Month Three Update From Month One
Issue 3 - August 2020
by Dorian Yeager ~ Wordsmith in residence
Did not gain 20lbs! Only 3. Total deterioration of muscle tone just makes it look like 20. Possibly 40. Covered mirrors like I’m sitting Shiva helps.
Started diet again because I have a morbid fascination with surreptitious mirror peeking.
What the hell. It’s only 3 lousy pounds. Made banana nut bread.
Stopped speaking to the cats entirely. They’re insidiously plotting my untimely demise. I can see it in their squinty eyes.
Developed a meaningful relationship with the new fish. Clearly, he understands me.
As a consequence of developing a smoker’s hack that sounds like my apartment is filled with mustard gas, made admirable progress in quitting smoking.
Spectrum. Need I say more? But I will. Internet and phone held hostage for eight days. Challenged by first technician to defend a political position that I don’t even hold and then gives me the wrong password for the router. In desperation I call Spectrum to have someone out to get my internet devices connected. They send the same technician who informs me that he will have to charge me $44 to reappear and further condescend. I submit, of course, having no choice. Oops. He discovers that he gave me the wrong password for the router and then asks, “Why didn’t you look on the back of the router for the real password.” Stupidly I respond, “Who knows to do that?” which only further stokes his disgust with me. By now all the passwords have been changed—or parts of them. I have now used all the minutes on my cell phone calling someone in Pittsburg to pick up and then lose the connection. Congratulate myself for having left my gun in NH.
Back to a pack a day and an antipsychotics chaser.
Finally gave in and brought all my summer clothes down to sort and donate things I haven’t worn in a decade or so.
Kept everything. Winter clothes, too. Obviously, 3 lousy pounds is not incentive. Besides, if I don’t get back to work soon, I will never be able to afford to buy anything ever again.
Got dressed, put on my formal face mask to go drink a $14 warm martini in a plastic cup while standing on a hot sidewalk in the sun with total strangers.
Changed back into pajamas. I can make my own damned martini.
Upped my homemade bread making to three times a week.
Neighbors either didn’t answer their doors or looked at the loaves as though they’d been leavened with Agent Orange. No doubt my baking was piling more than 3lbs on the objects of my angelic generosity. Ingrates. The pigeons love it. Pigeons understand me.
Found frozen peas at long last!
Now hoarding bread flour. No competition from the toilet paper people. I’m stressed out enough without fruitless competition.
Pragmatic decision not to start new book until I can sit down, drink to excess and ponder the technicalities of being a genius like a real writer.
Accept that I’ve started channeling Ernest Hemmingway. Had to stop myself. After all, the gun is in NH.
Fixed the flapper in the toilet that every man who has ever voided his bladder in my home has sworn he could and would fix for me and forgot as soon as he washed his hands. If he did, of course. Weighted it down with spare Austrian Schillings that the European Union made obsolete. Selfish European Union. And after all the Kirschewasser and schnitzel I’ve downed at great personal expense. Selfish confederation.
Plotted downfall of Europe specifically and in general. Worked myself into an unattractive lather.
Enrolled in anger management program online which just pissed me off.
Watched every episode of every western ever produced in the 50s and 60s, drawing the line at more than three times. Can now do eerie impersonations of James Arness, Richard Boone and James Garner.
Working on Ward Bond.
Without concern for my personal safety, switched attention to “Hoarding-Buried Alive,” ”S’Mothered” and “Love After Lockup.” (more on this subject in coming diatribe, “Desperation TV.”)
Lost touch with reality, and if you ask me, about time.
Updated old list.
Naptime.