“Prison is quite literally a ghetto in the most classic sense of the world, a place where the U.S. government now puts not only the dangerous but also the inconvenient—people who are mentally ill, people who are addicts, people who are poor and uneducated and unskilled.”  — Piper Kerman

There’s an owl calling out for some reason. It’s 1 pm in the afternoon just after a rain storm–not exactly what I’d expect.

I’ve been on prednisone–an abolute miracle, for a few weeks now–not exactly what I’d expected, either.  That’s one of the (few) benefits of whatever-it-is-I-have and/or prednisone. Caught in the drudgery of 9-5 five days a week, it would take me some digging sometimes to find out how one day was not just like another.  Now it’s like a fluorescent tie-dyed shirt: even without my glasses, I can see that neon blob a mile a way.

That’s something, I guess.

I had just started to lose weight, too, and suddenly I’m besought with the eats–I knew it was coming, but I thought I could manage it. The past week? Not so much. But it was expected. Sort of. What wasn’t expected was the inability to handle multiple annoyances at one time, some convergence of trivial things–stupid things that really are so minor–that all swirled around in a centrifuge of rage. That was unexpected. And so, when the Josh Duggar scandal first broke (way, way, way too many links to make it easy), I had already been possessed by this ectoplasmic ghost of rage, like Slimer from Ghostbusters if his molecular construct was composed of acrimony and anger, bitterness and belligerence, just awaiting the moment to pour forth sliming everyone with poison.

This really doesn’t convey the true slime potential of Slimer, but it works.

Somewhere in my gut, I had hellfire and pitchforks, tar and feathers just ready, ready to pounce. A pacifist ‘roid-rager with a cause.

It sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit. Or a Tom Robbins novel.

The problem, at least for me, is that this sort of rage sucks every bit of, well, everything out of me, and leaves me empty. My mind doesn’t work; my body doesn’t work. I can’t put a sentence together, and I can only drag my feet, too exhausted to even pick them up to walk properly. I am absolutely useless and limp. Flaccid, even.

I know there’s a penis joke there somewhere.

And then there’s the anger hangover.  Complete with headache and nausea and all. The uselessness lasts for hours, sometimes even days. Sometimes it’s only when I’m in the midst of this post-rage-ejaculation that I realize how good I have it, hangover and all. Once upon a time, this was a daily occurrence.  Once upon a time, my life was brief spans between outbursts. After the sliming, after the hangover comes a clarity of thought I haven’t quite nailed down at any other time.
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