Journal

I envy the journallers who can come up with titles and themes for their entries. I’m not so much envious of their creativity as I am the order in their lives that permits a title or theme to be found. The past few days seemed different.

Escape seemed to be the theme of both my thoughts and the events that unfolded through the past week or so. Forgive me if I take the theme too far, I’ve had little practice in this sort of thing.


I doubt I’ll ever be able to completely escape the obsessive aspects of addiction in my life. The patterns of the past 27 or 28 years have simply become too ingrained. What I can do is redirect those impulses away from destructive things, like drugs and drinking, into less destructive things, like reading. I have substituted the library for the crackhouses.

For the past several weeks I’ve been reading, on average, a complete novel a day. Now, like every good addict, I could rationalize that by saying that I’m catching up on the things I haven’t read by my favorite authors. (I am.) Or that while I was sick there wasn’t much else I could do. (There wasn’t.) Or that it’s less strain on the carpal-tunnel than writing. (It is.)

But the reality is that the same sorts of things that drove me to drug, drive me to read. A basic unhappiness with the way things are gong in my life. Frustration at being thwarted at every attempt to rectify things, like my employment situation. (Sunday morning I exclaimed to Jeffrey, “Look! Nine jobs in the paper this week that I’m qualified for. I can double my weekly rejection rate!”) And the desperation borne of five months of boredom.

I suppose I could be doing more career-oriented things, like standing in front of the mirror wearing a paper hat and learning how to say, “Would you like fries and a Coke with that?” with an earnest, yet plastic, smile on my face. Or learning how to panhandle. But I find that far too depressing to do more than contemplate.

So I read. To escape. It’s quite effective. I go into a type of fugue-state for hours at a time. I don’t hear the phone or the doorbell; I’m completely unaware of my surroundings and the passage of time.


Busy days are typically preceded by sleepless nights. Last night I failed to escape the bonds of consciousness. This left me overtired today. In an unusual twist, I was not crabby. Rather, I was giddy. Ah, an escape from the ordinary!

My first set of errands this morning I ran alone. After stops at the bank and the library (three books returned, three more checked-out) it was off to the hardware store for wall compound and screw anchors. The landlord was showing the apartment to a prospective tenant this afternoon and I needed to fix a divot in a wall and repair the closet door, which inexplicably fell out of the doorframe, screws and all, in the middle of the night several months back.

Returning, I found that Jeffrey had outdone himself in the maid department. Not only was the place the spic-est and span-est it’s ever been, but he’d re-hung some of his artwork on the fridge, put out guest towels in the bathroom and folded the end of the toilet paper to a crisp point.

After filling and painting the divot and rehanging the door, (naturally I left alone the crude and unsightly patch I fashioned over the hole the squirrels chewed in the kitchen ceiling back in November), we escaped for the afternoon.


Our first stop was the suburban branch of the county jail to deposit money into Debbie’s account and make an appointment for a visit. Jeffrey’s wallet escaped into the vortex early last week. One cannot deposit money into an inmate’s account without photo ID, so I went along as backup.

Naturally all the deputies vouched for him when he told the money lady, “I have proof of my address and I’m a frequent flier here and any of the deputies and verify my identity.” It left me wondering if they in fact do collect miles during their stays and he’s secretly been saving them up to spring for a vacation to Sydney for the Olympics. (I told you I was giddy today!)

Our next stop was his mother’s house to repair some drywall. (Don’t ask how much or how it got damaged.) So in addition to our usual gear, we were carrying all the drywall-fixing stuff. Fueled by my giddiness, this supplied me with plenty of material for my specialty, “groaners.” It had rained in the morning and there were unending comments about mud, (Why did I buy spackle?) worms and such.

My arms got tired and we traded loads for a while.

“You’d never make it in the armed forces,” Jeffrey told me.

“No, you’re right. I haven’t got the arms for it.”

“How would you ever get into the National Guard?”

“I don’t have to. I have Right Guard at home.”

This one is far from politically correct. I plead insomnia-induced giddiness and lack of restraint. I asked Jeffrey, “What do you call a marathon for paraplegics?”

“I dunno.”

“An arms race.”

I later confessed to “bucket envy” when the guy we sat behind on the bus got out with a five-gallon drywall pail.

And so it continued until he finally told me to be quiet.


At his mother’s house, I was able to escape all work on the drywall project except for the occasional technical consultation. (“Gee, I’ve never painted the drywall before putting it up.”) Jeffrey escaped the rest of the drywall job by getting one of his mother’s boarders interested in it.

I busied myself by playing with the kittens. One has learned how to escape from the box. It has also learned to escape from the dog by hiding under the rocker I was sitting in.

At the ripe old age of four weeks, before having learned how to eat solid food, it has learned attitude. It put a foot wrong at the edge of the couch and wound up hanging by its claws from the cushion. It looked at me as if to say, “I meant to do that. Wasn’t it cool?” I like this kitten.

My kitten escaped back to its mom and littermates in the box. We’re plotting a breakout in about a month.

After Jeffrey threatened to pimp him on Monroe Avenue, another of his mother’s boarders escaped paying rent and repaying a debt to Jeffrey by (allegedly) checking himself in to detox. (I had to explain to Jeffrey why the troll-boy would not have been a worthwhile investment anyway.) His meager belongings (a duffel bag and envelope of paperwork) escaped from the house and now find themselves residing here as collateral.

Jeffrey escaped further intellectual damage from my giddiness by going over to Derrell’s after we got home. I escaped consciousness for several hours. I shall now escape to the kitchen to make dinner.

CAUTION!

CAUTION!