Scar Tissue

The First Step

You have choices, and they can be good or bad.  Usually it's easy to tell which one it will be beforehand, unless you make it a habit of lying to yourself.  I know I am already a creature of habits, so the best idea for me to make important life changes is to take away my ability to make those choices.  And that is why, for the first time since I was eighteen years old, I have purchased shoes that are not Chuck Taylors (above).

Sometimes a bitch is just a bitch.

Well I'm pretty sure I'm on the cusp of a seismic shift (literally) in my life, but more about that later.  Probably nothing about it until the new year.  But it will be a very new change, so I've started the lifestyle changes, to be ahead of the curve.

Enough about that, it will come to fruition soon.  Today I'm all about accepting reality.  Most people can't.  I certainly couldn't, even when I could.  That is to say, I accepted it, but changing a bad reality to a good one isn't as easy as changing light bulbs.

If somebody tells you that you drink too much, there's a good chance they don't mean "as compared to me," but that you actually drink too much. Doesn't mean you're an alcoholic--you could just be a drunk, which is a little more pathetic.

If you're willing to suck off some guy you don't even know the first time you get together with him, and you get offended by somebody calling you a slut, well, you shouldn't.  That's pretty slutty behavior, no matter which role you're playing.   Just own up to it.

And consider the possibility that, if you must constantly deny being a bitch, that possibly you are in fact a bitch.  Qualifiers like "I just tell unpopular truths" and "I'm not rude, I just have the balls to say it" are completely glossing over the fact that being a bitch does not mean being a liar, it means, whether you're telling the truth or a lie, you're being a cunt about it.  There are plenty of ways to tell an unpopular truth without snark or sass or attitude, and if you're hurting people's feelings enough that you need to constantly defend yourself, maybe your detractors actually have a point.

It might not be that you have the balls to say something, but that you don't have the brains to say it without hurting somebody's feelings.  Granted, sometimes people need their feelings hurt to get a message across, and sometimes a shock to the system with a big dose of reality is necessary.  But if you are constantly defending yourself, it's entirely possible that the problem isn't how other people react to your attitude, it's your attitude itself.

The problem isn't just that you're a bitch, it's that you're a bitch in denial.

Having been in one of these positions before, and gotten myself out of it (seemingly), I can say it's much better to just admit what you are than pretend to be what you aren't.  At least the dignity you feel from admitting real faults isn't trolling for sympathy, which is usually the case with people who shuffle their toes back and forth in the dirt saying, "Pobody's nerfect."

Anyway.  That's how it has always looked to me.  But hey, nobody's perfect.  Maybe the problem is actually with me.

No.

I did not get the job.  I was a finalist, one of six... they narrowed it down to two, and I wasn't one of them.

It was in Chicago.  That would have been fun.  But I agree with them, I was not the best fit for the job.

So I continue.

The waiting is the hardest part.

Ring.

Ring. 

Ring, dammit.

Ring.

GUH.

A Series of Unlikely Events

One was having another grand mal seizure.  This was from drinking.

I had done so well for half a year without drinking.  Then June hit. and everything hit at once, and I didn't care anymore.  I seriously didn't care at all anymore.  I tried to stay on the meds, but why?  We weren't going to be friends again.  When that became obvious even to my thick skull, I just gave up.  I'd lost my job, the one I loved, and all care for the world.  I kept trying to get back on the Zoloft but it didn't feel like before.

I look at my bookshelf that I haven't packed.  I should throw away the Nexus 7 packaging.  Why is it still there?  Sentimental.  Mrs. Peregrine's Home For Peucliar Children... why isn't it sold?  You finished it, I never did.  More and more I think after my cousin comes help move most of my stuff into storage for me, I should give up and move home and get a job at the factory Keith works at. 

Last night, I got a gmail alert.  "Ding."

"Your friend xxxxxx has recommended you for a job..."

And I clicked the link and read about the job.

And for the first time in months, I'm excited.  Years, even.  This job was practically created for me.  My friend knows it.

So I cut short the trip this weekend taking junk home to come back and put together a more appropriate demo.

My head is spinning right now about it.  It is a perfect job for me and my entire life would change.  And best of all, the things in the past would become that... the past.  No longer something I need to drag out of the tide and examine the contents of.

Sure, I'd have to say goodbye to family, but once a year I'd see them.  Besides, I can see what I saw in Dad two years ago in Mom... her age is changing her. I don't want to see that.  Keith will be better at dealing with her.  Heck, he almost talked me into the ambulance.  Just was a tad too mean about it.

Finishing up the demo and crossing my fingers.  Maybe a new life will start soon.

But they keep dry clicking their revolvers at my head

I should preface this with I do not have suicidal thoughts.

But I do, in fact, think about my death a lot.

For example, if I had a stroke right now, packing shit up and stressing out, if I had a stroke right now, I'd die.  And nobody in the world would care.

My body would lie slumped over this laptop, drooling on the keyboard.  And a stroke would be a horrible way to die alone, being paralyzed and unable to call for help.  And then just knowing my mind would run through all my sins and would focus on myself.

And that's how they'd find me.  My little brother, probably.  Slumped over and half naked and decaying.

And nobody would miss me.  I'm part of nobody's life.  The funeral would be sparse.  Nobody would even leave flowers at my tombstone after the first year.

Makes me wonder why I bother going on.

nightmare.

Had a goddamn bad one.

Bad, bad, bad.

fucking Robin Williams

I was all prepared to be ashen faced and sad about unemployment and being kicked to the curb yet again by everybody in life and then fucking Robin Williams has to go and kill himself and fuck up my shit.

I remember the Mork & Mindy card game we'd play at Roger Garret's house.  We brought it there for some reason.  Roger never wanted to play it, but he was always wanting to do his own thing (also dead now RIP).  It came with an egg for some reason, which was important to the game... my memory makes me think if you got the egg, you basically won the game.  The game was basically Uno, if I remember correctly.  We only played it because of the Mork connection.

It was Mork & Mindy that made me realize how much I did not like summer.  It was nearly 9 PM and I realized if I didn't go inside I'd miss the show... yet it was still sunlight out!  Fuck that!  Fuck you sunlight!  I'm watching Mork!

In the mid to late 80s, we of course could not afford to buy a VCR, but once in a while I saved up enough from mowing yards to rent one.  One of the first ones we rented was a Robin Williams stand-up hour, cocaine-fueled and high-energy, and pretty damn funny.  I was always good at choosing which movies to rent when we rented a VCR for the night... even now those movies hold up.

And now he's gone.  Mork is gone?  I guess it should have been expected, but honestly, we were expecting a heart attack from cocaine overdose, not suicide.  I guess, most of us, anyway.  The ones with depression probably expected something else.

Just not me.

Valerie

Just had a bit of a meltdown.

I'd put together my new demo and was writing emails for it to send to various folk, and realized I needed a quote from V FOR VENDETTA.  I'd forgotten that the quote wasn't included in the movie, and if I had remembered that anyway, I'd already packed up the novel, but I streamed the movie looking for the quote, and came up on Valerie's Letter.

As far as I am concerned, it is one of the most beautiful pieces of fiction, ever.  I totally believed she was in a death camp, like Evey, and that she had written the letter to her just before dying. And when V revealed he hadn't written it, it broke my heart, because I believed that too.

I believed a fiction.  I've never done that.  The characters, so real in my head, how could they not be true?  But they weren't.  They were all just things made up in Alan Moore's demented head.  A head which also devoted over a dozen issues of a brilliant original comic Promethea to explaining all the levels of sex magic, so there's also that to consider.

It is a story of true love.  Valerie will not give up her love, even after being betrayed.  I hate to say it, but I know the feeling.  I reject what people said about him.  I told myself they were trying to console me.  That they were trying to ease my pain.  They did not realize how much it hurt to hear such things... because if what they were saying was true, it meant I was the idiot.  I was the stupid and selfish person, too, waiting in the shadows for a love that would never return.

I don't know who you are. Or whether you're a man or a woman. I may never see you or cry with you or get drunk with you. But I love you. I hope that you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better, and that one day people have roses again. I wish I could kiss you.

Overdrawn at the Memory Bank

Memory is not what you think it is.  

We think memory is like a video recording, collecting an exact record of what you saw and felt at the time the memory was created, but it is rarely just that.  It's also a collection of feelings that have changed since then, say towards a person, or desires of when something happened and what you wish had been said, instead of what really happened.  

This is why I always try to record my thoughts, somehow, of events as soon as they have happened, especially if they are important to me.  And even getting them written down, hoping they are unmolested by memory's delusions, they already are before they even leave my fingertips.  

I can say an ex treated me wrong, but there is just as likely a chance I mistreated him in much the same way I'm thinking he did me.  Obvious projection brought on by guilt, with a touch of immaturity... basically, "No I didn't, you did!"  And likely the same thing happens with my ex.  Either of them.

Being part-OCD as well as depression didn't help.  It made matters worse.

But still I look at old entries and I can at least recognize some truths.  I wasn't blind to my own faults... I wanted the people I cared about to recognize there was something wrong with me.  I  think, maybe, if they just said, "You need help," rather than "Stop doing this," that would have maybe been the best medicine.  Because "You need help" implies that they don't want to lose you... "Stop doing this" implies that they'd be glad to abandon you if you don't stop your behavior.

Well, not glad to, but willing to.  

But that's important to remember about memories, especially with people you were once close to.  Whatever drove you apart is likely shaping those memories.  One example is a close friend from back home who suddenly one day asked why I would hang out with my cousin.  At the time, I bristled at the question, and in fact stopped hanging out with that guy afterwards.  It was like he was saying I could do better than my cousin for a friend, and I did not appreciate that at all (he had said the same thing about others in high school, although not to me).

I avoided this friend through the years, which was easy to do as we grew up and apart, although once I started going back home more often over the years, we'd see each other.  One day I was talking about visiting my cousin and he asked how he'd been doing.  We had a good talk about Dave's stint in the army, and how he'd gotten married a few times and had kids.  This friend wasn't putting my cousin down, he just really didn't know anything about him.  

Suddenly I realized that all those years I'd been harboring a grudge based on what I thought was a snide remark the guy made, but he hadn't, it was just curious about my cousin, whom he really didn't know.  And my feelings tempered my memories of what he asked... I had been the asshole all along.

There are relationships I will never repair, partly because of my own stupidity and jealousy, but not just my own feelings.  Our memories are tempered and shaped by other experiences and are an amalgamation of this... knowing this helps, but not always, especially if the relationships are beyond repair.

Ok that was mean.

I still get bitter, especially when I see things like "A perfect marriage is just two imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other."  Because that's what we did, and we both did it, and it pisses me off to think of it.

We gave up.  You gave up hoping that I would get my act together.  I gave up because you were miserable and I'd rather not have you in my life than know I'm causing that misery.

If we'd tried, talked, we could have made it.  We could have been happy.

Then again I still would have been downsized, so maybe it doesn't matter in the end.  But it feels like it would've.

Muscleboy

...and this is a quote...

"I like  big bears to watch me flex my muscles and talk to me abut my guns and run their hands over them and all over my body then blow me while I flex."

I thanked him for his correspondence and closed the chat, saying I wasn't what he wanted.

A History of Violence

A gun, in my mouth, and a trigger pulling, blowing out my brains.

That's the image that would haunt me before I got treated for depression.  It would just pop up in times of stress.  I knew something was wrong with me, but because I didn't actually have suicidal tendencies (aside from a few albums) I ignored it.  I thought it was just some kind of coping mechanism, which it was.  

Later, after getting treated, I realized that the gun wasn't in MY mouth.  The image that would flash across my mind didn't have a distinguishable face.  It was a vague picture... just a scene of violence that I wasn't related to.  Eventually I felt it was just a violent thought I had, since I was a pacifist and non-confrontational, but that doesn't mean I think that's the way to live life.  I just ... dunno.  It popped up like that.

That image has long ago faded.  The most recent violent image has been Betty, my car (not White Betty... I mean, we know she's white), being t-boned by a eighteen-wheeler at an intersection.  Again, I am not part of the image:  I'm not in the car, or if I am I do not see it.  I am not injured from the accident.  Just, a trucker t-bones Betty.  Maybe I'm hoping that happens so I can lose the debt of the car, since I'm jobless now.

I've had a brand new one these past few days.  This one, I am actually part of.  My cousin is there.  He is being supportive but I wish he wasn't.  We are in charge of a kid, not either of ours, who is a brat.  The kid shoots me, a wound I know will not be fatal but I still am going WTF KID.  I never see the gun but it shatters my right shoulderblade, almost perfectly into six pieces, except for one sliver.  For some reason that seems important in the vision.

Yeah that's all one image.  

crossposted from fb... Myra Breckenridge

Let me share how I, a guy who had an airshift at a classic rock station, discovered the truth about one of my favorite songs. The movie was MYRA BRECKINRIDGE. 1970, Racquel Welch, John Huston, Rex Reed. Myron (RR's character) undergoes a sex change and becomes Myra (RW), because of course Rex would look like Racquel after gender reassignment with 1970's era surgical technology, why not? Myra goes to Hollywood to take part ownership in her uncle's acting ranch, because those exist. At one point she basically rapes the naive but young southern stud under her tutelage with what I have to assume was a sizeable strap-on.

Yeah at that point I was also wondering why I was still watching it. Still, a product of it's time, strong in a feminism message and sexual identity... sigh. I mean, I guess. The thing is, even what I described was not the traumatic part of watching that movie.

The traumatic part was Mae West, who was still somehow alive at that point (I shouldn't have been surprised... she did "Sextette" with Alice eight years later), playing an acting scout. By which I mean she was some kind of hooker who exchanged acting jobs for sexual favors in her, what I assume was a, smelly office. (Hi Magnum P.I.!) And then she hosts some kind of soiree.. and here the mental anguish began.

And let me point out that at that point in her life, Mae West would have made Joan Rivers look like Anna Kendricks singing "Cups." Back in 1970, plastic surgery was not, apparently, to be taken lightly. So Mae West is *carried* a'la to be sacrificed by the tribe Jessica Lange gets captured by in King Kong (1976) in one of the most racist scenes I've EVER seen, sings a song basically about sexytime, and then breaks out into "Hard To Handle" while a bevy of African-Americans dance behind her, in a manner that was wrong even back then. OH. GOD. THIS HAPPENED. She was like Dolly Imhotep Parton preparing some kind of ritual sacrifice to the Elder Gods to keep herself young. I'm frankly surprised Tom Selleck wasn't wheeled onstage to have his heart cut out so she could bite from it and gain immortaliy.

So yeah, that's how I learned "Hard to Handle" wasn't a Black Crowe's original. Hoping I never find out the origin of "She Talks To Angels." Three tomatoes.

Guardians

I can't believe how much I enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy.

I read the original comic from the 70s, and it was your normal Marvel cosmic stuff.  Way too much exposition, loony characters that made no sense, but very creative.  This new group has nothing to do with that.  It seems based on characters created by Steve Englehart, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Bill Mantlo (ROM) and Keith Giffen, and others (probably Jim Starlin, bleah).  There was no reason to bring these characters, who had nothing in common except for the "Marvel cosmic" imprint together, aside from retaining the trademarks due to inactivity of use.  Which Marvel, like DC, is kind of notorious for... "Oh, I forgot how deadly The Spot could be," exclaimed Spider-man right before knocking him out and leaving him webbed up for the cops.

Anyway.

The movie was absolute fun.  I saw it with my little brother, who was the perfect audience for this movie... no knowledge of previous characters having any at all history in the Marvel Universe... I knew them all.  Star-Lord, a kind of cosmic Indiana Jones... Drax, who was born to kill Thanos... Gamorra, his adopted daughter and lethal assassin... Groot, the Monarch of Planet X... Rocket Raccoon, genetic freak...

(I owned the 1985 mini-series, and long ago sold it, I'm sure... looking at some sites online, that newsstand edition of the mini is worth about $1600 now, before the movie is a hit.  So, yeah.)

But the movie was good.  We laughed a lot.  In the bottom of my heart I knew I wasn't supposed to be watching it with Kelly.  That was a big failing of mine.  I've simply forgotten how to be social, even within work.  In Dallas I would go out all the time.  In Boston, less but at least sometimes I'd hang with friends.  And in Dayton, the one time we decided to go to the movies, The Amazing Spider-Man, with a Wednesday July 4th crowd, I balked when I saw the throng.  Just another thread undone.

Still, I had a good time at the movie and encourage everybody to see it, especially if you know nothing about it.  It works better that way, I think.  But I think the whole Collector thing and post-credits scene will go over most people's heads, although I just have to SPOILERS say, I'm glad they used the Steve Gerber version and not the George Lucas one (although some children of the 80s might argue that point... but they are wrong).

Also I have put on ten pounds this weekend, and this is the most I've eaten in weeks and it still wasn't that much... but I now realize I haven't gone potty since Wednesday.

curing depression

A talk with somebody who has little to no experience fighting depression revealed one thing that is very telling about the disease.  First, it is a disease.  And treating it isn't just taking happy pills.

Trust me, if there was a pill that simple we'd all take one.  And I'm sure there are  pills and other meds out there that give you "good feelings."  They would not work on suffering from depression, however, and might very well cause harm instead.

The point of anti-depressants is to help balance your brain chemistry so you can think clearly, so that if you did get a good feeling you would actually feel it.  They do not take away bad feelings or suppress them, but at least you can feel something.

And there is no cure.  Some people need just a slight adjustment.  Most have to be on the meds the rest of their lives.

Beanblossom

Because giving up means it was all  a lie.

All of it.

You coming here to be with me.  You saving my life.  You leaving me in 2002.  None of it mattered since it was all a lie.

And now you have a new lie to finish.  Hopefully he won't be as heartbroke.

I have a hard time believing it was all a lie.  Larry at least lied to my face, can't you?

Guess not.  Hard to think you're worse than Larry.

Stop fucking Ebola monkeys. Or at least wear a condom.

Given that I lost my job today I am surprisingly in good spirits.  That's proof that I've changed.  If this happened last year I'd probably crawl into a bottle right now.

The title of this post refers to one of my funnier texts during the first hour after getting home.

So:  What now.  My boss obviously didn't want this to happen.  He was in my studio as I gathered up my stuff and jokingly asked if I was going to fuck anything up before leaving, i.e., setting some kind of computer virus off that would infect the network.  I asked in return, "Would you like me to?"  I think he was relieved that I was taking the news so well.

I didn't tell him that I actually could have easily done that.  He was relieved I didn't Hulk out and was a good boss and didn't want this to happen.  The orders came from on high.

I'm kind of just relieved that this happened now and not a year ago when I was straightening up my act.  I would not have survived that.  I was getting better because Ex wanted me to.  That was wrong.   I should have been getting better for myself, and I knew this, that's why I stayed on the meds.  Until I was doing it for me, it was for the wrong reason. 

And then in January I did believe that I'd never hear from Ex again.  And with that came the realization that if I wasn't going to hear from him again, I'd never hurt him again.  (I was wrong, on both counts.)  But I began thinking about what he told me in his last message:

you're a good person

He was trying to tell me he didn't see me the way I saw myself.  It's like when you hear your recorded voice.  When you talk you hear not only what's coming out of your mouth, but also all the vibrations inside your ear canal and in your head.  It changes your resonance drastically, and you are the only person who hears you like you do, and your brain rejects the recording.

Same with pictures.  Unless they are in reverse, which is what you see in a mirror, when you know it's you and are perceiving it in real-time, your brain rejects it.  Not me!  That's not me!  Ugh!

But that's how I saw myself, and I know it was my sickness that caused most of it (although I like to believe that most people are not Narcissists and do not believe they are beautiful and also all that), but hearing somebody you still love tell you, when you hate yourself, that you are good... that's hard to ignore.

I regret that I found a way to ignore it for so long.

So now the search begins.  I have the demo to Seattle, if that is really a position and not an EOE required posting... And I am working facebook and my friends in the industry.  Of course if things don't pan out I can always just try for a job at Hardee's.  Losing all that weight like I did last time wouldn't be a bad thing.

Anyway.  Back to working the crowd, until I leave tomorrow morning for a restful week at home.

The strain

Well yesterday was an adventure in itself.  Apparently I cannot take a "sick" day at work without everything coming down in shambles.  Whatever.  I'm allowed sick days and, unlike in the past when I'd use them in a moment's whim, I have twelve saved up from rollovers... basically the past year and a half of not being a drunk all the time has meant I don't need to use them.

But I was a drunk this weekend and was encouraged by my new friend to get back on the big stuff.  He has familiarity with depression in his family.  My doctor confirmed that, yes, I can get back on Zoloft after my body has adjusted to the current med.  Good then.  But how will it affect my work output?

So I talked to my boss yesterday.  I was absolutely honest with him about everything.  Back in Lexington, after all, I passed out more than once at his place.  So when I told him the whole story he was not surprised.  I think he was more surprised that I'd even been fighting to stay on the sober side of life.  It's not easy.  You wind up being alone a lot, because if you hang out somewhere with friends, there's drinks.  If you go to the bar to meet people, there's drinks.  It's like everyplace you can go to there's temptations and you want to say, "Well just one," but it is never just one.  So you stay away from all that.

I even started going to the movies here to pass the time, at that shopping mall with the bad parking.  There were drinks.

I told my boss because a.) trying to do the right thing, and b.) I had to find out if he thought my work output had suffered while I was on Zoloft, or if I acted weirder than I usually do.  No on both counts, so medicine for life I guess.

This morning I woke up at 4 am after a strangely dreamless night and went to the kitchen for some ice water.  In the freezer was the leftover Bicardi from this past weekend.  Regretting the waste of money besides everything else it represented, I poured it down the sink.  For some reason it took a long time to pour, and for some reason I turned the disposal on, which makes little sense outside symbolism maybe.

Basically now I'm gonna play a waiting game until my meds are upped.  I can make it a few weeks.  It's nothing I haven't done before.  

I will always regret not staying on them, now.

Thank you

I just got thank you'd for something somebody else did for me.  It was an odd feeling.  I will have to take him to dinner.

The doctor has heard my tale now and recognizes that I need to be heavierly medicated again.   Apparently she could tell what was wrong just looking at me.  Am I that obvious.  I knew the possibilities of side effects of coming off my anti-depressants in January.  I didn't have any of them.  No suicidal thoughts, nothing.  I started eating properly again.  Well, not properly.  Just eating at all was a miracle, and after starving for so long I forgot how much I enjoyed things like tomatoes with salt.

And learning that table salt was not my enemy but sodium from processed foods was... it became easier to eat healthier but stay very lazy about it.

So we are going the same route as before.  I'll continue with citalopram for now, and then move on to Zoloft again, whatever its generic name is.  I should have done this in May but didn't want to admit the feelings that were building in my head.  That was, of course, before.  Speaking of which I got a very nasty little note from somebody I barely know.  Knowledge is power.  I could crush this person's spirit if I wanted revenge for the note, but I do not.  They will find out on their own.

Here's to better living through chemistry.