i was so afraid
so afraid of
not needing you
so unaware
that i was
loving from fear
so confused
thinking love
demanded need
too oblivious
to see
my desire
pulling you under
as soon as i
gave up
gave in
let go
stopped
needing you
i was suddenly
Free
finally free to
see you
hear you
know you
your real you
because you
were finally free
of my weight
of my need
what i needed
what i really needed
after all and everything
is over and done
was to get out of the fucking way
and just be me
and let you be you
so we could meet each other
again
and fall
for the first time
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Thursday, June 12, 2014
I Have Sowed Need, And What Then I Reaped...
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Gaze Deep Into My Navel And Despair...
How am I supposed to grow up?
I want to grow up. I really do. No, more than that, I need to. I need to grow the fuck up. I'm almost forty years old, but I still see myself as if I were twenty-five. That might sound appealing on some level, at first; "young at heart" and all that. And maybe it would be, if that's what I wanted for myself. But it isn't. I want to grow up. I need to grow up, because I can't keep living like I'm twenty-five. I'm not twenty-five anymore. I can't eat like a twenty-five year-old anymore. I can't move like a twenty-five year-old anymore. I can't party like a twenty-five year-old anymore. Fuck, I can't even sleep like a twenty-five year-old anymore. It all hurts me now in a way that it never did, and I can feel myself breaking down at an astonishing rate, as if the force of Entropy inside me were being fed by some radioaction of chemical combustion. Accelerated Decrepitude. But on the other hand, trying to live within my almost-forty means, while still feeling like a twenty-five year-old inside, is so monumentally depressing that I can't even fucking bother; I always just end up feeling like I already have one foot in the grave.
A twenty-five year-old trapped in a forty year-old body. How incredibly pathetic. How incredibly modern. How incredibly privileged.
But how am I supposed to grow up? I don't know. My observations tell me that for most people, this happens as a natural side-effect of breeding. That creating a child shifts all perspectives, and forces the new parent into a maturity that cannot be achieved through any other means. That makes sense to me. I can understand that.
But I'm never going to have any children. So what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to force myself to achieve a state that, for most people, requires quite possibly the single most life-altering event they will ever experience in order to achieve?
Sometimes I think, maybe I don't actually need to grow up? If I don't have any children, then what do I need to grow up for? Why do I feel this need anyways? I can only assume it is because I reflexively compare my life to the model my parents set for me. When I look at myself, and try to judge whether I'm doing well or not, I compare it to the life they lived. And I always feel myself coming up short.
They went to college. They got degrees. They worked hard. (My father still works harder than almost anyone else I know, and while my mother never worked as hard as he did, she still inarguably worked harder than I do now.) They bore and raised children. They owned houses, with yards and multiple floors and everything.
But I dropped out of college. I have no degrees, and probably never will. Yeah, I have a career that doesn't leave me wanting to kill myself, but I still hate it, just because it's work, and I hate work of any kind; I hate being forced to sell myself every day in order to sustain myself. I don't own a house. I own an absurdly tiny condo that I hate and will never be able to sell for as much as I paid for it. I am almost certain I will end up having to live in that tiny little box for the rest of my life, watching it deteriorate around me, with me - and that thought terrifies me on a regular basis.
And even these modest achievements - a well-paying job that I can sort of do well and tolerate, and a tiny little condo I'm trapped in like a prison cell - even these barely note-worthy accomplishments I never actually earned; I didn't work hard to achieve these things. I got this job because some well-meaning middle-aged women that I worked with took pity on me, and talked to their bosses, and told them they knew this kid they thought would do well as a programmer. And they were right - I am a good programmer. At least, I'm alright. But again, not because I try to be, or because I studied or worked hard or went to school or anything else. I just have a natural talent for logic and pattern recognition and symbology, and so I am a naturally decent programmer. I could be a great programmer if I wanted to be; if I tried to be and put forth the effort. But I don't. Because I don't care. I only want to put forth the minimum amount of effort to get by, and save the rest for indulging in my life's pleasures.
And it's a similar story with my "home." I didn't work hard and save money every day so that I could eventually put a down payment on my dream home. My grandfather died, and since my mother (his daughter) was already dead herself, the portion of his life's wealth that should have been hers (and he had worked hard all his life to achieve that wealth) came to me instead. And I used all of that money to buy the apartment I had been living in for almost a decade at that point. The biggest, most "adult" accomplishment of my life - becoming a home-owner - and it only happened because I was in a position to profit off of the deaths of two of my close family members. And so it has never felt like an accomplishment to me. It feels like blood money.
(It's true that I performed magick to get the job and the money and the apartment, but even taking the assumption that my magick worked doesn't help the situation any. Magick is a short-cut. It's easy compared to actually working hard to learn or to save money. And it's fun to do, and for that reason alone I wanted to do it, whether it worked or not. So even assuming that I came by these things through sorcery, it still doesn't feel like an accomplishment to me. It still doesn't feel like I really earned them. It feels like I cheated.)
And I will almost certainly never see that much money again in my lifetime. I can barely maintain a savings of more than a couple of thousand dollars at a time. I live paycheck-to-paycheck, even with my fairly significant salary. I've always been that way. If I have money, I want to spend it on making myself feel good right now, and I can't seem to deny myself comfort or happiness in the present, in order to save it for some undefined future. As I've written here before, I feel like the Grasshopper, fiddling away as the first snow begins to fall.
But why do I determine the value of my life by comparing it to my parents'? They were completely different people, living in a completely different time. And who wanted completely different things from their life than I want from mine. And I know this. But I still can't shake this feeling that I am somehow failing at life, because I seem to remember my parents being so much better off in their twenties than I am in my thirties; or will be in my forties. I just want to be happy, like anyone else. But I constantly and consistently feel that the things that make me happy aren't good for me. That they are self-indulgent, or immature, or masturbatory. That I am a bad person for living my life the way that I do. But trying to live my life any other way always leaves me just as miserable, if only in a different way.
I just want to spend my life relaxing in the bathhouse, playing games, reading, writing, watching TV and movies, sleeping, eating, drinking and getting high, and punctuating the whole thing with the occasional orgasm. That is really all I want from life.
And I feel like a worthless waste of a human being for feeling that way. I hate myself for feeling that way. But even so, I have no idea how to change it; I have no idea how to want anything else.
Okay, sure, I want other things. Bigger things. I want to have a big house with a yard and a basement and an attic. I want to be able to support myself through writing, or some other form of creative expression. (If only I could make a living playing games!) I want a sense of accomplishment. I want to feel like my life mattered, in any way. I want to feel a sense of confidence that when I'm gone, I will have made some mark on the world that is all my own; that I will leave behind something more than a pile of carbon dust. I do want all of these things. But when I think about them, and I envision the monumental amount of work it would take to even try to achieve any of them - with no guarantee of success! - I lose any hope I may have had about ever actually achieving them.
Because I know that I will never do that work. I just don't have it in me. Achieving anything of any real significance requires a single-minded devotion that I just don't have. Have never had.
Because deep-down, I don't want to be great. All I really want is to be comfortable. And I guess I am. So I should be happy, then, right? Then why do I feel this way? I just wish I could learn to be happy with what I have, instead of hating myself for not being able to be great.
I guess what it all really comes down to is this: I feel lazy, and I hate myself for being lazy, but I don't know how to make myself be anything else. And I hate myself for that, too.
+ + +
Or maybe I'm just depressed because winter is coming, and I'm all out of drugs, and I can feel both of these things gnawing at my bones.
I want to grow up. I really do. No, more than that, I need to. I need to grow the fuck up. I'm almost forty years old, but I still see myself as if I were twenty-five. That might sound appealing on some level, at first; "young at heart" and all that. And maybe it would be, if that's what I wanted for myself. But it isn't. I want to grow up. I need to grow up, because I can't keep living like I'm twenty-five. I'm not twenty-five anymore. I can't eat like a twenty-five year-old anymore. I can't move like a twenty-five year-old anymore. I can't party like a twenty-five year-old anymore. Fuck, I can't even sleep like a twenty-five year-old anymore. It all hurts me now in a way that it never did, and I can feel myself breaking down at an astonishing rate, as if the force of Entropy inside me were being fed by some radioaction of chemical combustion. Accelerated Decrepitude. But on the other hand, trying to live within my almost-forty means, while still feeling like a twenty-five year-old inside, is so monumentally depressing that I can't even fucking bother; I always just end up feeling like I already have one foot in the grave.
A twenty-five year-old trapped in a forty year-old body. How incredibly pathetic. How incredibly modern. How incredibly privileged.
But how am I supposed to grow up? I don't know. My observations tell me that for most people, this happens as a natural side-effect of breeding. That creating a child shifts all perspectives, and forces the new parent into a maturity that cannot be achieved through any other means. That makes sense to me. I can understand that.
But I'm never going to have any children. So what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to force myself to achieve a state that, for most people, requires quite possibly the single most life-altering event they will ever experience in order to achieve?
Sometimes I think, maybe I don't actually need to grow up? If I don't have any children, then what do I need to grow up for? Why do I feel this need anyways? I can only assume it is because I reflexively compare my life to the model my parents set for me. When I look at myself, and try to judge whether I'm doing well or not, I compare it to the life they lived. And I always feel myself coming up short.
They went to college. They got degrees. They worked hard. (My father still works harder than almost anyone else I know, and while my mother never worked as hard as he did, she still inarguably worked harder than I do now.) They bore and raised children. They owned houses, with yards and multiple floors and everything.
But I dropped out of college. I have no degrees, and probably never will. Yeah, I have a career that doesn't leave me wanting to kill myself, but I still hate it, just because it's work, and I hate work of any kind; I hate being forced to sell myself every day in order to sustain myself. I don't own a house. I own an absurdly tiny condo that I hate and will never be able to sell for as much as I paid for it. I am almost certain I will end up having to live in that tiny little box for the rest of my life, watching it deteriorate around me, with me - and that thought terrifies me on a regular basis.
And even these modest achievements - a well-paying job that I can sort of do well and tolerate, and a tiny little condo I'm trapped in like a prison cell - even these barely note-worthy accomplishments I never actually earned; I didn't work hard to achieve these things. I got this job because some well-meaning middle-aged women that I worked with took pity on me, and talked to their bosses, and told them they knew this kid they thought would do well as a programmer. And they were right - I am a good programmer. At least, I'm alright. But again, not because I try to be, or because I studied or worked hard or went to school or anything else. I just have a natural talent for logic and pattern recognition and symbology, and so I am a naturally decent programmer. I could be a great programmer if I wanted to be; if I tried to be and put forth the effort. But I don't. Because I don't care. I only want to put forth the minimum amount of effort to get by, and save the rest for indulging in my life's pleasures.
And it's a similar story with my "home." I didn't work hard and save money every day so that I could eventually put a down payment on my dream home. My grandfather died, and since my mother (his daughter) was already dead herself, the portion of his life's wealth that should have been hers (and he had worked hard all his life to achieve that wealth) came to me instead. And I used all of that money to buy the apartment I had been living in for almost a decade at that point. The biggest, most "adult" accomplishment of my life - becoming a home-owner - and it only happened because I was in a position to profit off of the deaths of two of my close family members. And so it has never felt like an accomplishment to me. It feels like blood money.
(It's true that I performed magick to get the job and the money and the apartment, but even taking the assumption that my magick worked doesn't help the situation any. Magick is a short-cut. It's easy compared to actually working hard to learn or to save money. And it's fun to do, and for that reason alone I wanted to do it, whether it worked or not. So even assuming that I came by these things through sorcery, it still doesn't feel like an accomplishment to me. It still doesn't feel like I really earned them. It feels like I cheated.)
And I will almost certainly never see that much money again in my lifetime. I can barely maintain a savings of more than a couple of thousand dollars at a time. I live paycheck-to-paycheck, even with my fairly significant salary. I've always been that way. If I have money, I want to spend it on making myself feel good right now, and I can't seem to deny myself comfort or happiness in the present, in order to save it for some undefined future. As I've written here before, I feel like the Grasshopper, fiddling away as the first snow begins to fall.
But why do I determine the value of my life by comparing it to my parents'? They were completely different people, living in a completely different time. And who wanted completely different things from their life than I want from mine. And I know this. But I still can't shake this feeling that I am somehow failing at life, because I seem to remember my parents being so much better off in their twenties than I am in my thirties; or will be in my forties. I just want to be happy, like anyone else. But I constantly and consistently feel that the things that make me happy aren't good for me. That they are self-indulgent, or immature, or masturbatory. That I am a bad person for living my life the way that I do. But trying to live my life any other way always leaves me just as miserable, if only in a different way.
I just want to spend my life relaxing in the bathhouse, playing games, reading, writing, watching TV and movies, sleeping, eating, drinking and getting high, and punctuating the whole thing with the occasional orgasm. That is really all I want from life.
And I feel like a worthless waste of a human being for feeling that way. I hate myself for feeling that way. But even so, I have no idea how to change it; I have no idea how to want anything else.
Okay, sure, I want other things. Bigger things. I want to have a big house with a yard and a basement and an attic. I want to be able to support myself through writing, or some other form of creative expression. (If only I could make a living playing games!) I want a sense of accomplishment. I want to feel like my life mattered, in any way. I want to feel a sense of confidence that when I'm gone, I will have made some mark on the world that is all my own; that I will leave behind something more than a pile of carbon dust. I do want all of these things. But when I think about them, and I envision the monumental amount of work it would take to even try to achieve any of them - with no guarantee of success! - I lose any hope I may have had about ever actually achieving them.
Because I know that I will never do that work. I just don't have it in me. Achieving anything of any real significance requires a single-minded devotion that I just don't have. Have never had.
Because deep-down, I don't want to be great. All I really want is to be comfortable. And I guess I am. So I should be happy, then, right? Then why do I feel this way? I just wish I could learn to be happy with what I have, instead of hating myself for not being able to be great.
I guess what it all really comes down to is this: I feel lazy, and I hate myself for being lazy, but I don't know how to make myself be anything else. And I hate myself for that, too.
+ + +
Or maybe I'm just depressed because winter is coming, and I'm all out of drugs, and I can feel both of these things gnawing at my bones.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Making Excuses...
I haven't written in a long time. Long enough that it is beginning to weigh on me.
I've been busy. I haven't had much time to write.
But I have had time.
And when I've had the time, I haven't had the energy.
And when I've had the energy, and the time, I haven't had the desire.
And when I've had the desire, and the energy, and the time, I haven't been inspired.
And when all my stars have finally aligned in the heavens of my birth, and I have found myself inspired, and with a desire to write, and the energy to do it, and the time to do it in - I haven't had the tools at hand.
It's happened several times while I was driving. It's happened in the sauna, and the steam room. It's happened late at night, just as I'm falling asleep. It's happened while I was rushing to get ready in the morning, late for work. It's happened in meetings. It's happened on the toilet.
I've tried to write without keyboard or pen, but I've yet to meet any measure of success. The process is completely different. My mind must then be constantly pre-occupied with remembering and reciting and memorizing whatever I've written to that point, while simultaneously trying to determine what comes next.
But when I have a keyboard - or paper and pen in a pinch - I can focus entirely on feeling out the next line; all I have to do is express.
What I realize as I observe this, is that making it up in my head is simply not my style.
But it's all I've got right now. And I am clogging up.
I've been busy. I haven't had much time to write.
But I have had time.
And when I've had the time, I haven't had the energy.
And when I've had the energy, and the time, I haven't had the desire.
And when I've had the desire, and the energy, and the time, I haven't been inspired.
And when all my stars have finally aligned in the heavens of my birth, and I have found myself inspired, and with a desire to write, and the energy to do it, and the time to do it in - I haven't had the tools at hand.
It's happened several times while I was driving. It's happened in the sauna, and the steam room. It's happened late at night, just as I'm falling asleep. It's happened while I was rushing to get ready in the morning, late for work. It's happened in meetings. It's happened on the toilet.
I've tried to write without keyboard or pen, but I've yet to meet any measure of success. The process is completely different. My mind must then be constantly pre-occupied with remembering and reciting and memorizing whatever I've written to that point, while simultaneously trying to determine what comes next.
But when I have a keyboard - or paper and pen in a pinch - I can focus entirely on feeling out the next line; all I have to do is express.
What I realize as I observe this, is that making it up in my head is simply not my style.
But it's all I've got right now. And I am clogging up.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Three-hundred Fifty-one...
Only two weeks left.
Two weeks from today, I will drink a beer. A Guinness. In a bottle. And then I will have a glass of whiskey. Eagle Rare bourbon, my favorite. On the rocks, in my favorite glass tumbler. And who knows what else after that.
I can't tell what I'm feeling. Something like excitement, but not quite. Almost anxiety, but not exactly. Anticipation? Fear? Some jumbled soup of them all, most likely.
I want it so badly. I've never wanted a drink this much in my entire life. I want a drink right now more than I ever, ever wanted a drink when I actually was drinking.
I feel so proud of myself for actually accomplishing this.
I feel guilty for feeling this way, and I try to suppress it, reminding myself that I haven't actually accomplished anything yet. I have two weeks left to go. I can feel proud then. And celebrate with a drink.
I'm so scared that something bad is going to happen. That I'm going to go off the deep end and lose control in some way that I never have before. That I'm going to end up in another of those deep chemical depressions. That I'm going to lose all of my creativity and desire to express myself. That I'm going to lose the ability to write poetry. Or worse, that I'm going to lose the ability to enjoy writing. I'm scared of some other bad result that I haven't even thought of.
I'm scared of the fact that I don't know what's going to happen.
But I have to find out.
I have to know if I can handle it or not.
I have to find out how else the last year has changed me.
Two weeks from today, I will drink a beer. A Guinness. In a bottle. And then I will have a glass of whiskey. Eagle Rare bourbon, my favorite. On the rocks, in my favorite glass tumbler. And who knows what else after that.
I can't tell what I'm feeling. Something like excitement, but not quite. Almost anxiety, but not exactly. Anticipation? Fear? Some jumbled soup of them all, most likely.
I want it so badly. I've never wanted a drink this much in my entire life. I want a drink right now more than I ever, ever wanted a drink when I actually was drinking.
I feel so proud of myself for actually accomplishing this.
I feel guilty for feeling this way, and I try to suppress it, reminding myself that I haven't actually accomplished anything yet. I have two weeks left to go. I can feel proud then. And celebrate with a drink.
I'm so scared that something bad is going to happen. That I'm going to go off the deep end and lose control in some way that I never have before. That I'm going to end up in another of those deep chemical depressions. That I'm going to lose all of my creativity and desire to express myself. That I'm going to lose the ability to write poetry. Or worse, that I'm going to lose the ability to enjoy writing. I'm scared of some other bad result that I haven't even thought of.
I'm scared of the fact that I don't know what's going to happen.
But I have to find out.
I have to know if I can handle it or not.
I have to find out how else the last year has changed me.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Neighbors...
Walking home from my appointment at dusk. Walking down my street, in my neighborhood, on my block. Group of kids in front of me, walking slowly, taking up the sidewalk. I walk around them, between the parking meters and the parked cars. Passing the tiny girl up front, she yells at me, "You best say 'escuse me!' I got kids here! An' you don't say 'escuse me??'" I hadn't bumped into her. Hadn't touched her at all. Her kids, a boy and girl about five or six years old, were on the other side of her from me; I was nowhere near them. She hadn't had to so much as move an inch to avoid me at all. I had simply walked around her. And now she's angrily demanding an apology from me, as if I had done something inexcusably rude. Never in my life has anyone ever said "excuse me" for simply walking past me. For bumping into me, or getting in my way, certainly. But not for simply walking by. Nor has anyone in my entire life ever expected me to excuse myself or apologize simply for walking around them. She's deliberately provoking me. And I don't understand why. I haven't done anything wrong. But I'm suddenly very aware that each of these kids is black, and I am white. And this confrontation we're having is our neighborhood, to the core. This is our home.I've lived in my neighborhood for over fifteen years now. This girl staring me down with angry eyes looks to only be about twenty, give or take five years. It's possible that I was living here before she was even born. I went to school in this neighborhood when I was a child. I feel like this is as much my home as hers. But she has no way of knowing this. This has been a traditionally black neighborhood for over a hundred and fifty years. Back then, it was the Freemen's quarter; the first people to settle on this particular piece of ground were freed slaves. This has been a black neighborhood from the very first brick. But a few years ago, it started to get very, very gentrified. Rich, white developers came in and swooped up cheap properties, fixed them up with marble counter-tops and hardwood floors and halogen track lights. Sold them to rich, white hipsters who wanted to live close to the burgeoning downtown bar scene. Back then, I was the only white person living in my apartment complex. Developers bought it and turned it into a condo. We all got letters saying we needed to buy our apartments or find someplace else to live. I bought mine. Everyone else left. And since then the neighborhood has been this uneasy mix of poor black living side-by-side with rich white. And I've seen it. Seen exactly this happening before. But this is the first time I've experienced it myself. She doesn't know me anymore than I know her. We're both making assumptions about each other. She has no way of knowing that I went to school around the corner, or that I've lived on this block my entire adult life. All she sees is another doughy white, nerdy-looking hipster who had the fucking nerve to walk too close to her without showing her proper respect.Things escalate very quickly. "I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be rude. I just walked around you." "You best watch who you talkin' to 'for I smack yo' fat ass!" There's no good way to respond here. What am I supposed to do? Fight these kids? Let them beat me up? Why? So they can feel better about themselves? So I can feel better about feeling better than them? And there's clearly no reasoning with someone who, within a matter of seconds, is willing to resort to threats of physical violence with someone twice her size for something as minor as stepping around them. Talking about it any further is clearly pointless. There's no reasoning with a bully. I learned that lesson the hard way, long ago. No choice but to simply end this as quickly and quietly as possible. I turn and walk away. To more taunts and threats thrown at my back. Victory cheers for having driven out the interloper, the outsider. For having proved her strength and dominance to the rest of the tribe. For having earned back the respect I somehow stripped her of by walking past her. I'm instantly ten years old again. On the playground again. Having my dignity stolen by a pack of fifth grade delinquents again. Being called "fat ass" again. Feeling like an outcast again. Feeling scared again. For the first time in fifteen years, I feel scared in my own neighborhood. For the first time ever, I feel like this isn't my home, and never will be. I will never be welcome here. I let them make me feel like an outsider in my own neighborhood. I let these kids make me feel scared in my own home. I don't feel like I had any choice. And there's some part of me that feels I deserve it.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Here Come The Bastards...
I am burdened today by a most rare and unusual problem: an over-abundance of subjects to write about.
I want to write about a party I went to on Friday night. It was my friend's 40th birthday party, and it seemed that all of my oldest friends were there. These are the people I would consider my best friends, and yet this was the first time in three years or more that I was seeing most of them. Being surrounded by so many friends, and being confronted, viscerally, with just how long it had actually been since I'd last seen them, brought up a lot of different feelings. And for a lot of other reasons, as well, this party ended up being very overwhelming to me. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about that evening, and the various things that happened there; almost too many to handle. So, as much as I know this is something I should write about, and as much as I want to write about it, I don't think I'm ready yet. I know that I thought and felt a lot about the experience, but I haven't been able to process it enough to know exactly what I thought or felt; to be able to say "I felt this" or "I thought that." So I think I need to give that some time to sink in and settle, and figure out exactly what it is that I need to say. It was just a lot to happen all at once, and I need to some time to figure out what to make of it.
So, instead, I'm going to write about something that happened to me at work today that pissed me off.
Our company's servers have a firewall that blocks access from the network to sites that are known to harbor potentially harmful code such as spyware or viruses. That seems like a completely reasonable business decision to me, and I completely understand. I always get a little twinge of guilt/shame/remorse whenever I click on a link and get the message from our server that the page I am trying to view is blocked by our firewall because it is a known malware site.
I have several webcomics that I read most days during my lunch break. Two of these webcomics sometimes show explicit sex. And today, when I went to read those comics, I received the message from our server saying that they were blocked. But not because they were malware sites. The message said that these sites had been blocked because they were pornographic.
This marks a significant change in the way our company monitors and polices our online behavior. Up to now, it has been solely about protecting our company's network infrastructure. But now, apparently, they have decided to start policing our morality, as well.
What pisses me off about this, is that I've never considered either of these sites to be pornographic. Yes, they both show explicit sex, but I don't think that automatically makes them porn. Porn is solely about explicit sex. Its one and only purpose is to sexually arouse. And clearly, these webcomics are not trying to do that. Or, at least, they are about more than that. One of them is a humor comic, making fun of nerd-culture, fantasy-tropes, and sexuality. I've never been aroused by it, nor have I ever read it because it is dirty; I read it because it is funny. (It is hilarious, in point of fact.) And the other comic is a love story; very sweet and romantic, and also strange and psychedelic. It publishes one page a week, and every once in a while (we're talking maybe every twenty pages or so) there will be a sex scene. And while the sex is definitely explicit, it is still portrayed in the sweet, romantic style, a world away from anything that could be considered "hardcore porn."
Let me illustrate my point. Imagine a movie - your typical, cliché of a sappy romantic-drama. Now imagine that when we get to the inevitable scene where the male and female leads finally make love, the sex is shown explicitly. There is vulva, erections, and penetration. In every other way, it's still the cliché sappy romantic-drama - soft lighting, bad soundtrack, etc.; the only difference is that instead of just seeing the female lead's breasts (and maybe the male lead's ass), we see all of both leads, and they are actually making love.
Now, imagine your typical hardcore porn movie.
They're both sexually explicit, but they are clearly, obviously, not the same thing.
And that's what bothers me about this whole situation with my company's firewall. I don't really care so much that I can't read these comics at work anymore. That's not really a big deal, and I can just read them at home from now on. What bothers me is that I have now been logged as someone who uses company resources to view porn. And I don't think that's fair, because I don' think that's what I did. Since they've labeled these two webcomics as "porn" there is no distinction between me and the person who tries to view hardcore pornographic videos in his office. And I think that's a very important distinction to make! It's hardly as if I was trying to log on to GangBangBitches.com, for crying out loud.
But our culture makes no distinction. If it displays certain things - vulva, erections, penetration, semen - even once, for any reason at all, then no matter what else it may do or say, and no matter how else it may say it, that media is porn, and that is all it is, and that is all it will ever be. And no matter what else it may do or say, and no matter how else it may say it, that media is exactly the same as Gang Bang Bitches vol. 8, and if you don't agree, then you are an immoral pervert.
For almost thirty-seven years now, I've managed to avoid getting caught in the hypocritical, puritan traps of this culture. But today, I got caught. And now I feel like I have a giant scarlet "P" on my chest. "P" for "Pervert." "P" for "Porn."
And now, for the first time in my adult life, I have to live in fear that any day now, the morality police are going to come knocking on my (office) door.
I want to write about a party I went to on Friday night. It was my friend's 40th birthday party, and it seemed that all of my oldest friends were there. These are the people I would consider my best friends, and yet this was the first time in three years or more that I was seeing most of them. Being surrounded by so many friends, and being confronted, viscerally, with just how long it had actually been since I'd last seen them, brought up a lot of different feelings. And for a lot of other reasons, as well, this party ended up being very overwhelming to me. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about that evening, and the various things that happened there; almost too many to handle. So, as much as I know this is something I should write about, and as much as I want to write about it, I don't think I'm ready yet. I know that I thought and felt a lot about the experience, but I haven't been able to process it enough to know exactly what I thought or felt; to be able to say "I felt this" or "I thought that." So I think I need to give that some time to sink in and settle, and figure out exactly what it is that I need to say. It was just a lot to happen all at once, and I need to some time to figure out what to make of it.
So, instead, I'm going to write about something that happened to me at work today that pissed me off.
Our company's servers have a firewall that blocks access from the network to sites that are known to harbor potentially harmful code such as spyware or viruses. That seems like a completely reasonable business decision to me, and I completely understand. I always get a little twinge of guilt/shame/remorse whenever I click on a link and get the message from our server that the page I am trying to view is blocked by our firewall because it is a known malware site.
I have several webcomics that I read most days during my lunch break. Two of these webcomics sometimes show explicit sex. And today, when I went to read those comics, I received the message from our server saying that they were blocked. But not because they were malware sites. The message said that these sites had been blocked because they were pornographic.
This marks a significant change in the way our company monitors and polices our online behavior. Up to now, it has been solely about protecting our company's network infrastructure. But now, apparently, they have decided to start policing our morality, as well.
What pisses me off about this, is that I've never considered either of these sites to be pornographic. Yes, they both show explicit sex, but I don't think that automatically makes them porn. Porn is solely about explicit sex. Its one and only purpose is to sexually arouse. And clearly, these webcomics are not trying to do that. Or, at least, they are about more than that. One of them is a humor comic, making fun of nerd-culture, fantasy-tropes, and sexuality. I've never been aroused by it, nor have I ever read it because it is dirty; I read it because it is funny. (It is hilarious, in point of fact.) And the other comic is a love story; very sweet and romantic, and also strange and psychedelic. It publishes one page a week, and every once in a while (we're talking maybe every twenty pages or so) there will be a sex scene. And while the sex is definitely explicit, it is still portrayed in the sweet, romantic style, a world away from anything that could be considered "hardcore porn."
Let me illustrate my point. Imagine a movie - your typical, cliché of a sappy romantic-drama. Now imagine that when we get to the inevitable scene where the male and female leads finally make love, the sex is shown explicitly. There is vulva, erections, and penetration. In every other way, it's still the cliché sappy romantic-drama - soft lighting, bad soundtrack, etc.; the only difference is that instead of just seeing the female lead's breasts (and maybe the male lead's ass), we see all of both leads, and they are actually making love.
Now, imagine your typical hardcore porn movie.
They're both sexually explicit, but they are clearly, obviously, not the same thing.
And that's what bothers me about this whole situation with my company's firewall. I don't really care so much that I can't read these comics at work anymore. That's not really a big deal, and I can just read them at home from now on. What bothers me is that I have now been logged as someone who uses company resources to view porn. And I don't think that's fair, because I don' think that's what I did. Since they've labeled these two webcomics as "porn" there is no distinction between me and the person who tries to view hardcore pornographic videos in his office. And I think that's a very important distinction to make! It's hardly as if I was trying to log on to GangBangBitches.com, for crying out loud.
But our culture makes no distinction. If it displays certain things - vulva, erections, penetration, semen - even once, for any reason at all, then no matter what else it may do or say, and no matter how else it may say it, that media is porn, and that is all it is, and that is all it will ever be. And no matter what else it may do or say, and no matter how else it may say it, that media is exactly the same as Gang Bang Bitches vol. 8, and if you don't agree, then you are an immoral pervert.
For almost thirty-seven years now, I've managed to avoid getting caught in the hypocritical, puritan traps of this culture. But today, I got caught. And now I feel like I have a giant scarlet "P" on my chest. "P" for "Pervert." "P" for "Porn."
And now, for the first time in my adult life, I have to live in fear that any day now, the morality police are going to come knocking on my (office) door.
Monday, September 17, 2012
When We Fall...
It's amazing how quickly you can fall back out of shape.
Just a few weeks of not working out (one week at the AGM, one week recovering from being sick, one week having all free time and energy eaten up by work, etc.) and suddenly I feel like I'm back to square one. I know it's not that simple, and experience tells me that I will actually bounce back into form a lot quicker than it took to get into shape in the first place - but, still, this morning was... kinda scary, if I'm honest.
I thought I was taking it light. Not even considering the weights at this point, since I'm just trying to get back into the swing of things after such a long absence. Just figured I'd do my usual fifteen minutes on the elliptical (with a five minute cool-down afterwards) that I start every workout with. Maybe I'd push it to twenty minutes, if I was feeling up to it. That is really not much at all; I used to do thirty to forty-five minutes on the elliptical, before I started incorporating the weights into my routine.
But this fifteen minutes was hard. Much more difficult than I expected. I was really pushing myself with everything I had just to get through it. But I did it; I made it through the whole thing, and was relieved to reach the cool-down afterwards. (No way was I going to try for twenty!) But as soon as I slowed my pace, I knew something was wrong. My heart was racing much more than I'm used to. And I could feel my pulse in my head. I was having a hard time catching my breath, and I was starting to get dizzy.
Pretty immediately, I climbed down off the machine, and went and sat down on the floor with my back to the wall. I held my water bottle (which, thankfully, I fill with ice-water before every workout) all around my neck, to cool down the blood in my carotid artery, going to my brain. I tried to breath slow and deep and even, and waited for the dizziness to pass. Which it did after just a couple of minutes.
Now, admittedly, I was having a hard time getting a decent reading off the heart-rate monitor on that machine. (For the whole workout it had been giving me all these low-ball readings that I knew could not possibly be correct, and that made me mistrustful of the other readings that seemed like they could possibly be reasonable. And then at the end, after not giving me a reading higher then 155bpm for the entire workout, it suddenly gave me a reading of 180bpm, which is way into my red zone, and much higher than I would ever usually let myself get to. So, was that an anomalous reading, like all the low-balls? Or was that the first true reading I'd gotten all workout?) But, still, just a matter of a few weeks ago this was my warm-up, for crying out loud. And it just floored me! Literally!
So, obvious lesson-learned is that I need to take it easy, and start slower. At the same time, my little brother and his girlfriend just challenged me to a contest to see who could be the first one to lose fifteen pounds. And that's definitely a motivator. But I have to remember to be careful. I'm not twenty-five anymore.
And I won't be able to gloat if I'm dead.
Just a few weeks of not working out (one week at the AGM, one week recovering from being sick, one week having all free time and energy eaten up by work, etc.) and suddenly I feel like I'm back to square one. I know it's not that simple, and experience tells me that I will actually bounce back into form a lot quicker than it took to get into shape in the first place - but, still, this morning was... kinda scary, if I'm honest.
I thought I was taking it light. Not even considering the weights at this point, since I'm just trying to get back into the swing of things after such a long absence. Just figured I'd do my usual fifteen minutes on the elliptical (with a five minute cool-down afterwards) that I start every workout with. Maybe I'd push it to twenty minutes, if I was feeling up to it. That is really not much at all; I used to do thirty to forty-five minutes on the elliptical, before I started incorporating the weights into my routine.
But this fifteen minutes was hard. Much more difficult than I expected. I was really pushing myself with everything I had just to get through it. But I did it; I made it through the whole thing, and was relieved to reach the cool-down afterwards. (No way was I going to try for twenty!) But as soon as I slowed my pace, I knew something was wrong. My heart was racing much more than I'm used to. And I could feel my pulse in my head. I was having a hard time catching my breath, and I was starting to get dizzy.
Pretty immediately, I climbed down off the machine, and went and sat down on the floor with my back to the wall. I held my water bottle (which, thankfully, I fill with ice-water before every workout) all around my neck, to cool down the blood in my carotid artery, going to my brain. I tried to breath slow and deep and even, and waited for the dizziness to pass. Which it did after just a couple of minutes.
Now, admittedly, I was having a hard time getting a decent reading off the heart-rate monitor on that machine. (For the whole workout it had been giving me all these low-ball readings that I knew could not possibly be correct, and that made me mistrustful of the other readings that seemed like they could possibly be reasonable. And then at the end, after not giving me a reading higher then 155bpm for the entire workout, it suddenly gave me a reading of 180bpm, which is way into my red zone, and much higher than I would ever usually let myself get to. So, was that an anomalous reading, like all the low-balls? Or was that the first true reading I'd gotten all workout?) But, still, just a matter of a few weeks ago this was my warm-up, for crying out loud. And it just floored me! Literally!
So, obvious lesson-learned is that I need to take it easy, and start slower. At the same time, my little brother and his girlfriend just challenged me to a contest to see who could be the first one to lose fifteen pounds. And that's definitely a motivator. But I have to remember to be careful. I'm not twenty-five anymore.
And I won't be able to gloat if I'm dead.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Keep Ridin' 'Til The Cycle Is Broke...
Heard this today, and it touched me; deep. Again. Had to share. Hope it touches you, too.
(Suggestion: read it aloud.)
Million dollar baby girl in the lower middle class
With a maglight right beneath her pillow
And though she's never been a boxer by choice
She's known to act oak [OK], you'll never catch her a willow
Nuh-uh
She's the calm type
You see the small scars
Creepin' down her arms
peeking from them long sleeves, right?
She keeps him weak in the knees
but she stay out of sight
And when that school bell rings
it's goodnight
Or might as well be
He never sees her around
But he looks
For weeks now he's been "Maybe tomorrow"
But he's shook
He sees those bruises and he needs to please her
Plus he don't wanna go home either
Gives her a look as they pass
Copies down a poem from a schoolbook
Gives it to her after hesitation whoops his ass
She took it fast
Lost, like, all sensation in her hands
then braces herself gracefully
sturdy where she stands
humble mumbling
past the words, fumbling
Nothing discouraging
just nerves
just drumming up the courage
Something 'bout skylines
or bike rides
or riverbeds
Somethin'
Somethin' that he read
it caught her right beneath the armor
cauterized thought of any blunt force trauma
Ain't no way that he could harm her
Nuh-uh
No way
When that curse leaves a shell like a snake with fresh scales
Some people seem to call that home
But some souls roam
Keep riding 'til the cycle is broke
We don't gotta go through nothin' alone
She's in the weather
the whole storm
Huggin' on her prince
his hands to skin warm
Quick out the door
no note
no forlorn
'Cause all they heard was "Papa
don't hit me no more"
But they couldn't seem to keep the swelling down
How they regretted ever lettin' out this 3rd child born
But things are getting better now
Yeah, cozy sweater now
with her thumbs through the holes
in her sleeves worn down
And a boy similar
Noise minimal
toy criminal
Joy's simple when someone's found it in you
Somehow it boosts the individual
That bluish hue is mutual
They make love gently
so aware of each others' bruises
And sorta scared they could lose this
trust
Bury the blues
somewhere it won't bear roots
But is this boy where the truth is?
She's spooked, see
Fruit never seems to fall far
from the useless branch that it's attached to
And quacks say if he's beat up he's bound to smack you
She's down to step back now
If he ever gets loud
She couldn't be proud
of whatever she might do
But this is the first time
she ever felt touched
that didn't bring her to hush
like something was being done to her
That unscrews her
She loosens with the booze
Her hinge can stay bent
addressing her dude's wounds
Regressing to bedrooms
where fools ignored "don't"
He's not one of them tools
that screws, nuts and bolts
And she know that
And she know that but she holds back
And she hope that
he see the way she flinch
'cuz it's kneejerk to brace for the attack
Even if he's only rubbing her back
I mean
And even if it's like the deck has been stacked
It's not an act
He's really loving her back
Hold your heart up
"Never raise your hand"
She says that with her grown-up voice
"I'm your's now" just like a child
"Please don't be scared now"
It clicks
a piece finally fits
"I love you"
They say that with their lips
"Never raise your hand"
He says that with a grown-up voice
"I'm your's now" just like a child
"Please don't be scared now"
It clicks
a piece finally fits
"I love you"
When that curse leaves a shell like a snake with fresh scales
Some people seem to call that home
But some souls roam
Keep riding 'til the cycle is broke
We don't gotta go through nothin' alone
-"Been Afraid"
P.O.S.
(Suggestion: read it aloud.)
Million dollar baby girl in the lower middle class
With a maglight right beneath her pillow
And though she's never been a boxer by choice
She's known to act oak [OK], you'll never catch her a willow
Nuh-uh
She's the calm type
You see the small scars
Creepin' down her arms
peeking from them long sleeves, right?
She keeps him weak in the knees
but she stay out of sight
And when that school bell rings
it's goodnight
Or might as well be
He never sees her around
But he looks
For weeks now he's been "Maybe tomorrow"
But he's shook
He sees those bruises and he needs to please her
Plus he don't wanna go home either
Gives her a look as they pass
Copies down a poem from a schoolbook
Gives it to her after hesitation whoops his ass
She took it fast
Lost, like, all sensation in her hands
then braces herself gracefully
sturdy where she stands
humble mumbling
past the words, fumbling
Nothing discouraging
just nerves
just drumming up the courage
Something 'bout skylines
or bike rides
or riverbeds
Somethin'
Somethin' that he read
it caught her right beneath the armor
cauterized thought of any blunt force trauma
Ain't no way that he could harm her
Nuh-uh
No way
When that curse leaves a shell like a snake with fresh scales
Some people seem to call that home
But some souls roam
Keep riding 'til the cycle is broke
We don't gotta go through nothin' alone
She's in the weather
the whole storm
Huggin' on her prince
his hands to skin warm
Quick out the door
no note
no forlorn
'Cause all they heard was "Papa
don't hit me no more"
But they couldn't seem to keep the swelling down
How they regretted ever lettin' out this 3rd child born
But things are getting better now
Yeah, cozy sweater now
with her thumbs through the holes
in her sleeves worn down
And a boy similar
Noise minimal
toy criminal
Joy's simple when someone's found it in you
Somehow it boosts the individual
That bluish hue is mutual
They make love gently
so aware of each others' bruises
And sorta scared they could lose this
trust
Bury the blues
somewhere it won't bear roots
But is this boy where the truth is?
She's spooked, see
Fruit never seems to fall far
from the useless branch that it's attached to
And quacks say if he's beat up he's bound to smack you
She's down to step back now
If he ever gets loud
She couldn't be proud
of whatever she might do
But this is the first time
she ever felt touched
that didn't bring her to hush
like something was being done to her
That unscrews her
She loosens with the booze
Her hinge can stay bent
addressing her dude's wounds
Regressing to bedrooms
where fools ignored "don't"
He's not one of them tools
that screws, nuts and bolts
And she know that
And she know that but she holds back
And she hope that
he see the way she flinch
'cuz it's kneejerk to brace for the attack
Even if he's only rubbing her back
I mean
And even if it's like the deck has been stacked
It's not an act
He's really loving her back
Hold your heart up
"Never raise your hand"
She says that with her grown-up voice
"I'm your's now" just like a child
"Please don't be scared now"
It clicks
a piece finally fits
"I love you"
They say that with their lips
"Never raise your hand"
He says that with a grown-up voice
"I'm your's now" just like a child
"Please don't be scared now"
It clicks
a piece finally fits
"I love you"
When that curse leaves a shell like a snake with fresh scales
Some people seem to call that home
But some souls roam
Keep riding 'til the cycle is broke
We don't gotta go through nothin' alone
-"Been Afraid"
P.O.S.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Göd Hexennacht...
Walpurgisnacht begins at Sunset. And I have to say, I'm a little nervous.
Maybe "nervous" isn't the right word. Maybe "anxious" would describe it better. I know that "worried" isn't correct. Because it's not that I'm concerned that anything bad will happen. It's just that I don't know what to expect. I know that something big will happen, and that I will be very different tomorrow than I am today, but I don't have a clear idea how, exactly. And that fear of the unknown, combined with the anticipation of the event itself, always gives me a bit of a "butterflies in the tummy" feeling beforehand. It's also a feeling of exhilaration, which is, of course, almost indistinguishable from anxiety. I guess we sometimes refer to this feeling as "nerves" or "jitters."
I'm also a bit more excited than usual this time around, because there are some bigger things going on this year than usual. This night will mark the beginning of a year-long period of monasticism and self-sacrifice for me. And while I'm looking forward to that, it's also a scary thing to face on some levels. What if I have a horrible year because of this decision? What if it's too hard? What if it's too painful? What if I fail?
But there's joy to balance that out, as well. An unexpected benefit of Her recent unemployment, is that she is now free to celebrate with me tonight. Which, I have to admit, I think I'm looking forward to more than anything else. Things have been weird, and kind of difficult, and distant, and more than a little unpleasant between us for a while now. I've changed a lot, suddenly and drastically, in the past couple of months. And that's a hard thing to adjust to - when your partner is suddenly such a completely different person. And especially so if adjusting doesn't happen to be one of your strong suits. I imagine she must feel pretty lonely right now. And the particular ways in which I've changed haven't exactly made me easier to live with, either. Though maybe "easy" isn't the right word. I don't know. I definitely don't think I'm as much fun as a I used to be, that's for sure.
So, I'm finding that I'm really, really excited about sharing this experience with her tonight. Excited by the possibility of re-connecting with her in some way, in any way, beyond the merely superficial mechanics of our cohabitation. Of sharing ourselves, again, in a poignant and reflective space, in a true and meaningful way. I know that we will both be happier after tonight. And I have the expectation that we will be happier in a specific way, but I'm also aware that isn't necessarily true - it could go either way. But whether the experience brings us closer together, or drives us further apart, I know that we will both feel better about our selves, and about each other.
Will us Luck. Göd Hexennacht and Happy May to you all. Be safe tonight.
We'll see you on the other side.
Maybe "nervous" isn't the right word. Maybe "anxious" would describe it better. I know that "worried" isn't correct. Because it's not that I'm concerned that anything bad will happen. It's just that I don't know what to expect. I know that something big will happen, and that I will be very different tomorrow than I am today, but I don't have a clear idea how, exactly. And that fear of the unknown, combined with the anticipation of the event itself, always gives me a bit of a "butterflies in the tummy" feeling beforehand. It's also a feeling of exhilaration, which is, of course, almost indistinguishable from anxiety. I guess we sometimes refer to this feeling as "nerves" or "jitters."
I'm also a bit more excited than usual this time around, because there are some bigger things going on this year than usual. This night will mark the beginning of a year-long period of monasticism and self-sacrifice for me. And while I'm looking forward to that, it's also a scary thing to face on some levels. What if I have a horrible year because of this decision? What if it's too hard? What if it's too painful? What if I fail?
But there's joy to balance that out, as well. An unexpected benefit of Her recent unemployment, is that she is now free to celebrate with me tonight. Which, I have to admit, I think I'm looking forward to more than anything else. Things have been weird, and kind of difficult, and distant, and more than a little unpleasant between us for a while now. I've changed a lot, suddenly and drastically, in the past couple of months. And that's a hard thing to adjust to - when your partner is suddenly such a completely different person. And especially so if adjusting doesn't happen to be one of your strong suits. I imagine she must feel pretty lonely right now. And the particular ways in which I've changed haven't exactly made me easier to live with, either. Though maybe "easy" isn't the right word. I don't know. I definitely don't think I'm as much fun as a I used to be, that's for sure.
So, I'm finding that I'm really, really excited about sharing this experience with her tonight. Excited by the possibility of re-connecting with her in some way, in any way, beyond the merely superficial mechanics of our cohabitation. Of sharing ourselves, again, in a poignant and reflective space, in a true and meaningful way. I know that we will both be happier after tonight. And I have the expectation that we will be happier in a specific way, but I'm also aware that isn't necessarily true - it could go either way. But whether the experience brings us closer together, or drives us further apart, I know that we will both feel better about our selves, and about each other.
Will us Luck. Göd Hexennacht and Happy May to you all. Be safe tonight.
We'll see you on the other side.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Obstacles...
I cannot tell you how long this road shall be, but fear not the obstacles in your path, for fate has vouchsafed your reward. Though the road may wind, yea, your hearts grow weary, still shall ye follow them, even unto your salvation. -Blind Seer, O Brother, Where Art Thou?
It seems as if the Universe has decided to test me.
I was pulled over for speeding last night on my ride home. I was in the middle of a long line of cars, just following the car in front of me for miles and miles. At one point, the car in front of me stopped to make a left-hand turn. Afterwards, I sped up to rejoin the line of cars that had moved off down the road away from me as I waited for the car in front of me to turn. I have no idea how fast I was going, or what the speed limit on that part of the winding road was, but that must've been where they caught me, because as I came up the next hill and around a bend, a Sheriff's deputy stepped out into the road ahead of me and signaled me to pull over. There were two deputies parked in someone's driveway, both pulling people over in the same way. It was clear this wasn't the actual speed trap; this was the net. I never saw the trap, but I assume that it must've been somewhere on that part of the road just after that left-hand turn, because that 100 yards where I sped up to rejoin the line of cars was the only time on the entire commute up to that point that I hadn't been in the middle of a line of cars. At every other point we'd been moving along like a line of ants, and I'd been going the same speed as the car in front of me, and the same speed as the car behind me. When I asked the deputy where I'd been speeding, all he would say was "Back there," pointing down the road in the direction I had just come. Well, duh, officer. Vague, much?
He said I was doing 67 in a 40. I don't think that's true, but I have to take his word for it. Normally, when you see a speed trap, it's reflexive to hit your brakes and check your speedometer. But since I never saw a trap, and since I was just trying to catch up to the car in front of me, I have no idea what speed I was actually going. And since he won't tell me where I was actually caught, I can't even verify that the speed limit was actually 40. But, whatever, no big deal. An $80 fine and 1 point on my license. Even though I just finally cleared all the points off my license this year, still, whatever, it's not the end of the world. And it could've been a lot worse - the deputy was giving me a big break by only charging me with 49 in a 40, rather than the full 67.
But I found that I had a really hard time getting over it. I felt like this completely ruined my new commute for me, this new route to work that I've fallen in love with and come to rely on. Because part of the reason this commute was so good for me was that it was relaxing - stress-free compared to 270. But now that I know that around every bend there could be a speed trap that I will never even be able to see, I'm feeling paranoid. My worry-free drive is now worry-ful. So, in order to deal with that I have to obey the speed limit, but that doesn't really help, either. Because now I'm constantly checking my speedometer and always worried about whether I'm speeding or not, where before I never even had to think about that. Also, a lot of the enjoyment of this road was that it was just a fun road to drive - a winding backroad through farm country. Having to obey a completely ridiculous 40mph speed limit on a twisting road in the middle of nowhere just sucks all of the fun out it. So now it's no fun, and stressful. Fuck, I might as well go back to taking I-270.
I was still really tense and upset when I got home, so I decided to try and meditate to see if I could relax a little. But it was really late by that point (I'd got caught at work and left later than I'd planned, then I had to stop by the grocery store, not to mention spending fifteen minutes sitting by the side of the road with the cops), and I still had a bunch more work I needed to do, so I didn't have much time available. Trying to meditate under pressure to hurry up and finish so you can get back to work is pretty self-defeating, to say the least, so as you can probably imagine, it didn't go very well. But the biggest obstacle was that I had a song stuck in my head. This is something that has come up consistently throughout my entire meditative history, and I have never found a successful method of dealing with it. Basically, every once in a while, I will try to meditate, and I'll find there's a snatch of a song repeating in my head, and there's simply nothing I can do about it. I never get any meditation accomplished during these sessions, because the song continually breaks my concentration, and there's no way to get rid of it. And every time it breaks my concentration or breaks me out of my meditation I get a little more upset about it.
So when I sat down this time, and heard the song in my head, I knew that I was completely fucked right from the start. Still, I tried anyways, doing a full 108 breath cycle, but it did no good. When I stood up from my mat, I was even more stressed out and upset than I was when I sat down.
Our internet was still down, so that made a whole bunch of things more difficult and/or impossible, adding further frustration, complication, and aggravation to an already stressful evening. When I finally got to bed, it was no surprise that I didn't sleep very well.
This morning, my beautiful, relaxing new commute was, as predicted, stressful and unpleasant. But at least I didn't get pulled over.
I got to the gym bright and early at 7:30, only to find the place packed. Every treadmill taken, every elliptical taken. Part of the reason I enjoy working out in the early morning is because it is never packed. But there were at least twice as many people in there this morning as I have ever seen in there before! I have never had to wait to use a machine before, either. I didn't know what to do. So I ended up just standing around for fifteen minutes, until a machine opened up. Which, of course, threw off my schedule for the rest of my morning by fifteen minutes.
But here's the kicker: about an hour after I get up to my office from the gym, She calls me to tell me that she's just been fired. From the job she's had for eight years. By her new boss (about the tenth she's had in the last two years), who's been there only a couple of months.
Wow.
Ok.
Gotta say, didn't see that one coming.
Up to this point, it had just been a series of annoying complications. But this is different. This is a sudden 90-degree turn in the course of our life from here on.
It's kind of difficult to take it all in, honestly. Suddenly, the foundation of our lives has become slightly unstable. We know a lot of things are about to change, drastically. But, we don't really know which things, or how, or in what way. It could be anything from Really Bad (e.g., we can't pay our mortgage and end up losing our home, etc.) all the way to Totally Amazing (e.g., she could end up with a new job that she loves, that pays better, that finally gives us more time together, etc.). Everything is up in the air, which is scary, but also full of potential, which is exhilarating.
This time will be what we make of it.
So, are we up to the challenge?
I have to say, I'm looking forward to finding out.
The Beginning is a delicate time. -Princess Irulan, Dune
Monday, April 9, 2012
It's Not A River, It's A Bullet...
"Denial is how it kills you," he said.
They were sitting on the beach, watching the waves, the Sun setting behind them, feeling the cool, salty air on their faces, and discussing their respective abuses. They were three days into their week-long vacation, the first the three brothers had taken together since the youngest was still a baby, and the first they had ever taken together as adults. The youngest had just recently graduated college, and this trip was a sort of present for him from the older two. At that moment, he was back up at the cottage, enjoying his girlfriend, while the older two were on the beach, the eldest trying his best to educate the middle brother with whatever bullshit-wisdom he'd managed to glean by that point in his life. He felt it was his duty, in some way, as the oldest. Especially now that their parents were gone.
"Yeah, it's the denial that gets you. That's the one thing they got right in those meetings. You can have a relatively easy time of things, and keep using for a long, long time, so long as you don't start lying to yourself about it. But the second you start thinking, 'I don't have a problem,' then the drug's got you, and you're done for."
The waves crashed on the beach in a constant rhythm, like the slow, steady heartbeat of the world. A young family flew a kite together some yards away down the beach from where the two brothers sat, and a man fished the surf down in the other direction. The middle brother sat silent, listening, not knowing what to say; not sure if he should.
"It starts off, you're just having a good time. Being young and reckless and free, and feeling as good as you possibly can. Nothin' wrong with that. But, it's inevitable - at some point, it's going to change you. That 'want' is going to slowly turn into 'need.' And it's so hard to tell when that's happening. And if you're not looking for it, you'll never see it. So that's the thing - you have to always be looking for it. Always. You have to be constantly asking yourself, 'Am I addicted to this? Am I starting to need it?' And the first time you're not 100% certain that the answer is 'No,' then the answer is 'Yes.'"
The waves crashed, and the breeze kissed their faces. The little girl screamed happily as she flew her kite, and a gull cried somewhere over the water. The middle brother stared out across the ocean at the blurry blue line of the horizon, feeling sheepish and guilty, and more than a little stupid, as he so often did when he talked with his older brother. He realized he'd never even thought of these things, let alone asked himself these questions. Am I an addict?, he asked himself. And he realized, he didn't know the answer.
"So, that's the key: near-constant self-reflection, combined with brutal honesty. It's the only way to do this shit, and be able to enjoy it, and not end up fuckin' dyin' from it. 'The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.' You have to be able to look at yourself and say 'I'm an addict. I'm a drunk. I'm a fuckin' junkie.' You have to be able to recognize that, and to accept it about yourself. That doesn't excuse it, of course. Doesn't make it ok just because you can admit it. But, if you can't say that to yourself, then you'll never even have a chance to make it right, because you'll never even know that anything was wrong."
The sky was slowly progressing from yellow to orange, and the breeze was starting to pick up. It was going to be a beautiful night. The middle brother didn't think he could ask himself those questions. And he was sure he couldn't answer them correctly. His whole life, his brothers had always seemed to do everything better than he did. And he looked up to them both, and loved them both so much. He felt surrounded by their greatness; almost comforted by it, in a way. But that only made his feeling of mediocrity that much more acute by comparison. He's talking about this like it's the easiest thing in the fucking world to do. But I can't stand to think about myself at all, so how the fuck am I supposed to be able to do it constantly? Hell, that's one of the reasons I like getting high so much in the first place, so I don't have to think about this shit.
"That is the only thing that keeps this urge in check. Without it, you've got no reason to resist at all. Remember, getting high is a constant downward slide, and at the bottom is degradation, at best; death, at worst. You wanna stay up near the top of that slide, where it's all still fun and games. Where it isn't consuming you, taking over your whole life. And that honest self-reflection, that willingness to admit to yourself, and the world, that you have a problem, is the one and only tool you have to keep yourself from sailing off down that slide and into nothing."
A constant downward slide, huh? Well, thanks for telling me that now, big brother. He watched as the fisherman down the beach wrestled to bring in a sandshark, and remembered the first time he'd gotten high. He'd been fifteen at the time, and it had been a Summer night, a lot like this one. Big brother had said, "Yeah, I guess you're about old enough now," as though he were answering a question that no one had asked. Then he'd said, "Follow me," and they'd walked out into the woods behind their family's house. They'd sat down against the base of a big tree, and passed a joint, watching the fireflies come on. To this day, it was one of the greatest nights of his life. He couldn't help but feel that this warning was coming a bit too late.
"Drugs are a tool; they serve a purpose. They're not inherently good or bad. It's all in how you use them. But they're a dangerous tool. Like a gun. And like a gun, you have to treat them carefully, and with respect, or they'll kill you. If you don't ask yourself these questions, constantly - or if you can't answer them honestly - then you're done for. You won't have any reason to slow down at all, and you'll use more and more, needing more and more to get less and less out of it, as it eats away at your body; your mind. Your soul, even. You'll lose your Self. And then what've you got? Because that's all you ever had, right? I'm speakin' from experience here. It's so easy to think you've got everything under control, and it's everyone else who has the problem, not you. But that's the Need talkin'. And you can't listen to it. You just gotta keep asking yourself those questions, never stop wondering if this is the day it's finally happened to you - because it will, eventually, some day."
He'd heard this gun metaphor before. It was one of big brother's favorites. He honestly didn't know if he had a problem or not, but how could he say that out loud, to this man he'd looked up to his entire life? This person whose approval he had sought for as long as he could remember, almost even more than he had their parents'? He watched the little girl flying her kite, as happy as a person ever could be, and he thought about it, really thought about it for the first time. He knew he didn't use anywhere near as much as either of his brothers, but he also knew that they were both a lot more successful than he was, and that they didn't struggle with anything the way he always seemed to. And this had always seemed to come so easily to them. But lately, it'd been all he could do to make sure he didn't get sick at work. He could even remember a couple of times where he'd had to choose between getting high and getting groceries. It hadn't been that hard to bum food off of people. Easier than he'd thought. Definitely easier than bumming dope. He was sure his brothers had never been in a similar situation. They'd never allow it.
"But as long as you can do that, as long as you can ask and answer those difficult questions without flinching, then you'll be alright. You'll be able to see the bottom of that slide coming at you, and you'll have a chance to do something about it. You'll be able to say, 'Whoa, hold on a minute here! This isn't what I want. I gotta cut this shit out for a while.' But you have to be able to recognize that there's a problem before you can hope to do anything about it. Ha, don't look so worried, little brother. We come from a long line of drunks and junkies and users - it's in our blood. Their voices are inside of us. Listen to them, and they'll tell you what to do. They'll steer you right."
He didn't know what to say. What could he say? He understood, and on some level he already knew. But he couldn't do anything about it. He wasn't like them. He couldn't be honest with himself that way. He didn't want to. He knew he felt safe when he was with his brothers, like they'd be able to take care of everything. And he knew he never felt that way when he was by himself. His whole life, he'd wanted nothing more than to be like the two of them. But he knew he never would be. And now, he also knew, that would be the end of him.
I need to say something, he thought. He watched that little girl with her kite and he remembered those days, what that felt like, and he knew they were gone, and he wanted to be like her. And he felt the sting in his eye and he felt his lip begin to curl and he thought, I need to say it, I need to say it now, I need to say it right now... And he felt the breeze come on strong all of a sudden, in the opposite direction, a gust of moist brine blowing through him. And he saw the kite dive from the sky in the sudden reversal of force, saw it dive straight at her, saw it smash her in the face and knock her to the sand. Her shrill screams filled the beach, and the gulls took flight in alarm, screaming with her, as if they knew.
"Come on," big brother said, standing up and brushing the sand from his legs. "I bet those two're done by now. Let's see if baby brother has any of those joints left. We'll get twisted before dinner."
...
This story was inspired by a piece of my dreaming last night. In the dream, I was one of the two characters on the beach (not saying which), but I decided to write it in third person, just as an exercise. As before, I just let it come to me, one piece at a time, sort of letting the story tell itself.
As much as I enjoyed writing this, I can't wait to have something else to write about. It can't all be drug addiction and death. I know I must have something else to say, some other story to tell.
Patience, child...
They were sitting on the beach, watching the waves, the Sun setting behind them, feeling the cool, salty air on their faces, and discussing their respective abuses. They were three days into their week-long vacation, the first the three brothers had taken together since the youngest was still a baby, and the first they had ever taken together as adults. The youngest had just recently graduated college, and this trip was a sort of present for him from the older two. At that moment, he was back up at the cottage, enjoying his girlfriend, while the older two were on the beach, the eldest trying his best to educate the middle brother with whatever bullshit-wisdom he'd managed to glean by that point in his life. He felt it was his duty, in some way, as the oldest. Especially now that their parents were gone.
"Yeah, it's the denial that gets you. That's the one thing they got right in those meetings. You can have a relatively easy time of things, and keep using for a long, long time, so long as you don't start lying to yourself about it. But the second you start thinking, 'I don't have a problem,' then the drug's got you, and you're done for."
The waves crashed on the beach in a constant rhythm, like the slow, steady heartbeat of the world. A young family flew a kite together some yards away down the beach from where the two brothers sat, and a man fished the surf down in the other direction. The middle brother sat silent, listening, not knowing what to say; not sure if he should.
"It starts off, you're just having a good time. Being young and reckless and free, and feeling as good as you possibly can. Nothin' wrong with that. But, it's inevitable - at some point, it's going to change you. That 'want' is going to slowly turn into 'need.' And it's so hard to tell when that's happening. And if you're not looking for it, you'll never see it. So that's the thing - you have to always be looking for it. Always. You have to be constantly asking yourself, 'Am I addicted to this? Am I starting to need it?' And the first time you're not 100% certain that the answer is 'No,' then the answer is 'Yes.'"
The waves crashed, and the breeze kissed their faces. The little girl screamed happily as she flew her kite, and a gull cried somewhere over the water. The middle brother stared out across the ocean at the blurry blue line of the horizon, feeling sheepish and guilty, and more than a little stupid, as he so often did when he talked with his older brother. He realized he'd never even thought of these things, let alone asked himself these questions. Am I an addict?, he asked himself. And he realized, he didn't know the answer.
"So, that's the key: near-constant self-reflection, combined with brutal honesty. It's the only way to do this shit, and be able to enjoy it, and not end up fuckin' dyin' from it. 'The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.' You have to be able to look at yourself and say 'I'm an addict. I'm a drunk. I'm a fuckin' junkie.' You have to be able to recognize that, and to accept it about yourself. That doesn't excuse it, of course. Doesn't make it ok just because you can admit it. But, if you can't say that to yourself, then you'll never even have a chance to make it right, because you'll never even know that anything was wrong."
The sky was slowly progressing from yellow to orange, and the breeze was starting to pick up. It was going to be a beautiful night. The middle brother didn't think he could ask himself those questions. And he was sure he couldn't answer them correctly. His whole life, his brothers had always seemed to do everything better than he did. And he looked up to them both, and loved them both so much. He felt surrounded by their greatness; almost comforted by it, in a way. But that only made his feeling of mediocrity that much more acute by comparison. He's talking about this like it's the easiest thing in the fucking world to do. But I can't stand to think about myself at all, so how the fuck am I supposed to be able to do it constantly? Hell, that's one of the reasons I like getting high so much in the first place, so I don't have to think about this shit.
"That is the only thing that keeps this urge in check. Without it, you've got no reason to resist at all. Remember, getting high is a constant downward slide, and at the bottom is degradation, at best; death, at worst. You wanna stay up near the top of that slide, where it's all still fun and games. Where it isn't consuming you, taking over your whole life. And that honest self-reflection, that willingness to admit to yourself, and the world, that you have a problem, is the one and only tool you have to keep yourself from sailing off down that slide and into nothing."
A constant downward slide, huh? Well, thanks for telling me that now, big brother. He watched as the fisherman down the beach wrestled to bring in a sandshark, and remembered the first time he'd gotten high. He'd been fifteen at the time, and it had been a Summer night, a lot like this one. Big brother had said, "Yeah, I guess you're about old enough now," as though he were answering a question that no one had asked. Then he'd said, "Follow me," and they'd walked out into the woods behind their family's house. They'd sat down against the base of a big tree, and passed a joint, watching the fireflies come on. To this day, it was one of the greatest nights of his life. He couldn't help but feel that this warning was coming a bit too late.
"Drugs are a tool; they serve a purpose. They're not inherently good or bad. It's all in how you use them. But they're a dangerous tool. Like a gun. And like a gun, you have to treat them carefully, and with respect, or they'll kill you. If you don't ask yourself these questions, constantly - or if you can't answer them honestly - then you're done for. You won't have any reason to slow down at all, and you'll use more and more, needing more and more to get less and less out of it, as it eats away at your body; your mind. Your soul, even. You'll lose your Self. And then what've you got? Because that's all you ever had, right? I'm speakin' from experience here. It's so easy to think you've got everything under control, and it's everyone else who has the problem, not you. But that's the Need talkin'. And you can't listen to it. You just gotta keep asking yourself those questions, never stop wondering if this is the day it's finally happened to you - because it will, eventually, some day."
He'd heard this gun metaphor before. It was one of big brother's favorites. He honestly didn't know if he had a problem or not, but how could he say that out loud, to this man he'd looked up to his entire life? This person whose approval he had sought for as long as he could remember, almost even more than he had their parents'? He watched the little girl flying her kite, as happy as a person ever could be, and he thought about it, really thought about it for the first time. He knew he didn't use anywhere near as much as either of his brothers, but he also knew that they were both a lot more successful than he was, and that they didn't struggle with anything the way he always seemed to. And this had always seemed to come so easily to them. But lately, it'd been all he could do to make sure he didn't get sick at work. He could even remember a couple of times where he'd had to choose between getting high and getting groceries. It hadn't been that hard to bum food off of people. Easier than he'd thought. Definitely easier than bumming dope. He was sure his brothers had never been in a similar situation. They'd never allow it.
"But as long as you can do that, as long as you can ask and answer those difficult questions without flinching, then you'll be alright. You'll be able to see the bottom of that slide coming at you, and you'll have a chance to do something about it. You'll be able to say, 'Whoa, hold on a minute here! This isn't what I want. I gotta cut this shit out for a while.' But you have to be able to recognize that there's a problem before you can hope to do anything about it. Ha, don't look so worried, little brother. We come from a long line of drunks and junkies and users - it's in our blood. Their voices are inside of us. Listen to them, and they'll tell you what to do. They'll steer you right."
He didn't know what to say. What could he say? He understood, and on some level he already knew. But he couldn't do anything about it. He wasn't like them. He couldn't be honest with himself that way. He didn't want to. He knew he felt safe when he was with his brothers, like they'd be able to take care of everything. And he knew he never felt that way when he was by himself. His whole life, he'd wanted nothing more than to be like the two of them. But he knew he never would be. And now, he also knew, that would be the end of him.
I need to say something, he thought. He watched that little girl with her kite and he remembered those days, what that felt like, and he knew they were gone, and he wanted to be like her. And he felt the sting in his eye and he felt his lip begin to curl and he thought, I need to say it, I need to say it now, I need to say it right now... And he felt the breeze come on strong all of a sudden, in the opposite direction, a gust of moist brine blowing through him. And he saw the kite dive from the sky in the sudden reversal of force, saw it dive straight at her, saw it smash her in the face and knock her to the sand. Her shrill screams filled the beach, and the gulls took flight in alarm, screaming with her, as if they knew.
"Come on," big brother said, standing up and brushing the sand from his legs. "I bet those two're done by now. Let's see if baby brother has any of those joints left. We'll get twisted before dinner."
...
This story was inspired by a piece of my dreaming last night. In the dream, I was one of the two characters on the beach (not saying which), but I decided to write it in third person, just as an exercise. As before, I just let it come to me, one piece at a time, sort of letting the story tell itself.
As much as I enjoyed writing this, I can't wait to have something else to write about. It can't all be drug addiction and death. I know I must have something else to say, some other story to tell.
Patience, child...
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Emptying, to Form...
Where am I going with this?
What am I doing?
What's wrong with me? Why am I so unhappy?
What do I want?
Do I love you, completely?
Do I love you, at all?
Or do I just need to feel loved by someone?
...
No. No, that's not the right question. I do love you. We've been through way too much together for way too long, have too much history, for me to not love you. There's a part of me that will always love you, in some way.
The question is, do I love you the way that I'm supposed to? Do I love you the way that a husband should love his wife? Or do I just love you as the one person I've been closer to in my life, and shared more of myself with, than any other?
And is there a difference?
Questions, questions, questions! Everywhere I look it's more fucking questions! WHERE ARE THE FUCKING ANSWERS?!!
...
I've moved out, temporarily. Checked myself into a hotel for the week.
Why? What do I hope to gain from that? Am I just trying to "shake things up" - just introduce a little anarchy into my life to see what happens? Am I just trying to force a random change? Or am I trying to step out of my life, to gain some perspective? Or am I just hiding? Just running away?
I don't know. I don't know if I ever knew.
I'm grasping at straws here. Suddenly, every single little thing is pregnant with meaning. Is this The Answer? Is this what I need? Will this make me better? Will this solve my problems?
How can I get better when I don't even know what's wrong? How can I find The Answer when I don't even know The Question??
Am I looking for fulfillment? Or do I just want a happy, satisfying marriage? Are they mutually exclusive? Or are they one and the same?
...
I keep coming back to this one thought. That I need to clean up my act. That everything will be better, and I will be happy and content, if I just give up the drink and all the rest, start working out and losing weight and eating right, start meditating again and studying the Tao, etc., etc.
But then I also can't shake the feeling that all of that is just a bunch of middle-aged, white, American, liberal, hipster bullshit.
But I'm following my gut, aren't I? That's what I'm doing right now. I'm following my gut instincts, blindly, in a desperate attempt to get away from wherever the fuck I am right now, to someplace, anyplace else.
And it's my gut that's telling me to follow that path. That salad yesterday (my first in I-can't-remember-when; it's been all pot pies and beer lately) was the best thing I've tasted in a long, long time. It's was, literally, unbelievably, shockingly delicious. And there was absolutely nothing special about it - just greens, some veggies, and oil & vinegar. I keep thinking about how wonderful it would be to just spend some time sitting still and being quiet. I keep dreaming of my gomden the way I've so often dreamed of the pipe. That stupid little weekly email quote from Pema Chodron felt like the Universe speaking directly to ME.
And it's my head that's telling me it's all a load of crap.
That means something.
Doesn't it?
But what if all of that only feels right because it's my safety net; because it's safe and familiar because that's what I do when I get lost in these existential crises? ("Existential Crisis" - jesus, talk about a first-world fucking problem. How spoiled of a brat do I have to be to even be taking any of this seriously? But, what, am I supposed to pretend I have the experience of a migrant worker in Guatemala or some shit?? I DON'T. I can only be who I am. And I am a white, middle-aged American liberal, who is fortunate enough to have the luxury of being able to engage in this kind of introspective panic.)
But what if that's what I do when I get in these situations because that's what I'm supposed to do in these situations because that is The Answer to these problems?!
Ugh, this is making me dizzy.
...
And way, way back in the deep down of me, I feel this fear. This fear that I'm going to die here. That I'm never going to get out of this maze of questions alive. That any reprieve is only temporary, and that I will always end up right back here.
That they're going to find me, cold and still on a hotel bed, the same way they found my mother.
I'm scared of the way that feels like Destiny.
...
And She says, "I'm sure it hurts! I can't imagine caring so much about so many things. It must be exhausting! Maybe you should get back into the Tao so you can let things go and ease your pain..."
And I can't help but laugh! She has no idea I've been thinking that, or writing this here, at the exact same time. Out of the mouths of babes...
Is it another sign? Or am I just connecting dots to find the pattern in the chaos that I want to see?
...
Is all of this just because I don't like myself? Is that why I feel compelled to do all of those self-improvements? Because I feel like I would like myself better?
...
When I'm drifting like this, grasping at straws, lost and desperate in this vague and undefined way, I find that I start to obsess about strange things. A lot of the time it starts as ordinary, banal escapism. But sometimes it leads me to the Way Out. The most famous example of this in my life so far, was reading Wild Cards in the bath way back when. In about the strangest way possible, it was those baths that led me directly to my first direct experience of the Tao. Changed my life forever.
Right now, it's The Moth.
I can't stop listening to it. Every story just makes me feel, so much, and so powerfully. And so I guess there must be something about that feel-ing that I need right now, just like I needed to disappear into the warm water back then. I would assume then, that also like the baths, I probably will only be able to explain this obsession in hindsight.
Follow Your Instincts.
It's the only thing I feel like I can do right now. When all else fails (and, let's be honest, all else really has failed here), then Follow Your Instincts.
It's the only thing I feel like I know, for certain.
...
Yesterday, the quote on Zen Pencils reminded me of Bill Hicks' "It's just a ride..." quote. I got a strong urge to submit that quote to the author/webmaster. In doing that, I had to find it in my PDA so I could copy and paste it into the email.
Just now, I needed to go into the same section of my PDA that holds all my little notes and stuff, to look up something else. It was still on the same page with the Bill Hicks' quote. That page is titled "Philosophies."
I have a collection of notes on my Philosophies of Life that I've collected over the years, stored in my PDA - and I had completely forgotten about it!
And there it was, right in the middle of the list: The Tao of ManniMoonYin that had come to me so many years ago under such similar circumstances - the Tao that I had been led to from my bath.
How can it be?? It seems that I've forgotten my Tao:
"All things that are, are change."
("All things that are, are fire." The only constant is change. Nothing lasts forever. EVERYTHING is mutable.)
"You cannot be good. You cannot be bad. You can only be."
(You cannot be "good," and you cannot be "bad." These are entirely relative judgements - what is "good" for one will be "bad" for another, and vice versa. The only thing you can "be," is Michael.)
"Look on the bright side." "Make the most of it."
(This is the only life you get. There's nothing good nor bad but thinking makes it so - so find the good in *everything* - even your mother's suicide was a good thing when you figured out how to look at it right. Choose joy, and you will be joyous.)
"You are amazing. And so is everyone else."
(Glass houses; no one is fit to judge anyone else. Judgement only leads to division, separation, and loneliness. We are all One.)
...
That's 3 coincidences now today, all pointing to the same thing. And today is my 3rd day of this desperate searching.
Even if I'm just connecting the dots in the chaos to find the pattern I want to see, that pattern is obviously deeply meaningful to me in some way. My path clearly leads in that direction. And if I am to follow my instincts, then how can I ignore the pattern I see in the noise, like meaning in an inkblot?
It seems that I have found My Answer.
...
What am I doing?
What's wrong with me? Why am I so unhappy?
What do I want?
Do I love you, completely?
Do I love you, at all?
Or do I just need to feel loved by someone?
...
No. No, that's not the right question. I do love you. We've been through way too much together for way too long, have too much history, for me to not love you. There's a part of me that will always love you, in some way.
The question is, do I love you the way that I'm supposed to? Do I love you the way that a husband should love his wife? Or do I just love you as the one person I've been closer to in my life, and shared more of myself with, than any other?
And is there a difference?
Questions, questions, questions! Everywhere I look it's more fucking questions! WHERE ARE THE FUCKING ANSWERS?!!
...
I've moved out, temporarily. Checked myself into a hotel for the week.
Why? What do I hope to gain from that? Am I just trying to "shake things up" - just introduce a little anarchy into my life to see what happens? Am I just trying to force a random change? Or am I trying to step out of my life, to gain some perspective? Or am I just hiding? Just running away?
I don't know. I don't know if I ever knew.
I'm grasping at straws here. Suddenly, every single little thing is pregnant with meaning. Is this The Answer? Is this what I need? Will this make me better? Will this solve my problems?
How can I get better when I don't even know what's wrong? How can I find The Answer when I don't even know The Question??
Am I looking for fulfillment? Or do I just want a happy, satisfying marriage? Are they mutually exclusive? Or are they one and the same?
...
I keep coming back to this one thought. That I need to clean up my act. That everything will be better, and I will be happy and content, if I just give up the drink and all the rest, start working out and losing weight and eating right, start meditating again and studying the Tao, etc., etc.
But then I also can't shake the feeling that all of that is just a bunch of middle-aged, white, American, liberal, hipster bullshit.
But I'm following my gut, aren't I? That's what I'm doing right now. I'm following my gut instincts, blindly, in a desperate attempt to get away from wherever the fuck I am right now, to someplace, anyplace else.
And it's my gut that's telling me to follow that path. That salad yesterday (my first in I-can't-remember-when; it's been all pot pies and beer lately) was the best thing I've tasted in a long, long time. It's was, literally, unbelievably, shockingly delicious. And there was absolutely nothing special about it - just greens, some veggies, and oil & vinegar. I keep thinking about how wonderful it would be to just spend some time sitting still and being quiet. I keep dreaming of my gomden the way I've so often dreamed of the pipe. That stupid little weekly email quote from Pema Chodron felt like the Universe speaking directly to ME.
And it's my head that's telling me it's all a load of crap.
That means something.
Doesn't it?
But what if all of that only feels right because it's my safety net; because it's safe and familiar because that's what I do when I get lost in these existential crises? ("Existential Crisis" - jesus, talk about a first-world fucking problem. How spoiled of a brat do I have to be to even be taking any of this seriously? But, what, am I supposed to pretend I have the experience of a migrant worker in Guatemala or some shit?? I DON'T. I can only be who I am. And I am a white, middle-aged American liberal, who is fortunate enough to have the luxury of being able to engage in this kind of introspective panic.)
But what if that's what I do when I get in these situations because that's what I'm supposed to do in these situations because that is The Answer to these problems?!
Ugh, this is making me dizzy.
...
And way, way back in the deep down of me, I feel this fear. This fear that I'm going to die here. That I'm never going to get out of this maze of questions alive. That any reprieve is only temporary, and that I will always end up right back here.
That they're going to find me, cold and still on a hotel bed, the same way they found my mother.
I'm scared of the way that feels like Destiny.
...
And She says, "I'm sure it hurts! I can't imagine caring so much about so many things. It must be exhausting! Maybe you should get back into the Tao so you can let things go and ease your pain..."
And I can't help but laugh! She has no idea I've been thinking that, or writing this here, at the exact same time. Out of the mouths of babes...
Is it another sign? Or am I just connecting dots to find the pattern in the chaos that I want to see?
...
Is all of this just because I don't like myself? Is that why I feel compelled to do all of those self-improvements? Because I feel like I would like myself better?
...
When I'm drifting like this, grasping at straws, lost and desperate in this vague and undefined way, I find that I start to obsess about strange things. A lot of the time it starts as ordinary, banal escapism. But sometimes it leads me to the Way Out. The most famous example of this in my life so far, was reading Wild Cards in the bath way back when. In about the strangest way possible, it was those baths that led me directly to my first direct experience of the Tao. Changed my life forever.
Right now, it's The Moth.
I can't stop listening to it. Every story just makes me feel, so much, and so powerfully. And so I guess there must be something about that feel-ing that I need right now, just like I needed to disappear into the warm water back then. I would assume then, that also like the baths, I probably will only be able to explain this obsession in hindsight.
Follow Your Instincts.
It's the only thing I feel like I can do right now. When all else fails (and, let's be honest, all else really has failed here), then Follow Your Instincts.
It's the only thing I feel like I know, for certain.
...
Yesterday, the quote on Zen Pencils reminded me of Bill Hicks' "It's just a ride..." quote. I got a strong urge to submit that quote to the author/webmaster. In doing that, I had to find it in my PDA so I could copy and paste it into the email.
Just now, I needed to go into the same section of my PDA that holds all my little notes and stuff, to look up something else. It was still on the same page with the Bill Hicks' quote. That page is titled "Philosophies."
I have a collection of notes on my Philosophies of Life that I've collected over the years, stored in my PDA - and I had completely forgotten about it!
And there it was, right in the middle of the list: The Tao of ManniMoonYin that had come to me so many years ago under such similar circumstances - the Tao that I had been led to from my bath.
How can it be?? It seems that I've forgotten my Tao:
"All things that are, are change."
("All things that are, are fire." The only constant is change. Nothing lasts forever. EVERYTHING is mutable.)
"You cannot be good. You cannot be bad. You can only be."
(You cannot be "good," and you cannot be "bad." These are entirely relative judgements - what is "good" for one will be "bad" for another, and vice versa. The only thing you can "be," is Michael.)
"Look on the bright side." "Make the most of it."
(This is the only life you get. There's nothing good nor bad but thinking makes it so - so find the good in *everything* - even your mother's suicide was a good thing when you figured out how to look at it right. Choose joy, and you will be joyous.)
"You are amazing. And so is everyone else."
(Glass houses; no one is fit to judge anyone else. Judgement only leads to division, separation, and loneliness. We are all One.)
...
That's 3 coincidences now today, all pointing to the same thing. And today is my 3rd day of this desperate searching.
Even if I'm just connecting the dots in the chaos to find the pattern I want to see, that pattern is obviously deeply meaningful to me in some way. My path clearly leads in that direction. And if I am to follow my instincts, then how can I ignore the pattern I see in the noise, like meaning in an inkblot?
It seems that I have found My Answer.
...
Friday, June 4, 2010
In the Dreaming of Olde Fredericktowne...
Friday, May 28th (last night of the full moon)
-8:39p - Sacrament: sick rose
-8:45-9:19p - ritually deconstruct altar, construct altar to Cthulhu
-9:20p - Sacrament: liao
-9:25p - all lights off, ignite altarcandle/Lya'o incense, take meditative posture of half-lotus, hands on knees in Kish mudra and engage mindfold
-~9:30p - decide to perform Battery Activation Meditation (routine chi-visualization ritual I often use as an opening rite; activates the power-centers, opens a Black Lotus at each of my tan-t'ien, encases me in a geometric energy construct that serves as both a dimension portal & a protective barrier, and finally centers me on the Axis Mundi) - sitting inside my construct, I feel powerful, serene, comfortable, safe, strong, secure, aware - hesitant to perform the last step for some reason - don't want to "break the bubble", which I've never felt here before - eventually I gather my chi along my spine and launch out the top of my skull and down my tailbone and out to the ends of creation until I am centered on the Pole of the Universe - something strange, different from other times; something I've never experienced here before - normally I feel god-like from this vantage point - but now I suddenly feel absolutely infinitesimal - instead of retaining my own perspective, as has always happened before, it seems as though my perspective on the Axis Mundi has shifted to the infinite universe itself! - I feel like I've shrunk to the size of a particle - and, yet, I also feel, quite distinctly, as though the ENTIRE UNIVERSE IS NOW STARING DIRECTLY AT ME - I shrink even further
-9:43p - Journal Entry: "mindfold - darkness, which had been comfortably enveloping me suddenly became oppressive and claustrophobic - I wanted out - then malevolent! - some thing was coming AT ME through the dark - trying to get into me - masses of black worms - tendrils IN MY EYES" [note added here: my entire field of "vision" inside the darkness of the mindfold was filled with the writhing of black tendrils - I quickly removed my mask and opened my eyes, and saw my new altar for what felt like the very first time]
-9:46p - JE: "almost as if in response(?) sudden overwhelming urge to masturbate myself before the altar - pleasure was overwhelming, yet remained flaccid throughout, even through orgasm and ejaculation - very aware that it was the mental image of my limp cock birthing millions of tiny tentacled blobs of slime that finally triggered my orgasm" [note: another experience unknown to me before tonight - afterward, felt slightly nauseous, kind of sticky & gross; wanted to take a shower] [addendum: realization as I'm writing this that I should have consumed this sacrament, as well! a missed opportunity.]
-9:59p - JE: "decide it's time to begin my descent" [note: following this entry, I gathered my tools and got dressed - I wore the Silver Key on a ribbon wrapped around my wrist, and an ankh (for ghouls) on a chain around my neck - I filled my pockets with small sacrificial offerings from my altar, a few tools I thought I might possibly want or need along the way (bag of runelots for divination, iPod, etc.), and some basic practical items for the journey (water, phone, etc.)]
-10:29p - JE: "Begin descent." [note: after making this entry, I opened the blinds covering the window above my altar, letting the world back in, and letting it out onto the world - then I turned around, put in my earpieces and turned on my music (Aklo, "Unnameable" and "Beyond Madness", shuffle/repeat), formed both hands into the Kish mudra and began to count out the Seventy Steps of Light Slumber that begin the descent into the Dreamlands]
-seventy steps from my altar turned out to be the second to last step at the bottom of the stairs before reaching the courtyard of my building - was this the Cavern of Flame? - I waited - no, it wasn't - what now? - there is a secret door at the back of the courtyard; an iron gate that leads out into the wild of vines and weeds and giant, gnarled, hundred-year-old oaks hidden in the darkness behind the building - going through the gate is step 1 of the Seventy Steps of Light Slumber
-I count my steps through the dark, leading along the path from the gate and out into the gravel lot behind the building - there is a large, ancient, rectangular hunk of shattered concrete embedded in the middle of that lot for no apparent reason, and the seventieth step places me square on the South side of that block, facing North, looking directly at the gate leading out of the lot, and exactly in the middle of a 2' triangle formed by three intersecting cracks in the concrete - when I step into the triangle, the music crescendos and the chittering sounds grow louder and more insistent - this is the Cavern of Flame
-I stand waiting in the middle of the empty lot - I am in darkness, but I can see the cars and people on the street not fifty feet in front of me - none of them seems to notice me - despite the security of the darkness, I feel open and exposed - I become aware of two large, columnar shadows suddenly flanking either side of me - I don't want to look directly at them - tall, shadow-black, man-shaped, arms folded over chests, wearing headdresses - Nasht and Kaman-Tha - am I worthy to proceed? - I stand waiting, waiting, under the weight of their gaze - why am I sweating? am I starting to shake? - cold rush of fear - I look to my right, directly at... Kaman-Tha, as it turns out - then to my left: Nasht - I am left alone - stepping out of the triangle is the first of the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Slumber
-counting out my steps toward the gate at the N end of the lot, I am suddenly aware that I am about to walk out onto the street, in public, walking in an odd and stunted way, with both of my hands rigidly held in what, to anyone else, is the middle-finger sign - I think this might arouse a bit too much attention - I jam my hands in my pockets so that I can continue to hold the mudras without being so obvious about it - now, with my hands jammed awkwardly in my pockets, and my staccato off-kilter walk, I feel as though I look like someone doing a very bad job of trying very hard to act nonchalant - this becomes especially tense when, around steps 450-500, I have to walk directly through a party of people that has spilled over the stoop and onto the sidewalk - I cannot hear any of them, am acting VERY weird, and have to walk right through the middle of everyone, very aware that I am interrupting everything and everyone is staring at me - I just continue counting - 523, 524, 525...
-at step 600, reach a crossroads - to my right is an alley - I feel very strongly that the remaining 100 steps lead in that direction - however continuing ahead of me, I know there is a sacred spot I've been to before; should be about a hundred steps away - which way do I go? gut feeling or intellectual curiosity? - usually I'll go with gut, but that alley looks like it leads into someone's backyard; I really don't want to get caught trespassing in someone's yard, right now, do I? - better proceed fwd instead
-at ~step 660, reach the gate of a public park, wherein lies the most potently magickal natural setting in my neighborhood - surely the Gate of Deeper Slumber is in there - but there is a large sign drilled into the gate - have I ever seen it before? - it says it is illegal to be in the park at this time of night - seems no matter which way I go, I'm going to have to commit some type of crime in order to reach the Gate of Deeper Slumber - there are a lot of people about on the street - no way I could walk in without being seen - how long have I been standing here, staring at this gate? - ... - ... - I can't do it - I guess I failed this attempt - nonetheless, I hold my mudras, and cross the street counting down the last steps, until I reach the seven hundredth
-10:45p - it feels wonderful to release my hands, roll up my sleeves, take a drink of cold water, and walk like a normal person again - am I in the Dreamlands now? - I don't know - decide to just start drifting
-L onto W. Patrick - "Crystal Row" - all the yoga studios and Reiki treatment centers and naturopathy clinics - never realized before, but all of these buildings are old *houses* - this has been a business district my whole life, but looking at it now, I can't help but see the residential neighborhood it was a century or more ago - these huge, old, Victorian "homes"; what would've been "mansions" back then - some of them still fitted with gaslight - how sinister and imposing they seem to me now, as never before - what horrors and atrocities had been birthed within those walls a hundred years ago? - how oddly out of place it seems to me now that they should all be housing new-age wellness centers! - like an amusement park built from the ruins of a concentration camp
-R down a street I've never seen before - lined with several multi-story condominiums I hadn't known were there - road makes a 90* bend to the R, and I follow it - end up in a back-alley that ends at a T - L, another alley - follow that to a crossroads where R looks like it leads out to a road - I take that R and end up... on the opposite side of Baker Park from where I just was up on W. Patrick. - I'm about a mile to two miles away from where I'd first turned down this street - ??? - how can that be?? - I'm on the other side of the fucking CANAL for fuck's sake! - how did I get to the other side of the canal without crossing a single bridge?!
-disoriented, I walk to the nearest bridge and cross the canal, then work my way back to the other side of the park, to where I'd been just a few minutes earlier [note: realizing now that it never even occurred to me to trace my steps back in the direction I had come - ??] - the path leads me through the park, following the canal - the water is black, and stagnant, and smells like a marsh - it is full of flies - I stop and sit down beside it to gag on the smell for a few minutes - doesn't take long before I'm actually starting to retch, so I continue on my way
-at this point, my wife begins txt'ing me from her night, and we continue to txt back and forth for the next couple of hours, until she goes to bed - the experience feels somewhat like getting a phone call from the other side of the looking glass
-TXT-Received: "Where you @, baby?" - Sent: "Dreaming"
-11p - finally free from the park, I am shocked to discover that the entire ordeal, everything from the seven hundredth step on, which seemed to last for hours, has only taken 15 minutes
-TXT-S: "How did that year only last 15mins?!"
-leaving the park, I cross Bentz and head E down W. Church St. - the mansions lining this street are pre-revolution, colonial - by American standards, they are ancient - if the houses on Crystal Row held hidden horrors, these ancient estates bled and screamed with unseen atrocities - every edifice seems to leer - every shadow has fangs - every well-tended topiary squats lifeless, like flowers in a tomb - I can hear screaming children being raped and sodomized - a young nigger slave girl's gurgling wails of uncomprehending terror while she watches as her infant is viciously carved from her womb - the sickening snap of bone - the sharp sting of a whip - the sloppy wet sound of vomiting - the smell of blood and shit
-then I come to the churches - this is Church St., after all - they've been built upon and added to and refurbished and renovated so many times through the centuries that they look modern now in comparison to the brick mansions all around them, even though they are technically much older - these are the "famous" Seven Clustered Spires of Olde Fredericktowne - standing on the street I look up to the top of the spire above me - from the smoky blackness above, I see the image of a dozen gargantuan tentacles free-falling out of the sky - they land squarely on the church, absolutely demolishing it in an explosion of brick and dust - I look down the street and see another mass of tentacles descend similarly, crushing another huge old church on the other side of the street - then the first mass of tentacles to my right lifts up into the sky almost as quickly as it came down, and I see it come down again, further down the street than the second mass but still on the same side of the street as it was before, again crushing another building - I realize now that these are limbs of some Thing that is *walking* down Church St. - every step utterly destroying some giant old stone building like a toy model - it quickly stomps off into the darkness at the far end of the street, several blocks away - I decide to follow it
-PIC1 - What long-forgotten tomes of ancient occulted knowledge are held hostage by the insidious Mr. Marshall Etchison??
-11:12p - JE: "reach the funereal [sic] home on Church St. it begins to rain. no... mist" [note: an enormous gothic mansion, the first time I visited this funeral home was to view my mother's body; this fall, I was back again, in the same room as a matter of fact, for the funeral of my wife's father - as I stood there staring at it, contemplating the width and breath of that horrible old building's place in my life, the air suddenly became wet - at first I thought it had started to rain, but then I looked down the street and realized that a mist had rolled in off the canal]
-turn R down Carroll Alley - past the post office - the stench of manure - end up on another bridge crossing the canal again - decide to turn L and head E down the canal towards the other side of town - quickly reach the end of the renovated "garden/shopping district" area of the canal and keep going, past the art museum, entering into the "flat, wide open river of concrete with a sewer running down the center of it" portion of the canal walk - suddenly notice there are marks covering the concrete here - no, wait; paintings - the entire expanse of concrete has been marked off into a grid of squares - each square is numbered - some of the squares are filled in with paintings - a couple indicating classes of schoolchildren - a couple apparently done by (and to promote) local civics organizations - a few of them simply artistic - I imagine that people must be purchasing the rights to paint these squares - but why? - it begins to rain in earnest now; silent lightening strobes the sky - a few of the painted squares grab my attention
-PIC2 - this square was apparently painted by Ms. MacGregor's 4th grade class - the knowledge of the Horrors Beyond the Stars has already infected our young!
-PIC3 - suggestion: skip lines 5-7, instead going from line 4 ("We are more than") directly to line 8 ("...life") - re-read - what is it saying now?
-PIC4 - in case the image is unclear, this block of stone displays the message "the stars eat your body." - someone PAID to write that there - I feel simultaneously wigged out and a growing affection for my hometown - this phrase would repeat in my mind for the rest of the night
-I follow the canal until it goes under E. Patrick - turn R and head E down E. Patrick - wife is txt'ing me again - we have a small chat back and forth as I walk - going back and forth from staring at the bright screen to trying to find my way down the dark, unlighted street is disorienting me - every time I close my phone and look up, it takes what seems like forever before I can begin to see anything again, and every time I get a new text it feels as if the screen's light is going to burn out my eyes - I end up taking a dark side street I've never been down before - I take a couple of turns this way and that [I don't remember exactly] - I have no idea where I am anymore - suddenly, I find myself in a housing project I've never seen or heard of before - there are more people out here than anywhere else I've been so far tonight other than the heart of the bar/restaraunt district downtown - every single one of them is poor and black - any of them could have ended up here after being forced to move out of my neighborhood after my wealth magick had succeeded in gentrifying most of downtown, starting with my neighborhood - and here I am taking a stroll through the middle of *their* neighborhood, their home, in the middle of the night - and they are all looking at me and it is obvious that I do not belong here - I'm hoping to walk through the project and out the other side to who-knows-where, but I get to the end of the street and it empties out into a huge cul-de-sac of project buildings - there are people everywhere and they are all staring at me and I am The Outsider and there is no way out - and now I have to turn my back to all of them, only the sounds of madness in my ears, and find my way back out - I can't hear them, I don't dare look back - I'm lost and don't know how to find my way out of this maze - but I remain calm, keep walking, and make the Voorish Sign to appease any deranged savages or gibbering creatures that may accost me from the darkness - eventually, I find a side-alley that cuts through two backyards and leads me back out onto E. Patrick - a few blocks further down, I take a R down a street I know very well, but have never known the name of
-~11:55p - TXT-S: "I'm starting to limp." [note: three days later, I am still limping - if this is the beginning of some transfiguration, I am not amused]
-~12a - down this unnamed street, I find a small church that I have never seen before - how many hundreds of times have I been down this street? how could I never notice this church?! - I realize just how many fucking churches and chapels I have seen over the course of the night - it seems like every street I've been down has at least one house of christian worship - often it's an actual house that has been converted to a chapel, but just as often it's a huge, stone church, bordering on "cathedral" - why do we need SO MANY CHURCHES in this town??
-TXT-S: "There are churches EVERYWHERE!"
-reaching the end of that unnamed street, I suddenly realize where I am
-~12:10 - TXT-S: "Wait... this is... South St.?"
-realizing I've ended up back on my "home turf" as it were, I feel the pull to return home - I'm exhausted and my nerves are shot - I'm soaked in sweat and I'm out of water, and I have to piss like a camel - I send the street names in txt's to my wife as I make my way out of the mists and fog of my dream, and back to the more stable footing of the "real world"
-~12:15 - TXT-S: "East"
-~12:20 - TXT-S: "Carroll"
-~12:25 - TXT-S: "All Saints"
-12:29a - JE: "home"
-being home again felt like being tightly strapped into the most comfortable bed ever made - I showered the slime off myself, got dressed in a more relaxed and normal outfit, and at 1a went to catch last call at my local and get a pint and a shot of whiskey before the night was over - I felt I'd earned it - couldn't really interact with anybody much in my current mental state, so I passed my time by reading up about the city of Kish online while I drank (apparently, it is the first city we have record of after the Great Flood, etc.), and for the next couple of hours after
-~4a - began the coming-down process - rest of the evening progressed relatively "normally" - nothing unexpected or unusual - eventually drifted off to sleep about 6a - no dreams I could recall
-in hindsight, I don't think I made it INTO the Dreamlands that night - but something was definitely different - maybe I was skirting the edge of our Dream? - what happened? - perhaps I lost the path somewhere along the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Slumber? was I not judged worthy in the Cavern of Flame? - either seems possible/plausible
-CONCLUSION: this experiment must be repeated - try a different path for the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Slumber? - try the same path but follow it to its conclusion this time, now that I know where it goes? - what do I need to do to ensure worthiness at the Cavern of Flame? - READ DREAMLANDS STORIES - STUDY DREAMLANDS!
-8:39p - Sacrament: sick rose
-8:45-9:19p - ritually deconstruct altar, construct altar to Cthulhu
-9:20p - Sacrament: liao
-9:25p - all lights off, ignite altarcandle/Lya'o incense, take meditative posture of half-lotus, hands on knees in Kish mudra and engage mindfold
-~9:30p - decide to perform Battery Activation Meditation (routine chi-visualization ritual I often use as an opening rite; activates the power-centers, opens a Black Lotus at each of my tan-t'ien, encases me in a geometric energy construct that serves as both a dimension portal & a protective barrier, and finally centers me on the Axis Mundi) - sitting inside my construct, I feel powerful, serene, comfortable, safe, strong, secure, aware - hesitant to perform the last step for some reason - don't want to "break the bubble", which I've never felt here before - eventually I gather my chi along my spine and launch out the top of my skull and down my tailbone and out to the ends of creation until I am centered on the Pole of the Universe - something strange, different from other times; something I've never experienced here before - normally I feel god-like from this vantage point - but now I suddenly feel absolutely infinitesimal - instead of retaining my own perspective, as has always happened before, it seems as though my perspective on the Axis Mundi has shifted to the infinite universe itself! - I feel like I've shrunk to the size of a particle - and, yet, I also feel, quite distinctly, as though the ENTIRE UNIVERSE IS NOW STARING DIRECTLY AT ME - I shrink even further
-9:43p - Journal Entry: "mindfold - darkness, which had been comfortably enveloping me suddenly became oppressive and claustrophobic - I wanted out - then malevolent! - some thing was coming AT ME through the dark - trying to get into me - masses of black worms - tendrils IN MY EYES" [note added here: my entire field of "vision" inside the darkness of the mindfold was filled with the writhing of black tendrils - I quickly removed my mask and opened my eyes, and saw my new altar for what felt like the very first time]
-9:46p - JE: "almost as if in response(?) sudden overwhelming urge to masturbate myself before the altar - pleasure was overwhelming, yet remained flaccid throughout, even through orgasm and ejaculation - very aware that it was the mental image of my limp cock birthing millions of tiny tentacled blobs of slime that finally triggered my orgasm" [note: another experience unknown to me before tonight - afterward, felt slightly nauseous, kind of sticky & gross; wanted to take a shower] [addendum: realization as I'm writing this that I should have consumed this sacrament, as well! a missed opportunity.]
-9:59p - JE: "decide it's time to begin my descent" [note: following this entry, I gathered my tools and got dressed - I wore the Silver Key on a ribbon wrapped around my wrist, and an ankh (for ghouls) on a chain around my neck - I filled my pockets with small sacrificial offerings from my altar, a few tools I thought I might possibly want or need along the way (bag of runelots for divination, iPod, etc.), and some basic practical items for the journey (water, phone, etc.)]
-10:29p - JE: "Begin descent." [note: after making this entry, I opened the blinds covering the window above my altar, letting the world back in, and letting it out onto the world - then I turned around, put in my earpieces and turned on my music (Aklo, "Unnameable" and "Beyond Madness", shuffle/repeat), formed both hands into the Kish mudra and began to count out the Seventy Steps of Light Slumber that begin the descent into the Dreamlands]
-seventy steps from my altar turned out to be the second to last step at the bottom of the stairs before reaching the courtyard of my building - was this the Cavern of Flame? - I waited - no, it wasn't - what now? - there is a secret door at the back of the courtyard; an iron gate that leads out into the wild of vines and weeds and giant, gnarled, hundred-year-old oaks hidden in the darkness behind the building - going through the gate is step 1 of the Seventy Steps of Light Slumber
-I count my steps through the dark, leading along the path from the gate and out into the gravel lot behind the building - there is a large, ancient, rectangular hunk of shattered concrete embedded in the middle of that lot for no apparent reason, and the seventieth step places me square on the South side of that block, facing North, looking directly at the gate leading out of the lot, and exactly in the middle of a 2' triangle formed by three intersecting cracks in the concrete - when I step into the triangle, the music crescendos and the chittering sounds grow louder and more insistent - this is the Cavern of Flame
-I stand waiting in the middle of the empty lot - I am in darkness, but I can see the cars and people on the street not fifty feet in front of me - none of them seems to notice me - despite the security of the darkness, I feel open and exposed - I become aware of two large, columnar shadows suddenly flanking either side of me - I don't want to look directly at them - tall, shadow-black, man-shaped, arms folded over chests, wearing headdresses - Nasht and Kaman-Tha - am I worthy to proceed? - I stand waiting, waiting, under the weight of their gaze - why am I sweating? am I starting to shake? - cold rush of fear - I look to my right, directly at... Kaman-Tha, as it turns out - then to my left: Nasht - I am left alone - stepping out of the triangle is the first of the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Slumber
-counting out my steps toward the gate at the N end of the lot, I am suddenly aware that I am about to walk out onto the street, in public, walking in an odd and stunted way, with both of my hands rigidly held in what, to anyone else, is the middle-finger sign - I think this might arouse a bit too much attention - I jam my hands in my pockets so that I can continue to hold the mudras without being so obvious about it - now, with my hands jammed awkwardly in my pockets, and my staccato off-kilter walk, I feel as though I look like someone doing a very bad job of trying very hard to act nonchalant - this becomes especially tense when, around steps 450-500, I have to walk directly through a party of people that has spilled over the stoop and onto the sidewalk - I cannot hear any of them, am acting VERY weird, and have to walk right through the middle of everyone, very aware that I am interrupting everything and everyone is staring at me - I just continue counting - 523, 524, 525...
-at step 600, reach a crossroads - to my right is an alley - I feel very strongly that the remaining 100 steps lead in that direction - however continuing ahead of me, I know there is a sacred spot I've been to before; should be about a hundred steps away - which way do I go? gut feeling or intellectual curiosity? - usually I'll go with gut, but that alley looks like it leads into someone's backyard; I really don't want to get caught trespassing in someone's yard, right now, do I? - better proceed fwd instead
-at ~step 660, reach the gate of a public park, wherein lies the most potently magickal natural setting in my neighborhood - surely the Gate of Deeper Slumber is in there - but there is a large sign drilled into the gate - have I ever seen it before? - it says it is illegal to be in the park at this time of night - seems no matter which way I go, I'm going to have to commit some type of crime in order to reach the Gate of Deeper Slumber - there are a lot of people about on the street - no way I could walk in without being seen - how long have I been standing here, staring at this gate? - ... - ... - I can't do it - I guess I failed this attempt - nonetheless, I hold my mudras, and cross the street counting down the last steps, until I reach the seven hundredth
-10:45p - it feels wonderful to release my hands, roll up my sleeves, take a drink of cold water, and walk like a normal person again - am I in the Dreamlands now? - I don't know - decide to just start drifting
-L onto W. Patrick - "Crystal Row" - all the yoga studios and Reiki treatment centers and naturopathy clinics - never realized before, but all of these buildings are old *houses* - this has been a business district my whole life, but looking at it now, I can't help but see the residential neighborhood it was a century or more ago - these huge, old, Victorian "homes"; what would've been "mansions" back then - some of them still fitted with gaslight - how sinister and imposing they seem to me now, as never before - what horrors and atrocities had been birthed within those walls a hundred years ago? - how oddly out of place it seems to me now that they should all be housing new-age wellness centers! - like an amusement park built from the ruins of a concentration camp
-R down a street I've never seen before - lined with several multi-story condominiums I hadn't known were there - road makes a 90* bend to the R, and I follow it - end up in a back-alley that ends at a T - L, another alley - follow that to a crossroads where R looks like it leads out to a road - I take that R and end up... on the opposite side of Baker Park from where I just was up on W. Patrick. - I'm about a mile to two miles away from where I'd first turned down this street - ??? - how can that be?? - I'm on the other side of the fucking CANAL for fuck's sake! - how did I get to the other side of the canal without crossing a single bridge?!
-disoriented, I walk to the nearest bridge and cross the canal, then work my way back to the other side of the park, to where I'd been just a few minutes earlier [note: realizing now that it never even occurred to me to trace my steps back in the direction I had come - ??] - the path leads me through the park, following the canal - the water is black, and stagnant, and smells like a marsh - it is full of flies - I stop and sit down beside it to gag on the smell for a few minutes - doesn't take long before I'm actually starting to retch, so I continue on my way
-at this point, my wife begins txt'ing me from her night, and we continue to txt back and forth for the next couple of hours, until she goes to bed - the experience feels somewhat like getting a phone call from the other side of the looking glass
-TXT-Received: "Where you @, baby?" - Sent: "Dreaming"
-11p - finally free from the park, I am shocked to discover that the entire ordeal, everything from the seven hundredth step on, which seemed to last for hours, has only taken 15 minutes
-TXT-S: "How did that year only last 15mins?!"
-leaving the park, I cross Bentz and head E down W. Church St. - the mansions lining this street are pre-revolution, colonial - by American standards, they are ancient - if the houses on Crystal Row held hidden horrors, these ancient estates bled and screamed with unseen atrocities - every edifice seems to leer - every shadow has fangs - every well-tended topiary squats lifeless, like flowers in a tomb - I can hear screaming children being raped and sodomized - a young nigger slave girl's gurgling wails of uncomprehending terror while she watches as her infant is viciously carved from her womb - the sickening snap of bone - the sharp sting of a whip - the sloppy wet sound of vomiting - the smell of blood and shit
-then I come to the churches - this is Church St., after all - they've been built upon and added to and refurbished and renovated so many times through the centuries that they look modern now in comparison to the brick mansions all around them, even though they are technically much older - these are the "famous" Seven Clustered Spires of Olde Fredericktowne - standing on the street I look up to the top of the spire above me - from the smoky blackness above, I see the image of a dozen gargantuan tentacles free-falling out of the sky - they land squarely on the church, absolutely demolishing it in an explosion of brick and dust - I look down the street and see another mass of tentacles descend similarly, crushing another huge old church on the other side of the street - then the first mass of tentacles to my right lifts up into the sky almost as quickly as it came down, and I see it come down again, further down the street than the second mass but still on the same side of the street as it was before, again crushing another building - I realize now that these are limbs of some Thing that is *walking* down Church St. - every step utterly destroying some giant old stone building like a toy model - it quickly stomps off into the darkness at the far end of the street, several blocks away - I decide to follow it
-PIC1 - What long-forgotten tomes of ancient occulted knowledge are held hostage by the insidious Mr. Marshall Etchison??
-11:12p - JE: "reach the funereal [sic] home on Church St. it begins to rain. no... mist" [note: an enormous gothic mansion, the first time I visited this funeral home was to view my mother's body; this fall, I was back again, in the same room as a matter of fact, for the funeral of my wife's father - as I stood there staring at it, contemplating the width and breath of that horrible old building's place in my life, the air suddenly became wet - at first I thought it had started to rain, but then I looked down the street and realized that a mist had rolled in off the canal]
-turn R down Carroll Alley - past the post office - the stench of manure - end up on another bridge crossing the canal again - decide to turn L and head E down the canal towards the other side of town - quickly reach the end of the renovated "garden/shopping district" area of the canal and keep going, past the art museum, entering into the "flat, wide open river of concrete with a sewer running down the center of it" portion of the canal walk - suddenly notice there are marks covering the concrete here - no, wait; paintings - the entire expanse of concrete has been marked off into a grid of squares - each square is numbered - some of the squares are filled in with paintings - a couple indicating classes of schoolchildren - a couple apparently done by (and to promote) local civics organizations - a few of them simply artistic - I imagine that people must be purchasing the rights to paint these squares - but why? - it begins to rain in earnest now; silent lightening strobes the sky - a few of the painted squares grab my attention
-PIC2 - this square was apparently painted by Ms. MacGregor's 4th grade class - the knowledge of the Horrors Beyond the Stars has already infected our young!
-PIC3 - suggestion: skip lines 5-7, instead going from line 4 ("We are more than") directly to line 8 ("...life") - re-read - what is it saying now?
-PIC4 - in case the image is unclear, this block of stone displays the message "the stars eat your body." - someone PAID to write that there - I feel simultaneously wigged out and a growing affection for my hometown - this phrase would repeat in my mind for the rest of the night
-I follow the canal until it goes under E. Patrick - turn R and head E down E. Patrick - wife is txt'ing me again - we have a small chat back and forth as I walk - going back and forth from staring at the bright screen to trying to find my way down the dark, unlighted street is disorienting me - every time I close my phone and look up, it takes what seems like forever before I can begin to see anything again, and every time I get a new text it feels as if the screen's light is going to burn out my eyes - I end up taking a dark side street I've never been down before - I take a couple of turns this way and that [I don't remember exactly] - I have no idea where I am anymore - suddenly, I find myself in a housing project I've never seen or heard of before - there are more people out here than anywhere else I've been so far tonight other than the heart of the bar/restaraunt district downtown - every single one of them is poor and black - any of them could have ended up here after being forced to move out of my neighborhood after my wealth magick had succeeded in gentrifying most of downtown, starting with my neighborhood - and here I am taking a stroll through the middle of *their* neighborhood, their home, in the middle of the night - and they are all looking at me and it is obvious that I do not belong here - I'm hoping to walk through the project and out the other side to who-knows-where, but I get to the end of the street and it empties out into a huge cul-de-sac of project buildings - there are people everywhere and they are all staring at me and I am The Outsider and there is no way out - and now I have to turn my back to all of them, only the sounds of madness in my ears, and find my way back out - I can't hear them, I don't dare look back - I'm lost and don't know how to find my way out of this maze - but I remain calm, keep walking, and make the Voorish Sign to appease any deranged savages or gibbering creatures that may accost me from the darkness - eventually, I find a side-alley that cuts through two backyards and leads me back out onto E. Patrick - a few blocks further down, I take a R down a street I know very well, but have never known the name of
-~11:55p - TXT-S: "I'm starting to limp." [note: three days later, I am still limping - if this is the beginning of some transfiguration, I am not amused]
-~12a - down this unnamed street, I find a small church that I have never seen before - how many hundreds of times have I been down this street? how could I never notice this church?! - I realize just how many fucking churches and chapels I have seen over the course of the night - it seems like every street I've been down has at least one house of christian worship - often it's an actual house that has been converted to a chapel, but just as often it's a huge, stone church, bordering on "cathedral" - why do we need SO MANY CHURCHES in this town??
-TXT-S: "There are churches EVERYWHERE!"
-reaching the end of that unnamed street, I suddenly realize where I am
-~12:10 - TXT-S: "Wait... this is... South St.?"
-realizing I've ended up back on my "home turf" as it were, I feel the pull to return home - I'm exhausted and my nerves are shot - I'm soaked in sweat and I'm out of water, and I have to piss like a camel - I send the street names in txt's to my wife as I make my way out of the mists and fog of my dream, and back to the more stable footing of the "real world"
-~12:15 - TXT-S: "East"
-~12:20 - TXT-S: "Carroll"
-~12:25 - TXT-S: "All Saints"
-12:29a - JE: "home"
-being home again felt like being tightly strapped into the most comfortable bed ever made - I showered the slime off myself, got dressed in a more relaxed and normal outfit, and at 1a went to catch last call at my local and get a pint and a shot of whiskey before the night was over - I felt I'd earned it - couldn't really interact with anybody much in my current mental state, so I passed my time by reading up about the city of Kish online while I drank (apparently, it is the first city we have record of after the Great Flood, etc.), and for the next couple of hours after
-~4a - began the coming-down process - rest of the evening progressed relatively "normally" - nothing unexpected or unusual - eventually drifted off to sleep about 6a - no dreams I could recall
-in hindsight, I don't think I made it INTO the Dreamlands that night - but something was definitely different - maybe I was skirting the edge of our Dream? - what happened? - perhaps I lost the path somewhere along the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Slumber? was I not judged worthy in the Cavern of Flame? - either seems possible/plausible
-CONCLUSION: this experiment must be repeated - try a different path for the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Slumber? - try the same path but follow it to its conclusion this time, now that I know where it goes? - what do I need to do to ensure worthiness at the Cavern of Flame? - READ DREAMLANDS STORIES - STUDY DREAMLANDS!
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