Synthetic Spaghetti and Kitty Porn

 

The details are sketchy, but I just recall enough to give you this: Gere, my stepmom, was trying to explain to me her incredibly complicated process of making synthetically farmed spaghetti. It utilized equipment reminiscent of something between Dr. Phibes lab and the Acid Queen sequence in Tommy. 

I returned the favor by demonstrating how to make hash using a cold water extraction technique I had picked up on the internet. I mean, as long as we were swapping family recipes, why not?

---

My real life is so boring right now, I can only think to share this kind of thing. I'm struggling to find an activity to do in a day to get my off my ass long enough to avoid pressure sores. I haven't got the energy to sustain anything beyond the very minimum for human sustenance.

So here's what I say to my cats in a day.

"Hey! What's up, Fatty? It's Fatty McFatface McGee!" "Who's a good kitty -- who?"

"You are! With the twitchy tail, chirpy wagon, bleach, bleach, bleach, whiskers that I wanted -- and the belly!"

This little sequence describes my interaction with Patsy, my rotund cat, an unabashed, plus-sized affection slut. When I approach, her tail starts twitching in excited anticipation of the petting that will ensue. Her "chirpy wagon" refers to her caboose, which will sustain vigorous pats at the base of the tail, akin to kitty spanking, while she emits little chirping sounds.

She has a "bleach" spot on her right upper forehead, which I call attention to by pressing it repeatedly, as if I was demanding service from a liquid bleach dispenser. "Bleach, please. Bleach, bleach, bleach." She looks mildly annoyed at this and may respond with a head butt to my nearest appendage.

She has whiskers that would pass for a baby walrus, Joseph Stalin or Teddy Roosevelt. I stroke them enviously, telling her that I want them for my own, that she must give them to me. I am merciless, and she knows that this is merely a nuisance of my ritualistic foreplay. The real fun is coming when she rolls over, exposing the luxurious belly for a thorough rubbing.  Open for business. 

"Come and get some, big boy, you know this is what you're after. Pet the belly! Love it! Rub it!" <Stretch> "Ok. I'm good." <Maybe a head butt or two> "Ok, more belly, sure..."

With Eddie, it's more of a business relationship. I have a couple of tricks that I expect out of her, and she will do them efficiently and skillfully to obtain a few kitty treats. 

She likes affection, too, but is too thin framed to have much to offer in the way of belly rubbing. I settle for a "car wash," which is where I will massage her undercarriage with scrubbing motion while she stands at attention. Trying to rub her belly while she's on her back would result in a four-claw biting grip of death, so I leave that for the fat one.

"Eddie Rabbit! Get the string!" 

I make the call to her midway through my morning breakfast cooking routine. She will usually make me repeat the request a few times, before jumping up from the bed to retrieve a string that I will drape on the cord that turns on the ceiling fan. It is a two and a half foot jump, which she accomplishes with the ease of a Jordan slam dunk.

When Sharon and I would fight, sometimes Eddie would try to break the tension by doing this little trick, unrequested. "Don't fight Mom and Dad. Look what I can do!" It usually worked, and we'd stop our arguing to give deserving praises to our super talented wonder cat. Once she even turned on the ceiling fan with a mighty swat of the paw.

After the string has been gotten, we will celebrate with high fives all around, and I will ask her to shake hands to seal the deal. This is to reinforce that it is a business arrangement. Get the string, and you will get exactly 8 tiny kitty treats. She's so skinny, I could give her a whole bag, but I'm stingy. And she's gotta stay in jumping shape. She's Eddie Rabbit.

Patsy, will sometimes look on, wishing she could receive the accolades of being the talented one. I toss her one measly little treat, just for attending the event. Then I go back to cooking my omelet, which will need flipping at this point. Timing is everything, and now is the time when I am forced to get outta bed and begin my long day of doing not much of anything.

Hard drive spinning. Trigger words.

 

So I'm transcribing my crappy journal entries from ancient manuscripts, typing them up without editing for content. I am not going to try to rewrite history. I used a word that rhymes with "trigger" and is a well known racist term, which cannot be erased from existence just because collectively we are going through a bipolar swing toward the uber-sensitive side of things. "Motherfucker" is a pretty bad word, but it won't land you in hot water like this one.

Not ten seconds after I hit the publish button, my hard drive went into overload again. It had cooled off for a week or two after my previous use of banned trigger words on Facebook Messenger. They completed their scans, deemed me to be an uninteresting person of interest of no threat to national security at this time. But OMG, there he goes again! Using hate speech! Oooh. And it's got racist overtones! Let's keep scanning, maybe we'll find some kiddie porn or a manifesto somewhere.

Good luck. Maybe if they get frustrated enough they'll put whatever they are looking for on my computer and then "find" it. What? Paranoid? Delusional? Me? May-be...

I'm done for tonight

 

These last couple of days have been difficult in a lot of ways. I resign myself to copying and pasting my old documents, translated from photocopies of scanned paper documents in files from decades ago, as a substitute for writing anything current. I don't have it in me, so I'm phoning it in. This stuff is as stale as old Saltine crackers. But I want it to see the light of day, so here it is.

It isn't good and it isn't all bad, but it is revealing of where I was at 20 years ago. In some ways, I haven't fallen far from my own tree. Just fallen out of it, maybe.

I'm putting off writing about my current experiences until I can muster up the energy to tell stories again. I've emailed with people and talked on the phone and that wears me out. I don't always have it in me to write a second or third account of things. Maybe I'll get permission and copy and paste more personal correspondence so I don't have to.

Goodnight.

Just Scraps

I was in this strange configuration of a social institution, like a cross between the DMV, the prison system and the afterlife waiting room in Beetlejuice. I was needing to show some credentials in order to visit someone on the inside. Of course, I couldn't find them and managed to piss everyone off by taking up valuable space in line. 

Someone was playing Nina Hagen (the screaming punk one, not the 99 Red Balloons one) and that about tore it. Things were getting dicey in the lobby, as the locals did not curry to that type of ruckus.

I was with some family, not my own, and we took our bureaucratic search to another giant building, one which featured a telling barbed wire strand in giant bas-relief for a logo on the side of the building. I didn't look forward to whatever was in store for us inside.

Some time was spent at some folding tables, just shooting the shit. Overall, not much of any significance occurred, so this is another failed launch of a dream story.

I must now go investigate a barking dog outside.

Another goodbye -- RIP, Shadow

Goodbye old friend.

Shadow left this world today. He had been declining for the last year, but over the last week it was apparent that he didn’t have long left. He had lost a lot of weight, and his hair was falling out. Then the day came when he just didn’t eat anymore.

Within a couple of days he was unable to walk very far without collapsing. He would groan when struggling to get up, then just give up and lay in the spot where he had fallen.

I did what I could to make him comfortable, putting a blanket on him at night and offering him food and water. He’d drink a little water and then throw it back up. Pus was starting to ooze from his eyes and nostrils. These are not the things I want to remember about Shadow, though I’m certain the images will haunt me forever.

I want to remember him as the quite, older brother to Whiskey, his longtime companion. The two were inseparable. Whiskey and Shadow. They survived the fire together, as Sharon and I did. They used to have fun times play fighting and eating the random road apples left by the neighbor’s horses. I took them both for long walks in the wildlife area behind the house, letting them run free and explore. They got to drink out of every mud puddle and piss on every mailbox along the road.

The gravity of his passing has not yet sunk in to Whiskey’s consciousness. He won’t probably figure it out until he has looked for him all over the property for days without finding him. He will probably look to me more for attention than in the past, as it finally dawns on him that he is really alone in this world, and his long time friend isn’t coming back.

That’s what I’ve been living with for the last year after Sharon died. Sure, I knew it was coming. Not as surely as Shadow’s passing, which was done by appointment. But we all have an appointment, we just aren’t aware of when it is.

I waited in a chair next to him for the vet to show up. His breathing was faint, but still steady. He really didn’t want to die. He just wanted to feel better. But that just wasn’t in the cards for him, at least not in this world. I felt the guilty weight of responsibility for his lack of well being, and for his imminent death, which I had arranged after many phone calls to local vets.

I could have taken better care of him. I could have not scheduled him to die today. He could have (somehow, miraculously) recovered. But it was not to be. I took the easy road. I felt as callous as a Nazi giving the orders for execution. A Nazi with tons of regrets and a conflicted conscience, so I don’t know how good of a Nazi, really. The hardest part wasn’t the decision to put him down. That part was disturbingly easy.

Watching him decline and choosing not to take him to the vet, when I knew he was going downhill, wasn’t so easy. I kept telling myself, “What can they do to reverse this? What would a recovery and rehabilitation look like?” He would still be an older dog, living outdoors, under the deck, sleeping on dirt. How, suddenly, would he become a pampered senior dog with an indoor life? All he’s ever known is the outdoors and dirt. The first six years of his life weren’t my doing, but the last four were on me. I could have made him survive, had I only done just about everything differently.

The hardest part is now. It’s trying to explain to a confused Whiskey, that his buddy really isn’t going to show up for dinner anymore. He keeps walking around looking for him in the usual spots. Then he looks at me, as if I’m going to tell him, “Yeah, Whiskey, it’s just a game of hide and seek. Shadow will be along in a minute.”  

 

It is going to take time for it to sink in that it’s just him and the birds in the back yard. And me, the guy who brings him the milk bones which he seems to love more than anything right now. I break them into tiny bits so I can feed them often, so that he will have something to keep looking to me for when I see him throughout the day. 

I can’t explain to him that I went through this with Sharon a year ago, and my heart still hasn’t healed up from it. And that I don’t expect it to. I can only put my hands on his face and tell him, “You’re a good boy.”

But if that’s true, then why is his buddy not showing up? This shouldn’t happen to a good boy. Good boy means “happy” and this feeling is not happy or good. It’s rotten. So, I must not be a good boy. You must be lying to me. Good boy doesn’t mean shit if Shadow isn’t coming back.

These things can’t be reconciled in the innocent mind of a dog who can’t understand the feeling of loss, except that it hurts and is confusing. And I’m no closer to understanding it myself. My eyes are broken from crying so much. Another day, another milestone. One day you are here and the next, gone forever. Who’s going to miss me, I wonder?

But I can, apparently, dig a hole

 

My dog Shadow's health has been declining over the last year. Being an outdoor dog that sleeps in the dirt probably hasn't helped increase his longevity. But the last few weeks he's been rapidly getting worse. He stopped eating 2 days ago and now he can barely walk. He has lost a lot of hair and muscle. He looks like he is suffering tremendously as he struggles to even get up.

I spent the afternoon digging a hole in hard clay dirt. I know the drill. It always seems that I am digging a grave for a pet when it is cold and raining out. I have to call the vet out tomorrow, I don't think I can stand to see him go down any more slowly and tortuously. This is...

(continued the next day)

too much for me to bear. I had to spend all morning trying to get a local vet to come out here. It's going to be 4:30 before he gets here. I kept checking on him all night. Last night he had managed to crawl up to the front porch where he collapsed and couldn't get back up. I tried to feed him wet food but he didn't even sniff it. He did drink some water but threw it up.

I put a blanket on him and he stayed there until this morning. He was still alive, but now I see pus coming out of his eyes and nostrils. As I was booking the appointment for his vet visit, he managed to crawl off of the porch and make it halfway across the yard, where he collapsed again. I wiped the pus off of his eyes, but the light in them is very dim. I can't stand to see him like this.

Damn me and my lousy dog ownership character. I never took him to the vet for one reason or another until it was too late. Kind of the same view I have of my own health issues, which I'm sure that karma will see to that I'm rewarded for. I just don't want to talk to anyone or see anyone or deal with anything. Ever. I'm not feeling human enough to deserve the attention.

Dumb neighbor dream from the other day

Not sure where this dream comes from, on account of I like my next door neighbors, but here's what I recall. My next door neighbors were some different people whom I detested. I learned that they were selling the place, but the dad was dilly dallying, almost like he was trying to sabotage the process. I heard a phone call come through, one where it was going to be a sure deal.

Sure enough, there he was in the driveway, pretending he didn't hear the phone and ignoring his wife's pleas to make an appointment. I was in the house, and I went out and started petting his cat and suggested that he maybe answer the phone. He made some dumbass remarks about his dog and left me petting the cat.

I went back in the house and started ranting to my mom, who was also in favor if him moving. She had some stake in the new prospects' moving in. I was coaching the new prospects mentally, but out loud and in front of an open window, apparently: 

"Fuck him. You fuck him in the ASS!"

Of course, my neighbor could most likely hear me, and I had to wind up owning my words. 

"I guess, when you talk to him, tell him it was me, the rotten son, who said all that," I told my mom. She still had to try to smooth things over so the deal could go through.

Not too much else happened in the dream. Pretty useless and non-inspirational. Now I have an unpleasant day ahead of me, but not at all related to the dream.

Can't type much for a while

 

If the universe is trying to break me, congrats. I am developing a case of tennis elbow or bursitis. This is mostly due to recent overuse of my arm while weed-eating the front of my property. But it isn't helped by my use of the keyboard and mouse. 

It's not as painful as when I was working on cars, but it had some swelling, redness and even itchiness, so I am perplexed as to whether I just strained it or if there's some other causes contributing to it's overall condition. Maybe a spider bite or poison oak? How about all three?

I must keep faithful to recording my scattered dream fragments, if only so that they don't stop altogether.

Last night I dreamed of Uncle Steve again. We were riding motorcycles in a place reminiscent of Lake Isabella's Erskine Creek, though slightly more developed. One of the things I remember was that I was barefoot, and my feet barely reached the ground. The other was my uncle Steve telling me, "You need to decide if you are going to take the side trip or just the main road." 

I thought I'd maybe just take the side trip and skip the main road. Or maybe skip both roads altogether and just go straight home. It was getting dark, and it looked like it might rain, so it appeared that the decision was being made for me.

I don't remember much else, but the impression it left me with is this: life has a few different roads you can take. You can take the main road, the side road, both or neither. But if you fuck around too long trying to make up your mind, it will be too late and you'll end up just driving home in the dark. 

Home represented death, the trip being over. The road main road represented responsibility and the side road, recreation. Going home early was a cop-out because, ultimately, it was going to happen anyway, like it or not. Indecision and procrastination only result in fewer and fewer choices and finally no choice.

And although my feet barely touched the ground, I didn't wind up spilling the bike, though I was super conscious of the possibility.

Oh, by the way

 

I found my neighbor from the grief group on a Facebook group that I belong to. It only took me 5 seconds and the typing in of her first name in a search bar on the site. Apparently, we had already communicated on Messenger during the fire evacuations in 2017. She was responsible for getting me the phone number of the person who fed our dogs during the time we were evacuated.

Small world. So, I sent her a friend request and said, "Hey, let's keep in touch" in as casual and non-weird stalkery kind of a way as I could manage. She accepted my friend request, so it's on her if I turn out to be too godless of a heathen to keep company with.

I could both relate and not relate to her agony of faith in dealing with the loss of her husband. He was a minister, and together they ran a Christian home school. She's super straight-lace, nicer than pie, with her two little apple cheeked kids. The daughter is a spitting image of her mom, down to the little secretary spectacles and blond pigtails. They even raise baby goats. Too effin' cute.

Don't y'all start thinkin' that I'm thinkin' anything or anything. No siree. I'm just an innocent conversationalist. A guy from group who knows his status in the world and plans to keep to it. But geez, a guy can say hi to a nice lady without it being weird, can't he? Or is there some kind of line being crossed?

Do I notice attractive blonde females? I guess so. And my unconscious mind makes mental notes about all kinds of things that my conscious mind says I should feel guilty about. Well, fuck that. I can enjoy the scenery without being a thought-criminal.

And what of it? Who's gonna rain down hell-fire on me if I let images of nice things dance in my head? The God who wants to take credit for all the beauty in the world? The One who makes a perfect human form and then says, "Don't look upon it, for it is sinful lust. Shame, shame, shame!"

It's probably best if she never finds this blog. I'm a bit too frank, and I wear my guts and intestines on the outside. But only in the house. When I go out, I dress for the occasion.

NNA

 

My new support group. Narcissistic Nihilists Anonymous. I'm the only member, but others can feel free to form their own one person support groups if they like.

I've been watching the show "After Life," a Netflix mini-series, and I can relate to a lot of the main character's flaws (and strengths, if you can call them that). It's about a guy, whose wife recently died, leaving him in a pool of misery. While his wife was alive, as seen in videos of her that he watches, he was a fun-loving, if slightly mischievous little kid of a man. Now, alone in the world except for his dog, he is a suicidal, raging narcissist, who treats everyone like shit and sees life as an empty, meaningless drag which he wishes would end soon.

I'm not going to write a review of the show, well, maybe I will, later. I have yet to watch the final episode. Kind of like my own story. There may be one act left in this play.

Oh, and the grief group went fine. I didn't have to lie. I really did notice some damned positivity creeping in. But I made it clear that this was not my intention, and I'd get back to the miserable suffering dude persona in no time. 

I personally think they should hold the potluck on the first or second meeting. That way people could informally talk and get to know one another early on, rather than waiting for the final day to finally have their first conversation.

I discovered that one of the group's participants, a Christian widow, is my neighbor in Loma Rica. Not that we'll be swapping scriptures or anything, but we do have some things we can relate on. I found myself enjoying the interaction and had a connection with several of the other group members. Now that the group has finished, I'll probably never see any of them again.

I did learn one thing: when you are in a position to speak, and the thought occurs to you, "I should say something," go ahead and say it. If you don't you'll regret the whole missed timeline that you could have created by simply opening your mouth. 

Even in cases where you make an ass out of yourself, do it anyway. You'll never know that feeling of being a total ass, or having your ass hanging out in the wind, to be mocked by passersby. It can be exhilarating, like riding a skateboard nude through Santa Monica at 10 o'clock at night. But that's a story for another day.

It's getting late in my morning for lounging around in front of a keyboard. Laundry, vacuuming and some form of outdoor landscape maintenance is in my future.

Gaius Maxwell Baddeley

 

I kept getting a vibe from Gaius, like, "Everything you do is on my dime, and I expect more out of you." I was staying the night at his house and was unsatisfied with the TV watching, so I went to the other room to go to sleep. He didn't like that. He was expecting me to at least be sociable.

I decided I'd try to clean up the guest room out of guilt. It turned out that the spray cleaner I was using contained betadine, which if you are familiar with it (or if you aren't) turns things blood red on contact. The walls and sheets were completely stained like a murder scene, thanks to my cleaning efforts. More dissatisfaction from Gaius.

Next, he decided on a list of things I could do to remediate the situation. Something to do with picking up a friend of his and cleaning a toaster. I said, "sure" to the picking up the friend, but balked at the toaster. 

"Why--and how--and, well, you show me what exactly kind of cleaning I'm supposed to be be doing on this thingy. I mean, it's still plugged in," I protested, excuses at the ready.

I settled for cleaning a waffle iron instead, but also got roped into cleaning his moccasins. Those things were filthy dirty and had an unending amount of sandy, dried river sediment in them. The more you shook them out, the more they kept making dirty clouds of dust.

I'm not sure what else was going on, but I woke up briefly in the dream and made a mental note to myself: "Why is Gaius Baddeley trying to de-legitimize me?" I never got the answer. Fortunately, now that I'm awake, I realize that it doesn't matter in the least.

I knew Gaius from Play Mountain Place, a hippie alternative school I attended from kindergarten through second grade. And while I did have sleepovers at his house, and he did have a slightly condescending attitude toward me at the time, I don't believe it had much of an effect on my formative psyche. I just thought, "he's a bit of an asshole" and left it at that. Sorry, Max, if you're reading this, but you know it was true.

I don't really wanna go to the pot luck tonight

 

But do I really ever want to do anything? I will go, I suppose. The grief group is having its final meeting tonight. It is a double sized class, because both the Monday and Thursday groups are expected to attend. Everyone gets up in front of the group and shares one of their art pieces and what it meant to them. I'm sure I didn't brighten anyone's day last time with my sharing or artwork.

Though I feel the class itself had little to do with my so-called improvement, I do see some differences in the projects this time around. For one, I used more colors than just black. I tried to follow directions, which included things like "what you are hopeful for" and other such sneaky little positive infiltrations.

I didn't feel like anyone in the group really had any connection with anyone else. Each was immersed in their own pain (or lack of pain). One lady was happy and cheerful every single meeting, regretting only that she couldn't appear more grief-stricken for the sake of others. I was my usual Schleprock, Chief "Dark Cloud." I told them I felt I should probably be in a different group, one that catered to the more chronically depressed mental patient types.

I don't mind going. I just don't want to bum everyone out with my sharing. I always feel the need to be honest, but honesty will not make everyone comfortable. They are looking for a positive takeaway and I'm stretching my brain to think of one. "Coming to this class helped me....how?" 

I guess, it gave me somewhere to be one night a week. An event to put on my calendar that gave me something to plan ahead for. "Oh, can't kill myself...I got group tonight. May as well live at least one more day."

I never got a relaxing feeling from attending, though. There was only an hour and fifteen minutes in which to get everything accomplished. I always felt like my art suffered from that kind of time constraint. But then again, I would never turn in a Mona Lisa, no matter how many hours they extended the class to.

Tonight will not be relaxing either. Unless I make up my mind ahead of time to not give a shit about appearing charming or appropriately positive, I'll most likely be tense and worried about how I come across. Or I could just say some fake-ass shit, just to be nice, then eat and go home. Yeah, I'll probably do that.

Good plan. Glad we had this talk.

Upon Awakening (I want to crazy glue my eyes shut)

I realize that most of my dreams feel far livelier than anything going on in my actual life. So, I scrunch my eyes shut and try to suck the last of the entertainment value from my subconscious before reality invades my brain, wiping out all traces. When I wake up I feel compelled to write down what I can still recall, encapsulate it and try to keep my dreaming muscles active.

My next door neighbor’s daughter was a precocious little snot, but I liked her, in a kind of cool older brotherly way. This was not my real neighbor, nor his real daughter, and I was not my real self. We lived in a farm community, not too unlike my real neighborhood. I was in high school, however, and still had my ’79 black Datsun pickup from the Paradise days.

I was tasked with taking her to school. Her damn dad kept causing delay after delay, to the point where I knew that we’d never get there on time. I looked at my watch and asked him what time class started. 

 

“9 o’clock,” he said. 

 

“Well, that’s just not gonna cut it. It’s 8:48,” I told him as I loaded up the school gear and his daughter in the truck.

While her dad was wheeling and dealing with some prospective clients and causing general anxiety among the other family members and household staff, I was filling up an incredibly long, narrow canteen. It was probably five feet in length and the diameter of a standard Thermos. The water was spilling out, because I couldn’t carry it upright. I managed to get the lid on the canteen and the girl in the truck, and off we went.

Once underway, she and I both commenced to bitching about her dad and parents in general: 

 

“They don’t get it.”

“I know, right?”

 “Totally!”

 

It was just the usual teenage stuff. I could tell she thought I was the shit, me and my black truck and rebellious attitude. That I was so concerned with getting us to school on time was a bit incongruous, but she didn’t respect me less for it.

I guess we made it to class on time after all, due to the distortions of time/space in the dream realm.

Those are all the details afforded to my conscious mind at the moment, now that the cold grey light of reality is flooding my mind with the mundane details of my soon to be started boring day.

I'm gonna make a list

 

I'm gonna make a list of all the lists I need to make. Then I'm gonna make an outline, with bullet points. And these bullet points will have vague references to actual activities or events or things to do. Here's a sample list:

1. Make a list of all the things I might include in my book.
2. Make an outline of possible chapters and title.
3. Make dinner.
4. Watch TV and go to sleep.

List item 1. Things I might include in my book. Places, people and events.
--Earliest memories
--Lake Isabella, Gracie and Bill
--Play Mountain Place, mom and the hippie years
--Santa Monica, the dad years, surfing, skateboarding and stonerism.Will Rogers, John Adams, Samo
--Anaheim, the punk years, Hope, Patrice, Cheri, LeSa, Sally, Cris, Melissa, Dawnelle, that Satan     Chick, Ilene Skuratofsky (RIP)
--1983 to 1989, the cult years and aftermath, Yessenia
--The '90s in Chico, Uncle Steve, more stonerism and the desperate search for love, Carol, Rienna
--1998 to 2017, my life with Sharon including my Honda years, before and during her MS
--2017 to present: the wreckage
--Friends from Sabin, Marc, Marcus, David, Gaius Baddelly, Philip Giustino, Mike Trombie, Andy Smith, Dale Cunniningham, Herman Jiminez, Matt Brown, Robbie Mitchell, Stuart Fall, Steve Waugh, Dennis McGuire, Kevin K-Mart, Rob Peavy, Lance Mathyssen, Rick Johnson, Eric, Brian and Suzanne Murry, Kim Spencer, Jeanette Antoine, Denise Graubart, Ann Illions, Sherman Goodman, Paul and Tim Fallen, Mark Pflueger, Carey Gervais, Ronaldo Carrington, Martin Leon, Richard Leon (let's just start lumping people into groups, such as "Remnant folks"), Chris Knoll, Javier, James and Jim, Tina and Bob Hansell--oh, my butt's getting sore from sitting here remembering all these people.

Knocking on heaven's door...lightly

I'm not feeling particularly good these days. Reasons for not wanting to be alive are stacking up. I am making an effort to not succumb to the idea of just giving in completely. That effort translates into keeping up the minimum routines, including this stupid blog.

Not that I get any particular satisfaction or sense of accomplishment from unloading or uploading my words into the ether. I do it with a sense of resignation that this is, I guess, what I do. Birds sing, dogs bark (if they feel inclined) and I spew my petty emotions into the stratosphere via electronic typewriting.

Some days I can't even do that.

I have an appointment today with a shrink. An actual psychiatrist, aka drug pusher, in my estimation. The only reason I'm going is to be evaluated as to my alleged need for anti-depressants in my life. I don't believe in them, refuse to take them, hate the effects they have had on me in the past. I think I'd probably rather just die than experience some further zombification of my psyche.

I'd rather take a dose of psychedelic mushrooms. The problem is, I can't even face the idea of doing that without my anxiety and negative thinking kicking in. I need to rewire my brain, but I don't have a schematic. Taking off the cover and disconnecting and reconnecting wires at random doesn't sound like a good idea. I don't have faith in the idea of a benevolent universe that is going to be my teacher if I just get out of my own way.

But I am getting desperate to escape my self-created hell. Day after day, muddling around in my own little world, watching my little empire crumble, is killing me. I can’t go back into the past, and the future promises that things will only continue to get worse if I stay on this present course. 

My current thinking pattern has me locked into a downward spiral and baby steps aren’t cutting it. Things have gone downhill too far, for too long. There becomes a point of irretrievability, which I fear I may be already past.

Taking mushrooms seems less drastic than committing suicide. But the two might not be mutually exclusive ideas if the drug doesn’t have the desired effect. A bad trip might lead to further negativity, and the drugs might lessen my inhibitions about taking that final drastic step. Or I might get a free one-day pass to the boarded up Disneyland areas in my brain, unlocking the possibility of enjoying something for a change.

The time for a decision is near. I have motive, means and opportunity. And I’m not currently doing anything with my life. I have the keys in my hand. I just don’t know what’s behind the door.

I think about Uncle Steve sometimes, and his drastic choice. I despised his decision at the time. Now, I can relate. I only wish I could talk to him about it now to find out how it all panned out for him. Does he regret killing himself? 

Oh, wait. I can’t, he’s dead. And I can’t see dead people, if in fact that is even a thing. Maybe he doesn’t exist any longer, and he is incapable of even have anything to regret. You know, due to the whole non-existence thing.

I know for certain that day will come for me as well, like it did for Sharon. Despite her keeping a firm grasp on life and all of her positivity, it happened. She couldn’t fight it any longer and just had to let go. 

I wish I could talk to her about it and find out if she’s still skeptical about the afterlife. The psychics have all told me she’s having a great time. I still haven’t gotten my heart and head to believe, as much as I might want to.

And knowing that my death is inevitable doesn’t make me feel the immediate need to “make it happen.” I will find out soon enough, I guess. But I do wonder what the hell I’m doing still hanging around here. It seems like I stopped living quite a while ago.

Why Do I Taunt the Powers That Be?

I was just trying to get an Optical Character Reader program to work, so I could bulk upload my scanned crap writing to an editable format, like Word. I may have downloaded a virus with some unlicensed software, possibly. I didn't notice anything was amiss with my computer until later in the day, after a FB messenger chat with a friend, in which I made some intentionally obtuse comments about the surveillance state.



Houa:   I'll tell u irl

Me:       If I ever see you, sure. Why, is it top secret squirrel stuff?

Houa:   Sort of

Me:      Right...I'm not gonna play 20 questions. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. Or I won't. But don't think about it too much.

Houa:   I said Irl. I'm not playing 20 questions either

Me:      Well, I don't plan on jumping in my car just so you can whisper in my ear.  Just say it. Or don't. You think we're being monitored? This is my real life.

Houa:   yep, all saved and archived at fb hq

Me:      Whatever. We're not that important. Get over yourself. I have. Look. I'll say it – Terrorist. Bomb. Drugs. Illegal. Kill. President. There. Are you scared yet?

Ok, so that was my 2 second rant that earned me a nice probin’ by the Powers that Be. Now my hard drive is pulsing like a heart monitor. Blip blip, blip blip – Fan -- Blip, blip, blip, blip – Fan -- Been that way since last night. I got tired of hearing it and ran some virus scans and even did a System Restore. No avail. Now, I’m just going to have to ride it out, until they are done mining my entire hard drive for the evidence of terrorism they seek.

I can only hope that when they are done and have discovered that I’m just a loser slob, with zero motivation to terrorize anything, that they will leave my poor hard drive alone. It’s gonna take them forever to go through each and every one of my documents looking for some secret overthrow-the-government shit that’s not even there. Hey, maybe they’ll find evidence proving my mental illness, which I can’t seem to convince them is a disability.

Oh, oh. I hear sirens in the distance. I’d better go hide in the crawlspace. With my stash of AK-47s and pipe bombs. Fuckin’ A.

Nothing tangible

 

I have only impressions, no story-line or meanings to extract from last night's dream travels. But, as faithfully as I can, here they are:

I was in a mountain lake town which had a very open, college-y vibe. Lots of young people running around playing video games and smoking pot. They were very trusting and communal.

I was walking down by the lake, trying to scout a fishing spot or something. I wound up sinking down into watery mud at a soft spot near the shoreline. I was soaked from head to toe.

I came across a desk that was randomly placed in the shallow water area that seemed to be someone's fully functional, personal desk. I opened a drawer and, sure enough, someone's stash of weed, a pipe and other paraphernalia. 

"How trusting," I thought, "Anyone can just walk up here and take anything they want." I got the idea that no one was too concerned about it one way or the other. It's there if you need it kinda thing. I closed the drawer and left things as they were.

In a different part of town, I was in some apartment complex courtyard, lounging on a recliner. While I was semi-asleep, I became aware of someone examining a necklace I was wearing. 

It was the sun pendant that I put on at night before bed, my magical dreaming necklace, if that's a thing. I was aware of the necklace and it's connection to my real life in the dream, but it didn't really make me super lucid or anything. Just a mental note, "Hey, I wear this necklace in my real life."

I startled a bit when they touched the necklace. It was some guy who lived in the apartments. He let go of the necklace and made some innocuous comment to lessen my discomfort. He wound up inviting me to play video games at a party he was having at his house. I found an abandoned game controller on the ground and claimed it.

The party wasn't that exciting. There were lots of kids there, and the ice cream and chocolate syrup were in short supply. I squeezed the last of the small bottle of Hershey's into my mostly watery ice cream glass. 

"Sorry, that was it," I apologized to a group of sad faced kids.

And sorry, that's it for the dream recollection. Not much substance, just a weird sense of place. My real life, as boring as it is, has more going on. And that's not saying much.

What would make me threaten Joe Antos with a knife?

Diamonds. That's the short answer. In my fucked up dream world, apparently Joe Antos, aka "Hardcore Joe," a highschool punk friend of mine, was up to some shady shit.

I don't remember much, other thank myself standing over him, holding a knife, as he stared up at me. He was dressed in an '80s style black suit with a narrow tie and white shirt. He had a look of defiance on his face as he squirmed under my interrogation.

"Where are they, Joe? You spill it or I swear I will gut you right here."'

"You wouldn't do that...would you?" He gasped, his defiance turning to terror.

"I guess we're gonna find out," I said.

Someone else spoke up at this point, in an attempt to defuse the situation. 

"You are missing the diamonds that are right there at your feet," they said, after the fashion of Bruce Lee or Yoda. 

They pointed out a very undiamond-like rock, which could have maybe been some lesser valued mineral or gemstone, but was no diamond.

"If you mean this piece of crap, it's an agate or quartz or something, but it's not a diamond." I was still intent on gutting Joe.

"No, but if you look closely, it is," they insisted. "It is in development. Diamond in the rough."

"We'll see," I said.

I wasn't satisfied but took the rock and put it in my pocket. Meanwhile, Joe had regained his composure and the situation seemed stable enough for the time being.

---

That's about it on the dream front. If I've learned anything recently, it is not to inform people directly of their involvement in my dreams. How'd good ol' Joe react if I dropped the news on him that he was suspected of larceny in my brutal interrogation dream? Probably about as well as Jeanette, the subject of last month's Dream Girl obsession.

If they happen to stumble onto my blog and discover the scandalously fictionalized dream characters, whose names they bear, I can only say this: my blog, my rules. And besides, what were they doing in my dreams, anyway? I would turn it around on them, yes, I would. If you don't want me writing about your crazy nocturnal antics, stay out of my dreams!

And then there are days like this one

 

Lots more of them, actually, than any other kind. The day begins with me and my crusty, tired eyes wishing we could keep from having to see the light of day. But the threshold of when sleep becomes more debilitating than restful has already been exceeded. If I don't get up now, I will just get more depleted of energy, and I may never get up again.

I compromise. Without even raising my head more than an inch, I open my eyes and grab the bedside keyboard and mouse to check my Facebook, blog and email for any signs of activity. Even one notification can stimulate me to engage, however remotely, the world of people.

There are several things to respond to. I have been busy lately, commenting and responding to comments and even reaching out to long lost people with messages and friend requests. I got one back from my old high school girlfriend's sister, Tex. We exchanged a few messages and discussed our memories of the early '80s and Ilene, her departed sister. It was a pleasant conversation, but also another painful reminder of the impermanence in our lives. Some things are just gone.

It is raining, so my outdoor plans would have had a decent enough excuse for procrastination, if I actually had any plans, that is. All I have is a vague sense of guilt that I'd "better get to doing something" before too much time goes by and my options become limited. Things like planting a garden before spring turns into summer. Or weedeating the areas my lawnmower can't get to. Or tidying up virtually any of the areas within my visual field, all of which have fallen prey to some form of entropy

The deck seems stacked against improvements being made. I settle for just doing my basic exercise routine, eating breakfast and watching TV. I become even more tired than I was when I first woke up. I struggle to find that "one thing" that I can do in a day to keep myself in the game of life. I am still struggling to find it at the moment. This blog certainly isn't doing it for me right now.

I'd be content (poor descriptive word choice) to just flatline and let my time run out, like they do at the end of sporting events whose outcomes have already been decidedly determined. But an ambiguous gnawing tells me there is more. I'm still alive, there must be a reason.

Last night I fell asleep listening to some voice message recordings of Sharon and I (mostly Sharon) arguing and fighting about my crappy attitude and caregiving. Most of these things I had heard in real time, some I had not. There were "notes to self" she had also recorded, to bitch at me later, in case she forgot why she was mad at me.

Maybe that's why I was so tired when I woke up. She had been bitching at me literally all night. I couldn't help it, though. I really wanted to hear her voice.

In my grief group yesterday, we were asked to share what legacy we wished to keep from our time with our loved ones. "Her nagging," was my response. It sounded callous, but it was true. Of all the things that she did for me to show me she truly cared, her nagging and motivating me to do better had the greatest impact on my life. And it's the thing I am needing the most right now.

Without her here, the role of Director of Daily Activities has been abdicated. No one is telling me what to do or when to do it, and I'm finding myself adrift without anyone giving me the precise, clear-cut instructions that only she could. I need her to be the voice in my head telling me to get off my lazy ass and do something with my life.

My little LED stopped illuminating once the voice recorder messages started playing, and it hasn't been on since. Maybe I read too much into a silly electronic anomaly. Possibly I'm just that desperate or insane. But there are still hours of unfiltered audio recordings of Sharon's bitching (and crying and begging for me to improve myself) to listen to. I guess, in that way, she's still around, and her voice sounds more alive than mine does.

(later)

OK, I forced myself to go for a walk. When I got back, I took some 12 year old seeds and distributed them in the backyard garden rows I had rototilled a few days before. We must have bought these seeds when we lived in Paradise still. It will be a miracle if anything comes out if it. Afterward, I came back in the house and fell asleep on my chair. I was so exhausted I couldn't even lie down. But my little LED is back on.

Tomorrow is Wednesday, and I will go shopping. It occurs to me that these little bite-size activities are what is keeping me alive. I will have survived another 2 weeks from my last shopping trip which, at the time, I felt might just as well be my last. Tiny things to look forward to give me a reason to stay in the game for one more day. I don't know if I can commit to a whole month yet, much less a year. But I've got something to do tomorrow, so I guess I'm good for another day at least.

My long-time Squirrel's Club pen-pal Lori has kindly agreed to scan and send me some of our old  correspondence, going back to the '80s. I'd messaged her and told her of my project. She messaged me right back, knew exactly where they were stored and even attempted to photograph them for me. The fact that she did all this so readily lets me know there are people out there in this world who do actually care about my existence. I feel a bit of a weight of responsibility to not let people down who take an interest in my well-being. Thanks, Lori.

It's these little tendrils of interaction with people who have woven themselves into my story over the years that make me even have a story. If I existed all alone, without these friends in my life, I am guessing I would really have no life. The more I isolate, the quicker I wither up. The more I put myself out there, even if I embarrass myself, like I did with Dream Girl a couple of weeks ago, the more I know that I am alive.

Gee, I hope all my friends either don't read my book or have thick skins and a sense of humor. I want to be as open and unfiltered as I can. Writing for an audience tends to mute that. Writing for myself alone gives me freedom, but I might tend to say things that I could wind up regretting. I don't want to make anyone feel bad. Ultimately, it is me who would feel bad, for alienating my friends by being too blunt or uncensored. At the very least I may be too embarrassed to ever look any of them in the eye after that.

This blog is good practice. It is public, but not read by many people. Those who do read it must be awfully loyal fans, extremely bored or have really strong eye muscles to read through this stuff. Maybe they think there will be a prize given out or possibly an Easter Egg that I've hidden in here, if they just read far enough. Nope. Just more onion skin. When you peel back all the skin, at the center of the onion is--nothing. Yet somehow this "nothing" center is generating all of these external layers that make up a whole complete onion.

How blatheringly fascinating, I'm sure.

My Blinking LED is back on

 

I've been busying myself with transcribing a paper file full of unsent love letters from my distant past into digital format. It has been a somewhat entertaining distraction so far. It is also a lot of work. I have spent hours at it and have only copied a small portion of my embarrassingly long, sappy, mostly inappropriate correspondence.

Now, in the past when I'd be doing something obsessively for long periods of time, Sharon would always yell at me to take a break. She knew I had a tendency to overdo things and could forget to eat or stretch or move around for an unhealthy amount of time.

Yesterday, it was almost 10pm, and I hadn't eaten dinner yet. My little LED light, which I had all but given up on as a method of afterlife communication, suddenly popped back on and began blinking.

"Is that you, honey? Are you back?" More blinking. 

"Are you trying to tell me I need to knock it off and go get something to eat?" More blinking and then a bright steady glow. 

"Ok, thanks, I will. I'm just glad you're back, if that's you." A few more blinks and then a strong glow, brighter than all the other lights on the strand.

I knocked off typing for the night and got something to eat. The LED is still shining brightly this morning.