Variety Hours

12:45 a.m.

It’s late again, or early if you prefer. I am up and not so very tired. Sherri was in a very bad way today. She had been on Zoloft for her depression (her rheumatoid arthritis doctor prescribed it for her) and she seemed to be fine, but this week the doctor took her off it because we want to try to get pregnant again. Today she was like a zombie, almost. She was depressed most of the day, and she cried this evening as we lied in bed together. I spent all day with her helping to do things around the house, and it helped a little. We even played a game of scrabble and a number of rounds of an online game called Lexibox (a word game). I hope she feels better tomorrow—she has to work a long shift, though. She’s taking off next Sunday. She thought my mother would be celebrating her birthday then. But we’re doing it Saturday. So Sherri and I will spend Easter together, and alone, and with a ham… because of my sister’s husband we all have to suffer through every fucking holiday meal with a pork roast… not that my father does it badly. In fact he does make it quite well, but it’s all the time, without change. Anyway, we’ve already made plans. We’ll go to the store at some point to buy a small ham, some sliced pineapple, cloves (but I think we have these) and brown sugar (which we also might have). I haven’t had ham in so long (well, you know, leg of ham) for a holiday meal that I can barely remember what it tastes like.

I was supposed to be driving my father to the hospital on Monday for knee surgery, but he’s been taking an anti-inflammatory and says that they are working fine and so he decided to not go in for the surgery. This is a very dumb thing to do, but he must have his reasons. Of course he, my mother, sister and brother-in-law are supposed to be heading down to Disney World in July. My father, unless he gets the surgery and the physical therapy afterwards, will not last long walking around that place. He’ll be completely miserable, which of course will make my mother miserable as well as my sister, which in turn will make Tom (brother-in-law) miserable and the whole vacation will be shot. But for some reason he won’t go through with the surgery. It seems that when it comes to the Clancy’s and vacation, something is always going wrong. Had he decided to go through with the surgery, some other tragedy would rear its head and cause them to have a miserable time. Then again, maybe it was only when I was young and going along with them that these tragedies happened. Maybe I was the one who made everyone miserable? Could very well be. In fact, I have little doubt.

3:28 PM

I once mentioned to somebody, perhaps my brother or sister or both, or it could have been an acquaintance from work, that my favorite moon in our solar system by far had to be Io because of its color and its surface violence (I went on to explain the active volcanoes on its surface). The response I remember getting was, “I didn’t know that you were supposed to have a favorite moon.” Or something like that. I seem to recall afterwards a feeling of being absolutely alone, even though I was among people—this happens a lot anyway, and so I learn to deal with it.

8:54 PM

I took a nap again and woke up just about a half hour ago. This damned medication I am taking for depression is wearing thin. As soon as my new insurance is worked out I need to see the shrink and have her get me off of some of it.

My thought scatter like cock-a-roaches when the light goes on. I stop to think about something, grab any thought a-fleetin’, but to no avail… when I sit to write I got nothin’, nothin’, not a fucking thing. But the music helps soothe the soul. So I play some music that I got on my PC. It soothes pretty good.

The Darkness, a relatively new band (to me, anyway), has an interesting tune out that I was able to download from iTunes with a code from a bottlecap of diet pepsi. The song is “I Believe in a Thing Called Love.” It’s strange. The singer has this poppy sound that goes from tenor to soprano in an instant… It’s like he’s singing and then someone grabs and squeezes his balls right in the middle and up goes the octave! Makes for some interesting music.

I sit here and look around my room and see all of my books and think to myself that this is my life. When I die, other people will look about my room and see my books and think how sad, this was his entire world. There are worlds in every book, but none are mine. I want my world to be out there among the worlds of the rest of them. I want to be of those writers who are of the world. I want to be able to go out into the world unafraid and to finally live. To have a chance to meet wonderful people. To not feel hatred and fear toward humanity. Any world I would create now would be a very lonely, empty world. Perhaps it would be a claustrophobic world, the entirety of it narrated by a person sitting alone in a one roomed apartment.