Nightmare

New Year's Eve ... just another evening outing at the nearly empty den of consumerism (read: shopping mall) in Kahala. A most enjoyable evening, I must add. Few eateries were open, though. I opted for Panda Express® instead of the other fast food choice. Then, I loitered in the center court with cheap "smartphone" in hand. Hard as it may be to believe, I have come to rely on the cheap "smartphone" more and more, at least to access the Net using wireless "hotspots." Even at Chaos Manor (read: rental housing), I often use the cheap "smartphone" to view [deleted] programs. Why? It is small and easy to deploy. Mind you, the decision to keep the cheap "smartphone" will not be reliant on its convenience.

I'm still illin' with the common cold. One week now, and I am not improving. The grogginess is the worst part. My attention span, reflexes, and cognitive ability have all been affected. Even driving my vehicle to the den of consumerism in Kahala this morning was difficult. Of course, in my later senior citizen years, those symptoms will become a permanent part of my geriatric life-style. Anyway, I didn't feel well at all. The coffee that I procured at the coffee shop (at higher a higher price than the equivalent in town) did not taste good. My granola could have easily been substituted with ground-up cardboard. The post-nasal drip was like a waterfall in my sinuses, causing me to cough and choke sporadically. Old man noises were involuntarily emanating from my vocal chords. I could have been easily mistaken for any number of generic old codgers. Sheesh!

I should mention that, before I departed from Chaos Manor this morning, I attempted to quickly assess Alan's progress in packing for his move. All of the plastic containers were still laying on the floor of the common area. Each container was partly filled with what looked like rubbish. There were lots of scrap paper with scribblings amongst essentially useless junk. Frankly, I believe that he's overwhelmed by his collection of crap. Yet, he just cannot part with any of it. I am certain that what I saw was only a fraction of the stuff in his squalid room. He also has several kitchen cupboards full of food and small cooking appliances as well as months worth of food in the refrigerator and freezer. From what I could ascertain, he's planning to put all of that non-food junk in another storage unit. He's already paying $265 per month on a storage unit that is completely full of, I would assume, more junk and trash. Every time that I actually see Alan, he is asleep on the filthy couch. He is so completely inundated by his crap that he now flees the problem by sleeping. In the meantime, the landlord expects Alan to be completely moved out by Saturday afternoon.

Alan is, from all evidence, suffering from obsession and control issues. He obviously needs to seek professional help. From what I can ascertain, his condition is only going to worsen with age. We already know from previous accounts in the "blog" that Alan is a peculiar individual. He has firm beliefs in the occult and the afterlife. He has extremely poor personal hygiene. He only wears dress clothes (i.e., long-sleeve shirt and slacks) made of synthetic fabric and dress shoes no matter what time of day and under all weather conditions (even hot and humid days). Of course, Alan cannot be helped unless he so desires it. Not going to happen.

I had a terrible time navigating around the den of consumerism This morning. I lost the keys to my vehicle, and I unknowingly dropped various things as I meandered about in a stupor. I nearly missed the bus to town because I had to backtrack and locate my lost crap. My gym workout was mediocre at best, just as it has been for nearly a week. I just didn't feel good. When I returned to the den of consumerism this afternoon, I meandered around for an hour for no particular reason. I kept inadvertently dropping "stuff" again. After backtracking yet again to find everything, I just gave up and drove back to Chaos Manor.

When I arrived back at Chaos Manor, I was very surprised to see Alan laboring away at packing his "stuff." He said that the movers were coming tomorrow to haul all of it off to a new storage unit. Judging from what I saw, including what's left in his squalid room, he will require a fairly large storage unit. Alan has not secures a room at the hostel yet, so he's probably going to end up at a friend's place. As for me, I don't really care one way or the other. I am just relieved tha the nightmare of Chaos Manor is finally over. Good riddance to all!