>>From: Belacqua
>>To: Perdita
>>Subject: all too sober
>>Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000

Well, no alcohol for me last night. I just watched football until midnight when I took my sleeping pill for the hell of it and went to sleep. When I woke up, I felt horrible, so I went and spent the money I was going to use for liquor on something else that made me feel a little better. And I ate a chicken sandwich last night for the first time in over three years. I was going to the bank to get some cash, and the fucking Wendy's sign said something about their spicy chicken sandwich, and that sounded good as hell at the moment, so I figured, it sounds good, and there's nothing in the world stopping me from buying one except for the fact that I haven't eaten meat in years. So, I bought one and it was good, and I don't feel guilty in the least about it. It really hurt my stomach, but that's just going to happen until I get used to it again. I don't plan on becoming like a full-fledged carnivore or anything, but if I want to eat something with meat in it, then goddammit, I'm going to fucking eat it. I live under too many restrictions as it is. I don't need to impose another one on myself because of an ethic I stopped believing in a long time ago.

Thank you for helping me not feel so lost. Sometimes I lose it and feel so insignificant that I don't know if I even exist anymore. It helps to be reminded that someone, even if they aren't immediate, is concerned. Yesterday, I got so sick of being inside that I stood up and started walking around the apartment complex, only half conscious of what I was doing. It was a really strange feeling, and didn't really make me feel better, even though that's what they put on my discharge statement at the hospital. I swear to god it said, "Take long walks to decrease depression; keep a journal; take 20mg Prozac daily." That was their magnificent advice to me. Anyway, when I got almost back to my apartment, I had this amazingly strong impulse to keep walking and not go near my apartment, and if I couldn't keep walking, then I should just slit my wrists in the parking lot and die next to the dumpster. But I knew I had to go back to my apartment, so, with my hand on the hilt of the knife in my pocket, I focused on you, and your voice, and your upcoming visit, and I halfway fought the impulse down. I ended up slightly south of my wrists and got my forearm instead. I hope this is the low point of this particular cycle because it's getting really hard to fight. Something has to go my way sometime.

Thank god there's more football on TV. That'll keep me occupied until the Fox Sunday night line-up starts. I probably should get started on one of my two papers today, but I really doubt that will happen. I'm almost looking forward to school tomorrow because that will occupy about half of my day and I won't have to wonder what in the hell I'm going to do.

Anyway, I hope you have a relaxing Sunday and sleep well tonight, and I hope to hear from you soon.

I love you.
Belacqua

---

>From: Perdita
>To: Belacqua
>Subject: Re: all too sober
>Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000

Belacqua,

I have this horrible fascination with rereading my own writings when I get a bit confused about life and everything, so I just spent the last hour reading over some of my older writings online. It just struck me as interesting that I wrote so much about how no one understood and I'd never find anyone who recognized how painful what I've been going through really is and it just made me so happy all over again that you found me and that we understand each other and everything. I really never believed it was possible, and yet, here you are existing in the same universe as me and seeing it through the same kind of tunnel-vision that I see it through. You're the only person I've ever known in my whole life who actually seems to grasp some meaning from the words I say. Other people read the same words or hear the same words and interpret them through their own views of the world and it's far from what I mean. So, I just wanted to thank you again for being alive.

It never fails to amaze me how very fast my mornings fly by. Before I'm even awake and conscious, I'm almost to lunchtime, and then there's only about four more hours to my day. Then I can go home to watch Drew Carey and eat dinner by myself with my beer and I'll feel better for a few short hours of slowly allowing myself to become catatonic before going to bed. The next thing I know, it's lunchtime again. If I have to be alive and sustaining my misery for any amount of time, I've determined that this is the way to do it.

Yesterday, I was watching The Wedding Singer with my roommate, and Drew Barrymore's character was talking to Adam Sandler's, saying that other people telling him to get a responsible job to make money rather than work on his music career was a selfish thing to do and how nobody understood that and all. And it's so true. I love how people think I'm wasting my time and my talent by sitting here in a going-nowhere sort of job that allows my intellect to slowly rot, while they're all out there working their butts off for four times as much money. Perhaps they don't realize that their lives are passing by as they try to earn more and more money to become less and less convinced that it's making them happy. I don't know. It seems kind of odd to me. People seem so utterly convinced that money will make them happy, but I know if someone up and handed me a billion dollars, I wouldn't be any happier than I am right now. Where do they get off telling me that my job isn't what I should be doing?

Last night, I had a dream about an arcade. I don't really remember much about the dream, but I do remember that it took place in an arcade, and it occurred to me that I've had an awful lot of dreams about arcades or carnival games or luck-of-the-draw kinds of things like that over the years. I wonder why?

I agree that you don't need to live under any self-imposed restrictions. Do whatever the hell you want. If I lived under self-imposed restrictions, I'd never say or do anything. There are enough restrictions placed on us by life itself. Occasionally I'll make one or two, but they never last long because I figure it's just life. What the hell kind of difference does it make when you don't care one way or the other about life? The only ones I have right now are probably the ones that are keeping me out of prison.

Well, I gotta go take care of a few things before lunch. I hope you're feeling okay today, and I hope you get your papers done before Friday so you don't have to worry about them while I'm there. Good luck. I can't wait to see you.

I love you.
Perdita