I’d like to read a book sitting out on the porch in the morning, slowly drinking coffee or tea as the sun rises. It seems like such a romantic thing, but I can never do it. Maybe it’s because I have stayed inside too long, but when I sit out there, even when I face away from the sun, the light stings my eyes. It stings my eyes and turns my vision red after a while. I stop being able to read and have to go back inside. Partly because it makes me anxious. “There’s no way this is normal.”

I don’t really feel safe inside. There’s a lot of reasons for this. I feel safer outside, honestly, but I feel weak and exposed. Exposed in ways I can’t control. I don’t feel exposed inside. Feeling exposed is a lot scarier than not feeling safe. So I spend a lot of time inside when I really ought to be outside.

I sometimes find myself wondering if I really care about people. Even with recent events, with how they’ve affected me, how they still affect me, I still wonder this. Sometimes—oftentimes actually—I conclude that I don’t. I always look at my life and conclude that I never really cared about people. You would think that with all that has happened I would actually value life. Even now I think, “yeah, I kind of don’t, do I?” I’m so ready, so willing, to just let people come and go by whatever means. If you want to leave me, I wouldn’t chase you down and beg you to stay. I would let you go, however you wish to do so, and maybe I would cry behind closed doors about how pitiful my case is. I wouldn’t cry because of any other reason. I don’t have the empathy to do so.

That’s what I want to think at least. This isn’t really true. It is in some ways, sure, but in most cases it’s not. I keep saying this to myself, knowing it isn’t really true, because I don’t actually want to care about anyone. The pain of caring is out of my hands. If I don’t let myself think that I care about others, I keep everything firmly in my grasp. I can choose when I get to hurt and when I don’t. It doesn’t totally work that way, but that’s how I’d like it to work. It would be a lot easier if it did.

I once felt so mesmerized by everything I learned. I felt immersed in a world larger than I. I only accepted things on terms of true or false, however. I only accepted things if I liked them or not. I still do this. It’s a problem. I’m so worried about being right, and making others think the right way as well. I waste a lot of time doing this, thinking this way. It’s unhelpful, for me and for others. Now, I am terribly unenthused with learning. I don’t really care about it. I want to know a lot of things, but can’t be bothered to learn most of them.

This is probably because I have hit a point where reading more won’t do much good. I have to actually do something in order to learn more, but those situations are unpredictable. I am too fearful of messing up. I am still sorting out how to think in terms of useful/nonuseful, helpful/unhelpful, productive/counterproductive instead of right/wrong, true/false, correct/incorrect. What little progress I have made there has been useful, helpful, and productive at least.

A couple weeks ago we got the best oranges. They were very sweet. They didn’t last long. Last week we got poor oranges. They were bland, downright watery. They were eaten up, but it took a while. This week’s are very sour—incredibly sour actually—more sour than any sour candy I’ve had. I’m the only one who seems to like them.

Now I have to let them take some samples of my blood. They have to see what’s going on with my body, because my hormones are all out of wack and my kidney’s might get fucked up. I’ve done this at least a dozen times now, and I’ll probably have to do it every few months for the rest of my life as long as I keep taking advantage of modern medicine. This is the first time I have hesitated to schedule the appointment. I didn’t hesitate when the place open on Saturdays closed down, making scheduling difficult. I didn’t hesitate after one lady spent a good while rooting around in my arm, giving me a massive bruise for a couple weeks. I didn’t even hesitate when I stabbed myself with a needle once and had the most horrible experience, like getting flashbanged, giving me a fear of needles I never had before. Now, in a time when nothing is happening, I am for some reason hesitating, writing this instead. There’s a new place doing Saturdays now, my fear of needles has mostly subsided (though I still can’t give myself an injection to save my life), and I’ve had nothing but good experiences since that one bad one.

There’s still not a single thing I am grateful for. I don’t really know how to be grateful I suppose. That’s not terribly useful huh? I’m trying at least. Click me!

I remember growing up that my dad had these neodymium magnets that he kept on our freezer. We had a discrete standing freezer, about twice as large as the fridge/freezer unit we had. We also had a chest freezer, a pretty large one at that. We had a lot of freezer space. I loved playing with those neodymium magnets. The magnetic force of them is so strong that they could stick to the freezer through my hand. One day I got the idea to throw one at the feezer from across the kitchen. It shattered. I learned that neodymium is very brittle. I suppose I am quite grateful for that. It has taught me a lot.

I cried reading a book about silk worms today.