Overwhelmed

I'll be back at the factory when you read this tomorrow morning.  I have been exhausted and have not yet fully recovered, but I have lived in the working man's dream these last days.  If only, we think, our time was our own. . . . But the system will not abide such things unless we are truly fortunate or wicked.  For 99% of us, the factory whistle blows.

Today, my last day of freedom, I continued to work in the office cleaning up, organizing.  Maybe it was simply an excuse for not engaging the world, but truly it takes much time to put together packages of pictures, negatives, writings, and little paraphernalia into neatly organized spaces.  I almost expired  several times.  I did not know what to do, and truly, I have run out of space to store the physical evidence of my existence.  Here, for instance, is the view in the mornings when I write.  After the sun rises.  I cut it from a proof sheet that I decided to throw away.  Should I throw this away too now?  It is nothing, but it is evidence of a certain type.

I think I've had a breakdown.  I show all the signs.  I have been practically catatonic.  My body aches and I do not sleep.  I haven't slept twenty hours in the past four days.  Parts of my body don't seem to be functioning properly or completely.  What is worse, though, is that I don't seem to care.  I saw a man today who was walking with a cane taking short, deliberate steps.  He walked in front of my car and stopped without looking at me.  I saw spittle hanging from his chin then noticed that the front of his shirt was wet.  He seemed to have had some interruption in the flow of electricity to parts of his body.  Why was he on the street alone?  He had just stalled in front of my car.  He gave me a bit of a wave of the hand without looking at me, really, as if to say, "wait a minute, I'll get started again."  So I did.  And I thought, "Yup."

Counter to all this, I have been running a bit more and eating a bit less and have seemed to have lost some of my belly. I feel like it.   Of course, I could be on my way to my original birthweight.  But I don't care about it, really, or anything else.  I just want to sit and stare.

Not a stroke, you will say.  Clinical depression.  And if you can give me Xanax, I'll take your advice.  I just need to sleep, Doc.  Help a brother out.

I decided tonight that what I need is someone to take care of the practical life.  I'll take direction.  You can take care of the money.  Pay the bills and let me have some toys.  I'll go along with all the rest.  If you don't like this house, we'll get another.  I'll like whatever decor you like.  We'll drive what you want to drive.  We'll go wherever you want to go.  I'll cook.  I'll document.  I'll work.  Just don't make me think about the rest of it which makes no sense to me at all.

I tore though my cabinets and drawers tonight looking for soporifics.  I haven't had any restocking for a long, long time, and I'm down to. . . one really weak sleeping pill and. . . well, not much.  I will consume everything including the over the counter aids to get some rest tonight.  Tomorrow I walk back into the jaws.

Maybe it was a stroke.

I have been throwing away so much stuff from that little room.  I've filled many big garbage containers with everything from negatives to old bank statements and antique computer hardware.  Today I decided to burn records.  Just paper.  Old things.  But bank statements and their ilk do not burn well, and I put too many of them into the clay pot for them to flame well, so I had to take a stick and keep stirring and stirring.  Luckily there was a wind which helped to fan the flames.  But the smoke swirled and was thick and dense, and it covered me from head to toe.  No matter.  I was on my way to the track to run a bit.  Then a shower.  Sitting here tonight, though, I can still smell the smoke on my skin.  Strongly.  WTF?

Here is something I cut from a proof sheet I was throwing away that happened to catch my eye.  Why?  I don't know.  I wonder if I even took these pictures.  I don't remember it, if I did, but I take tens of thousands of photos a year, so maybe.

The blog will probably be made up of images like this that I am throwing away but want to preserve somehow.  It is so easy to become overwhelmed by stuff and things.  I'm not kidding.  I need a caretaker.