Reformat

The house is going to be sold. That much is certain.

I need a way to reframe my future so that it becomes something I look forward to again, and I don't know how. I am underpaid with a future I do not want. I don't have an idea of what to make a change toward and I am so tired of me.

I'm cold. Time for bed.

Why giving advice sucks

Whilst helping someone else going through a breakup, I thought:

I got the relationship I wanted. I was with one of my best friends.

And it didn't work out.

What the fuck am I going to do with THAT?

Potential

Saw Guardians of the Galaxy last night and it was pretty good, even with the couple behind me who had the 3yo girl with them. She occasionally exclaimed 'That was tight!' 

As I drove home, I felt the cry of the old fears, 'what are you going to do?' and I had no answer. I cried a little. I have been set aside and I am mourning not only the relationship that was, but the one I had hoped we would enjoy in the future. 

Time runs out on everything. 

I don't know what I am going to do, and it frightens me. I don't know what my relationship with my friend is going to be like and that worries me. I just don't know things I thought I had a sense of and coupled with just being sad, it's a grind.

I see anger at Robin Williams' death and I think:

It's interesting how complicated and seemingly paradoxical people can be, isn't it?

For example, one can feel unnecessary anger at someone you never met for being crushed under a burden you never had to carry. 

While still feeling immensely sad that someone who was a stranger and gave you joy is no longer with us.

These responses, they are always about us. If, perhaps, they were about the person in question, maybe things would be different. 

Gonna learn quick, though

"...well go hiking again. But not as tough as last time; my ass hurt for three days after."

"Well, shit; what's the point of having a boyfriend if you can't get your ass massaged?"

"Oh, that happened. Along with other things that hurt my ass."







....I am not a very smart man.

Even After All This

I still want to kiss her goodbye in the mornings.

This is the grind. This is why she wants to move out and why I need to accept that and prepare. She knows I still love her and I have to deflate the area she took in my life somehow so...

I am having one of those days where looking in the mirror just let's me hear the voices in my head better.

They do not have nice things to say. I can't tell if I'm not getting enough sleep or if it's dread about meeting a woman tonight or if it's just hitting me badly today that someone I love isn't interested in me anymore. 

Or maybe I just need to complain, sometimes.

I wish

I had that thought on the way to work today:

"I wish..."

I do. I wish that my life hadn't come to this place. That she had been able to move forward with me, instead of without.

Then I stopped and realized: wishes aren't actionable. I am suffering because I want something that is utterly out of my possibility to do anything about.

The truth is that I am afraid. I am afraid because my life has become less known and more unknown and I don't know what to do about that. I am hurt because of an absence but that absence is a known thing. I want that absence to be amended because then at least I can go back to what is known.

Overheard

Came home last night and ended up overheard a conversation I wasn't supposed to. Something about dating advice, and it's clearly going well (for her). 

I feel lost and stupid and broken. Unloved. It's like that bit in Fight Club where Jack complains about his apartment exploding: "I may not have had much, but at least I had that couch settled."

Of course, that is why it hurts, I suppose. That pervasive sense of not being good enough. That unanswerable "why?" to give me the root cause that has led me to this place. 

Fuck it, let's go to Dallas this weekend.

From Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk-Ben Fountain

"...but overlying all the small, petty, stupid, basically foreordained fuckups looms the ever-present prospect of the life-fucking fuckup, a fuckup so profound and all-encompassing as to crush all hope of redemption." 

That's it. That is the thing I am most scared of. The thing I cannot be redeemed for. 

This is very hard, considering the point of life is to fail until success. 

Haiku 11 +

You expanded my 

Heart but then could not think of

How to fill the space



It hit me yesterday that I have to forgive her. For not knowing how to face her shadows, for hunkering down for safety, for taking a sledgehammer to our lives when all else failed. 

I have to forgive myself, for being too confrontation-adverse. I don't know what else I could have done. 

I'm scared of what's coming. I don't want to move and I don't want it because, on top of moving fucking sucking, everything else is shifting and the one constant I have is knowledge of where my head will rest.

I don't know what else I have to do. I do know I have to forgive her, so that I can forgive myself. 

blah blah blah

So this depresses me: http://www.polyspeeddatingpdx.com/

The ache in my side is sharp today. I had a realization on my way to work today that I didn't want to be loved, right now. 

That's a pretty bleak way to start your Tuesday.

Haiku 10

I wept in response

Overwhelmed by the question

What do I do now?

Sigh

Sometimes it's very difficult knowing
how goddamn replaceable
You are.

Haiku 9

The irony is
I would be fucking you so
You can forget me

Haiku 6-8

I want to be your
Slave for an evening, no heart
Consideration

Jaw quivers and my
Eyes blur from speed, rain and I
howl; Begin Again!

Questions not answers
Reach for the skin, the 'bad' thought
Grit with solitude

Haiku 2-5

I was stunned to find

I was panting a canvas

That had disappeared

TVotR

Softly in the background

Vodka over ice

Red Bull smells sickly

Vapid voices far too close

My beer is empty

Like a suicide,

parcel everything out so

no one knows it all

Haiku 1

All I can think 'bout
Is who am I now that you
Have done this to me?

sigh

The thing about being in pain is that, ultimately, it is boring. It is one note, droned throughout your life, drowning out everything else. Acutely, that really does matter. It is possibly the worst thing about being in any kind of chronic pain, though. I know it's boring to everyone else and it's certainly a houseguest I wish I could get rid of.

And having to witness someone in pain is both awful AND boring because there is nothing you can do and because they don't have anything else to offer. So I apologize for not having proper diodes and LCDs that light up, instead of just roiling in...whatever the fuck it is I'm roiling in.

Everybody sees the wind blow

She moved her dresser out of the bedroom last weekend. Actually, I helped her. I helped get the mattress she's sleeping on now, too. 

I'm in a bedroom that feels too big. I am not sleeping well. And I have the goddamn bridge of Paul Simon's Graceland in my head which sucks so much ass I can't even tell you.

Fuck. I don't know what happens now.

Stress

...that comes from dealing with someone who is terrible at articulating what they want or their argument and you cannot just say; Fuck you, you're shit at this. 

Jesus. I am letting it get to me in a way I need to walk off. 

The Brain

Hey, Brain, did you hear that Dr Girlfriend is willing to take you to dinner for your birthday?

"Really?"

Yup. Where should we go?

"Is there a place called Beer & Meat?"

Nooooooo.....

"Then why the fuck are you bothering me with this? Move along, little thing."

But-!

"MOVE. ALONG."

When I Want It

"Hi, do you have playsets of commons & uncommons for Born of the Gods?" I want the new Magic set!

No, not yet.

"Ah. Well, can you tell me when you might have them?" (It's been a bit so I was hoping.)

Um...no. When did you want it?

"Uh...I don't know." Not wanting to appear like a demanding asshole. "Few days?"

I'll post on our Facebook page when we have them.

Sigh. It took me a few days to realize what a stupid exchange this was. If I wanted the Born of the Gods stuff on another day, I would have come in on that day. I wanted them when I was there. And I don't mind waiting but instead of asking me when I want it (since I clearly want it now) how about saying: we'll have some ready by X. 

Because then I would patronize your store with money. Instead, I go to eBay. 

The Audience Is Listening

While seeing the start of the "I don't care about football, shut up" posts at Facebook-and having the base response: Yes, we should all stop liking what you don't care about. I had a thought, during the exchange. 

The reply was: "More like quit talking to me about blahblahblah," to which I replied: 'But it's Facebook. Nobody talks here."

I was struck shortly thereafter that internet environments are more like a show: you have a platform, you speak, everyone-regardless of their interest in your subject matter-is compelled to give it a little bit of their attention. 

I don't care about the Smiths, or Morrissey at all, or circumcision or GMOs or Gay for Johnny Depp, I don't give a fuck about your 600th baby photo, how she looked when she pooped while Grandma held her, or your toddler's sudden ability to say the word 'shit'. There are a whole host of things spoken of that people put out there in hopes that their lives will seem to be as important to other people as they are to themselves. 

You know who finds my life as important as their own? My parents. I think the list ends there. Everyone else who knows me, should they friend me on Facebook? Or here, or any of the other places I write: they are accepting the part of audience member. There are two things to keep in mind, as a result. 

First; I need to be respectful of my audience. This is just a good idea in general but for me, in addition to the basic 'be kind, be honest' motto, it also means not boring them (much) with post after post after post of the exact same concept. There a whole lot of interesting things to talk about in the world, and I should try and shake it up when I can. 

Second: in for a penny, in for a pound. If you are part of the audience, then you just have to put up with some of the deluge of boredom that can come when someone else is super excited about something that you have no emotional investment in. On the upside, there are some tools that can help filter that out, but on the downside those filters are pretty weak and they won't stop everything. So you're just going to have to accept being annoyed from time to time. 

And that's just tough shit, man. Welcome to life. You can choose to be annoyed or you can choose to appreciate the pleasure someone else is taking in something that you may not really care about. Click the 'do not show' button and move on.