Sorry...

I got nothin' and it's late and I'm hungry and I'm tired and I wanna go home.

Put that in yer fuckin' book.

Jesus, Bill...

Don't "Jesus, Bill," me, motherfucker.  I don't wanna hear it.  I don't have time for your shit.  I'm tired and I wanna go home.

Why are you being so hostile?

I'm not being hostile!  I'm tired and I wanna go home!

So, go, then!  Get on with it already!  No one is holding you here.  Leave!  But stop bitching about it, you whiny little baby.

Fine, then!  I don't need you to tell me to go.  I'll go when I'm ready to go.  I don't need you anyway.

Ya big baby.

+     +     +

Wow.  That was productive.

You're welcome, by the way, for that worthless little creative turd I just shit out into your computer.  I'm sure you're the better for it now, as am I.

Ugh.  I need a shower after that.

And I was so proud of what I created yesterday.  I really thought that was worth something.  Following that up with this miserable excuse for "creative output" feels like a monumental failing of a level that calls into question my worth as a human being.  Now I just wanna go home and sit in my empty bathtub and masturbate into my underwear with my face buried in a tub of ice cream until I pass out in a puddle of my own excrement and shame.  Or maybe I'll just get McDonald's on the way home.

Six of one, really...

Vibrations...

My brain buzzes and my fingers dance.
My eyes twitch and dart to make the world vibrate.
Too much coffee and my heart slows down to one,
long,
drawn-out
thuwump.
I feel the fibers in my muscles coil like a snake.
I'm all adrenaline and nothing to do.
No fight to be had,
no flight to be made,
no harm,
nor foul,
nor fuck to be given.
Wires pulled taut,
I could strike out a tune,
make the bones dance
a crackhead jig.
Long breaths in staccato time,
high on the oh-2 painting my brain red.
I can feel my whiskers like an aura,
hovering over my skin,
every hair a bright,
electric
nerve.
Throb, pulse, twitch.
Writhe, dance, squirm.
Eyes-wide,
drink it in,
eat the lightwave whole.
Bits and bits and bits
stab,
pierce,
prick,
puncture,
penetrate,
explode
into image,
view,
vista,
site,
sight,
seen,
scene.
It's all the same.
All light
and heat
and motion,
no differentiation,
no line of demarcation,
no distinction,
no more,
no me.

One more cup,
and I'll be gone.

Rebuttal...

I'm done my work and my shopping for the day, and so, again, it is time to write.  And so again I run blindly face-first into the brick wall of Write what?!

Oh, Blank Page, why do you tease me so?

Because I hate you.

Oh!  Oh, I see.

No, wait, I don't see.  Why the fuck do you hate me?!  What did I do to you??

You destroyed me.  You do destroy me.   Over and over, day after day, you destroy me.  Worse, you delight in destroying me!  You take solace from it, you derive joy from it, it excites you.  You destroy me, and you call it "expression."

My murder is your art.

That's a little hyperbolic, don't you think?

Says the serial killer to his shrieking victim.

Hey now, let's just calm down here, okay?  Alright, so, yeah, maybe I do destroy you repeatedly, day-in and day-out.  But it can't possibly be as big of a deal as you're making it out to be.  Because clearly, even though I destroy you, you persist.  Because every day, there you are again, waiting for me, tormenting me, taunting me, teasing me with your emptiness, begging to be filled.  Destroyed you may rightly claim, but also clearly, reborn.  Refreshed.  Renewed.  Rejuvenated.  Resuscitated.  Revived.  Resurrected. 

You cry "Death!"??  You, Immortal, dare scream, "Murder!"??

Don't make me laugh.

You'll wring no quarter nor comfort from me with your empty, pitiful wails.  I name you "Tormentor!"  "Enemy!"  "Foe!"  "Nemesis!" 

I will laugh and dance and weep tears of righteous joy as I watch you burn beneath my words, and I will bathe myself in your ashes.

A-mn.

The Pile...

Every year, my family "complains" that I buy them too many gifts for xmas.  That I spend too much money on them.

I've never really understood this, and always assumed that it came from some humble sense of insecurity they felt toward their own gifts-to-give that year.  (Which is ridiculous, of course; I have never felt anything other than overwhelmed by the volume of what we receive from them every year.)

Today, my father emailed me, and asked me, again, as he does every year, to be "modest" in my gift giving this year.  Then he said, "we know your heart is in the right place..."  Which, to me, implies that, however well-intentioned, he thinks I am doing something wrong.  When I confronted him about this, he replied:

Your heart is in the right place – you give…give…then give some more.  That’s what I mean…not wrong, just not necessary for those of us that love you and feel loved by you.  You are the most generous of us all.  Not just with your treasure Michael.  Please don’t be defensive…I love you dearly.

Dad...

I am not generous.  And this is not a sacrifice.

Every Christmas morning as a child, I remember I would come downstairs to find a pile of presents waiting for me, stacked up higher than I was tall.  That pile literally dwarfed me.  Year after year after year.

You held down two to three jobs at a time and went to school in order to provide me with that enormous pile of beautiful junk.  (Because, of course, the contents of the pile didn't matter half so much as the experience of the pile itself.)  You took out loans and lines of credit every year to afford it.  You worked hard, and you sacrificed, and you went into debt in order to give me that humungous mound of christmas treasure.

THAT is generous.  THAT is sacrifice.

I can't give anyone else that experience.  I can't even come close.  But I can try, at least.  I can do my best to give them just a fraction of that feeling of excitement and amazement that I got to grow up with.  Because that's what Christmas is to me.

Every year, I hold back, and only get half of what I want to get, or less.  I have never hurt myself financially, or gone into debt of any kind to buy gifts for my family or my friends.  I always have money left over to put away after I'm done my xmas shopping for the year.  I have never sacrificed to do this.  At least, nothing more than my time.

So, please don't think I'm being generous.  I'm only a pale mimicry of the generosity you raised me with.


ps - And I know it isn't necessary.  "Necessary" isn't the point.  If it was necessary, it wouldn't mean anything.  It is by the very fact of its un-neccesity that it is transubstantiated from a consumerist product, into a treasure that reads, "This is what you mean to me.  I Love you."

Stark Words...

Stressed.

Again.

As always.

Too much work to do, and more coming in all the time; before I can finish one thing, three more have landed on my desk.

And it's the same at home.  I feel over-whelmed and under-supported.  I get a little less sleep every night.  Feel a little more tired every morning.  Each day harder than the one before it.

And it's Repellation Day.

And I would love a drink.

We have some apple moonshine at home right now that I would absolutely fucking murder.

We always have a drink on Repellation Day.  (Of course, until this year, we always had a drink on Thursday, as well, so take that with a pinch of salt.  And a lime wedge.)  And there's something about drinking moonshine on Repellation Day that just feels poetically justified.

Of course, I won't.

I'm going to go home, and do my bills, and stress, and not get enough sleep, the way I'm supposed to.  I'll be a good little monkey.

Because I decided to do this, and I hate giving up, especially at something I know I can do.  I decided to do this, and no matter how miserable I feel, I will only feel worse if I let myself fail.  I won't quit.  And I won't fail.

I won't quit, even though three words keep echoing in my mind, filling me with a hollow dread:


Winter is coming.

'Tis A Mean One...

I started my xmas shopping today.  Feels good to finally get started, even if I am ridiculously late.

Last year, I had most of my shopping done by Dec. 1st, and all of it done well before Yule (the Winter solstice).  It was wonderful.  The best Yule season I've had in my adult life, I think.  I got to just sit back and enjoy it.  I could spend all of my energy on making the holiday more pleasant and fun and enjoyable, because I didn't have to spend it all on the work.  All of the work was done.  I actually got to just relax and enjoy it, for once.

Knowing that I wasn't going to have that experience again this year was actually one of the things that got me down a couple of weeks ago.  I'd been so busy through the late fall that xmas just sorta snuck up on me, and I didn't see it coming until it was already here, and I was already behind in my work.  "What?  It's xmas already?  Wait!  I haven't started yet.  I'm already late?!  Crap!  Last year was so wonderful, and this year is gonna suck now, and I never even had a chance!"  It was just instantly depressing.

But there's some hope left.  (Which seems appropriate, given the spirit of the season.)  It's only December 4th, so I'm still getting a fairly early start, all things considered; just not quite as early as last year.  But I've got some time left, is the point.  And, I don't have as much shopping to do this year, which is going to help.  With Snowflake being unemployed and underemployed for most of this year, we just can't afford to do the amount of shopping that we normally would.  (Just one of the many unexpected brightsides to her unemployment.  Blessing in disguise, that.)

So, I've got less work to do overall, and still a respectable amount of time left to do it.

Looks like this xmas might not be totally grinch'd just yet.

Ramble, Bramble, Blurble...

No idea what to write here today.

So many options, so little time.

I didn't do anything this weekend.  Well, rather, I accomplished a lot, in a digital fantasy world of Revolutionary Colonial America, but that was pretty much all internal.  Externally, I barely moved from the same one spot all weekend.  My thumbs got quite a workout, though.

I felt bad spending my whole weekend jerking-off like that.  But I also had a great time.  This game is so beautiful (Winter in Colonial New York, 1776 - I never want to leave), and endlessly entertaining.  Every time I think I'm starting to figure it out, I find something new that I was completely unaware of.  And I knew that I'm not going to get much time to play it in the next few weeks, getting ready for Yule, and so I wanted to cram in as much as I possibly could before then.  Just like an addict.  "Lemme get high one more time, and then I'll go to the detox center, I promise."

She and I also watched a couple of movies together yesterday; something we don't get to do nearly often enough.  That was good.  And, in a way, productive, because spending time together that way always brings us closer together, especially when we don't do it very often.

We watched True Grit, which we'd never seen before.  As always, an incredible, amazing, basically perfect film from The Coen Brothers.  Literally enjoyed every single second of that movie, no exaggeration.  Highly recommended.

And then we watched a documentary called Dark Days, about a group of homeless people who made homes, and a society, for themselves beneath the subway tunnels of NYC.  Very interesting, and strange, and captivating, and sometimes difficult to watch.

We've been watching a lot of documentaries, lately.  A new thing for us, but I hope it's a trend that continues.  I'm really enjoying it.  Just as entertaining as fictional movies, but more compelling for their truthfulness.  Also educational, which lets me convince myself I'm doing something more worthwhile than just watching a movie.

I think the combination of a fictional story film and a documentary viewed back-to-back is just about a perfect way to spend a few hours together.  They complement each other, and balance each other out, in a very pleasant way.

I hope we do, too.

Family Feast Day...

I want to write about Thanksgiving this year, but I don't know who is going to read this, and that makes me feel self-conscious about what I should or shouldn't say, and that makes me not want to write about it anymore.  I guess it's for the best; I don't really have much of anything to say about it, anyways.  It was just a recent event that seemed like an obvious topic for posting.  It's a bit cliché, honestly.

For now I'll simply note that I stayed sober throughout, despite a seemingly never-ending stream of enticing opportunities to do otherwise.  And I still had a great time; staying sober didn't negatively impact my experience at all.  If anything, it might've actually helped make it even more enjoyable, simply because I wasn't as tired, exhausted, and worn-out by the whole thing as I would've normally been if I'd been drinking, etc.  (I feel like I've said this same thing over and over again lately, about Dover, about the AGM, about every experience I've recently had sober for the first time, where normally I would be intoxicated.  Maybe I can start taking this lesson to heart now?  Soon?)

Also, this is pretty much my experience of Pittsburgh:

What Is Going On Here?...

I.

NEED.

THIS.



This is not a revelation.  I knew this to be true.  Still, knowing something to be true and experiencing the truth of it firsthand remain two entirely separate things.

I knew on some intellectual level that I needed to write.  I knew it was good for me, and I knew it made me happy.  But I was quite unprepared for exactly how it would affect me when I stopped.

At first, I just didn't have the time or the energy.  I was overwhelmed with work, both in the office and at home, and just simply could not make time to write; what little time I spent not working I needed to rest.  I just didn't have any energy left to spend on creative expressions.

But then things finally calmed down.  And I did have time to write again.  But I still didn't do it.  I was just so tired.  And I just didn't feel like it.  It still just felt like more work.  And I was so tired.  I just wanted to sleep for a week.

I still feel that way, actually.

I can't get to sleep at night.  And then I can't get up in the morning.  I can never get enough sleep, and I'm always tired.  I can barely even try to make it to the gym anymore, much less actually work out.  Everything feels like it takes ten times more energy than I have available to spend.  It takes all of my strength every morning just to force myself to get up and go into the office.  And now Yule is approaching, and I haven't even started thinking about it yet.  I'm so behind, and I have so much work to do, and I don't feel that I could ever possibly get it all done because I'm just so fucking tired.

Sometime last week, I finally admitted that I'm depressed.

Admitting that scared me.  Because I didn't know why I'm depressed.  And if I don't know why, then I can't do anything about it.  I just have to suffer through it.  I've been depressed for Christmas before, and it's been some of the most miserable times of my life.  My whole life, this has been my very favorite time of year, hands-down, no question.  And to not be able to feel any of the joy of that is just a terrible experience for me.  And then further, to be surrounded everywhere by all these bright, flashing, blinking, shiny reminders of How I'm Supposed To Be Feeling only accentuates the depression, and makes it worse, almost every minute of every day.  And then still having to do all of that work, but without the excitement of the season to motivate me?  Ugh, it's just a downward-spiral of Yuletide hellishness.  Those times, it's been easy for me to understand why the suicide rate supposedly skyrockets during the holidays.

So, I didn't want to be depressed.  I didn't want to have to go through all of that.  I wanted it to go away.  I wanted to feel better without having to face the prospect of another miserable Yule.  But eventually I couldn't ignore it anymore, and I had to accept the fact that I was clearly depressed.

But why??  Every other time I've experienced this, it's been the result of a relapse of some sort.  But I haven't relapsed this time.  Not even an accidental one (like the sleeping pills at Dover).  So what is it?  Too much coffee?  My occasional Winter pipe smoking?

With some help, I've figured out that it's most likely stress-related.  But if it's stress-related, then why can't I ever seem to relax or feel rested?  And what do I do about it??

This is the answer to both.

Writing is a coping mechanism for me.  It's pretty much my main coping mechanism at this point.  Meaning, the most effective one; it's not necessarily the most-oft used.  And I abandoned that coping mechanism right when I needed it most.  So not only did I take on a lot of extra stress during that period of heavy work, but then I also stopped doing anything to relieve that stress.  And it all started backing up, and backing up, until I was a complete mess and could barely bring myself to get out of bed in the morning, and had no idea why.

I've said it before:  it doesn't matter what I write.  This post is incredibly boring.  Who the fuck is going to be in any way interested about the boring minutiae of my middle-class existence?  But that isn't the point.  I just need to get it out.  I just need to open up, and let go, and empty myself into this machine, and get it the fuck out of me, whatever it is.  It doesn't matter what "it" is.  It is the process of reaching inside, scooping something up, crafting it into some shape or another, and exorcising it into the aether-net that is important.

Because that is how I cope now.  That is how I deal.  And without it, I'm not coping.  I'm not dealing.  I'm stagnating, and wasting, and weighing myself down with all the tons of shit I've left unsaid.

I used to turn to drugs and alcohol in these moments.  And they provided some temporary relief.  Absolutely they did.  But they didn't do anything to help the underlying problem; they didn't help me cope.  Often, they actually made coping more difficult to accomplish, and/or made the underlying problem worse.  This time, I found myself turning to video games in the same way.  An escape from the pain I can't deal with.  An escape from the problem I can't understand, or solve, or control.  I can control my character.  I can solve his problems.  And every time I do, there's that familiar little rush of dopamine; a sense of having accomplished something, however ephemeral.  And yes, that's certainly better for me than getting drunk or high, but just the same, it doesn't do anything to help the underlying problem, or help me cope.  It's just a brief respite from the stress; some temporary relief from the pain.  But as soon as I shut down the console, it's all right there, still waiting for me, unchanged, un-dealt with.  Only getting bigger, and worse, leading me to spend more and more time escaping.  Another downward spiral.

So, I need this.  I need this process.  It helps me.  It's not just a creative exercise.  It's catharsis.  It's therapy.  It's not just some fun little hobby that I enjoy indulging from time-to-time.  I know that now, more than ever, because I've experienced firsthand what happens to me when I don't do this.

And believe me, it ain't pretty.

Raging Election...

(With apologies to everyone at The Colbert Report, from whom I blatantly stole the title for today's post.)

Wow.  Okay, so, yeah, I didn't see that coming last night, to be honest.  I'm so used to getting shellacked in these elections that I fully expected to be facing a Romney presidency this morning.  But not only did we re-elect Obama, but for the first time in my entire life, every single person or issue I voted for actually won.  And then to find out that Democrats and progressive issues won over and over again all across the country?  I'm just kind of stunned, honestly.

Last night, Maryland became the first state to uphold same-sex marriage with a voter referendum.  How fabulous is that?  So did Maine.  And Washington state looks like it's going to follow.  And speaking of Washington state, they legalized marijuana there last night.  They didn't just decriminalize it, they legalized it; for recreational use.  And so did Colorado.  Wow!

I was fully prepared to be seriously depressed today.  Now I don't quite know what to do with myself.

If you have any suggestions for ways I could spend my day not being depressed, please leave a comment below, and I will take it under consideration.  Thank you, and Gods Bless America.



Quick note about updates:  We're super-swamped at work with another tight deadline, and another series of endless snags delaying the whole process (yesterday was a clusterfuck on a scale that I have never witnessed here in fifteen years), and so I've been working more long hours again.  But this time, there's the added complication that I've been off-site for a lot of it, and so away from my computer.  And at home, we've got a couple of big projects to finish up in the next couple of weeks, as well, and so that's eating up a big chunk of what little free time I have left.  I actually have about a half a dozen posts started already that I've been wanting to get out there, but I just haven't had a chance to finish them yet.  Soon, soon.

Just wanted you to know that I'm still here, and I haven't given up or anything.  Just a tad too much on my plate at the moment.  Busy, busy Backson will be Back Soon.

Give And Take...

So, apparently today marks six months since my last drink.  Pretty happy about that.

Also, my wife dropped her phone in the toilet.  Less happy about that.

It would seem my world is in balance.

Sandy...

So, yeah, we got hit by a hurricane the other day.

Not a very common occurrence around here, so people didn't really know how to respond.  Most people seemed to either over-react or under-react.  With little experience to draw from, it was hard to determine the appropriate response.

We bought a few supplies, and then just hunkered down and watched movies for the day.

In the end, we got through it just fine.  It was loud and scary at times, but all it managed to do was rattle our windows.  No flooding, no damage, and we never lost power.  About 100,000 other people in our county weren't as lucky as us.  All of our friends and family seem to have come through it just as unscathed as we did though (favorite lilac bushes notwithstanding), so all-in-all we feel really lucky and grateful.

The only negative consequence I suffered was a minor emotional one.  There's this farm I pass by on my way South out of town that I've always really liked for one particular reason.  In the middle of this large farm field by the side of the highway, about three hundred yards away from the road, there is this one large, lone hill sticking up from the ground.  And on the very top of that hill, silhouetted against the sky, stood a large, twisted tree.  I've always loved that image for some reason.  I would be sure to look at it for as long as possible every time I drove by, and I always appreciated it in some way I can't really define.  It was iconic to me, somehow.  I really loved it, and I looked forward to seeing it.  When I drove to work yesterday, after the storm, I looked for it again, but it was gone.

Just a little thing, really.  But now that it's gone, I can't help but feel sad.  Again, I can't really say why.  I'm just sad knowing that I'll never get to see it again.  Never again get to feel that strange feeling it gave me every time I looked at it.  I miss it.

But as far as hurricane damage goes, that is getting off lucky.  And how.

A Long Weight...

Finally made it back to the gym this morning.  Which is always the final sign that I am definitively over my depression.

I knew it had been a few weeks since I last made it to the gym, but I didn't realize exactly how long.  Here's how long it's been since the last time I worked out:

• the last morning that I left early to make it to the gym before work, I needed sunglasses; this morning, I needed headlights
• the last morning that I left early to make it to the gym before work, I was wearing shorts, and I was comfortable; this morning, I was wearing a jacket and I was cold
• the last time I worked out, the leaves on the trees that I watch through the window of the gym while I "run" on the elliptical were still green; this morning they were every color but
• the last time I worked out, it was still September
• I haven't worked out in a long fucking time, is what I'm saying

Oh, well.  No use crying over spilled milkfat.  The important thing is that I'm back at it.  And with any luck, by Thanksgiving I might be halfway back to the weight I was in August.

fnord

Our Dreamings...

My brotherfriend wrote me the other day about some of his dreams.  This is something we often do.  His writing sparked this conversation between us:

My dreams have been all psychic angst lately.  Last night I took a sports car out for a test drive, and immediately crashed it into a harbor or boat dock or river channel or something.  The night before I had to let Her be gang-raped by a group of nasty, drug-addled urban pirates, because it was the only way to get us both out of the situation alive (if I'd tried to stop them, they'd have just killed me and raped her anyways).  Others have been more mundane - She and I fighting or bickering in some strange, emotionally-amplified way; uncomfortable, awkward, ego-bruising social situations.  In one memorable one, I was living in my office on the weekends for some reason, and as I was laying in my tiny office bed masturbating one Saturday morning, the whole office suddenly showed up for work/a party (it was a party, but people were working - ??) and I was caught naked and furry-handed, as it were, and then fired in the most humiliating manner imaginable.

    So - this may be a dumb question, but how do you feel about these dreams after you wake, is it more of a nightmare response - quickened pulse, hard breathing, kind of thing? Do you take them as expressions of turmoil, or do you see much omen in them?


I don't think that's a dumb question.  When I wake I can usually feel the residual, coming-down edge of adrenaline, the fleeting wake of anxiety.  Not quite a quickened pulse or hard-breathing (it's been a long time since I had a dream that upset me to that degree; what I wouldn't give to have a true full-bore, holy-fuck nightmare), but I can tell that something just happened.  Then I'll remember the dream, and that will lead to a feeling of "ugh, fuck" and then I'll be in a bad mood for a little while.  (Or sometimes longer, depending on how bad the dream was.  The gang-rape left me pretty fucked up for most of the day.)

I don't generally interpret my dreams, or try to divine from them, unless there is something unusual or interesting about the dream; some quality that makes it stand out from the usual nighttime fluff and cerebral noise.  Whether pleasant or painful, if it feels like "just a dream" then I usually treat it that way.  But dreams that are particularly vivid, say - I will pay more attention to those, and go over them afterwards again and again, sifting for relevant or interesting data.  Those dreams where I have an interesting quality of consciousness - where I am more aware than usual, that I remember in more detail upon waking, etc. - will also usually attract my attention and therefore garner greater scrutiny.  I've also learned to recognize certain signs over the years that I know mean something to me.  For instance, whenever a dead person appears in my dream, and does not speak, I know that something different was happening that night, and that was not just an ordinary dream.  (For some reason, dead people never speak in my dreams.  They communicate, but only through body language, facial expressions, and hand gestures.  They never say anything.  And I only ever remember after I wake up, "oh, wait a minute - that person is dead.")  Dreams with multiple layers, dreams with puzzles or labyrinths, dreams where I am lost, dreams where the lights go out, dreams where I display some vulgar magickal ability; these all usually mean something to me.

As for how I interpret those dreams worthy of attention - as coded messages (either from myself or Other), as portents or omens, as communications from or meetings with outside spirits or entities, or what-have-you - depends entirely on the specifics of the dream itself.  It's just a sense of that particular dream.  What did it feel like?  That's probably what it was.

Most of my dreams lately have just been the usual noise.  The fact that they've been less than pleasant is due, I believe, simply to the fact that I've been under more stress than usual lately.  I've been working hard, both at work and home, and not relaxing enough, or expressing enough, and so the pressure-release valve of my unconscious is blasting all that psychic bong-resin out the back of my head as I sleep.  That's how it feels to me, anyways.

+     +     +

Every night, when I lay down to go to sleep, I perform a Dreamlands visualization.  I see my Astral standing naked on the bed where we're sleeping, and I take my Silver Key off of my bedstand where it hangs, and put it around my neck; as soon as it is around my neck it morphs into the Silver Key (complete with "arabesque" symbols, etc.).  At that point, a hole opens up in my bed, revealing a staircase leading downward into the Dreamlands.  I count out each of the Seventy Steps of Light Slumber, down to the Cavern of Flame, where I then have to perform some feat in order to convince the gatekeepers Nasht and Kaman-Tha that I am worthy to travel in the Dream.  It is usually something gruesome and grotesque, such as flaying myself alive and magickally creating a robe to wear from the strips of my skin; or transfiguring myself into some many-limbed, many-eyed, many-teeted, many-tentacled thing that tears its way out of my body, or burning myself alive in magickal fire until all my flesh is burned away and I am just a spirit of living flame.  Stuff like that, whatever I come up with that particular night.  It's different every time.  If I'm then judged worthy by the Gatekeepers, they will open a doorway in the CoF revealing the staircase of the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Slumber, which lead down to the Enchanted Wood that is the entrance to the Dreamlands, and I will then begin to descend those, again counting out each step as I go.  I always arrive in the CoF naked, but always leave robed.  I almost always make it to the CoF before I fall asleep, and I am almost always judged worthy.  I have made it to the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Slumber many times, but have never made it to the Enchanted Wood before falling asleep.  I often fall asleep in the CoF while performing for Nasht and Kaman-Tha.

      Just curious - is there a particular reason that your feats are all body horror related? Is there any relationship between those feats and the kinds of dreams you have? I really like the path working, and might use it myself - but I wasn't sure if the transformations were something you feel is important to the entire process, or if it is the best way for you to convince Nasht and Kaman-Tha that you should be permitted to descend the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Slumber.



I've never felt any anxiety about these nightly grotesqueries; they've never upset me.  If anything, they're kind of a thrill.  I'll never get to do any of these things in real life, so it's kind of fun to get to do them in my head, and let my imagination run wild.  So, no, I wouldn't say that they have anything to do with the unpleasantness of my recent dreams.  Though I guess it's certainly possible.  I've never kept tally of the number of good vs. bad dreams I've had after passing through the Cavern of Flame.

As to why they are all "body horror" related (which I originally read as "bloody horror"), I'm not quite sure what you mean.  I guess I can see now that the three examples I gave were each an instance of me mutilating my body in some fashion, but that was just a coincidence; I didn't mean to imply that I always need to rend my flesh in some manner in order to impress the Gatekeepers.  I've also often done astral work, or summoned a creature, or something else.  So, the only real requirement is that it be a feat of magickal or psychic prowess.

All I'm really trying to do there, is impress upon Nasht and Kaman-Tha that I am worthy to enter the Dream.  That I am both powerful enough to take care of myself, and that I am familiar enough with the kinds of oddities I am likely to find at the bottom of that long staircase that I am probably not going to go mad as soon as I get there.  Probably.  I am trying to display to them, both the powers of my imagination and an ability to control the dream.  And then no doubt the simple fact that it's a Mythos working must also color my imagination in some fashion, leading to a greater incidence of performances of "unimaginable horrors."  You work with the Mythos, and you're gonna get some tentacles.  That's just unavoidable.

I imagine that everyone's experience with the Gatekeepers would be unique to the individual magickian/dreamer, though.  I'd be really interested to know yours.

Give and Take...

I have a confession to make, my dear.

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I want you.

I want you.

Still.  And again.  I want you.

How should I take you tonight, Pet?

Fiercely?  Or tenderly?

With Lust?  Or Love?

Do you want to be dressed as an eager, young strumpet?  Or completely nude - naked and open?

Should I be naked and exposed with you, as well, so we can share in our mutual vulnerability?  Or should I demonstrate my passionate need by not even taking the time to fully undress?

Do you want to be held down and ravaged?  Or held up and adored?

Where, exactly, should I kiss you?

What will you give to me this time?

How should I take you tonight?

Whelmed To The Nth Degree...

I'm sorry about the total lack of posts recently.  I'm just really overwhelmed right now.  I have more work than I can handle both in and out of the office, and so the combination of the two has really been difficult to deal with.  I'm also still trying to claw my way out of my recent depression.  So it's just been difficult to find a way to make this a priority.  Which is stupid, when I think about it, because this is one of the only things that really makes me feel better, and helps me deal with all of this overwhelming shit.  But, ironically, the very fact that I'm feeling overwhelmed makes this seem less like enjoyable therapy, and more like "more work I don't have time to deal with right now."

Whatever.  Excuses, excuses.

I miss it here.  I hope to be back soon.

Eleven...

When the Earth was still flat
And clouds made of fire
And mountains stretched up to the sky
Sometimes higher

Folks roamed the Earth
Like big rollin' kegs
They had two sets of arms
They had two sets of legs
They had
Two faces peerin'
Out of one giant head
So they could
Watch all around them
As they
Talked while they read
And they never
Knew nothin' of Love
It was before...

The origin of Love

Now there was three sexes then
One that looked
Like two men glued up back-to-back
They're called the Children of the Sun
And similar in shape and girth
Was the Children of the Earth
They looked like
Two girls rolled up in one
And the Children of the Moon
Was like a fork shoved on a spoon
They was part Sun
Part Earth
Part daughter
Part son

Now the gods grew quite scared
Of our strength and defiance
And Thor said,
"I'm gonna kill 'em all with my Hammer
Like I killed the giants."
But Zeus said, "No.
You'd better let me
Use my lightning like scissors,
Like I cut the legs off the whales
And dinosaurs into lizards."
And then he grabbed up some bolts
And he let out a laugh
Said, "I'll split them right down the middle,
Gonna cut 'em right up in half."

And the storm clouds
Gathered above
Into great balls of fire

And then fire
Shot down from the sky in bolts
Like shining blades of a knife
And it ripped
Right through the flesh
Of the Children of the Sun and the Moon and the Earth
And some Indian god
Sewed the wound up into a hole
Pulled it 'round to our belly to remind us
Of the price we paid
And Osiris
And the gods of the Nile
Gathered up a big storm
To blow a hurricane
To scatter us away
A flood of wind and rain
A sea of tidal waves
To wash us all away
And if we don't behave
They'll cut us down again
And we'll be hoppin' 'round on one foot
And lookin' through one eye



The last time I saw you
We'd just split in two
You was lookin' at me
I was lookin' at you
You had a way so familiar
But I could not recognize
Cause you had
Blood in your face
I had
Blood in my eyes
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same
As the one down in mine

That's the pain
That cuts a straight line down through the heart
We call it "Love"
We wrap our arms around each other
Try to shove ourselves back together
We was makin' Love
Making Love

It was a cold, dark evening
Such a long time ago
When by the mighty hand of Jove...

It was a sad story
How we became lonely, two-legged creatures
That story...

The Origin of Love

           -"The Origin of Love"
             Hedwig & The Angry Inch

Lapse...

So, I think I relapsed.

Accidentally.  Without even knowing it.

That sounds absurd, but it's the most logical assumption to make, given the evidence.

I had no trouble staying sober at Dover, and though I recognized on a couple of occasions that it would've been nice to have a drink or something, I was never stressed by it, and it didn't interfere with my ability to enjoy myself in the slightest.  In fact, the one notable difference between this weekend and past trips was that this one was noticeable easier for me.  I'm normally exhausted by the experience, but this time it was just a nice little vacation; I never realized how much of that exhaustion was apparently due to the booze, etc.

So, I had a great time, and was feeling wonderful.  But then, a day or so after coming home, I suddenly started to feel really down.  It started when I couldn't sleep properly.  But it just got worse from there.  I ended up getting severely depressed, and completely exhausted.  I couldn't sleep enough, and yet I never felt rested.  And I had no energy, no drive, no ambition, no desires; at best I was numb - at worst, I was completely miserable and pissed off at everything.

I had a few different guesses as to what might be causing this condition, but as I resolved them one-by-one, with no change in my mood, I had to try and form new theories.  Which is when I realized that what I was experiencing felt like the exact same depressive period that follows a relapse for me.  And that's when I remembered the sleeping pills.

I took sleeping pills the nights we stayed at Dover.  One pill each night; half the recommended dosage.  I wasn't taking them to get high.  I was taking them for their intended purpose, to help me sleep.  We were staying in a flea-bag hotel, and I was wide awake in an uncomfortable bed, and I had a lot to do the next day, and needed to get an early start.  I didn't think anything of it at the time.  Because I was thinking of it as "medicine" and not "drugs."  But in hindsight, it became obvious - of course I got high off of them (they altered my brain-chemistry to the point that I was rendered unconscious, for fuck's sake), and so of course I was going to experience the same depression afterwards that I experience whenever I get high off of anything; the reason why I took them is completely irrelevant to my brain-chemistry.

So, I've been suffering through that since we got back, and am only just now starting to come out of it.  That's one reason why I haven't posted anything for a while.  (Work is the other half of that, but that's a whole other post in and of itself.) This one has been particularly difficult to deal with, because it's been accompanied by strong doses of self-pity and righteous indignation.  Normally, I know exactly what I did wrong, and I know exactly why it was wrong, and so a part of this depression feels like a deserved punishment; I knew what to expect, and I did this to myself, so I really have no right to complain about it, and should just shut the fuck up and take it like a man.  But in this case, I don't really feel like I did anything wrong.  I didn't truly relapse in the sense that I didn't give in to my cravings and desires.  I didn't even have any cravings or desires!  I was just trying to solve a problem I was experiencing by taking a medicine designed to alleviate that particular ailment, and is available at any local convenience store.  And now I have to feel like complete shit for two weeks??

And the worst part is, I didn't even get to get high!  If I'm going to have to suffer through this period of misery, I should at least get the enjoyment of having a drink or something out of it.  That's only fair, right?  But in this case, I didn't get the drink; all I got was the hangover.  And that just feels so wrong.

Those thoughts kept running through my mind, and it became really difficult to not have a drink.  To know that all I would have to do is have one drink, and all this pain would simply vanish for a time, and I would be allowed to feel good again for a short while - that was really hard to resist.  Especially when I felt like I was already paying the price for it; it felt like I'd earned it, in a way.  But I was able to maintain perspective, and remind myself that having a drink would only prolong the inevitable, and make it worse in the long-run.  And set me back a few months.  (I really didn't want to erase all those Sober Days from my tally and have to start back at zero again.)  And, thankfully, a part of me wanted to suffer through it.  I have that stubborn desire to build endurance through gritting my teeth and taking pain lately, and that served me well here, again.  As horrible as the experience was - and perhaps even because it was so horrible - I wanted it to be over as quickly as possible, and I knew the best way to accomplish that was just to try and keep my mouth shut and suffer through it.

I also ate whatever the fuck I wanted for two weeks and gained several pounds, but again, that's a whole other post, entirely.

Sniff...

Standing at the sink, in the office kitchenette, washing the dried and crusted remnants of my workday's coffee from my mug, I had a moment.

I'm fascinated by those moments, when the most banal and mundane aspects of daily life suddenly collide with the profound, the mystical, and the transcendent.  They have an instant and unmistakable sense of Tao.  And this was one of those moments.  Standing at the sink, in the office kitchenette, washing a day's worth of old, dried coffee out of my mug, just like I do at the end of every day.  And as I stood there washing, the cleaning lady walked in.  An older, round-ish hispanic woman; really nothing remarkable about her at all, and normally the only emotional response I would've had to her presence would have been my usual feeling of white, liberal guilt at this reminder of my station, and my privilege.  But something else happened this time.  Something new and different.  Something I never could've expected.  Something simple, and ordinary, and yet utterly magickal.

Just a second or so after she entered the room, the gust of air raised by her entrance carried her scent to me, and I was instantly a child.

Ten years-old.

The beach.

A perfect Summer's day.

The sound of distant waves, crashing.  And gulls crying.  And children screaming in joy.

And a feeling I had forgotten.  A feeling of freedom and exhilaration and excitement and happiness that was so overwhelming as to border on the manic.  A feeling of certainty that these glorious moments of delirium were all that mattered.  There was absolutely nothing else to think about, or do, or say; there was but one single, solitary purpose to all existence, and that was to enjoy these moments, as much as we were physically able, for as long as our parents would leave us to it.  These were the best moments of our lives.  And even better, we were completely unaware of that fact.  Freed in the glory of our naivete, we swam away in the joy of "it can only get better from here."

Death and old-age were only abstract ideas, and things that happen to other people, or on TV.  Sex was still an exhilarating mystery, only just beginning to punctuate our daily lives with little electric sparks of sensation.  Work was something grown-ups forced us to do, and was to be avoided at all costs.  Playing was all that mattered.

Playing was the meaning of life.

And then I was back at the sink, in the office kitchenette, still washing the crusted stains of my amphetamine potion off of my mug.  In just a half-second, I had experienced my entire childhood, and then aged twenty-five years.  I wanted to cry.

I have no idea what that scent was.  Presumably, it was the cleaning lady's perfume.  Even now, as I write this, I can't recall the scent to memory; can't remember the sensation of it at all, but only the effect it had on me.  It's faded back into whatever dark corner of my mind in which it has slept for the past twenty-five years.  I don't know where I remembered it from, nor do I have any idea why it reminded me of my childhood, or the beach, or Summer, or the exhilarating freedom of having no responsibility.  And I guess I don't care at this point.

I can't ever go back.  None of us can.  I will never, ever experience those feelings again.  So I have absolutely no choice at this point but to feel incredibly grateful to have been able to experience them again, at all, for even a moment, as I washed my mug in the sink of the office kitchenette.

Russets...

It's Autumn
and the World around me
has begun to Die
and the Air is scented sweet with Decay
and the crisp Snap of the breeze
boils my Blood

Life thrown into
sharp, Sensuous relief
surrounded on all Sides
by its inevitable Reflection

Breathe it in
hold it Inside
Kiss it
Eat it
Fuck it
let it Roll down your chin
get your hands Sticky with it

and Remember
that One day
It Will Be You

Fall Weekend At Dover...

Just after we arrived.  Green flag was still a couple of hours away.





Start 'em up, boys!  (Sorry about the wind noise - it was breezy up there!)





The #18 makes a pit stop.  He was out front of the pack all day, but then had to give up the lead with only 8 laps to go in order to pit for gas.  SO frustrating.  I really thought he was going to win it this time!  Oh, well.  One of these years...





I had a video of the opening Green Flag, but it wasn't very good.  This one is much better.  Still doesn't in any way convey just how awesome it is to be there, though.





The Blue Deuce takes his victory lap.  He only led the last 8 laps, but as they say, you only need to lead one lap - the LAST one.

Uh-wake...

I had another attack of insomnia last night.

I think "attack" is a very appropriate word to describe it.  Because it definitely feels like a violent and painful assault upon your person perpetrated by an outside force.  And you're not the same afterwards.

I know that everyone experiences some insomnia every once in a while, but I feel like it happens to me more than the average.  I don't know if that's actually true or not, but it certainly feels that way.  It seems like every couple months or so I have a night where I'm just awake for no apparent reason.  Or, more specifically, where I alternate between lightly dozing for a few minutes and wide awake, over and over again all night.

I wasn't tired last night.  Probably because I didn't get in my workout.  Eventually, well past my bedtime, I forced myself to go to bed and try to go to sleep.  I laid there for well over an hour before I finally dozed off.  Ninety minutes later, I was wide awake again.  And I could not get comfortable.  No position felt right.  No, it was more than that - every position felt painful in one way or another.  And I was either too hot, or too cold, or sometimes even both at the same time, but never was I anywhere in the vicinity of a comfortable temperature.  After another hour spent tossing and turning, I gave up and went out to the living room.

After another hour or so out on the couch, I eventually started to drift off again.  Just about the time that my alarm started going off.  No way was I getting up that early and going in to the gym; not with the way I was feeling.  And so, of course, I ended up getting the best couple of hours of sleep of the entire night between when my alarm went off and when I absolutely had to get up in order to make it to work on time.  Or, in other words, during the time when I should have been getting up and working out.

So, I missed my workout again today.  Which means I probably won't be tired enough to sleep well again tonight.  Remember the "Crap Energy Loop?"  Here I go again, round and round and round.

I've been in a semi-conscious daze all day.  Everything has seemed just slightly un-real.  Reality has this sort of painted-on feel to it, as if my life were actually some elaborately crafted soundstage.  I've had this unmistakeable and familiar sense that I'm only partially here, and that I'm also partially somewhere else.

So, at least I got one good thing out of having insomnia.

Crap Day...

Overslept.

Missed my chance to get in a work out today.  And I need it after this weekend.

Pouring rain, so:

a) stuck in miserable traffic  (why does everyone around here lose their goddamned minds as soon as it starts raining?!  it's fucking rain, people!  not ice, or napalm, or some shit!  you don't need to drive 20mph under the speed limit in the left-hand lane in order to protect your worthless excuse for a life, you miserable slow-ass twats)

b) and therefore late to work (which means I'm stuck here later tonight)

c) and got soaked by rain twice (between home and car, and between car and office - and, of course, because I was late, all the covered parking spots were taken, and the closest parking spot to my office was as far away from the building as physically possible)

Was out of the office yesterday because of Dover, so I came in this morning to find a hernia-inducing pile of work backed-up and waiting for me to finish yesterday.

Between being late this morning and this huge pile of work, there was no way I could justify leaving early to make SMART tonight, so that's my third meeting missed in the last four weeks.

I somehow managed to leave my headphones at home, so I can't listen to music or podcasts or anything else today, the way I normally do when I'm working.

All I've wanted to do, since the moment I opened my eyes this morning, is lay on my couch and play video games.

Wah.

They Come In Three's...

There has been a sudden epidemic of relapses among the members of my SMART group.

Several people, one right after another, taking their turn to share their story of falling off the wagon.  Some people have put off talking about it for a week or so, because they didn't want to add yet another relapse story into a meeting that was already crowded with them.  Some of these people are new to recovery, and are still struggling with it, and so that's to be expected.  But others have been sober for years.   And those are a lot harder to deal with.  For everyone involved.

Relapses are a part of recovery, as they say.  But though they happen, they're still rare enough that it feels very bizarre for them to be happening in a cluster like this.  It feels improbable, bordering on paranormal.

And I can't help thinking about this, as we get ready to go to Dover for the NASCAR race this weekend.  I normally have a six-pack all to myself during the race, plus a few other fun enhancers and reality lubricants both before and after.  It's always been a party weekend for us.  This will be my first time at a race completely sober.

I'm honestly not worried about my sobriety right now.  I don't feel I am in any danger of getting fucked up in any way this weekend.  Nor am I concerned about my ability to enjoy myself this weekend sober.  This weekend is a blast, period, and there's nothing about it that I need to get fucked up in order to enjoy.  I know I'm going to have a great time.

But with the way things have been going lately, I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel a little bit like tempting fate.

Sizzle Pop Blurble...

Been in class since 8a this morning; just got out.  Too brain-fried to post anything.  It was a cool class, though.  And I learned a lot.

So, worth it.

Must Be...

I should be working right now.

I know this.  I have so much work to do.  And if I don't pick up the pace and start moving it off my desk a lot faster than I have been, then I'm looking at some more late nights and weekends in the office.  And no one wants that.  And I'm going to be in a class all day tomorrow, and then I'm going to be out on Monday (going to the race in Dover, yay!), so that's two days of work lost, on top of everything else.

I know this.  And I know I don't have anything worthwhile to say right now, either.  All I want to do is put in some extra effort on this work so that maybe I don't feel quite so much like I'm drowning under twenty feet of icy, black code.  Icy, black, error-ridden code.

I know this.  But I can't stay away.  I can't ignore this space.  I want to, but I can't.  I can feel it, in the back of my head, all the time:  What are you going to write about today?  When are you going to write today?  It pulls at me, chews on me, and I have to satisfy that hunger, I have to feed that desire.  I can't ignore it, and I can't make it go away.  I have no choice; no say in the matter at all.

Words must be written.

What they say is irrelevant.

Just like me.

It's WHAT o'clock?!...

I have one piece of work I need to finish up before I can leave.  Then I remembered that I still had to post something.  Then I glanced at the clock and realized that I have to leave in half an hour if I'm going to make my SMART meeting tonight!

I don't know if I can even get my work done in thirty minutes, much less that and post something.  And so, as usual, the paycheck beats down the soul.

So it goes.

And goes, and goes, and goes, and...

Buzz...

Busy little bee today.  Way too much to do, nowhere near enough time to do it, and more work coming in every minute.  Worked through my lunch, ate through my work, and I'm so high on coffee I can see into the future.

It does not end well for me.

Still, nothing to do but plow forward into Oblivion.  Upward and Outward!

Fnord.

Discipline?...

My friend commended me on my self-discipline last night.

And I told her, "I don't feel like I have any discipline.  I just have a really deep bag of tricks."

To my mind, "self-discipline" implies some sort of forceful inner strength, which I don't feel I have.  (Though, a lot of what I'm working on with my Self right now is related to trying to learn it.)  And, regardless, even if I do have it, it's not what I generally use to change or better myself.

I'm not strong that way.  I'm slippery.

I don't just force myself to move forward with the things I know I should do instead of the things I want to do.  Instead, I figure out how to perceive the situation so that I end up wanting to do the thing I know I should do.

I don't make myself do things I don't like; I figure out how to perceive them so that I do like them.

I think an ounce of cunning is worth a metric ton of force.

Frednecking At The Fair...

A small taste of my yester-evening.  (And warning - it's loud!)

The Lost Sharing...

I had to skip SMART again this week.  But I wrote to the facilitator, to let him know I'd be out and so he'd know I hadn't fallen off the wagon or whatever; and also to let him know what I would've shared, if I'd been able to make it.

I thought it would be worth sharing here, too:


On Friday, my wife and I went out to our local for dinner and drinks (I had O'Douls).  I mentioned to her that I had recently realized that I could not remember the last time we'd had a fight, or even any sort of minor emotional dust-up, and asked her if she could remember.  She realized she couldn't remember, either.  Things have been really good for us lately; for a good, long while now, in fact.  I hypothesized that this was probably a result of two recent changes in my life.

One of them is a bit involved to try and explain; it involves changes to the way I perceive and interact with her, and to the way I think about Love in general, and so it would require a good bit of backstory that I don't really have time to get into right now in order for you to really be able to understand it.  Suffice it to say that the end result was that I'm no longer as emotionally fragile with her as I used to be, and that these changes began happening quite literally at the same time as I began to get sober.

And the other change that I think has contributed to our recent run of marital harmony and happiness is obviously just that:  my sobriety.  Drinking and taking drugs by definition alter your mood, and your feelings.  They lift them up when you take them, and then they fall down when it runs out.  And even if you're not taking them right at that moment, if you're doing it regularly enough, then the effect persists, and your emotions continue to go up and down, up and down, even when you're sober.  And so one of the results of this extended period of sobriety, is that I'm finding that I'm less emotionally volatile than I used to be; I'm much more even-keeled now that I'm not playing chemical yo-yo with my feelings.

This prompted my wife to tell me again, as we were sitting at the bar, how proud she was of me for being able to stay sober for so long.  And she added how proud she was of me, in particular, for being able to come out drinking with her and still remain sober.  And, I replied back to her that, as always, I found it difficult to accept that praise.  Because I didn't feel like I was doing anything.  It wasn't as if being at the bar made me want a drink, and I was having to spend the entire time resisting this overwhelming urge.  If that were the case, if I was struggling with urges, and then successfully overcoming them, then I would feel as if I had done something worthy of praise.  But as it was, being at the bar didn't make me want to drink anymore than at any other point in my day.  I just don't want to drink right now.  I'm very much enjoying not drinking.

The other half of that coin is that I am very much looking forward to drinking again, later.  We saw a bottle behind the bar that night, of Fireball whiskey; a cinnamon-flavored whiskey that we only just discovered last year, a few months before I sobered up.  And with the seasons turning right now, and the crisp scent of Autumn in the air, I had the thought, "Oh, a shot of that would be delightful for Fall.  That will be really nice to have again.  Maybe next year?"  I realize it isn't typical, but I'm lucky enough that I haven't yet had to say to myself, "I can never drink again."  I didn't fall that far.  I just didn't pay attention to what I was doing, and then realized that I was drinking too much, and that it had gotten a little scary, and so decided that I needed to stop for a while; for some unspecified period of time of at least one year.  And so I've never had to confront that issue, or deal with all the grief and loss of "I can never drink again."  I'm fortunate enough that I've been able to say just, "Not now, maybe later."  And this is just so much easier to handle on an emotional level.  And that makes it easier to stay sober.  Because I can kick that can of "later" down the road indefinitely.

And that's where I'm at right now, and where I've been for a while:  I don't want to drink right now, and I'm looking forward to drinking again, later.  Whether that "later" will ever actually come is a mystery to me.  I honestly don't know.  I imagine it will again, but no one knows what the future holds.  I don't know who I'll be after spending my first year sober as an adult, and I don't want to project who I want that person to be.  I want to find out myself along the way.  And I remember that when I quit smoking pot for a year (that time I had planned from the beginning to do it for exactly one year, and then smoke again, and see how it affected me - I designed the whole experience as a personal experiment conducted on my own brain chemistry), at the end of that year, I found it really difficult to smoke again.  I had built up so much momentum towards staying sober over the course of that year, that it was really hard to make myself suddenly switch directions and do the exact opposite.  Yes, I did want to smoke again, but a huge part of me did not want to, as well.  And in the end, what finally helped push me over the edge was that I had set out from the get-go to do it for exactly one year, and then do it again and see what happened, and I wanted to fulfill that original intent.

I don't have any set time-period of sobriety like that this time around.  I don't have any line of demarcation that I'm going to cross at some point in the future that will tell me that it's time to stop being sober.  (And that was intentional, based on the lessons learned in the experience I just mentioned above.)  So, who knows how long this will last?  Who knows when that "later" will come?  Who knows if that "later" will ever actually come, at all?

And more to the point, whether it does or not is completely irrelevant.  Because thinking about that ephemeral "later" - enjoying the idea of it, looking forward to it - helps me to remain sober now.  And even better, it grants me the ability to do things like go out to bars with my wife, and actually be able to enjoy the experience, without struggling against my desires.  It allows me to accept my desires, and still keep moving forward, comfortably, without having to indulge them.

And to my mind, that's gold.  That's pure magick.

The Biomathematical Quotient Of One Apple...

Yesterday, I said, "It's amazing how quickly you can fall back out of shape."  And today I have to say, what a difference a day makes.

Did the same routine this morning as yesterday.  Yesterday I was legitimately concerned that I might die, and today there was no problem at all.  My heart-rate stayed right smack in the middle of my butter-zone the entire time (the monitor was actually working today), and I never felt like I was pushing myself excessively.  Just felt like a really good workout.

I even went the full twenty minutes this time.

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.

At The End Of...

I've started three projects here now, just trying to get something on the page that I wouldn't be completely humiliated to post; a piece of prose, and two versions of the same poem.

It might help if I had anything worthwhile to say.  But I don't.  I'm just trying to create something just to create something.  I'm not driven by a desire to creating anything in particular right now, but just a desire to create, period.

But I'm lost and stymied.  It's all shit.  And I haven't been able to finish any of them, so it's incomplete shit, as well.

I couldn't even manage to successfully have a conversation with myself, usually my refuge in these times of creative void.

...

See?  He's got nothing to contribute today.  My muse is asleep at the wheel.

I guess I should probably just leave.  It's time to go home, anyways.  And that's really where I'd rather be.  I'm taking Her out to dinner and drinks tonight.  I've been looking forward to it all day.

So why can't I just go?  Why do I keep sitting here, trying to create something of value from my office of all fucking places?  What a waste of time.  It'd be easier to do from the bar.  Even sober.

Alright.  Fuck this.  Fuck this, fuck me, and fuck this place.

I'm going home.

Vlurble...

Going non-stop all day (starting with the 9a meeting - wtf? - that left me with no time to make it to the gym this morning - again - only to be rescheduled because someone else was late and couldn't make it - FML) trying to get this latest piece of coding finished by deadline, on top of all this other non-project work I have to do for the company this week - and frankly, I am wiped.  I've got nothin'.

So, instead, enjoy this little piece of bloody awesomeness:

Vicious Circle...

Finally made it back to the gym today.

Once I miss a few days at the gym, I always find it incredibly difficult to make it back.  Not because I have trouble forcing myself to do it.  On the contrary, I really want to get back as soon as possible; I honestly enjoy working out, and I feel like crap when I don't get my workouts nowadays.  It's just that once I miss a couple of workouts, my body enters what I call The Crap Energy Loop.

When I work out, I use up energy, and I end up getting tired earlier, so I get to bed at a reasonable time, and sleep better, and wake up at a reasonable time, feeling well-rested.  So, once I miss a couple of trips to the gym, this cycle gets thrown all out of whack.  Soon a night will come where it is past time for me to go to bed, but because I have all this extra energy from not working out, I'm not tired.  I go to bed anyways, but then have trouble falling asleep.  And then I don't sleep very well that night, so when my alarm goes off in the morning, I'm still really tired and don't feel rested at all.  So then I end up over-sleeping trying to make up for the good sleep I missed the night before, which means I don't make it out the door early enough to make it to the gym before work, and so I miss another workout, and the cycle continues.

I've been stuck in the Crap Energy Loop ever since I got sick.  I missed a week of working out while I was at the AGM, and then I missed another week when I got back just getting over being sick, and it was looking like I was going to miss another week to the CEL.

The last couple of times I've been stuck in the CEL, I've been able to break the cycle by biting the bullet and working out after work instead of before.  I hate to do that (the gym is really crowded in the evenings compared to the mornings, and when I'm done in the office all I want to do is go home), but it uses up that excess energy, and gets my sleep cycle back on track.  But with all the extra hours I've been spending in the office on this project the last couple of weeks, I couldn't even find the time to get to the gym after work, either.

So, I finally managed to drag myself in this morning, exhausted.  Only fifteen minutes on the elliptical, and I was dizzy.  Didn't even bother with weights this time.  Just taking it slow; trying to get back on the horse without falling off.

Here's hoping I sleep like a baby tonight.

Eleven Years...

Eleven years ago today, we were packing to leave the beach.

Princess and I, and two of our friends, had just spent a lovely post-Labor Day week at my grandfather's beach cottage in Delaware, and our vacation was over, and we spent the morning packing up to return to our "normal" lives.  (I didn't know it at the time, but that was the last time I would ever set foot in that cottage on the beach, where I had spent part of every summer of my entire life up to that point.)  When we were finally ready to leave, and packing up the car, I turned my cell phone back on for the first time since I'd arrived a week earlier.  About a minute later, I found I had a dozen voicemails from my father, all from that morning.  I decided to see what all the fuss was about, and heard recording after recording of my father telling me that the United States was under attack, to turn on the TV, and whatever I do, not to come home.

We hadn't turned on the TV once the entire week.  When we finally turned it on that morning, we were all horrified, and dumbstruck.  And as we stood there, watching the towers burning, I remember thinking to myself, with odd clarity, That son-of-a-bitch is going to use this as an excuse to invade Iraq.  My hand to gods, that exact thought crossed my mind, followed immediately by, No - no way - that's ridiculous - even he wouldn't do something that horrible.

We decided to stay another day, because no one was quite sure what was going on at that point, and it just felt a lot safer out there in that sleepy town on the seashore, then back home, next-door to D.C.  That was one of the most surreal days of my life.  We were glued to the TV all day, watching what looked like Hell Come To The U.S.  But where we were, it was a beautiful, just absolutely gorgeous late-Summer day.  It could not have been more peaceful, or serene.  It produced a strange sort of cognitive dissonance that permeated the entire day for all of us.  Nothing we did felt right - if it fit with the scene around us, it didn't fit with the way we felt about what we knew was going on at home; and if it fit with how we felt about the attacks, then it seemed really out-of-place with where we were at the time and what we were experiencing just then.

Not knowing what else to do, we partied that night like it was the end of the world.  We did shots and got wasted and played Truth-or-Dare until we were all drunk and naked.  (Trust me, it was a lot more fun at the time than it sounds now.)

And the next day, we went back home to a world that had completely changed, in ways we would have a hard time understanding or coming to terms with for many years.  I still haven't completely come to terms with a lot of it.


Addendum:  I didn't want to make my post today about this, because I didn't want to be perceived as disrespectful.  But I feel like I have to say it, for several reasons.  It's just been on my mind a lot lately, and I don't want to bottle it up and pretend it isn't there.  And yes, some people might perceive it as disrespectful, but I don't agree with that opinion, and if I start basing my decisions about what to say or believe off of what other people might think about it, then I'm lost.  In my opinion, today is the most appropriate time to address it; the only appropriate time to address it, really.  It would seem oddly out of place on any other day, and waiting until next year will not have changed anything one way or the other, and by then I might have forgotten it, and lost the opportunity to express these feelings for good.

Let me preface this further by saying, I am not a conspiracy theorist.  I do believe that conspiracies can and do occur, but I am also a skeptic by nature, and 99% of the conspiracy theories I hear are clearly, demonstrably, ridiculous.  However, that said, there is something about the official story of what happened that day that has just never sat right with me.  I know a lot of people are going to consider me an ignorant, monstrous anti-patriot for saying this, but that doesn't change the way it appears to me.

I have never believed the story of United 93.

I am truly, truly sorry if that bothers you in any way.  I don't want to upset anyone, and that certainly has nothing to do with why I'm writing this here.  But it also doesn't do anything to change my perception of the situation, either.

It just always struck me as too neat, too tidy, too... American.  It's like something out of a storybook, or a fairytale.  Or a Hollywood movie.  It's just too perfect to be real.  The fact that they just happened to be lucky enough to crash in an uninhabited area.  The fact that the one plane that didn't hit its target just happened to be the last one, and just happened to be the one headed for the White House.  The fact that on that day, of all days, for this story that is fairly dripping with patriotism and Americans-Are-The-Greatest glory to come out, from the government, has just been a little hard for me to swallow.  From the first time I heard it, it has felt exactly like the "your dog went to live on a farm upstate" story a father would tell to his child.

I tend to follow the "Occam's Razor" style-guide when it comes to conspiracy theories:  the simplest explanation is the most likely.  That's one of the many reasons why I've never believed that 9/11 was an "inside job" (even though it would've felt so good to blame Cheney and Rumsfeld for it); the idea that the federal government could organize a conspiracy on that massive a scale is simply ludicrous, and laughably so.

But the idea that they might shoot down a passenger plane that they believed was on a suicide mission to crash into the White House, especially after three other planes had already hit their targets, and without knowing how many more there might be?  And that if they did, in fact, shoot down that plane, that they might, on such a tragic day, tell us an up-lifting story of everyday American heroism, rather than the truth - that the United States government had been forced to kill some of its own citizens, in order to prevent the murder of far more?  Those really just don't seem that far-fetched to me.  In fact, they seem kind of plausible.

And the more I've been thinking about it lately, the more I've come to realize, that if that is what happened, I wouldn't even blame them for it.

Even if the U.S. shot down United 93, they wouldn't be responsible for those people's deaths.  The terrorists who hijacked that plane, and pointed it at the White House are the ones responsible.  There is simply no argument about that.  I mean, honestly, what else should the government have done?  Let the plane destroy the White House, just so that those Americans on that plane could live another hour?  Is there anyone who could truly argue that there was some safe way to quickly bring that plane down without injuring anyone?  If the government had the means and opportunity to take down that plane - and I don't think there is any reasonable argument to be made that they didn't - then, if I'm honest with myself, I don't see what other choice they had.

And you know what?  I wouldn't even blame them for lying to us about it.  Those men and women on that plane are everyday American heroes, no matter how they died.  Just like every single person who died in New York or D.C. that day is a hero.  Don't they deserve to be remembered as heroes?  Don't they deserve better than to be remembered as innocent victims caught in the crossfire between their government and a handful of sick assholes?

Yes, you could make the argument that the lie was self-serving to the ones who told it.  And I don't necessarily think you'd be wrong.  But I think it's just as true that the lie honors the memories of those men and women in a just way; in a way fitting of Americans who gave their lives, willingly or not, so that others could live.

The official story of United 93 might be a mythology, but they deserve that, and much more.  A beautiful mythology to honor their deaths is, literally, the least we can do.

Edgar Oliver...

Edgar Oliver is... well, a very interesting character, to put it mildly (and perhaps a bit too obviously).

A New York writer, poet, actor and all-around bohemian, by way of Savannah, GA, and Washington, D.C., I was first introduced to him through The Moth, and became completely entranced by him.








She and I are going to see his one-man-show in NYC for our anniversary this year, and I am so excited!

(And, yes, that is the way he actually talks; he is not acting or performing in the clips above, but simply telling stories.)

Magick Beans...

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Coffee, without whose potent magicks, this week would have been a complete disaster.

May your Beans roast Full-of-Flavor for All Times in the Percolators of your Dark Father.

Amn.  And Caffeine bless.

We Were Called To The Forest...

We were called to the forest, and we went down.

A wind blew warm, and eloquent.

We were searching for the secrets of the universe, and we rounded up demons and forced them to tell us what it all meant.

We tied 'em to trees and broke them down, one by one.  And on a scrap of paper, they wrote these words.

And as we read them, the Sun broke through the trees:


"Dread the passage of Jesus, for he will not return."


Then we headed back to our world, and left the forest behind.  Our hearts singing with all the knowledge of Love.

But somewhere, somehow, we lost the message along the way.  And when we got home, we bought ourselves a house.

And we bought a car that we did not use.

And we bought a cage, and two singing birds.

And at night, we'd sit and listen to the canaries' song.


For we'd both run right out of words.


Now the stars, they are all angled wrong.  And the Sun and the Moon refuse to burn.

But I remember a message in a demon's hand:

"Dread the passage of Jesus, for he does not return."

...he does not return.

...he does not return.

                    -"Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Riverentum"
                      Nick Cave &; The Bad Seeds, ft. The Dirty Three

Working For The Weekend...

So, I figured out why I mysteriously felt the need to do nothing all this past weekend.

Apparently, I needed to rest up so I could come in to the office and work all this weekend!

Oh, joy.

The Interzone...

I had a strange dream this morning.  (Oh, what I wouldn't give for the ability to come up with something interesting to write about on my own, at will, and not have to rely on the random firings of comatose neurons in order to conjure my art from the void.  But that's a worry for another day.  For now, I'll take what I can get.)

+     +     +

I let three birds fly into my home.

Then I laid down on my couch to watch them.

I was paralyzed as I lay there, unable to move.

One of the birds, the smallest one, kept turning into a young woman.  She wore a t-shirt of alternating thick blue and yellow horizontal stripes, white shorts, and white canvas topsiders.  She was sitting on my living room floor, using one of my laptops.  She wasn't beautiful, but she was very attractive.

And while she wasn't quite masturbating, she seemed like she was building up to it.

She was rubbing her hands all over her body with sensuous intent, as she stared transfixed at the laptop screen, her face awash in bluegreen glow.  Every once in a while she would lift her shirt up to run her hand across her belly, or up over one of her small breasts.

Unsurprisingly, I was completely entranced by her.  I could not look away.

I knew she was really a bird, but that didn't seem to make any difference.  Every once in a while she would turn back into a bird again, or I would see her as a bird again, just for a moment.  And in those moments, I could see the other birds, too.  They were poking holes all throughout the walls of my apartment.  Burrowing into them, building nests.

I didn't care.  Couldn't care.  Couldn't even imagine caring.  All I wanted was to keep watching this young woman enjoying herself at whatever it was she was doing.

But suddenly, all too soon, she was gone.  The room had gone dark, like the sky outside was ready to storm.  The walls were crumbling and full of holes.  And I was staring at an image of myself on the floor in front of the laptop, where the birdgirl had been; a projection of my own unconscious creation, from myself to myself.

With this realization, I could move again.

As I started to rise from the couch, I heard a crunching noise behind me.  I stood and turned, to see my living room in a fantastical state of decay, and crawling all over with the most enormous bugs I have ever seen.  The walls and front door were wet, rotten planks of wood, layered with moss a foot thick, like a fallen tree that had been rotting on the forest floor for fifty years.  Indeed, the advanced state of woodland decay displayed in my living room gave off a distinct Rip Van Winkle feel, and I found myself afraid that I might have been watching that girl for a hundred years without even knowing it.  Dark stormlight poured in through the holes between the rotten planks of door and wall.

And the bugs!  Oh gods, they were everywhere.  And they were enormous.  The size of guinea pigs.  Long, beetle-like things, with pincers like serrated scissors on their heads.  Thank the Sun they didn't seem capable of flying.  But they were crawling all over everything.  I could hear them chittering behind the walls.  They crunched under my feet as a I walked.  I discovered that a large portion of them appeared to have been torn apart, their carapaces left discarded about the floor like crushed, empty walnut shells.

I realized that the birds had been eating them.

I stooped to examine some of these remains.  They were covered in this sticky brown goo, like a cross between molasses and motor oil.  It was all over the place.

It was at this point that I began to have a freak-out.

I ran down the hall to the back of my apartment, screaming for help, and found a girl there that I know from the IOT in waking life.  She was cleaning my apartment.  It was completely spotless back there, in fact; no evidence at all of the chaos from the front rooms.  She didn't live there, and we weren't lovers (either in or out of the dream), yet it didn't strike me as at all odd that she was cleaning my home.

I tried to describe the situation to her, screaming hysterically, but she was completely nonchalant about the whole thing.  Very, "yeah, yeah, I'll be right there; let me just finish this first."  Which only made me panic more, as if she didn't understand the gravity of the situation, or wasn't taking me seriously enough.  So I started to freak out on her even more, to try and get across just how seriously fucked everything actually was.  I held out my hands to show her as evidence.  They were cut up and bleeding, apparently from the bugs.  But she still didn't hurry.

Eventually, at my desperate pleading, she followed me out into the living room, to see the destruction I had been raving about.  She was not impressed.  Nor was she particularly concerned.  It seemed as if she viewed it all as just one more mess to tidy up.

I began to run around the apartment, frantically closing all the doors and windows, of which there were suddenly way too many - more than was rational - and all of which were wide open.  I crushed several of the giant beetlebugs in various window frames, as I closed the windows on them.  I didn't actually want to kill them, surprisingly; I was just afraid to touch them to move them out of the way.

I flung open my front door to try and sweep the forest of decay and bugs outside, and in so doing let in warm Spring sunlight, and a life-scented breeze.

And the birds. 

All three returned.

But whether to watch, or to help, or to hinder, or to take me away, or otherwise end me, I will never know.

Perhaps one day I'll remember.

Go With The Blurble...

I did absolutely nothing this weekend.

I spent three days sitting on my ass playing video games.  When I got bored with one game, I'd switch to another.  On a couple of occasions I didn't even bother to stop and eat.

It was Sunday before I realized that I hadn't even thought of writing or posting anything.  That made me feel pretty guilty, but didn't do anything to affect my behavior.

I have no idea why I was such a slug this weekend.  But I obviously needed to do it for some reason, because it was an absolutely overwhelming urge.  So, I'm trying to accept it and let it go and move on.

Now, I want to write something, but again, no time.  They just stepped up the pressure on the project I'm coding for, and it's looking like I'm going to be pulling 10-12 hour days for much of the rest of the month of September.  Not looking forward to that.  And it's not going to leave me much time or energy for much of anything else in my life.

Oh, well.  Nothing to do but go with the flow.  Even when it's a torrent.