Hard

The water tastes like shit.
Literally. I'm not just saying it's not good-tasting. It literally tastes like shit.
They say it's just a coincidence that they've started adding recycled water to the supply.
Yeah right.
We all know we're drinking shit.

***

Eventually, we'll all start smelling of shit.
It will seep out of our pores.
I already look like shit, can't think for shit, don't know shit.
Life is shit.
I am going to have to learn to love shit.

***

Zenella has a sleepover and there is a crisis.
So T, her friend since she began to live here, is sleeping over
and E, her best friend from school.
And Zenella says, can E2 sleep over?
And there's some toing and froing and then we're all out in the front yard and T and Zenella are crying.
T wants to sleep over at E2's.
Are you fucking kidding?
Well, kids are like that; they don't see past what they want. And lots of adults too. It's the way things are here. For all our faults, the English at least grasp that others want things too. Australians don't care.
Mrs Zen doesn't care. I can't imagine what her head is like. Inside her head, I mean.

***

See, we have a budget of 700 dollars. It's not a huge sum of money, but no one goes without. It's not all I have, but it's what we live on week to week. We'd spend about 300 on food. The rest, dunno. I don't really think too much about it. It's what I put aside for the week to week and that's that.

700 bucks a week is, I think, more than the average wage. Before tax. So Mrs Zen thinks life would be easy if we were separated but I think she doesn't realise that I wouldn't have 700 dollars for her.

I wouldn't have anything, would I? Is she counting on my not wanting the children to go without? Is she thinking that I will sacrifice everything for that?

I don't think she thinks at all. She just wants me to be nice. I just want her to be someone I can be nice to.

That's pretty fucking intractable.

***

You'd think that that would be an incentive though. Maybe she calculates that for me to be happy, we'd have to have less money. Maybe she just doesn't think about it at all.

I don't know because if we talk, the only thing she ever wants to talk about is what a cunt I am. Well, you know, I have good and bad things about me, like anyone, but I never was these things until I arrived where I am, and I'm pretty sure it's not fixed.

But if you simply don't believe anything is your fault, how can you fix anything?

***

You know though, I get envious about other people doing well at poker when I think they know less than I do or are misapplying the principles, which they do. You can simply run hot and not be anything like as good as you think. But I wouldn't be envious if I never heard from them. I am forced to have an inauthentic conversation and I hate those.

The problem is only that I want to help them. I want to say, don't forget that you can be running good and can also run bad, so keep studying and trying to improve. Which they generally don't. They run hot, move up fast and then blame "variance" when their lack of ability catches up with them.

Well, maybe. Maybe I overthink it.

***

I was going to say that being alone in a basement means that you overthink things a lot, but actually, I don't think much at all. My feelings about poker are gut reactions. If I actually reason it out, it's not so hard to deal with. My results have mostly been really good in games my skills are well suited to, and not so good in games that need more specialised skills. I'm improving those skills, and will probably improve quite a bit in those games. I need experience too, and that experience will show me whether I'm right.

See, it's not so hard.

***

But I find it hard.
Is it only seeing with the penetrative look?
Is it only seeing to the heart of it?
How come I can see to the heart of your problems?
Am I completely turned into myself so that I cannot step outside?

***

I was going to eat cheese and biscuits for lunch but I'm feeling like there is dough in my stomach, expanding until I have no feeling of hunger at all.

***

I would hate to die before ever having lived. But when will I live?

posted by Dr Zen @ 12:11 pm