I've grown to develop a bit of a fear, a phobia of interacting with others because I don't want to have to respond to their tripe greetings and questions. "how are you today?" a woman at the grocery store asks me and I say "terrible" and she says "that's good" because she doesn't hear me, she doesn't even care to listen. She punches in my roma tomatoes as on the vine tomatoes and I don't say anything because I just can't interact with her anymore. "and how are you today?" says another woman at the grocery store on a different day and I say that I'm not comfortable answering that question and she laughs because she thinks I'm joking. I'm at last attempting to step out and reveal the truth and it doesn't matter. "Have a nice day" "have a good day" "have a good one" I hear again and again and I often say 'no' because my days don't go well, they aren't just fine, there's nothing ok about them. Yes, they're tedious and repetitious and a burden and a pain and I go through it with just enough suffering to make it pointless to complain. It's bad but I've grown used to it. This isn't good, this isn't ok. I've accepted it and that's all. Fuck. I don't even want a good day anymore, I'll take a good day when I have some reason for the day to be good but most of my days are just drudgery, just passing, and I'm delaying, and working and trying to get past the day, trying to get to some sort of future where there will be good days, or at least where I'll want the days to be good, but you know what? I don't even know what a good day would represent. I think this is just another lie I've got to put aside. This is another lie I've got to overcome. But one thing I do know for certain is that I don't want these people to influence how my day goes, these people aren't part of my day, they are additions, true enough, but they are additions tacked onto my day through necessity and against my will, they are blotches to my day, they are irritants and they would make my day better, not good, but better if they weren't a part of it. But they are, and they are more weight dragging me down. "and how are you today?" a man at the grocery store asks someone else ahead of me and they say they are "ok" and the man says that that's "good", and I think that it's not good, if anything that's ok, just like the person responded, don't upgrade every remark to suit your pointless standard, but no one cares about this, and if I attempt to explain that to them, they think I'm just being difficult, I'm now the blotch, the irritant, and they're just trying to get through their day the only way they can, which is to ignore it and then I sense that sickening feeling in me as I move up in line and realize that I'm going to be asked the same question all over again. I hate interacting with others. I'm terrible, but you know what, I'm fine with being terrible and maybe I'm not even as terrible as I want to be, maybe I'm not as terrible as I deserve to be. I'm terrible and I want to be worse.