Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Yep. It is on.

Today it's almost official.  I have to cut cords with my past.  Spend what time I can with family and the friends that want to spend time with me, of which there are mercifully few who can't do that through facebook.

My next phase in life is beginning.  I picked the wrong week to want a PS4.

Monday, March 23, 2015

Moving time... getting ready

Well.  I have a little extra spending cash now.  

Some people collect silly things, and they take their collections seriously.  I definitely have done the former, and used to do that latter.  Although I may still have my figures, if they disappeared tomorrow I wouldn't be too upset except over a few.  Rom, Weeping Angel and MST3k busts, maybe some of the super-robots.  Definitely the metal Mechagodzilla.  He's not at all rare, but kids today all love the newer MG's that look like pimped out Transformers. 

I feel the same way about comics.  I used to be religious collecting them, but had to sell off a good amount to keep my addiction going.  Now I basically just buy Saga when it's out, and occasionally a few other books along with it to have dinner to.

At the comic con I met somebody interested in buying my run of Miracleman, and have sold it for a whopping $500, which I want to say I will spend on getting an apartment but will probably use for a PS4.  He was interested in my V for Vendetta run, but I do not want to part with that, yet.

By the end of the month the wheels should start turning.  I cannot wait to get on with life.

I am sure I am just having a psychosomatic reaction, but I've been on my meds for five (?) days now and have little appetite.  They can't possibly be affecting me this quickly but, hey, if it's working...

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Too long

A good sign that I've been unemployed for too long is that fleshbot.com pops up as an autofill on one of my browsers now before facebook does.

Also, there is yet another opening for me to apply for.  Well, I need another one to keep my unemployment going, so...

Checks please

Cleaning out some crap, such as my Xbox 360 which I intend to trade in for a PS4, and found Ex's old checks.

They appear to be pretty old, certainly not from his address when we were dating, and I guess they fell out of the travel bag that he left (one thing I did keep... much better than my duffle bag).   So now I have to do the right thing and shred them, which gives me an excuse to visit Lexington tomorrow, as well as the PS4 thing.  I guess I could burn them, but my goal is to insure that I'm not responsible if he has a case of stolen identity, not some kind of symbolic ritual of cleansing or whatever the wiccans do for that kind of stuff.  

I learned that the symbolic stuff does not work for me... I kept a record of tossing what he left in the dumpster, which was supposed to be cathartic.  It was not.  In the end my little brother carted a lot of his and my stuff off to Goodwill.  Somebody somewhere has it, but it is not me.

Except for the travel bag.

Second day of Zoloft, but of course the effects are not felt yet.  Probably will be a month before I notice anything.  It's weird, as it builds up in my system, if it happens like last time, I just obsess less and less and don't notice my bad habits are starting to go away, until one day when I realize I haven't eaten all weekend because I really don't have an appetite.  I'm fine with that, I need to start everything over fresh.  Losing weight again can only be a good thing.

One of my go-to movies on my phone to go to sleep with is What We Do In The Shadows, a New Zealand mockumentary about vampires.  Here's the first six minutes.


Pretty funny all the way through, and one of the Conchords guys is in it (same one that was in Muppets Most Wanted.)  It's playing at the Kentucky Theatre, and I might go there tomorrow and watch it, as long as UK isn't playing basketball.  It's pretty funny.  Much better than Twilight.

Friday, March 20, 2015

In which good news continues to frighten me

First though... why is it that people who always claim to never put up with "drama" are usually the ones who cause the most of it?  Food for thought...

Talked with the boss and things are moving.  I can actually start seriously considering some of the apartments I've been casually glancing at online.  This will be expensive, but worth it for the experience, and all the amenities that come with living there.

A few other places have contacted me as I continue to apply so I can keep my unemployment benefits going, per Ohio's stupid rules.  One was WMMS in Cleveland.  A great job for a great station, but, nothing against Cleveland, but after this past winter moving north is not a priority.  But if they call again I will string them along just  to see how much they low-ball me.  That would be funny.

The other was ******* in St. Louis.

That took me by shock a bit because, well, the obvious reason, but also because I did not submit anything to them.  They got my demo through somebody else in their company that I did apply to, and the job has not been advertised yet, which says to me that somebody's about to get shit-canned.  

If this had been a year ago, I'd have pursued it, but for the wrong reasons.  I mean St. Louis is a nice enough market but also MURDER and besides, we all know the real reason why I would have considered it, which is why it would have been another Big Mistake in my life.  So I replied that I already had something lined up.  Mind you, when they told me how much it paid... I was tempted.  But no.  I've made enough mistakes in my life.

Speaking of, it's time to correct one of them... just picked up my first bottle of Zoloft (generic name Setraline) and it's time for my first dose in over a year.  Hopefully by the time I move it will be in full effect again and I won't be making the same mistake again.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

One more month

This should mark about one month from me moving out and starting over, once again.

The difference being I am doing it for the right reason this time.  I've moved because of a broken heart... I've moved for friendships that weren't real.  I've moved for a better job that turned out to be a worse one, and I've moved just to have a job and a doomed relationship.

This time I am moving for the perfect job for me, in a city that I can build my life again and grow in more ways than just my job and expand creativity, for a boss I will trust and who I know isn't crazy, in an environment that will force me to be healthy whether I like it or not.

I have to conquer my impatience, which is my greatest enemy, and give up my past mistakes even when the people I've asked forgiveness from won't have anything to do with me.  

It should begin a very good chapter of my life, if I can just keep thinking with my head and not my dick, and keep my heart in my chest and not on my sleeve.

Jesus, that's a little too flowery.  Uh, also I will probably get good blowjobs.  There, much better.

Monday, March 16, 2015

Posters I got at the comic con




Buy your own at mattpeppler.com.



Shake zula, the mic rula...



This was the autograph I got from my little brother from Dana Snyder, voice of Master Shake, Granny Cuyler, and countless other animated characters.  (Well actually you can count them, they're on IMDB, but I'm not gonna.)   Also, a private idol of mine, if the gig takes off and I can actually do something to pursue making money in such a field, he will be the one I install an altar to worship at and sacrifice goats to.  

I have just one rule for cons... find ONE thing, and buy that, and get out.  I did, very artsy (and illegal) fan posters for Friday the 13th (for my older brother), Creature From the Black Lagoon (for my younger brother), and Return of the Living Dead (for me OMG IT'S SO AWESOME).  Pics to  come later.  The con vendor room was just as lame as I was expecting... most Lexington comic conventions have been so, but my brother wanted to check out the lower floor, so I told him I'd be out in the car waiting.  And then he brings me this.  Turns out the upper vendors were the cheap seats, the real action was downstairs.  And now I'm very glad I have this rule, because I would have spent my non-existing inheritance on Godzilla dolls.

But of course I had to go meet Master Shake.


Saturday, March 14, 2015

Doctor, doctor

Doctor appointment for Wednesday.  Get back on a water pill and see about getting the anti-dep stuff going again.  If I can get my dental insurance taken care of today I'll even get that done before the move.

Comic con in Lexington today.  I thought of asking my little brother to spring for Guiseppe's, the fancy Italian restaurant I used to do commercials for, but I remember now he's got a huge bunch of taxes this year to pay, so maybe I should keep my mouth shut.  If everything goes well, I will treat him before I leave the state.

I had an idea for a post about some videos I watched this morning about love, relationships, and other topics, but I really should try to get some more sleep.  Also a hottie from Winchester's been flirting with me.  Hmmm.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

On my knees

The recent damage to my left knee, where I nearly executed a perfect triple Salchow after an ice storm left a sheet of frictionless death glass on my driveway, has reached the healing point where it is like a crack addict looking to suck a dick for a rock, "rock" in this case being me scratching the wound like a dog chewing at his stitches.

"Yo man, just scratch me a little, I'll suck yo diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick," it screams at me (in what I might add is a completely racist voice).  "Suck yo dick for some scratch, muthah-fucker, come on."  While I tried not only to point out that scratching it would leave it susceptible to scarring, but also the physical impossibilities and impracticalities of my knee sucking my or anybody else's diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick, I've begun scratching it.  I figure it will be a while before anybody sees it again anyway, since I don't intend to get into another relationship soon, so I don't have to worry about anybody clutching their Jesus-pearls and flinging bottles of holy water at me.

Not much else going on right now.  The snow is gone and is probably not coming back, so I'm just hovering again waiting on the inevitable.

Baby



Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ACADEMY AWARD WINNER PATRICIA ARQUETTE performing mouth-to-mouth CPR on a baby that was just recovered from a sinking car by James Van Der Beek after it had been stolen by hackers who used hijacked baby monitors to spy on it and who outsourced the theft to a drug mule who hid narcotics inside her breast implants on 

the 

first 

episode 


of a CSI spin-off titled CSI: Cyber. 

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Next time, on a very special episode of BEWITCHED...


Turing Machines

++Edit 030915 12:17 am-- spoiler alert for The Imitation Game.  Sorry about that.+++

And that, reader(s), is exactly why I need to be on anti-depressants again.  And trust me, this little emo outburst is not even close to what it used to be like.  The day Ex left me... well, I do not even remember what happened that day.  Perhaps I drank, but I don't think I did.  I remember watching him through the keyhole until he disappeared.  Going to the window multiple times, hoping his car would return and he would give me another chance.  But deep down I knew it wasn't going to happen, because I recognized how he walked away as I closed the door.  I'd seen that same gait in Dallas, before he disappeared the first time from my life.

The purpose of this blog has been to give me a venue to air my thoughts openly without the ridicule that comes from Facebook and other sites, but still, after the Crazyjournal fiasco, where I also operated sans-meds, I've taken liberties of mentioning almost nobody by name, and only a few by pseudonym.  Writing out my thoughts and feelings and events in my life lets me capture them in amber, before the rot of memory tampers with them, confusing them with other memories and twisting new fictions, like memories are wont to do with everybody.  Capture the butterfly, pierce it and pin it down, preserve it in a pristine condition, then come back in a few days or weeks and look over your morbid sanctuary and wonder what the hell you were doing and thinking.

I couldn't even see a doctor to get back onto Zoloft until I had insurance, I could not get insurance until February of this year, I could not get in as a new patient before the February blizzards started, so finally, I should be able to see a doctor, re-up or adjust my blood pressure meds, and get going again on some type of anti-depressant, which I will be on for the rest of my life.

I wonder what my reaction would have been if Ex had approached me, in his roundabout way, if I'd stayed on those drugs.  Perhaps I would have just ignored his "views" on my profiles, which I tried to do at first... the Growlr views were not the first time he looked at mine.  My little brother tells me I'm like that, or used to be in the past, if somebody screwed me over I would have just cast them out of my life, fuck them and they can go to hell, and all that.  I agree I used to be like that, before I fell in love for the first time with X.  And the second time and third, with Ex.

I just watched The Imitation Game in my bedroom, while the cat played with my feet beneath the covers.  It was interesting and heartbreaking and I hated it and loved it.  I loved it because it is a story about science (even though it is about "maths" and not stuff like Theory of Everything) where science wins, as opposed to modern day, where science and reason are losing out to religious zealotry.  There is a tender and gay love story that is almost as heartbreaking as Valerie from V For Vendetta, but it is broken up as the movie rotates between three of Alan Turing's life periods.  I hate it because it is heartbreaking in the worst way, in that it hits all the bad stuff in all of Turing's life at the same point in the film, to suddenly open the window and expose this curious man who broke the Enigma code and helped save an estimated 14 million people's lives, and show you precisely why he was an absolute twat to everybody.  An absolute sledgehammer to the feels.

Benedict Cumberbatch was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of the tortured mathematician, but honestly until the movie rounds the turn to the third act, he was simply playing a more demure version of Sherlock Holmes.  Where Holmes would be verbose and rude, Turing would be timid but dispassionate.  But in each character you can see the tick-tick-ticking of a mind that never stops.  Perhaps he could have done with some Zoloft himself, rather than chemical castration that Turing eventually succumbed to.  It certainly helps my mind from racing with thoughts, and I'm no genius.  I wonder what it could do to help a true genius organize his or her thoughts rather than have them all shotgunned out at once like a video game, only to scatter to the breeze before they could be gathered and examined.

The ending had me on the ropes because there is no sense of building dread for the finale.  It is non-stop punches to the gut.  Turing solves the Enigma, helps win the war, but then you find out that his young love died on holiday from bovine tuberculosis, which makes the fact that he named the code-cracking machine after his love all the more bittersweet, and the revelation that he would endure hormone therapy rather than chance giving up his one symbol of unrequited love, the machine that he named after Christopher, the only real love he had in his life, is heart-rending.  Would you do that?  How many of us would?





It ends with noting his suicide a year after the treatments began, and that his machine would eventually lead to what we now call computers.  Every interaction we have nowadays, be it social, economic, political, whatever, can be traced to this one man and the love that was denied him.

Admittedly, it takes plenty of liberties with the truth (Turing was never accused of treason), but the sentiment of the injustice is remarkably pure in those closing moments.


+++++++

I only got on anti-depressants because I thought I could win back the love of Ex if I got better.  Hint:  they don't work immediately, or very well at first, and it takes a while to find the right dosage.  By the time I found mine, Ex had moved on to another partner.  And for many months afterwards, I was not well.

Eventually as I moved onto Zoloft (from an initial prescription for Citalopram), and found some peace.  It was not easy.  Deep down I knew that I had to stay on them, or I would obsess about Ex more than I already did.  Eventually the obsession ebbed, and I thought getting off of them was possible.

Guess I should have rethought that.

I've gone through every emotion since he left.  Rage, sadness, longing, jealousy.  The worst has been betrayal.  The thought that I never meant that much to him to begin with.  It stands to reason that if I did, he'd have said something wouldn't he?  Why would he let me think the things my brain throws at me, thinking he is just a user of emotions, rooting for his relationships to fail, and that he was as bad as I was... he is okay with me thinking that?  I find it hard to believe he's that kind of person.

Then I remember the last time he liked a picture of mine on Instagram.  Silly, how such a thing can mean so much.  It was the picture I took as I was still losing weight, in my "the Angels have the phone-box" t-shirt.  I took it December 1st, just days after his birthday.  It didn't add up why he liked that photo if he was mad at me at the time, as he told my brother that he was.  

So, maybe he never did really like me.  Maybe this great love I thought I had was just a Turing machine, something I simply built on my own time but never figured out the correct cipher for.  Maybe it was me all along.  Maybe I was the failure, not at all him.  That's why Turing's breakdown at the end of the movie resonates so much, because I know my only other choice to get better is to let go of the straw-man I've built.  He probably never existed, except in my head.  Even admitting I will never hear from him again anyway is difficult... Turing had at least that much.  He knew Christopher was gone.  The Machine was all he had left.




I will be going to the doctor in about ten days, assuming we don't get hit with more blizzards.  Zoloft is preferable to chemical castration, but sometimes it amounts to the same thing anyway.

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Injury

I want to blame not going out last night on my knee, but it was just one of many factors.

There was a bear get-together in town.  Even my little brother thought it would be a good idea to go to it, since I've been kind of a shut-in lately.  I didn't get to town until 10, though, and I noticed the first problem almost immediately... no street parking.  I forgot, the snow hadn't quite melted yet.

This actually could have been easily taken care of at the library, which lets you park for free after-hours in their garage, but I went past the bar first and... ugh.  Too many people, already.  No thanks.  I mean, yes all that AND falling into my knee in the snow and ice and basically tearing up my knee, but honestly when the crowd gets to a certain stage for me, it becomes "critical mass" and I have to leave or have a meltdown, as it were.  So I just went to the bookstore and then went home, where my brother cooked me an awesome steak.  A huge t-bone, that will probably haunt me in a few hours.  Yeesh.  But delicious.

I've never been the most graceful person, so slipping and ripping up my knee was not a big deal to me.  Some of the ice that had melted had re-frozen into a slippery sheet.  My older brother tried to help me up, but my pain was so great that I had difficulty explaining that I needed to get up by myself because I was on a giant slippery ice sheet and basically his help would doom both of us.

The aftermath looked like I had a fight with one of those machines from "Will It Blend?" and lost spectacularly.  But after the leg thing and having my gall bladder taken out, it didn't faze me.  It was just blood, and indeed, after cleaning the mess away, it was not as bad as it looked.

It did look bad enough that I doubt any action would have taken place if I disrobed with the lights on, though, so I passed up on the bear run.

Apartment hunting now... if I'm lucky the rain will have melted enough snow to make it up to my brother's house today.