The Gall

     Well everyone, I hope you all are having a nice day. It is a day in the Christmas season, and I am happily celebrating Christmas.  I think this is the most carefree Christmas I have ever had except for a few recent emergencies that seem to be related to a gallbladder problem.  I am thankfully okay so far and am trying to eat different foods than usual.  I had already cut back on some things like cream in my coffee, which I replaced with milk, and I lost ten pounds to get back to my normal weight.  So that excitement of being back to normal is kind of off-setting some of my concern about suddenly having to avoid a lot of my favorite foods.  Also, I will clarify that my normal weight is not a great weight, but not that bad for someone like me.

     My trips to the E.R. recently were very interesting and educational, and I enjoyed getting to be with some great hospital people.  A few days ago, I had to call 911 and go to the hospital in an ambulance.  It was a closer call than I think should have happened, but I thought I might be okay when really I wasn’t.  I will find out soon what exactly is wrong, but I think that I might soon have to say goodbye to my gallbladder, which did nothing to me except try to digest food to the best of its ability.  So that is too bad, but I am not worried.  I think it will be okay and I will just make sure I eat what I am supposed to and try not to get addicted to pain medicine.  That is a risk but I think I could manage it.  All kinds of stuff happens to people, and that 911 incident made me more aware of certain levels of not feeling good.

    I think the legal sharks who have been following me for several years are really feasting on these recent health problems, and it is definitely bothering me. I am replaying my life in my mind and thinking about all the ways they might try to hurt me. I think they have a lot of strategies and want me to say the wrong thing in this post. I think they want me to say a threat to them, which they've been trying to trigger now with what must be hundreds of phone calls and a few sightings of guys taking photos of me or making themselves known in other ways.  I think that is their golden thing they want the most is for me to return their threats so they can say it was reasonable for them to follow me and interfere in my life. They will say it was to keep Barnes and Noble people safe from a dangerous mentally ill person.  But I feel bad for them. I am a Barnes and Noble person, and not just that, but a poet. My mental illness is a very typical part of an artistic profile, and I always made sure to keep it that way. I was a good bookseller who read a lot of books without getting paid for it, and that was probably the issue all along. Someone felt that it would be hard to get away with firing me for whatever their branding reasons are, or other power plays, or to cover up how they treated a lot of people in the company. I don’t think I should say more now, because what happened is worse than anyone would guess, even if they were told, and even if they witnessed it themselves, like the thousands of people who saw me at my worst for 12 years.  Is that an admission of some kind?  I don’t think it is. I was also at my best in some ways, as most people are, no matter how the world punishes them for not committing suicide.

    Anyway, it is probably all from the conspiracy anyway, and I am just thankful to have interesting things to think about instead of the boredom that was probably maximized on purpose during my first two years working in the Barnes and Noble music department. There was an unusual stretch of people stealing CDs during that time, and they would sell them for cash at local store nearby.  It drove me crazy as I tried to do a good job with loss and theft prevention while experiencing some prodromal schizophrenia symptoms.

    I don’t need to look back and think they did it all on purpose. The fact is that there is a lot I don’t know.  I remember a mean older white guy breaking my heart by referencing the store’s holiday incentive program as I handed him the CD he was looking for.  He said “I suppose now you want your funny money?” How cruel. The managers had told us that some secret shoppers might hand us a gift card if we did a good job.  But of course there was no gift card, and who else would know about that program but some bad person trying to make me quit. That was December. I had just started in October. I don’t know what I possibly had done to make them want to get me to quit. Who knows how hard they tried and who did it.  There was a customer who mimicked me to my face one day, making fun of how nerdy I sounded behind the cash register.  But I don’t think she was one of the Barnes and Noble constructive dismissal bullies. I think she was probably one of the good people camouflaging the abuse so I would stay naïve enough to keep the job. Was that before or after I got on the insurance?  I don’t know. At that time, if you lost insurance, you could never be insured for your medical condition again.  How horrible.  What a horrible grown up world I inherited. I think today might be even worse for not just some but most young people.  What a tragedy, and yet I know even still as these lawyers try to keep making their case against me even when I stand in a median crossing the street and text my mom about having gallbladder problems, that the real tragedy is that these guys thought they were defending a brand so good that they could do anything they wanted to the stupid people of South Carolina, and not just stupid, but poor, and even worse than that, Christian, and even worse than that, depressed, and the worst crime of all, being a good bookseller.