Once upon a time, I wanted to be a great human being. I wanted to be admirable and caring and authentic. Now all I want to do is bring the rain.

One week ago, driving home from buying a new kitchen sink (exciting), I made an emergency stop, got out of the car, and threw up into the gutter. I made it home using willpower and flop-sweats: I’ve vomited on myself while driving before, and I don’t recommend it. It’s hideous.

So is the vomiting that comes with a kidney infection. Once home, I didn’t stop puking until the ambulance arrived and the paramedic stabbed me with Gravol. That paramedic is my second most favourite person in the world. Most-favoured status goes to the creator of the Gravol suppository. It’s the only thing that kept my stomach silent until the IV antibiotics started to work.

My bulimia history means I’m a vomit-pro, but this was new and exciting territory. I made it to the bathroom by the skin of my teeth and didn’t leave until the paramedics put the ambulance in gear. I was reminded of the times I’d used ipecac to induce regurgitation in the past. The hurling was similarly violent and uncontrolled. ^*

In hindsight, the symptoms of infection were obvious, but I’ve been busy dealing with my now terminally-ill parents.

I did notice a loss of appetite, but I chalked that, the insomnia, and the periodic taste of metal to stress. I wish it had been. I don’t have time for sick. I have people to care for and people to hate.

I wasn’t admitted. The hospital is still overrun with the stupid and selfish. Outpatient IV therapy was all that was available and it felt like hell on earth. I didn’t stop losing acid and bile with every movement until day four. Unfortunately, the fever, high blood pressure, pain, and sweaty feet of the kidney infection still continue. Apparently, kidney infections are kind of a big deal.

This one also turned out to be a last straw.

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I’m not traditionally a person who hates. I’ve even found it hard to hate those who molested and abused and assaulted me. Luckily, I’m a quick study.

I have a lot of targets. I don’t hate all of them. Some I merely loathe. I’m not sure what to call the feelings I have for the administrative staff at the local hospital. The nurses are stellar, the doctors mostly good, and the rest are a problem. COVID19 is kicking hospital ass, but the culture at my local is longtime dire. So yeah, rage is there for them. The balance of my emotional violence is reserved for the moronic special snowflakes who believe liars instead of science. I’d be happy for them to go their own way if they had the courtesy to die at home, but they’re hypocritically-revolting about that.

I wish them ill.

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My mother is dying; her lung cancer has metastasized. It won’t happen immediately, and we may get approved for immunotherapy to extend her time, but the end is now written, thanks to the presence of lung cancer in her lymph nodes. Only one, and only a little, but it makes no difference. The cancer might as well have been found in all: death once it hits the lymphatic system is hard to avoid. Chemo isn’t possible because of her kidney impairment: a virus killed her pancreas and gave her diabetes, and diabetes mellitus type one is murder on the kidneys (and everything else).

If only her surgery hadn’t been pushed back and back again because the unvaccinated sick took over the medical system.

I wish I was a better person. I wish I wasn’t angry. I wish I didn’t wish them harm, but I do. I wish them all the pain, threefold karmic repercussions notwithstanding.

They’ve also killed my dad.

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My dad loves to sail: it’s a lifelong passion. We grew up doing it as a family: boating around the Gulf Islands rather than camping trips by car. Sailors have a good line in punishments. I’m partial to keelhauling, myself. That for those that prevented him from receiving treatment in time is fine with me. It’s an ugly death, but then again, so is his now-intractable pneumonia. It’s aggravating his COPD, and causing blood clots and dementia. He can no longer maintain orientation in the present. He drifts in time. Past is easier than the present for him now: new memory acquisition is now a challenge. He’s often upset how because he thinks I still have cancer. He’s also devastated that the love of his life has been condemned to ugly death by the “galactically stupid.”

Their fifty-third wedding anniversary was last week. Is it romantic that the selfishly stupid killed them almost simultaneously?

Of course, they’re both vaccinated, because I come from smart, caring, and compassionate people. They’re the opposite of the inbred, far-right-wing, talibangelical hatriots currently roaming the world and consuming resources without bringing value.

My mother would be distressed by the way I’m speaking to some of these “people” as I encounter them these days. I think about that, and I think about softening, and then I remember they murdered her, and her time for exhortations has been cruelly curtailed.

Did I mention the rage?

Did I mention my desire for revenge? Because I can’t help them. There’s no help to be had and no room at the inn. That they’d have left Mary and Josephy to die is scant comfort. That they don’t see their evil hypocrisy for what it is, is scanter still. I can’t even get speedy treatment for myself: healthcare systems everywhere are faltering under the pandemic’s weight, the stress exacerbated by the those who hide their evil under illusory evangelicalism.

I don’t see sainthood in my future, and I no longer care. I’m not interested in rising above anymore. Sean Connery had the right of it. Ditto Hillary Clinton, although a basket isn’t really large enough for the number of deplorables knuckle-dragging themselves about. Perhaps Mars would be a better fit?

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I’ve been good and nice and kind for most of my life. I’ve acted that way partly because it’s in my nature and partly because I was afraid. I’ve spent much of my life trying to make up for the fact that I wasn’t enough. I worked hard proving I had value. I’d have died like that too, if the ugly in the world kept their arrows on me. Aiming at those I love instead? That’s a different kind of animal.

It’s possible kindness is still there, deep down, but it’s not going to be my defining characteristic for some time. Karmic repurcussions right quick to those who cause harm is the new game plan. I’m not taking prisoners, either.

I will be buying myself the Doc Martens I wanted. I’ll beat this infection eventually, and once I’m ready to roll in the real, shitkicker-boots with solid soles are going to come in handy. Until then, speaking truth to Twitter will have to suffice.

^{* coming up with synonyms for vomiting without descending to either gross or juvenile was a challenge.}