The First Rule of Smart Club...

Serious drama at the SMART meeting last night.  And, of course, I can't talk about it at all.  But I felt like mentioning it anyways, just to annoy my tiny audience.  (Sorry, guys.)  What I can say, is that there was a new guy there (which made my sharing about the AGM interesting, let me tell you - it was hard enough to talk about that in front of the people I've gotten to know there over the past few months - it was seriously nerve-wracking to try and talk about it in front of a total stranger), and after the meeting he came up to me and started gossiping at me about the moderator.  And so now I'm all, fuck, why did you tell me that??  I don't want to be in the middle of this shit.

I started writing up my AGM post, but I just now realized that I can't actually post a lot of what I've written, as it contains descriptions of things that went on there that I am oath-bound to keep secret.  So, once I finish writing it all up (whenever the fuck that will be), I'm going to have to go back and edit the fuck out of it to make it safe for posting.

In other news, I have recently become obsessed with old-school, turn-based RPG video games, like the ones I used to play when I was a kid.  They are just so goddamned satisfying!  Enter dungeon.  Kill monsters.  Collect XP and Gold.  Level-up and buy better equipment.  Repeat.

Yes!  Yes, I will repeat!!

I downloaded an emulator for one I played the fuck out of on my old Mac II when I was about 14, and installed it on my laptop - Wizardry:  Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord - fuck yeah!  And I've been playing a demo of the latest version of the Wizardry franchise for PS3 (Labyrinth of Lost Souls), and have been enjoying that waaay more than is warranted by its anime-themed foolishness.  Whenever I've got a few minutes to kill, I whip out my phone and play some Gurk, a classic 8-bit RPG.  And I've been proper geeked lately over Penny Arcade's 16-bit On The Rain Slick Precipice Of Darkness, Episode 3.  Not only is it really fun to play, and totally satisfying to my 14 year-old inner gamer, but it's also funny as all hell.  I honestly get sad if I don't get a chance to play it in a given day.

Ok, that's all the meaningless bullshit I have time to spew forth for today.  Thanks for giving enough of a shit to read it.

Elephant Blurble...

Still way too much to do and nowhere near enough time to do it.  (When I finished that section of code from the other instrument, they gave me another one!  When, exactly, am I supposed to work on my own code before this ridiculous Friday deadline, huh?)

Have a SMART meeting tonight, so for now I'll just quickly report that, yes, I did make it through the entire AGM sober.  And, more importantly, staying sober wasn't difficult at all, and didn't interfere with my ability to enjoy or participate in the event in the slightest.  (My sinus infection took care of that part.)  So, as I suspected (or finally managed to figure out) during the final week preceding the event, I was, indeed, over-reacting to the whole thing.  I really didn't have anything to worry about.

Again, a lot more to say on the subject, but I wanted to at least address the elephant in the room before the meeting tonight.

Catch-up Blurble...

I have so much I want to write about from the last week, but I just don't know when I'm going to find the time.

I had plenty of time this weekend, but no energy.  I was still sick when I got home, and completely exhausted, so I decided the best way to spend the weekend was to do as little as possible, and rest as much as possible.  And it helped, but I didn't bother trying to write, as that conflicted with my whole "do as little as possible" policy.

And now I have the energy and the drive and the desire (in spades), but no time.  I'm only about a third of the way through coding this stupid, crazy project right now, and I just found out they want a working version to test by Friday!  I don't know if I could get all that done by next Friday, much less by the end of this week!  And, on top of my own instrument, they also just gave me a section of another instrument to code, as well, and that takes top priority.  Because apparently, I didn't have enough to do already.

Add to all of that the fact that I'm trying to catch up on all the stuff I missed while I was out last week, and I'm basically completely overwhelmed for the foreseeable future.

Pray for me, children.  Pray for me.

From The Desk, Additional...

Sorry, just had to post one more on my way out the door.

THIS is breathtaking.

Away From The Desk...

So, I'm leaving for the AGM tomorrow morning, and I won't be back until next Friday.

There's apparently internet at the site, but I don't know how reliable it is, or how much of a pain in the ass it is to access, so I'm not entirely sure whether I'm going to be able to post or not.  And even if I can, I'm probably going to be pretty occupied with other things while I'm there, so I'm not sure how much writing I'm going to be getting done.

I honestly just don't know.  As with every other AGM, I really have no idea what to expect.  We'll just have to see.

But, if you don't hear from me next week, you'll know why.

In the meantime, enjoy this little piece of beauty:

Busy Backson...

Between the huge clusterfuck rush-project at work and trying to get ready for the AGM on Saturday, I'm just totally swamped, and barely have the time to eat dinner, much less post anything right now.

I'll try to at least post a little something tomorrow about what to expect for next week, but I'll have to play it by ear.

Wish me luck!

What I Should Have Said...

I realize now that I failed at SMART last night.

Because it was my last meeting before the AGM, I felt like I should continue talking about my concerns about that (which unfortunately I can't discuss here - erg).  But, since my meeting with my old Temple the weekend before last, and my reflections on that meeting over the last week, I largely don't have any more concerns about the AGM left to discuss.  I feel pretty confident and excited about it right now.  So, I mentioned that.  And talked a little about how tired I was because of work lately.  And that was about it for my sharing.

But now I know that what I should have talked about, was the fact that throughout the entire meeting, I couldn't stop thinking about how badly I wanted to get the Tuesday night ribs 'n' wings dinner special at the bbq place around the corner as soon as the meeting was over.

I have a serious love/hate relationship with this bbq place.  They are Satanic.  Even their name sounds sinister:  Black Hog.  Their bbq is so good and it is so not what I should be eating right now.  I live very nearby the place, and it seems as if they've intentionally timed their cooking to coincide with my commute, because every night when I get home from work, the first thing I notice is the smell of woodsmoke and charred meat.  Fucking bastards.  Here I am, trying to eat right and get in shape, and every night they viciously assault me with their deliciousness.  It's cruel.

And last night was no different.  As soon as I got out of my car - BAM - like a smack across the face, there came that intoxicating aroma of flame-scorched flesh.  And what's worse, I had a pretty shitty day yesterday, and by that point I was tired and wasn't in a very good mood.  And all I had to look forward to for the rest of the night, was a SMART meeting that I really didn't feel like going to, and a pre-packaged, frozen dinner afterwards.  And that made bbq seem like an even better idea.  A little treat, just to pick myself up.  I deserved it, didn't I?

But that's exactly the problem, and exactly why I couldn't stop thinking about it all through the meeting.  I wasn't really hungry, and I wasn't really craving bbq.  I was trying to make myself feel better.  I was trying to elevate my mood.  And I've found that now that I'm no longer using mood-elevating substances like drugs and booze, I'm more and more lately turning to food to achieve the same results.  It's just another example of my inability to endure any unhappiness at all, and my compulsive use of external influences (or substances) that I know are not good for me in the long run, just to make myself feel better right now.

And it's really pissing me off.

I'm working really hard to try and get in shape right now, and every time I give in to my need to make myself feel better by eating some totally-delicious-and-totally-bad-for-me food, I feel as if I'm un-doing all of that hard work, and making all of that pain and sacrifice worth nothing.  And more and more I'm feeling like a failure whenever I do this, for once again failing to endure even the most minor of emotional discomfort, and for sacrificing my health and shooting myself in the foot just because I cannot abide any unhappiness.  And those feelings of guilt and failure end up tainting my experience of the meal, so in the end, I don't end up feeling better anyways.  It's the exact same cycle I'm experiencing in my recovery from drug and alcohol abuse.

So, I sat there throughout the meeting, dreaming of ways to get out of there early and sneak off to get high on bbq, and knowing full-well that I shouldn't.  But I managed to stay until the end.  And then the whole walk home I wrestled with it.  I wanted so badly to keep walking and round the corner and pick up a bag of ribs and wings and bring them back home and devour them.

But I was too aware of the problem.  Too aware of what I was really doing, and what it really meant.  In the end, I couldn't bring myself to do it, in the exact same way that I can't seem to bring myself to take a drink, even when I really want to:  it would cost me so much self-esteem and self-respect to do it - to fail at this task and take that drink, or eat that nasty-delicious food - that it's just not worth doing anymore.

So, instead of making myself feel better with food, I tried to make myself feel better by focusing on the positive aspects of my decision.  I tried to feel good about the fact that I was saving money by not eating out, again.  (We eat out every week, sometimes two or three times.  There are a dozen great restaurants within a two block radius of us, and it is so hard to make ourselves eat our crappy grocery-store dinners when we have money in our pockets and stupid-delicious food all around us.)  I tried to feel good about the fact that I wasn't undoing all my pain and effort from my workouts.  I tried to feel good about the fact that I was making progress, and actually succeeding in my efforts to endure unhappiness for a change, rather than immediately balming it away by any means necessary.  And I did feel good about those things.  But none of them helped to improve my mood the way I wanted, and I was still feeling like a grumpy old shit when I went to bed last night.

But today?

Today I feel good.

Today, I'm proud of myself for what I accomplished last night.

And just like with my working-out, I feel stronger today for the pain I forced myself to endure yesterday.

What The Blurble??...

I ran out on my lunch break just now to grab a smoothie, and I decided to gas up while I was at it, since I was running very low, and I wouldn't have time to stop after work, because I'd be hurrying to my SMART meeting.

On my way to the gas station, I ran out of gas.

Today, I name thee, "Irony."

Friendships In Chaos, pt. 3...

It happens to everyone in recovery, at some point.

After sobering up, you run into an old friend, and realize that they have the same problem.

Maybe it's a new development.  Or maybe they've always been an addict or alcoholic, but you just couldn't see it before, through the rose-tinted glasses of your own addictions.  Either way, the question you now have to face is:  what do you do?

When I got together with my old Temple last weekend, it was immediately obvious to me that in the last couple of years, while I was away, one of my old friends has become an alcoholic.  The first thing I noticed, as soon as I saw him, was that he's put on at least fifty pounds.  He's always been a thin, handsome guy, so the weight is really apparent now.  But he doesn't look fat; he just looks bloated.  When I got there, he was finishing up a scotch.  I assume it was his first, but I don't really know, because as soon as he finished that one, he poured himself another.  And twenty minutes later, when he'd finished that one, he poured himself a third.  Then we went out to dinner, where he had a 32 oz. beer, and two large bottles of sake, all by himself.

Now, that's a lot for one person to drink in just a few hours, but that doesn't automatically make him an alcoholic.  The nail in the coffin was that, even after all of that, he didn't seem drunk.  He was a bit red in the face, and he was obviously loose and feeling good, but he didn't seem sloppy; he wasn't slurring his words or stumbling or anything like that.  So, either it takes that much alcohol just in order for him to get a good buzz on, or he's really good at hiding just how drunk he really is.  Either way, combine that with the weight gain, and it's clear this is a chronic thing with him.  And just in case it wasn't certain already, at one point he made a "joke" about how he doesn't even taste his first two beers of the night; that as soon as he gets home from work, he immediately pounds two beers, and then he interacts with his wife and sons.  He seemed to think that was funny, but I'm not sure why.

So, now the big question:  what do I do?

The answer is surprisingly simple.  I don't do anything.

Now, he's my friend, and I'm obviously worried about him.  But I have to remember that there really isn't anything I can do.  I'm aware of the situation, and I'm going to keep my eyes open, but that's about it in terms of my available options here.  If an opportunity arises at some point down the road for me to somehow subtly let him know that I know what he's going through, and that I'm available for him if he needs anything, then great.  If not, that's okay, too.

Ultimately, he's responsible for himself, and no one will be able to help him unless he believes he has a problem and he wants help with it.  If I were to confront him about his drinking in some way, all that would serve to do would be to alienate him and strain, or possibly even end, our friendship.  And if he does end up needing help at some point down the road, then that's the worst thing I could possibly have done, because then I wouldn't be there to be able to help him anymore.

There's also the hammer/nail problem of being a newly recovered addict.  As in, "when you're a Hammer, everything looks like a Nail."  There is nothing worse than the self-righteous douchebag with a handful of weeks sober, who suddenly decides to start going around diagnosing everyone else as alcoholics, as though being a drunk somehow made them an expert.  But even beyond simply not wanting to be that asshole, what's more important is that I could be wrong.  It doesn't seem all that likely in this situation, but it's definitely possible.  Maybe he doesn't usually drink like that; maybe he had a hard week and was just blowing off some extra steam that night.  There's no way for me to know, and it would be premature for me to judge him after just a couple of hours.  And newly sober people do have a tendency to start seeing addicts and alcoholics everywhere.  And yes, part of that is because they are everywhere, and because we don't tend to notice them as easily when we are one of them, and then they suddenly stand out like sore thumbs once we clean ourselves up.  But it's equally as true that we tend to project our issues onto other people, and see problems that aren't really there.  Not everyone who enjoys a few drinks has a problem, and it's easy for the person who does have a problem to lose sight of that.  And there's really no way to tell if someone really has a problem, or if you just think they have a problem, and so it's usually best to just keep your mouth shut and observe for a while, and just try to make yourself available.

Another thing that is important to remember in this situation, but that is often forgotten, is that there is a big difference between being addicted to alcohol and being a dysfunctional drunk.  It seems pretty clear to me that my friend has become addicted to alcohol.  But, as far as I can tell, the only negative effect that seems to be having on his life, is his health.  (And maybe his wallet.)  And if that's all - if he's still doing his job well, and maintaining relationships, and being a good husband and father and friend (all of which seem to be true) - then who am I to judge him?  We each have to decide how much our own health is worth to us, and it's no one else's place to tell us how much it should be worth to us.  (Our families might have some say in that decision, but that's about as far as it goes.  As a friend, I'm certainly not in any place to be telling him how to feel about himself.)  And so if he's enjoying his drinking, and he doesn't mind the toll it's taking on his health, or he thinks that is a reasonable price to pay for the amount of joy or pleasure he is getting out of it, and it isn't interfering with his ability to maintain his responsibilities and be a decent human being, then that's entirely his decision to make, and I really have no reason to be sticking my nose into his business.

And there's one more wrinkle to this situation that applies to this friend in particular.  I can't forget that he is a powerful chaos magickian.  And we magickians (chaos magickians in particular, I think) have a much greater tendency to get ourselves into trouble.  As a general rule, we push boundaries.  We try to find the edge of things, and then live there.  (Another way I don't fit the general model, as I tend to bounce back and forth from edge to edge in order to find the middle.)  But we also have a much greater tendency to find our own solutions to the problems we create for ourselves.  We get ourselves into trouble more often than the average, but we're also good at finding ways to smooth those problems over.  Self-empowerment is what we do.  I've seen many, many other magickians in similar situations over the years; situations where just about anyone else would be in over their head and need to ask for help, but the magickian is able to navigate the situation safely themselves, and find their own way to get better.  So, if it were anyone else, I would be much more worried.  But because I know he is a damned good magickian, I can feel confident in the fact that he has a much greater chance of successfully pulling himself out of this hole he's digging right now, if and when he ever feels the need to.

So, for now, I'm just going to keep my eye on him, and just try to be there if and when he decides he needs my help.  If I get a chance at any point during the AGM next week, maybe I'll try to tell him a little bit of my story, just to let him know that I've recently been in the same situation.

At the very least, I want to pay attention to him, as a living, breathing example of the possible future I only recently so narrowly escaped.

We May Just Go Where No One's Been...

This is a song about magick, life, and the endless possibilities inherent in humanity.

Black
then
white are
all I see
in my infancy.
Red and yellow then came to be,
reaching out to me.
Lets me see.

As below, so above and beyond, I imagine
drawn beyond the lines of reason.
Push the envelope.
Watch it bend.

Over-thinking,
over-analyzing,
separates the body from the mind.
Withering
my intuition,
missing opportunities and I must
Feed my will
to feel that moment.
Drawing way outside the lines.

Black
then
white are
all I see
in my infancy.
Red and yellow then came to be,
reaching out to me.
lets me see
there is
so much
more and
beckons me
to look through to these
infinite possibilities.

As below, so above and beyond, I imagine
drawn outside the lines of reason.
Push the envelope.
Watch it bend.

Over-thinking,
over-analyzing,
separates the body from the mind.
Withering
my intuition,
leaving opportunities behind.

Feed my will to
feel this moment
urging me to cross the line.
Reaching out to embrace
the random.
Reaching out to embrace
whatever may come.

I embrace my
desire to...
I embrace my
desire to
feel the rhythm, to
feel connected
enough to step aside and
weep like a widow, to
feel inspired, to
fathom the power, to
witness the beauty, to
bathe in the fountain, to
swing on the spiral, to
swing on the spiral, to

swing on the spiral of
our divinity and
still be a human.

With my feet upon the ground
I lose myself between the sounds
and open wide to suck it in,
I feel it move across my skin.
I'm reaching up
and reaching out,
I'm reaching for
the random or
whatever will bewilder me.
Whatever will bewilder me.
And following our will and whim
we may just go where no one's been.
We'll ride the spiral to the end
and may just go where no one's been.

Spiral out. Keep going.

Spiral out. Keep going.

Spiral out. Keep going.

Spiral out. Keep going.

               -"Lateralus"
                 Tool, Lateralus

Friendships In Chaos, pt. 2...

We also did a ritual last weekend, my friends and I.

I haven't done that in a very long time.  Not even by myself, let alone with my old Temple-mates.

It wasn't even a proper ritual, really.  Just a little, nothing, throw-away rite.  But I was amazed at how it made me feel.  To be in that place.  To be with those people.

To be doing magick.

I had completely forgotten just how much I love doing that.  How much I love even just the sensation of doing it!  The feeling of energy flowing through me, like a conduit.  Finding the sense of the "flow" of the ritual, and then letting it pull me along.  The pleasure of power coming into me, and erupting out of me.  The drama, the spectacle, the art, the dance and the poetry of The Ritual.

It felt like making love with a best friend I hadn't seen in years.

When it was over, I found myself swallowing back tears.  And once again, I was struck by the sudden and almost overwhelming realization of just how desperately I missed this thing that I had willingly let go, honestly believing that I no longer had any use for it.

And maybe I didn't have any use for it back then.  And maybe I still don't.  But it's clear to me now, that I need to find a reason to do it.  Because it is obviously a lot more important to me than I had allowed myself to believe.  It is clearly filling a hole in my life that I didn't know was there; that I thought I had already filled long ago.

I know now that I need to do this.  I don't know why I need to do it yet, but I know I need to do it.

And I can't help but notice that this all happened only two weeks before I get the opportunity to spend an entire week doing nothing but playing with magick, with a group of the best magickians from all over the world.  Isn't that strange?

I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

Friendships In Chaos, pt. 1...

Even though I can't talk about my concerns about the upcoming AGM, I had an experience with the IOT last weekend that I actually can talk about.  As usual, I can't discuss what we were doing, but for whatever reason, I had cause to get together with my old Temple this weekend, and that brought up a lot of feelings that went beyond simple nostalgia.

I realized, first and foremost, just how much I miss my friends.  It's a shame that my friendships got all wrapped up in the Temple the way they did, but it just worked out that way; most of my best friends were in the Temple, and the rest of my relationships with the larger group of my friends were through my friendships with my Temple-mates.  And so when the Temple slowly dissolved, and I lost interest in (and reasons to do) magick, then I also suddenly lost my connection to almost all of my friends.  They all live at least an hour away from me, so it's a bit of an investment of time and energy (and finances as well, with current fuel prices - even with my new fuel-efficient car) to go see them.  And over the years I'd just gotten used to having this set reason to see them all regularly:  the Temple and the IOT.  So, with that gone, I no longer had a regular excuse to get together with them.  If we were going to see each other, I was going to have to make the effort to stay in touch, and make the trips out there and back, just for the sole purpose of hanging out together.

But I didn't want to do that.  For a lot of reasons.  A lot of it boils down to the fact that I just don't do that.  Maybe I don't do it just because I've never had a reason to before, I don't know; but I know that it isn't something I do.  I like having friends, but I don't feel like I need friends in order to be happy.  So, if it takes any significant amount of effort to maintain a friendship, I just won't bother.  And I can't overlook the fact that I was high and drunk during a lot of this time, as well, which affected things in a variety of ways.  It left me with even less energy to expend towards maintaining long-distance friendships, as well as numbing me to any sense of loneliness I may have otherwise felt; I was comfortably drunk and/or high, so I never felt like I was missing anything by not having relationships with these people anymore.  And it was also creating a lot of other negative effects in my life, as well, and I wasn't exactly eager to share those parts of myself with my friends, people whom I'd like to impress, if I'm able.  And beyond being a fat and lazy drunk, I was also going through a lot of other issues at the time that I didn't really feel like advertising:  identity crises, marriage problems, spiritual voids, etc.  Frankly, I just didn't want anyone to see me like that.

And it's only now, after seeing everyone again this weekend, and the "looking back" that naturally flows from that experience, that I realize - it wasn't just that I didn't feel like I needed friends, or that I felt it wasn't worth the energy to maintain those relationships - it's that, for a variety of reasons having to do with my own feelings about myself, I actively did not want any friends.  I wanted to be alone.  So, I just went about my life, and didn't bother trying to maintain these friendships, and didn't think much about it.  And before I knew it, two years had gone by.  And if it weren't for the fact that I had to get together with them again for the AGM this year, it almost certainly would've been even longer before I saw any of them again.

But seeing everyone again this weekend also made me realize, I don't feel that way anymore.  I miss my friends.  And I want to be a part of their life again.  And I want them to be a part of mine.  And it is very much worth my time and energy to make that happen.

But I'm worried that I won't be accepted.  I'm really not the same person that I was two years ago.  And I know they're all expecting me to be.  Not because they're trying to force me into some pre-determined mold or anything; that's not what I mean.  It's just, that's the person they've known me to be for years, so who else could they expect me to be?  But I'm really not him anymore.  I'm not dark the way that I used to be.  I'm not a pervert the way I used to be.  I'm not into the same things I used to be into.  I'm sober for fuck's sake.  I'm not even really a magickian anymore.  I've mellowed out and matured so much in my old age (I'm not even forty yet, but I feel like an old man).  And I'm worried that when they get to know this new version of me, that they'll find him boring, and lame.  (And, I have to admit, a part of me is worried that I might feel the same way about them, as well.)  Being around them makes me feel pressured to be the person I was.  And I have to try keep that from changing me too much; I have to let it affect me a little (what's the point of having a relationship with someone if you don't let them affect you at all?), but I can't let it affect me so much that I compromise myself in order to fit my perception of their expectations of me, or in order to gain their approval.  I need to be myself - or at least the version of myself that they bring out in me - and I need to be okay with the fact that maybe some people won't like me as much anymore.

But I definitely know that I need to try now.  Because being with them again just felt good.  And it felt like the right thing to do.  And it made me realize that, even though I haven't let myself feel it for a long time, I really do miss them.

Do You Agree To Keep Silent?...

The IOT's Annual Grand Meeting, our worldwide get together, is coming back to the US this year, and my local Temple (such that it is - it pretty much dissolved after I stepped down) is once again in charge of hosting it.

It's just a couple of weeks away now, and I'm really excited about it, and really looking forward to it.  But I've also got some serious concerns.  And I've been turning them over and over again in my mind rather obsessively for a couple of months now, with greater and greater urgency as the date approaches.

And I wanted to write about those concerns here.  That's the "something important that I very much want to write about" from my post yesterday.  But I'm only just now realizing, as I sit down to finally write about them, that I actually can't write about them.  At least not here, publicly.

I can talk about what the IOT is, but I can't talk about what it does.  I can talk about the things that I do at IOT meetings, but I can't talk about anything anyone else does (unless I get their permission first), and I can't talk about the things that go on at meetings in general.  And it's all of those things that I'm concerned about, and all of those things that I want to write about, and all of those things that I can't talk about.

Well, technically, I could, but it would be a violation of my Oaths, and so I really, really don't want to.  It'd be a huge violation of trust, and would make me feel like piece of shit, and just isn't worth the little bit of catharsis I would get out of it.

Sorry for the teaser.

Serious Blurblery...

Argh.  I have something important that I very much want to write about, but I can't find the time today.  I'm still way behind on my work, and I've got to rush out of here for another appointment tonight; I'm still exhausted from staying up late every night to watch the Olympics, and then totally obliterating my sleep schedule to view the rover landing, etc., etc., blah blah blah.

Maybe tomorrow.

I'm getting all blocked up.  I have writer's constipation.

Ew, no.  Scratch that.  Forget I said it.

I'll be back soon, and I'll get this out of me, one way or another.

Maybe with a creativity laxative.  Art-Lax.

Ew!  Stop doing that!

Your writing is shit.  That's what I'm saying.  In case that wasn't clear.

Yes, yes, thank you, I get it.   Very helpful.  Goodbye now.

I can't believe I'm actually going to post this...

+  +  +

Confidential to my little brother:  just so you know, if you ever do anything that stupid ever again, I'll kill you.

Because I love you.

You dumb fuck.

Get well soon.

Choking On Blurble...

No time to write today.

I'm sorry.  The work I've been sitting around for the last month waiting for has finally arrived, and I've got about two weeks in which to get three months worth of work done now, and I didn't get anywhere near enough done today as it is.  And right now I need to pay my bills and balance my checkbook, and then rush home for SMART, and then it'll be 9p by the time I get home from that, with just enough time to eat dinner before bed, and I just don't have time.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I don't know if I'm saying that to you, or to myself.

Sol 1...

I'm completely brain-dead from lack of sleep today, but still exhilarated by the events of last night/this morning.  So incredible.  Basically, this is me today:

http://xkcd.com/1091/

And also this:

http://sci-ence.org/touchdown/

Wow.  Just... wow.

And now I get to spend the next several years looking forward to July 2015, when the New Horizons probe reaches Pluto!

Curiosity Landing...

It's closing in on 1a, and I've had my 5-hour shot, and my Amp energy drink, and I've still had a difficult time staying awake this late.  (Damn, I feel old.)  But I'm awake now, and I'm watching the live feed from Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity's Mission Control center at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA.  I've decided to live-blog the proceedings from now until I finally go to bed.

12:57a - MC crew conducting one of the last series of flight checks, each station announcing status of its particular system, one at a time.

1a - they're passing jars of peanuts around MC.  Apparently a good luck tradition since the Ranger mission.

1:08a - approximately 20 mins. from landing, Curiosity ~3,400 miles from Mars, the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) team takes over and begins to run through their checklists, to make sure everything is ready to go.

1:12a - EDL has announced that pyros are enabled.  Pyros are used to separate the stages of the landing vehicle.

1:15a - EDL has announced successful crew-stage separation.  Curiosity now ~2,200 miles from Mars.  In about a minute, Curiosity's EDL systems will "wake-up" in preparation for atmospheric entry.

1:19a - EDL has announced Curiosity is ~6mins from entry, and is broadcasting "heartbeat" tones; all is good, and as expected - nothing to do now but wait.  Curiosity is currently traveling at ~5km/sec.  (Remember, all this information is ~14mins old by the time it gets to us.  So, by now, the rover is on the surface, one way or another.)

1:22a - MC crew just sitting around, waiting; all looking nervous, anxious, and excited.  EDL announces ~2mins to entry, and Curiosity is on-target to land ~2.3meters from the target site.

1:25a - Curiosity now less than 400miles from Mars, and has successfully switched to the special antenna it will use for atmospheric entry.

1:26a - Curiosity has entered the atmosphere of Mars!

1:27a - MC receives word that Martian Odyssey satellite is tracking Curiosity's descent.

1:29a - Curiosity is decelerating, going ~Mach 2.4 and falling, preparing for parachute deployment.

1:30a - Parachute has deployed!  Speed dropped to less than half of Mach 1 and falling.  Preparing for sky-crane seperation.

1:32a - Sky-crane rockets have fired!

1:33a - TOUCHDOWN!  Curiosity is safe on the surface of Mars!!  MC crew goes wild - cheering, crying, hugs and high-fives all around!  I haven't seen this many nerds crying since the end of Dark Knight Rises.

1:35a - the first image comes down from Curiosity!  And, of course, I can't see it, because my internet connection cuts out all of a sudden.

1:44a - finally got my internet back and powered-up the feed again.  Everyone at JPL MC still partying as the first images are coming down.  Everything is covered in dust thrown up by the sky-crane's thrusters as it launched away from the rover after touchdown.  First visible image is of Curiosity's wheel on the surface of Mars.

1:48a - everyone is settling back into their seats.  Let's do some SCIENCE!

1:50a - crew going through post-landing checks, making sure everything is still intact and working after that fast and furious fall.

2:01a - post-landing poll almost finished.  At that point, control will be shifted to the ground team, who will be responsible for the rover from this point on.

2:03a - well, I wanted to wait until the post-landing poll had been completed, and it was confirmed that everything was working satisfactorily, but NASA just cut their feed in preparation for the press conference in about twenty minutes, so I guess that's my cue to go to bed.  What an amazing thing to have witnessed.  I'm so glad I had a chance to be a part of it.  We are absolutely incredible, truly.  The things we can do!

I cannot wait to see what Curiosity can teach us.

Tempted The Devil With My Song...

Here from a king's mountain view
Here from the wild dream come true
Feast like a sultan, I do
On treasures and flesh never few

But I would
wish it
all away
If I
thought I'd
lose you
just one day

The devil and his had me down
In love with the dark side I'd found
Dabblin' all the way down
Up to my neck, soon to drown.

But you changed that all for me
Lifted me up, turned me 'round

So I
I would wish this
all away

Prayed like a martyr dusk to dawn
Begged like a hooker all night long
Tempted the devil with my song
And got what I wanted all along

But I
I would
If I could
I would
Wish it away
Wish it away
Wish it all away
Wanna wish it all away

No prize
that could hold
sway
Or justify
my
giving away
my center

So if I could I'd wish it all away
If I thought tomorrow
would take you away.

You,
my piece of mind,
my all,
my center,
just trying to hold on
one more day.

Damn my eyes!

Damn my eyes!
If they should compromise the fulcrum:
If wants and needs divide me
Then I might as well be gone...

Shine on forever
Shine on benevolent sun
Shine down upon the broken
Shine until the two become one

Shine on forever
Shine on benevolent sun
Shine down upon the severed
Shine until the two become one

Divided, I'll wither away

Shine down upon the many.
Light our way, benevolent sun.

Breathe in union
Breathe in union
Breathe in union

So,
as one,
survive
Another day
and season
Silence, legion.
Save your poison.
Silence, legion.
Stay out of my way!

          -"Jambi"
           Tool, 10,000 Days
 

Null Blurble...

Bored, tired, no idea what to write.  Or rather, I've already written about all of the things I want to write about recently, and I don't have any new ideas.  And, even if I did, I'd probably be too tired and numbed by boredom to do anything with them anyways.

I also feel sick in this really weird way.  For the second day in a row now, a couple of hours after eating my lunch (soup and salad both days, but different soups and different salads each day), I have suddenly gotten this pain in my stomach.  It feels like this really painful weight, like I've swallowed a brick.  I have no idea what could possibly be causing this sensation, and it's really uncomfortable, and it really sucks, and I really want it to go away.

It's also not making it any easier to come up with something to write about.

+  +  +

Ok, I guess that's it for today.  Another half-an-hour spent trying to come up with something, and I've got nada.  I'm calling it.  Time of post-death:  5:04.

Sorry everybody.

The Eternal World Record...

What does a World Record mean, if no one is allowed to challenge it?

               1984 and the World Record that May Never Be Broken

Technical Interrupt...

We upgraded our cell phones a couple of days ago, and so I've spent the majority of the last two days alternating between trying to figure out how to work my phone, and trying to get my phone to work at all.  And between my total lack of knowledge of how to use the phone and the fact that it seems to have been installed with what I can only assume is an extra system file named PhoneCurse.dll, I've been pretty well fucked lately, in terms of both free time and communication.

So, posting = not likely.

I use my cell phone as my alarm clock, as well, and for the past few days, and for different reasons each day, that feature has managed to fail on my brand new phone, causing me to oversleep.  As a result, I've been working out after work, rather than before, as I'd prefer.  It's either that, or skip my workout entirely, which I'd really rather not do.  So, more free-time down the phone-hole.

It's not all bad.  The phone is amazing in most other ways, and is a quantum leap above our previous phones.  Just working out the bugs, is all.  I hope to have some time to post something more worthwhile soon.

In the meantime, if you'd like to join me in my technocratic exorcism rite that I have planned for tomorrow's full moon, wherein I will summon, capture, and FUCKING ANNIHILATE the electronic daemon that I have apparently been cursed with the last few months, please leave a comment, and I will have my servitor (I've named him Bit) tap your dreamscape with the appropriate contact info.

TTFN, bitches.

Jesse Owens...

No time to write today, unfortunately, so enjoy this wisdom from Zen Pencils, instead.

Curiosity...

In just a hair under a week, humanity will have landed a third mobile robot on another planet.

On Monday, August 6th, at around 1:30a EST, the "mobile science lab" rover named Curiosity will land in Gale Crater, on Mars.  Mars has very little atmosphere with which to slow down a robot the size of an SUV as it plummets to the surface from outer space, and so landing the rover has become a famously complicated endeavor dubbed, "The Seven Minutes of Terror."  It is one of the single most complicated operations ever undertaken by Mankind, and it's an all-or-nothing deal; if any one thing goes wrong at any point, then the whole process will fail, and the rover will slam into Mars at several thousand mph, creating a new surface feature, Curiosity Crater.  (Take five minutes and watch NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's video explanation of the Seven Minutes of Terror here.  You'll be glad you did.)

If it lands safely (and it is far from guaranteed to do so - no one's ever done it before, and it is impossible to create on Earth the conditions necessary to accurately test it), then it will spend the next several years (dare I say, decades?) roaming about the planet Mars, searching for evidence that life has ever existed on the red planet.

I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how exactly to explain why this fascinates me so much.  I think for starters, it is simply an amazing thing, when you stop and think about it.  Purely amazing.  We are controlling robots on Mars.  How fucking unbelievable is that?!  Robots on Mars.  It sounds like a science-fiction story.  And it is!  Except, it's not fiction.  It's fantasy, brought to life.

And I think it also has something to do with something I touched on yesterday.  It is a "living" example of the incredible, awe-inspiring things that human-beings can accomplish.  How can it be that a bunch of balding monkeys could so quickly push themselves to the point that we're firing off robots to explore other planets?  It boggles the mind!

What a piece of work is Man!  Look what we can do!  So what if no one has ever done it before.  That's precisely why it must be done!  From the moment the first of us picked up a rock and used it to smash open a nut (or a skull), our single purpose has been to learn, to discover, and to do the things that have not yet been done.  Every single one of us for the last 200,000 years has done our part to push forward that line of what-is-possible, even just a little bit, in our own way.  It is what we do.  It is all we do.

And, in just a hair under a week, we're going to do it again, in a big, big way.  And I will no doubt find myself once again struck dumb with awe at the notion of all that we are capable of achieving.  We are, each and every one of us, absolutely, fucking, amazing.

Just look what we can do.

The Thirtieth Olympiad Of The Modern Era...

I know the Olympics are cheesy.  I know this.  But I can't help it.  I love them.

I love everything about them.  The spectacle, the melodrama, the simple poetry of humans from all over the world gathering together for the sole purpose of doing amazing things.  I spend every fourth year looking forward to them.  And when they finally start, it's like two weeks of Christmas in July.

It started when I was a kid.  The '92 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.  The summer in between my sophomore and junior years of high school.  The two weeks of our vacation at the beach happened to coincide that year with the two weeks of the Olympics.  As a teenager, I was living a nocturnal existence; staying up all night doing nothing, and then sleeping all day in order to rest up for another night of doing nothing the next evening.  There's nothing to do in the middle of the night in the small beach town where we stayed, and the TV in the cottage we were living in only got about six channels.  And, of course, the only thing on was the Olympics.  They played Olympic coverage almost all night.  (And all day, but who was awake to see that??)  I literally had nothing better to do, and a night full of hours to kill, so I started watching.

Late-night coverage of the Olympic Games at the time tended to favor the less-popular sports, giving recaps of the events of the day that hadn't made it into the daytime and primetime broadcasts.  Handball.  Water Polo.  Badminton.  Archery.  Women's Volleyball.  Sports that you'd never see on television back then.  And I found myself, quite despite my desire to be an apathetic misanthrope, getting really, really into it.  I fell in love with the stories of the athletes, and I cheered their amazing accomplishments.  And I felt a sense of pride in my country (a completely foreign and somewhat nauseating experience for me at the time, I assure you) whenever Team USA triumphed.  It didn't matter if it was a sport that I would never have cared about in a million years if I'd had anything better to do.  It was about being fortunate enough to witness humanity's best, doing their best - pushing themselves as hard as they could, striving to be the very best in the whole world - and having the results of all their efforts and hard work displayed on the single greatest stage we have ever constructed, for all the world to see, whether they fell short, or were victorious.  I was hooked from that moment on.

I've always been a drama-queen, and never more so than when I was a teenager.  And, as cheesy as it was, and is, it was also, undeniably, the greatest drama I had ever seen.  Have ever seen.  And that is in no small part due to the fact that it is not a story, crafted artfully from a fertile imagination.  Better than that, this drama is real.

Men and women from all over the world pushing themselves as hard as they can every single day for four years with the single-minded purpose of being the very best in the entire world at what they do.  And every four years the entire world gathers to watch these people, the best in the world, compete and crown their champions.  The best in the world.  None faster.  None stronger.  No one.

What a great fucking story!

And that amazing story is made up of countless other single, just-as-amazing individual stories.  Kerri Strug sticking her landing on a sprained ankle to win gold at the '96 Atlanta games.  The '04 games returning to Athens.  Michael Phelps at the '08 Beijing games winning eight gold medals, more than any other person has ever done before or since, and breaking his own World Record by more than two seconds!  (He set new World Records in six out of the eight events he swam in!)  And Usain Bolt in the same games, setting new World Records in both the 100m and 200m.  (Whenever I remember that, I can't help but think of one of my favorite scenes from the pilot episode of Sports Night.  As a runner half-a-world away is setting a new world record, Casey McCall, an anchor for a late-night Sportscenter-like TV show, calls his young son, waking him up in the middle of the night, and instructs him to hurry up and turn on Daddy's channel.  Then he says, "I'll call you tomorrow and tell you all about it.  But for now, you just watch him run.  He's not doing much.  He's just running faster than any man's ever run before.")

And those are my absolute favorite Olympics moments - when I see that "WR" flash up on an athlete's results, and I realize that I've just seen a human being expand the boundaries of what is possible, and push themselves to do something that no other human being has ever been able to do before.  It is literally awe-inspiring, and I absolutely love it.

And I don't care if that makes me a cheeseball.

London 2012...

So, the opening ceremony last night was certainly very, um... British.

I mean, it was all right, I guess.  Honestly, I probably would've enjoyed it a lot more if it hadn't had the bad fortune to follow Beijing.  It feels like it'll be a century before anyone rivals that ceremony for beauty, grace, or artfulness; not to mention the sheer terrifying propaganda factor.

In comparison, last night seemed, well, cute.  And quaint.  And so very, very British.  I mean, for fuck's sake, they had a thirty-foot tall Voldemort being vanquished by an army of Mary Poppinses.  Seriously.  And all anyone in the media has talked about since last night is the spectacle of James Bond escorting the Queen (or, at least, her stunt double) into the stadium by way of a leap from a flying helicopter.  And yet, it still couldn't even begin to match even just the opening drummers from Beijing.  (All I could think when I saw that four years ago was, "I, for one, welcome our new Chinese overlords."  Which, I imagine, was the point.)  And, to his credit, apparently Danny Boyle knew he had no chance of rivaling Beijing in any way, which is what lead him to make a lot of the more "playful" directorial decisions he did; basically, he figured that if he couldn't beat them, then he might as well just have fun with it.

There were some highlights that I enjoyed, too.  I was really tickled that he chose to open and close the ceremony with the opening and closing tracks from Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon.  I don't understand the decision at all, but I enjoyed it, simply because I never in a million years would have ever guessed that I would've heard Dark Side Of The Moon being played during the opening ceremony of an Olympiad.  I mean, wtf?  Really??  Wow.  Ok, work it then, you mad motherfucker, you.  And I was also pleased to see the cameo by Rowan Atkinson.  A British national treasure, and always hilarious.  And, again, just never, ever thought I'd see that.

Ok, enough writing about the Olympics.  Time to get back to watching them.  Which is how I hope to spend the better part of the next couple of weeks.  Hopefully, I'll find the time soon to post some of my thoughts about why I've come to love the Olympics so much.

Three Diamonds...

:   i have realized something

:   i have realized the distilled essence of all of my desires

:   is simply to be able to Love you

:   or, more honestly, that you would be able to let me Love you


:   and i have realized something else

:   i have realized that this desire of mine

:   to be free to Love you completely

:   with neither regret nor remorse

:   will never be fulfilled


:   and so now i have a choice


:   i can let go of this desire

:   to save myself

:   from constant rejection and disappointment

:   i can accept that you will never let me Love you

:   the way that i want to

:   the way that i try to

:   i can let go of this desire

:   accept my fate

:   and simply stop trying


:   or


:   i can take it

:   i can endure

:   and keep Loving you

:   knowing full-well that Loving you means

:   an oft-broken heart


:   and i have realized one more thing

:   one final thing

:   that for a life spent Loving you

:   You

:   for that I can be

:   for that I will be

:   for that, I am


:   Strong

Time To Bring The Fire Down...

One desire
Run
Sexual being
Run him like a blade
To and through the heart
No conscience
One Motive
Cater to the hollow

Screaming feed me here
Fill me up again
Temporarily pacify this hungering
So grow
Libido
Throw
Dominoes of indiscretions down
Falling all around
In cycles
In circles
Constantly consuming
Conquer and devour

Cause it's time to bring the fire down
Bridle all this indiscretion
Long enough to edify
And permanently fill this hollow

Screaming feed me here
Fill me up again
Temporarily pacifying

Feed me here
Fill me up again
Temporarily pacifying

          -"The Hollow"
           A Perfect Circle, Mer de Noms

Blurble'd...

I really want to write something interesting and creative today, but I am literally yawning from boredom right now, and that seems to have completely sapped my energy and creativity for the time being.

I really wanted to spend a good chunk of today writing a story, but I couldn't come up with any good ideas.  I realize now that I have a problem with that.  If I have an idea, I can write the hell out of it, but if I don't have an idea, then I'm just shit out of luck.  Every once in a while, an idea will come to me, and then I can write about it.  But I can't seem to manufacture that process, or make it happen, during times like now, where I have both the time and the desire to write a story.  I just can't seem to make myself come up with ideas at will.

Any suggestions?

(Not for story ideas.  For ways to come up with story ideas.  Just to be clear.)

On the more boring end of things, I could post about my meeting last night, but I really don't feel like it.  It went well, I guess.  It's hard to judge these things.  What criteria do you use?  Obviously, if you're feeling down and it makes you feel better or not; or if you feel like you need help, and then afterwards you feel like you got that help or not.  But most of the time you're not going for those reasons.  Most of the time you're just going to do your weekly check-in, and keep the momentum going.  I didn't feel any better afterwards last night, because I didn't feel bad going in, in the first place.  I made everyone laugh a lot during my share, and that always feels good, but that seems like a really ridiculous criteria to use to determine whether a meeting was good or not.

So, I don't know.  I enjoyed myself, which is something, but I'm not sure how much, if any, it actually helped.

And now I'm literally dozing off at my keyboard.  So, I guess that's my sign that it's time to go.

Wow, this sure was a super spectacular post.

Stroke Of Insight...

As an addendum to yesterday's post, please take a few minutes out of your day and watch this video presentation on the neuro-biochemical experience of "I am you."

Fifteen Minutes...

Another last minute post.

Fifteen minutes before I have to start getting ready to leave.  Fifteen minutes to write, edit, revise, and post.  Can I do it?  And what will the pressure inspire me to spit out this time?

Clock's ticking, boy-o.  Better come up with something quick.

Oh, great, I'm talking to myself.  Again.  A sign of mental illness.  And, worse, unoriginal.

Blah, blah, blahbitty-blah.  This is how I cure my writer's block.  I just type out whatever comes into my head, as unfiltered as possible, until I start to feel the creative energy flowing.  Then I tap that vein, and run with it.

My concern is that this time, the energy will start to flow right about the time I run out of time to do anything with it.

But, if so, then oh, well.  At least I did the exercise, and posted something for the day that wasn't just "did X recently; doing Y tomorrow," or, "oh, woe iz me, for I am ze alcoholiqué."

Five minutes.  You're running out of time.

But that's all time ever does, isn't it?  Run out?  That is Time's purpose.  To run away, until it's all gone, and everything is nothing.  Until every thing is no-thing.

Four minutes.  Is that all you got, kid?

That was an existential query on the end of all things!  What else is there?  (And why do you always talk to me like a noir detective?  Does my alter ego think he's in a Raymond Chandler novel or something?)

Three minutes.  "It's a Raymond Chandler evening / At the end of someone's day / And I'm standing in my pocket / And I'm slowly turning grey..."

Oh, fucking great.  You're quoting Robyn Hitchcock lyrics from "The Crow" at me?  Who's the hack now?

Two minutes.  And the answer would be you, since that is who I am.

Which reminds me of something I'd forgotten.  I think one of the most powerful phrases in all of humanity is, "I am you."  It cuts through the facade of our separate realities and points directly to the essential truth that we are all interconnected, and ultimately, all one organism, one tribe, one species, made of the same stuff, sharing the same planet, the same history, the same fate.  We are not individuals, we only perceive ourselves as individuals because of the biological accident of our evolution.  In fact, we are all one; undifferentiated, undivided, inseparable.

One minute left, hot shot.  That what you're going to end with?

No.  I'm going to end with this:  if you're reading this, then please, do me this favor.  For the rest of the day, for every person you see, try to remember to think to yourself, "I am you."  Your child.  "I am you."  Your lover/spouse.  "I am you."  The barista at the coffeehouse.  The guy who flicked you off in traffic.  Your boss.  "I am you, and I am you, and I am you, as well."  Note how this affects you.

Report.

Well, no time to edit, so I guess this'll have to do.

Good luck, kid.

One Of My Holy Places...

Well they crowned me with thorns
On the day I was born
By the light of a cold
Television
And I remember the bars
On his uniform
As he marched from the field
Of my vision

When he didn't come home
It was just us alone
The brat and the widowed
Civilian
And then one April night
After Ma took her life
I fell down the street
To oblivion

And I took what the dumpsters
Were giving
And I did my best
To survive
'Cause I figured that life's
For the living
While you're alive

So bring out the gin
And the small violin
I'm a raging success
As a failure
And it's colder than hell
In this cardboard hotel
Which I share with a chronic
Embezzler

So I beat my retreat
Down Collister street
To one of my holy places
And they tangled my wings
With wire and strings
And I'm spinning in a
Whirlpool of faces

And I'll take what the dumpsters
Are giving
And I'll do my best
To survive
'Cause I still think that life's
For the living
Yes I still think that life's
For the living
And I'll take what the dumpsters
Are giving
And I'll pray every night
To St. Giles
But I still think that life's
For the living

At least for a while

          -"7th Avenue Static"
           Firewater, Psychopharmacology
 

What Are You Doing, Dave?...

Just a quick post to say that I'm taking my computer offline, again, but hopefully for the last time.

This should be the final nail in the coffin of all the ridiculous issues I've been dealing with lately.  But it's going to take me all weekend to backup (yes, I'm going to try and backup again - it's a long story), install the new operating system (finally upgrading to Windows 7, yay), and then restore my backup files and reinstall all of my programs.

So, wish me luck!

Back on Monday.

Kickball - Week 12...

I've never been happier to lose something.

Last night was the opening round of our kickball "championships."  (In quotes because every team in the league is entered, regardless of their win-loss record.)  We lost again, of course, and that means our season is over.  So, I don't have to play kickball anymore!  I get my Thursday nights back!

And I don't have to write about kickball anymore here, either!

Still, there's one thing that I definitely got out of the experience.  Driving home last night, I realized that I had a sense of pride, accomplishment, and satisfaction.  Yeah, our team sucked real, real bad.  And yeah, it was a painful and deeply humiliating experience every week.  And yeah, I hated it more than root canals.

But I did it.

I could've walked away at any time.  But I didn't.  I came back every week, and I played as hard as I could, in every single game, for the entire season.  I never gave up, and I never quit.  No matter how much I wanted to.

And that's something.

The Moment of "We, Together"...

I dreamt last night of a lost civilization, on a dying world.

An immense vista of impossible sandstone spires, surrounded by a glittering, crystal sea.  Wind, and the grate of sand sliding over sand, the only remaining sounds.  An empty world, like a giant child's forgotten sandcastle, left on the shore to be washed away.

I dreamt last night of the last of its people, an ancient King and Queen, left alone in their crumbling tower, to await the inevitable end of their once proud land.

He, in robes of purple trimmed with gold, wearing a crown of shells.  She, in robes of white trimmed with silver; on her head a diadem, the oil-slick colors of abalone shell.  Their subjects now all fled or perished, the King and Queen sat alone on driftwood thrones, bent and weary with the weight of their years, their faces lined and cracked and sagging; they could've just as well had cobwebs for eyes.

In the orange-gold-lavender glow of twilight, as the old sun began to set behind the sparkling sea, they rose together, and crossed their hall to the open arches at the far end, overlooking their empty kingdom of impossible towers.  They watched as the sun set, and below them, the first of their towers began to crumble and fall.  And then another.  And then another.

The sense of loss and regret and longing and sorrow and even fear that they felt at this sight was overwhelming, and the Queen, overcome, reached out and took the King's hand.

The King was startled by this sudden event.

He couldn't remember the last time they had touched one another in affection.  It felt like eons ago.

All at once, the King began to stand up straighter, taller.  He felt stronger.  He felt bigger.  He felt more alive.  He turned to his Queen, and saw that she was standing straighter, as well.  Her hair shifting before his eyes from the wispy straggles of grey straw that they had been, to the long, golden flax of her youth.  The lines in her face began to fade and smooth, and her eyes absolutely lit up and began to shine bright and blue the way they once had long ago.  Oh, those eyes!  How he had once lost himself in those eyes!

But, wait.  What is this?  What is happening?  The King was suddenly afraid.  He let go of his Queen's hand, and stepped away, fearful of the strangeness of the event.  And when he let go, he felt the life and strength drain from him.  He felt his back twist and bend under his weight again.  And he watched as his beautiful Queen withered and wilted back into the crone she had been moments before.

The Queen looked at her King, lost, and confused; afraid and alone.  Please, her look said to him.  Please don't leave me.  Not now.

Not ever.

The King couldn't bear that look.  Their world was lost and forgotten, crumbling around them under a dying sun; this he could endure.  But that sight of pain and fear on his Queen's once-beautiful face, the plea in her eyes, he just couldn't abide.  Whatever else was happening, he was The King, and she was his Queen, and they would stand through this together.

He reached out, and again took her hand.

And again the sense of strength and life returned to him.  And again he watched as his lovely Queen aged backwards towards her strong middle-life.  And she, too, watched as her King became again the powerful and handsome man she had loved so fiercely.  His hair the silken auburn she had loved to run her fingers through.  His chest and his arms and his hands - oh, his hands! - as big and strong as she remembered him to be so many years ago, as if he could pick her up in one arm and cradle her like a child.  She remembered the years it must've been that she spent with those strong arms wrapped around her, feeling as if all was right in their world, and that their happiness could never possibly end.

With their renewed sense of strength, they turned together again toward their view of the city below them, spread out to the sea.  And they saw that the towers had stopped crumbling.  And upon closer inspection, that not merely had the tide of destruction ceased, but that it had stilled in mid-act.  Clouds of sand hung frozen in the air beside minarets in mid-fall.  Massive blocks of sandstone wall the size of boulders appeared to float in place, as if held by some unseen hand.

Confused, but encouraged, by this wondrous sight, the King reached out and wrapped his strong arms around the Queen, holding her close to him.  Oh, stars and oceans!  How could he have ever forgotten the feeling of holding her this way?  How could he have lost the memory of this sensation, their bodies pressed together, the feeling of her warm breath on his chest, the scent of her hair?  And if he could forget this, then what else had he forgotten as the centuries had swept past?

And in amazement, they watched, as the towers began to rise again.

Dervishes of sand spiraled high into the air and worked themselves into stone and wall and spire, pointing up, up, up into the wisps of clouds streaking across the bruise-palette sky.  One-by-one they rose again, crumbling backwards up from the ground to become again the glorious and majestic kingdom-on-the-sea they had loved for so long.  Over the raspy sounds of wind and sand, in the far, far distance, they heard the cry of a gull; a sound so long lost that their ears had grown unaccustomed to the hearing of it.

The King ran his powerful hand over his Queen's head, through her hair, and cupped her delicately behind the ear, cradling her head in his soft grip.  The Queen looked up at him, this beautiful, powerful man that she had given her life to so long ago.  And the King lost himself in her eyes again, remembering that this was all he had ever really wanted all along.

And as he kissed her, and she kissed him, and the wave of life and love and memory washed over and through them, the roaring sound of the crowd in the castle square below rose up to ring in their ears forever.

Don't Let 'Em Choose...

Don't let 'em tell you what you think is cool
Don't let 'em tell you what you think is right
Don't let 'em tell you what you think you should do

Do you recognize when the world won't stop for you?
Or when your days don't care what you got to do?
Or when your weight's too tough to lift up?
What do you do?
They don't choose for you.
Don't let 'em choose.

Do you recognize when the world won't stop for you?
Or when your days don't care what you got to do?
Or when your weight's too tough to lift up?
What do you do?
Don't let 'em choose for you.
That's on you.

Another day another dime
another state another mind
48 moves to choose
But no matter the coast
we all toast
the same PBR
So much settling for ours
There's so many lives
in so many lines waitin'
There's only so much time
so many die patient
So many skate
only where the ice is thin
We too nice
to not dive in right after them
We too right
to not sway a little
Wiggle from the path
Middle up
foot upon the gas
like the past
is the rear view
Last laugh
lands on the man
with the plan
to do
all that he can to do
all that he can

And we all save face in the face of our friends
And we all bend backwards to make amends
And we all take chances that change us
Civil with the self-hate just won't do

Do you recognize when the world won't stop for you?
Or when your days don't care what you got to do?
Or when your weight's too tough to lift up?
What do you do?
They don't choose for you.
Don't let 'em choose.

Do you recognize when the world won't stop for you?
Or when your days don't care what you got to do?
Or when your weight's too tough to lift up?
What do you do?
Don't let 'em choose for you.
That's on you.

A lot of my friends shake when they don't drink
All my friends wheeze in their sleep
All my friends think green
but can't afford to live it
Can't ignore the cynics
Can't explore the gimmicks
Can't report the dividends
Limited
only by the need to stay fed
And giving up is like Latin
it's dead
It don't happen
Don't even cross their head
Lost in our own web
But it's our bed
Sleep sucks

Or at least until I try
but at least until I'm right
but at least until I'm fly
let me get it on tight
But at least until it's mine
but at least until it's time
Let me set 'em up
AND knock 'em down
come on

But at least until I'm fine
but at least until I'm wrong
But at least until I got a piece to call my own
But at least until I'm grown
but at least until I'm gone
Say it

Goodbye.

Goodbye!


           -"Goodbye"
             P.O.S., Never Better

Candles...

This has been a pretty hard year for you, I know.

And I know I haven't made it any easier.

I don't know if I'm your rock anymore, or if you're mine.  But I know that somehow, we're holding each other up.  Hanging in there, together.  For one more year.

One more year.  And it wasn't all bad.  Not at all.  In the end, when you think about it, in most ways things are actually better for you now than a year ago.  And I think you deserve to enjoy that; to feel proud of what you've accomplished this year.

I wish I had more to give you.  A better way to say, "I'm proud of you."

"I'm inspired by your strength."

"I love you."

I'd fulfill your heart's every secret desire, today and every day, if I had one wish.  But wishes are fairytales, for princesses locked in lost towers.  And I'm no Prince Charming.

But I am your White Knight.

And I always will be.

I can't do it for you; I can't give you everything you deserve.  But I'll keep you safe, and warm, and comfortable, and take care of the things you need, to give you a life as free of fetters as I can make it; to give you the room you need to make that life for yourself.

And I can give you today.

You so deserve it.

It's your day.

Take it.

Run with it.

What do you want to do?

Plusses and Minuses...

I'm making a conscious effort to be more expressive here, and treat it more like an opportunity to be creative every day, rather than just a daily online journal.

Solve Your Equation
Simplify Your Expression
Do The Fucking Math

Mathematics makes
My mind reel in ecstasy
God's breath in my ear

The Story of X
Affects me as if it were
The Story of O

I write shitty poetry because I need to express something, but I don't have the time to write the stories that I really want.

I need to note here, briefly, how difficult this is for me to do.  I really do hate just about everything I've ever written, in any format, and it shames me terribly to be putting it out here for the whole world to see.  But at the same time, I feel that if I kept it to myself, I'd just never even bother with it in the first place.  (Because then, who would know but me, right?  Light is the best disinfectant...)  So, as humiliating as it is sometimes, it's also the very thing that helps to motivate me.

Like I said to myself last week:  It's not about Good or Bad.  It's about doing it.  Period.

I'm trying to keep that in mind, every time I cringe at posting another piece of worthless, self-indulgent, self-absorbed drivel.

Before She Wakes...

It's quiet in here right now.  Early-Sunday-morning quiet.

When I'm lucky, I get two of these a week.  These all-too-brief respites of quiescence.  I've come to understand how much I look forward to them, without even knowing it; how much I need them.  To recover, to rejuvenate, to reflect.  To define myself.  To remind myself of who I think I am.  Who I want to believe I am.  To try and become the man I want to be.  The essence of Me-time.

As with most things, I feel I squander it too often.  Washing myself down the drain.  It isn't enough to simply relax, though that is definitely part of it; resting in preparation for the week ahead.  Once more unto the breach..., etc.  But Quiet and Alone come too rarely to be wasted on mere relaxation.  They are worth so much more than that.

Who are you, when you're by yourself?

When all you have to do, is be, what will you do?

Character, is who you are, in the dark.

It's time for my time.

And I know what to do with it.

The Junkie And The Monk...

This is one of my absolute favorite Moth stories ever, and I'm so glad they finally posted it to their YouTube channel.


The Junkie And The Monk by Mike DeStefano

Kickball - Week 11...

We lost.

Both games.

By a lot.

And I'm sorry, folks, but I just don't have the will to go into my usual level of excruciating detail about the experience this time.  I've just got much better things to do with my life than record every particle of my humiliation here.

It stopped being funny awhile ago.

Next week is the Quarterfinals (don't take the fact that we're in the Quarterfinals as a sign of our skill at all; every team is in the Quarterfinals), and if we lose our game (which is a safe bet, to say the least), then that will be my blessedly-last game.

I whole-heartedly look forward to the sense of accomplishment I will feel at that point, as my only reward for these weeks and months of embarrassment and sacrifice.  Hell, I may even join everyone else at the League Happy Hour afterwards, for once.

Kicking Against The Muse...

Blah blah blah... what to write, what to write?

Kickball double-header in the July heat coming up in about an hour.  Not really looking forward to it much.

Still haven't gotten my computer(s) back.  Still no idea when I will.

Really looking forward to getting back into Mass Effect this weekend.

...

This isn't really writing.  There's nothing creative or interesting or worthwhile about simply cataloging the most boring minutiae of your daily life.

But I'm stuck in the office, bored-to-death by a mile-high stack of pointless busy-work that I've been groaning through for almost two weeks now, and I've got about twenty minutes to post something before I have to get ready to go to a company fucking kickball game, of all fucking things.  What am I supposed to do?  Make art?

...

...

...


Yes.

Yes, that's exactly what you should fucking do.  Make some fucking art.

If it isn't worth doing, then don't fucking bother.  You're just wasting time.

But I'm not an artist.  I'm just an approaching-middle-age-teenager; a pseudo-hipster dipshit.  A corporate wage-slave.  And a wannabe addict/mystic.

Everyone's an artist.  Most people just don't bother, is all.  All you have to do is make the effort.  It will touch someone, somewhere, in some way. 

Express, motherfucker!

Um, ok, uh, here goes:

*cough*
I don't know which upsets me more
That I am saddened by my Self
And my life
Or the Guilt
Stemming from the Knowledge
That I have no Right
Nor Reason
To feel this way at all

I'm a King
dressed as a Beggar

Who will give me Alms?

There, that wasn't so hard now, was it?

No, I guess not.  It wasn't any good, either.

You're still missing the point.  It's not about "Good" or "Bad."  "Bad" is inevitable, and "Good" is something that will come with time, or it won't, and there's very little you can do about that, so there's no point in worrying about it.


The point, is to do it.


That's all.

Good SMART...

Another part of getting back into my routine, was getting back to a SMART meeting last night, after missing the previous two weeks.  Rather surprisingly, this one actually made me feel a little better.

Talked about my recent relapse and depression, and my struggle to learn endurance, and to allow myself to simply accept unhappiness in those situations where I can't find any relief, rather than falling back into the habit of using drugs to create a synthetic happiness to relieve those feelings.  (I feel like I've made progress, because drugs used to be my first response to those feelings, and now they are only a last-resort when all else has failed.  But, still, it's unhealthy, and more to the point, it doesn't work - it doesn't actually relieve the feeling or make me feel better - and I'm tired of it, and I want to break this habit and learn to accept pain and unhappiness when I have to.)  I tried to keep it brief, because one of the last times I talked, the Facilitator actually cut me off after fifteen minutes for taking up too much time.  But despite my efforts, my check-in seemed to spark a rather intense and lengthy discussion that involved almost the entire group, and ended up lasting for a full half-hour.

And in that thirty minutes, I actually got some good advice.  For instance, not to even bother to give people a reason that I'm not drinking, etc.  And if they press me for a reason, to just say that I don't feel like it right now.  There's no need to say any more than that; and, in fact, often times giving people a reason will only invite them to debate said reason in an effort to try to convince you to join them.  So, don't give them a chance.

Someone described my condition as a "relief-seeking missile," which I thought was rather amusing.

Also, someone suggested that these past two weeks of depression are actually an example of the endurance I'm struggling to learn.  I hadn't thought of it that way.  In thinking about it, it occurred to me that I'd been able to endure these past two weeks because I felt like I had no other choice.  I wanted it to end, and the only way to do that was to let it run its course, and then jump up at the very first sign of emotional elevation.  And at the cabin, I hadn't been able to endure, and (probably not coincidentally) I believed then that I did have a choice; that I could choose to get high and that would make me feel better.  And, of course, that's not really true.  It made me feel a little better, sort of, for a very short time, and then made me feel much, much worse for a good, long while after that.  So, I think part of the key to getting through those triggering situations like the cabin, is to tell myself that I don't really have a choice.  I want to be happy and healthy right now, and the only way to do that is to endure those periods of suffering when they arise.  Just like I did for the past two weeks.

I was also reminded of the simple truth that the good times only exist because of the bad times; they only exist in relation to one another, so one can't exist without the other.  And therefore, the bad times only serve to make the good times that much better.  And that if I ever want to be happy, I have to allow myself to be unhappy once in a while, too.

And there was also a lot of general encouragement and congratulations and I'm-proud-of-you's just for being honest and telling my story.  (I guess this is difficult for a lot of people?  Because everyone seemed to be particularly amazed by it and proud of me for doing it.  But it's just really easy to be honest when you're shameless and generally don't care what people think of you.  Besides, if I'm not honest during these check-ins, then I'm just shooting myself in the foot and wasting my time, so what's the point of even being there?  If I'm not going to be honest, then I've got much better things that I could be doing with my Tuesday nights.)

After it was all over, I found that I felt a lot better about the past few weeks, and a lot better about myself.  Enough that I was actually surprised by the feeling.  I realized I'd actually made some progress with this experience, and that it wasn't just a setback.  And I felt a lot better about this process going forward.  I realized I was more hopeful about my chances of success now.

And all that made me realize that, for once, I was actually glad to be there.

Things I Never Thought I'd Hear Myself Say...

Finally got back to the gym this morning.  I was so excited and so happy to finally be working out again!  It's been over two weeks since my last workout, and I've been feeling like a giant, fat, useless slug of a human being the whole time.  I'm really, really happy to finally be back in my routine.

I'm tired of getting high, quite honestly.  I'm really fucking tired of this cycle, and I want out.  I get clean for a few months, and then I use again.  Ultimately, this is what I would like - to be able to use on occasion.  But years of chronic abuse have made that impossible for the time being, because right now, whenever I use at all, even a little bit, even after several months clean, I'm immediately plunged into a multi-week depression.  Part of it is simply chemical - the drugs have caused my brain to stop producing the chemicals that would make me happy.  But part of it is also situational.  I enjoy my routine.  I like getting up early, I like working out, I like getting home and to bed at reasonable times, I like writing here and meditating and all the rest of it.  When I'm doing these things, I'm happy, I'm strong, I sleep well, I have energy to spare, and, most importanly, I feel good about myself.  But when I'm depressed, and have no focus, and no energy, and no creativity, I can't do any of those things, and then that depresses me even more.  And then I eat, because it seems like the only enjoyable thing in my life that I can still control, but even that ends up depressing me more, because I swear I can actually feel myself getting fat.

My only saving grace so far has been that I hate that feeling of depression so much, that the second it begins to wane at all, I immediately start clawing my way out of that hole like my life depended on it.  Which, I guess it kind of does, without being too dramatic about it.  Maybe not my actual living, but certainly the quality of my life.

Oh, well.  I'm re-hashing old material at this point.  Learning the exact same lessons over and over again.  Maybe this time it'll stick.

In the meantime, I'm just glad to finally be climbing out of the hole of the last two weeks.  Glad to be back in my routine, and glad to finally be doing something other than sleeping, eating, or playing video games.  (Have to say, though, God of War 3 and Bioshock were pretty fucking fun.)

It's only a first step, and one I've taken more times than I'd like to admit, but still, it feels good.  And here's hoping it's the beginning of a trend; a sign of what's to come.

All Tech Must Die Update...

So, the one working computer I have at home right now is unbearably slow, and crashes about every half-an-hour or so.  Whenever we try to use it to do anything (and there are certain things we simply cannot do at all) we end up spending 10x as long just trying to get the damn thing to work than we would've spent doing the thing we were trying to do in the first place.  It's unbelievably frustrating, but for right now, it's all we have, so we're making do.  But it's hard to say whether this is actually an improvement over not having any computer at all.

After a week in the shop, they determined that the problem with my other, newer computer is that when I brought it in to be repaired the first time, they mistakenly installed a Wireless card that only works with Windows 7, in a machine that is running Windows XP.  So, they had to send it back to the parts-shop to get a new, correct Wireless card installed.  Still waiting for that to come back.  All told, they will have had my computer for approximately six weeks.  Which, as far as I'm concerned, is five weeks longer than this should have taken to resolve.

In the midst of all of this, Her mother gave Her some money for Her birthday, to be spent toward the purchase of a new computer.  Trying to be thrifty, since we're a one-income household at the moment, we shopped around for about a week on eBay, trying to find the best computer we could get for the best price.  Finally found one we both liked, and for the right price, and we won the auction!  (It's the same model as my computer that's in the shop, but newer, and nicer, and running Windows 7.  And for about one-quarter what I paid for mine.)  And it arrived this weekend, about a week earlier than we anticipated.  We were really excited.

But then when I started to set it up, I started noticing that certain keys wouldn't work.  I never took a full survey, but after I determined that the "X," "C," "V," and "ENTER" keys didn't work, I knew it wasn't something we'd be able to live with.  I spent Saturday downloading and installing every driver and OS update I could find, in the hopes that it was just a software glitch, but nothing helped.  Today we shipped it back to the seller to have him fix it (at least he's reimbursing us the shipping costs), though based on past experience, I'm not exactly confident in his abilities.

Oh, and my DVR has started overheating at random intervals, as well.

I swear, if my PS3 breaks, I'm moving to a cabin in the woods.

Viral...

Humans
are Drugs
who live
to get high
on each other
so
they can feel
as if
they are Living

There
is
no
Perfect
Drug

Zen and the Art of Biology...

Is there any better feeling
anything more freeing
than standing naked
in a Summer rain?

It is a sensual kiss
from the Mother that bore you
and the Monster
that will devour you.

The air that caresses you
is the motion of the Earth
vibrating on your skin
the transfer of momentum
from the spinning ball of Blue
to the gaseous sphere encasing it
to your body
to You.
You're dancing on the roof
as we fly through the galaxy.

The water that now licks
your entire body
was once part
of a vast sea
wherein the first chemicals
melted together
locked into each other
and twitched
and copulated
and convulsed
and conspired
to move
and to Live.
The molecules that once held
the first Life
All Life
surrounding you
touching you everywhere
setting your skin on Fire.

It is your planet
Making Love to you.

Heat...

For want of Union
What won't we do?
For mate
To conquer Flesh
To possess a Heart
What won't we do?
To climb that Tower
And leap to our Little Deaths
To Hunt
And Pray
And find Shelter in salt
What won't we do?

And Who
are We
to Ask?

Dichotomy...

Prism of bright Sunlight
Refracted
Through Curtains of Rain
This Is
And Is-Not
Tao

The Tao Of Cliché...

Welcome to Bad Poetry Week!  Along with the one story, I also wrote a few shitty poems at the cabin in the woods last weekend, and now I feel the need to share them with both of you.  As the saying goes, "Misery loves company." 

It's hot
and it's humid. 
But it's the perfect temperature,
and the best climate. 

The bugs are all over me,
a distraction. 
A thousand tender caresses
from The Mother. 

I am wearing too much clothing. 
But I am completely naked,
open,
and exposed
to the air
and the light. 

On opposite ends of the wood,
I am too close to you. 
But I want so badly
to be inside of you. 

There is no sound here. 
And it is defeaning. 

I am completely sober. 
And out of my fucking skull. 

I feel like shit,
and have never felt better. 

Here,
with you,
I am all alone. 

My books
all define the Infinite,
while void
of any meaning. 

I Want so fiercely,
like a sucking hole in my chest. 
And I am content. 

I miss you all,
now that you are here with me. 

The wind swirls around us,
and nothing moves. 

My belly,
my heart,
and my head
are all empty,
so I nourish the insects
with my skin,
and my sweat,
and my breath. 

And when the storm
finally breaks,
and the rain
finally comes,
I will
finally
be dry.