>>From: Belacqua
>>To: Perdita
>>Subject: ugh
>>Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000

I feel rotten. My head is killing me, and I feel like there's cotton between my ears. This is what's known in Belacqua-land as a really fucking bad migraine. It turns out the pharmacy gave me the wrong dosage of my Effexor. I needed 150mg and got 75mg. Luckily, they were still open at 7:30 and I could get the right dosage. Then a friend of mine who’s noticed cuts on my hand from testing the knife blade, said to me, "Let me see your arms.” So I showed him my bad arm, but I showed him the side with nothing on it, and thankfully, he didn't ask me to turn it over. I don't know if I could have dealt with that today. I've been lying on my futon watching NBC Thursday night programming, and I can’t make any fucking sense out of it. The characters are going through all these motions, and I don't know why. They don't make sense.

As for Belacqua's brush with death for the day, apparently there was a jet that had to make an emergency landing at the airport here because something was seriously wrong with it, and it was a jet from the airline I flew to go see you. I don't know what the problem was because I don't watch the news, but it's apparently major. I don't know if it affects the entire fleet or not. I fucking hate news announcers. It's like, "There's a toxic cloud floating somewhere over the state and residents in certain areas need to evacuate...details at 11.” Fucking ratings whores. I guess in my idealistic fantasy land, I thought the news was for the public welfare and not a ploy to sell advertising space and make money. I really don't understand the world.

It's freezing cold in here, and I feel so hot. Fevers are no fun. I hope this is just a migraine and not the flu. I really don't need to deal with the flu right now. I could get vaccinated, but that really increases my chances of feeling like shit, so I guess I'll do nothing. Roll the dice. It's only 9 o'clock and I'm exhausted. I guess it's about time to go to bed, time to pop my pill and hopefully sleep the entire night through. That would be a welcome change.

I found the phrase I want to leave behind when I die. It's from Vergil: "carmina nulla caram." It means "I will sing no more songs." I really like the poetic equivalent with singing. If someone is singing in poetry, it usually means that person is a poet. I don't know why, but I find that appealing. I've been writing some lately, but I'm not completely satisfied with anything I've done. I wrote two poems today, which is absolutely unheard of for me. I'm going to go over them tomorrow, and if I don't feel like ripping them apart, I'll probably send you one. I'm a goddamn perfectionist.

I suppose I'm going to take my sleeping pill now and hope to god it knocks me out.
I hope your show went well and you have a good Friday morning.

I love you.
Belacqua

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>From: Perdita
>To: Belacqua
>Subject: Re: ugh
>Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000

Belacqua,

I hate your doctors. What the hell is wrong with them? You know, you'll probably laugh when I say this, but my reaction to everything you tell me about your doctors is, "Jesus Christ, just leave him ALONE already so he can be NORMAL." Normal in my world, of course, may be extraordinarily fucked up in everyone else's world, but goddammit, you're normal to me. And that shit they gave you at the hospital about suicide being a long-term solution to a short-term problem, puh-LEASE. When life IS your problem, there is only one solution, regardless of how long or short-term it is. And you might as well make the potentially long-term problem as short-term as possible. Short-term problem, my ass. I don't know about you, but I have problems with the entire IDEA of life and society and the fact that there is such thing as existence, and that's a far longer-term problem than they'll ever be able to comprehend. So fuck that.

I've always had a huge problem with the news. In tenth grade, I had this Global Studies class where we were supposed to watch the news everyday, and everyday the teacher would ask us a question about what was going on in the world, and I never ONCE watched the news and I always failed those damn quizzes. It's a wonder that I even passed that class, as I used to skip it twice a week, too. But, as did all my other teachers in life, that one just let me slip through the cracks and by giving me a good grade because he knew I was smart and "just not applying" myself. Teachers would rather get their students into a good college than worry about whether or not they're learning anything.

Then, of course, the problem worsened because I watched the news the night Dante's brother died, and the words of the newscaster cut painfully through me because they were so devoid of emotion. My life changed, and they just spouted out the information and added some stupid fucking comment like shaking their head and saying, "What a shame." No shit, it's a shame. Are you human? I guess that little experience reminded me that all those stories they talk about on the news are actually about real-life people, and the fact that other people watch it is like they're admitting to wanting to watch the sick workings of the world. And they advertise the news programs here with cheesy titles like "Death by Babysitter" or "Murder in New England," like they're the newest drama on TV. I mean, come ON. Christ, what is wrong with people? And they think WE’RE the fucked up ones?

I'm sorry to hear that you're not feeling well. I wish I could be there now. I really wish there was something we could do to convince the world how very wrong they are and how very much it fucks with us and how very much we just wish they would all die to leave us alone in our misery.

You know what I think? I think there are entirely too many people in your life trying to tell you what to do. That doesn't help matters at all. If there's one good thing about my therapist and my shrink, it's that they never EVER tell me I HAVE to do something or even that I SHOULD do something. They make suggestions, but they don't even really expect me to listen to them, so it's okay if I don't. When I told my shrink how much I drink, he was just like, "Well, you know, women are considered to be drinking too much if they have more than one drink a day." But he didn't say, "Stop drinking," or, "You're fucking up the meds." He just casually mentioned that I might want to take that into consideration. I don't react very well to people telling me to do things. Even if I intended to do something and then someone told me to do it, I'd wait long enough after their request to make it seem as though I was doing it of my own accord and it had nothing to do with the fact that they told me to do it. It used to drive my mom nuts because the more she asked me to do something, the longer it would take to get done.

That "carmina nulla caram" is awesome. I love it, most especially because I'm a singer. Before I die, I want to make a recording of myself singing a really, really, really depressing song so they can play it at my funeral. There's something wonderfully haunting about hearing or seeing a recording of someone after they're dead.

Well, I'd best get back to work. I hope you're feeling at least a little bit better.

I love you.
Perdita