Mayday! I'm going down...

I'm semi-blonde now. I'm sick now. I should be sleeping now.

Listening to music on my headphones now. Pain in my lower back now. Need to get in the floor, and drink more water now.

I need to stop using the word now.

I'm thirsty and tired, and frustrated...

It's Memorial Day, so I guess I'll do nothing later today but sit around and think of poor dead soldiers and be depressed. And hopefully get better...

Bot was sick last week; running a high fever, and throwing up, etc.

I finally caught it Saturday night, right after she finally got rid of it.

Yesterday was hell. Trying to keep her happy while I laid on the couch...I stayed on that couch so long, I feel restless now...like I should do something with myself. Why not write a blog entry?

Yes. I could do that...

The month of May kicked my ass. A long blurry month, where I was too busy to be anything but busy; busy times a million, to the rooftops, etc.

I can't tell you half of what I did, though, 'cause I don't rightly remember. So hence the blur. Like watching a movie so long, when it's finally over, you don't know what happened at the start, or who that guy was, or what it all means, and furthermore, you don't care. It's over, and that's all you were wanting...

I do remember writing here, a couple weeks ago, on the eve of another holiday...I couldn't sleep, and went to the sale only to be called 'stupid' a million times by my mom and sister. A couple of shallow bitches who like to bully me any chance they get. I ended up crying, and leaving at eight fifteen...driving like a zombie, I hit a bird with a thud, and it went flying to the road...Poor bird. What did it do to deserve it?

Mother's Day. I sent Bot to the Others and cleaned. That afternoon, she was back home with me, and my father came to see us. He called me stupid for being upset about being called stupid. Plus fat and lazy, etc. Always treat mother's extra special...except when people forget their daughters are mothers, and you can't talk to me that way, I'm an adult now. Not a child you can bully...all because I priced my stuff so much less than theirs. I just wanted it gone...and they always say we'll give what doesn't sale to charity, but they never do...they bag it all back up, my stuff included, and haul it back out to try and sale to poor people who need cheap used stuff, and I don't care if it's never been worn, or namebrand, and how fancy it is, I'm marking it a quarter. Everything's a quarter. Welcome to Ashley's magic table, an overturned cardboard box where baby clothes are All you can grab for ten bucks! 'cause I don't need the money anymore. I'm doing fine with money...paid off another credit card. I don't want to owe anybody nothing. I want to be free of all debt so I can concentrate on saving, and building, and living in the light of no cutoff notices, creditors calling, this is your final warning, we're terminating your account. You're ruining your chances...You're late on your loans...You missed another payment...Ash Chairiet, you're worthless! You're stupid for marking your stuff for so low: if yours is that low, no one will buy ours! And I don't care: they shouldn't mark theirs so high. So proud of all their wares, as if pariahs are begging at their knees for Tommy Hilfiger sweaters, only four dollars! Well...my, that's what every tailor-occupying, welfare recipient needs: a four dollar Tommy Hilfiger sweater from 1993.

But it's Tommy Hilfiger, Ashley! It's Calvin Kline...says the bunch of greedy monsters who've never been on welfare, and they don't know what it's like...to buy groceries with government checks I used to hide when my parents came over because I never told them I was on welfare. No one in my family knows.

I hid it well...those printed out checks, the free healthcare, the hospital, the delivery. All paid for.

If people need clothes for their kids, and I have a whole pile of clothes my kid has grown out of, and I can afford to buy her new clothes without the money from the old ones...then how is it stupid to sell those clothes for as little as I can without actually shouting Free?

I don't know...May flew by, and it rained a lot, and I got my hair dyed, and someone put a cross on the pole where the boy who always smiled was thrown from the car while sleep-driving, with a thud, and what did he do to deserve it? A cross made of wood, and it made the knots in my stomach re-tie.

I went to a festival, and ate a big corndog. I went shopping, and bought a fifty dollar Bogart-esque trench coat on sale for nine.

I watched a lot of The Twilight Zone. I didn't write. Didn't blog. Didn't keep up with the new blog I started for summer, and sex, and all things Henry Miller...For the new laptop, I thought I'd be here everyday, but it hasn't been the case...I was too busy. Too blurry. Getting my ass kicked. Watching TV, and feeling sorry for myself...the family who hates me, I can never seem to shake...

I walked outside today, and saw a dead bird by the steps. With a bag of trash in my hands, I leaned over to get a better look...a nondescript, brownish gray, and ants had eaten his eyes...poor bird. How strange the noise I heard only hours before in the kitchen...the thud against the tin, and what was that? I asked Baby Girl, as if she would know. I called my sister, and we talked, though we didn't mention their attack...You're wasting our time, Ash. Why are you even here?

I ask myself that...and then I go numb. I fall into the blur like giving into the current...though every time I try to climb out and dry off and rest for a while, I can't...I gave into that current, and now it's got me. It's busy, and demanding. Run errands. Buy groceries. Do your job, and don't complain. You're a robot. Don't feel...don't cry...just WORK and PROCESS. Start over the next day. Do everything yourself. Take care of a sick baby...check her temperature and freak out when it's too high, and put her in the tub with cool water, and give her more medicine, and when she refuses to take it, when she spits it out, you fall to your knees and scream on the living room rug and the last bit of your tiny black heart breaks and falls down into the cracks of the concrete of humanity, the foundation of life and all that is beating, to the basement below us, the floor of the bottom of the lowest place no man can touch, or will touch, for who wants his hands in the darkest abyss? Where little hearts break, and plummet....till they hit and splatter with a deafening thud.