April 15th 2013
email from me
I’ve tried maybe two or three times to email you from my phone texing, and I’ve never gotten a response that way. Do you get them and just don’t answer, or do you actually receive them? (I don’t have your phone number anymore.)
Anyway, I tend to be in Jersey City at WFMU on Fridays, or other week days to volunteer, and I have, perhaps twice, thought to see if you were around and felt like having a diner meal or something.
email from Stefan
I’m still sorta recovering….I’m not sure I got any mail from you recently. When was the last one sent?
email from me
Christ, hope you are alright.
Um…. I’d have sent it on Friday, but it would have been from my phone number, not my email address. I’m not sure that it ever worked right.
April 16th 2013
email from Stefan
It may have worked. I get a shit ton of email when I just have my phone on me, and when I’m sitting at my actual laptop sorting out my work mail….I never get anything. I also accidentally erase emails from my phone all the time…it acts strange and I end up restarting it a lot…that is if it doesn’t restart itself which it also likes to do these days.
I’m still a bit of a mess, but I’ve been forcing myself to eat. I lost too much weight and I’m trying to pack on calories without just eating trash. I bend over and very easily feel my spine…I have like 5% body fat right now…if even. I feel like a piece of beef jerky.
This year has really fucked me up. The stress, the family deaths, the living situation, the drugs….it all really killed my appetite. So losing weight, being dehydrated, and the stress mostly, left my otherwise and mostly strong immune system vulnerable to an attack. Hence, the respiratory tract infection. Which I avoided turning into bronchitis pneumonia thank goodness. Everybody told me to go to the doc and get antibiotics. So, I went online and researched all I could and found out that antibiotics kill both bad, and good bacteria. But raw garlic and honey, kill only bad bacteria. So, I peeled a bulb….put the raw cloves in a jar filled with honey (which over a week made them a bit more palatable). So, I would bit one gently to break it, then swallow it down with chamomile tea. Another fighter of infection. And, to my surprise…after a week and a half of eating them….cleared up my cough and made me start coughing up junk. I was also taking an expectorant (store brand mucinex) and drinking copious amounts of water. It worked. But, that’s one problem down.
I have still been just resting a lot. And trying to get myself cleaned up and get back to finding a new place so I could get back to working on my ideas for my next exhibition.
Anyway, I’m not getting into everything right now because I’m outside on my phone and obviously am still very private. Maybe one night we could meet like you said, and I could explain a bit more.
So, how is interning over there? Or, do you have a full position over there?
April 17th 2013
email from me
Oh, I’m just volunteering at WFMU. But I am making friends with lots of the DJs and radio people, and the photographer over there likes my stuff, so I’m hoping to maybe get to be part of the WFMU machine of awesomeness. I just really like all the people. It’s such a wonderful odd crowd.
And yes, swallowing raw garlic cloves dipped in honey is the best way to clear up a sickness that ever there was. It’s far better than antibiotics when it comes to viral infection type things; at least, it always has been for me, and Iv’e got a totally shit immune system.
Sorry your living situation sucks. Mine does too, but I’m slowly improving it. I’m turning this punk hovel I live at into an apartment that I don’t hate to be in. Slowly but surely. I just moved the furniture around so that we have an art room. I can’t wait to use it. Unfortunately, spending my weekend fixing up the apartment has broken me for the past few days and my right side is pretty shot and I’m in a lot of pain and haven’t been artistic.
I’ve got fancy fancy doctors, though! Today I got prednisone. I suppose I’ll get fat(ter) and hairy(ier), but I really won’t fucking care anymore if my vision stops deteriorating and my right side works and doens’t hurt so much all the time. At least I get to look badass with an eyepatch and a cane.
If you ever find yourself in the city, you can come by! My apartment is a shithole, but I do like my neighbors and the people around me these days, even if they are a bit much to take quite often. But my roommate works nights, so it’s usually pretty quiet except on weekends.
I’ll be at WFMU on Thursday til around 5 if you want to meet up. But I’ll probably be trying to go every week, so there will be far more opportunities if that doesn’t work out. I’m also really broke at the moment, and might be more up for sitting on a park bench than actual buying food.
If you want to pack on weight without eating crap, just get some protein powder and make big shakes. It’s easy to eat even when nauseated, AND if you buy it at BJs, it’s covered with food stamps! I’ve been making them in the blender and putting fistfulls of raw spinach in em. You totally can’t taste the spinach at all while sucking down a delicious vanilla shake, while feeling joy in knowing that you’re getting raw leafy greens!
Alright, I’m babbling and I’ve got to go to bed to wake up early for more fancy doctors. I’m a total mystery, I am!
April 18th 2013
email from me
Well, I’m just leaving to go there in a bit, and I’ll be there til around 5, 5:30. So…….
Well, if you wanna meet up, let me know!
April 19th 2013
email from me
I’m awake.
I passed out before 10, and then woke at 3:30am, not from sleeping enough or anything like that, but from goddamned PAIN.
I don’t….
I don’t know how to keep dealing with pain. Sure, there’s painkillers, but they render me useless, and I keep watching the world go on without me. Watching Samantha move forward with her awful vapid plastic shallow life, and doing WELL, while I falter and fall and life in squalor. I hurt, and I can’t fucking compete with the rest of the world. I don’t even have a fighting chance. I spend 80% of my not-feeling-awful time trying to catch up with where my life should be, and I’m always slipping more and more behind.
And it fucking HURTS.
I don’t know. I hate taking pills and going to doctors.
And…. I hate the position this puts me in for dealing with others.
I have to keep it a quiet secret if I want a normal relationship with those around me. Because it’s really quite bad, y’know?
I can only let <Boyfriend> know how bad it is part of the time. Because… he gets teary eyed and sad and overcome when I hurt really bad. And that’s nice and sweet and it’s lovely that he cares so much but…..
Dammit. It just makes me feel lonely somehow. Separate.
I’m not telling you all this to dump on you, or add to the already full plate that you’ve got with your own problems and your family that always turns to you. I’m just…. commiserating?
And… well…. reiterating that if there IS anything I can do to make your life at all easier, PLEASE let me know. Seriously. Because I’m tired of feeling useless so often. I can be badass when someone else is at stake.
I hope you are feeling better.
emails from Stefan
I’m actually up now overthinking things. Staring in the mirror. I lost a bunch of weight…so now I could see that my left clavical is more prominent and uneven to the right….and feeling tension. It’s prob a litte swollen and shit….cuz I’m still annoyed and have that stupid chest fullness. But, it feels like it’s pulling from my neck, collarbone, back on one side….and the stress has the pins & needles, slight numbness…..all that shit……stuff I’ve heard you explain a bunch of times. So, I know you get how much it sucks to say the least. A respitory thing that thankfully isn’t pneumonia or bronchitis, paired with hardcore seasonal allergies swelling up and drying me out….sudden weight loss……fuck. pain in the ass. I have to get it together. I’m not even bothering explaining things to people….but again….I know you have experienced some/all of these things and understand the ”holy fuckin shit give me a god damn break” feeling. I’m just sitting up….constantly thinking…’is this the beginningg of a brain issue, a heart attack? The sleeplessness, and allergies messing with my breathing has me sooooo foggy, I can’t think at all. I’m used to my normal suffering…..but this is new kinds for me. I think it has to do a lot with me losing a lot of weight so fast….paired with the stress and sleeplessness. I basically left my immune system naked in the cold. I can’t imagine you going through shit like this all the time. I’ve always considered what you go thru…..and how fuckin unbearable it is…something has to give eventually for us.
And now I’m trying to alleviate the pain in my neck/shoulder/collarbone area….it seems to go thru my whole body on the left side. Lowerback feels tender. It’s all a pain in the ass.
email from me
Seriously.
We need a break.
It’s funny. Hanging out with <Boyfriend>, who Iv’e known since the late 90’s…. and he’s had a rough life as well. Kicked out when he was 16 or so, spending years living homeless and/or in squats in LA and the Lower East Side, having Tourettes and all the prejudice and pain that comes with it, his family being a total dick to him, blah blah blah….. And he says to me on a regular basis that I’m one of the few people that “beats” him when telling life stories. Which is a compliment in some ways, y’know, bowing to the fact that my shit is real. But really, I don’t want to win that battle, y’know?
Shit. I don’t want you to have to deal with the neurological crap that I do. I really really don’t. the best advice I could give for that kind of thing is to get to a gym and start lifting weights and living on protein shakes. the more structure and strength you can give your body, the less likely is it going to curl in on itself and crush nerves. That is, if it’s a structural issue. Which it sounds like, if your collarbones look uneven.
Although…. well. Remember a few years ago we were at the Diner in New Providence and you mentioned that your mouth seemed to be moving asymmetrically? I hadn’t said anything because I didn’t want to be a dick and make you self conscious about it because it’s the kind of thing that 95% of all humans don’t notice (aside from people like you and me and my mom who are OCD and notice tiny details like that). However, you were right, and it had suddenly become asymmetrical, and I’d been wondering in my head if it had always been like that and I just hadn’t noticed, perhaps. But then you said something.
However, it needn’t be a big thing, either. Small asymmetries exist in everyone, and with the wear and tear of time, they start to become more noticable as we age. So chances are, it’s just natural human erosion.
But back to needing a break.
Y’know what? I dno’t think anybody gets a break. I think people with happy lives have a lot of terrible things happen to them. They have to. Family members die. Money runs out. Thing happen to everyone. I think what makes happy people happy is their ability to drown out the bad things with good. Overrun the ratio. If you throw enough good things into the mix, bad stuff will take up an smaller and smaller percentage. Bad will always be there. All you can do is make it a speck in a sea of other things happening.
I keep trying that.
But my body keeps taking my ability to do that away from me.
I was supposed to go to WFMU today and then a fetish club tonight (social shmoozing with a friend/client) but I’m not sure I can.
I again recommend the protien shakes with fresh spinach and berries. Use soymilk instead of real milk to cut down on the dairy-phlegm. It’s delicious! And covered by foodstamps at BJs!
Also. Look. I know you aren’t in good shape, but if you want some sick person lounging company, that’s probably what I’m best at these days.
Also. Don’t forget you’ve got a TENS UNIT! This kind of pain is what they are best for!
Also, if you’ve got something neurological going on, the culprit is most likely your inability to sleep. Lack of proper sleep causes brain problems.
Not that you ENJOY the lack of sleep, I realize. But ….. it’s more likely from that than any scarey new health problem.