I don't blame people who have it much worse than I do for being pissed at me. Dave, I don't even think that you ARE pissed, but I wouldn't blame you. We have not had it so bad. One family member, one best friend, a few friends of friends--that's all. Other deaths, other difficulties and tragedies and setbacks...I mean, these things could happen anyway. I try to keep that in perspective. But what can I say? Amy and I built a life in that apartment and now it's gone. I called over there yesterday and no one would answer the phone. I just wanted to see how they were--I care about those people, we lived in Fort Apache together for half a year. It's jarring and it makes me sad that we're not there anymore. Now I get to watch my family up close and personal as it falls apart, as my parents fail to hold it together for the first time in their adult lives, Xanax and cases of wine, tears and silence, boarded-up windows, cat shit, cold, dirty towels, yowling, rain, cabin fever, out of money, out of prospects, sitting around waiting to see what happens as the weather gets colder and wetter and snowier, waiting for Long Island to become the next Pacific Northwest or the next Gulf Coast, waiting for famine, waiting for the flu, waiting for bronchitis and pneumonia and laryngospasms, years of resentment never fully addressed, unequipped to deal with mental illness, two kids who never got anywhere and one who never got a chance, graduated too late, killers, dead neighbors, crazed neighbors, survivor's guilt, fighting over nothing, fighting over misplacing something, cats fighting, missing her family, the holidays, hopelessness.

I'm sorry about that. God, I was so tired--I was getting MAYBE four hours of sleep a night for the last few days. Working overtime on clearing out the apartment. A lot of stuff got left behind.

Anyway. It came to blows, ultimately, and really Kevin was no match for Kurt, who limited himself to one punch but it was still all he needed. Knocked out teeth, broke his glasses. Kurt himself broke a finger. Mike and John and me broke them up as quickly as we could. But by now the atmosphere in the house was poison. Somebody was going to leave, clearly.

Everybody retreats to their corners. Then we start hearing hammering again and we figure they must have made up, or at least calmed down enough to get back to work. I'm halfway down the stairs to help when I hear shouting and pounding, like with hands. So I run right back up the stairs again, thinking it's the youknowwhats. Fuck 'em, I'm ready, I grab the pole with the knife and head back down and knock on the door to Kurt's area of the house. But there are no revs--Kevin's begun boarding himself into the basement. Apparently Kurt told him he wanted to buy him out of his share of the place, and this is what happened.

And me? I'm just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Kurt was very nice and very polite, but he asked us to leave. As soon as possible. They need the breathing room.

The next couple of days are spent packing and crying. This was amy's and my first apartment together. We moved in right after we got married. We'd been there for three years, hirings and firings, cats, Christmastimes, summers. I didn't wnat to leave, and I keep thinking to myself how UNFAIR it is. I think I'm angrier about this than I have been about anything. Not at Kurt, because who can blame him, really? I thought he'd kick us out about a week into this thing. I'm mad at, I don't know what. The world? God? The zombies? What fucking difference does it make?

We were lucky to get a U-Haul, since most of them have been stolen. Most of our furniture is still sitting in the U-Haul. Some things we had to give up. Amy's grandmother's piano--goodbye, no more lessons for you. She's devastated. They didn't want me to bother with all my CDs and I said fuck you. I brought them anyway, I don't care. We have the one segment of the sectional that Bobo used to lay on and Amy sits in it all the time--the rest is in the garage for now. I brought all the knives of course. You just felt like such an idiot packing up the TiVo box and the surround sound system but you do it anyway. I don't want to give up on that.

Seven adults and four cats in our house now. The cats are freaked out, fighting. Everybody is miserable. It rained for like a week so lots of stuff got ruined.

Okay. We've got the internet connection at my parents', which is where we live now. So here's what happened.

Kurt and Kevin had been arguing. Not so much that you'd necessarily notices--well, not so much that I'D necessarily notice, though Amy did. I think it' s just hard having this many adults living in one house, and would be under any circumstances, let alone the semi-siege conditions we've all been living in for months now. They're brothers in law so they tried to make it work, and it did for a long time. But it's just too much now, you know? Just too much.

The blow-up came when we were replacing the boards for the fall. We wanted to make sure everything was sturdy as the weather got colder, since to be honest we figured a non-trivial number of old people would be succumbing to the cold this winter, what with fuel so hard to come by. And right from the start Kurt and Kevin were snipping at each other. Snipping gave way to outright yelling.

Oh, a;lskdj. I'm too exhausted to finish this tonight. When my Dad got home late last night it meant I had to spend the whole night watching my mother. Too tire d now and I miss our old apartment, our old life. Holy God I msis it soo much.. Goodnight.

We're moving out

Tensions run high. Not really sure how much I can/should say beyond that. Not really sure how much I know beyond that either. It's a landlord thing, basically. Things are coming to a head. I'm concerned. It could end very badly for us. Still sick and exhausted.

Still sick. Coughing, achey.

I don't know why I acted, a few days ago, like it was this big revelation that I wanted to write for a living. I ALREADY write/wrote for a living, of course--what I mean is write fiction/comics for a living. That's what the whole purpose of this blog was at first, remember? Getting out of that funk I was in. I agree with all the writers who say there's no such thing as writer's block--there's just unproductive patterns you get into that you need to muster the willpower to get out of. To break out of. The Outbreak--that was the origin of the name, if you recall. Go back and check the first entries and see. And then lo and behold, out come the revenants. Is this what Alanis would call ironic? I can't remember anymore.

Cough, cough.

I've been rereading Clive Barker's Books of Blood lately, a) because there's nothing else to do; b) because it's October and it reminds me of Halloween, which I guess very few kids will be celebrating this year, huh?; c) because life is a giant Clive Barker story now, so why not? If things were normal I'd take solace in the fact that Clive was over 30 when he became the Hot New Thing with these books. I've still got a few years to accomplish something lest the sneaking suspicion that I'm worthless, which I used to assuage by hooking up with lots of girls and now try to ameliorate by creating fiction and stuff, actually become a reality. Or I would if things were the way they used to be. Maybe there'll still be a market for this stuff in a few years, maybe not. Who knows. No new TV season this fall. that's a bad sign, right? I really wanted to learn what was going on in Lost. Were the Sopranos supposed to come back this fall, or was it next year? Star Wars III? Cough cough cough cough cough.

Sick

Amy got sick over the weekend. Bad cold, cough, a fever. The fever broke overnight on Saturday, so that's a relief, because most of the clinics don't seem to be open anymore around here. Now I have the cold and I feel like hell. The drug store was out of cold medicine. How does that happen? My guess is that people are hoarding. We should have.