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I've probably already told some of you one or more of these stories, but these past few weeks have been more interesting than usual.

I spent nearly all of today trying to wriggle a podcast episode out of Audacity (my home machine is out of action for the moment,) and then... the audio player on the site kept breaking on every new post. I'm not sure how long I spent trying to troubleshoot it... 2 hours, probably. I spend way too much time slaving over tasks I am not adept for, these days, but here's hoping that changes within the next year.

Perhaps in stupidity, I've been working on another one of... whatever it is that I write for Words of David Blue in Red (the series of ramblings that bred the obsessive tendencies I started this newsletter to combat) arguing that the book of Revelation is - in fact - about Facebook. Ultimately, I think I just wanted an excuse to entitle something Mark Fuck.

Nonetheless, I'm also including a fairly detailed account of an entertaining experience I had at work:

Today, after positing on whether or not a pastry was in fact the namesake of the battleship Bismarck, I was told by its owner - a local woman of a far-from-excusable age - that "[I] should be on that big bang show." Upon such fuckery, I looked her in her eyes and informed her that she'd just changed my plans for the night: I was now going to go home, wrap my lips around the barrel of my Beretta, and blow my brains out. I should've known better than to so jest with a boomer immediately after receiving such glaring indicators of minimal intellectual function, but I fell for the hope - as I often do, to no avail - that such a jarring reaction would encourage reflection on her foul, tragically misled sentiments regarding the general state of youth, and perhaps even spare a peer or two from future tribulation.

 

Instead, she called the police.

 

Three round cops found me, an hour later, approaching hesitantly. Strangely enough, they were chuckling - maybe to a little joke about all the recent hubbub on the radio covering a recent wave of blatantly negligent medical care in American prisons, though I hope nervous laughter is just SOP when responding to a suicide threat. As all Columbia cops always are toward me, they were aggravatingly genuine and hilariously understanding. I began by simply recreating my interaction with their summoner, quoting her word-for-word, and - I swear to my new Lord - all three immediately released a choral "ohhhhh" in unison. I'll never know for sure if they actually assimilated the reality of the situation so quickly, but it'd certainly seem that way.

 

Clearly, I should've threatened her life.

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I don't know if it's a joke or not, but I've always found it amusing to greet customers with a sometimes-cacophonous "GOOD MORNING" regardless of the actual time-of-day. According to Tevin, a semi-elderly woman whom I'd subjected to this at ~7PM, a few weeks ago, came up to him after I'd walked away and remarked "it's so nice that you all hire retarded people." That's a keeper. I'm surprised my reaction wasn't more severe, to be honest, but then again... I am on more pills again!

Last year, after my pediatrician finally forced me to seek a Big Boy Doctor, I went to a local family clinic, and was assigned Dr. Fast (not his real name,) with whom I had an awkward first encounter, for whatever reason. This second checkup, though, was absolutely hilarious.

My adderall prescription requires me by law to be seen every three months. I'm not sure what - if anything - is legally required to constitute a "checkup," but Dr. Fast literally just pokes my chest over my shirt with his stethoscope for like... less than one heartbeat to justify the checkup bit, and is totally no-frills for the rest of the verbal portion.

I told him I was hoping to go back on Lexapro because I want to be funny again, and he began entering the script on his laptop before I even finished my explanation. I also brought up how stressed and scared I am for the first time in my life, and - I swear to God - his parting sentiment was "we'll do our best to get you funny and keep you terrified." The ideal medical professional for me, that's for sure.

I remember having objections to the way Lexapro made me feel, but I can't quite recall what they were... so I guess I'll just need to discover them again. Remind me to write them down, this time.I've been talking about the past a lot. I suppose that's inevitable when one moves back in to the very house they occupied for the majority of their incubation.

When I take one of the numerous breaks from web administration I require in a work(night,) I often walk the same route I walked to school in first grade... by the building, in fact. Sometimes, I make use of the very swing I 'claimed' as mine at recess, from which I'd shout Elvis songs at my second-grade crush.

I've been exempt from this place by my own design for the vast majority of my time, here, and that removal turned out to be quite detrimental for my development. I guess my captivity here is a penance for my childhood mistakes, though I don't think that's entirely fair, considering all my cells have been replaced, since, if science is to be believed.

(Sorry, just practicing for Bible Study.)

In the summer of 2015, I met a girl (we're going to call her Brittany,) who'd been sniped by Amway - a fascinatingly disturbing Christian pyramid scheme that's managed to thrive more or less under the radar by convincing society's most desperate people to buy tickets to various meetings; local weeklies, regional annual conferences, etc.

She got me to go to a few meetings, sign a few documents, and attend a few conferences. It was an extraordinarily surreal time. The young woman I'd grown up with had severed contact with me completely and (more or less inexplicably) just 6 months before, and the depth of my internal emptiness was only surpassed by that of my general detachment from reality. My state of all-consuming apathy was perhaps at its most inescapable, but the first steady presence of real insanity in my life since I cut off contact with my father provided me a very particular sort of fundamental wariness, and I savored it.

I'm not going to tell you there was a single moment when I "figured it out," because I did not care about my use of my time or my wellbeing, in any sense. I was utterly listless... without volition, but - when I sat down in that first meeting, squared away in the conference room of our local, two-star Stoney Creek Hotel - at least enough instinct of self-preservation had stuck with me to recognize the suspiciousness of the whole thing.  

Somehow - without spending a dime of my own money - I managed to ride the wave as far as a new 'IBO' ("Independent Business Owner") can reach: Summit.

During the course of that weekend-long event - hosted by the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinatti, featuring a very long, very emotional presentation by Duke University's Coach K - I experienced what I'd guess was the most uncomfortable I'll ever be in a public setting. It was the zeal, the constant insistence upon the organization's legitimacy, and the implications of it all on the 10,000 people who surrounded me.

Obviously, I'm not all that great at articulating it yet, but I think I'm emotionally prepared to begin addressing it. Amway is virtually invisible to the press upon a Google search, which was the most significant red flag for me, in the beginning. I think I could be the right one to 'oust' it, but I just want to tell the story of my experience. 

More will come on the topic when I'm able to craft it more formally. Of course, don't be afraid to reply to these emails, or contact me elsewhere. 

Till next time,
David