Ashes to Ashes

The carpenter pries off the backdoor to the house and throws it aside. We step inside to get a first look, but there are really no surprises. The charred limbs of wood hang from the ceiling and away from the floor joists. The goal is to just rebuild. How fitting for this time in my life.

It’s like a firestorm came in September and wiped out everything that I knew in my day-to-day existence. Family changed. Friendships changed. Work changed. Professional life changed. Home life got more turbulent. Curse God and die like Job? Naw. I’ll curse God, have my Black Mass, but I won’t die. I have to rebuild, find my foundation, and just take it from there.

My psycho downstairs neighbor’s condo went into foreclosure in October. There’s a six-month period where he will either make payment arrangements to get his house out of foreclosure or he’ll pretty much be evicted. Considering that he hates everyone in the building, demonstrated by the fact he continues to let his dog run loose to shit and piss on everyone’s property, despite several complaints by the other residents, maybe he’s getting the hell out of dodge by the spring. Fingers crossed.

I don’t know about the holidays. The six week overspending, overeating, emotionally bereft holiday season has started, and I’m not sure if I’ll be spending it with my family. There’s no point. I haven’t heard from anyone in weeks except requests for money. My nieces and nephews are pretty much immersed in their independent lives. The rest couldn’t give fuck. My family is a group of people incapable of emotional support no matter how much I give to them. I might find a shelter to donate toys and food for homeless mothers and children. Help out with holiday meals. Give to the needy, not the greedy. I want to go to San Diego for the holidays and connect with the Pacific Ocean again. I think the few things I like about the West Coast are San Diego and San Francisco. Maybe I'll stick to the other side of the Mississippi and go to Chicago or New York, but NYC will be a madhouse.

And Michael. Dear St. Michael who will hereafter be renamed the Satanic Pimp Lord (SPL). God only knows the curses and invectives he’s heaped upon my head, lo these many weeks. One thing that a woman just doesn’t do is refuse to get out on the corner or offer pussy and ass for his exclusive indulgence, pleasure, and general exploitation. The general humiliation for me was that, in the end, he didn’t even give a fuck. It wasn’t even something he valued or put up a fight to have. He held the door open for me, and I took my walking papers and left posthaste. And not a moment too soon.

The Provost denied my last appeal for a time extension, so I now have to start my doctoral program over. I didn’t feel the lost until I went to my desk and cleared off the books and articles that had become fixtures with my desk lamp. I bawled like a baby for a minute or two then put everything in a box, perhaps for future reference. In a way, this might be a blessing in disguise since the last few years I’ve take interest in Gadamer, Habermas, and the Frankfurt school. And my former dissertation wants to help me publish some of my dissertation in a couple of philosophy journals so that it wasn’t all a total waste. I’m also going to submit a proposal for the MLA conference next year. Who knows? It just might open up new doors for me.

Rebuilding my house will be good for me emotionally. It will take my mind off other things, and there’s something about using a power drill that has been very therapeutic.