SUNDAY, 14 MAY, 2000, PHILADELPHIA

A chapter from my unfinish novel. (See old chapters: Chapter 8) CHAPTER 11           No one has it as badly as I do. I work, and I work and work and work, and then I work. Such thankless, unrecognised energies I expend for fools whom I am compromised to suffer. It’s just not fair! Why can’t I be the independently wealthy one. That would enable me to dedicate all my energies to my performance art. I have a vision, you see…           To paint a map of the U.S. on a huge concrete floor. To place a folding chair in Philadelphia. To choose a destination. To sit in the chair pointed in the direction of that destination for as long as it would take to drive it. To inch the chair slowly, over four days or so, across the country, mimicking a car’s progress. To tip over in Iowa, denoting an accident. To have fast food brought to my “window” twice a day. To pee in a bottle, dumping the bottle out of the “window”, leaving a trail of piss across the country. All the while, the soundtrack of monster trucks roaring and clocks ticking and babies screaming would be underlining a loop of a particular Switchblade Symphony song (So dark! So beautiful!). Audience members would not be allowed to leave once they have been admitted to the theatre-in-the-round. They will be given bedpans and personal walkman alarm clocks so that they would never miss much “driving” by sleeping too long.           Probably no one would even come to my show, and I would feel that ostracism acutely and painfully, as usual. And I would suffer horribly.           But noooo! I have to work for a living. Delicate, beautiful, damaged souls like mine are not cut out for this 24/7 stuff.           Uh … that’s 24 days a month, 7 hours a day, I mean. But it still is insufferable!           So many mundane demands have been made from me these last few weeks — and with total disregard for my outstanding creative abilities or sensitive constitution or æsthetic in 18th c. dress — that I have become physically ill from it all. I have a fever that is probably a medical anomoly, although I refuse to see doctors because they just don’t understand me.           I am so alone.           It’s like everyone is specifically trying to misunderstand and annoy me. The Cramps once sang, “People Ain’t No Good.” It’s no new concept to me. Only reinforced one hundred times a day, every day, in my accursed, misunderstood, sadly abused life.           There will be hell to pay!