really of pain, but he enjoys his life (such as it is) and wants it to continue.  Whereas I, intellectually, don’t enjoy my life, and I don’t think much of anything I do or say or experience matters at all, and yet every little thing feels like a four-alarm fire, like a call of “General Quarters”, like there’s an enemy at the gates of the city.

Yesterday, during the day, I wished, wished I had a gun, so I could shoot myself, even right there in the office, and fuck trying to be polite and not disturb other people.  It’s not as though other people make even minor, simple, easy efforts to avoid causing me distress.  I thought that I probably wouldn’t shoot myself in the head‒partly because I would worry about a poorly aimed shot causing brain damage but not killing me, but also, partly, I think it would be too big a hurdle to clear based on that biological drive to survive, which is hard to overcome.  Maybe I’m just a coward.  I’m okay with that possibility.

Anyway, I figured I might go the Van Gogh way and shoot myself in the chest or belly or whatever.  That would be pretty gnarly, if you ask me, and I’ve always thought it was a real ballsy way to do things.  No painless and quick death there, even back in Vincent’s day.

Of course, I didn’t have a gun, and I didn’t know anyone from whom I could get one on short notice.  So I ground through the day feeling like my spirit was crawling with metaphysical parasites, stressed out beyond any reasonability.  I mean, come on, I’ve literally dealt with life and death situations many times, often on a daily basis, more than I would be able to count!  Why does my stupid present daily life get to me so much?

Probably because it is such a stupid, pointless daily life.  The fact that I bother with it at all, when there is quite literally no point to it, or to me anymore, is probably what makes it so stressful.  Or maybe, after everything I’ve been through, I have some weird form of PTSD‒that’s fashionable, right?  I have no idea.  I don’t feel like I have something like that.  I just feel…weird.  Which I guess is appropriate, since I am weird.

***

And now I am here at my destination, at which I’ve arrived even earlier than I would have if the second train had been on time.  That’s a nice euphemism, isn’t it?  That would be a nice way to think of dying before your time, don’t you think?  “He arrived at his destination earlier than expected.  It was very thoughtful and pleasant of him.”

Well, anyway, tomorrow begins September, a far better month than August, the month of the equinox and of Bilbo’s and Frodo’s birthday.  It’s a month in which it might be worthwhile to sell Bag End to the Sackville-Bagginses and head off on the quest to throw a cursed item into the Cracks of Doom, ending at least one particular evil forever.

We’re approaching another potential palindromic recording number possibility today (already).  I don’t think there will be many more chances for one to come up.  Even if one occurred at this stage, I don’t think I would pay attention to it.  It’s like when you flip a coin to decide whether you’ll go off a diet or something, and it comes out a certain way, and you realize that, no, you’re going to go the other way, anyway.  It’s a good way to test yourself and find out what you really wanted to do in the first place.

What I want you to do, if you’re willing and able, is to have a good day, and to appreciate the ones you love and who love you, and to spend time with them if you have that opportunity.  Just spend time with people who are willing and able to spend time with you, and who matter to you, and to whom you matter.  If you are lucky enough to be with the people you love, don’t take that for granted.  That’s my advice/request, for what it’s worth.  I’m not known for my wisdom, but that’s the best I have right now.

TTFN