Wednesday 11/20/24
Everything that hadn't broken down--which was already most things--is breaking down now. I still haven't heard from the plumber who was supposed to call at the end of the day Monday, but then again, he may have called, because there are cell phone issues now. There has been a singular cell phone problem for a while: Often when my oldest friend calls me--really probably my only friend in more than the casual way we use the word--it goes straight to voicemail.
There will be no record on my phone and he'll send me a screenshot of the five outgoing calls he made to me that day. Other times there will be the briefest flicker--which I'll only notice if the phone is in my hand or right in front of me--and then I'll call him back.
We have had issues elsewhere. Before I was hacked and had my two accounts shut down by Facebook last week, losing them and their content for good, he could not see my personal Facebook page despite us being friends on that platform. We tried everything. Unfriending and friending again. Nothing worked. So far as I know, I didn't have these problems with anyone else, but then again, I don't know many people and I am close to being all alone. It's not like the phone rings or anyone texts.
Things were going along like that until either Sunday or Monday. I had texted him on Monday and phoned a few times. Didn't ring--went straight to voicemail. I thought maybe he was just out of range at some job site. Then in the early evening he sent me several texts saying he had phoned me multiple times and was concerned about me.
The next morning I phoned him--straight to voicemail. I noticed that my texts weren't saying "delivered" as they usually do, and it was pretty clear they weren't going through. More texts from him did later on.
I shut the phone off, turned it back on. Didn't help. Tried to download the latest operating system. Didn't have enough memory. Cleared out a bunch of things, creating about double the amount of storage that had been available, downloaded that latest operating system. Didn't fix it. Tried some other people--my sister, my mother, a cousin, my friend's wife, who told me he's been trying to reach me. Then we passed messages through her.
I feel like some force is trying to isolate me even more. A few people have told me they've never heard of that happening with Facebook, for instance, with anyone else. You're there for fifteen years, no problems, then on a Saturday there are some random, obviously spam messages--and they had no specific content, really; they weren't like, "Slaughter children, start a race war! That's what I say!"; they were this bot-y nonsense language in a strange, skittery font--and then, boom, Facebook personal page and Facebook author page shut down on Sunday. Just like that. A matter of less than twenty-four hours. Is that really possible without being down by design by someone?
I have so limited points of human contact, and now I have no way to get in touch with this friend who I communicate with daily and he has no way to get in touch with me. Can't even use Facebook Messenger. I do feel like something bigger is at work. It's hard not to. That there's something deliberate being done by someone who knows me or knows of me who has the ability to do that. But I also know that doesn't make sense. Or it shouldn't.
I do know that a strategy used against me is isolate and suppress. I can't be taken on directly, I can't be refuted, nor the quality of what I produce, so some version of the tactic of isolate and suppress is what enemies will default to. "We cannot let this guy get out there."
Then last night the phone charger stopped working properly or else some hardware in the phone, which would be worse. I plug it in, and it doesn't charge unless the phone and the cord are in in a certain position. Touch it and it stops charging.
Maybe the plumber did phone and it didn't ring and there's no record of the call, but it does seem to be something with this one person. I don't know how I fix that. I don't think I'm eligible for a new phone. I can't be that isolate, though. He's also supposed to come here to help with the apartment, and we can't coordinate that either. His father isn't well, and I'm not available now. His wife texted me to say he was phoning me from their house phone--so, not his cell phone. There's no record of that either. Has some gremlin put this wall between us? How is that possible? I've checked every setting, of course. There's no blocking.
I am plagued by terrible nightmares each night. Last night I had taken transportation at some ungodly, lonely hour of the night to Mansfield, where I grew up. A professor/friend of mine named Norberg was coaching a baseball game--in the dark--at this diamond that was the first proper baseball field on which I ever played.
When the game was over, he gave me a ride to this forlorn spot. But it wasn't even a ride. I had to drive his son's car while he took his own, and I hadn't driven in so long, and everything sped up on me. The turns were taken at these frightening speeds. I thought it would be this simple, slow drive down a road I knew that went off to the left, where the village green was, and my old grammar school, and the library I spent so much time in by the old cemetery. A happy place for me.
But everything was off to the right. Went to the right. Was going away from where I wanted to be. We got to wherever we did--what was this sort of barren village green, a village green without buildings, only this marked-off square on the ground, surrounded by dark forest on all four sides--and chatted for a bit before he drove off. There was only the one car now. Norberg had to come back the next day--the next night; it felt like there were no days--and coach another game, which he hadn't expected. Sounded like he'd barely have time to sleep. There wasn't warmth between us. Distance, foreignness.
I had all of these bags. One of them contained two large bottles of some form of juice--something like cider. There was a hotel with no one in it. I found this room, put down all of the bags, which I could barely carry. I was returning to the house in which I grew up. But I wasn't in Mansfield anymore. I wasn't sure where I was. Hopefully close and someone could find me with GPS.
I phoned home. My old home to which I was returning. My father wasn't there. I knew my sister Kerrin was alive but she wasn't there. My mother couldn't come. She didn't know where I was. It was so late. Like later than it had ever been, as if that was possible. I could go back to the room and get the bags and try to walk to somewhere familiar, but you couldn't get far with those bags and I couldn't just leave them. It was so quiet and dark and frightening. No one was coming. And I felt so alone.
Then I wake up and I want to be dead and it's like, "Okay, time to write, time for the war, time to do all of these things even though this is the situation and nothing has any chance and you're just doing it. Ready to do it?"
All right. So this is getting darker and worse than ever. Harder. And it already felt impossible. And without hope. But you can't give in. Okay? Do whatever you need to do not to give in. Find and use the good anger, rise up, elevate. One thing at a time. Address the problems. Figure out the solutions. Do not give in to anything. One foot in front of the other.
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