My Neighbor

There is a woman who owns the house next door to mine. She is Hispanic, about my age, she has a daughter. She likes talking to me for some reason. She once told me, a few weeks ago, that I was her best friend. I was surprised. I think perhaps she was lying. My parents don't trust her. My father said something very strange to me, that she might want to marry me, though I am not quite sure why she would want to marry me, he suggested some sort of attempt to get more government assistance. I do get a small disability stipend every month, but that wouldn't be much of an incentive to marry me in my mind. People think strange things, including my father. I never saw her with the father of her daughter and I never asked about him.

She asks me if I have a girlfriend, have I had girlfriends in the past, if I am looking for one. To which I responded truthfully. Though I did tell her I was looking for a girlfriend, which is bending the truth, as I have no hope of ever finding one, but if one came along according to my desires who I could trust I would accept one, almost anyone, something that is probably impossible. I told her it was hard to find a girlfriend, and she said "really?" And I said it was hard to find a good one. I haven't actively looked for a girlfriend since I both went crazy and became religious. I fear it is beyond my abilities to have a normal relationship with a woman. Man. Wife. Children. So I just figure it will never happen. I don't know what women think of me now. I think for two years while I was working at Barnes and Noble from 2005 to 2007, young women found me to be attractive. I say that because there were a good number of girls (and one homosexual man) who were interested in me or apparently had crushes on me. But I have no idea what they might think now that I am older. I do not think I look much older or ugly, but my hair is thinning and I am a little overweight.

Now I stay away from women for the most part. Other than my neighbor. There are the two wonderful girls at Church, the beautiful Cecilia and the lovely Helena, but I do not talk to either of them often because I imagine they would be looking for a better man than me. I think I am a good man, but not in a conventional way, and not able to raise and support a big family. I am a broken man with narrow shoulders. I just hope to have a peaceful life in quiet solitude. Hopefully have a place to live and a place to go to Church to my liking.

This blog has some readers though I do not promote it. I don't know how many people return regularly. Blogger does not give a lot of information about my readers so I do not know much about them other than I get a few visits per day.

So I have thought a little about what my life would be like if I married the woman who owns the house next door. She is not beautiful but she is in good physical shape for her age. She wears heavy make-up around her eyes, the last time I saw her it was blue. There is nothing remarkable about her appearance. Her hair is dark brown but she dyed it blonde so that a lot of it remains brown and a lot of it is blonde. It looks totally unnatural. So much so that I wonder how she would think such a look would be attractive. But she is a woman and all women are beautiful. I do not even know her name. It may be Rita. She wears tight pants though she covers herself. The pants would have to go. She told me that she has God in her heart so she is happy and I told her that I am also happy. Something which is true. I think she is Catholic because she sends her daughter to the Catholic School near my house and she went to the Blessing of the Animals on the Feast of Saint Francis. She may go to the local Spanish Mass at Church. I saw her that day and she asked me why I wasn't there and I told her it was because I did not have any animals to bless. I guess I could have brought my fish in a pitcher. She knows I like to pray and go to Church.

A thought about the idea that women enjoy sex more than men do. And how they can have a great deal of pleasure, and as often as they would like to and yet remain unhappy. When the lights go out and they are alone at night they cry and want to commit suicide. If pleasure would mean happiness . . . But it does not. I would rather think the opposite that the happiest man would be the one who has the least pleasure, as long as his sufferings were not too great or if he was able to bear them. It has been four months and I am very happy and have been since I returned home. I am at peace with God. Or so I hope. Perhaps I hate him but do not know I hate him, but I feel I am at peace and that I love him. I do not have any doubts and I have not had any doubts for eleven years. I do not know the vast universe of belief but I believe it is in essence true.

Julian is my friend. It is strange because that is my pen-name. But my best friend is named Julian. He lives in a nursing home and hopes to soon move into his sister's apartment. He is blind and sick with diabetes and bad kidneys. I visit him and talk to him. I met him at Church. He is the most extreme believer one could ever hope to meet. He is a sedevacantist and a Feeneyite. He is a follower of a monastery in upstate New York that condemns almost every other priest and Bishop that they know about to the point that they do not have a single Bishop in the world who they agree with and follow. They think there has not been a Pope for sixty-one years. There are some Catholics who reject the changes that occurred in the Church since the Second Vatican council, and I am among them. But I am a moderate. Some have come to the belief that it is impossible for the Pope to do what was done. Yet it happened. So they come to the conclusion that in doing what was done, the Pope automatically ceased being Popes so none of the changes counted as it were because it was not really the Church, and the Church now has no head (and no Bishops except for a few vagantes). "Ipso-facto" so they say. I find the position to be absurd, but I love a number of people who believe it is the case. But it causes strife. Julian loves talking about the Church and I love talking about the Church also, but I am cautious to avoid disagreement. He does not believe modern priests are really priests and he does not believe they can forgive sins or that Jesus is truly present in the modern Churches. So I do not try to tell him that I believe Jesus really is there, even though I think the priests are wrong and do not go to their Masses. In a way what I believe is worse. He thinks God is not present in the modern Church, but I believe he is still there but when he comes down to the altars he is tortured and abused by the people there. So I go to adore him and hope to love him and kneel before him to show my love. So while I do not go to the modern Masses often, I like to go before the tabernacles and pray, and I go to Benediction and to pray before the Blessed Sacrament exposed, which is really a treat. I believe Jesus is there and that I can see him and talk to him and adore him in the quiet without showing my approval of the modern Mass and the beliefs of the modern Churchmen. Julian is not as extreme as they come because there are some priests whose Mass he goes to and who he confesses his sins to. There are some men who are so extreme that there are no priests to whom they will go and they will not go to any Church at all and they will never confess their sins to a priest and will ask God himself for forgiveness and hope to be forgiven without the sacraments, which is a very grave thing to do if one believes one must confess one's sins to a priest to be forgiven as we do. They are called home-aloners. I have met them on the internet but never met one in person. How would I meet one? If they never go to Church? The only way to meet one would be on the internet where they argue with the other traditional Catholics (though they are almost always banned from most websites when their true beliefs are discovered) or to meet them at a conference about traditional Catholicism. The most famous of these believers is named Gerry Matatics and he gives conferences and talks where he tries to convince people to stop going to Mass because there are no more priests left that we know of whose Masses are pleasing to God, and it is better to have no priest than to have a vagante priest who is not sent by the Church or a heretic priest of the whore of Babylon, the Vatican II sect.

I am a very religious person and I have spent a lot of time reading about it and talking about it. Most people would think I am strange. While I was in the hospital they asked me, I have no idea why, "Is Jerusalem the capital of Israel?" And my response was "Well Trump says it is." And they thought that was a clever answer and they let me be. I don't know why they would ask me that. I guess they knew I opposed Zionism and Judaism as a traditional Catholic, but I thought it was a strange thing to ask in a psych ward. Who the hell cares when one can not think straight and was possibly hallucinating and heavily medicated.

I love watching birds. In the hospital from my window I could not see a lot of birds but sometimes they would fly by and I would be happy. Today as I was walking to Saint Benny's there were some crows, but when my mother was driving me to get my haircut through Forest Hills Gardens I saw more crows than I have ever seen before in my life. Some were on the ground and some were flying across the street in front of our car. So many crows. Birds of ill omen. When I see crows (and black squirrels) I see them as a sign that there are a lot of devils around and that the world around me is full of wickedness. I see them as a sign. But I do not think my own soul is wicked so I do not fear. There are usually a lot of crows on the south side of Jamaica Avenue. I see them when I walk to Saint Benny's. They cackle at me. So I don't tell Julian how I go to Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction at Holy Child and Saint Benny's. He would not agree. But I love to. That is the best thing I have started doing since I got out of the hospital (something I did not do before). Perhaps I should look and find out when they have Eucharistic Adoration at all the Churches close to me so I can go as often as possible instead of only on Thursdays and Fridays. Wouldn't it be nice to look into the face of God, and to have him look into my own face, for an hour or two every day?

I pray the Rosary and now the Way of the Cross and sometimes parts of the Little Office and sometimes just looking and saying short prayers or being quiet. I prefer the quiet to any prayers, except for the Latin Mass on Sundays. But I do love the quiet so. It would be wonderful if the little mission where I go to Mass on Sundays had traditional Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction every day! I would go even every day. But we are just a Sunday Mission. I like to think about religion and about God. I do not know if anyone would find that interesting but I do. I really do. I am happy with my life now. I am content. I have peace. They say suffering makes saints. So perhaps I should pray for suffering. But I fear I will not be strong enough to bear it. Bear it away. In the peace of God. Let us pray.

My mother found me a lovely prayer. It is called The Holy Hour and it is a little booklet with a picture of Gemma on it and is a meditation on the Garden of Gethsemane as Gemma used to pray it. It was while praying it that she received the wounds in her flesh. I have been praying it on Thursday evenings. For an hour. It is a lovely prayer. I have quiet. I cannot meditate well so when the time comes I just look at the pictures of Gemma. As if one can see in her face the Crucified Christ, or at least she is so very beautiful. I have the idea that in looking at beautiful things one becomes beautiful and that in looking at ugly things one becomes ugly. So looking at holy people one becomes holy and looking at sinful people one becomes sinful. So I always look at my pictures of Gemma so that I can become like her, or worthy of her.