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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Today, grey and snowing. Maybe 20% daylight, low clouds, rain turning to snow.
Wake up, have some coffee, breakfast, get a few groceries, go back to bed.
Dream that I'm ...
Strange dreams, anyways, filled with unlikely and unwanted personages.
Wake up, go and search for cigarettes, the lowering grey sky and weather, the shop, cash only, interac down, and so I'll just smoke a little less. The day, outside, so dismal, another brief nap, and while I should make some lunch I'm not starving or inspired, and with the windows pulled full wide it's still a dark apartment, dark day, work will be a brief relief from this, there are things to be done but I'm not getting started, not now anyways, time to get changed and head to work where - if I'm unproductive at least I'm making money...
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And this, the realization a little late, all the garbage that I sort through and throw away at the thrift shop. Tons, daily, and this - one of tens of thousands across the country. Perfectly good glassware, only we have a hundred more of the same on the shelves that aren't selling, the same with clothes, pots, pans, everything you can imagine we get 10X, 100X more than we can process or ever hope to sell, however discounted it is.
Everything is made to be thrown away.
Some things - aluminum cans, glass - well, they're not such a problem.
Plastics, electronics, synthetic fabrics, that's another story.
Everything needs a deposit. I mean everything. Nothing should be sold that can not be returned for a deposit. A wine or drink glass, maybe 10 cents. A plastic cup, 25 cents. A stove, fridge, TV - anywhere from a few hundred to thousands of dollars - depending on the cost of recycling it. Cars? Deposit required.
And all the deposit money, paid back to the companies that manufacture it, when they've successfully re or upcycled it.
The landfills, they'll be the next gold mines. I mean, even in the gilt edged plates and china that i throw away daily there's grams per tonne, enough to make it commercially viable, let alone the other precious metals and rare earths.
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The news that an Top American Healthcare CEO was assassinated in New York, all over the news, the major news outlet doing their best to try and persuade the public that a heinous crime has been committed...
Of course, no, and the numbers of "Thumbs Up", "Smiles" and "Laughing Emoji" that appeared almost immediately gave a very different reaction from the public.
The public, of course, being more than a little tired of being F*cked over by Insurance Providers, are not having it.
It is one of the more amusing and upbeat (sorry to say) news stories of the past year. Since, I would say, the "Rub-a-dub-dub 5 Men in a Sub..." story of last year.
And so it's coming to pass. People are realizing the institutions meant to safeguard them and their rights are too busy fleecing and profiteering to give a damn, and are - slowly, too slowly - taking matters into their own hands.
But, god damn, look at the politics and potential targets down there, enough entrenched corruption to keep a John Wick's entire army busy for years...
Nonetheless it's a start...
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Sunday, a delicious ly-in, the weather outside - well, cold, rainy, etc.
Wake up, arrange the "Studio", begin my experiments. They fail, which is why I'm doing them, a couple hours of putzing around to no effect, but I'm quick enough to wipe down the boards, need to arrange myself a little better and try again.
A bite of lunch, as I've been using the sink to wash away my paints I content myself with a Festive Shrimp Ring.
Work, peaceful, then, around 7:00 I begin to feel it. Stomach, off, cold, fever, hot, chills, smashing headache, an ague. I have one table, property developers of the "Hell-No" Nelson variety, talking, not eating, they're going nowhere.
And I'm getting worse. My back, tight lines across my lower back, painful, like I'm being stretched, my stomach...
I'm done, I make it to 9:00, 2 hours later and this table, they're looking a little upset I'm throwing them out, but damn...
Home, bed. I die. All night the ague, fever, chills, cold sweats, was it the Shrimp Ring? Or the sausages the day before? I don't know. Fever dreams, of nothing, cardboard, seeds from ash-trees, nothing substantive, disappearing. I'm half thinking - the pounding head, shortness of breath, strange pains in my back, that I'm in anaphylactic shock, it's the dose that makes the poison, after all...
Monday, day off, the same. I wake around 8:00, survive long enough to get a haircut, then home to bed. All day. I wake, briefly, try and read, give up, back to bed. The same dreams, of cardboard, of garbage, fleeting, there's nothing...
I wake, make a giant chicken soup, eat it, back to bed.
In the evening, better enough that I walk over to friends, sprawl on her sofa, watch TV, inane Netflix, I've discovered it's purpose.
Then home again, today, better, somewhat, I could go to bed again, but 28 hours sleep in the last 36, well, it better be enough, today's my long one.
If I weren't so close to death I'd chat a bit more, but, well, not now, not today.
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I had forgotten, then saw a handbill up advertising it and headed up...
Hope against hope, reading Cendrars and Bloch have given me a whole pile of other books and authors I want to read.
This, of course, doesn't happen, but the Library Book Sale, well, it has everything else. Books on self help, grieving, potboilers, divorce, best-sellers, sections on the Titanic (a legitimate topic if so much of it weren't inspired by that insipid movie), history, War, Governer-General Awards, Timothy Findley, Margaret Atwood, the usual suspects, NY Times Recommendations, the Guardians Best Books, books of recipes, a veritable library of art books, covering every artist, style, technique, medium..., books on religion, spirituality, relationships, science fiction,
I really don't need more books, but at $2 each I can't resist. A handful to tide me over until the midnight order of Cendrars begins trickling in, another month before I break down and search out some more targeted reading...