Bare with me here, I am trying to see if this works:

 

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We are family, I got all my sisters with me

Sorry, I don't have all my sisters with me. My only sister has been dead for 41 years.

However, I do have my first family here. You know, the one Debbie and I had together. Our one child. All growed up with her own family now.

These pictures are my little girls' family pictures. At least three of them are anyway.

That's my new grandson you are looking at up there. His name is Benjamin. He won't be born for a few more months.

That precious and adorable little girl in the second picture is my beautiful granddaughter Danielle. She's two and a half now. Is she not the most beautiful child you have ever seen? I thought you would think so <grin>.

The third picture is my beautiful daughter and her handsome husband and of course my most adorable grand daughter. Somewhere, lurking in Mommy's tummy is baby brother Ben.

And finally, I had to share a recent pic of me being an idiot grinning. I don't much like to share my recent photos because of the injury to my face from the accident. The scar is very apparent to me and the discoloration on my face bugs the shit outta me. I look like I have a perpetual sun burn on the right side of my face below the eye there. I also still have those extra 20 pounds on that I gained after the accident. Luckily those are gone now. The woman lurking in the background is Luan, she is several belt ranks ahead of me in karate. She is 64, she gives me hope that I too can attain a those higher ranks despite my archaic body.

Ciao for now

In the meadow we can build a snow man, and pretend that it is Parson Brown. He'll say "are you married?" we'll say "No man", but you can do the job while you're in town.....

I have a few minutes before the Fam comes home from karate. I haven't been to karate this week since I blew my knee out Saturday scraping old tile off the shop floor. It doesn't take much for this old war injury to flare up on me. Too much of this or that and it will blow right out on me and I will be down for the count.

It really isn't an old war injury. It's really a 33 year old motorcycle accident. War sounds so much more romantic than motorcycle. When I say it's a war injury to people who do not know me well, they stare at me oddly and I can see the wheels turning in their heads trying to figure out what "war" I might have been in. If they have half a brain in their head they will know I am far too young to have been in the Vietnam War and I am most likely far too old to have been in the Gulf War.

When I finally break down and tell them a motorcycle landed on my leg when I was 19, they go "Oh....". I don't usually get into the details of what actually happened. It seems to be enough to tell them it landed on me to have produced an injury that comes back again and again for 33 years.

This week Alec is off working with the love of her life Jody. I find it rather amusing. She would not be amused that I find it so amusing. In fact, she would be seriously pissed at me if she knew I was chuckling about the whole thing. She is working with Jody because I do not have enough work to actually pay her to work with me. This was her idea, not mine. It's a fine idea too, because I sincerely do not have enough work to pay her for hanging around my house or whatever all week.

That's the breaks of owning your own business. Unfortunately for service businesses like mine, we get pushed to the back of the burner in people's minds this time of year and they tend to not call us unless it's a major emergency.

Ok, I am done, Sue just called and they are on their way home now. Soon the house will be filled with noise, too much noise for me to handle things like writing or thinking or staying in an upright position.

Caio baby......

Life is good and Celexa rocks. I am no longer depressed, just that low grade shit that hangs around the edges. But nothing debilitating. I went back and reread this blog the other day. Back to the very beginning. It appears that depression has been a big theme here for the most part.

I had my astrological chart done some months back and one of the first things the astrologer asked me was if I suffered from depression. I said "not just yeah, but hell yeah". She told me it was because of all the Capricorn in my chart. Apparently Capricorns are depressed a lot. It would make sence why Alec Boi needs to take her Celexa every day. She is after all a Capricorn.

Speaking of Alec Boi, I need to get my ass in gear and get over and pick her up. She is, I am sure, awaiting my arrival patiently. In fact, so patiently, that I am expecting the phone to ring any second now with her screaming about where my ass is at. I like making her wait for me. He he... I can be so evil sometimes.

I am just a little shit sometimes. Can't help myself.

Kyre Beth, you know you are the only Femme on earth that I adore. Thank you for caring about me and loving me despite my bad self. One of these days in the not too terribly distant future, I am going to get my old butt out to SF for a visit (when the Dykes go down in the city, and the sun shines on the bay). I love and miss you guys way too much to be away from you this long. Give the Aud a big smoochers for me, but not one of those tongue ones, ok,one of the tongue ones is fine. And while you are at it, give the Ko a big hug and rub behind the ears for me.

Cheers <grin>

I ran out of Celexa day before yesterday. I totally forgot to go get my prescription this week between all the shit that passes for my daily routine of late. And then it iced and snowed and still I couldn't go get my prescription.

The result was, two days without Celexa and the depression came slamming back hard at my door. The need to rid myself of this life came rushing through me like a freight train.

Alec had given me an old prescription that she had for "just in case". It expired 2/04. It was also 40MGs and not the 20 I take daily. I took it this afternoon because I couldn't take the feelings I was having anymore. If I get depressed enough, there is no amount of self talk that is going to take away the desire to leave this planet that resides inside of me.

I seriously do not want to die yet. And I sincerely do not want to die at my own hand because I can see no other way out of what I feel is a horrible life. I hate the fact that taking this fucking drug is the only thing that gets me through each day.

I am not sure if this old prescription is working or not yet. That self chatter inside me that plans elaborate ways to take care of business and then leave gracefully without a trace is still going on right now. I am not sure what else to do right now except let time tell if the drug is working. Hopefully I will be able to get my prescription filled tomorrow and get back on track.

I don't usually tell people when I am feeling this way. If they don't suffer from depression then they have no clue what you are going through inside. They want to give you all these pep talks about how life is worth it, blah, blah, blah Ginger. What they don't know is that it only makes you more depressed and even more suicidal. They mean well and I understand their desire to help. I know they feel kind of helpless because they can't get through to you and make you see their point of view. They don't understand that they can't get through, and so they become frustrated in their attempts. Which is why I do not share how I feel with others. It will only frustrate them. Better they don't have to deal with it at all.

I know you have all seen those anti-depression commercials on TV. The ones that say "Who does depression hurt?". Those commercials kind of make me chuckle inside. Like some fucking drug is going to change the circumstances of your existence and make everything all better. The drug does nothing to make the circumstances of your life better. The shit that depresses you is still there, drug or no drug. All the drug does is help you cope with your fucked up world as it falls down around you.

There is nothing so bad in my world right now that 10 or 20 thousand dollars wouldn't fix for me. A hundred thousand would be the ultimate fix. It would rid me of the majority of my debt and free me to pursue the rest of life with a little more breathing room. As it is, right now, I barely make it from week to week financially. This week, I didn't even do that thanks to this little ice/snow thing that happened. I am about $600 bucks behind where I should be in order to make it through the month. And that doesn't even include Christmas expenses.

Alec loves Christmas. It's her favorite holiday. She goes to elaborate measures to decorate and buy presents for her family. I get depressed as hell because I do not have the energy to make Christmas special, let alone the money to buy the kind of presents I want to buy my loved ones. When I was in my 20s and 30s, I had the energy and eventually the money to make Christmas a most special time of year. I went crazy decorating and putting up the tree. Now I don't even have the energy to clean out a corner in my house to put the tree in let alone put the damn thing up. It's all become this hideous chore of major magnitude to me. But then anything surrounding this house has become a major chore of major magnitude to me.

The worse things get around here, the worse my depression gets. My home was always my refuge from the world. A place where I could come to for peace and solace. It is anything but that to me. It, in fact, is everything but that to me. It has nearly become my greatest source of grief. And I am not blaming anyone for the way this makes me feel. I know I made this bed I lie in here. I know who is responsible for everything I live with daily. I know who made these choices. I have only myself to blame for everything in my life. No one did this to me. I built this little world here that grieves me so.....

Because I appear to be so Scroogish, people think I do not care about Christmas. On the contrary, once upon a time, I loved Christmas beyond measure. I couldn't wait for Christmas to come every year. I reveled in the joy of Christmas. Even as an adult, I was like a kid on Christmas morning, only this time, instead of being the kid opening presents, I was the parent joyously watching as my children shrieked with joy as they opened their presents. Christmas became to me a time to show the depth of my love to friends and family. On that special holiday, it was a time of joyous giving for me, a time to say to all those who meant so much to me just how much they really did mean to me.

It wasn't because I couldn't tell them or show them at other times how much they meant to me, I am actually very demonstrative with those I hold dear. It was because Christmas is a magical time of year. It's because it's that one holiday where you can just let it all out and go for broke lavishing gifts on people without them having to feel like they owe you something back. It's a time where all your senses are involved. Sight, smell, sound, touch, what an incredible holiday. The music, the lights, the foods, the incredible smells... what a wonderful holiday. No, I actually am not Scrooge at all.

You know, I think I am a fairly sensitive person. I know I am an incredibly loving person that's for sure. I am pretty sure that my real problem is that I am too sensitive. Which is why I appear so hard to others. I am so fucking sensitive that I have to hide behind a gruff exterior to protect what is so tender inside. In the last 15 years or so, I have learned to let that sensitive side out, let others see me in a vulnerable state and still feel safe and protected to a point. It's because I learned to take care of me emotionally over the years. Still, I get wounded when I become that vulnerable and open with others. I tend to be extremely selective with whom I choose to share that inner being with. Luckily most people can't and don't want to deal with seeing other people's sensitive sides, so it's not been a major issue having to make selective choices in whom to share all that with. There aren't that many people out there who want to go that far with another human being to begin with.

Sometimes my thirst to share my being with others is so great that the pain of not having someone to share my inner being with overwhelms me. Last night, as the depression was taking hold of me deeply I beganto weep openly laying there in my lonely bed. Alone, always alone, the story of my life. No one to share life with. And there never will be anyone. I was meant to be alone, it's in the cards, it's in my chart. Alone, alone for the rest of this life.  In my desire to stay alive, I began to think on how I could survive being alone for the rest of my life with no one to share my being with. I haven't come up with an answer yet.

I have done enough inner work on myself that I sincerely like and love me. Which is what has probably kept me alive all these lonely years. I do love me unconditionally. But there is something about this need for human companionship that I can't seem to shake or get over. Why can't I just let it go and not have this aching desire, so overwhelming in it's crying out with in me, be inside of me? Why can't I learn to just be happy with in my own little world of self love, why the aching need for human companionship? Why do I want someone to share my life with? I have lived for so long now without it, you would think I was over the need.

My mother was married to my father for almost 18 years. Although the last 3 years of that marriage he was not around to share life with her. She has spent the rest of her life alone. She has her god and her church friends, and now Scott to be there for her, but she has no one to share her inner being with. No one to share life with.  She basically has been alone for almost half of her life. I am wondering what laying there night after night alone in bed must feel like after 41 years. I am assuming you just get used to it. After 9 years, I haven't really gotten used to it. I sort of have, but every once in a while I realize that I haven't really gotten used to being alone. I still want to make love with someone I love deeply. I remember how sweet it is to hold someone tenderly in your arms as you fall asleep, fitting perfectly around them as you hold their warm body and know that they love you beyond measure as you love them.

That, I think, is what is really bothering me lately. The knowledge that I will be alone like this until the end of my days. If I had chosen to be a monk in this lifetime, this would not matter. I would never have known that kind of human love and relationship. But unfortunately for me, I am not a monk. I can be monkish occasionally, but to live a lifetime without human love and relationship is not something I have ever really desired. I want to be held and loved and cherished by another human being. I want someone who can share their heart with me as I share mine. I didn't pick someone who has that same need. Hence the situation I find myself living with daily. Alone, depressed, feeling like the unwanted stepchild of life.

The drugs, the drugs make me capable of living with the life I have created. Without them, I feel utterly hopeless. I don't feel hopeless right now, I just feel intense grief and incredible pain and loneliness.

Glen says he would marry me if I only had a real dick in my pants. I love Glenny so much. I would marry him if only he didn't have a dick in his pants. Glen's going through his own depression right now. He doesn't use doctor prescribed drugs to alleviate his pain. He uses other stuff. Mostly alcohol. They call that self medication in AA. He's a sensitive, artistic soul and a lot like me in many ways.

I just listen when he talks about suicide. I know that telling him that there is a way out will do no good. He is lonely, so very lonely. He wants so much to find a kindred spirit that will love him and allow him to love them in return. But he has a bad picker just like I do. The difference is, while he is still young, he has figured out how to not become encumbered with his bad picks. He dumps them now rather than letting them suck the life out of him. He has no patience. I on the other hand have the ability to wait patiently almost forever for someone to come around.

The problem is, no one truly ever does come around. I figure it this way, if you have chosen someone you have to wait for to come around, the you have most probably chosen in error. They either want to be with you or they don't. Why should you be waiting in the first place? There is however something in this Taurean nature of mine that makes me wait patiently for people to come around. That truly has gotten me no where in life. It has gotten me a lonely bed to sleep in every night, and so deeply in debt that I can't dig my way out of where I find myself.

And the sad part is, I have absolutely no one to blame but myself. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to say it was this person's fault or that person's fault? Sorry Charlie, you made the choices that got your ass where you are and now you have to live with it forever. Or, you can kill yourself. Which is why depression is so fucking dangerous. Depression allows you the freedom to take all that inner self chatter to the next level. Depression tells you that the only way out is death. Death starts to become this dream of freedom, it almost makes you euphoric when you realize that there is a way out of your fucked up world. It might seem drastic to an outsider, but to the truly depressed person, it's freedom from the pain. Permanent freedom. Death stops being some scary unknown and becomes the freedom from the pain you have been searching for.

So when Glen talks about it, I so completely understand. And I know that once you have reached that place where death is the only solution you can find to stop the pain, there is nothing anyone can say that will change your decision. As long as you remain in the depression, there will be no other answer. The only thing that stops the desire to die is if something comes along to divert your attention momentarily. Like a passionate love affair or some such other drivel. Glen does that, he finds someone and clings to them for a few short weeks. Once he discovers they are not Prince Charming, he dumps them and goes back to his thoughts and plans to relieve the pain.

Glen's family members think he is selfish. They think suicide is a selfish thing to do. They think it's selfish because it will make them feel bad when he is gone. Yeah, well, their selfish not wanting to go through the pain of his loss. It's life, get over it. I told Glenny that I will just leave, just go away, no one will ever know I am dead or alive. I will just disappear one day, never to be seen again. Everyone will just think I went somewhere and never contacted them again. The truth is, I will not be just merely dead, I'll really be most sincerely dead. Sorry, you tend to make jokes when you are depressed. So choosing words from songs from the Wizard of Oz is a way to make light of such a serious thing as your own personal death.

I won't be killing myself today. I can't. I just can't leave Sue and K with no where to go and no way to live, especially in winter here in Eureka. It's one of the reasons the accident was so frightening. They would lose the house if I died right now. I don't have the money to buy the kind of insurance that would pay off the mortgage if I died. If I had died in that accident, they would have lost the house. And I can't die because I promised Marty I would take care of Sue and K for him. A hefty responsibility I have on my shoulders. Taking care of two children for the rest of my life. Hopefully K will grow up and become a responsible adult and move out of the house and into a life of her own.  Sue, well, Sue will always be Sue. Hopefully I will win the lottery and that will take care of my Sue responsibility for the rest of my life.

Atlas, I am Atlas. It's all so very Taurean. This overwhelming need to take care and be responsible for others. I hate it. I hate feeling this way. I hate feeling like I must do something because it's the right and moral thing to do. Keeping a promise to an old man I love. Wow, I never thought it would become such a deep pain in my heart. It's not like I didn't know I was taking on a major responsibility when I gave Sue the child she had always wanted. I knew it was a commitment for at least the next 18 years. What I didn't know was that in my patient waiting for her, that she would never really come around. At least not to what I need from a partner anyway. I didn't know she was incapable of being a real life partner to another person. It's not me, she would be like this with anyone she was with. I just happen to be the lucky fellow that fell in love with her and got the prize.

Don't get me wrong, Sue is not a bad person at all. On the contrary, she is a very wonderful and incredible person, I would never have fallen in love with her if she wasn't. She just is incapable of having a serious and deeply emotional personal relationship with another human being. I am not sure how she got that way, I just know she is that way and I live with the repercussions of her pathos daily. And truly, I am so very wounded by all that has happened over the last 9 years that I feel incapable myself of ever letting her or anyone in again. Not that she was ever really inside me, she never wanted to go there anyway, but I did open my heart and gave it to her as much as she would take only to have it thrown back in my face far too many times to ever be able to go back there with her again.

The last time she threw my heart back at me, well, I knew that would be the last time. I could no longer take the pain of my broken heart with her again. And so I closedmy heart off and hid it away forever that day. Too much pain, too much grief, too much longing for something that would never be.

And so I sit here, raising our child with her, trying to pay the bills and deal with all the shit that comes at me daily in this home, in my work, in my life period. And I fight the depression as best I can. Knowing that my choices in life have created my mental and emotional state. Celexa is good. Celexa keeps the shotgun out of my mouth and under the bed where it belongs.

I am off to my very lonely bed filled with enough pillows to make my sleeping body believe that there is another body laying next to me that loves me. I didn't mean to stay up this late. I just started writing and the next thing I knew 3 hours had gone by. Three hours and almost a pack of smokes. That's really bad.

Oh well, that's life. Suck it up and go on old boy and take your fucking drugs......

It's Thanksgiving Day today. Sue and K are still asleep. I however haven't been sleeping well of late. It's these damn missing hormones. Their lack tends to disturb your sleep. So I am up and they, the fam are sleeping soundly in their bed.

I haven't written in a long time. Not here, not anywhere. The doctor put me on antidepresents. He has no idea what an excellent call that was. I was pretty close to the end before they entered my blood stream.

So Alec, Kara and I were sitting around the other day saying what we were thankful for this Thanksgiving season. They were thankful for their health, their family's health and their families in general. I, on the other hand, was thankful for an unconditionally loving creator being that loves me beyond all human understanding. You can't look death in the face and survive it without knowing to the depths of your being that something much greater than yourself has it's hand on you and loves you beyond all understanding.

The family is up now. It will become impossible to write anymore with the noise and activity all around me. It's all good though. I wrote something, anything today. I took my Celexa just now, need to get those seratonin levels up so that I am not a serious drag around others. Unless a person suffers from the kind of debilitating depression as I do, they will not be able to comprehend my need to withdraw emotionally from others. They will just think I am some kind of anti-social asshole. I'm not, I am just depressed.

We are going over to Misty and Curtis's house for TG this afternoon. That's where we were the night of the accident. It was in fact the road to their house that we had the accident on. We go the other way now. Sue is afraid of that road now. Sue was not in the accident, but she did come up it as they were taking us into the ambulance to take us away to the hospital. She is still freaked about that road. So now we take the back road to miss the accident site. I don't mind, I don't particularly want to see the accident site anymore either.

I am not sure when I will write again. Eventually I am sure. Eventually.

Everyone have a happy turkey day.

Dear Ky,

Do you wait for me to be away from my keyboard? I come back to find you have come and gone in my absence.

Please feel free to come out here and take care of me or even sock me in the arm. But wait until my arm feels better. It still hurts bad at the moment.

Just know this, they can try to kill this old dog, but they can't. They try, but they always fail. My Guardian Angels love me too much.

No broken bones, no internal injuries, and the good part, as the passenger in that ill-fated Kia Sportage, I get pain and suffering from the insurance company. Cool eh? Think I will be seeing my lawyer soon to see how much pain and suffering is worth around here.  I might even get some plastic surgery out of this, how cool is that? Lord knows I am too vain to walk around with a scar like this on my face forever. Besides, the scar is messing with my tear duct. Makes my eye water all the time.  Gonna make an appointment to see the doctor next week to have him check all this out.

So, there ya go, I am taking care of myself. But you can still come out here anyway. I still miss you.

Love,

J

Sue thinks I should write. So here you go Sue.

J and Glenny fall down and go boom.

Been there, done that, got the tee shirt. Don't need that experience ever again.

Nuff said.

Oh yeah, thank you Guardian Angels. Glenny thanks you too. Demoral is a very good drug. Thank you God for creating it.

 

 

Sue and K are off in Memphis winning trophies and stuff at a karate tournament. I on the other hand stayed home.

So Alec Boi, her kids and little ole me went to Mike and Kelley's house in Bella Vista today to hang and stuff. Somewhere along the way Mike and I decided it was necessary to go off on a beer run. For those of you who do not or have never lived in NWA, know that a beer run entails a trip to Missouri if you live in northern Benton County. Luckily Mike and Kelley's house is really close to MO, so it was a short jaunt.

I had my heart set on an ice cold 6 pack of Corona with lime. As I was busy pulling my 6 pack from the cooler, I spied the Shiner Bock there two cooler doors away, looking all forlorn and in need of company. My heart waxed nostalgic as I spied the lonely SB. It harkened my memory back to my Audey boy and the little Shiner Bock caps he would leave laying all over the kitchen table way back when. It almost made me wish I could still drink Sutter Home's Chenin Blanc http://www.sutterhome.com/html/wine/index.html, a lasting memory of the Good Ky and her Champagne Cheers.

And so I put the Corona back and grabbed a 6 pack of Shiner Bock in memory of my handsome boy Audey and his lovely Mistress Ky. I drank 3 of them. I got a little buzz going on there for a while. Proof that I am a light weight, but we all knew that.

I left the remaining 3 beers at Mike and Kelley's knowing that Mike would appreciate them and do them justice. Good man that Mike.

To the good times and fond memories, cheers!

Ciao.

Today was good. Alec and I had a lot of fun today together. We knocked around, had fun like boys and had water fights all day long. I think our friendship survived the fight. I am not so hurt and I guess she is not as angry.

At any rate, it was a fun day together.

I also had a good work out at the dojo. It's amazing how much better I feel after I have had a good sweaty lesson. Makes me feel a million times better.

So today was good.

Good eh?

Ciao.

Doing laundry before bed. How much more fun can life get?

Intensely emotional day for me. I can tell you this, no matter what I do or say, I am always going to be the loser should I choose to participate in fights. Why you might ask? Because I tend to just let things go when things get crazy in the course of human interaction. I refuse to fight to put it lightly. I used to fight and sometimes, if I feel something is worth the effort, I might actually put up a minor squabble. But by and large, I tend to turn my back on "shit" when it's hitting the fan and just walk away.

You could technically say that walking away is not really losing a fight. This is true, it's technically not losing. But then again, when you are dealing with a situation or person who thinks they are fighting you, the energy they are attempting to shove in your direction can feel like you fought them anyway.

And if you are feeling particularly weak like I am at the moment, that energy sucks as you attempt to return it back to the sender.

I am tired and shall momentarily take my bath and am going to bed now. Too tired to do anything but release the overwhelming emotions of today and let rest recuperate the whole of my being.

Ciao.

I feel sooooo much better physically tonight than I have in quite sometime. Thanks to the correct drugs administered by an actual physician who went to medical school and everything.

I tested for a series of karate things last week with Sensie Jack. I had to go back and learn the Japanese words to the English names for things that I already knew. Apparently when Alec and I practiced last weekend, we only practiced me learning the English version and how to do the moves and not how to pronounce the Japanese to those moves and things. So I had to practice my ass off all weekend to test again Monday on these things.

I practiced with the help of Sue, Alec and Curtis. I tested Monday (yesterday) and actually passed with flying colors. So today I actually got my stripes. Two more stripes and I can test for orange. The only real problem is that I do not know a damn thing involved in getting the other two stripes. I looked at the requirements for those stripes and I was like "holy shit" I don't know this shit at all. And here Sensie Jack was saying I could test for orange next month. I sure as hell don't feel that way. I am going to have to put a ton more effort in this if I want to see that orange belt by June first.

Sort of like I have to put a ton more effort in this if I want to see that 30 pounds off this body by June 1st too. This ten pounds I have been trying to lose this month has been a bitch. I go down 5 pounds and am back up 4 pounds in a few days. The only good part is that at least one pound stays off. But this is sure slow going. What that tells me is that 4 pounds is always just water. I need to stay away from Chinese food. Too much sodium and probably more carbs hiding in there than I should be ingesting.

Ok, so now you know where my body is at, how about my head and heart? Head is ok, still not squarely on, but functioning well enough to get me by. The heart is trying to figure life out still. I was pretty sure I had lost my best friend last week. That was a pain in deed. Hurt like a muther fucker.

So now there you have it, my heart is hurting. My best friend is probably no longer going to be my best friend. I am not sure how we are going to get over this hump in the relationship. She is pissed and I am hurt. That doesn't make for good communication. Sonow I am just going to have to let it all go and give it up to the universe and let whatever happens happen. That is scary and pains me deeply. I have come to rely on her friendship more than I am willing to admit. Now I must go back to relying on myself as my comfort and sole support emotionally. At least that is what appears is going to be the case. If I have to say good bye to you Alec my boy, it will kill me. I love you son, more than I care to admit.

I give it up and hand it over to the universe. I have no control over any of this and I must be willing to lose that which I hold so dear in my heart and just let it all go.

And so it goes.....

I am done.

Ciao.

I ended up going to the hospital Friday night. I couldn't breathe and had had very little sleep for the several days preceeding that visit from coughing all night long. Appartently I have a bad case of bronchitus. I am going to live, despite how I feel.

I had to go buy some more clothes tonight. I am down to nothing to wear anymore. I guess I was under the impression that I had more clothing in these smaller sizes laying around. It seems that my belief that I had things under size 42 was coming from a time period when I still lived in LA and was not dating Cheryl Sorrells. I believe I was a 36/38 when I first started dating her.

At any rate, I continue to decline in poundage as the days creep by. My immediate goal is to have lost 30 more pounds by June 1st. I just may get there after all.

Ok, the cough meds are kicking in and I am getting mighty sleepy. I am done.

Ciao.

I honestly do not want to write today. But I am making myself do it anyway.

I had a weird day out there in the real world trying not to smoke and trying to actually accomplish something monetarily. I kind of got weirded out there for a while... literally was losing my grasp on reality for a short bit. Thankfully Alec was on the ball, he pulled me back time and time again to reality.

So I bought the most disgusting brand of cigarettes I could find just a little bit ago. So far I have watched 3 of them burn away and boy howdy they are enough to make a hard core smoker quit. I am sucking down Nicotrol Inhaler (even as we speak). That seems to take the urges away for me.  I think I need to figure out how much of this shit I need to hit on at any given moment to see what is being effective and what is not.

Alec praised me a lot today. Amazing, praise works well with me. Keep up the praising thing boy, it works.

Ok, I am dead tired now. I am off to bed...

Ciao baby...

I have been extremely busy lately. Too much work, too much of everything.

I am kind of sick right now, but I think I am getting better. A little anyway. I am trying anyway.

Today was a pretty good day despite the sickness. The weather was as beautiful of a spring day as you could ever ask for. It was the kind of weather that people in LA can't appreciate. Not having to live through a nasty winter, you never quite appreciate the beauty of spring when it decends upon you in full color. Today was glorious. I would much rather have been off having a lovely picnic somewhere than working.

I am trying to learn a lesson right now about letting go. Not because I want to let go of anything, but because I need to let the outcome of things in my life go and let the Universe do what it does best for you. My heart never wants to let go of things it thinks it must have to live. But my head is talking right now and it says that you must let go as you have no real power over the out come of things, people or situations anyway.

Amazingly in the letting go process that I have been attempting, I find a sense of peace like I have not known before whilst in the middle of a quandry in life.

Letting go of the outcome. Trying to not manipulate things. Trying to just let something higher and more powerful than I actually do it's thang and know in my heart that only that which is the ultimate best and good for everyone will be the outcome.

I want you to know that that is mighty hard, trusting like that. Letting it all go like that. Fucking difficult indeed. Letting go and knowing that the highest good will be the outcome in the end. Wrapping your head around that is not easy one little bit. Especially when it involves your very core heart. Not an easy task.

That is all I need to write tonight. I am done and off to attempt to sleep.

 

Ciao baby. 

 

I am sitting here with an extremely heavy heart right now. I am not so much in pain as I am bone weary from everything going on in my life right now.

 

It's not like I can't deal with stress, lord knows my life is the opening chapter in Stress 101: Chronic Examples of Stressful Lives in America, Volume I. This is not about stress, this is about a spiritual weariness. I am tired. Tired of being lonely in a house full of people, tired of aching to have someone hold me in the night, tired of never feeling good enough to be loved the way I want to be loved by someone else. Tired of accepting the crumbs thrown at me from the table. Tired of feeling like I have to accept those crumbs or starve to death if I don't.

 

Just one time in my life, I want to know what it feels like to be so deeply in love with someone who is just as deeply in love with me and actually be free in every way imaginable to be in relationship with them. Maybe, just maybe I am asking too much. Maybe that is part of the fairy tale of happily ever after that doesn't really exist. Maybe, just maybe that is something that only happens to other people and it was never actually meant to be an experience I am going to get to know in this life time.

 

I do not know the answer to my future. Whether it is too late for me now to ever experience the one thing in life I truly craved to the depths of my soul, I have no clue. I don't have the energy to search for love like that. I don't have the heart left in me to become that vulnerable again. I can't do it, I just can't put myself there again. My experience is that every time I have ever found myself in a position of being that open and vulnerable to someone else that I am burned beyond recognition before I finally slither away to lick my massive wounds. I am too weary to go through that again.

 

I almost feel numb right now. Part of that is the weariness, but much of it is also because I am at a point where I am going to shut down emotionally. I am nearing a point where I will shut off everything and everyone for a goodly while. It's kind of like drawing up into an emotional fetal position. A way of healing the wounded being inside. You still see me there, but I am not really there. I am off in some distant place, going through the motions, on automatic, my Stepford Wife clone doing the daily chores of living for me while I am off vacationing elsewhere.

 

At least I have learned not to beg anymore. Reflecting on this, perhaps I should have continued to beg for those crumbs from the table. Perhaps begging might get me somewhere still. Naw, I know better. Begging gets you nothing but contempt. And what did Suzanne say once, long ago and far away? Contempt is just this much shy of pity, and lord knows I could not live with people pitying me, let alone looking down on me in contempt.

 

Now I am done for this day. I shall rest. Mom used to like to quote that there was "no rest for the wicked". I have news for you Mom, I rest quite nicely thank you. Despite my wickedness. But then on the other hand, I don't think of myself as wicked. So nanny, nanny boo boo to you too.

 

Ciao 

 

 

 

Lynn came over today to look at the gay pride stuff and the display cases we have in the garage. While she was here, she read my cards. I asked about the Page of Cups, the predominent card in my last reading from her. In the last reading back in January, she told me that this particular Page was going to play a most important part in my life. As in life changing.

He did btw, and still is.... He came up again as the last card in my reading today. He was the happy ending to a rather painful time I am living through at the moment and a most painful time to come in my life.

She saw a period of isolation coming up for me. A time where I would be alone, answerable only to myself. A time I would spend healing myself. I knew exactly what she was talking about, she didn't, but I did.

I understand and embrace the need to spend time alone, to withdraw one's self from the people, relationships and things that drain your mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I know this time is coming for me and most likely it will be fairly soon. I feel a burning within me to remove myself from that which has been sucking the life force from me for so very long now. The need to go into a self imposed hermitage.

It's not that I do not love the people and relationships I need to remove myself from, I do love them all, dearly to my core. Some times however, you have no choice if you are to survive but to go away from them to heal and regain your strength. I am near to that place now.

What I do not know how to do is explain this to those who will be affected by my departure. How can I explain that I love them no less?  I love you all, as always, unconditionally.

I do love you all so very much, but I must leave nonetheless. I do not know when this will happen, I just know that it will. The cards only confirmed what I already knew. When I leave, I do not know when I will return, or even if I will return.

I will still be here, bringing in the bacon, but I will not be here with you emotionally, physically, mentally or spiritually. To you my friends and family, do not fear, for it truly is all for the good in the end. It is better I survive by taking this time, than to die in this slow and painful way that I am dying right now.

You will know when I am going, I will not surprize you. I am truly not sure what all this will entail. Just know that I will not surprize you by not being there one day and you not knowing what has happened to me. I just know that I feel a peace about all this. I know from my spirit, that this is the path I am going to embark on soon.

I have no idea what any of this truly means right now. I just know that it is coming in my future. And I have known it for some months now. Please don't see this as a rejection or that I am being anti-social. I just need this time. And right now I do not even know how I am going to arrange to make this healing time and space for me. I just know that I am going to do it, and the way to do it all will come to me.

This is all I needed to talk about right now. There is nothing left to say except that I love you all unconditionally and utterly.

Ciao

I am going to type in a poem I wrote slightly over 8 years ago. I wrote it about Sue and I believe I gave it to her. I am not sure she got it back then. She never said anything about it. So who knows what she thought. But if you ever wondered if I ever once upon a time loved her, you will see it here in this poem.

She talks with her music

in whispers that roar

while her heart burns a fire

she can't understand

And she searches unknowing

discontent in her breast

with a fathomless need

for the self that is lost

And the ache would consume her

were it not for the things

she does to divert it

and hold it at bay

With pain's sightless urging

she fills herself up

with mind opiates

bent on numbing her head

In the night with her words

she makes love with the hearts

of lost lonely girls

that she's not really met

But with late morning's light

nothing's changed and again

her illusional cycle

is reborn and refreshed

So she hides deep inside

her stone walls of concealment

a heart that is searching

that cries out for love

And if you watch closely

in instants unguarded

the tender and true heart

bursts fleetingly forth

And she'll burn in you soul

til you cannot but love her

this siren of my heart

so shrouded in pain

And her music plays on

in my head like a scream

while I bang against stone

til I lay down to bleed

And licking each wound

I wait patient like death

for the day that she finds it

the heart she has lost

 

The end

Ciao

I still haven't gotten over reading my journal. I am still seething inside over it.  That and those poems and letters I wrote Sue a little over 8 years ago.

I just want to kick myself for being so fucking stupid sometimes.

What I feel is wounded once again. Reading my life, from years ago, I know now that I treat relationships the same now as I did back then. I sit around waiting for whomever to decide they want me. By the time they finally do (if they do), I am so fucking wounded and hurt from their behavior that I can no longer trust them or let them in.

I have a bad picker. I pick the person most likely to abandon and reject me. See? I certainly am not blind to my life long foibles.

I think it was Alec who said that it would be bad for me to see Jay because it would bring back all those old feelings in me. I say there's no fucking way. Jay hurt me so bad that it was hard initially to be his friend again. Those old feelings died with the final knife blow to my heart years ago. I don't think anyone hurt me as bad as Jay did, ever. Even Sue did not hurt me as bad as Jay did, and trust me, Sue has caused me some pretty serious heart break over the years.

Which is why I am back to my old theory that it is better to just be alone. Alone you have only you to love and love you back. And if you have a good relationship with yourself, that can't be all that bad. Ok, the sex might get a little boring, like it would probably be non-existant, but hey, I can live with that. I have lived with it for years and years now. Apparently I am very capable of living without human affection.

I don't have to deal with learning how to sleep alone. I have slept alone for over 7 years now. I honestly don't miss it one bit. I am used to not having anyone to hold me as I fall asleep. I am used to not having someone to snuggle with. In fact, it would probably feel weird to me to have that around.

Frankly, I am pretty much used to being single. I just have very expensive room mates to support and be ultimately responsible for.

My heart is pretty broken right now. I am truly sad. This sadness make me wish the pain would go away, like forever and like, right now. But it never does. And it's constant. Like Chinese water torture. Drip, drip, drip, drip. Pain, pain, pain, pain.

And all I want is for it to just go away. I am not asking to be deliriously happy, I just don't want to hurt anymore.

Don't get me wrong here, I am just hurting deeply right now. And that makes me angry. I am angry at myself. Angry because I feel like I have pissed more precious time in this my life away. Now I have run out of time.

Yep, I am angry alrighty. Pissed as hell.

I am going to sleep now because there is nothing let to say right now. I am tired and I am done.

Ciao.

A couple of days ago, Alec tore through my garage and retrieved parts of my life for me. Parts I had been missing. Parts I have been crying out for. What a gift that was. To bravely go where no man has gone before and bring back parts of me I have been mourning over.

The most important part was my journal from 16 years ago. I read all 102 type written pages last night. Every word, every thought, every emotion, every change that transpired in me over a 4 1/2 month period of time. I changed dramatically in that period of time. I changed utterly and completely, forever.

I became a new being. A being I liked a whole lot better. A being I have learned to love and respect.

I wept while I read that journal. I don't even remember the person who started that journal in October of 1989. I don't remember her at all. I can't fathom thinking and feeling like that anymore.

The one theme that seemed to permeat that journal, the one thing I saw repeated over and over again was "this patient Taurus, waiting". For some reason that cut me to the core. Over and over I repeated that line. Waiting patiently. For what?

It was always for love. Waiting patiently for someone to love me. Sometimes it was someone very specific, other times it was some vague concept of sharing life, unconditionally loving and being loved. The key word was waiting. For what? Why am I waiting? For what am I waiting? For whom do I wait?

I have spent my life waiting. Patiently, sadly, mourning inside. Lonely, so lonely. Wishing to share my being with another. I fast forwarded into another folder, one from 8 1/2 years ago. And there I was once again, waiting, patiently, my own words betraying me. Waiting, for someone to love me. Waiting, patiently watching, hoping... that one day she would love me as I loved her. But she never did, anymore than my patience paid off 8 years earlier or even 12 years before that day.

Patiently aching, patiently silent, patiently feeling like a fool, patiently in love with people I can never have. Why? Because I chose, contintue to chose, people who for one reason or another are unavailable in one form or another.

I will wait for you, patiently. My words reverb off my skull. I still say those exact same words even now. I have not changed that patience thing one iota.

I am thinking hard right now between the tears. Thinking that I can't do this waiting thing anymore. Thinking. Thinking to myself.

I loved you Suzanne Ilse Rush, with a love that consumed me for almost 20 years. I waited for you. Patiently, like a good Taurus. Big hearted, loving fools that we apparently all are. Somewhere in my 43th year in this life time, I let you go from my heart. I had found someone else to wait for then. I waited less time for her than I did you Suzanne. My patience must have been wearing thin by then. Or my heart could no longer take being kicked to the curb. Maybe I loved myself enough to not be subjected to yet another person stringing me along for whatever their personal reasons might have been. I really don't know. I just know I gave up waiting, gave up the need to feel yet again, kicked to the curb.

I am thinking. How many more times will I do this to myself? How many more times will I watch patiently while my heart is breaking in two? I am not doing this again. You either love me or you don't. And you will love me on my terms. I deserve to be loved on my terms. I would rather be alone. My life grows shorter by the day. I don't have time anymore to wait, patiently or impatiently.

I don't really care who you are in my life. I am not waiting anymore. I am tired of the heart ache of waiting. No more. I am finished, I am done. I am off to heal me from all this patient waiting.

If you want me, it is on my terms now. If you cannot accept them, then we have nothing to talk about anymore. I am taking care of me now. No one, and I mean absolutely no one, is going to suck the life force out of me ever again. No more waiting, no more patiently dying inside.

Period.

Personal Daily Horoscope of Wednesday, 15 March 2006
for J, born 21 May 1954 ©Astrodienst AG    A fresh breeze *** Valid during many months: This influence stimulates your emotional life. You will experience your own feelings and allow yourself to look at the world subjectively. Your own inner feelings and your attitudes toward the world will seem as important as whatever you consider to be true or real in the external world. At this time you feel what you want to feel.

This effect manifests itself in a variety of ways. First of all, you will demand more emotional satisfaction in your relationships. It will not be enough for a relationship simply to go on as it has. If your existing friendships and love relationships do not meet your needs, you will find new ones that do. Your goal is freedom of emotional self-expression and experience.

Another manifestation of this influence is that you are likely to make changes in your home environment, demanding that it too be more emotionally satisfying. At this time it is not enough that your house is adequate to keep out the rain. You want it to be as interesting and stimulating as any other aspect of your life.

As your ability to experience your inner life is stimulated, your imagination will also be stimulated. You will see how you can make your life more interesting in areas that you had never considered before. Also the intellectual and emotional functions of your mind are more unified now. This is an extremely good time for creative work, not because it directly stimulates creativity, but because it makes you see and feel from new perspectives, which gives your creative work a new freshness and innovative quality.

 

This is my horoscope. This is my horoscope on drugs. I am not sure if this sounds good or if it sounds scary. Maybe it's scary good or something. I am too tired to "feel" much of anything right now. Except maybe trepidation. And angst. Angsty trepidation.

I am not feeling particularly creative tonight, but then this isn't supposed to start until tomorrow. So I still have a few hours before any of this should set in right?  I was supposed to feel emotional two days ago. That didn't happen anymore on that day than it normally does.

I am so exhausted tonight that I think I am beyond feeling right now. Except maybe an almost constant and certain loss, a sadness, a mourning, deep within my being. Something that could grow into some seriously real feelings eventually.

Even my body is too tired to feel. I am numb and tired from everything. I just want to lay down and drift off into a dream of shear joy. Go somewhere that I am loved as unconditionally as I attempt to love others.

I fail ocassionally in that unconditional love thing you know. I fail to meet my own need for unconditional love of myself. I can't seem to love me enough to fill all the various empty places inside me. Occassionally I find myself wishing someone else besides me really loved me. Completely and utterly loved the whole of my being. Not ever having that as a regular part of my daily existance ever, tends to break my heart. I wish it didn't, I sincerely wish I was above the need for love from someone special in my life, but I am not. And that my friends tends to make me hurt, a lot.

It also causes severe depression.

I will never forget the night that little 3 year old Allison Vania Hemme laid there in my arms sobbing, crying out "I just want someone to love me."  Oh, how that tore me to the very core of my being. Ally my darling child, my beloved little girl, so do I. So do I.

So do we all. Just want someone to love us, just as we are, for who we are, no conditions attached. I am sorry Ally, that kind of love seldom exists in this world. And finding someone who is able to love you like that is nearly impossible. Because, unfortunately, you are dealing with a world of very hurt and damaged souls. Just like yourself. Wounded too deeply and so far separated from the source of their core being to be able to see past their own pain and truly love someone else, let alone themselves unconditionally.

And that my dearest little Allison, my dearest little J, is the truth about life.

Was that enough less than passionate feeling for you all tonight? I hope so. Because I am done now.

Ciao

Sitting on the dock of the bay, wasting time

My horoscope says that today I am going to be emotional. So far I am not being emotional. But it's only 1pm, there's still lots of the day left.

I am waiting for Alec to show up so that we can leave for work. I have jobs stacked up and and truly need to get busy and make some money off them.

As you can see, the storm last night did not blow us away. It blew other people away, but not us. It was pretty hairy for a while. Watching for peaking clouds is not fun. Listening for a freight train to come through your yard is not fun either. But we survived intact, no major damage, just some hail dimples in the Saturn's roof.

On the home front, Alec is going through personal hell right now with the separation/break up with Kim. All I can do is be there as the good friend that I am and be supportive of whatever she decides to do in life. It really is all I can do. It's painful watching her go through all this crap. And really, all I can do is watch. And just be there. <heavy sigh>

Life is interesting. So many ways and possibilities out there to help you grow. And some so painful to endure. So very painful and no way out of the pain but through it....

I am there for you buddy. Unconditionally. And I mean unconditionally.

Ciao

There is a huge storm coming. So huge that the Weather Channel actually has some reporter guy over in Fayetteville waiting for it to hit.

Yesterday when Alec and I were headed to Bentonville, we got hit with major sideways hail and rain. We had to pull over and wait for it to pass. Glen was home here, he went out and saved a sample of the hail that came down here. They were golf ball size.

They are warning us that this is going to be even worse.

I am so sad right now that I almost don't have the energy to care. It hurts my spirit to watch people I love dearly going through so much shit in their lives. It just hurts to watch others in anguish. My heart is so heavy that I am not really able to think about this impending danger. Guess I will go fill the bathtub so that we have water if we lose power. There's not much else we can do. The hatches are as battened down as possible.

Love you all unconditionally.

Ciao

Look into a glass onion

For those of you who are Chronicles of Narnia fans, you will recall the scene in the Last Battle where Aslan is sending the inhabitants of Narnia off to their respective rewards. As Peter, Edmund and Lucy are running swiftly through the portal into the New Narnia, they are told to run further and deeper in. And as the do, they find an ever more beautiful and more real Narnia as they progress onward. Like a pealing onion, they continue further in and find yet another and another and another and another New and More Beautiful and More Real Narnia as they continue onward.

Several years ago, while in deep meditation, I discoverd that this was true of my very being. The further in I went within myself, the more real and beautiful a being there was inside of me. Like an onion, I just kept peeling away and still there was more of me, more beauty, more depth, more love, more and more, onward and deeper inside. And then I reached what I thought was the core of my being, that place where unconditional love lives and upon entering it, I found, even more, going deeper on into infinity. What was inside me never ended. And it was filled with a base of pure unconditional love that went on forever. I could not find the end. I just became more profound and real as I went deeper.

I finally gave up looking for the end and came back, slightly confused, but in awe of all I had seen and experienced.

I was trying to explain this to Alec last night. The whole concept of there being no end, that everything only gets more profound and deeper as you go further in.

There is no heaven, there is no hell. There is no black and white, no good, nor bad, there just is.... there is the source of all creation, there is this God mind that created, is in the midsts of creating this all, is the glue that sustains it all, that I can only describe as unconditional love. He/she/it is love. You have read, seen and said this a million times before yourself. God is love. But do you really understand the ramifications of what that really means?

Love, pure love, unconditional love is God. It is what makes everything in the universe tick. Deeper and further in. Love, God love, unconditional love.

There is no judgement or punishment where God love is involved.

Follow your heart Alec Boy. Further in and deeper. Open your heart, listen to spirit teaching. Further in and deeper. Fall in love with yourself and love you the way Universal Love loves you. Unconditionally, purely, utterly, for the shear joy of your beingness, God love.

All judgement will fall away. Self loathing ends forever. Believing there are polarities can never enter your head and heart again. There is nothing that is real except for love, unconditional, from the source, God love. Everything else is a dream, only love from it's source is truly real. Know this and you will know the truths you seek.

And when you come to experiencially know this, you will finally understand how I can just give from my heart and love without conditions. There is no end to love without conditions. It is what everything is made from and so it can never end. There is a never ending supply of it all around you. Draw from that and you will never grow weary again.

When I grow weary, it is because I have forgotten all this. It is the human mind that separates us from universal God love. Go futher in and deeper. Remember what your heart and spirit already know. Wake up from this dream. Further in and deeper.

 

Never ending story....

Sue bought The Never Ending Story tonight. I had to watch it, I love it so. So guess what is stuck playing in my head right now? That's right. Now watch me attempt to go to sleep and shut that song off in my head.

Ciao baby.

If I had a box just for wishes, and dreams that had never come true...

You know how when you get a song stuck in your head and no matter how hard you try, you can't get it out? Yeah, that sucks.

The box would be empty, except for the memory of how they were answered by you.

I am not even a really big Jim Croce fan either. But I did love that song a whole lot back in 72 or 73 when it first came out. I did not however, learn to play it on the guitar. I did learn Killing Me Softly though, also a hit around the same time frame. Strumming my face with his words.... I must have not learned it all that well because, well, after all these years, I no longer remember how to play it. In fact, I remember very little of anything I once knew how to play on the guitar. Even my own songs are distant memories now. Which means I will have to write new ones to replace the forgotten old ones.

I have been working on attempting a new method of OOBEs. I haven't been successful with it yet. But then I haven't tried very hard yet either. It takes a lot of time and concentration. A lot of alone time, without a whole lot of noise and interuption going on. During the day time, when I am most likely to be alone, the phone rings. During the night time, the family is here wreaking havoc on my solitude and quiet. So by the time I have peace and quiet, it is very late at night and I am tired. Attempting to concentrate on attempting an OOBE while tired is a sure fire way to fall directly into a deep and profound sleep state for the evening.

Which is why I am have not been successful, yet.

If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I'd like to do... is to save everyday like a treasure and then, again I would spend them with you....

But there never seems to be enough time to do the things you wanna do, once you find them.... I've been around enough to know, that you're the one I wanna go through time with....

The words of a man who died a few short years after penning them. Think he knew something?

Whatever it takes, or how my heart breaks.....

And in the end, the love you take

is equal to

the love

you make.

Going to bed now.

Ciao baby.

Give a little bit, give a little bit of your heart to me...

I am going to be 52 in a couple of months. After all these years and all the work I have done on myself, I think I am beginning to believe that there is no such thing as finding Nirvana here on earth. Course, I kind of already thought that way anyway. I just thought that if you were a good person and strove hard to do your best to be loving and kind that you would find some semblance of happiness before you departed this world again.

Sincerely, there is no such thing as happiness. It doesn't really exist. There are moments in life that can bring you great joy. But they are fleeting and leave you as soon as the situation or whatever changes. It's at the moment of fleeting happiness leaving you that you had better be centered if nothing else.

Perhaps I came to believe that being and remaining centered at all times was the key to happiness. And so I worked very hard learning how to be centered no matter what life threw my way, whether it was a bunch of shit or some serious joy.

Just as an aside here, joy is a really nice emotion. I like feeling it. I wish I could figure out the secret to feeling it continally. The greatest joy I ever knew was meeting and being embraced by universal oneness unconditional love. I wish I knew why it came to visit me that day and how to make it come back and just stay, but I don't.

So I learned to meditate. Deeply, to the very core of my being. I learned to tap into that universal oneness unconditional love thing. And that was all good. Then I made some decisions that affected me in ways that I never knew they would. There I was just going through life believing that if I followed my heart and listend to my spirit, that everything would always work out for the good.

Maybe they do all work out for the good in the end. I don't know because I haven't gotten to the end just yet. I don't know where the end is and I am pretty sure that right now I do not want to know where it is. I do know that the constant pain I feel between the minor joys in this life are becoming more than my heart can take anymore.

Sometimes I wish Ellen was still around in my life. I am not sure she could really help me at this point. It was she who believed that I had outgrown her wisdom, that I had grown beyond a need for her. I feltlike I wanted her friendship around always. But that was not meant to be. At least not in my cards anyway. I could tell her almost anything. Almost anyway. Still, like everyone else in my life, there has always been parts of me that I hid away and did not share.

There is no one who I have opened my heart up to so completely that they knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt who I really am. Hell, even I do not know the fullness of who I really am. Even I have parts of me that I have not seen yet, nor explored. And trust me, I have gone pretty far and pretty deep within myself.

Maybe the angst I am feeling right now is a new portal for me to explore even further. I don't know. I do know that it has always been severe discontent that drove me even further inside to find an answer to my pain and anguish. To find a way to heal it, to make the pain go away and be replace by a semblance of self knowledge and centeredness.

Which I guess is what I need to do now. I hurt so deeply right now. My pain is driving me onward. I do not wish to die just yet, and so I am searching for a way to live just a little while longer as I search for an answer. Always searching or an answer... for truth... when I know there is no such thing as truth.

I am going searching now. I may or may not have something to report later.

Ciao.

.

Only the strong survive

I would say I am about at 75% right now. Better, but not all there yet.

Today, Alec and I redid the plugs and plug wires in Shea's truck.  I will never suggest doing this on a Nissan Pathfinder to anyone other than my worst enemy. I know who my worst enemy is right now. I would wish this on her in triplicate right now. In fact, if tuning up a Nissan Pathfinder is hell, then I would wish that was her personal one for eternity.  I would wish much worse on her right now, but it's not nice to do that. I'll stick with giving a Pathfinder a tune-up as punishment enough for being an asshole.

Today I discovered that Alec is also not 100% yet after this illness either. She did not have the strength to do some of the more fucked things needed to get the old shit off. Getting the new shit on was much easier. So I didn't feel so old or so bad since Alec also was not up to par either. Apparently this crap is a lot worse than I imagined. Considering that Alec is as strong as an ox, not to mention almost 22 years younger than I am, I felt much better knowing that she was still as weak as I think I feel.

Remember the old addage "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger"? I have decided that that is bullshit. The bane of bullshit Republican thinking. There are some things that I think I would have prefered that it killed me as to have lived through the aftermath of it's destructive course through my life. There are some things that have not made me stronger. In fact, if anything, they have made me weaker and sucked the life right out of me. It doesn't kill me, it leaches me to death. It takes me to the brink of death, sucking the very life's blood out of me, almost to the point of death. Sort of like a vampire. Just leaves you hanging there, almost dead, but not quite.

It's hell walking around feeling like the almost dead. I think walking around like the undead would be preferable. I don't think the undead actually think or feel anything as opposed to the almost dead who still feel something and occasionally have a thought. Although if their torment in life has gone on long enough, they may have become so numb to the effects of the blood suckers sucking on them that they probably feel very little other than apathy or a mild sense of dread every day upon rizing. General dysphoria I think fits the bill. In my case, suicidal is more the ticket. It appears that death is the only way out of the torment.

Death, it's the surest thing in life. Birth is just a slow and painful death sentance. If we were smart, we would just kill ourselves as infants and save ourselves a lot of hassle over the ensuing 80 years or so. Unfortunately, we lack the motor skills as infants.

Have you ever been on a ride at an amusement park and prayed through the whole thing for it to end and end quickly? The Hammer comes to mind when I think of rides that need to end and end quickly. That's kind of how life is feeling these last few years. Like this ride really needs to end because it's going way too fast and in directions I do not want it to go in and I have no control over any of it. I just want off this ride really, really bad and to get back on the ground where life is real and I have control over my movements again.

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, HA! At least I believe I now have built up immunities to Influenza A. It didn't kill me, although it felt like it was trying to kill me. In fact it felt so bad at times that I almost wish it had.

I am definitely not feeling any stronger.

I decided not to go back and add to yesterdays post. Although my spirit undersands perfectly, my mind is too wiped out from this illness to function.

I am feeling a tad better today. Not 100%, more like 65%. But considering what debilitating shit this crap is, I'll take the 65% over what it has been like for the last 9 days.

I asked a friend of mine the other day what it was they loved about me. The answer was, my gentleness. So I delved deeper, seeking clarity. Gentle? Moi? The bull in the china shop?

Apparently it's noticable that I can be vulnerable with others, that I can just love them unconditionally and give from my heart. That I can risk being real, authentic.

Jane, the lesson learned: Dare to risk your heart. Risk allowing others inside. Risk sharing all that is within you and giving the core of your being to others in relationship.

To risk is to find your freedom. And in that freedom is the path to your true authentic self.

Deep inside, further than you have ever gone before there is a core of pure, unconditional love. Deep within, deeper still, beyond the core, deeper still, futher and deeper, past what you thought was the end, there is more still. Creation's pure bright light. The light of pure love. Beyond all space, beyond all time. In that place where nothing but pure love exists. No form, nor void, just a state of being in love, pure and simple.

In risking your vulnerablity, you find yourself. The trick is surviving the risk. The trick to surving the risk? Letting go. Letting go of old belief systems, old patterns, all that you thought was truth. Being open. Open to spirit leading, teaching, showing the way. Be silent, listen, hear, learn, grow.

And love. Love deeply, at every turn, at every opportunity, from your core, from the heart. Purely, unconditionally.

So I have been sitting around trying to actually think and it's not working too well. I keep getting this glimpse of something about sensitivity and gentle spirits that are so sensitive that they don't fare well on this planet in human form. As you can see, I am having trouble formulating this thought into words. Mostly it's just in picture form right now. I just see gentle, sweet spirits, throwing themselves off cliffs into moulten lava to free themselves of the horrible world they have incarnated into.

Maybe it's because I dreampt of death last night, all night long. Maybe because I so wish that I could let go and be this gentle free spirit and the world I live in doesn't appreciate tender, loving beings very much. In fact, they kill them as quickly as they can find them.  Which is why I hide away. For some reason, I keep thinking I want to live.

I have to go open a car now. I am going to post this because I am certain that in my absence I will be booted and this will be lost if I do not post it now. But I will be back and I will attempt to work more on this thought later.

This is becoming sick report central. Sue and K are still home from school/work, although Sue says they are going back tomorrow. I am feeling considerably better, although I will say I still feel like shit. Which if you are getting my drift, I was pretty fucking sick if I still feel like shit and am doing a whole lot better.

Now I am off to work for a while. Hope everyone is having a fabulous day.

Still sick. Had to go out on a job this afternoon. Managed to make it through all that until the end, when I started to get a little dizzy.

I would like to say I am resting comfortably, but I am not. Aside from us all having a bad case of the flu, we ran out of propane last night and it's of course freezing. The gas guy just got here with emergency gas.

Life is not good.

Ciao

Yeah baby, I feel like shit. I really hate being sick, especially with the flu.

I have been drinking tons of water, hoping that doing that will wash this shit out of me. In a little bit I am going to take some more Nyquil and crash for the night.

Well, that's it for me. I gotta go crash now. I am dead to the world and need to attempt to rest without coughing all night.

Ciao

Yesterday, Alec was really sick. I have no idea how she is doing right now, but I can tell you that today, I am really sick. Between Sue and Kk, we are deathly ill in this house. Glenny had a flu shot, so he is probably not going to get sick. That's good because he is HIV positive and he doesn't need to get the flu. Nope, nope, nope.

It also snowed last night. All night long. We have about 5 to 6 inches out here. I had a lock out late this afternoon. Glenny drove me to it cause he is from Detroit. That actually is the only explanation you need about why he drove. It was pretty cold. It's like 14 degrees right now. So nothing is melting.

I am actually feeling better right now cause I took some Advil for the fever. I slept most of the day on and off. I am probably going to go back to bed again soon. I feel better if I am sleeping.

That's the best I can do for today. Nothing poignant to report.

Ciao

http://www.popdrain.com/videos/cheneyhuntgame.swf

This is actually poorly done, but it is minor comic relief, so enjoy. Sue sent it to me. She obviously thought I would get a kick out of it and I sort of did.

I just want you to know that I don't really watch the news on TV. I seldom know what is really going on in the world. I tend to read my news off the internet instead. Reading your news off the internet is sort of like reading the news paper in a way. Actually, it's a lot like reading the news paper. Except the local obits are missing and there is no crossword puzzle. Thank god for me that I don't like crossword puzzles.

I know about Cheney's hunting adventures because I read it on the internet. I still don't really care about it though.

I do watch the 11 o'clock news on channel 4 out of NYC almost every night. But I am not really watching. The 11 oclock news out of NYC comes on at 10 pm here. So it's really the 10 oclock news for me. We don't get local TV on Dish, we get NYC and LA stations. We seldom watch the LA stations because, well, I don't know how to use the remote or change the channels and Sue is from New York, so we watch all the New Yorks stations. Watching the 11 o'clock news out of NYC is the lead into Jay Leno.

Once in a while, like on Sunday, she has the TV on Fox channel 11 out of LA. While she is watching, it bleeds over to channel 11 news. John Beard is the anchor on channel 11 out of LA. I remember John Beard when he was just a puppy reporter on like channel 7. He kind of looks just the same, just older now.

I kind of look the same only older now too. I doubt that if you knew me in high school that you would recognise me on the street now, but if you knew me in my 30's you probably would. I am just a lot whiter in the hair department and I have more permanant lines in my face.

Speaking of white hair, I am letting my body hair (except the facial hair) grow out right now. I am pretty much a hairless person, comparatively speaking. I have very little body hair. The reason I am letting it grow out is because I want to see how much of my body hair is actually white now. See, I have had this white hair on my head since I was in my late 20's. Everything else has remained black as the ace of spades all these years. Since I shave almost every hair off my body (as long as I can actually reach it), I sincerely have no idea how much of it really is gray/white now. So far, in my quest to see how much of my body hair is no longer black, I have discovered that some of it is actually no longer black. This is kind of depressing.  So far, more of it is black that white. So I guess this is good.

Btw, I noticed that a lot of you read the post below but did not vote. I am assuming that you are men reading this journal. I just want to make a note here that while I was in OKC, some gay guy hit on me while I was walking down the street in the middle of the night. He thought I was a cute enough guy to hit on me. It made me feel good in an odd kind of way. First because he thought I was a guy and secondly because he was fairly good looking and at least 10 years younger than I am, and, he thought I was cute enough to have sex with. It was the only proposition I got all night. It made my drunken old self feel better for some odd reason.

I am off to get ready for work. I am awaiting Alec Boy's arrival a little after 11, and then we are off to finish up the Flatiron Building.

Ciao

Today I asked Glenny if I was just a fool, or just a complete idiot. He didn't answer cause he knew I was not looking for an answer. It was rhetorical.

Then later, Shea wanted to know why I was so down when the hottest girls in town wanted me. I never really got her to tell me who these hot girls were that thought I was so hot. She was drunk when she was telling me all this. I kept asking her if she meant Glenny, and if she did, had she noticed that he was a boy and not a girl. She just kept saying that I was the hottest lesbian in town and that all the girls wanted me. I felt like stopping the next female to walk by us if she thought I was the hottest lesbian in town, and did she want me, but I refrained.

It's not about being hot. Jodi is hot, everyone wants Jodi. Well, I don't, but everyone else does. Kathryn is hot, nearly everyone wants Kathryn too. I don't, but she is hot. They are possibly the hottest girls in town, but neither of them wants me.

In her own drunken way, Shea was just trying to make me feel better. Shea is a Scorpio. It's all about sex and who wants you to her. It's never about sex for me and I don't need a ton of people to want me to feel good. Knowing I am special to one person is good enough for me. Knowing that someone loves me enough to hold me while I fall asleep and wake up with me by their side every day for the rest of our lives together is enough for me.

Friday night, I spent most of the night assuring Shea that Kathryn wanted her. Then I let her cry on my shoulder in her drunken stupor because she needed Kathryn to want to take her home that night and she didn't. I am an understanding friend, I have huge, strong shoulders and lots of years of life experience to lean on when you are down. In the end, Shea got what she needed and wanted from Kathryn, just not in her own timing.

I don't care if all the hottest chicks want me. I don't need to be wanted, I need to be loved, for who I am. Once in a while. Period. It's not a whole lot to ask for. Because, in the end, we are all alone, even in relationship. You hope that you can share a sense of intimacy with someone, maybe even build a life with them. But in the end, no matter what, you are still alone.

Whatever it takes, or how my heart breaks, I'll be right here waiting for you.

Fool or idiot Glenny? He won't answer, he doesn't read my journal. So this is all still very rhetorical.

Here's your chance to vote girls. There's my most recent picture up there. Am I the hottest lesbian in town and do you want me? Even if you don't physically live in town, your vote still counts. Just vote yes or no.

I haven't had a whole lot of sleep. Shea woke my ass up with a lock out this morning at Tad's. It was the Frito Lay delivery dude. I had gone to bed around 2:30, so I think I probably got like 4 and a half hours of sleep total. I need 6 hours to be functional.

Not getting enough sleep is fucking with my anti-depressants. I am still depressed, even after taking my meds this morning. SO now I am beginning to wonder if it's the anti-depressants or something completely different that has elevated my mood of late. I am betting on the something different.

Some things have changed in my life in the last week or so. Some things I have no control over. I was hoping the meds would keep me on an even keel despite the changes. They apparently are not doing so. I feel like I am about to do a crash and burn soon. I am trying to hang on, trying not to take a nose drive. Trying to not let things get to me.

Depression is an interesting thing. You have this complete feeling of total hopelessness. You don't see anything being any different than it always has been, nor do you have the hope that it might change anytime soon. There is no light at the end of the tunnel because you can't even find a tunnel to go down in the first place.

I hate feeling this way. Which is why I got the meds in the first place. I needed some sense of hope, I hoped the meds would take the hopeless feeling away. To a point they did, at least for the first couple of weeks. The problem is, I cannot turn away from reality and not see that my reality actually is hopeless.

And that is all I really have to say right now. There really isn't anything else left to say.

I'll be right here.....

This is kind of difficult to explain but, as I grow older I find myself more patient about things that, once upon a time, I was most impatient about. Conversely, things I once was most patient about, I find myself impatient to see come to fruition.

There are some things in life that need to happen like right now, or close to it anyway. The older you get, the shorter the rest of your life is looking to you.

Remember when you were young and your whole life lay out before you like a pearl of great price, ripe for the picking? Yeah, me too. You had all the time in the world and yet you rushed around like a mad man attempting to get where ever you thought it was you wanted to go.

Then one day, you wake up and you realize that what you thought it was that you wanted was not so important after all. In fact, it had no real importance at all in the grand scheme of the universe. You woke up and realized that one thing, and one thing only was really important.

Love. As unconditional as you can give and receive it.

Love, as deep and pure as the source it comes from.

And so your perspective shifts and you learn to live from your heart and not your head. You learn that your head is your enemy and stops you from truly living your life. Your heart however only cares about one thing. Love, real love, unconditional love. That God kind of love that once you have discovered it within yourself, you never ever let it go.

Where ever you go, what ever you do, I'll be right here waiting for you.... God love in hand.

Life's too short my friends. Way too short.

 

Ok, so today I went and did it, I joined Groves Karate Studio. This will be interesting. I'll let you know just how it goes as the days go by. I am not actually going to start torturing myself until Thursday.

In other news, life is absolutely grand sometimes. Trying to get in shape again. Attempting to get healthy. Life is good.

Today was a very, very good day....

Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains...

I forgot to mention that I spent the weekend in Oklahoma City at a locksmiths convention/trade show. The trade show was good. I saw a bunch of my OPLA buddies there. It was cool. It was free, lunch included, that was probably the best part of the trade show.

I had a good time afterward though. Glenny, me and Alec Boy stayed at the Habana, the gay resort there in OKC. It was definitely a learning experience for Alec. The boy had never seen gay men work their cruising magic before. So it was fun explaining what was really going on to her. Glen and I were getting a real kick out of all that.

I had the opportunity to get drunk off my ass. Something I seldom get the opportunity to do. It was good. I had fun, stumbled around a lot and laughed my ass off a bit. I am of course a bit too old to cruise anymore, but it was fun watching the "children" out there having a good time doing their "thang".

Long drive both ways. You always forget how far out in the middle of no where that we live until you have to drive so far to the "big" city. Amazingly I recognized some of the places where I was driving around in OKC from the last time I was there with Audey. That was almost exactly 2 years ago right after he got out of the Army. That was a whirlwind trip to OKC if I ever had one.

I don't recall being very talkative on that trip with the boy back then. Unlike the couple of times I pick him up from or drove him back to Fort Riley (or whatever the name of that god forsaken Army base was in god forsaken Kansas).  I don't remember much about that trip other than going to his eye doctor and the having to wait somewhere while he went to the ex's house to get his stuff (which was why we went there in the first place). I had to not go to the ex's house cause apparently she blamed me for every ill in Audey's life or hers or something to that effect. Like I actually stole the boy away from her or something.

The boy actually went willingly away with the love of his life, and that, was not me. That was the ever beautiful and wonderful Mistress Ky, whom I adore almost as much as the boy does. And my personal opinion on all that is, the Mistress has been nothing but a blessing in his tender young life. A gift he deserved and treasures.

I doubt I will be backin OKC any time soon. I really have nothing to take me there other than something such as a trade show. I don't see something like that coming up again any time soon. So OKC will just have to wait for me to come again in the distant future.

But I did have fun, and my company was most enjoyable. And Glenny is adorable as all get out and I love him to pieces. I am missing our late nights together now that he has begun working at nights again. I eagerly await his days off. Much catching up to do dear, sweet Glenny Boy.

Ciao