Uprisings, Revolts… Mutants, Naps

First of all, this post is being published on 4/14/2024 and it was started in February. I can’t edit the date of publication because this old Dell is too old for the Word Press updates and I spend most of the time writing a blog valiantly defending my right to edit my own post.

ANYWAYS, I think it was The Weakerthans who had the song, “Futon Revolutionist”.

I have felt this before…

But now it could be my time to get off the couch. Also, “revolution” is more “working directly for the Man” in this scenario.

I joke with a friend that I’m now working inside the machine.

This is because I work inside a county building which houses the ADRC, Milwaukee Metro and politicians (mostly bureaucrats), non-functioning escalators and a printer which for months didn’t have an output tray and just spit out documents into the air which would then slowly float - back and forth – to the ground.

What’s mostly shocking is how, while I’ve known for a while that Milwaukee feels doomed, now it feels less of a gut feeling and more “Oh wow. It is as bad as it seems.”

I guess I had hoped the people in charge of the city were living in a bubble reality and not visibly defeated/defensive.

But, no, many of the people in charge seem to have simply given up and they’re okay with mice eating our snacks and how cars are stolen out of our parking lot and how the lights don’t work.

Since I reside on the farthest geographical spot in the realm of “Sanity,” I’m okay with it.

Comforted, even.

As in, “Look. Others who are perfectly fine with clear aesthetic wrongness.”

But Milwaukee recently managed to elect the first mayor of color, and he is young and he is hiring “change-makers” and so perhaps Milwaukee will finally see a new day.

We who work in the county building all hope so.

But I don’t know if I’ll be mentally “around” to see if change comes. Last year at this time, I was losing my job along with my colleagues, and I’m now on my second job since.

I left Care Management for better work /life balance and I stupidly accepted a job through bleary eyes which has NO VACATION OR PTO upon hire.

So on May 1st I will have worked for a year without a week off.

Call this a First World Problem, but none of the 3 jobs I had in 2023 were easy to learn or do.

And, last Friday, I didn’t pass the first academic test of my life because this job also has all these trainings and tests. But this is the first one I didn’t pass. So I just have to keep taking it every day until I pass. And, every time I fail it, I keep the Yale professor from doing other things.

I don’t care if the certification is super prestigious and “something to add on to my resume” because I WAS LOOKING FOR BETTER WORK/ LIFE BALANCE and not the shattering of fragmented identities which I still clutch to my existential self.

Soooooooo… I don’t want to go back to work on Monday now.

I like my job. I really like my colleagues and I don’t want to abandon them as this summer is going to be absolutely insane and we’re short-staffed and I’ve already passed all these other tests and trainings but… I don’t know what of me will be left by the one year anniversary of this job on September 1st.

At least, thanks to this job, I’ll at least know the psychiatrists if I get institutionalized at long last.

NAPS and PLANS

Either way, superficially big things could be coming up in my little life despite my imminent mental collapse and the world ending around us.

FOR EXAMPLE, my hair is growing longer and longer which means I’m closer to the goal I made when age 25 to have long red hair like Jean Grey from X-Men 3.

No man could handle her.

Inspirational.

It’s taken me 20 years but I’m going to get the hair.

And – to my great delight – lately technology is behaving oddly… ideally because it knows my telekinesis is about to blossom.

Along with my new hair goal.

Coincidence?

For example, my Skull Candy headphones lately just turn on whenever they feel like it.

“CONNECTING,” I’ll hear from across the table.

“NOISE CANCELLING ON,” I’ll hear from the other room.

Headphones are just on their own, doing their own thing.

In addition, last week our knock-off Roomba just started up on its own and furiously tried to escape its home base which is wedged in a tight space so he often has struggles.

That was kind of crazy.

This little robot just woke and up and started to furiously crash into all the walls around it, over and over.

I since moved him upstairs. Perhaps he felt cramped.

And 15 minutes ago I walked into the room I’m now sitting in and the TV went on.

As if to say, “Hello!”

Clearly all this just means our old house wiring is wonky and we’ll likely die in a house fire next week because of it but… it’s also very complementary to my Becoming Jean Grey plan.

Jean Grey doesn’t have a job in an office.

However, I’m going to need some allies as my epilepsy hasn’t yet evolved into telekinesis.

But I do have remarkable physical reaction abilities.

You drop a bottle, and I will catch it.

It’s my coolest trick.

Thank you, epilepsy. I was trying to own this lightning fast reaction time once but a neurologist told me “Oh, that’s just because you have epilepsy.”

what

So… if it’s common knowledge epileptics have lightning fast reaction time than…what else are we capable of?

It’s Tuesday and I’m at work and my boss “Eric” says “HILLARIE. You have to do one more screen” and I’m all, “NO ERIC I DO NOT HAVE TO DO ONE MORE SCREEN.”

Eric: (ow)

The machines are rising, I’m in the machine, I’m becoming telekinetic…

Happy 2024.

After a nap, let’s go get this.