Without Country

I was re-reading a letter from an old new friend yesterday. He sounded so happy. He was not happy before. And he gives me hope that as badly as you can work at messing up your life, something changes and voila, everything is back on track, better than it ever was before, and you're singing the Ode to Joy in German. (or whatever European language it is sung in).

It's been a rotten weekend. Bad news filtering in through the cracks. A few jellyfish stings about my writing ability, a goddamned article mocking what I wrote (I didn't see it, not reading the papers over here, but my sainted Mamma kindly told me, when I called to wish her for Mother's Day). And other stuff. Just stuff.

Now I feel myself sinking into a black funk. I want to crawl under my blankets and not come out. I want to cancel all my appointments for tomorrow. I'm not in the mood for cheer (not even the kind you have to assume for company). I want to rage against the heavens, cry, storm, shake my fist and collapse weeping on my newly mopped floor.

Yes, my newly mopped floor.

About the only good thing about this weekend was the fact that I finally got around to cleaning my room and removing acres of dust. No, I didn't find anything I lost in the debris. In fact, I discovered that I lost a few more things that I didn't even know I had lost. Like the beeswax guardian angel candle my friend Beatrix gave me when I spent a few days with her in France, in the springtime.

It was beautiful. Both the candle and Paris.

But then, Paris is always beautiful.

And Malaysia NEVER is.

It's high time I plotted out an escape route. I don't want to end the year the same way I started it.

There is a putrid excresence in the air and it's there every night. The kind of stench you get when maggots feed off a carcass.

Betcha by golly wow...