Self-knowledge

There is a heat wave. This is Canada; dealing with air so hot you can swim in it is not what I signed up for. My skin is damp. I shower but don't feel clean. There might be something stuck in my brain; maybe it's one of those arousal systems. Such is biochemistry; it's odd to think in causal terms when it comes to metabolism. I make typos every third word or so. I catch most of them, but they frustrate me and often make me lose my train of thought. So I'll stick to short sentences, some of which aren't sentences at all. Like anterograde amnesics who can only watch commercials on TV. Hmm. I wonder if I've actually felt cockroaches on my skin. I might be making it up for the sake of committing the idea to the great electric void. I have definitely learned something about skin and suction. Heat waves are excellent times for existential crises, but I might have outgrown them. If so, that is another tragedy. They say that schizophrenics don't just hear voices: they experience "unreal" sensations in every senosry modality. Sometimes familiar words seem strange to me. Sometimes words stick in my mouth. I worry about the lubrication of my brain. Imagine a dozen imps walking over my arm and tipping little braziers filled with weak adhesives under my arm. Then I lift it and there is a "sqloosh" at the edge of hearing. A symptom of schizophrenia? I've made too many typos in my time and now every word has become one that needs a double-check. Are my abilities deteriorating? I don't need your weird cognitive plasticity, nameless interlocutor in my head. I just want a semblance of control. I want a little of the creative power the child-me had; the power that fell out somewhere by a ditch in Old Europe, unwritten and lost to posterity. Once, I found a hospital cardiogram in that ditch: it was, by some mad fluke, the cardioram for the last three minutes of my great-grandfather's life. This actually happened. I wish my eyes wouldn't squint so much. Would I had the manual dexterity to lay my thoughts out efficiently. I think we're going over the same issues again and again, so I've better find some new ones. I failed as a lover. This nameless experience made me realize that it's not my mind's motives that are important. It's what you can express with your belly and your tongue and your body language. We are jufdged by what we give up; emotion-names are just labels. Real giving up, giving out, spewing out, fessing up, or whatever are the real meat of it, the banana under the sticker, the carrot root in the ground. There I go, covering up with fruits and vegetables. Maybe I'll be waking up in a lot of lonely beds and squash and cauliflower will rain down on my head until I learn to keep my spirits up. With what? Alcohol? Icewater? Energy drinks? Glucosamine tablets? I may be a crank, but I'll come to terms with that eventually as well. But for the moment it is hot. And memory is not helping. Associations are the scoundrel's attempt to stay at the surface. When was the last time I wrote on an intenesly touching topic at length? It's all been impressions. I had a private hournal once but the microchips housing it melted. Even my music has heat shimmers. How is that possible?

Consider: "...after a few months in my parents' basement, I took an apartment near the state university, where I discovered both crystal methamphetamine and conceptual art. Either one of the these things are dangerous, but in combination they have the potential to destroy entire civilizations."