I took his dog and I am not sorry and I have not been fine at all. the whole world is Nebraska = doesn't give a shit. I'd have to walk off with a billion dogs to begin to get even.

VIRGO

 (August 23-September 22)

Many people struggle with what could be called “imagined ugliness,” a condition clinicians refer to as body dysmorphic disorder. It usually involves fixating on a supposed physical defect, or even on a flaw that exists only in one’s mind. I suspect that almost everyone carries a trace of this tendency, including you and me. The good news, though, is that the current astrological climate is ideal for you to at least partially shatter its spell. You are poised to transform your self-image so vigorously that you begin to regard yourself as a flawless exemplar of quirky, one-of-a-kind beauty.

I am shattered, that much is true. And I am dying on this hill. I can't do anything else. I keep trying anything else. But no. I am just dying for love. Such an impractical thing for a virgo to have done.

8 names dropped yesterday. of course I am not on the list. 

they won't let me leave, in fact 😭

they're saving the last bullet (this round) for my friend the union pres. Union, who scraped me off the pavement that one time, who this has fallen on to navigate as he has been burying his grandma (raised by). his name will be added to the list when he's done settling all their random murders, including fighting for himself to get fired before the people with seniority who are on the list. 

the list violates all law, so he'll have to fight it. and lose. and then get fired.

the rest of us are trapped. if we quit, we owe them money (benefits paid yesterday, my mother's new walker, my scripts, etc all arrived boom, 10 days late), and we can't get unemployment. some might run anyway, if they have somewhere/someone, one is from Canada originally and young (get out!) but she's very sick already ...

we are expected to do the work of the fired. 

I have 200 students now. in WRITING CLASSES, one-on-one. 7 classes, 1 over the legal limit of 150% employed. I am 1.75 full-time teachers. that's INSANE and illegal and they just WON'T fire me (!) 😭

and staff have no protection at all, so advisers aren't screaming cz they were fired. we will be advising all these students too, with no classes for them to take but our own. when the time comes, I will show them an LLM and how to talk to it and get it to write/think for you - neither I nor those 200 students are going to do anything assigned.

I am doing nothing but dying and writing these words.

my mom is here, but all the kids have descended on her care now. I spend most of the day on the phone with the others. my god, I have cried more in the last year than I can fathom anymore. 

I do not want to talk to anyone outside this hurting 💔 

TJ is in the front row staying here. Mom says to me "ya know I was thinking you might enjoy teaching English!" TJ and I look at each other, she whispers it frightens me to imagine you alone here with her right now. ya me too 🔪 hence I am not. I do not want to be dying. I just am. 

I said I would not keep enduring. it's not like I didn't say that. 

TJ, she keeps turning the conversation to Aaron, like constantly. ya ersatz my dad by half, I call it A-Bone. ok that's what I thought jeezus ya 

at some point TJ brought up the Palpable Absence, independently of me, a thing in her head/life too. she comes in to lie on my bed (where I am beached) with me and talk about life, like she always has. I told her I'd named that loneliness 'Huck' but I didn't tell her how that came to be. it doesn't matter. that Absence monster is the huckleberry you do not have, that is its name.

I am so not fine that each day I look years older, shrinking away despite Boosts galore, and I can't stop it. I am dying right in front of me and can't stop it. I have to figure out how to 😭

just stop it 😭

but I can't stop having this broken heart any. more. 😭💔😭 

still not drinking - that that was ever a problem feels so dim and distant that I'd forget except for the obvious. and Union is going thru too much bourbon now 😭

some might say 'just get another job' because they're fucking stupid about how anything works. any job, we have to either compete with each other for it or not. I will not. more no. when I rouse to do anything, I write letters of rec for the others.