flagrant

after caressing the last leaf in the garden, i returned to replicate the skeleton seen in LIFEBOX cartoons. the intention was to reflect upon the symbolic pulling of weeds while producing images identical to those held in my scribbled collection.

the first page was exhilarating and sick. was it 'involuntary flower and tremor' or 'resolution of imaginary pedal edema?' a plant, a foot, or both? one thing is apparent, all medicine aims to cankle my mood.


flower and cankle,
where the absurd dew sticketh-- july 2007

AND, as you, i thought to quit and rip but with all of this goddamn patience now, employing idiocy on cold press paper could be an indefinite punishment.

mere amounts of marvel were squashed when peeling back the skin of other old papers. i scowled while thumbing through folders, secretly annoyed at having never recognized that the rings of an onion had once been stowed. greened at the sight of lemon hue, i ache with the vermilion. it's funny how dark papers tell bright and tired tales of manufactured funk, while this saturated ultramarine screams out from the black. you know you've reached a clinical version of stank after buying three dry pans of yellow paste, each lighter than the next, and upon retrieval from the bag, hissing spirits find them too flat to even dent.

consider the ambitions of pyruvate concentration if i were to macerate this onion's pungent tissue. since i would not kill the memory and could only recoil in thought of the death's scented evidence, its swirls of circles were eventually repainted. ignore all vibrant clairvoyance-- let's simply render this old onion dead.


undeveloped organ / onion,
untitled #16-- october 2003

a square epitaph: the stratified stacks of insignificantly colored mass hold a noted single center. once evolved, it revealed itself as a divided but sharply protected heart.


perhaps a heart,
AND potential for vulnerability-- july 2007

how much of my future waits to be released from tubes of thick liquid paint? these silly watercolor treasures are ordinarily abstract, but mechanically correct. what was once an old painted mass of whatever is now always depicted with a more normalized chamber geometry. basically, my 'heart' is emerging-- and honestly this fact was only realized through penning a curt outline. several other never communicated aspects of vulnerability have become pronounced, and each awareness only represented through caustic cartoons.


when the spine was white,
untitled #16-- october 2003

a noticeably muted affect is apparent, but on a whole, familiar character is tighter and almost frighteningly more complex. this is true that issues of my disability are reduced or have become a tremendous spectrum of restricted fun. remaining complications appear contained and would render Them perplexed, but wet lines of noisy riddle have drawn an exciting atlas indicative of current existence.

it's been difficult not to trip on the paper's wrinkled velvet. i see the deleterious effects of remaining grey but that the composition remains quick. consider persistence when some bones have fractured, others have fallen, and rot has actively spread. white is now a dishwater drowned rose. bone is brown.

there are appropriately sporadic angles of wasted space. so much nothing always amounts to an uncomfortable something but i accept the offensive gaps. those spacious areas of the picture not only illustrate how i believe i am nothing without my illness, but also parallel the worries of the season.


painting toenails,
ambitious season, squandered-- july 2007

"absolutely nothing correctly fits into the vast time frame of summer. what am i supposed to do with all of this space? with what can i replace this disgusting time for relaxation? how can hold back the panic when investigating how to leave it untouched?"

the secret here is that for illness to thrive, i must ignore every other talent. without its intensity, there must be nothing valuable to fill space and only ideas of wasted time. even when faced with more, illness insists other people are rendered blind to any of it, too.

"so then how did you spend that time," They, whoever They are, will be apt to question. whether it be 'this lack of fully fulfilled summer' or pen to paper, undoubtedly, after any variety of loose creation is successfully archived, They will ask how much longer i think it will take to finish.

Ouch,
AND not just Ouch, that's an Internal Ouch.
AND all Internal Ouch is determined to be used as ammunition.

AND to think that not over a week ago, an inside out state of terror was only navigating a concept of 'how one can finance therapy sessions with a highly specialized neurobehavioral geneticist.'

it is imperative to suggest an outline of resident doctor #4's resume, since saying he is 'highly motivated' or 'has nobel potential' seems pretty impotent. for example, he once acted as the chief resident of ucla's anxiety disorders clinic and intensive ocd treatment program as a side project. the point wouldn't be to endlessly brag, rather, to point out how resident doctor #4 stands at a perfect intersection of what i need.

our options for therapy are required to change. it's been a jolt, but not near as bad as our last transition. the office space changes-- this is not a big deal or a concern, but given my history, the change is noteworthy. our roles do not undergo a phenomenal adaptation as last time-- thank god. the discomfort i feel is rooted in financial transactions, gaining/accepting/using my own authority, and of course, the disruption of my extremely rigid structure of schedule. no more monday morning makeshift offices. if i maintain a relationship with resident doctor #4, we will spend plush evenings in a wilshire boulevard high rise in westwood.

i keep deflecting to overwhelming concerns of insurance while he confidently tells me "that all of the mechanics are in order" and "we will work something out financially." when i neither answer nor alter the stare to a different speck on the carpet, he actually uses the word. "i am confident we will work something out." he has never cheapened my illness by suggesting not to worry, and it feels as though he would like to, but this is as close as his profession is allowed to get.

what is ridiculous is how i keep flooring the idea that i am obligated to come up with $600+ an hour, at a rate of more than an hour a week. this is unreasonable because my insurance coverage is exceptional and pays 80% of an out of network mental health claim. i continue to obsess that if i cannot manage the entire bill on its own, my illnesses will regroup, and conspire to act on the final blow. i had thought i valued myself enough to attend, but certainly not at that price.

the figure of $600+/hour is not on fire. it's a very real charge. what is not real is how i look at it through lunatic glass and assume insurance will flake out or that the figure somehow applies to me. even without insurance, i wouldn't be expected to come up with those numbers. i know this but it neither stops irrationality nor obsession.



illness puts me in a place where i continue to state my role in psychotherapy is meaningless, and that only his direction is substantial. essentially, i act as though i am half blind but still expected to place a value and decide to afford the entire process. i don't acknowledge how i am the one who chips away at it and puts it to use.

i feel like i am going to die from this [mostly contrived] stress of trying to [unnecessarily] assemble a way to pay [a fee which will not be realistic to pay out of pocket]. i cannot trust the safety until the specifics are finalized-- and so the worst case scenario is that "i don't have the capacity to maintain this $600+/hour payment and our relationship will end.' since our relationship is suddenly ending-- i'm having a heart attack. this isn't the right time. everything is unwound. AND worse, had i an inkling, disengagement would have been successfully applied.

the potential loss of this particular psychotherapeutic fortune excites ten hour long anxiety attacks. consider the loss of resident doctor #4 a crisis and also why death is my favorite answer when i am not known to act conveniently.

i keep reminding myself that the stress is not real, but...
but it is very real.
i mean, this irrational stress is illness.



intensity isn't constant. a few months ago, spacing out our appointments was somewhat desired. the idea i could take on less appointments calms down [irrational]financial worries but scares me to death. attending only a partial level of care at this time is dangerous. i can't see how it's possible to afford an optimal agenda with him in private practice.

consider how resident doctor #4 is flirting with anorexia while secretly stitching it to a chair. perhaps he caresses its back and feigns awe, directing the benefits of the illness into alternate avenues of my life. consider how, if too much time were to pass between interaction, there would be a lack of seduction and distraction. given this freedom, anorexia will not only have substantial time to reflect, but also see the needlework and imagine resident doctor #4's intended craft. illness is resilient-- the anger will tear out the stitches and fiercely fill up the room. how on earth can it possibly get worse? understand it will. if i attend a session with him every other week, it sounds like i am just asking for an inevitable (and much more expensive) inpatient hospital bill.

AND still, insight maps it out, but the depths of concern persist on multiple levels: nightmares are fundamental and always adhere to destined quirkiness, that is, until a recent scene where the car was parked in front of the 7-11 and i killed myself. as strength slipped, the last thought in that suicidal night was one of regret. these [irrational] strains and turmoil are fueling dreams to play out decision, action, and consequence all relating to insane $600+/hour obsession.

i honestly think i will die without the interaction with resident doctor #4. after many years, i now maintain a personal form of 'sustenance' and the fear of its loss is breaking me up. now, if it were true and actually about to happen, this would be very normal. what isn't up to par, is how i insist on seeking out a way to thwart the horrible sensations of a possible disappointment.

AND undoubtedly, the 'idea' of a loss is worse than the actual experience. an 'idea of disappointment' holds multiple concerns and allows them flight-- spectruming out into the Land of Impossible-But Maybe-SO What If. an 'actual disappointment' would contain several facts and see a profound reduction in nervous concern.

more nightmares of regret. jerky daymares of allergic puzzles. he flails his arms at me from the middle of the cornfield maze and is trying to shout out the map. i know where he is, i just don't know how to get through all of the maltodextrin, dammit. will he ever stop chalking up intolerance and akathisias to levels of hydration and physical equilibrium? "i am confident we can work something out." the rustling of the wind. i dreamt of the dusty smell of dried earth and nitrogen. "...be at ucla for three years, at least, depending on whether or not i can get funding or write grants." the corn stalks in oh-so perfectly eerie yet alert rows. AND enter the worries of limp-headed scarecrows. AND i hate fields of bent sunflowers, too, since they look so sick and needy when reaching toward the light.

AND though everyone knows the only useful sunflowers are dead, i too will need to stretch, sunshine.

i will go and will trust resident doctor #4 in how he states the bills will not be exorbitant, and if they are, that he is open to negotiation.

perhaps, again, it doesn't matter whether or not the loss of resident doctor #4 is irrational. what matters is how the thoughts have been exciting very real problems.

time heals all:

why did i spend any enthusiasm on anxiety, speculation, and discomfort?
these enormous tax bills essentially confirm how high i like to fly it.

perhaps the week of extremely expensive and silent crisis has ended.

ah, well now it won't after affording room for the jinx. just by putting the possibility of calm out there awards whatever is in control an additional providence. superstitious, i guess. never suggest a chain of bad events is apt to circle back into a correction, when, after all, things can always get worse.

rule: always.

riddle: if good is bad, bad is enjoyable, and i knew the last two weeks would involve queuing for the roller coaster ride-- why is this week horrible at best? it's the same old question-- if 'everyday is nerve wracking' why can't today simply be saturday?

consider: the minute behavioral insight actually does trump the experience.

ah, scroll back several days to an attempt at DAILY LIFE:
i hate doing the DAILY LIFE.
i had checked the mail-- big mistake.

apparently the irs won the lottery. i don't know if i should shyly send them timely annuity payments, or join their party and present them with one lump sum written out on an over-sized novelty check...?

it's funny how receiving this astronomical bill opened the door to the horrible want. even though a transaction would never come to fruition, i am suddenly overwhelmed with how much pleasure this sum of money could buy.



i will not complain about paying a tax (but will grouch about having to stalk and torture my dumbass accountant, and how his process of punishment is apt to interfere with my current use of ropes and bucket).


as days passed, the sensation of financial catastrophe was beginning to fizzle out toward numb. numb may be the wrong term. anxiety may have instead been driven to an extraordinary level of impenetrable noise.

an idle fancy that DAILY LIFE can get worse was pressured but i did my best to shut the idea up. there is no catastrophe in the tax, rather, these new nerves were revealed with the surprise.

if good is bad, and bad is good, then this letter from fresno can function as no ordinary recalculation of tax computation. no sir-- let's change the perspective as quick as possible. perhaps this demand for more money than i had intended to earn this year, ohmygod, is a congratulatory letter for having had such a successful day trader career a few years back.

:/

the slump was hunched to the point the joke finally broke down: no no no, it can't get much worse than when something taps into my rigid structure. in fact, having to endure this undesired feeling of unpreparedness is the end of the world.
AND on cue, because this sitcom was renewed, the irs sent an additional bill.

one
two
three
four
five digits
AND due immediately.

oh, sweet mother of sick expletives and unbuckled fear.
AND oh-my-god The Doom,
anorexia as a lethal but reliable frame of formula
AND seven other perils of day trading, too.

consider how an undefined rule floats out there but is attached to my situation: everyone who comes into contact with my personal information and/or situation and has an authority to adapt it in any way, shape, or form must, i repeat, MUST somehow screw it up.

consider: that omnipresent incompetence.
consider: how i obviously went looking for it.

AND ha, there it is: this second letter requests i contact them 'immediately' to accept or decline a recalculated tax and their version of 'immediately' was a specific date last month. ooooohhh, this type of crap is such a common occurrence. how i hate that the amusement is not automatic.

understatement of the year:
fine, the last few days have been extremely distressing.

campanula persicifolia, peach leaf bellflower

when thinking ahead to the sore spot after august, my heart falls a bit.

this current rush and exchange of panicked breath lacks emotion. breathe in, breathe out. the air is quicker than normal-- but why? i neither feel stress nor any need to leave the house. for what reason should i choose to choke on tuesday? hell, my personal phone is even broken. no one is posed to peer into, let alone pop this bubble.

AND even though it's just the threat of time causing the slip-- the blink of the clock -- why not briefly contemplate the swap? what will reciprocate if not enervated by this crease in the calendar?

yesterday i stacked the answer of 'bailing on resident doctor #4 in total' next to the idea of 're-befriending grit.' basically, i could opt to quit and thwart a specific fear, or sense mere seconds of terror during the effort of continuance. the lyrics presented this fall will illustrate living at the speed of light,

AND the distraction of offering myself a complacent choice was not useless-- its hassle acts as the routine want/need speed bump.

ordinarily today would have been inaccurately labeled with terms of fear or anxiety. i think this churning experienced now is an excitement relevant to what can be seen peeking out from behind yesterday's stress.

the discharge of frustration is routinely slippery. one molested crocodile tear/ the second ping pong ball sized clot of blood/ three gallons of nightly conversation with the drain/ AND sure, trichotillomania can be a bit moist.

earlier pulses were rendered imperceptive merely by philandering potent penetration and other slick routes to dissociation... but not anymore.

consider how people cheapen the experience by writing superficial straight lines/ artistic cuts lack profundity/ AND proof is in how anything delicate screams of ordinary incompetence.

why distribute mild ritual as shame rather than conserve the volitional euphoria?



[later]

okay, cue the theme to 'the twilight zone.'

i went out and walked to reduce the ideas found in the first section of this entry. en route, a step was taken over the broken metal emblem which had apparently fallen from an oldsmobile cutlass. a discarded ping pong table, placed out on the curb for garbage collection, somewhat blocked the path. two plastic ping pong balls had rolled out of a cardboard box to oddly stop at the edge of the sidewalk. after arriving home having fended off a yearning for alternate expression, the cat fell off of my desk and in the process of trying to save himself, scratched me in three perfectly spaced lines.

resident doctor #4 is leaving the clinic where i see him at the end of august. if i find relief in the fact he is driven and already notably accomplished in several fields, i should embrace all disruptions caused by his advancement.

my guard was secretly let down, though did not appear to be, due to my having ignored his existence for the last few weeks. "the summer of practicing unreliability," i was going to say when eventually called on my whereabouts. well, when it finally happened, he claimed the win. "i'm the one who is unreliable," he said. "i kept telling you this place was solid."

see, this is why i don't like going first. he who is in the position of cleaning up has the right to produce the biggest mess. consider resident doctor #4's barefoot confidence while standing on scattered glass and how i should only spectate but am wincing with doubt.

of the clinic, he had said: "...at least another year."
i had thought: 'what? this rocket can't land here.'

today he said: "so, where are you at with all of this?"
i said: "hunger is as full as possible today."

which meant: an urgent craving to regulate consciousness through a self injurious substitution. hunger's wretched weakness was as pronounced as possible and beginning to cycle into its dreaded state of s-s-soothing spiritual tranquility.

or, more clearly, "i really need to cut myself right now because the current state of hunger doesn't hurt enough to distract from this weird sensation of _________."

AND now the event of a lifetime, which had arrived last summer but was, thankfully, postponed: after determining the value of a private practice setting, negotiating and then accepting my own worth.

i believe i have enough esteem to squash the negative voice and allow myself to afford the astronomical bills. our relationship is established, so that also helps bend the yes in my favor. depending on how much money seeing him in private practice will cost, it will be interesting to watch it unfold. if, after health insurance, the fee defines a fortune and i do attend, i am apt to become more authoritative. resident doctor #4 suggests the same thing. by 'owning' his time i will undoubtedly make him work. perhaps i will eventually begin to 'care about the care i am receiving' and in the process accept 'ownership' of this body.

though the current sense is buffered but sour, and i will be queuing for the roller coaster later this week rather than simply buying epinephrine, the upcoming transition with resident doctor #4 will be much easier than last time.

i could use a spot of advice in managing all rattling annoyance of pea and echo other than to motor on and arrange by concord/ consider how my answer must be found in the structure offered by nothing/ starvation is always so full and fat with whitelight but... ah, satisfaction is incompatible/ AND the darkness of dehydration is sick, too.

i failed at countering the troll by spontaneously accepting an 'involved' ecological project which lacked any possibility of a phenomenal result/ romanced it for whoknowswhy-imboredwhynot/ eerie unfolding of segmented personality started when concerns of media disinterest became fact/ consider the dangers found in my own lack of enthusiasm/ considered how i must have reached a new point of disgust if actually allowing Ordinary Project access to my home/ AND so without even speaking into a machine, i deflated all availability.

well, skip ahead to the not true but what feels like nothing to do/ AND let's expect no excitement/ anxiety/ or thrill will even arrive the day the documents are served/ AND hold the thought everything/ something/ anything/ rectified by paying a fine never really ranks as a stressor/ AND yes, i probably will get sued for this Ordinary retraction/ AND my ego strength doesn't give one damn about appearing unreliable/ undesirable/ AND just too complicated in that face of Ordinary, either.

but, i do/ i hate how 'being better' justifies all conclusion/ it's the best excuse to do/ to not do/ to practice saying 'no' without uncovering the cause/ to mute my expected opinion, or to allow terms to upset people/ to recoil prior to a full investment without experiencing guilt/ AND essentially, i think, freedom to try out acting as the typical jerk i would refuse to appreciate in advance.

so, let's raise the glossy grape to summer/ AND while Ordinary wants to blame the heat rather than understand sunny energy i can tap/ tap/ tap/ AND maintain twelve other projects which are outstanding in their effort of fulfillment/ AND moan about how this vast space/ extra time/ AND boredom after repositioning the flight of ideas only incorrectly perpetuates the idea i have nothing to do.

the summer of slow hell retains its desire for ritual. when time arranges into oh so lover-ly precise units i keep the spark, but this season has already killed me by contradicting the law of time and chaos. "if it's the november i will never remember again, why is it only july?" depression is heavy and though desperately craving a tachyon trip to the 'anywhere that is better than here' i am too weak to find the field or expand on theories and order.

since bringing the bloody blisters home from vancouver, i went to see resident doctor #4 one morning and then stopped to poke peaches on the drive home, but otherwise have not left this room. the aforeposted grocery sitcom starring employees and a store intercom only provoked stale humor-- not this isolation or new neologism. that situation should have at least symbolically refined how i can never be overwound.

no matter how depressed, disgusting, or fat i have ever felt, a rule of never letting my fears interfere with getting to the safety of resident doctor #4's office had always been maintained. i have recently bailed out of several appointments with him due to this funk-- something which had never been allowed to happen. if i have been within driving distance, i have always managed to suck it up and present myself. i haven't even been able to call to let him know.

in no way should any of this housebound depression++ illustrate a lack of productivity, rather, it just reveals an enormous decompensation from psychological health.

at the grocery store/ employees/ damn them/ teased me over the public address system/ "miss mini cooper"/ AND narrated each hesitant reach to press on a peach.

it's significant to syndicate pluck to either pocket or pile/ consider actively choosing bruises/ AND the potential for a waterfall/ spreading fruit could tumble down/ AND blood would drain to that scree at my feet.

neither lack of cataract nor nervous debris threw me.
well, not until electrochemical transmission.

a change in momentum produced during this interval provoked the impulsive entry to stab right at it/ fear of catastrophe, confirmed/ fear in setting the conflict down, lost.