winter 90-91 sleeping I wake up at five in the evening, sit on the porch, and smoke the first cigarette of the day. I don't work; I don't go to school; I don't create works of art; I don't have a purpose in life. But I sit on the porch every night, even though the temperature is about 12 degrees and I have to wear five layers of clothing and my L.L. Bean wool blanket just to have a fucking cigarette. It's not my fault. Margaret-my-landlady-who- lives-here-on-the-weekends doesn't let me smoke in the house. I love waking up at five in the evening. I love sitting on this porch and smoking Camel Filters. I love not having a job. I love this feeling of worthlessness. I love New England. I love living in a town that no one has heard of. I love staring at the same mountain every time I have another cigarette on this same porch. I love watching twilight force the automobile drivers to switch on their headlights, one by one. I love spending the majority of my time in Cumberland Farms talking to whoever happens to be working the graveyard shift. I love buying and putting together puzzles to pass the time. I love that the only contact I have with anything resembling mass media is the radio. I love sleeping so much that I have perpetual insomnia. I love that it snows every day and the air hurts my face. I love smoking pot with my housemate to pass the time. I love being compulsive about washing dishes. I am dead here. Something chemical happens in your body when you seldom see sunlight that makes you depressed. I wake up at twilight and go to sleep at dawn. I don't see many people, just the customers at Cumberland Farms, my housemates, and the people who attend the 7:00 am mass at St. Peter's Catholic Church on Main Street. I go to mass specifically to see other people, normal people. I don't love Jesus Christ. I don't have a savior. I am going to hell. But at least I see people before I sleep. I wash dishes at least twice a day. One day, Niven walks downstairs, places my pipe on the kitchen table and says, "you know, I hear washing dishes is a lot funner when you smoke hash." The pipe is full. We go to Niven and Rane's room and he watches me smoke it. Three hours later, I'm at the kitchen table putting together a puzzle. Niven walks down the stairs and says, "you know, I hear doing puzzles is a lot funner when you smoke pot." I hate smoking so much pot. I hate the feeling of waking up with a cough that won't stop. I hate that I smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. I hate that if I didn't smoke, I'd never go outside of the house. I hate feeling like I'm trapped in a house on a hill in an anonymous town. I hate spending my life in an all-night gas station neon minimart. I hate that I spent Christmas Eve in Cumberland Farms. I hate the puzzles I put together. I hate wasting time. I hate that Desert Shield turned into Desert Storm two days after my landlady got cable television. I hate digging my car out of three feet of snow. I hate that my sister calls and tells me that it's 80 degrees in California. I hate that Rane lives at her boyfriend's house just because Niven won't move out until January 1st. I hate everything that I force myself to forget. I hate not seeing real people because I sleep when they are awake. I hate cleaning everyone's dishes just because I don't have a job. I woke up one afternoon shortly before Christmas. It was almost four, and I walked out of my room to use the toilet. I was immediately accosted by Isaac, this fifteen year old kid who lives somewhere in town and hangs out here to play Super Mario Brothers 3 on the Nintendo. Today he was here to help "decorate the Christmas tree." He shoved an armful of cheap plastic Christmas tree ornaments in my face and said, "I know you want to help us decorate the tree." Jesse and Gabe, Margaret's children, were making such a ruckus decorating the damned Christmas tree that I'm suprised I slept so late. I waved off Isaac. I went to the bathroom. I ignored the Christmas tree scene. I went back to bed. The Christmas tree stayed up for three weeks. Even though by the middle of January dead pine needles rained on the carpet everytime anyone brushed the tree, no one would take it outside. There is a cat who lives here, a black cat named Panther. He sits on my lap when I smoke cigarettes on the porch. He sleeps in my bed, and I've learned to rearange my body around his instead of trying to get him to sleep on the end. I am grateful for this cat. He is my only companion most of the time. He knows more about me than any person, but I just wish that he could talk back. Instead, he just keeps my lap warm and purrs. I want to wake up someday. I want this long slumbering winter to end. I want to brush away the fogginess of the accumulation of marijuana. I want to be able to go grocery shopping without waking up early. I want to have a real conversation with a living person who is not stoned. I want to see the sunlight. I want to sleep forever. I want to sit on the porch and smoke cigarettes until spring comes. I want to quit smoking. I want to be able to wake up without coughing up my lungs. I want constancy. I want change. I want to know why I feel like this. I want to spend the evening doing dishes. Again. I was watching a Spike Lee movie, "She's Gotta Have It," when the war happened. Rane-and-her-boyfriend-Ben had rented it. (Rane came home when Niven moved out to live with Louisa.) Someone called to tell us that war was here. We stayed up all night drinking coffee and watching CNN. We all smoked a lot of cigarettes. War. I went to the Catholic Church to pray. I smoked some hash and finally went to bed. I got more depressed. The days dragged on. Some days I would be all alone. Sometimes I wouldn't see anyone for days on end. I prayed for Isaac to stop by and play with the Nintendo, or for Rane to come home, or for someone to call, anyone. I even prayed for Richard Walen from the City Savings Bank to call for Margaret, regarding her overdue mortgage payments for the months of November and December. At least it would be a human voice on the phone, even if he had already called twenty-three times. I woke up one morning (a rare event) because the house was 50 degrees. I called Cumberland Farms to ask Niven what was wrong with the heat. He was gone. I tried to find Margaret's phone number in Northampton. I couldn't. I finally called Rane, who was spending a week in Florida with her family. She told me to check the water level, and to fiddle with the knobs on the furnace until the water thing was full. Afraid I would mess something up, I called Cumberland Farms again to try to locate Niven. Sarah answered and said that no, she didn't know where Niven went, but that she would come up to the house and help me fix the heat. She arrived, but neither one of us knew anything about furnaces. Finally, she turned a knob that started filling a vial that said how much water was in there doing something, and we saw the pilot light go on and the radiators began making noise. We left the basement and went to the kitchen to make coffee and warm ourselves. Niven burst into the house shortly after we put the water on to boil. I yelled at him for not telling me that this would happen, and told him that I woke Rane up in Florida. He bolted down to the basement. He came back up, and said that Sarah and I almost blew up the house because we didn't turn the water off. Oh well. Sarah and I made fudge. I went to bed. I don't want to be stuck here forever. I don't want to smoke pot anymore. I don't want to be bored. I don't want to waste my life away. I don't want to ever walk into Cumberland Farms again. I don't want to walk through the empty rooms of this house wondering if I'll ever live a normal life. I don't want to sit in the living room staring at the blank television listening to the mice scurrying in the ceiling above me. I don't want to be depressed anymore. I don't want to put together another puzzle. I don't want to smoke another cigarette in the freezing winter air. I don't want to see the lights on the Christmas tree flashing anymore. I don't want to sleep another minute. I don't want to think about the masses of people who I used to see everyday. I don't want to think about my loneliness again. I don't want to watch the clock above the kitchen sink ticking away at my life anymore. I don't want to count the minutes until I allow myself to smoke another cigarette again. I don't want to watch the tea kettle boil on the stove again. I don't wnat to think about how insignificant my life is anymore. I don't want to be caught between drug use and the pain of thinking. I don't want to spend tonight crying into a sink full of dirty dishes. Again.