Ups and Downs

This morning I woke up at seven coughing. I coughed so hard I could not go back to sleep, hacking up phlegm. I don't know if it's smoking, allergies, Santa Clara air, avian bird flu, tuberculosis...It has gone on for weeks now. Despite this, I woke up and felt good. I made tea, sat outside, had a cigarette, and waited for the Employment Department to call.
I was scheduled to get a call between eight and ten AM. I waited until 10:15 and finally called them; got an answering machine, left a message. I haven't received a dime from them, I'm broke, but at least I'm taken care of.
I had a good day, it's hard to believe with all the crap, but I did. I said screw it all and drove up to Palo Alto, wandered around a mall for rich sons of bitches. I couldn't buy nothin, being broke, but I can infiltrate their malls. I got an iced coffee when I got thirsty and took it with me to Stanford. It's a nice place, it's big. University of Illinois at Chicago was big, but Stanford is big and pretty. I envied the professors there, they've got it made. Made me want to go back to college, get a masters in art. That'd be peachy and pretty pointless too.
Another thing I can do is go to the gym. I've still got a membership there to the YMCA, and I went swimming. It was damn nice, but like most things, I overdid it. 26 times across the pool, I was an idiot. I don't normally work out anymore, it hurts like hell and I get fatigued and can't do nothin afterwards. I got home at seven, made pasta, and drew for an hour. Just patterns, but it killed my hand, oh God I killed it bad. It felt like I slammed my hand in a car door, I wanted to scream, so I took Neurontin, then put heat on it, then drank vodka. It still hurts like a bitch, should've drank more, I just may do that. Next time I won't swim so much.
My body can make me hate life, hate everything. It makes me bitter, but when you have chronic pain, you eat bitter constantly. Docs don't know what I have, but they don't really seem on the case either. They did their tests and found nothing, well, they found plenty: a herniation at C5, L5, bone spurs at T10, degenerative spinal arthritis, stenosis. Nothing surgically treatable, but still not the cause of all this pain. It's been over ten months since things got bad, ten months of pain with little relief. My body has gone berserk I think, allergies, asthma, crippling pain, things not working. I think it could be Fibromyalgia, the mystery disease no one can explain or treat. What does it matter, I'm twenty seven and feel like I'm eighty. This is truly fucked.
Tomorrow is another day, tomorrow is another day, tomorrow is another day. Every day is different, and best to go on living as well as I can and hope for surprises.