Breakfast Recipe to get a Leg Up.

Probably the best course is to talk more about what I'm cooking. I have a great recipe to share with you to-day: 

Beans and Eggs:

First thing in the morning, I wake up too late to even consider productivity. I keep telling myself that if I get up at 8am, I can probably knock forty-six things off my to do list. Instead, I usually get up at 10am, and accept that at least it's better than noon.

Once up, I am swarmed by a fresh to-do list; items ranging from critical to simple.  Every action-possibility fights to be heard first. All at once, I am confronted with everything I am currently screwing up, and everything I will never accomplish. Theoretically, I know how to improve, but it takes me a week to clip my nails, a year to wash my clothes, and only a flash to become furious, which can halt production for an entire day.

The first step is coffee. I try to keep my discomfort to a simmer at least until I have one cup of coffee. If I have an especially nagging thought or task, I jot it down on a post-it note, and flush it down the toilet.

Once I'm drinking coffee, I start to make my lists. While scaling a mountain, you might lose your foot and handholds - afraid of death, you will snap off fingernails and lacerate your hands the bone grasping for anything to slow your fall. Such is the function of my morning lists.

If I'm particularly bitter or concerned about something that's slipping through the cracks, then I try to keep my mouth shut until I've had the first coffee. If I screw up and start to moan, then Kristin will hear it, and she will think that I'm blaming her personally for something, which is only true about half of the time. Being that Kristin is my wife, I need to spare her the foulest of my malarkey to make our adventure seem viable for the long term. Killing two birds with one stone is great until you're the birds, and the stone is your own mouth spraying garbage.

Once I pour my second coffee, I can focus on what really needs to get done now. Usually it's something involving the business that we are "running" from our "home."

An hour later, I am dizzy and acid is chewing through my guts. Then I remember that people need to eat.

Ingredients: 

½ can of pinto beans; rinsed.
Two eggs; largest size available.

Use a can opener to cut all but half a centimeter of the lid open. Pour out the gloopy water, and rinse the beans until most of the can-water is gone. Pour half the can in a skillet with some butter or oil (optional). Cover the unused portion loosely with tin foil, and place the can in the back of the fridge until it rots.

Once the beans start acting "cooked" you can push them off to the side, and crack the eggs into the other half of the pan. Let the eggs do some cooking, and then break the yolks so you won't even have to try. Mix that around with the beans until there is definitely nothing gloopy anywhere.

Serve in a bowl that you bought for camping, and eat with a fork that you're embarrassed to have bought for camping. Enjoy breakfast while thinking about camping or living in a van, and try not to think about what happens to your rent money after you pay it.

Remember to shut your face about nothing.

Dear People Who I Care About,

As you may know, I cannot take care of myself. But so far, I still stand up in the morning. I still drink coffee and fry eggs and construct sandwiches. If you've interfaced with my exoskeleton recently, you've probably noticed little or no difference.

Maybe it's always been this way. Maybe the boiling water at the back of my brain has only drifted forward. Maybe the tiny skull-humans have been yanking on different wires of late.

I'm depressed. More accurately, I'm my own diluted version of depressed: not sad enough to use that word; not happy enough to jump in a lake. I can't compare my heart failure to anybody else's. I cannot hold variables constant or compare my malaise against a control group. What I can do is put my foot right through a wall. In the interest of preserving my toes, I haven't tried that yet. So I sit still and smolder...

I quit smoking weed a few days ago. That's fine. I quit taking Adderall a few weeks ago. That's fine. That's probably a set of sound decisions. They stopped working well. They stopped working, and I probably don't need tiny idiots tossing darts around inside my skull-bulge.

Drugs vs. no-drugs doesn't solve my problem. I can't rely on myself to do anything. I can't beg my body to sit up straight. All I can do is cycle through frustration, discontent, and the brief giddy interim.

So, I haven't been writing much. Who wants to read about privileged Americans who choose to sit at home?

Ah, the giddy interim! I get happy, but it doesn't last. I'm relieved when I'm happy. It still happens reasonably often, but I've recognized a trend. Happy or sad, I always feel like I'm standing outside my body and looking at myself. Maybe everyone does. Maybe I'm describing this wrong. Whatever this is, I'm not comfortable. Most of the time, I'd like to punch myself. Given those extra invisible fists, I'd punch myself right in the gut. I'd hit hard enough to be real sorry about it, and maybe even puke on my shoes. That's what I get. That's what happens when you can't shut your face about nothing.

Maybe a less shitty car would cheer me up. Pow! Right in the gut, you idiot!

I sure am pissed about agreeing to this rent-and-bills racket. Boof! You puked on your shoes, you fleshy illusion!

I'm being gently slapped by a thousand invisible hands.

(Camp is great. Send more cookies.)

Love,
Chris