Sorry to interrupt the Phone Guys marathon, but I really ought to be posting something here, I suppose.

I am in the midst of a twenty year low, as far as my mental health is concerned. Twenty years exceeds the age of this website, so if we take the Book Of PDR as the record of my adult life, I am at my all-time low.

I feel like anyone who happens to read this can see the many ways our society is being ruined by those with power and whose only concern is remaining powerful. Obviously that is a big part of the problem for me. I wish I could do anything about that, but I don’t see how. People who function in society more successfully than I do would probably say something like “if you’re upset about things you can’t change, just focus on what you can.” And that sounds like solid advice, but I have lost faith that I can change anything.

I don’t have the mental energy to get through my weekly obligations and have energy left for the things I want to do in life. And that only causes a feedback loop because back in 2012 or whenever I quit a job I hated with the intent to go back to school and find my path to a more creative career. Now, thirteen years later, I seem further from that creative career than I was then. My life now consists of trying to pay off a student loan for a degree I did not manage to get and trying to pay for a vehicle I only have because I need it for the job I have to pay off the student loans and the car I have for the job. And, of course, rent for an apartment where I have no choice, but if I go anywhere else I’m paying far more. I’m trapped in a cycle. And, as I get older, that distance from what I want to be doing and what I am doing makes me lose more and more sleep which just makes me more and more tired as I continue the cycle.

And I want it on the record, I have a three day weekend! It may not fall on the days I’ve repeatedly asked for, but it’s still three days off work every week. Most people don’t have that and most people seem to get by just fine, so I’m left assuming that I’m just broken in some important way. I don’t understand how other people get by. At least one friend of mine said it is alcohol that helps those people, but even if I wanted to start drinking (now would be a better time than ever before, I suppose) I also don’t understand how people can afford things like alcohol or cigarettes or the other addictive mollifiers that are so popular. I don’t understand how people manage to be people in general. Whatever training people got to get through life, I did not get. Or, as I said, I’m just broken.

Every week, creative stuff has to be the lowest priority on my schedule. There’s work. There’s fucking sleep. Anything else has to be crammed in the available slots. If I visit my friends or my family, that’s most of an evening gone, so I can’t do my creative projects. Especially when I visit my niblings. They may be the most important people I know, but it is simply exhausting for me to spend an evening with them. As a result my options are to NOT visit my friends and family, which isn’t a real option, or to do that instead of working on my stuff and then have a little resentment that I spent that time with loved ones. And even this was easier when I had my weekends falling on actual weekends…

Or suppose I want to relax by reading a book or watching a movie or, heaven forbid, playing a computer game. These are the things that actually make me feel less exhausted. But they still take time. If I spent a day playing a cool mystery game (like The Roottrees Are Dead, to name one I did during this depressive period) I come out of it feeling great, energized, ready to work on something of my own. I want to take that energy and channel it into something, but before I know it, my time off is over and that energy gets to be channelled into my job instead. So I resent playing games, or watching movies, or reading, because they aren’t what I want to do either.

I come to resent time spent cooking. I resent time spent cleaning. I resent time spent going for a nice walk or catching up on the news (okay, maybe that one I’d resent either way). Anything I have to do that isn’t being creative, I come to resent. And since all of that has to be prioritized above creativity, I wind up resenting everything I do. I have to do all that stuff and maybe by the end of the week I have one new page written, one new page for a colouring book, one more small whatever and then at the end of a few months like that I notice the year is almost over and I have ten pages of writing and three pages of a colouring book, and that isn’t enough. It’s not worth the exhaustion.

So these last few months, I’ve just given up. I don’t even work on that one page a week anymore. All my biggest project ideas are now revealed as pipe dreams. I still idly tinker on things, I don’t think I’d be physically able to stop that, but whatever it will take for me to get back to working on the things I want to work on is something I can not currently fathom.

Maybe I need someone to explain the secret of how humans live or maybe I need an end to fascism. Who can say?

The Dark Lord Char’Nagh rides anew, sending lightning bolts flying and creating vast, coastline-shattering waves. Will we be able to stand this? Only time will tell.

Okay, another new year. This is definitely the year that Secret Government Robots will be ending. I’ve been slacking for the last few weeks, and this story has already grown two chapters larger than it was when I first plotted it out, but I should soon be back on track and we’ll get through it at last. One thing that will help, is that I’ve done some damage (thanks to effin’ snow) to the car I drive for work. This is going to set back my climbing out of debt by several months, but one the “bright side” I am unemployed while it is being repaired. If nothing else, that’ll give me time to work on stuff…

Now that I’m travelling to various locations around the city for work, and riding various elevators, I’m noticing something: Most elevators don’t have cameras in them. The elevators of my own building have had cameras for most, if not all, of the time I have lived here. I have a tendency to talk to them when I’m riding, for my own amusement. Now that I’m in all these other buildings and I don’t get to do that, riding in elevators has become sad and lonely. If I can’t mug for a camera, how am I supposed to spend my time? Not being weird? Psh.

Haiku!

A watermelon
is coming to my table.
It will not leave whole.

Since I am confident that everyone everywhere is curious for updates on my shaving situation, here’s the scoop: The Three-Blade Razor I was using at last report has turned out to suck. The blades seem to have dulled after not even a month of usage (shaving about once a week), which does not compare well to the actual disposable razors I’d been using for some time prior, which got through at least as much time without giving me problems. I haven’t thrown out the three-blader just yet, because I might be able to get more use from it, but I did open up the fabled five-blader to finish off the half of my face when the three-blader couldn’t cut it. I don’t feel justified giving a review to the five-blader until it does a full face-job, but it looks good so far. And if its blades can endure, five blades may be the next thing PDR is willing to endorse.

In other news related to PDR’s jaw, my jaw has been sore all day since I woke up. My theories are thus: Either I slept on it funny, or I was attacked and punched in the face by some manner of Dream Demon. In the more likely case, the latter, the fact that I only suffer a sore jaw proves that I bested the Dream Demon because I am kickass awesome.

I should definitely note on the site that I am employed again. Using my new legal driving abilities I will be delivering food for a restaurant across the street from my apartment building. Driving regularly will certainly help me get comfortable on the roads quickly, but more importantly, this will hopefully help to lessen the severity of the bad money situation I’m in (I think that might be the point of jobs, right?). I don’t expect to be getting a lot of shifts, especially not right away, so I should hopefully have a lot of time for working on the site this Summer. I intend to make good use of it.

I’ve only worked on short training shift so far. If anything worth discussing comes up, I’ll maybe remember to say something. I could see more things worth talking about coming from this job than my last one.

Well, for the first time in the history of this website, I am not employed at the newspaper job. Last night was my last night. Today I am throwing out a bunch of work clothes. I will not miss that job, but I hope that the place is not too unkind to the people I have left behind in the time that they remain employed there (Though I don’t predict a lot of years remaining in that place).

So the question is, “now what?” I’ve got to find a way to pay rent, of course, so I’m pretty much required to start finding some sort of part time thing. I guess that as soon as these holiday things are over, I’m handing out resumes. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that. Anyway, I’m off school until the Seventh of January, so I’ve still got a few weeks where I will have the time to look, though ideally I’ll be able to find something quickly so I will have some time left over before classes that I can get a few things done for the site.

Haiku!

You have to pay rent
or you don’t deserve to live
you witless bastard.

If any rich people and/or wizards are listening, I will again put forth my assurance that I am willing to take up to half your riches. It’s easy to unburden yourself with PDR’s help! Remember that.