Despot’s honeypot 666

[I don’t remember when I typed this]
I’ve been thinking about wet pavement and the gross, overly alive mix between the smell of crowded humans, rainwater, and the sensation of purification after a heavy storm. The sounds of rubber tires squeaking and rolling across slick rain-covered roads while buried under torrential downpouring hailstones. The rough, perforated, rounded sharpness of street curbs. Rusted iron chains dragged across clean sleek concrete, oily lipstick smeared across the raw coarse stone. Torn latex gloves hanging from the points of sharp copper nails stuck through cleaved and dried-out wooden planks.

There is something so enduring about civilization that I can never turn away from. There is nothing more enduring than time and time is greater than a single human life. Reproducing guarantees nothing—the only way to really be part of history is to participate in a large community. But I’m not really thinking about that either. It’s pointless to argue with genuine idiots. Let them leave the world to their enemies.

I’m not even thinking of myself really anymore. Just pure video. Right now, it’s hot sweat condensing into shiny droplets that trail down and across someone’s pulsing, swollen skin. It’s always the contrast between soft and hard, stark and subtle, light and dark, etc. etc. It’s a tale as old as the first separation to exist out of complete knowing, awareness, will, and unification. Just picture that long black monolithic slab of disparate parts ejecting out from the pearlescent swirling goo of supreme divinity. Is there any escape from it? Of course: further division based on the knowledge of the previous attempt at total separation.

I feel so much better in the darkness. The light burns and hurts my eyes. I feel dizzy when there’s too much contrast. I need the curtains drawn and the lights dimmed low. No bright LEDs shifting hue, just plain, pale yellow, illuminated in the corner of the room… Today was sort of awful? (But not that bad, overall). It marks the first year since the movers left our belongings in Hendaye. I spent three nights in a hotel in Irún, Spain, and then three weeks in that mold-filled, gasoline-laced basement apartment built out beneath the garages, before going into an Airbnb infested with what I think were fleas, for a month. And I was three weeks (?) pregnant at that time. 2022 was an incredible disaster.

When we moved to Hendaye, we thought everything would be picturesque. We’d surrender our metropolitan identities in favor of beach-going, mountain range hiking, backyard gardening. How very wrong we were. Our apartment ended up being a black mold-infested hellhole. During the first trimester of my pregnancy, I was puking at least twice or three times a day, sometimes more. Coffee smelled like rotting barbecued meat. I could detect mold, mildew, rot, expiration like an actual bitch (dog). Smells were so overpowering; I could barely stand to be around anyone. Even the clean smell of my husband made me sick. Soap, perfume, cleaning products… All of it—absolutely stomach turning. I feel nauseous just thinking of how sick I felt. The only thing that lessened the nausea was to remain perfectly still in a damp, cold darkness.

On our ten-hour journey to the southeast, we stopped for dinner at a restaurant called Le Splendid… It was part of a hotel of the same name, decorated in the style of The Shining and with all the trappings of an outdated shrine abandoned to time to collect dust. It looked like it hadn’t been renovated since the excesses of the 1980s. 10ft tall satin white and red drapes framed massive, floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the riverbank. There was far too much fabric; large fissures cut across the ceilings, wide cobwebs spun up in the corners and stains were spotted on the thick tablecloths. It didn’t take long to fully notice all the little traces of neglect you couldn’t discern at first glance. We thought that place would be nice. A place to celebrate our long overdue move to the south. I ordered what was seemingly the safest option (not saying what it was but it was a type of meat) and it was basically like raw brains served up in, quite literally, a sauce that looked & tasted like a simmered mix of bodily fluids. I’ve always wondered if, or rather how many times, I’ve eaten human meat…Probably better not to know. In any case, when we left—and mind you, we’re in Dax, France, which isn’t very wealthy—the waiter made a bizarre spectacle out of paying, where he handed us the card reader and then stepped a few feet away and turned his back while we paid. I’m not in wealthy social circles, so I can’t say whether or not this is the norm, but it was so ridiculous, especially after the food had been so revolting.

We almost got hit by a car on our drive there and before that, we had been tailgated and “Vehicularly Harassed” for a twenty-minute stretch by a semi-truck on a two-lane highway in the dead of night. The hotel in Dax smelled like wet cigarettes.

The next day, when we arrived in Hendaye while waiting to meet the property manager and conduct l’etat de lieu, we spent a few hours in our car as it poured rain. The strangest things that happened that day were that the property manager accidentally smacked her head on the sharp edge of some kitchen appliance, and the horrible sinking feeling I had as we walked through that dilapidated shithole. I knew as soon as I stepped inside that I had to get away. Dark mold and droplets of condensation covered the hallway walls. When we arrived, the upstairs neighbor was throwing clothes and trash out onto the parking lot from his third-floor balcony. A few days later we learned that he kept a German Shepherd attached to a leash and let it bark for hours on end. A family of four hung out in their closed, windowless garage (we noticed because we spent a good amount of time unpacking and never saw their car arrive, but the family oddly opened the garage door). The lobby had a massive hole punched through the wall and the entry door was broken and vandalized. The mold smelled so bad that I refused to enter through the main corridor. Instead, I would go around back and waddle like a fat cow down a few stone steps on a steep incline to enter through the veranda, which had an in-unit laundry machine overgrown with green mold vaporizing the room with the smell of dirty socks which hadn’t fully dried. Now, I’m sure I sound like a snob and a spoiled bitch, and perhaps I am. I believe in housing regulations. I believe in sanitation. I believe in animal rights. I believe in cleanliness. I believe in structural integrity.

We had done a virtual tour of this apartment and signed the lease remotely, and for that, we were served with a harsh lesson. I knew right away that I couldn’t stay there. I was ready to return to the United States and start over alone and pregnant if my husband didn’t get me out of there asap. The smell of mold would waft into the apartment through the vents. There were no windows in the salle de bain or WC. The veranda, which was adjacent to the living room and equipped with an open kitchen (detestable) smelled awful from the moldy laundry machine. The only safe spot was the bedroom. When I’d wake up, I’d dart into the salle de bain to brush my teeth, end up vomiting from the smell of mold and gasoline, which drifted down from the garages above us, then I’d run back into bed to cry in despair. The property union representative left a note saying that we were all to turn our wifi off because it causes cancer. The cops came the second day to ask us about a domestic violence incident between the man with the dog and his girlfriend. Finally, three weeks later, we left to Pau, France, where the Airbnb hadn’t been used in months, and some insects infested the bed and attacked my legs and ankles, and I’d vomit in the street, in the park, in the underground parking while staticky classical music played over the public loudspeakers. Then we stayed at another Airbnb during the heatwave, and I could go on but I’d just like to focus on how it’s been a year since we moved to Mold (as we call it, for its actual name is cursed and profane).

Now I’m back in my dear Marly-le Roi. I was thinking today of getting the “Yvelines 78” tattooed on my body somewhere, I love it here that much.

The last time I posted here was in February, before I was admitted overnight to a psychiatric hospital. I was in a very dark place. The day I was admitted, I woke up and immediately went to the fourteenth floor to try to access the rooftop so I could jump. I was hanging myself from the radiators every time I was awake, whenever I could get the chance to be alone. I can’t remember exactly how hopeless I felt, but it was beyond the pale. Beyond any of the despair I’d felt before. I’m medicated now, and for the first time—considering that I was on antispychotics, SSRIs, and a whole slew of other drugs from the time I was 12 until I was 18—I like being medicated. I’m not sure I’d be alive if I weren’t medicated now. I was so intent on killing myself. I couldn’t bear to be alive for a second with the amount of guilt, shame, loss, remorse, loneliness, etc, that I was carrying.

It’s better now, for the most part. My son is over four months old. Except, I’m a selfish, vain & horrible woman. Plus, I’m still fat. It doesn’t help. I think I have to sleep & I will try to type again tomorrow or whenever I can. What’s terrible now is that I’ll have an impulse to type, paint, read, etc. But I can’t because I am no longer free. There is also the guilt of doing anything “for myself”. Even if I take the time to do something like my makeup or read, I rack up points of guilt that end up making it even more crucial for me to spend time alone working on something “for myself,” but it’s so difficult and so the vicious cycle continues, and I’m lucky if I can pop off a few tweets to tide me over from doing anything significantly real.

I think I had typed a long entry about how my childhood was so defeminizing. Growing up with my dad, I basically looked like a forty-year-old butch lesbian at twelve, thanks to the way he dressed me. I had my nails painted by an older girl only a handful of times. I didn’t know how to shave my legs. I didn’t know plucking was a thing, so I shaved parts of my face. It’s odd because when I was seven and younger, he would do my hair in braids and buy me cute dresses, but as soon as I hit puberty, and as soon as he lost his machinist job, I went from being treated like a princess to being treated like a peasant boy. Nevertheless, I just really enjoy taking care of my appearance. I feel as if I regained lost time these past few years. Having a baby has caused a bit of disorder in my otherwise well-oiled routine. It’s still hard to adjust and some days are harder than others.

For now, I type goodnight <3.

It’s Friday 05/05. I don’t really have much to say right now. I mostly think about how, since I’ve had my baby, my sweet tooth has returned to compensate for the lack of romance in my life. I think about becoming morbidly obese & shoving my face full of candies & chocolates, sitting in front of the television, barking orders at my baby, who slobbers all over my sweating doughy body, and I’m never kissed again, never looked at, never thought about except in avoidance & repulsion. I wonder why I bother trying to look nice when I’m so disgusting. For some people, it’s better to compensate by becoming beautiful or thin to offset how terrible & undeserving they think they are. For me, I don’t deserve to be beautiful, I don’t deserve to be desirable. I am fundamentally undesirable & any semblance of physical attractiveness is fraud & deception & if I ever want to be honest, I must make myself monstrous. I’m always a liar. I’m horrible miserable vermin, interiorly. I need to be what’s deemed unattractive on the outside. I must match myself with myself.

Other than that… I’ve considered thinking about society but it’s truly just not for me at this time. I feel like the world order is full of men anyway, so what’s the point of commenting on anything? I’m cleaning up the psychic drainpipes they build. I have no place on the surface of their world.

I love looking at Japanese baths on Twitter these days. I’ve always enjoyed still images of water. A still image of water looks like jelly or a type of plasma. You can see the way water fucks itself, or penetrates itself when it’s being poured into itself… I find it very calming. Healing. It reminds me of unity & harmony & serenity & peace.

Did you know that my mom dated a 700 or 800-pound man who was condemned for embezzlement? He stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the company he worked for. I think he took care of my mom & paid child support for her with some of it. He’s dead now. RIP. He was so good at finding tax loopholes and figuring out the correct paperwork to receive government money that he ended up getting tax money to pay for his liposuction stomach stapling. Why can’t the government pay for mine? Can I exploit the dead? Both he & my mom are dead… Well… I’m sorry but my mom once told me how it was for her to date him, & how he’d watch so much porno. He obviously couldn’t fuck, his dick was buried in all that fat, so whenever some technician came for the cable, or even when the garbage man came around, he’d beg my mom to go & try to seduce those other men so he could watch her fuck them. Yuck. My poor mom. She was only 23 when she had me, & I think I may have ruined her life. She was born with a heart defect that eventually killed her. A few months before she got pregnant with me, she had applied and been denied to the US Army because of it. It’s so tragic to me how she wanted the structure & purpose & “meaning” of joining the military, but was unable to because of something she had been born with & over which she had no control.

I think about epigenetic alterations that may affect my son. I worry about him being obese. I know I have a sugar addiction & history of disordered eating. I worry about him being something that is going to get him dehumanized & hated. I worry he’ll be lonely, ostracized, scorned & sad. Of course, I want him happy with himself, healthy, active, balanced & temperate & charitable & kind in all ways…but there are so many possibilities of how one can get themselves disdained by the rest of humanity.

I miss my mom so much. Having V. makes it even more acute, how much of a stranger she was, & will always be to me. Not only didn’t I grow up with her & was brainwashed with hatred & fear by my paternal family towards her, but by the time I was old enough to have a mind about her, she had sort of been lost to all the alcohol & drugs. It’s painful how I miss her & it’s like she was almost never there. I saw her so little in my lifetime that the most prominent memories I have of her are a voice emanating from the telephone. My brother (we share the same mom but have different dads, who are both dead), has a more complicated relationship with her, but I hold such an incredible amount of sympathy towards her. There’s a line of pedophilic incest that runs in my maternal family and my mom was a victim of that as a child (her uncle), and she started going off to bars & partying when she was in her early teens. I just think she tried her best, & I think she wanted to be loved & taken care of & protected. I know I relate deeply to that, so I could be projecting, but it makes sense given her life. I wish I could’ve known her. In any case, my mom was German, Hungarian, Mexican & Spanish, and I think about how she wasn’t taught Spanish because my grandparents wanted her to be Very American. What’s terrible is that she & her brother & sister get identified as being not white, but didn’t have the cultural belonging to defend against racist attacks, at least, my mom didn’t. I don’t know how the others fared. I wonder how different life would be for her if my grandparents had decided to teach her & if she had had that connection. What’s really odd, in that realm of thought, is how I wouldn’t exist if not for fascism. I suppose you could say I’m inherently poisoned simply by virtue of that predication.

If no one loves me, at least the crickets do…

Off for now—XOXO

• I hope this self-loathing isn’t an ongoing thing, sweety. You have a curious, analytical, and philosophical mind, which I absolutely adore. ✨💋✨