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Still Shaky

My insomnia is getting to me

Looked for Selene in the blue sky today. I didn’t see her.

I know I’ve picked up a bunch of new readers and I’m sorry that I’m not more entertaining at the moment.

My insomnia and hand shaking has returned with a vengeance, recent events – both open and secret – have kinda brought me down.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful I’m alright. Very.

The hand of God is in all things.

But I sometimes I feel like I take a step forward and two steps back all the time, you know?

Do you know where the word, tantalize comes from? There’s this myth where this dude Tantalus, cursed to be thirsty, bends to a stream to drink, only to have it recede just beyond reach. Cursed to be hungry, reaches for an apple, and the branches pull back.

Never go more than a week without a sleepless night. Last week, I slept. Last night, it started again. It’s ever the same. Two weeks now. I know it.

I hate it.

And it’s killing me bit by bit. Absolutely…breaking me.

Not at once. Just a little at a time.

OK, I’ll stop. Emo – just learned the term recently. Sorry. Working through a few things.

Above, the ever popular and lovely KT Tunstall again for your entertainment.

You cannot buy love. You cannot buy sleep. But red, red rum…that you can have for $10 a glass. And YouTube is free.

Friday the 13th. Of course.

I’ll be back on Monday after I’ve bent some time.

See you then.

Location: my red couch
Mood: still freaked out
Music: And now I’ve got a hole for the world to see

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Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is – Bhagavad Gita

Caligirl: …then there are the serial daters. The guys that are always out and about.
Me: If I were honest, I’d tell you that that’s what I’m afraid of. See, I’ve only ever been in long-term relationships. I never really dated. I think I secretly worried that I might be good at it.
Her: (turning) And?
Me: (laughing) You tell me.

——

Him: You don’t think it’s strange, to have a site with your name on it all about you? And all the stuff you write – who reads it? I mean, you’re just you. You’re just a regular dude. You’re not like a celebrity or anything.
Me: “Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.”
Him: What?
Me: (shrugging) It just means that in my head, I think I’m someone.

Location: still in front of this cracked screen
Mood: weird
Music: Must I always be waiting waiting on you?

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Always Dreaming

I dream a lot, but I’m not a very good sleeper

 

But I don’t want to go among mad people, Alice remarked.
Oh, you can’t help that, said the Cat, we’re all mad here. I’m mad, you’re mad.
How do you know I’m mad? said Alice.
You must be, said the Cat, or you wouldn’t have come here.

Sometimes I have nice dreams.

Unfortunately, it’s rare because of my insomnia – and when I’m awake, I feel like I’m sleepwalking. But I daydream a lot.

And sometimes, my daydreams are just as real and just as nice when I’m up as when I sleep. I spend a lot of time in my head, you see.

An ex once told me that when she and I lived in the same neighborhood, she used to walk to my building, sit on my stoop, and whisper, Come out, come out…let’s have some fun.

The times I did randomly come out, she thought she had magic.

In my head, she doesn’t hate me, and I don’t hate myself, for how I treated her.

And, in my head, my other ex is wrong and my insides do match my outsides.

But you can never change what another person does or thinks. Only yourself. I know that.

Still, being ambulatory for 18 hours a day means that I spend a lot of time there. In my head, I mean.

I know, I know – what if I get stuck there? I suppose large polite men in clean white coats will take me away. Funny, sometimes I think I’m just one more sleepless night away from that. I’ve been up for…I don’t know how long now…

Hey, you’d visit me, yeah?

Shake your head with that, “Oh, so sad, he had so much promise,” look on your face before you shuffle off?

But sometimes I wonder, which way is worse.

Because, you see, in my head, I’m quite happy.

Michel Gondry said, I dream a lot, but I’m not a very good sleeper.

I love that. The knowing that it’s not just me.

Come out, come out…let’s have some fun…

Location: physically, an ugly hotel bed in 14202, mentally…
Mood: awake
Music: one more, you’re nuts

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My biggest fan

What is your definition of love?

 

Meant to post this a while ago but I thought it was too long. It’s my definition:

When I was 15, my best friend, Kevin, told me that my girl Diana cheated on me. We never spoke, I just shut her out. Stupid kid stuff.

Maybe a decade later, I drove by her home and, for some reason, I rang her doorbell. I expected her to slap me when she answered the door; instead, she let me in, gave me a smile and an apron. She had this huge bar of chocolate that she told me to chop for cookies.

So I went in and started chopping.

After a bit, I asked her, half-jokingly, what happened between us.

She stopped and answered:

You listened to Kevin but we both know that he was the first guy to ask me out after we broke up. So that makes you an idiot. I never cheated on you, you know that. I was your biggest fan. That makes me an idiot. You never stood up for me and I didn’t understand why, because I was kind to you. I was on your side but you weren’t on mine.


Why weren’t you?

I had no answer. Almost twenty years after the fact, I still have no answer. I don’t remember anything else but I remember what she said.

That conversation started me off in being who I am now. In fact, I learned the phrases biggest fan and on your side that day.

It’s why I’m always loyal.

You see, she doesn’t know, but I still wonder if No. 7 ever found that job under the California sun; I wanna call her office someday and hear that message that says she’s left the company she hates.

And I still wonder if Diana bought that ranch in Colorado that she dreamt of and has kids to help her make cookies. I wouldn’t know, though.

I never saw her again.

But I hope she got it all.

As for me, I’m waiting for someone to be on my side again.

Location: home
Mood: pensive
Music: But until then I’ll do just fine on my own

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Still Running

Humans survived because we ran

With nods to 0utre who cheered me up yesterday while I was hanging out in Stressville.

Been working out like mad but gaining weight!

The late night eating and drinking. I was out and about again tonight only briefly because I’m sick.

Just as well, I gotta cut all that out.

My roomie (ah, betcha didn’t know I had one) said Harvard has this new theory why humans are on top of the food chain:

Humans survived, not because they are smarter than other animals, but because we can run longer than any animal. No animal, not even horses or dogs, can run the distances a man can run when put to task.

Marathon Marathons.

We hunted until the animals just gave up.

We survived because we ran. It is in our nature.

Until I’m breathless and weak, I’m running. Towards what?

No idea.

But, dammit, I’m running.

Location: -30, stumbling home
Mood: stressed
Music: She is raging and the storm blows up in her eyes
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Rough hewing

We’re all working our way through life

Saw Blue Jean Eyes last week. Waited to write because I wanted to see how it panned out. No change, unfortunately.

She asked me the most peculiar thing once, she asked if I said unkind things about her afterwards. I asked her why I would. If you’ve read this blog long enough, you know I’m tired of being the bad guy.

Had dinner Saturday with some friends and strangers including a Candy Fiend from Texas:

Her: I read your blog, you know.
Me: Really? I’m always surprised…
Her: Are you depressed?

Is that how I come across?

Looking back at my entries, I think that, more than anything, I’m dorky/hopeful.

Yes, I have my miniature disasters and minor catastrophes, (see supra) but my last tiny calamity brought about this blog, friendship with rum, a better idea of what I want/don’t want in life, 72 to Canal, a dozen new satellites, and a few memorable, if short-lived, romances.

A fair trade, no?

I updated my About section to reflect my new age but everything else is still true.

I’m still hopeful. I’m still rough-hewing.

It’s good, that some things never change.

Location: walking five+ miles from home to the LES
Mood: confused
Music: don’t want to be second best Don’t want to stand in line

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Pandora

What was the last thing in Pandora’s Box?


They opened a new Amish school house in Pennsylvania the other day.

Hopeful is good.

I think.

Have you ever actually read about Pandora’s box? Yes, she unleashed all of life’s misery but did you know that Hope was the final thing in the box? It was also the only thing Pandora managed to trap.

Eventually, Hope escaped.

There are two ways to look at this, either:

  • Hope is the one thing that counteracts all the crap life throws your way; OR
  • Hope is the worst of all evils because when you’re let down, well…I’m sure you’ve been let down before so, you know.

Always thought it was the former. In my late nights, I’m not sure. I think it may be the latter.

I would like it to be the former, but, then again, I would like a lot of things.

Location: @3:30, crossing the 59th St. Bridge
Mood: sad
Music: read my mind love What a tale my thoughts would tell

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Mr. Fix-it

It’s easier to start new things than try to replace old things

My tub faucet sprung a leak the other day so I decided it was time to fix it.

I’m always trying to fix things in my life.

My car, my finances, my computer, my body, my love life – the list goes on. I decided just the other day to repair my relationship with my lower abs. We’ve kept in touch but I’ve just not seen them in six months.

Spent almost all of last summer trying to fix my hellish relationship with my ex.

As an aside, it would have been nice if she told me that it was not only broken but that she had already given speaking lines to three other drivers (whom I don’t think have seen any of their abs in decades, one word: flexbelt; of course, it’s not just about looks, to their credit they’re also dull as rock soup).

Sorry, just snarky because I’ve got a drip that’s driving me mad.

Point is, fixing is different than building. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to build. This spring I’m building things with old friends and new.

But for now, oh man, where’s that #@$@#$ wrench?

Location: @2:30PM yesterday, on Broadwayasd downing a burger
Mood: insanely busy
Music: Sunlight on my face I wake up and yeah, I’m alive

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Baggage

Dating is all about finding someone with matching baggage

My hands are shaking again.

The only drug that I know that works to knock me out causes a rare but nasty side effect called tardive dyskinesia, which basically results in a funny twitch or tic in the face. It’s permanent, no cure. Yeah, like I need to be any weirder.

Ergo, I avoid taking it until I truly need to catch up on sleep. On a related note, as I’ve gotten older, I do more and more odd tics with my hands. Basically, I talk a lot with my hands.

Must look ridiculous on my mobile.

My friends make fun of me. I think they think I do it to be dramatic. Maybe I do, a little. But you ever jump up and down when you’re a kid because you’re so excited about something? Nervous energy. That’s me. My hands tingle and I can’t keep them still. Like an itch. Now that I drink, it’s far more pronounced.

So I’m on day two of little sleep. I suppose tomorrow I’ll have to give in because I’m seeing the girl with the blue jean eyes again.

A good friend told me that the secret to relationships is to find someone with baggage that matches yours. So true. She spent 25+ years being her; I spent 30+ years being me. It’s hard to bang two fully formed adults together to something homogeneous. But I guess people do it all the time.

I don’t know how but they do.

There’s a lot going against us, me and BJ eyes. She’s got her baggage; I’ve got mine. But I told her that I would honest with her if she would do the same for me.

I’ll take honesty and those eyes any day of the week.

Now if I could only get some @#$@# sleep…

Location: my living room, pacing
Mood: awake
Music: every time I try to make it right it all comes down on me
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Church

Atheists have as strong a belief system as anyone

Linus: Do you ever pray?
Lucy: That’s kind of a personal question, isn’t it? Are you trying to start an argument? I suppose you think you’re somebody pretty smart, don’t you? I suppose you think. . .
Linus, turning to Charlie Brown: You’re right . . . religion is a very touchy subject.”

Had a disturbing discourse the other day.

An atheist woman I know was annoyed to find that a friend was a Muslim. Religion, she noted was a bad thing. Her friend was smart, couldn’t she see how stupid religion was? Her god wouldn’t make horrible demands, kill people and do bad things, she said.

But let’s follow the bouncing ball of logic:

How does she know that God doesn’t kill people and do, what we would think, are bad things?

Because if she had a god he would not do such things.

But then, that makes her her own god.

The god of her mind hasn’t fashioned her in his image so much as she has fashioned him into her’s. Therefore her god, or lack thereof, can never be greater than herself at her best.

That is dangerous because people fail themselves all the time (I know I do). And if your god comes from within instead of without, I submit that you are headed for some grave times when misfortune does come.

And it comes – man, does it come.

Everyone falls to their knees at some point because, life is cruel.

Now, I’m totally ok with the fact that I could be wrong about everything I believe; my religion is all about that (Matthew 26:41) but it bothers me that atheists are often so smugly certain that I am wrong.

I’ve actually never met more narrow-minded people than atheists (I’m not saying all atheists but most). This one, for example, has completely cut off communication with me because she disagrees with me.

And for those that say atheism isn’t a religion, I submit that it is because: we both believe in something beyond our abilities to prove.

I cannot prove to you there is a god but you cannot prove to me there isn’t.

It’s the zealots of any religion that drive people crazy. Those that are so certain that they are right that they just don’t want to hear any other possibility. She’s a zealot for atheism because, she’d rather tune out someone rather concede she might be wrong.

I do believe in God.

To believe otherwise would mean that I’m solely in charge of my life. And that’s far too much responsibility.

As Martin Luther said to his friend, Pray, and let God worry.

I respect what you believe, regardless if you are atheist, Muslim, Buddhist, whatnot.

I worry enough as it is.

Location: still in front of a stack of papers
Mood: bored
Music: worry, worry, super-scurry; call the troops out in a hurry

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