bye bye city. sort of.

I'm leaving the city. Sort of. I think sort of means that the city is close enough that I can get to it without a long commute...but far enough away from it to probably save my life. Or someones. People are driving me crazy. My current landord, a giant corporation operated onsite by a diminutive little cunt, is driving me crazy. If I don't leave soon I am going to sue her and them and make sure several people lose their jobs. Is that what I was put on the planet to do? Sue stupid people - that's what I've always dreamt of doing...combating unrepentant morons while my creative talents slink away into obscurity and then finish me off by strangulation.

The planes buzzing by every 10 minutes or so are driving me absolutely crazy. If I laid outside on my back just outside my front door I would almost even be able to read the model and make of each plane. Sometimes I sit around on the ugly chair near the window with the ugly view and I drift off to imagine the people in those planes. They cruise above me a mere thousand feet above and they are all pointing down at me screaming get out of the city. Other times I sit around and wonder what I might really do if one of those hunks of metal just fell to the earth. Would I survive? What would I try saving? What if I was really just one of those people who live their entire lives based on a moral character only in theory, one they've invented out of wishful thinking and lies...but then when faced with a real life disaster they panic and forget to snatch their animal up because that is really who they are after all.

I could kill someone. Sometimes I write little stories in my head wherein I plot my upstairs nieghbor's boyfriend's fall down the cement stairs. More so lately than ever I fight this urge to smack someone. People in Southern California cities are insensitive, desensitized, crazy and greedy and callous. My resident apartment complex manager is crazy and abusive. She chain smokes and she nearly always smells like an ashtray. Her tiny little office smells like an ashtray. The area around her unit smells like an ashtray. I should really just have more compassion for her as she begins showing signs of emphysema and cigarette related malaise. Shouldn't I? Isn't that what normal, sane people do? They have compassion...right? She's probably just jealous because I get to stay at home all day in my pajamas, and if I want to-I could put on real clothes if I wanted to-and still pay the rent, on time, every month...with more than some left over enough to drive back and forth past her tiny little office, shopping bags filled with shopping binges busting out my car windows. I'm pretty sure that nothing would make her happier than seeing me late on rent so she could stiff me with a lease clause. I have regretted every last dime I've spent on this stupid piece of shit fucking box. My language has detoriated into fuck this fuck that get out of my fucking way you fucking moron before I peel the skin from your body with a nail file; then a quick rev on the gas pedal to make sure my point is taken. The only good thing that came out of allowing myself to be raped and pillaged every 1st of the month while a chain smoking troll coughed up only verbal acknowledgement as my receipt is that these walls gave home to a shelter cat I named Gabriel Boojal Scraggsworth. He needed me. I needed him. When I say his name it brings me joy.

My mind races constantly moreso now than ever. The Indy 500 lives inside my head. So I talk to myself a lot more and brain impulses commandeer my body, literally, as the thoughts pound my skull. But, don't concern yourself with that chainsmoking power hungry troll because you know, she's going to end up smoking herself right off the planet; good, she deserves it; no stop, focus on something positive; I need coffee; that fucking cunt; what if I pour dish detergent in the jacuzzi, would that make you feel better; illegal and juvinile, totally non productuve and uncreative; I wonder which makes better suds, Dawn or Joy; Oooh, buy more movies on amazon; people can see the scars on my wrists; man a lemon muffin fucking sounds good; they can see them; order pillow online; fucking cunt; I'm proud of you for fighting for your life; Crimes of Passion: She Woke Up Pregnant...what the fuck movie title is that? get up go order it now; shit, the dishes; go for a walk. Get out, get out, get out of the city. You won't have any chain smoking neighbors anymore. No more neighbors above you fucking all night and then walking by your front window nearly shirtless with stupid smirks on their faces. No more 3 day covenant or quit's because you left a pair of flip flops out on your patio again, or attempted to ignore the morons above you by actually being proactive and erecting a japanese shade to keep them from peering needlessly. No more city celebrations blaring well past midnight. No more walking outside and finding 15 young boys partying in the jacuzzi.

There are about 300 people living in that canyon. They're very friendly as if they're on something. This should delight me, but for some reason it scares me. I would probably die and go straight to heaven if I found out that people can really be that happy without being on drugs. Or I could just accept them as is and let them be themselves and accept that I'm close enough to being an addict as it gets without really...no, I'm close enough and the thought of being at peace horrifies me.

Last night the smell of dog and horse and cow lingered. I could have showered it off but I couldn't focus long enough to bother. Or maybe the lingering smells reminded me of the fear I feel and I froze. I am scared shitless. What am I doing? My "bathtub" is going to be a doggy tub. No really. It's a tub used to bathe large dogs. There is no tile on the bathroom floor and the water pressure will never be enough to get my hair clean. The disorentation from the elevation kept me teetering back and forth while I was viewing the place. I think I nearly fell down those steps a few times. My rental is on the side of a mountain, not a flattened and paved parcel with convenient access to a comfortably appointed "cottage" - but a shack on the side of a mountain that looks more like Grissly Adam's vacation lodge.

I have heard almost every reason from every person in my life why I should stay in the city. Too dark at night. Too many unknowns. Too much isolation. Howling things and spiders. Steps too steep. Our mother's might fall down...you need to build a railing for everyone to be able to get inside. It's too dangerous. What if someone comes by at night and rapes you?

When I was 16 my mother called the police because a "blonde colored dog" was running up and down our street. I came home and walked in and there was my mom, hysterical on the phone telling the police officer that it was only a matter of minutes more before she couldn't bare any longer the thought of this blonde dog. "Yes! he is running up and down the street and I am afraid he might enter the house and get upstairs and maul my son. What if this stray dog kills him...or worse. He's sick and in bed with something and only 12 and defenseless against a big dog. Please come at once"

I have a few painful memories of my mothers dramatics...but none so telling of my future now, or then, as my having to run around for 10 minutes cleaning up the wine bottles so that the officer wouldn't think my mom was a crazy lunatic drunk. The most interesting thing about my mother is that her dramatics were never a result of alcohol at all; she was eccentric and that tore her apart because it wasn't allowed if you're raising two children alone. There was no place for fancy or frolic.

I have to get out of the city. The walls are closing in and I need to try to save myself. If there is an earthquake and my little shack falls off the side of the mountain then I am going to die brave and happy, knowing I did everything possible to save myself from myself. I am going to sit in the dark with a candle and write to the sound of my heartbeat. I am going to watch horror movies and let myself be scared, and then wake up and be OK. I am going to wrestle with spiders and snakes and mountain lions and horse shit and dog shit and my shit. I am going to be dirty a lot and roll around in the dirt. I am going to carve out something in the side of the mountain, maybe my name, I don't know, I haven't gotten that far. All I know is that my life is at stake and I plan on keeping my phone off the hook for as long as I want.

Photos of the shack

sep 15 2009. i know that for sure