Through the flesh
I need to sleep, I need to rest, and I need to clear my mind. I need to breath, I cant forget to breathe; please don’t let me stop breathing.
My senses are alive; like that of someone who just heard a twig snap behind them as they walk alone in the woods, on a moonless night, without the security of a working flashlight or weapon. Electricity and fear inhabit my nervous system, the same as that of a mouse in the coils of a mighty predator, though I lay prone in a bed designed to put the most manic person to sleep in minutes.
I hear everything, the slightest sounds in the air turn to thundering vibrations across my tympanic membrane: my heart beating ninety-one times a minute working to keep me alive, I worry it will just stop. The cool wind blowing from my air vent from across the room fending off the summers heat sounds like a hurricane just before the calm inside the eye. The tick of the clock at my bedside, I hear the gears inside rotating around themselves, pushing the slide lock slowly up until finally, a thundering “tick” the small red arm moves and a second has gone by, and then, again the gears winding up, and a loud fearful “tick” erupts from my antique windup clock. There is dust-dust floating in the air all around me, and I can hear it settling on an old wooden trunk at the foot of my bed each particle coming to rest so gently but so numerous it almost sounds like a sand filled hourglass that never reaches the hour mark, I can hear those particles all around me colliding with each other in mid air before being picked up by the draft caused by the running AC. A hum is coming from a flat screen television hung on the wall; though the red light makes a claim that the TV is off. My ears are not just hearing what is happening all around me, they are turning that sound into vibrations that I can feel in the base of my skull. I hear the sink drip for the twelfth time since it first woke me.
I feel a stair coming from the other side of my bedroom window. The tiniest sliver of space between my curtains has allowed the thinnest blade of light to pass through the glass, illuminate the dust in the air and land across my eyes as I turned in bed hoping to shelter myself from the TVs now blinding red light. A cat passing by on my neighbor’s fence somehow saw the reflection my eyes made from that slim cut of light impacting the wet surface exposed by my open eyelids and now sits still as can be staring right through my window, right through me, and into my soul. I squeeze my eyes closed tight and roll the other way. Fireworks erupt and light up behind my eyelids as I realize I am clenching them shut to tightly.
“Relax.” I tell myself.
“Please relax! Everything is fine!” I shout within my head.
The darkness of night is no more a friend to my bedroom; that tiny shimmer of light now floods the room like a lamp to an already well lit red sanctuary of terror, the two sources of luminescence fill my pupils with the details of every object in my room. Leaving no question about how to navigate the obstacles that could hinder a quick get a way if the guy down the street actually wanted to break into my house like that FBI phone call, earlier today, said he would try to do while I slept tonigh. Stupid telemarketers.
I can feel the fibers of my sheets trying to hold me in bed. I feel the weight of my “heavy” blanket doing it’s best the comfort my restless legs and tingling fingers. The dust in the air skims past the few bits of peach fuzz between the front of my neck where I shave and the back of my neck that the barber shaves, exciting my nervous system to the point of terminal over stimulation. I breathe in deep through my nose and slowly out through my mouth like I have been told to do for years and all that provides for me is the feeling of my heart pounding its way from my chest up into my throat and behind my eyes; down the sides of my neck into my stomach and down through my legs. My toes now throb with every beat of my heart and those vibrations aren’t absorbed by my high-tech bedding 109 beats per minute now.
“Am I crazy?” I whimper to myself.
Ice races though my lungs and veins as that thought finishes its way through my mind.
“I’m dying, I know it.”
I know exactly where my adrenal glands are now. I can feel them every time they dump adrenalin into my system. I can’t make it stop. Every beat of my heart hurts so badly that the tears building in my eyes and the tightness in my throat bring up memories of my dad being upset at me during my parents divorce. I told him to “Fuck off!” The hurt in his eyes killed me for days. We are best friends but that memory haunts me on nights like this. Adrenaline ignites inside me. Any thought that has the chance to create an emotional response only adds to the adrenal glands desire to tickle right above my kidneys, before erupting inside my heart and down my aorta with the sensation of holding an M80 in a closed fist just before the lit wick disappears into the paper casing.
Those deep nasal breaths bring not only more fear but smells that should have been long gone. Her smell should have left hours ago but it lingers in my nose like the smells of childhood memories. My adrenal glands remind me they are still there, the memories fade as quickly as they came. 115 beats per minutes. Yes I am counting them. The plug-in air freshener has been empty for months; I smell it now like the first day it was plugged in. It’s probably time to change my air filter for the house.
“I should go to the store right now and get a new one, maybe that will make the AC run smoother and I won’t be able to hear the vent, maybe a new filter will clean up all these smells. Did I flush the toilet after I used it before bed? I wonder if they make charcoal air fresheners to absorb more smells” I couldn’t help from saying any of that out loud. As I lay there I could smell that the cap was still off my tooth paste, though the bathroom door is closed.
I could taste the toothpaste still in my mouth. It must be good stuff, I brushed at 7pm and it’s now 456 in the AM. It’s not just the toothpaste I can taste, but the mouth goop that was starting to form between my cheeks and the base of my gums, it gives off just the slightest of alkaline flavor. I know I should just get up and start my day early but this would be day three of only one and a half hours of sleep. I have counted every minute since I woke up, adding each thundering tick, sixty times a minute; thirty six hundred ticks an hour. This is easy to do when you wake with the ability to concentrate on every sensation entering your mind at the same time separately. I can count the hairs on my arms, the fibers in my sheets and the bumps in my fingerprint as my thumb slides slowly across my index finger. 67 ridges from the nail edge to the spiral. That cat finally found its way down the fence line; I can tell because I don’t feel its burning stare cutting though my soul. The air temperature in the house has dropped low enough to permit the AC to shut off for now. The lack of wind has let the curtain close back upon itself, darkening the room just slightly. The dust in the air slows to the point of silence once again.
Sleep doesn’t come easy when there is a fire storm burning inside your nervous system and the only relief is complete exhaustion, but even then, your adrenal glands could still have other plans for the hour and a half that you so desperately pray for as the blankets get pulled over your shoulders.
Coffee loses its morning friendliness when it becomes a crutch to insomnia. Sugar isn’t as sweet when added for energy only. Creamer doesn’t cut black coffee’s richness in the same way when poured for need instead of want.
Go to the gym they say. Go to hell I say. Have a homeless guy put a gun to your head while sipping a litter of bottom shelf vodka. Do you feel that? That pounding in you chest; is this for real? It’s not is it?
When you go to sleep tonight you don’t have to remember that I’m laying here awake, I don’t want you to, this is my cross to bare, and bare it I shall.
I am actually kind of happy to write this while I am not currently feeling this way for once.
Life with anxiety can be hell; fear of sudden death can only be over come by meeting it head on… RUN. Run fast and don’t stop. If you die, well at least you died trying to live.
Michael Trump
Under the House… Wait what?
As you all know we now live in Alabama and have been up here for just over a year. Ihave also really really really slacked on writing here for you. I keep a paper journal now and don’t often feel the need to write in two or three places.
Just to catch you up quickly.
When we first moved to B’ham; Sarah and I rented a house in Irondale. A quaint little place where the city has control over the garbage and the water, yet Birmingham has rights to my sewage. Garbage was almost twice what I was paying in Florida, and the base water cost was way more than Florida. If you pay your bill any other way than check, you are charged a service fee. (Same with almost every thing here in Alabama). Our garbage pickup was Monday and Wednesday!! Monday and Wednesday for real. Mondays can would be over flowing and Wednesdays can would have one tiny bag. Rent was high and we had to have a pest company come out and spray three weeks in a row before we even unpacked. You could see through the old wooden door and there were squirrels living in the attic. No we didn’t check the place out all that well before we moved up there. Six months of not letting our kids play near the street for fear they would get flattened by a car doing 50 in a 25, we bought our beautiful little house in Gardendale. I scored two acres and a tiny three bedroom house in the low 100$. Now the kids can run everywhere and we have little to worry about. (except when Harvey and Fuzzy go for a walk and get picked up by two little old ladies who promptly call the police and have Harvey returned home). The kids have found our stream to be one of the greatest things in the world and are playing in it or near it everyday the weather is permitting .
This house we now own is great. No where near the size we want or need but man the yard is perfect. I have lots of projects ahead of me and have tackled two thus far. First being repairing and replacing part of the old AC duct work. We bought the house while it was still cold out and once it really got hot outside I always found the crawl space to be very cold. One hot day while exploring under the house I found out that there were hand size holes in 
the joints where the systemic duct work branched from the main AC duct run. On this half of the house are four feeder ducts. One to my room, one to the master bathroom and two feeding the living room. One of the living room ducts wasn’t connected at all and I could put my hand between the main duct and the feeder duct. The picture here is the feeder to my room. This arm was just as gross on the inside as it was on the outside. You will see in the video that I was surprised to find out that the center of this arm here wasn’t connected to itself and where it was connected up at the room, air leaked all around the floor. The ducts going to the master bath and the second living room were connected pretty well and only needed to be rewrapped with insulation. At that point I understood why I had a $300 electric bill and no money in my pocket.
I went to Lowes and found some stuff that looked like Green Energy Barrier. A product that I used to sell and install. This foil stuff works great in attics and figured it would be perfect for wrapping my old ducts. I found some putty and knew I could makeshift some patches for the giant holes that were keeping the crawl space colder than the house. In no time at all I had patches made and good portions of the ducting wrapped. With such a quick fix I didn’t record any of it. I wanted the patch work to dry and another pay check to come my way before I would go back under the house and finish what I had started. A week later I got back under the house and was astonished by how much water was on the ground and all over my AC ducts. Gallons of
water dripped from my newly hung insulation mud squished under my shoes and my face was red with anger. What
could I do? I am not an experienced Hvac person so I called my best bud Jonny and told him of all that I was going through. See he is an experience Hvac person and even though I tried to get him to come up here to help and he 
wouldn’t, I still love him and wanted to hear what he had to say. He told me that the old insulation was most likely the cause for all the condensation on the new stuff but that doesn’t make all that much sense to me. Jonny also suggested ripping down all the old crap and getting some flex duct. I said I would love to but Lowes doesn’t carry it. (well none that I could find anyhow) “Home Depot has it though”. He exclaimed. Then chastised me for going to Lowes at all. I examined my old AC stuff and went to Home Depot. I check out all that they had to offer and couldn’t believe that I hadn’t gone there in the first place. They had everything that I thought I would need and then some. I knew this would be an opportunity for me to learn and wanted to video my journey so maybe others could learn what to and what not to do while repairing and replacing old ducting. To be honest this was not a hard task and really I enjoyed working on my own house. I know this video is long but watch it once and use it for a reference while you change out your old duct work. If you have any questions I try to be pretty quick in my responses.
Some supplies you will need whether you are in the attic or under your house.
- Goggles
- Gloves and protective covering for your arms and legs
- Light, lots of light. (Don’t place hot lamps near flammable objects. If you are not sure if an object is flammable don’t put your lamp near it.)
- Face mask
- tin snips
- screwdrivers
- hammer
- scissors
- duct tape and or gorilla tape
- razor knife
- metal hangar straps (found in plumbing)
- screws appropriate for your task
- duct putty
- paint spatula
- Flex duct
- measuring tape
- zip ties or adjustable pipe clamps
- great stuff super expanding foam (to fill in where you cant reach)
So I am sure I may have forgotten some stuff but (let me know and I’ll add it later.)
I figure after watching both videos you should be pretty well armed to do your own work. If you have to go in the attic and it is already hot outside. Leave your AC running and just let it blow the cold air into your work area. The few dollars it costs you is well worth your life. Also remember to stay on the rafters and never step into the insulation.
Duct tape and putty will seal just about anything so if you get stuck just remember you can always add more tape. Check for nails and sharp objects before laying out your new flex ducts. once it is in place try to never touch it again the foil does become fragile after a while.
- Michael the Trump
I haven’t for one day forgotten about you. I wonder how you are. Have you ever even had the chance to miss me or ever wonder how I am. I know one day not to far from now our paths will cross and we will have the world to catch up on. I just hope your not to set in your ways to get to know your family here. Your brothers and sister see your pictures on the wall and every once in a while ask who you are and I tell them everything I know. Some times I pray that your mom would email me some updated pictures of you so that I could see how you have grown. God Bless I hope you are growing up with some Trump brains and soul.
xoxoxoxo
Michael Trump 