I have bad eyes, I may have mentioned that here, especially my left. I once used three different drops to slow the inevitable blindness and all three were covered by insurance, the newest one works wonders, but then big pharma blended two of them, including the newest one, into one, and now insurance won't cover the new one or either of the old ones much less both. The full price for one month out of pocket for the new combo = $400, that's almost $5K a year. My eyedoc's office manager found me a coupon for $30 a month for half the year (supposedly rolling over year after year). When I went to pick up my prescription Sunday the cashier rang up $400? That's wrong, I said, I'm good through August, can you confirm that, I asked the white-robed High Priest of CVS #2537, and he said, Yes, but the insurance company hacked two weeks ago they can't verify, I said, and there are witnesses though I did not get names, How the fuck is this my problem, *you* pay the difference and get the money yourself, and the High Priest of CVS #2537 said, You pay now and mail the receipt and they will reimburse you and I said, They will never send me the money and you know it (against his better judgment but before he could stop himself he shook his head in agreement) and in any case, how the fuck is this *my* problem, *you* pay the difference and get the money yourself, and the nine people in line behind me clapped. It was fun! I am more blind today than had I paid the $400. Fine metaphors abound
That's actually a headshot self-portrait and not one of my eyes, I can't stop painting headshots. Do you know, I still encounter people - neighbors, acquaintances, colleagues, friends, loved ones - who think our accelerating enshittification and immiseration - bridges failing, two-mile long freight trains ferrying carcinogens on deteriorating rail beds that derail and explode poisons over entire counties, airplanes that lose side panels and doors and landing gear tires while in midflight, the pothole on northbound Rockville Pike in motherfucking Borth Nethesda - a result of shitlord incompetence multiplied by mismanagement not deliberate shitlord-ordered dereliction (via, in part certainly, incompetence times mismanagement) in service of wealth extraction and accumulation?
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Immediately afterward I was embarrassed at my outburst (and my enjoyment of it especially) at the High Priest of CVS #2537 and shocked at how intense and spontaneous and out of my mouth before knew it my anger was and frightened in aftermath I'm turning into Sarek and am now counting to three if I must say something and counting to ten in hope I don't say anything. The High Priest of CVS #2537 was just following orders but because Mr CVS wasn't there to bark at (I did ask to speak to Mr CVS but the High Priest of CVS #2537 didn't get the joke, which made me angrier, laugh), did I need to bark at the High Prienst of CVS #2537 who I knew couldn't do anything different than he did when I was barking at him? Have I written here about my whiteyelloworangepinkaddiction? That's for my eyes. New: my whiteyelloworangepinkredaddiction. That's for my anger. Please scream back at me if I unfairly scream at you.
Posted today to purge, two days from now one of my personal two High Holy Days, venting anger to replace, at least for Thursday, with love, but first, Swans, seeing them in twenty-four days, you could to, Baltimore, Moco, DC, and Nova friends!
SEX, NIGHT
Alejandra Pizarnik
Once again, someone falls in their first falling–fall of two bodies, of two eyes, of four green eyes or eight green eyes if we count those born in the mirror (at midnight, in the purest fear, in the loss), you haven’t been able to recognize the voice of your dull silence, to see the earthly messages scrawled in the middle of one mad state, when the body is a glass and from ourselves and from the other we drink some kind of impossible water.
Desire needlessly spills on me a cursed liqueur. For my thirsty thirst, what can the promise of eyes do? I speak of something not in this world. I speak of someone whose purpose is elsewhere.
And I was naked in memory of the white night. Drunk and I made love all night, just like a sick dog.
Sometimes we suffer too much reality in the space of a single night. We get undressed, we’re horrified. We’re aware the mirror sounds like a watch, the mirror from which your cry will pour out, your laceration.
Night opens itself only once. It’s enough. You see. You’ve seen. Fear of being two in the mirror, and suddenly we’re four. We cry, we moan, my fear, my joy more horrible than my fear, my visceral words, my words are keys that lock me into a mirror, with you, but ever alone. And I am well aware what night is made of. We’ve fallen so completely into jaws that didn’t expect this sacrifice, this condemnation of my eyes which have seen. I speak of a discovery: felt the I in sex, sex in the I. I speak of burying everyday fear to secure the fear of an instant. The purest loss. But who’ll say: you don’t cry anymore at night? Because madness is also a lie. Like night. Like death.
Once again, someone falls in their first falling–fall of two bodies, of two eyes, of four green eyes or eight green eyes if we count those born in the mirror (at midnight, in the purest fear, in the loss), you haven’t been able to recognize the voice of your dull silence, to see the earthly messages scrawled in the middle of one mad state, when the body is a glass and from ourselves and from the other we drink some kind of impossible water.
Desire needlessly spills on me a cursed liqueur. For my thirsty thirst, what can the promise of eyes do? I speak of something not in this world. I speak of someone whose purpose is elsewhere.
And I was naked in memory of the white night. Drunk and I made love all night, just like a sick dog.
Sometimes we suffer too much reality in the space of a single night. We get undressed, we’re horrified. We’re aware the mirror sounds like a watch, the mirror from which your cry will pour out, your laceration.
Night opens itself only once. It’s enough. You see. You’ve seen. Fear of being two in the mirror, and suddenly we’re four. We cry, we moan, my fear, my joy more horrible than my fear, my visceral words, my words are keys that lock me into a mirror, with you, but ever alone. And I am well aware what night is made of. We’ve fallen so completely into jaws that didn’t expect this sacrifice, this condemnation of my eyes which have seen. I speak of a discovery: felt the I in sex, sex in the I. I speak of burying everyday fear to secure the fear of an instant. The purest loss. But who’ll say: you don’t cry anymore at night? Because madness is also a lie. Like night. Like death.
1/congratulations on evoking the applause of your fellow prescription-seekers at cvs
ReplyDelete2/regarding enshittification - of course you are right that it is being driven by wealth extraction, not just general incompetence and employee whogivesadamnism
but also involved, imho, is hypertrophic complexification - see joseph tainter's the collapse of complex societies
2.2/it seems likely to me that, perhaps through a series of steps, there will be in the not too distant future what nate hagens calls the great simplification - this will have pluses and minuses
3/michael mann's thoughts on the irrationality of war are discussed at length in his most recent book - available at my local library only on audio, alas - blurb states
A history of wars through the ages and across the world, and the irrational calculations that so often lie behind them
Benjamin Franklin once said, "There never was a good war or a bad peace." But what determines whether war or peace is chosen? Award-winning sociologist Michael Mann concludes that it is a handful of political leaders -- people with emotions and ideologies, and constrained by inherited culture and institutions -- who undertake such decisions, usually irrationally choosing war and seldom achieving their desired results.
Mann examines the history of war through the ages and across the globe -- from ancient Rome to Ukraine, from imperial China to the Middle East, from Japan and Europe to Latin and North America. He explores the reasons groups go to war, the different forms of wars, how warfare has changed and how it has stayed the same, and the surprising ways in which seemingly powerful countries lose wars. In masterfully combining ideological, economic, political, and military analysis, Mann offers new insight into the many consequences of choosing war.
4/the people of ireland feel sympathy for the palestinian people - the way they look at it,
ireland : great britain :: palestine : israel
5/robert duncan's poem a little language reminded me of
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_(baboon)
which, to me, seems heartwarming
6/my hope is that you are soon successful at getting the medication you need, preferably without being ripped off
"I made love all night, just like a sick dog." Still trying to pull that image ashore.
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