the grinding that refused to stop.

So... I have to be at work in about six or so hours and I can not sleep.  This is common to me when I don't drink.  The problem I have learned over the years that you exercise parts of your body and they become proficient in their intended activity.  Cyclists ride and work on their legs to ride faster.  Writers think.

Have you ever had to "brainstorm" in some class just to see what you could come up with?  I remember fellow students who were asked to brainstorm for ten minutes and it was an exercise in agony.  After ten minutes, they would have two or three ideas.  I would have about a dozen, mostly unintelligible as I was trying to get my pen to work as fast as my brain, accompanied with sub-ideas for each to take the original thought in a variety of directions.

It still works today.  I never stop coming up with things to write about.  Not all of it is worth my time to try to sit down and make something of it, but I jot down notes all the time just in case I want to remember the idea later.

unfortunately, when I'm trying to sleep, this process of idealizing every little thought continues.  I try to shut it down, but end up sinking deeper into my mind and to a place that is dark and dismal.  I begin to analyze things I wish to forget.  I fabricate scenarios, living out painful memories and ideas.  I fictionalize why people have hurt me with what i have to go on.  I find my heart loathing and grinding with pain and hatred.  Depression bleeds from my mind, and I find myself again in that place where I need to stop the brain from thinking.

There is a little dive bar just down the street.  The bartender there looks like he belongs there.  I walk in,  surrounded by people I would never fathom having conversations with as they are people who can easily entertain themselves with jocular competitions and mindless television.  I step up to the bar and wait my turn to be noticed.  I hold up three fingers and ask for three shots of whiskey.  The bartender repeats this back and I nod; though he no longer seems surprised.  He sets 3 small shot glasses before me and pours 3 shots to the rim.  I take one by one allowing no more that two seconds between each as he takes my cash to make change.  He returns, the whiskey is gone, and I take my change.  I leave a tip on the bar and I'm out the door.

I always return home and then wait for the subtle but gentle caresses of whiskey to slow down that darkened voice of my mind.  And now, I will again lay my head to my pillow and listen to the music of my choosing for the night and pray my mind will shut the fuck up so I can sleep...

The watering can of life and death

The other day, as I was in a dreary state, I went to piss.  From the darkening world outside of my window as evening was settling in, I saw flashing lights of emergency vehicles reflect off the blinds that prevent the outside world from watching me piss.  I peaked through the blinds and could just make out a collection of emergency vehicles not half a block away.  There was a fire truck with a bucket and boom that was raised into the tree that had only in the past month begun to grow it's spring foliage.  There were spotlights shining into the tree and that seemed to be the focus of whatever was going on.

My first amused thought was that a cat had been stuck in the tree.

What actually happened was that a woman had decided it was time to throw in the the towel and so she climbed nearly thirty or forty feet into the tree, tied a rope around a sturdy limb, tied the other end around her neck, and she dropped the few feet before it all went taught.  The story is that she told her husband she was going out for a quick walk and never came back.  The husband then went to look for her, sat on the bench under the tree and looked up.

On a completely unrelated note, I finally got my seeds for my exotic plants and planted them over the weekend.

Now would be the time...

Busy fucking month... ironically, there has only been one show, and not  much else to keep me occupied but my own work... but fuck has that been keeping me busy.

As well as work, my wife and I needed to buy a new (ish) car.  It's been one hell of a search and it's finally over.  This was especially a pain in my ass since I am not much of a car person, so I had no foundation on what I wanted to look for as others would start with an idea of getting a car they like.  For me, if I was to get a car I simply was interested in, it would have been an electric car.  But that is a bit out of our budget.

So I started with looking up what kind of pre-owned vehicles were worth buying.  Unfortunately, if the car is worth buying, the value is much higher.  Now I was looking at a car that was a bit out of our intended price range.  The search continued from lot to lot until we came to the last place I bought a pre-owned car about a decade ago.  As we looked through the many cars on the lot, we came upon a few that I actually had an interest in looking at, though the price was way over what we wished to spend.  But, I have to say the my curiosity got the best of me and soon we were test driving a hybrid Toyota Prius.

We were originally looking at Toyota cars because of the reliability and such.  As for the hybrid, well, it was a nice idea... but...  Before I knew it, I had fallen in like with the car.  My wife drove it and loved it.  Seeing as it was to be her next car, not mine, I asked her what she thought.  So with a heavy concern in my heart, I agreed to see what we could do to make payments for our new car.  The first offer was instantly a "no way!" The second offer was really pushing it, and I said so.  This time, they said they wouldn't be able to get another answer until the following bank day (Monday).  They let us take the car home and said we could finalize everything on Monday.

Unfortunately, with the schedules my wife and I have, she would go in first thing in the AM, and I would finish signing later in the afternoon.  When I went in, I signed papers agreeing to loan terms that were only just barely under what had been discussed.

Here I now sit, feeling the dread and fear of having yet another car loan.  I haven't had a car payment since the last one that got repossessed about 2 years ago.  I was okay with this.  Now, with the memories of the stress trying to pay off my last car wrought on my soul, I have entered into another soul crushing agreement.

If you happen to be a fan on my work and have been contemplating buying some of my work to support me, now would be a grand time to do so... just saying.

Oh, have I failed....

Never in my life have I been more frightened as I am at this moment.

I am so in love with a woman who is poised to leave me because I fucked up.

So long ago, I wished nothing more than to remove this woman from my life, and perhaps this is because I understood what I did not comprehend at the time.  I understood that this woman was as a virus to my heart, and she has enveloped my very soul with her essence.  I now can not imagine existing without her...

But I have destroyed so much in my own self centered anger.  As a young man who is confused and uncertain of the future, I lashed out to the closest victim I could find.  I reasoned that I was righteous in actions due to an unclear mind.

I have failed at school, teenage life, and further into my adulthood.  I surround myself with thoughts that I may someday "Become someone," but in the end I find myself blissfully happy at a couple of book sales a week.  I and my family live off of a pipe dream and foodstamps... I have failed...

I have spent decades looking for where I belong.   I have tried Christ, goths, raves, and intellectuals... and find nothing of solace from any of these people.  Instead, I find solace in the bottle that helps me feel human again.  But what is humanity but vulnerability.

I am so tired, and yet I can't bring my mind (or soul, perhaps) to rest.

Here's my favorite part of this song... it starts at 3:41... so poignant...

And then there's those words... "peace... hope... love... Jesus Christ..."

Can we not find a solution that doesn't involve a tall tale legend from days gone past...?

Okay, well, I need some sleep before I sleep here and ... sorry drifted off there,,, good night sweetness!

about yesterday...

My wife and I went out just to get away from the kids for an evening.  For her, it's about the bull shit holiday, and for me it's about making her happy.  I could give a shit about the commercial holiday.

We went to a diner to start.  I had a Reuben, my favorite sandwich.  For some reason, it seems to me the best Reuben can be found a little diners.  My wife decided that in standing with the holiday, she had to order the steak and lobster tail.  I would never order a steak at a diner.  We skipped desert.

She didn't want to go home just yet.  So she asked if I wanted to walk around a walmart for a while or we could go to a bar.  I said I would go to a bar.  She sighed and commented that she wanted to just have me to herself and every time we go to any of the bars in the area I run into people who know me.  Fortunately there's a little bar kinda out of the small town that I can go in anonymity, so I drove there.

She ordered a lager, I had a pale ale from bottle since they didn't have much that was of interest on tap.  She spent half the time talking about other people's taxes, and I didn't listen.  I know nothing about the whole tax thing and could care less.  I spoke of my writing and cooking show, and I think she could have cared less.  After I ordered the second beer, she quickly finished her beer and seemed ready to just go.  I finished mine quicker that I would have liked since I really enjoy the taste of that particular beer, but it wasn't about what I liked.  She paid the tab while I used the restroom and we left.

I asked what she wanted to do and she shrugged.  We went home and found that the kids were still awake.  We tucked them in, told them to sleep, and retired to the living room.  We, or maybe just I, decided to watch a movie.  I had tried to watch "Kick Ass" at one point, but was too tired to finish it, so I suggested that.  She said that seemed fine as she plugged in her lap top.  I figured that she would open it as the movie started and just play her online games.  Instead, I think she actually just wanted the whole movie with me.  Though, as soon as the movie ended, she opened the lap top.

I did my little look at my computer to see what was going on in the world of facebook and shit, and said it was time for bed for me.  She kind of acknowledged me, said she would be right up, and continued harvesting virtual shit or something on her lap top.

I went up to my room, turned on Franz Schubert and undressed for bed.  I closed my eyes and listened to the music as I drifted off to sleep.  Almost an hour later, it was towards the end of the collection of Schubert I had on my computer upstairs and I found I was still alone in the bed.  I sighed and rolled over.  I listed to the softly playing music, unable to close my eyes again.  Some time later, I heard my wife moving down stairs and soon she came to bed.  I heard her place her glasses down on the little shelf/table thing by the bed, and she climbed into bed.

Soon after, I drifted off to sleep again.

I awoke this morning with that "I feel uncomfortable in my skin" feeling and decided to give up on the sleep.  I came down and sat at the computer.  And now, after checking the facebook thing and all my other stats that I obsess over, I'm writing this without really having a reason to.

Tomorrow is her birthday and I have nothing yet to give her.  I wish I could be sleeping now, but that's just not possible.  So I'll turn my attention to getting some work done here on the computer and be ready for a nap just in time for everyone to wake and want breakfast.  In other words, this is going to be just like any other day for me...