I considered handwriting this post before realizing that it would be a waste of energy when I have a quiet house and a computer in front of me. That, and if I really want to upload directly from my mind to the cyber void for my readers, I need to start doing it instead of just thinking about it.
My winter-long attempt to hook up with a fish came to head as a huge bass demolished the trick grasshopper with which I was experimenting on the Concord River the other day. It broke my line. Ironically enough, it was one of the lures I had told my mom I would not use, as we sifted through all the crap in my room, because I didn't think it would work. She urged me to keep it. I used it, and now it's gone.
I'm learning to save money. I spoke to someone at work who told me of a boss he had who, just to prove a point, brown-bagged it to work every day for a year instead of spending money on lunch that day. The only day he ate out was on Friday, and on that day he ordered a slice of pizza. For every transaction he wanted to make, he would resist, and put the amount of money it would have cost him to make the transaction in a jar. Within a year, he had saved enough money to go on an all-expenses-paid week-long vacation to Las Vegas.
I did the math for myself. If I avoid spending money unnecessarily, it amounts to the equivalent of a raise of $11/hr compared to how I'm spending money now. I've started bringing my lunch to work and indicating in my ledger which transactions are justified and which ones are not. My goal is to have as much green on the ledger as possible by the time I need a fresh log.
I reached out to Jen again. She's been depressed, holding out on communication because she didn't want to be a burden.
Jen, if you're reading this, your company is not a burden. Not having friends is a burden. I may not know all the ins and outs of what it means to maintain a friendship with somebody, or how to talk to girls. I may say the wrong things at the wrong time, but nobody who takes the time to look through that and tries to show me that I'm stronger for it can possibly be a burden.
One of the benefits of having Asperger's is that I'm more closely engaged with the child in me than most people my age. I get to bring the values of my childhood into adulthood with me, and I think that understanding the importance of friendship and dedicating myself to the good of others has led me to a deeper awareness of what it takes to be happy.
I still have a lot of work to do, but when I get reminders about what it takes to be happy, the first thing I want to do is reach out to the people who raise me higher. You are one of those people. So I know that you know instinctively what it takes to be happy through whatever you're dealing with.
I'm here for you. Let me help.
I'll be uploading a post in the next couple of days out of Journal #1, so keep an eye out for it. There's a couple more things I want to touch on, including how I got myself completely organized and started being proactive, doing less work now so I don't make more work for myself later. That ties directly into expending energy on the most focused causal link, which continues to be a major part of my blog.
In what areas of your life can you save energy today?
See you on my new Facebook page! theintrovertexposedcs@gmail.com
Saturday, March 31, 2018
Thursday, March 29, 2018
Continuation of May 1st
Scott is supposed to be coming over tonight. That really gives me something to look forward to. I hope he can make it. We are going to watch the Bruins downstairs in the basement. The game is either at 7 or 7:30. I hope he can at least make it by the 2nd period so we can watch it together. He seemed really excited.
I paid him off. $60. Now I am cleared with his debt. Maybe I'll hit him up for a 10-spot if I don't have one somewhere on down the line, but I'm done borrowing for a while. I owe my parents $14,000 as it is.
I mentioned earlier that I felt inferior in Scott's presence. I'm not sure that is as true now as it was when I wrote it. We are both Children of the powers-that-be, we're just two different people. The fact that we both like the Bruins makes me feel good. With my other friends, what few they are, I don't share many of the same interests. Additionally, Scott is safe. He's got his head on straight, he's never tried to hurt me and I doubt he ever will. I think if I could open up to him more we would both get a lot more out of the relationship. I don't know why he wants to hang out, maybe out of pity. Maybe if it is out of pity, I can show him that I'm good to have around. Maybe I should just let it go./
It will take me a bit to find my voice again. It has been so long since I kept a journal or even engaged in creative writing that it seems I've lost my Edge. I don't know how true it is. I always have been my worst critic, but it's worth noting that these words are not flowing as easily as they had an earlier notebooks. It cannot possibly be that I'm running out of things to write about. My best guess is that this notebook will follow the same pattern as the last. It will start out slow. Then it will adopt a theme like many of the aforementioned, and fill itself up, practically without my knowledge/
This will be a short entry. I just want to drop down a few reminders for later. Father's group, Middlesex, the dam, lack of consideration for their own safety and the safety of others. I'll come back to this./
(Omit entry)
I sat in my Father's Support Group for long enough to hear one of the group leaders tell me that I was an asshole for ___. I stayed for some food and got out for a walk. First, I went up by the dam next to the school, one of many structures I assumed to be a tourist attraction erected in the industrial revolution. I made my way down the ramp, climbed over the low hanging chain designed to keep people out, and made my way down to the lowest land I could find. I like being down there. I got a knot in my stomach looking at all the graffiti....it was beautiful/
Scott came over. We talked about the salvation of our mortal Souls. I'm exhausted. Good night until morning/
05/02/2014
I can't think of a better way to get the neurons firing than to start writing. Sometimes the simple motion of moving your hand across the page from one line to the next helps us find the words we can't seem to find as we stare out the window and complete exhaustion and bewilderment. I don't think the combination of antidepressant and Concerta is a good one. I'm nauseous, light headed and panicky, and all I want is for those awkward dream like state to go away./
05/03/2014
I'm doing much better after a full night's sleep. I got some coffee and 1/2 banana, and I'm planning to go for a walk with the baby later.
I had a mini blow out with my mom this morning. Everything I suggested for the baby for breakfast was wrong. In all fairness I was wrong, so I'm glad you put me in my place. Since we started the baby on this new feeding schedule, she's eating more, she's more active, and is in a much better mood overall./
I was a Beast earlier this morning so I decided to go for a nice long walk to clear my head. I walked from the house down to 133. I took 133 to Rite Aid, got myself a Red Bull and started up 133 again before backtracking and taking River Road instead. It's steeper, more Scenic than 133, and much quieter. It was about as a lively as one would expect it to be on a beautiful Saturday morning. A few people working in the garage, a bunch of people golfing. One lady was sitting on the porch playing with her phone. She smiled, and told me I was walking at a good pace. For the most part, people are pretty friendly around here. It made for a pleasant walk. In total I think it came to a little under 3 miles. If I had the chance to do it again right now, I think I would. Exercise has been instrumental in helping me stay level headed throughout the day.
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
May 1st, 2014
Now that I have had some coffee and I am somewhat more alert than I was before, I'd like to rephrase the aforementioned.
Wicca is all about being in harmony with the pulse of the Earth. Everything is cyclical. The Earth rotates around the Sun, the moon rotates around the earth, Galaxies Spin, and for all we know, the entire universe spins around something else.
The sun rises, sets and rises again. Perfect. Perpetual. Purifying. To focus on something as Petty as the time of day is an affront to all that the Earth has to offer.
Going deeper, if the cycles of the Earth were not supportive of human life, we wouldn't be here. To that extent, we can assume that the Earth alone can provide us with everything we need to grow and Thrive both physically and spiritually. Perhaps the cycle of Dawn and dusk is the most significant.
It would take more than a morning's worth of writing to touch upon the degree of dependence that one Earthly Miracle shares with the next, but I can only imagine the sense of renewal with which I would be blessed should I learn to embrace Mother Earth for who she really is rather than who we think she ought to be./
From now on I will not be noting the time at which I start an entry, only the date. The more I focus on the Human perception of time, the less time I have to focus on what really matters/
I suppose I don't need to write anymore this morning, but I can't sleep, either. I'm definitely not used to being up this early, but I can't imagine it would be to my detriment if I did this on a regular basis. I have a long day. Early intervention appointment, Father's Support Group in Lowell, the whole bit. The good thing is that I'm getting paid today so I can finally pay Scott back the money I owe him.
Scott is a good guy. He works hard, has a wife and three kids, Allen, James and Lucy. He was instrumental in helping Mel and I through the most chaotic and painful part of our separation. As frustrated as i suspect he was getting, he never quit. He's a holder of the Melchezidek priesthood and my home teacher. While I no longer embrace the faith, I still have great respect for it. It is in my opinion the most accurate representation of Christian worship to which I've been exposed, and I do believe that it will go a long way towards making the world a better place for everyone in it.
I often feel that Scott looks down upon me, though I know that it's a result of my own insecurities. Somehow, I feel more than humility and his presence. I feel inferior. He already has everything I feel it would take me a lifetime to achieve. I often need to remind myself that I am a month older than he is, as, in a way, I still feel like an adolescent. I am as ambivalent about that as I am the fact that I seem to be coming into myself. He's a good friend, though, and that's all that matters. I could use friends in my life right now. I just hope I can be a good friend to him and return. Maybe when I get my head back on straight, when I'm no longer in fight or flight mode, I can begin to return the favor... Spiritually, not monetarily.
I can also pay my mom back for the money I borrowed from her the other day. It will be the first time I paid her back a debt for a very long time. The fact that she can now trust me to do so indicates a significant improvement in our relationship. Since I moved back home we are fighting less, we are more communicable, and we are finding that we have a lot more in common than we thought we did. A lot of that is relief on her part. She got her son back. The rest is on my part. I got myself back. Mom and I used to fight like cats and dogs. Now we just bicker, more like sibling rivalry and less like War. It gets a little hectic sometimes with Olivia in the mix. When that happens, I usually just drop it. Nothing gets resolved. As for right now, there is no resolution to that conflict...legally, anyway.
It should be noted that my parents have guardianship of Olivia. I will go into this in another entry/
I have a bit before I can jump on the computer, so I thought I'd do something mildly productive. I made it through the early intervention appointment with Mel and Claudia, paid my mom back and realized how stupid the electronic cigarette really is. Money burned in a less than one hundredth of the time it took me to make it. I'd like to put some high numbers on the board today. With any luck I'll have a few hours of Silence on my side.
Jacob still hasn't gotten back to me. I don't know if Ive burned bridges with him or not. All I know is that I won't bother him anymore. Lately all I seem to be doing is hounding him like a dog begging to be let in from the rain. I have more pride in myself than that.
The Bruins are on tonight. The Bruins haven't lost more than two games in a row All Season. We lost the first game to the Red Wings in the playoffs, then we took the next four. I've never had as much interest in hockey as I do now, maybe because it helps me get my aggressions out. Maybe it's because I get to spend time with my dad.
I am learning to read my father a lot better than I used to be able to. I've learned to predict him. I guess starting with my parents is a good way to get my feet wet in terms of being able to read people. Dad and I are still not 100% compatible, but I solved a big part of the enigma that is my father. He likes straight answers and generally won't tolerate anything less. I'm learning to keep things short and sweet, trying not to tell him what I'm going to do, approaching him with questions about how to deal with clients and business-related subject matter. He knows his shit, and as well versed as I may be on the business side of things with respect to marketing, it's not particularly easy for me to write about it from scratch. He usually has a few good ideas. I generally run with one or two or stop the conversation and let my mind run with what I've just learned, just to see where it takes me. What it comes down to is that because I can read him better and know how to approach him, I have come to realize and he is more approachable than I thought he was. I have underestimated his level of compassion for me over the years, mistaking his anger for cold-heartedness instead of bewilderment and concern. He's blunt, he's loud, he's forward and quick-tempered, but he is my dad. He never has and never will stop being there for me.
I had a particularly amusing experience with him the other day. I was changing Olivia. When I brush my hand across her stomach, I was taken back by how warm she felt.
"She has a fever," I said, unsure of where I was directing the observation.
"No, she doesn't" he said. I was dumbfounded by the certainty with which had declared it. Was he so in tune with her body that he was able to discern from across the room in less than one second that she was perfectly fine?
I suddenly remembered my Pagan training. Meet opposition with recessive energy.
"Okay," I said, soundly. I continued to change her without a word. Apparently I had thrown him so off balance that he was compelled to backtrack.
"How do you know she has a fever?" I thought the question was silly but I answered anyway, maintaining my own balance. My mom and I took her temperature. She registered 99.7.
The ability to empathize with him on such a level as to compel him to backpedal with a simple, deliberate gesture, is not only new to me, but very exciting. I wait eagerly for the host of surprises that he has in store for me, as long as I remain open to seeing them, for as I am constructed, layer-by-layer, so must all humans have a side of themselves reserved only for the eyes of the keenly aware and appreciative/
I need people to share my work on their wall, Shoutouts to my Influencers
Special shoutouts to Jina Marie, Carol Osterman, Dana Mckenzie, Colette Starliper, Laura Briggs, Sonya Joy Hartley and Bill Gilman.
I wanted to thank everyone who took the time to read that long journal entry for doing so. I didn't consider that people would take the time to read longer posts. I thought everyone liked the shorter ones.
What I really need now is shares. I appreciate the influx in comments. That lets me know that there are people out there who like my work. What I need to do now is turn my page views into credible leads.
Anything that compels readers to click on my Facebook Profile, and especially on links to my blog, will go a long way toward helping me expand my readership.
I have just over 400 friends on my account list on Facebook, the vast majority of whom I do not communicate with. I have no way of knowing who views my work so I don't want to start deleting friends, but I do know that the more friends I add, the more page views I enjoy.
I would like to bring my readership from my average of 40 page views per post a lot closer to that 400 mark before I start adding more friends, but I need people to start sharing my blog posts to reach that ideal. Share buttons are built into Facebook and Blogger. Blogger also gives you the option of sharing posts to your Google Plus account. Feel free to share these posts to other platforms as well!
See you on my new Facebook page! theintrovertexposedcs@gmail.com
I wanted to thank everyone who took the time to read that long journal entry for doing so. I didn't consider that people would take the time to read longer posts. I thought everyone liked the shorter ones.
What I really need now is shares. I appreciate the influx in comments. That lets me know that there are people out there who like my work. What I need to do now is turn my page views into credible leads.
Anything that compels readers to click on my Facebook Profile, and especially on links to my blog, will go a long way toward helping me expand my readership.
I have just over 400 friends on my account list on Facebook, the vast majority of whom I do not communicate with. I have no way of knowing who views my work so I don't want to start deleting friends, but I do know that the more friends I add, the more page views I enjoy.
I would like to bring my readership from my average of 40 page views per post a lot closer to that 400 mark before I start adding more friends, but I need people to start sharing my blog posts to reach that ideal. Share buttons are built into Facebook and Blogger. Blogger also gives you the option of sharing posts to your Google Plus account. Feel free to share these posts to other platforms as well!
See you on my new Facebook page! theintrovertexposedcs@gmail.com
Monday, March 26, 2018
Releasing formatted journal lump sum here
This is what I have so far. I don't care that it's not in order. Everything I type up from my old notebooks will be typed directly into this blog.
STARLIPER
(pronounced STAR-LIP (as in clef)-UR)
11:23pm, 4/24/2014
I’m writing because I’m afraid to sleep. I’m afraid I’ll see Mel again, soaked in her red sweatshirt, a digital camera slung around her neck. I see her looking up at me, her eyes sobbing of naivete, confusion...she had tried to cross the torrent and must have brought her camera with her to take pictures of the wonder with which nature had presented her. In my dream, the fact that we were separated opened my heart. The fact that I couldn’t take off my seatbelt to save her drove a stake through it when I woke up. The feeling of guilt and humility and compassion kept me awake until somehow I drifted off again.
What now?
Mel and I were not made for each other. As hard as it is for me to say that, I have to believe it and I have to accept it. For I cannot save her now, I could not save her then, and as long as I know that and feel something for it, even resentment, I am reminded of my own humanity. I have more compassion for Mel than I’ve ever felt for any other person. She taught me the value of living in the light, and it’s one of the greatest gifts that I’ll be able to give Olivia.
I don’t know how much sense that all made, but it made sense to me at the time. Getting it out was like therapy. Here, as I begin to choke up and refuse to let my emotions get the best of me, I am reminded that everything that is happening in my life is more than just a dream. Everything got really fucked up somewhere along the way, and here I am.
It’s been a long time since I journaled by hand. I still regret throwing the other notebooks away, but it’ feels good to start with a fresh one.Why do I get the sense that this one will be more honest?
I might as well lay it all out on the table now. I’m Pagan. I’m bisexual. I have a second personality and I eat too much, but who doesn’t?/
4/28/2014 (I think) 9:00pm
I have no idea what’s coming next, but who does? All I know it that I am not the only one. I know that now because I can feel physical pain. Sometimes you just need a reminder, you know? I finished my staff, a shaved walking stick with a deer skull at the top. I still need to acquire an atheme and a pentacle. I’ll save up some money. I guess that’s one incentive for getting a job. The other is that since Mel is getting a job, I need to make it clear that I am making money as well (I was involved in court proceedings at the time). Oddly, the former seems more important. I am Pagan at heart. Such an empowering faith! I remember how it made me feel before I had even officially chosen the Path. Now it makes me feel even better and I’m not even all the way into it yet.
I gave thanks to the Gods the other day, and pressed my staff to the ground where the remains of the deer lay and thanked it, but there seems to be a veil through which I’m peering desperately.
Goddess, can you hear me?
Of course you can, so what am I avoiding? Perfect faith? What am I waiting for? Please help me back onto the Path. The Path. Not the only way...the way most familiar to me, from all of my lives...for the good of all, the harm of none, it’s equivalent or better, so mote it be! Thank you, Mother/
4/20/2014, 6:53pm,
I got back on a stimulant today, Concerta. My psychiatrist, of whom I am quite fond, also doubled my dose of anti-anxiety/anti-depressant medication. I only had three hours of sleep last night (I drank coffee, wrote four articles and stayed up until 2:30 watching Kids Who Kill), so today probably wasn’t the best day to acclimate to a stimulant, but I haven’t been on one for months. I thought it would help.I was notably more clear-headed, more productive and more motivated. I can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow after I’ve had a full night’s sleep.
I was more emotionally sensitive today than I have been lately. I saw Jamie again. That was one hell of a trip down memory lane, and decided to take what I learned in therapy out into the real world from now on. It’s great to dump your deepest secrets onto a total stranger 50 minutes at a time, but it won’t do shit unless I do something with the opportunity. It is an opportunity I was not afforded or of which I was simply unaware, but I am grateful to have it now. I told him about Jessie today. He believes that Jessie does more harm than good.
I don’t disagree.
I had fun dissecting Jessie at the end of our session today. I have determined that she could be my positive self conscious. We also decided that she could be my fullest potential., the side of myself that I’ve locked away from the rest of the world, lest they destroy her too; but how am I supposed to become her if I never challenge myself, never stop clinging to those priceless insecurities so certain and fulfilling? How do I rewire myself to rely upon my own virtues for the realization of my potential, rather than the intoxicating lull of more food, more nicotine, more stimulants, more fairy tales and pretending I’m someone named Jessie?
The answer lies in the one place I haven’t looked, in the only place I was ever really afraid to go. I will become how I choose to view the world. I need to change/7:54pm- Just put Olivia down. I can read her now. My dad kept insisting that it was too early to put her to bed. She cried for less than thirty seconds. That was about 10 minutes ago. I have told a number of people I thought I knew everything about the universe until I became a father. Talk about killing the Buddha. I mean it. I have no memory of what it was like not being a father,like life didn't make sense until that piece of the puzzle fell into place. It was like I was born again. The complexity of emotions that I now feel on a regular basis (the complexity, not the range) is both confusing and exciting. Whether I like it or not, I am becoming a new man, or maybe just a more complete man than I was before. If the vastness of what I've come to experience encompasses but two months of growth, of layer upon layer, line upon line of the bittersweet discovery of self, I can't wait to live the rest of my life. I'd love to take you with me, whoever you are. You may not see my reflection when you wake up and look into the mirror every morning, but hopefully I can give you something to look forward to as you continue to learn about yourself.
I used to have this fantasy, this ideal, that someday, someone would find a huge room, maybe even a storage locker, filled end to end, floor to ceiling with handwritten journals of mine. I've since allowed that ideal to float from my mind. Now, my dream is to fill these pages, however few or many they may come to be, with the most complete chronicle of my mental, spiritual and instinctual growth as can possibly be recorded. To be sure, I will favor certain details of my experiences over others. It's impossible to record every detail, but I can say with complete certainty that every word will have been scribed of a desperate need to find myself, and to guide my daughter, Olivia, this soul with whose growth and nurturing I've been entrusted, through a darkening world, and a rapidly widening array of life altering choices. / 8:34pm- Strong words chosen wisely. They strike at the heart of what these entries are all about. Nonetheless, we learn in the Book of Mormon that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass. The reality is I enjoy writing because every word is another step closer to the next answer. Not every entry in this journal will be of such importance and embellishment as the last. In fact, I suspect that entries of such caliber will be precious few. The world has become so fucking complicated that writing about the Bruins will undoubtedly be more pleasurable than wasting time and ink on philosophical exploration./
May 1st, 2014, 5:22am
Dawn is breaking under cover of thick clouds and heavy rain. I look forward to what the day has to bring for the first time in a long while. There have been mornings here and there where I've had the motivation I do now, but it's been years since I felt this empowered. They say that early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. Could this be because he has an hour and a half to reflect on the rest of his day before anyone else gets up? Mental preparedness is the key to success. I guess that's why I’m so excited to be awake right now. Time alone, time to enjoy my own company for the first time in years. I used to do it alot when I worked at the hotel. Third shift, folding laundry with classical music lulling me into autopilot, I would duck into the break room and write. Phone calls were infrequent, and I had the better part of four hours a night to chew over life's greatest mysteries. Deep into pagan ritual, meditation and the arts, I became who I thought I wanted to be. I have not been truly happy since I left that job.
Single now, I am reminded that I am the captain of my own soul, that there is victory to be had over the darkness with which I have filled my heart. I have no idea who I am. All I know is that I can be someone else, someone better. Every morning affords us a new, clean slate. Who are we to shun such a blessing by opting for another hour of sleep?/ 5:51am- The best advice I have this morning would be don't place as high an emphasis on the time as on how bright it is outside. The God's didn't make the clock. They made the sun. Our biological clocks are flawless, albeit fragile. Rise at dawn. Retire at dusk. This is the way it's been done for thousands of years. So like us humans to focus on our own achievements over what the God and Goddess have provided us with day in and day out. It's hard to justify feeling fatigued when the sun works tirelessly to wake up the rest of the world.
Journal Interlude to Balance the Books. After this brief interlude of typewritten work, everything will resume italicized text, and I'll continue to type new work into this document as I write by hand, all pages numbered to achieve cohesion and chronological accuracy.
“November 3rd, 2017
‘make a list the night before
1 large and 2-4 small things
Separate list for what I want to do with Olivia
Eat the frog
half hour prior to pick up turn Focus to Olivia pick a task
Lubricate shifts between work mode and dad mode
Observe Olivia!
Journal about what I did with Olivia after observation/
Above are some notes I took during one of my last sessions with Jotham regarding some things that I can do to help me better connect with Olivia. What better way to start this journal--begun three nights after Samhain, November 3rd, 2017, when I picked up the slack wearing the costume that my daughter decided against, a huge dragon head that forced me to use my peripheral vision to see where I was going--than with a paragraph ending in a forward slash? For a long time, I was obsessed with filling in every single line of a notebook, amassing vast quantities of handwritten material that people would uncover in a storage locker somewhere and publish in accordance with my will. Every entry ended with a forward slash and I would just pick up writing on the same line where I left off.
I have, unfortunately, disposed of those materials. Bitter circumstances--which I would not change for the world--have found me a single father with a beautiful five-year-old girl named Olivia, and for all the forward momentum I seem to have generated in my life with respect to reading, writing, and maintaining a spiritual blog, I have fallen into possession of a laptop for which I paid $99. It runs a little slow but it is well-suited for the tasks for which I need it. It’s nice to be able to explore my craft in the comfort and privacy of my own room. This somehow completes my life in a way that I wasn’t quite ready to experience. I haven’t been this happy or emotionally organized since I was a teenager. I am now 33, living in the house my mother, Colette, raised us in while my father, Keith, a high end computer salesman, kept a plentiful supply of money coming in for as long as I can remember.
Given this newfound freedom, I don’t see why journaling every night should be out of the question, even a few words, a few memories, things I can jot down, thoughts I had that day. I think it’s very important to have regular access to the most memorable things in our recent past, and I think it will be nice to have a legacy. In these entries I shall try to be as honest and forthright as I can possibly be without bringing anyone else’s vulnerability into the equation. In the end, this is not about my child as much as I would like to say it is. Maybe in the end it will be. As of right now, it’s about me. Let’s see what regular journaling does for my energies and we can take it from there. Hopefully I can develop a strong relationship between the writer in me and he who perceives the writing for what it really is...a way to sort the shit out./
11/4/2017
I did decent today in terms of my spending at work but I could have done a lot better if I had planned ahead. I have caffeine pills that I can use instead of spending all that money on 5 Hour Energy shots. I had raw squid for dinner and discovered that it doesn’t have a taste and that the tentacles are very easy to choke on, so no more squid tentacles. I’m considering bringing dehydrated beef with me to work on the nights when I need dinner. I can’t think of anything else at the moment that doesn’t have carbohydrates in it and that I don’t need to refrigerate but that doesn’t mean I won’t come up with something before my next shift.
I think the alternative might be bringing a portable cooler with me so I can bring chicken and fish from home with vegetables from the night before, or raw veggies. I could also make my own meals. That would require prep work, which I could do after Olivia is in bed but I may be tired by then. I could do it when she’s at Claudia’s or during the day when she’s at school. There are only two shifts that I need to worry about so I don’t need to go crazy.
I finally figured out how to tie a tie so all I need is practice. God willing I’ll never need to relearn it. That was a bitch. I can tie a half-windsor knot and that is all I need to know, so I will not waste energy learning how to tie additional knots. I will, however, use energy to learn Luganda, the official language of the Bantu tribe in South Africa. Becka is from Uganda and I want to be able to communicate with her in her native young. I would like to be able to communicate with her every second of everyday, but we both have lives. She has agreed to a second date. Our first one was incredibly relaxed, much to my surprise and relief. She’s about to get her butt whooped at mini-golf!/
11/22/2017
Becka is no longer in the picture, which is fine by me. I know it’s been a long time since I journaled. I simply could not find the motivation to do so since nobody else would be reading it. I have so much to talk about. God, where to begin?
I will start by saying that since I wrote that I’ll never get high again, I’ve stayed true to myself. I have 18 days off dextromethorphan, 189 days off of nicotine therapy and 229 days off of alcohol. I have gained an enormous amount of spiritual velocity in my life in the interim. I just sold a stock I didn’t even know I had for over $750, I asked for more hours at work so that I can improve my financial position, and I have figured out how to interact with Olivia.
If I am calm, cool and collected, I can control the intensity of the situation with much more success than I can if I am angry, and being a parent is all about channeling the energy that your child has so that it promotes growth and learning. The lack of silence and sensory overload are all part of the package and no matter what you do, you will never be able to completely eradicate them from your life, so embrace the chaos or suffer. There is no in between.
12/3/2017
I have 30 days off dextromethorphan today (a little trip-up with the dosing from when I had my cold), and yesterday I hit 8 months without alcohol. I don’t have time to record much more than that but I will eventually. Just wanted to let people know that I’m still dedicated to this journal because it will add joy to my life. I need to keep reminding myself of that as things in my life continue to fall into place to afford me a sense of love and joy that I only felt as a kid/
12/5/2017
38,000 feet above the world and I have a full bladder on a rocky flight to Orlando. This is the first time I have ever typewritten at this altitude. I'm sure I've scribbled notes I don't remember, farts and 'shits and fucks'--that is a reference from one of my college professors in reference to a short story I wrote--that I just needed to get out.
Being a writer is like that. Sometimes you just don't have the luxury of sitting back and staring at the clouds. Sometimes you need to work your head muscles or you go a little loony. I wonder if that's one of the reasons I started writing well before I knew what it meant to have excessive amounts of mental energy. I told someone last night that my head was like a radio that never turned off. I actually take caffeine at night to help me process the day.
Today has been extremely long for me. Long in a good way but long nonetheless. Gabapentin screws with my sense of time. Right now it's 4:12pm and it feels like 7:30. I am on my way to Florida to celebrate Christmas early. I was very excited earlier today. I am excited now but the excitement has quieted to an appreciation of the fact that I'm not at home doing the same thing I've been doing for the last 33 years of my life...nothing.
A week long respite from the low drone of financial worry and the fear of diabetes looming right around the corner might be just what I need to completely eliminate both of those worries from my life. I've known for a long time that intention creates reality. That could be one of the reasons I keep exposing myself to the elements without catching any fish. I did see one yesterday though! So I know they're down there somewhere.
Down there somewhere, like the rest of the world. That seems like an interesting concept for a story. When I was working on Catch, I tried to incorporate tricks of light into it as a theme, the concept of not being able to see beneath the surface of the water against the sun beating down upon it, the difference between what is real and what is imagined. Fantasy always stretches the limits of reality because we fantasize in the completely ideal, dismissing senses that we would rather not use.
Since I can't see people below me I am imagining what they are doing, almost like they are my people in my own little world and I can move them around as I will. What would I do if I had an entire world to worry about instead of just me? I can see bridges falling for seemingly no reason, people running and screaming as waves roll through the city, the national security infrastructure collapsing, dildos rolling off an assembly line and growing legs and taking over the world, all because I'm thinking about it.
Try not to think of a polar bear with blue eyes.
I mean if I had all the power in the world, wouldn't it make sense that my thoughts alone would be able to create reality? They can create reality now but not with the laser precision that many of us wish they could. I would be scared to death of what my thoughts could bring into this world. Thank God creating reality is not an exact science.
I'm just rambling of course, throwing ideas out there. Looking back over this stream of consciousness I'm sure I'll find something to write about. God it’s so beautiful up here now. No rain. Some clouds and a bright sun. The flight attendants have needed to take their seats a couple of times during turbulence. Now there's no turbulence and we are just cruising, and my bladder feels alot better. Looking out the window to my right I can see another jet leaving gray contrails. Here, probably somewhere over the Carolinas, we have another one hour and thirteen minutes before we land in Orlando. I consider my vacation having officially begun when we left the house for the airport whenever that was/
12/12/2017
Here on this very late--delayed by a half hour at that--return flight as my daughter curls up with my mom, I find the need to write paramount to all else. It's 10:50 pm and if we are not finished climbing, we will be very shortly. It's a clear night, I can see the lights below, and my ears are popping. People say that things seem so small from this height. I think they seem enormous. I felt so small standing at the florida coast line looking out into the atlantic with a completely unobstructed view. I swear I could see for fifty miles in either direction. I can see for so much farther up here. People say that we live on a tiny planet. The earth is immense. Few things other than flying can bring about such appreciation.
My daughter now has the window seat, which is fine with me. She likes it, she's happy, and within a few minutes, I suspect she will be asleep. And I will be alone with my thoughts in this aircraft, relaxed, calm, completely balanced and completely in awe. I was so wrong about the way things worked from ground level. I have seen so much in this last week that changed my perspective that to write about it here would be almost impossible. Good thing this flight is so long.
I went fishing so many times. I went out on the boat with the rest of the family and for the first time in my life I caught a mahi mahi, something I have been wanting to do for a very long time. They're such beautiful fish. We saw one jumping about a hundred yards out. Someone I'm sure got a great picture of my catch. I caught two and forewent the opportunity to get a picture of the second one. It was just too busy on the boat and we had three aboard that we still hadn't thrown in the cooler. Olivia "caught" one. We brought it all back to the marina and cleaned it as the Pelicans looked on waiting for scraps. We brought it to the Tiki Bar and they cooked it for us in two different ways. I had a friend mahi mahi sandwich that I didn't think was all that great. It was boring. It was just fish. I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't that.
I ditched my crucifix because I bought quartz that I wanted to apply to my chain. It was a process but I eventually fixed the whole works so that I now wear the quartz on a separate chain. I now wear my pentacle on the chain the crucifix came on. I think the crucifix may still be in the pocket of my denim jacket. Maybe I'll give it to Kiana.
I can't justify belief in heaven because it doesn’t make sense that we would be rewarded for a good life with the eternal suspension of spiritual growth. I would, however, love to believe that I am loved eternally and unconditionally. As of right now I can't feel that with the goddess. My goal is to feel as much. Can I love the goddess and still embrace my dark side? All is known before the Goddess. Nothing is transparent. I shall make it my intention to feel the eternal love that Kiana feels from her God from my Goddess, a healthy mix of Paganism, christianity, realism. I wrote once that no matter what I thought I knew, I would never stop compiling evidence to the contrary.
I hope I'm right about being loved. I really hope I am.
Kiana is someone I met from the program. She is a Jesus freak who asked that God bless my blog and enter my heart, explaining that the void in my soul I've sought to fill for years is actually there so that God could fill it. I don't buy that. The Bible makes things way too easy, asks way too much and doesn't seem to answer the questions I have for the universe. from what i understand, the Bible speaks nothing of Emotional Freedom Technique tapping or...gotta close my laptop so Olivia can sleep. I'll pull it out again when she rests./ Olivia's head has found the pillow, which leaves me here with my laptop again. My mom and daughter sleep on either side of me. We reached cruising altitude awhile ago and what remains is the long and boring part of the flight, which also seems to go by so freaking fast for some reason.
If we are on schedule, we will land at Manchester Airport around 1:30am. Another ninety minutes. In the mad rush to get to the airport and through security, my attention span decreased by a factor of about a million. As we fly over a major city, probably somewhere in North Carolina, I recall the sense of being completely scattered brained and probably stinking in a hot sweatshirt and sweatpants, getting held up in security because I had my cell phone in my pocket while I walked through the metal detector. Now, if I'm lucky and have the physical audacity to do so, I can stare at one spot for the remainder of the flight, or I can just write, completely undisturbed.
If I could wear a do not disturb sign I probably would. 'Serious work in progress, please do not disturb.' If I could wear that sign at all hours of the day I think I might. I am not a people person as much as I crave company. My default response when I can't read a situation is to wait for orders, not to take the initiative. I'm thinking I should make an attempt to change that. I don't play stupid at work. I wait for instructions and I am honest with my peers and superiors about what my needs are, but I'm wondering if I could start taking some initiative around the house or in my interaction with Olivia when I'm not working. The worst thing that could happen is I receive some kind of gentle nudge in another direction if I veer off course.
12/27/2017
Olivia likely has the flu. We will be heading to the e doctor's afternoon. I sit here in the living room while Olivia watches Tickety-Toc between gut-wrenching heaves into a large blue bowl. The only reason I’m using my laptop is because I think my dad is getting frustrated that I’m on the general-use computer too much. I figure, kill the beast while it sleeps. I like using my laptop, anyway. Not only is it fun, but it feels right. It feels like mine. I invested in a very volatile company in the hopes of winning big. I got in right after a crash so I feel like I’ll turn a fine profit. Let’s see if ’an handle the pressure this time. I think I can, but suspect that my dad cannot, so I will not tell him.
I wrote last night that I need to learn the benefit of sitting and listening rather than speaking my mind. I also remember writing at one point that revealing my intentions to others lowers the frequencies along which I can cast my intentions. For all intents and purposes, I consider myself a scientist without all the technical terminology, so letsee what happens to my stock if I eliminate the variable of making others privy to my stake in it.”
3/2/2018
Please find above my most recent run-in with obsession, a few pages of journaling to break in my new laptop. I recently embarked upon a mission to write several hundred thousand pages of handwritten material to grab the attention of an agent post mortem. Since I’ve elected to self-publish when I kick off, I don’t need to grab the attention of an agent, anymore.
3/3/2018
Due to the enormity of work I expect to have amassed within the time allotted, I have decided that publishing everything as a single unit would be absurd. So I want it published by the year, maybe every five years. I don’t know how much I’m going to write and I’m not going to speculate either. All I have with which to work is the present moment, which shines upon me today in splendor. What an amazing day it was!
For the last two years I have been bottom fishing, trying to catch decent sized catfish and my first carp. Up until recently I had tried every method except for everyone else’s. Oatmeal. I didn’t want to use it. Surely it would be too messy. The other day I set out to try oatmeal at long last. Didn’t I try to mix everything at once so I glued up my hands within the first five minutes? I learned a very valuable lesson that day, and that was to bring both a towel and a container in which to rinse my hands when I’m done mixing the oatmeal.
Today, after trying both corn and white bread with WD-40, both of which are also said to work, I ran into someone who said that oatmeal was the only thing he’d ever caught carp on. It took a lot for me to get the rest of the oatmeal out of my trunk. I brought it down to the boat dock, where using just his hands and the Concord River, he molded a sample for me. This whole time! And no, it didn’t catch me anything. I pulled my hook up and it was gone. The first two oatmeal balls that I made doing what he did were also gone when I pulled them up on my second and third casts, but number four stayed...for about 30 minutes, which, from what I hear, is more than enough time to catch a carp if you’re on them. I sat there on the river bank in a beach chair with my drag wide open, a net and pliers next to me, and watched my line.
It should be noted that I was almost positive I had solved the problem with white bread and WD-40. I had picked up some milk for my daughter, dropped it off at home and told my mom how excited I was. This would surely work! It didn’t, but I did read a bit in the sun waiting for something to hit my line. The only thing I need to change about my approach is my location, and the only thing I need improvement on is keeping my rod clean. With half of the latter two accounted for, I should be catching my first carp any day now.
Fishing, the Universe and myself have been in something of a menage a trois, a bitterly confusing game of hard to get. My relationship with freshwater fishing three years ago had a rocky introduction. It took me three full days to learn to get the line on my reel the right way. I settled on a spinner which I eventually dubbed ‘The Pucker Fucker’ before deciding that it wasn’t worth my time fishing if all I ever did was catch fish when I threw a line out. I needed something a little less instant. I tried bobber fishing. I tried special baits from Walmart. I tried the MIddlesex Canal in Lowell. Every time I thought I was onto a tactic I would never need to change, I would learn something else about fishing that would change my mind.
Seriously, though, how can you go wrong with oatmeal and reading in the sun?
3/6/2018- After struggling to get the oatmeal to stay on the hook again today I threw my hands up to the carp Goddess and decided to go online to see what I was doing wrong. Some time ago, I tried bait mesh. Turns out I was on the right track. I just wasn’t using the right bait. Corn will do just fine. Oatmeal might be okay in the summer when there are plenty of carp swimming around already, but they’re telling me to use corn right now. Obviously corn will dissolve PVA mesh too quickly straight out of the can so in order to prep it I’m going to remove it from the can, pat it dry and put it in a bag with salt. That way it’ll hold long enough for me to throw it out there and the salt will call the fish. In the early spring, carp are deficient in salt. I learned that today and thought that was kind of cool.
My incision hurts like hell today. I went on a long walk along the Merrimack River today looking for a place to fish and did not find one. I found a great trail to walk on in the summer, but nowhere to fish. I’m mad at myself for undertaking the mission this soon after having surgery, but eventually this will be a thing of the past and I’ll have a badass scar, which looks awesome by the way, to show for everything I’ve gone through.
While I wait for the bait mesh to come in, I won’t be spending any money. I do need to start saving money to self publish and if I’ll have amassed as much work as I think I will have, I need to start saving money right now. On that note, I sold 3 articles on Content-Content yesterday and not one of them was the article I wrote two days ago, so go figure. I’ll mine it. It seems like I’m on the right track. My articles seem to be selling within 15 hits. Things have begun to move rather nicely into place for me so that I don’t need to make many changes. It seems that for now, *crosses my fingers (yes, I actually crossed them),* I can relax into ritual.
Begin next bloog post with May 1st, 2014
See you on my new Facebook page! theintrovertexposedcs@gmail.com
STARLIPER
(pronounced STAR-LIP (as in clef)-UR)
11:23pm, 4/24/2014
I’m writing because I’m afraid to sleep. I’m afraid I’ll see Mel again, soaked in her red sweatshirt, a digital camera slung around her neck. I see her looking up at me, her eyes sobbing of naivete, confusion...she had tried to cross the torrent and must have brought her camera with her to take pictures of the wonder with which nature had presented her. In my dream, the fact that we were separated opened my heart. The fact that I couldn’t take off my seatbelt to save her drove a stake through it when I woke up. The feeling of guilt and humility and compassion kept me awake until somehow I drifted off again.
What now?
Mel and I were not made for each other. As hard as it is for me to say that, I have to believe it and I have to accept it. For I cannot save her now, I could not save her then, and as long as I know that and feel something for it, even resentment, I am reminded of my own humanity. I have more compassion for Mel than I’ve ever felt for any other person. She taught me the value of living in the light, and it’s one of the greatest gifts that I’ll be able to give Olivia.
I don’t know how much sense that all made, but it made sense to me at the time. Getting it out was like therapy. Here, as I begin to choke up and refuse to let my emotions get the best of me, I am reminded that everything that is happening in my life is more than just a dream. Everything got really fucked up somewhere along the way, and here I am.
It’s been a long time since I journaled by hand. I still regret throwing the other notebooks away, but it’ feels good to start with a fresh one.Why do I get the sense that this one will be more honest?
I might as well lay it all out on the table now. I’m Pagan. I’m bisexual. I have a second personality and I eat too much, but who doesn’t?/
4/28/2014 (I think) 9:00pm
I have no idea what’s coming next, but who does? All I know it that I am not the only one. I know that now because I can feel physical pain. Sometimes you just need a reminder, you know? I finished my staff, a shaved walking stick with a deer skull at the top. I still need to acquire an atheme and a pentacle. I’ll save up some money. I guess that’s one incentive for getting a job. The other is that since Mel is getting a job, I need to make it clear that I am making money as well (I was involved in court proceedings at the time). Oddly, the former seems more important. I am Pagan at heart. Such an empowering faith! I remember how it made me feel before I had even officially chosen the Path. Now it makes me feel even better and I’m not even all the way into it yet.
I gave thanks to the Gods the other day, and pressed my staff to the ground where the remains of the deer lay and thanked it, but there seems to be a veil through which I’m peering desperately.
Goddess, can you hear me?
Of course you can, so what am I avoiding? Perfect faith? What am I waiting for? Please help me back onto the Path. The Path. Not the only way...the way most familiar to me, from all of my lives...for the good of all, the harm of none, it’s equivalent or better, so mote it be! Thank you, Mother/
4/20/2014, 6:53pm,
I got back on a stimulant today, Concerta. My psychiatrist, of whom I am quite fond, also doubled my dose of anti-anxiety/anti-depressant medication. I only had three hours of sleep last night (I drank coffee, wrote four articles and stayed up until 2:30 watching Kids Who Kill), so today probably wasn’t the best day to acclimate to a stimulant, but I haven’t been on one for months. I thought it would help.I was notably more clear-headed, more productive and more motivated. I can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow after I’ve had a full night’s sleep.
I was more emotionally sensitive today than I have been lately. I saw Jamie again. That was one hell of a trip down memory lane, and decided to take what I learned in therapy out into the real world from now on. It’s great to dump your deepest secrets onto a total stranger 50 minutes at a time, but it won’t do shit unless I do something with the opportunity. It is an opportunity I was not afforded or of which I was simply unaware, but I am grateful to have it now. I told him about Jessie today. He believes that Jessie does more harm than good.
I don’t disagree.
I had fun dissecting Jessie at the end of our session today. I have determined that she could be my positive self conscious. We also decided that she could be my fullest potential., the side of myself that I’ve locked away from the rest of the world, lest they destroy her too; but how am I supposed to become her if I never challenge myself, never stop clinging to those priceless insecurities so certain and fulfilling? How do I rewire myself to rely upon my own virtues for the realization of my potential, rather than the intoxicating lull of more food, more nicotine, more stimulants, more fairy tales and pretending I’m someone named Jessie?
The answer lies in the one place I haven’t looked, in the only place I was ever really afraid to go. I will become how I choose to view the world. I need to change/7:54pm- Just put Olivia down. I can read her now. My dad kept insisting that it was too early to put her to bed. She cried for less than thirty seconds. That was about 10 minutes ago. I have told a number of people I thought I knew everything about the universe until I became a father. Talk about killing the Buddha. I mean it. I have no memory of what it was like not being a father,like life didn't make sense until that piece of the puzzle fell into place. It was like I was born again. The complexity of emotions that I now feel on a regular basis (the complexity, not the range) is both confusing and exciting. Whether I like it or not, I am becoming a new man, or maybe just a more complete man than I was before. If the vastness of what I've come to experience encompasses but two months of growth, of layer upon layer, line upon line of the bittersweet discovery of self, I can't wait to live the rest of my life. I'd love to take you with me, whoever you are. You may not see my reflection when you wake up and look into the mirror every morning, but hopefully I can give you something to look forward to as you continue to learn about yourself.
I used to have this fantasy, this ideal, that someday, someone would find a huge room, maybe even a storage locker, filled end to end, floor to ceiling with handwritten journals of mine. I've since allowed that ideal to float from my mind. Now, my dream is to fill these pages, however few or many they may come to be, with the most complete chronicle of my mental, spiritual and instinctual growth as can possibly be recorded. To be sure, I will favor certain details of my experiences over others. It's impossible to record every detail, but I can say with complete certainty that every word will have been scribed of a desperate need to find myself, and to guide my daughter, Olivia, this soul with whose growth and nurturing I've been entrusted, through a darkening world, and a rapidly widening array of life altering choices. / 8:34pm- Strong words chosen wisely. They strike at the heart of what these entries are all about. Nonetheless, we learn in the Book of Mormon that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass. The reality is I enjoy writing because every word is another step closer to the next answer. Not every entry in this journal will be of such importance and embellishment as the last. In fact, I suspect that entries of such caliber will be precious few. The world has become so fucking complicated that writing about the Bruins will undoubtedly be more pleasurable than wasting time and ink on philosophical exploration./
May 1st, 2014, 5:22am
Dawn is breaking under cover of thick clouds and heavy rain. I look forward to what the day has to bring for the first time in a long while. There have been mornings here and there where I've had the motivation I do now, but it's been years since I felt this empowered. They say that early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. Could this be because he has an hour and a half to reflect on the rest of his day before anyone else gets up? Mental preparedness is the key to success. I guess that's why I’m so excited to be awake right now. Time alone, time to enjoy my own company for the first time in years. I used to do it alot when I worked at the hotel. Third shift, folding laundry with classical music lulling me into autopilot, I would duck into the break room and write. Phone calls were infrequent, and I had the better part of four hours a night to chew over life's greatest mysteries. Deep into pagan ritual, meditation and the arts, I became who I thought I wanted to be. I have not been truly happy since I left that job.
Single now, I am reminded that I am the captain of my own soul, that there is victory to be had over the darkness with which I have filled my heart. I have no idea who I am. All I know is that I can be someone else, someone better. Every morning affords us a new, clean slate. Who are we to shun such a blessing by opting for another hour of sleep?/ 5:51am- The best advice I have this morning would be don't place as high an emphasis on the time as on how bright it is outside. The God's didn't make the clock. They made the sun. Our biological clocks are flawless, albeit fragile. Rise at dawn. Retire at dusk. This is the way it's been done for thousands of years. So like us humans to focus on our own achievements over what the God and Goddess have provided us with day in and day out. It's hard to justify feeling fatigued when the sun works tirelessly to wake up the rest of the world.
Journal Interlude to Balance the Books. After this brief interlude of typewritten work, everything will resume italicized text, and I'll continue to type new work into this document as I write by hand, all pages numbered to achieve cohesion and chronological accuracy.
“November 3rd, 2017
‘make a list the night before
1 large and 2-4 small things
Separate list for what I want to do with Olivia
Eat the frog
half hour prior to pick up turn Focus to Olivia pick a task
Lubricate shifts between work mode and dad mode
Observe Olivia!
Journal about what I did with Olivia after observation/
Above are some notes I took during one of my last sessions with Jotham regarding some things that I can do to help me better connect with Olivia. What better way to start this journal--begun three nights after Samhain, November 3rd, 2017, when I picked up the slack wearing the costume that my daughter decided against, a huge dragon head that forced me to use my peripheral vision to see where I was going--than with a paragraph ending in a forward slash? For a long time, I was obsessed with filling in every single line of a notebook, amassing vast quantities of handwritten material that people would uncover in a storage locker somewhere and publish in accordance with my will. Every entry ended with a forward slash and I would just pick up writing on the same line where I left off.
I have, unfortunately, disposed of those materials. Bitter circumstances--which I would not change for the world--have found me a single father with a beautiful five-year-old girl named Olivia, and for all the forward momentum I seem to have generated in my life with respect to reading, writing, and maintaining a spiritual blog, I have fallen into possession of a laptop for which I paid $99. It runs a little slow but it is well-suited for the tasks for which I need it. It’s nice to be able to explore my craft in the comfort and privacy of my own room. This somehow completes my life in a way that I wasn’t quite ready to experience. I haven’t been this happy or emotionally organized since I was a teenager. I am now 33, living in the house my mother, Colette, raised us in while my father, Keith, a high end computer salesman, kept a plentiful supply of money coming in for as long as I can remember.
Given this newfound freedom, I don’t see why journaling every night should be out of the question, even a few words, a few memories, things I can jot down, thoughts I had that day. I think it’s very important to have regular access to the most memorable things in our recent past, and I think it will be nice to have a legacy. In these entries I shall try to be as honest and forthright as I can possibly be without bringing anyone else’s vulnerability into the equation. In the end, this is not about my child as much as I would like to say it is. Maybe in the end it will be. As of right now, it’s about me. Let’s see what regular journaling does for my energies and we can take it from there. Hopefully I can develop a strong relationship between the writer in me and he who perceives the writing for what it really is...a way to sort the shit out./
11/4/2017
I did decent today in terms of my spending at work but I could have done a lot better if I had planned ahead. I have caffeine pills that I can use instead of spending all that money on 5 Hour Energy shots. I had raw squid for dinner and discovered that it doesn’t have a taste and that the tentacles are very easy to choke on, so no more squid tentacles. I’m considering bringing dehydrated beef with me to work on the nights when I need dinner. I can’t think of anything else at the moment that doesn’t have carbohydrates in it and that I don’t need to refrigerate but that doesn’t mean I won’t come up with something before my next shift.
I think the alternative might be bringing a portable cooler with me so I can bring chicken and fish from home with vegetables from the night before, or raw veggies. I could also make my own meals. That would require prep work, which I could do after Olivia is in bed but I may be tired by then. I could do it when she’s at Claudia’s or during the day when she’s at school. There are only two shifts that I need to worry about so I don’t need to go crazy.
I finally figured out how to tie a tie so all I need is practice. God willing I’ll never need to relearn it. That was a bitch. I can tie a half-windsor knot and that is all I need to know, so I will not waste energy learning how to tie additional knots. I will, however, use energy to learn Luganda, the official language of the Bantu tribe in South Africa. Becka is from Uganda and I want to be able to communicate with her in her native young. I would like to be able to communicate with her every second of everyday, but we both have lives. She has agreed to a second date. Our first one was incredibly relaxed, much to my surprise and relief. She’s about to get her butt whooped at mini-golf!/
11/22/2017
Becka is no longer in the picture, which is fine by me. I know it’s been a long time since I journaled. I simply could not find the motivation to do so since nobody else would be reading it. I have so much to talk about. God, where to begin?
I will start by saying that since I wrote that I’ll never get high again, I’ve stayed true to myself. I have 18 days off dextromethorphan, 189 days off of nicotine therapy and 229 days off of alcohol. I have gained an enormous amount of spiritual velocity in my life in the interim. I just sold a stock I didn’t even know I had for over $750, I asked for more hours at work so that I can improve my financial position, and I have figured out how to interact with Olivia.
If I am calm, cool and collected, I can control the intensity of the situation with much more success than I can if I am angry, and being a parent is all about channeling the energy that your child has so that it promotes growth and learning. The lack of silence and sensory overload are all part of the package and no matter what you do, you will never be able to completely eradicate them from your life, so embrace the chaos or suffer. There is no in between.
12/3/2017
I have 30 days off dextromethorphan today (a little trip-up with the dosing from when I had my cold), and yesterday I hit 8 months without alcohol. I don’t have time to record much more than that but I will eventually. Just wanted to let people know that I’m still dedicated to this journal because it will add joy to my life. I need to keep reminding myself of that as things in my life continue to fall into place to afford me a sense of love and joy that I only felt as a kid/
12/5/2017
38,000 feet above the world and I have a full bladder on a rocky flight to Orlando. This is the first time I have ever typewritten at this altitude. I'm sure I've scribbled notes I don't remember, farts and 'shits and fucks'--that is a reference from one of my college professors in reference to a short story I wrote--that I just needed to get out.
Being a writer is like that. Sometimes you just don't have the luxury of sitting back and staring at the clouds. Sometimes you need to work your head muscles or you go a little loony. I wonder if that's one of the reasons I started writing well before I knew what it meant to have excessive amounts of mental energy. I told someone last night that my head was like a radio that never turned off. I actually take caffeine at night to help me process the day.
Today has been extremely long for me. Long in a good way but long nonetheless. Gabapentin screws with my sense of time. Right now it's 4:12pm and it feels like 7:30. I am on my way to Florida to celebrate Christmas early. I was very excited earlier today. I am excited now but the excitement has quieted to an appreciation of the fact that I'm not at home doing the same thing I've been doing for the last 33 years of my life...nothing.
A week long respite from the low drone of financial worry and the fear of diabetes looming right around the corner might be just what I need to completely eliminate both of those worries from my life. I've known for a long time that intention creates reality. That could be one of the reasons I keep exposing myself to the elements without catching any fish. I did see one yesterday though! So I know they're down there somewhere.
Down there somewhere, like the rest of the world. That seems like an interesting concept for a story. When I was working on Catch, I tried to incorporate tricks of light into it as a theme, the concept of not being able to see beneath the surface of the water against the sun beating down upon it, the difference between what is real and what is imagined. Fantasy always stretches the limits of reality because we fantasize in the completely ideal, dismissing senses that we would rather not use.
Since I can't see people below me I am imagining what they are doing, almost like they are my people in my own little world and I can move them around as I will. What would I do if I had an entire world to worry about instead of just me? I can see bridges falling for seemingly no reason, people running and screaming as waves roll through the city, the national security infrastructure collapsing, dildos rolling off an assembly line and growing legs and taking over the world, all because I'm thinking about it.
Try not to think of a polar bear with blue eyes.
I mean if I had all the power in the world, wouldn't it make sense that my thoughts alone would be able to create reality? They can create reality now but not with the laser precision that many of us wish they could. I would be scared to death of what my thoughts could bring into this world. Thank God creating reality is not an exact science.
I'm just rambling of course, throwing ideas out there. Looking back over this stream of consciousness I'm sure I'll find something to write about. God it’s so beautiful up here now. No rain. Some clouds and a bright sun. The flight attendants have needed to take their seats a couple of times during turbulence. Now there's no turbulence and we are just cruising, and my bladder feels alot better. Looking out the window to my right I can see another jet leaving gray contrails. Here, probably somewhere over the Carolinas, we have another one hour and thirteen minutes before we land in Orlando. I consider my vacation having officially begun when we left the house for the airport whenever that was/
12/12/2017
Here on this very late--delayed by a half hour at that--return flight as my daughter curls up with my mom, I find the need to write paramount to all else. It's 10:50 pm and if we are not finished climbing, we will be very shortly. It's a clear night, I can see the lights below, and my ears are popping. People say that things seem so small from this height. I think they seem enormous. I felt so small standing at the florida coast line looking out into the atlantic with a completely unobstructed view. I swear I could see for fifty miles in either direction. I can see for so much farther up here. People say that we live on a tiny planet. The earth is immense. Few things other than flying can bring about such appreciation.
My daughter now has the window seat, which is fine with me. She likes it, she's happy, and within a few minutes, I suspect she will be asleep. And I will be alone with my thoughts in this aircraft, relaxed, calm, completely balanced and completely in awe. I was so wrong about the way things worked from ground level. I have seen so much in this last week that changed my perspective that to write about it here would be almost impossible. Good thing this flight is so long.
I went fishing so many times. I went out on the boat with the rest of the family and for the first time in my life I caught a mahi mahi, something I have been wanting to do for a very long time. They're such beautiful fish. We saw one jumping about a hundred yards out. Someone I'm sure got a great picture of my catch. I caught two and forewent the opportunity to get a picture of the second one. It was just too busy on the boat and we had three aboard that we still hadn't thrown in the cooler. Olivia "caught" one. We brought it all back to the marina and cleaned it as the Pelicans looked on waiting for scraps. We brought it to the Tiki Bar and they cooked it for us in two different ways. I had a friend mahi mahi sandwich that I didn't think was all that great. It was boring. It was just fish. I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't that.
I ditched my crucifix because I bought quartz that I wanted to apply to my chain. It was a process but I eventually fixed the whole works so that I now wear the quartz on a separate chain. I now wear my pentacle on the chain the crucifix came on. I think the crucifix may still be in the pocket of my denim jacket. Maybe I'll give it to Kiana.
I can't justify belief in heaven because it doesn’t make sense that we would be rewarded for a good life with the eternal suspension of spiritual growth. I would, however, love to believe that I am loved eternally and unconditionally. As of right now I can't feel that with the goddess. My goal is to feel as much. Can I love the goddess and still embrace my dark side? All is known before the Goddess. Nothing is transparent. I shall make it my intention to feel the eternal love that Kiana feels from her God from my Goddess, a healthy mix of Paganism, christianity, realism. I wrote once that no matter what I thought I knew, I would never stop compiling evidence to the contrary.
I hope I'm right about being loved. I really hope I am.
Kiana is someone I met from the program. She is a Jesus freak who asked that God bless my blog and enter my heart, explaining that the void in my soul I've sought to fill for years is actually there so that God could fill it. I don't buy that. The Bible makes things way too easy, asks way too much and doesn't seem to answer the questions I have for the universe. from what i understand, the Bible speaks nothing of Emotional Freedom Technique tapping or...gotta close my laptop so Olivia can sleep. I'll pull it out again when she rests./ Olivia's head has found the pillow, which leaves me here with my laptop again. My mom and daughter sleep on either side of me. We reached cruising altitude awhile ago and what remains is the long and boring part of the flight, which also seems to go by so freaking fast for some reason.
If we are on schedule, we will land at Manchester Airport around 1:30am. Another ninety minutes. In the mad rush to get to the airport and through security, my attention span decreased by a factor of about a million. As we fly over a major city, probably somewhere in North Carolina, I recall the sense of being completely scattered brained and probably stinking in a hot sweatshirt and sweatpants, getting held up in security because I had my cell phone in my pocket while I walked through the metal detector. Now, if I'm lucky and have the physical audacity to do so, I can stare at one spot for the remainder of the flight, or I can just write, completely undisturbed.
If I could wear a do not disturb sign I probably would. 'Serious work in progress, please do not disturb.' If I could wear that sign at all hours of the day I think I might. I am not a people person as much as I crave company. My default response when I can't read a situation is to wait for orders, not to take the initiative. I'm thinking I should make an attempt to change that. I don't play stupid at work. I wait for instructions and I am honest with my peers and superiors about what my needs are, but I'm wondering if I could start taking some initiative around the house or in my interaction with Olivia when I'm not working. The worst thing that could happen is I receive some kind of gentle nudge in another direction if I veer off course.
12/27/2017
Olivia likely has the flu. We will be heading to the e doctor's afternoon. I sit here in the living room while Olivia watches Tickety-Toc between gut-wrenching heaves into a large blue bowl. The only reason I’m using my laptop is because I think my dad is getting frustrated that I’m on the general-use computer too much. I figure, kill the beast while it sleeps. I like using my laptop, anyway. Not only is it fun, but it feels right. It feels like mine. I invested in a very volatile company in the hopes of winning big. I got in right after a crash so I feel like I’ll turn a fine profit. Let’s see if ’an handle the pressure this time. I think I can, but suspect that my dad cannot, so I will not tell him.
I wrote last night that I need to learn the benefit of sitting and listening rather than speaking my mind. I also remember writing at one point that revealing my intentions to others lowers the frequencies along which I can cast my intentions. For all intents and purposes, I consider myself a scientist without all the technical terminology, so letsee what happens to my stock if I eliminate the variable of making others privy to my stake in it.”
3/2/2018
Please find above my most recent run-in with obsession, a few pages of journaling to break in my new laptop. I recently embarked upon a mission to write several hundred thousand pages of handwritten material to grab the attention of an agent post mortem. Since I’ve elected to self-publish when I kick off, I don’t need to grab the attention of an agent, anymore.
3/3/2018
Due to the enormity of work I expect to have amassed within the time allotted, I have decided that publishing everything as a single unit would be absurd. So I want it published by the year, maybe every five years. I don’t know how much I’m going to write and I’m not going to speculate either. All I have with which to work is the present moment, which shines upon me today in splendor. What an amazing day it was!
For the last two years I have been bottom fishing, trying to catch decent sized catfish and my first carp. Up until recently I had tried every method except for everyone else’s. Oatmeal. I didn’t want to use it. Surely it would be too messy. The other day I set out to try oatmeal at long last. Didn’t I try to mix everything at once so I glued up my hands within the first five minutes? I learned a very valuable lesson that day, and that was to bring both a towel and a container in which to rinse my hands when I’m done mixing the oatmeal.
Today, after trying both corn and white bread with WD-40, both of which are also said to work, I ran into someone who said that oatmeal was the only thing he’d ever caught carp on. It took a lot for me to get the rest of the oatmeal out of my trunk. I brought it down to the boat dock, where using just his hands and the Concord River, he molded a sample for me. This whole time! And no, it didn’t catch me anything. I pulled my hook up and it was gone. The first two oatmeal balls that I made doing what he did were also gone when I pulled them up on my second and third casts, but number four stayed...for about 30 minutes, which, from what I hear, is more than enough time to catch a carp if you’re on them. I sat there on the river bank in a beach chair with my drag wide open, a net and pliers next to me, and watched my line.
It should be noted that I was almost positive I had solved the problem with white bread and WD-40. I had picked up some milk for my daughter, dropped it off at home and told my mom how excited I was. This would surely work! It didn’t, but I did read a bit in the sun waiting for something to hit my line. The only thing I need to change about my approach is my location, and the only thing I need improvement on is keeping my rod clean. With half of the latter two accounted for, I should be catching my first carp any day now.
Fishing, the Universe and myself have been in something of a menage a trois, a bitterly confusing game of hard to get. My relationship with freshwater fishing three years ago had a rocky introduction. It took me three full days to learn to get the line on my reel the right way. I settled on a spinner which I eventually dubbed ‘The Pucker Fucker’ before deciding that it wasn’t worth my time fishing if all I ever did was catch fish when I threw a line out. I needed something a little less instant. I tried bobber fishing. I tried special baits from Walmart. I tried the MIddlesex Canal in Lowell. Every time I thought I was onto a tactic I would never need to change, I would learn something else about fishing that would change my mind.
Seriously, though, how can you go wrong with oatmeal and reading in the sun?
3/6/2018- After struggling to get the oatmeal to stay on the hook again today I threw my hands up to the carp Goddess and decided to go online to see what I was doing wrong. Some time ago, I tried bait mesh. Turns out I was on the right track. I just wasn’t using the right bait. Corn will do just fine. Oatmeal might be okay in the summer when there are plenty of carp swimming around already, but they’re telling me to use corn right now. Obviously corn will dissolve PVA mesh too quickly straight out of the can so in order to prep it I’m going to remove it from the can, pat it dry and put it in a bag with salt. That way it’ll hold long enough for me to throw it out there and the salt will call the fish. In the early spring, carp are deficient in salt. I learned that today and thought that was kind of cool.
My incision hurts like hell today. I went on a long walk along the Merrimack River today looking for a place to fish and did not find one. I found a great trail to walk on in the summer, but nowhere to fish. I’m mad at myself for undertaking the mission this soon after having surgery, but eventually this will be a thing of the past and I’ll have a badass scar, which looks awesome by the way, to show for everything I’ve gone through.
While I wait for the bait mesh to come in, I won’t be spending any money. I do need to start saving money to self publish and if I’ll have amassed as much work as I think I will have, I need to start saving money right now. On that note, I sold 3 articles on Content-Content yesterday and not one of them was the article I wrote two days ago, so go figure. I’ll mine it. It seems like I’m on the right track. My articles seem to be selling within 15 hits. Things have begun to move rather nicely into place for me so that I don’t need to make many changes. It seems that for now, *crosses my fingers (yes, I actually crossed them),* I can relax into ritual.
Begin next bloog post with May 1st, 2014
Should I shut this blog down?
I'm starting to wonder if I should keep this blog up and running at all, whether I should just do away with Facebook and Blogger and Your Tewksbury Today, uninstall my chat apps and focus on what I can control rather than what I can't. Beyond the occasional spurt of motivation to engage with my readers, I don't seem to be affecting much change. Comments are infrequent, though appreciated. Lately I just feel as though I'm spread so thin that I can't put full amounts of energy into anything.
You know what?
No. I'm not going to shut this blog down. I worked hard to get it to where it is today and it's my fault that my numbers are going back down. I'll just include my blog posts in my handwritten journaling going forward. It seems that one affects the frequency with which I add to the other so to hell with choosing. I'll maintain both.
I don't know if I mentioned this before but my handwritten journal is a legacy I'll be leaving with Olivia. I will be self-publishing post mortem and having a free copy of my life's work mailed to every university in the United States. Failure to include these blog posts would be irresponsible, especially since people keep telling me not to wait, to publish now and see what people think rather than waiting until I can't enjoy any of the feedback. I have been in the limelight once and did not enjoy it, but if people are encouraging me to do it then why not? Maybe I should just release my entire journal and all 609 pages to all of you for review.
Sure, why not let this blog be my legacy instead of a bunch of notebooks. Here I come, world. Get the hell out of my way.
See you on my new Facebook page! theintrovertexposedcs@gmail.com
You know what?
No. I'm not going to shut this blog down. I worked hard to get it to where it is today and it's my fault that my numbers are going back down. I'll just include my blog posts in my handwritten journaling going forward. It seems that one affects the frequency with which I add to the other so to hell with choosing. I'll maintain both.
I don't know if I mentioned this before but my handwritten journal is a legacy I'll be leaving with Olivia. I will be self-publishing post mortem and having a free copy of my life's work mailed to every university in the United States. Failure to include these blog posts would be irresponsible, especially since people keep telling me not to wait, to publish now and see what people think rather than waiting until I can't enjoy any of the feedback. I have been in the limelight once and did not enjoy it, but if people are encouraging me to do it then why not? Maybe I should just release my entire journal and all 609 pages to all of you for review.
Sure, why not let this blog be my legacy instead of a bunch of notebooks. Here I come, world. Get the hell out of my way.
See you on my new Facebook page! theintrovertexposedcs@gmail.com
Sunday, March 4, 2018
My crabs are molting for me...
I was right. I knew one of them would go through a major change as long as I kept developing my spirituality the way I am now. I am riding the Game Genie wave again, and one of my crabs has burrowed while the remaining four remain huddled under the half-log I put in there. That's where they hang out most often, crawling all over each other. Kinda funny, actually. I like to view that as representative of my inability to get out of my own way sometimes.
I'm breaking character, burrowed deeply, set far away from everyone as numerous changes come flying into my life. I've spent some time lately reading old journals and I've realized that I don't write as major changes take place. I write ahead of them and after them. It happens every time I go through a major change. The Universe explodes my bubble, sending all the familiar pieces of my life hurdling through the quantum field, and as I'm waiting for all the pieces to fall, that's when I write. I point them out to myself in my journal. I muse as they fall into alignment, new, strange and exciting pieces lined up next to the old.
I'll be starting work again in a couple of weeks. My surgery went well but I was in a lot of pain for the first two weeks. I underestimated the recovery and overestimated my capabilities, which did not bode well for the amount of time it has taken me to make the amount of progress I have. I'm at the stage now where I want to get up and move, I want to do cartwheels, sit ups, I want to start running, I want to go bowling. Then when I'm healed I'll remember that trying to do a cartwheel will result in another surgery, that running has always been beyond my capabilities, and that bowling alone is dangerous for my sobriety.
I just needed a blog entry to help me pivot a bit, to let people know that I still care about maintaining this blog, which I've had for a couple years now. I will say the reason I'm not doing as much blogging is that I've been doing a ton of journaling and I don't see the sense in doing both. Besides, the journal is more important to me right now. My legacy, my life's work, is that with which others will ultimately associate my name when I'm gone.
My journal is there to satisfy my need for immortality. This blog is to have you all with me now.
See you on my new Facebook page! theintrovertexposedcs@gmail.com
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