By usual rugged optimism about the world situation is not doing so well right now.

Australia’s an inferno. Half a billion animals dead. Koalas. Kangaroos. You name it. All dead, dead, dead forever.

Ya know, this could be it folks. The beginning of the end. Australia could just be the canary in the coal mine. These could be the days we look back to with painful nostalgia as the Last Good Days, before everything started truly going to Hell. We could be the people who we will look back at and curse for not doing more about climate change. This could be a Golden Age…. the last one we will have for a long time.

In the future, the whole world could be like Australia. Everything burning, burning, burning down to the ground.

The U.S. is gunning for war in Iran. Hope Trump’s people know how alone the USA will be if it comes to that. Trump clearly doesn’t. Or maybe he doesn’t even care because he is only doing this to distract people from impeachment.

Not gonna work, Dumb Donnie. You can distract the people but the wheels of justice continue to turn and your impeachment trial is going to start real soon now and there is not a god damned thing you can do about it.

I know, Donnie. Talk about starting up the draft again. See how that works out.

I dare ya ta do it, Donnie.

As for me, I found these two lesions on my right big toe today. What the fuck. So this could be the end of the good times for me too.

Anything that happens on your skin is a bad sign in diabetes. It’s always a sign of something going pretty frigging wrong. Must be all that maple syrup thick blood in my veins wreaking havoc on my body.

Anything weird happening with your feet is also cause for alarm. The bad circulation caused by diabetes can be especially rough on your hands and feet. They taught us how to check them regularly in my diabetes class.

Which was aborted partway through, by the way. The teacher had some kind of family crisis and had to leave early. So i got ripped off there too, as did the dozen or so other people in the class.

Doubt it would have made any difference anyhow. Depression would keep myself from taking proper care of myself even if I was a god damned endocrinologist.

I mean, here I sit, eating like a goddamned toddler and getting virtually no exercise at all while my own personal Australia burns down around me.

This is fine.

Part if me is trying to raise the alarm by being alarmed. But my depression can always thump that part of me into submission with a giant brick of total apathy.

I don’t care. Nothing matters. I will just lay here on the railroad tracks until the train hits me. Then I will finally escape.

Nothing to do now but entertain myself and try to get through with as little pain as I can.

Like I am in hospice.

That sounds nice around now.

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My KFC is ordered. Now we play the waiting game.

A : Say, how do you play the waiting game?
B : You wait. Not much of a game, really.

Hospice care does sound nice, when you think about it. Everyone is super nice and understanding and sweet to you and does everything they possibly can to make you comfortable and happy and to keep things peaceful and calm and pleasant.

It’s just a shame you have to die eventually. You know…. at the end.

There must be people who have been in hospice for an embarrassingly long time. Imagine the incredibly awkward conversation that might lead to.

“Shortest Straw” Nurse : Listen, you have been here for over two years, and there’s only so many beds in the hospice, and we have quite a long waiting list, and…

Sweet Old Lady : And what, dear?

Nurse : And well…. it’s come to a point where we have to transfer you back to the ICU, and that costs a lot of money and paperwork…. so if you could just… you know…. .

Old Lady : ….die already? Is that what you are trying to say, dear?

Nurse blushes with relief and shame and nodnods.

Old Lady : Look, I am as surprised as you are that I am still here. If you think this is awkward for you, imagine how it is for me. It’s been almost a year since I said all my goodbyes to all my friends and relatives, my kids have taken out high interest loans against their inheritances, and my insurance guy keeps coming in and tapping his watch at me and giving me dirty looks….

I have a fun brain.

Other than that, hospice is like an oral retentive wet dream. Everything is geared towards your needs. You don’t have to lift a finger and everything is done for you.

Plus you get all the best drugs. Really good stuff.

Because what’s the worst that could happen?

Granted, if you’re not rich, you won’t exactly be living in the lap of luxury. But if your needs are modest, you could be very comfortable living that way.

Or rather, dying that way.

Well there’s always a catch, isn’t there?

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In case you hadn’t figured this out yet, I am pretty depressed today.

And anxious. In many ways, depression is an over-correction for anxiety. You lose the anxiety but it gets replaced by feeling lonely and tiny and afraid and alone.

Not sure which is worse, to be honest. The anxiety, I suppose.

Depression is certainly much calmer.

But who knows. If I was more anxious that depressed, maybe I would be a crazy overachiever like my sister Catherine and not the empty locker of a person that I am in my current life.

Or at least that’s how I feel. I know the outside world might not agree, and I would love to go live in the reality where that isn’t true.

But i am stuck in the world where I feel terrible from time to time and there is not a god damned thing I can do about it.

How very depressing.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.