Insanity is Manageable...Maybe.

“...and when the smoke died down, there’s still a n!&&@ left to deal with…” 

Scarface, ‘No Warning’

In the 80’s, the Tylenol corporation was faced with a business-ending crisis.  There had been found bottles of Tylenol that contained poisoned tablets, cyanide if I’m not mistaken, though I may be.  Tylenol had a choice to make; to either try to make the entire thing seem like ‘the act of one madman’, use their public relations people to smoke and mirror everything for a while, and let it all blow over.  Instead, Tylenol recalled their product, took ownership for the packaging that allowed said madman to threaten the entire population and re-made their packaging to be more tamper-resistant, actually ushering in a change in the way the industry did what they’d been doing for decades before.

When I worked briefly at GM, on the fabrication line in Production, if you were aware of a part that came to your press and it had a ding in it, if it had a demarcation or an indentation on it, you didn’t keep rolling and hope nobody noticed, or go back to the die where things started, say “Well, it’s just this one bad die, the rest of them are okay, just forget about it.”  You would shut down your machine, which may or may not be fine, the inspector on that line would find the machine that was putting out bad parts, rectify that, all the machines would be wiped down and greased with ‘dope’, and the line would be restarted.  Imperfect pieces would be sent to the body shop to be repaired, not put on a new automobile.  And should something major slip through and the public notice it, then you have a RECALL on that particular model, and it goes back to having the problem tended to.

....am I mistaken?

You expect competency from the individuals you hire.  That doesn’t require a great deal of thought, does it?  From selling newspapers to trading in stocks and bonds, you expect competency, a sense of honor, respect for the craft and a level of professionalism, depending on how high above the ground the job is seen to be.  Why should any profession be different?  And why do people have such a hard time with, and make such a big deal about, such a common sense thing?  

Current events have driven me insane, possibly.  I can admit that.  My mind doesn’t feel right.  My thoughts don’t flow anymore, they sort of tumble and pile up.  But this isn’t something that requires a great deal of thought.  Every job comes with its own set of requirements.  If one is hired into that job or profession, one is expected to adhere to those expectations.  If one cannot, then one has to face reprimand, at the very least; consequences of some kind.  Otherwise, there would never be any purpose to doing any job right.  And we see the results of that in so many different areas these days.  Customer service, by and large, is a joke.  Because the pressure to fill positions means gambling more often that an applicant is actually qualified for the position, only to find out later they assuredly are not.  But you see it everywhere, in attitudes, in lack of helpful information, in mistake after mistake.  Cashiers who can’t count, street workers who can’t direct traffic, home builders who build cheap and expensive, to have products falling apart at the first occupancy.  So many examples.  Why would police work be any different?

ALL LIVES MATTER. The battle-cry of the willfully indifferent.  And there seems to be only one way of looking at things.  And because I have gone crazy in this ‘new normal’, I have not been able to speculate and articulate a response...until now.  See, my thought is this:  I have friends of different colors.  And if something happened to them, something harmful, I would be concerned about them, even though they weren’t my color.  Or my culture or my religion or my belief system.  I’d be concerned if a wrong was done to them.  That’s part of me being human.  It wouldn’t devalue my own people if I felt that way about someone from a different grouping.  It wouldn’t, that’s not a question.  More to the point, though.  What I would desire would be for Every Single One of My People to be treated respectfully EVERY SINGLE TIME.  Regardless of their race, their creed, their belief system.  That’s what All Lives Matter should mean, at least to my understanding.  But it doesn’t.  It is a way to minimize the importance of one group.  So, if there were 33 people killed by the Tylenol as mentioned, and Tylenol had said ‘Well, all bottles matter’, and just went with the fact that most people HADN’T been poisoned, then the killing would never have stopped, right? (ahem)

Black Lives Matter.  Of course they do.  I’m black.  I matter.  My life as a black man is important to me.  Eric Garner was my age.  George Floyd was close.  Their lives mattered to them.  It doesn’t change who they were, or what their past lives were about.  It’s the fact that, in a heartbeat, their future lives were ended, for no equitable reason.  There’s no balance that a man died over a sale using counterfeit money.  There’s no balance to a man killed for selling loose cigarettes.  Never one time have I heard of a police person bursting into a Palestinian store and firing off rounds at the cashier for selling loosies.  Never heard that before.  

But, if ALL LIVES MATTER, then their lives mattered as well.  I won’t list all the names I can remember here.  Because it’s an unbroken line of names that dates back to the ending of slavery, here in America.  Reconstruction is hand in hand with Jim Crow, the birth of the Klan, and white terrorism in high places designed to ‘keep the niggers in their place’.  This is not conjecture.  This is a documented fact.  There has not to date been documented a stopping point to that.  Not in the late 1800’s, not in the 1900’s at any time, and not into the new millennium.  It hasn’t happened.  And if ALL LIVES MATTERED as they say they do, then somewhere along the line, we’d have documentation of some group of some OTHER ethnicity trying their damndest to break the stranglehold of domestic terrorism against black Americans.  And we’ve not seen that.  I haven’t.  You probably haven’t either.  Because ALL LIVES DO NOT MATTER IF ONE GROUP OF LIVES IS EXCLUDED FROM THAT.  ONE OR MORE.  That’s the truth. 

I don’t care if this is deconstructed and frowned on.  I don’t give a damn if it’s shared and ridiculed.  Think about it.  If you have an empty five gallon water jug, how many marbles can you put in it?  Exactly...one.  Because once you put ONE marble in, it’s not empty any longer, it becomes something else.  Same with ALL LIVES MATTER.  If you take one group out, then you can’t say it.  You have no grounds for it.  And simply shrilling it over and over won’t make it count more.  

I’m into competency.  I love it.  It makes me happy.  When things run the way they’re supposed to, I get good results.  This year started out pretty poorly and just kept going downhill.  And now, Coronavirus cases are on the rise, 50 states have protested police violence against people of color and the police are being upgraded to military status to deal with the protestors with little restraint.  And they’re hanging black men and women in California.  Worse and worse.  And why?  Is a race war the goal? We have enough now to begin such a thing, were that the object.  I think we miss something, something really important. Competency.  It’s a big sounding word, but it’s not that big a deal.  

When you went to restaurants, if you ordered a strip steak medium rare and it came back well-done, you’d likely sent it back without hesitation, instructing your wait person to tell the cook to get it right.  When you go into a store because something is advertised at a certain price, and you get to the register and find it hasn’t been discounted, you make a fuss, you argue your case.  When you Know for a FACT you were speeding you may try to argue your way out of that ticket (if you’re not black or brown).  We make corrections when things are important to us.  Someone else’s incompetence is not something we just ride on.  So why do we do it with this situation?  Why do we not hold police accountable?  Why are we allowing people to determine how a pandemic will be dealt with, non-medical people?  Is there a connection there?  Seems like there is.  

America is a funny continent.  Stolen through murder, built by kidnapping and slavery, layer upon layer was added by the oppression and indentured servitude of one immigrating race or culture after another, until those immigrants became part of the fabric, seeking to oppress or indenture the next wave.  And so on and so on.  But only one race did not pass Ellis Island.  Only the black race.  Kidnapped, stolen people don’t get the tourist tour.  Even today they don’t.  And a lot of what has allowed that to happen is willful ignorance.  A choice to be dumb enough to believe the lies that partially benefit oneself, even if the benefit is false, short-term and harmful in the long run.  For example, cell phones.  Not a person alive doesn’t know (factually) that a cell phone is a radiation transmitter.  Always have been.  And once there was a great debate about such things, but when the money possibility was seen, they got brighter and fancier and more fashionable and now the worry is about how many Gigs and how much memory and how easy it can pick up the tower or wi-fi, and the radiation thing has been willfully forgotten. And we continue to pump radiation into our skulls, our health continues to decline, we get these weird symptoms we’ve never had before and don’t even think of looking at our hands to see if we’re not pulling the trigger on ourselves with every call we make.

Just an example of our willful ignorance.  

Well, even in my craziness, there are things I can’t ignore.  I can’t ignore that medical people said we should chill, and a snake oil salesman said we should not chill, and both Democrats AND Republicans decided to give snake oil a chance, to one degree or another.  I also can’t ignore that this election has once again become a race of two old white men for the most powerful seat in the country, and maybe still, the world.  Because no way that shit with the black guy is going to happen again, not on my watch, buddy.  

Another thing I remember, from way back, is that the Constitution of the United States of America had nothing to do with me.  

Not when it was written.  When all that bullshit about ‘a more perfect Union’ was written, anyone who looked like me was property.  At the same time, to be fair, there was nothing provisional in it for cattle, chickens, hogs, cats, dogs, turkeys, wild game, Native Americans...or women.  All just forms of property.  Oh, there’ve been amendments, yes.  There have been some things here and there where an attempt to allow something to change has occurred.  But the document itself, flawed and biased as it was written, still stands today.  And any talk that does not include EVERYONE getting a section on an OFFICIAL CONSTITUTION is less than favorable to me.  Because, as Prohibition should have taught us, what can be Amended can also be...Repealed.  And then what do you have?  Back on the chain gang, for real.  

So it’s time for some change, yes.  And it scares most people, because the willful ignorance runs deep, because it’s hard for many to conceptualize life without someone to look down upon, because we’ve been sold a bill of goods that is all surface material without any true substance, and we buy it because like starving wanderers at the end of the apocalypse, we take what’s left on the shelves without complaint and make the most of it we can.  But if we ever really want to make some change, we’ll think about all the bad pieces that have been coming down that conveyor belt lately, about all the pills that are supposed to make us feel better that leave us puking and sprawled in vomit on the bathroom floors, how many over or undercooked meats we’ve consumed, how many times we’ve been cut off by some fool who can’t drive, by how scared we were when we saw a global shutdown for the first time...and how our stomachs crawl, even just a little, when we see some black man or some woman or some kid getting the shit kicked out of them by the militant force that was hired on public money ‘to protect and serve’ us...maybe we’ll think about some of those things and consider whether we need to keep asking for maintenance of a Constitution that doesn’t even cover us all, that only seems to protect those who don’t give a fuck about America or the person standing right next to them.  

(quick story at the end of this long rant.  I have/had a friend named Richard, in the 12 step rooms where I currently reside.  Wasn’t a friend at first, because he was a card carrying member of the KKK, though I never saw his card.  I know one thing, though.  He adhered to our principles, he worked a Program, and he changed.  I never saw any later evidence of any cross-burning activity, never heard anything bad about him.  He helped those he could, worked for the Clinic briefly, was a friend to our community.  I know he’s relapsed, I saw him once washing dishes at a downtown restaurant that’s no longer there.  But for his time in the rooms of recovery, he put his personal shit aside, and was a help to everyone.  Is that too much to ask?  You hire on to do a job, you do the job.  You don’t bring your personal shit in with you, you leave it at home, or in the car.  And when you leave, if you need your shit, you put it on then.  But you respect your environment, your profession, your credo.  And if you don’t, then you shouldn’t be considered worthy to carry the mantle of the organization you pretend to represent.  I see no problem in that, and if you do, then I  only hope the well done steak doesn't choke too much as you swallow it down without complaint next time…)

Forgiveness?

I'm pretty sure my Journey will be ending soon.  of a necessity. 

this is a picture of a faded 1935 Native/Buffalo nickel.  it is, i thought, one of my most valuable possessions.  don't know exactly where it came from, don't know how i got it.  but i love how perspective is gained, and it is an example of such.  as in, last year, when I looked up the median price for this thing, it was anywhere between 250 and several thousand dollars, depending on condition.  I'm assuming it would be the COVID-19, but when I investigated it this morning, on the advising of a friend, i saw the offering price on such a piece has diminished significantly.  and isn't that the way with the 'importance' of things?

has this anything to do with the Journey and me feeling it's time to bring this to a close?  absolutely.  but not the nickel. it's just a cool pic that i can use for relevance.  

"Do you think the grown you can ever forgive the child you for not being perfect?"

I'm sure this is a paraphrasing, but my counselor asked me that on Wednesday past.  a fair question and not out of left field at all.  it was asked in response to me alluding to my disconnect.  of all the fad terms of the past decade, I admit I have a fondness for that one, because it is how I've felt for a long time.  as if I'm just floating, barely grazing the familiar things and mostly enmeshed in the specter of strange worlds and atmospheres, though these are the places where I exist.  family, friends, acquaintances, past peoples...the only people who seem to have real dimension to me in the last several years of my life have been the ones already deceased.  even that last sentence is a revelation.  because I miss the hell out of Johnnie, my sponsor, now that he's died, but when he was dying, I couldn't bring myself to give him any significant time.  maybe failure ends where grief begins?  anyway, another example, I just got a text from a friend, her initials are SH, and I've stopped speaking to her because I missed a ZOOM meeting she set up for us for our Wednesday CA meeting.  well, I did not do the work that she didn't choose to do, which is contact all the other few people who attend, give them the information and make sure they tuned in.  so I got perceived attitude from her when I told her I got to the 'meeting' late, which I did because I was tending to my parents.  I got perceived attitude for 2 days, and then decided, to hell with this, living under someone's disappointment at this point in my life, and I just stopped checking on her.  that's my level of disconnect.  

"Do you think the grown you can ever forgive the child you for not being perfect?"

what a sad thought, that such should even be necessary.  But it can be, and it is for me.  

When I was a kid, I had a notion.  I've discovered this recently.  the notion was, if I do everything perfectly, if I just do everything the exact right way, then I could make my mom and dad not fight, I could make us all get along with each other, my mother, father, older and younger brothers.  no one else at that point, there were six of us in the house.  and I tried.  I tried to be a perfect student, and when i'd fall short i'd be grief-stricken.  this is at 5, six, seven years old.  i'd cry the whole day if I made a school mistake in front of my mother, and i'd come home and get beat for crying, and i'd perceive the beating as for crying and for making the mistake.  I taught myself to cook, and from my father, whom I figured if I could learn to cook well enough then my mom wouldn't have to worry about it and they would have time to be happy together, I got only criticisms because teaching yourself to cook means making a lot of mistakes.  I can kind of see it now; hard working man comes home to half-cooked food and a wife who's not doing any of the cooking and he gets angry wondering what the value of his labor really is.  But at that time, it was a drawn out failure.  I couldn't see the value of being able to teach myself to cook, I could only see the repeated disappointment my father felt.  I can say, honestly, that fed into both my insecurities and my eating disorder, and strangely, I never felt the need to stop cooking, just stopped trying to please anyone.  the secret cooking led to secret improvement and secret eating.  anesthesia.  numbing and pulling plugs and wires.  disconnecting.  

i'm not doing full details on this now. wash, rinse, repeat.  grade school was mostly trying to fit in, find some commonality, not show feelings when the numbing eating spilled over into dealing with the failure of fitting in.  junior high school brought drugs, great for disconnecting, and behavior issues, the grades falling off, and the attempt to disconnect from them as well, for which I'll always owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Herman Jackson, a football coach and teacher at East High school, who tutored me in Geometry in my 11th grade summer so I could graduate with my class.  I thank him because he knew I was having troubles and he tried to find a way to help me, and I never let him in, but he did try for real.  I can see that now.  and that was most of high school.  almost completely disconnected.  I didn't play football for coach Jackson, though he wanted me to, because I'd played pee-wee football and was forced to by a father I was taught to hate and learned I was a disappointment to, and also learned that at my size I would only end up on the offensive line and didn't want to play offense unless it was a receiver so I didn't choose to play.  

early onset intellectual idiot.  I was a brain who refused to think, I was raised as a jock but I refused to play.  drugs and alcohol were the only things I fully participated in, but I wasn't street so I wasn't really a burnout or a gangbanger. I was just lost. disconnected.  

etcetera, etcetera.

Here I am, at my kitchen table.  I'm eating a pancake with sugar free syrup and 3 scrambled eggs.  I love eggs.  age catches up to you. 16 years ago, I was the 'magnificent seven' breakfast eater at Perkins; full stack of pancakes, sausage, eggs, hash browns, leave bloated and sluggish.  now, a pancake and eggs.  soon, probably just a boiled egg and toast.  time moves on.  Am I immature now?  in many ways no, but in some, yes.  but at 52, should I be immature at all?  No.  Only compared to God and the mountains.  in human reckoning, i'm either middle aged or i'm verging on old.  cool.  I have a child I've been incubating in a bath of perceived failure and resentment.  resentment has to be accounted for.  because you can't keep a child alive inside your heart and mind unless you are feeding it something.  resentment, reaction to fear, so many negative things.  surrounded and swaddled.  and the question was, can I forgive him for not being perfect?  can I plug back into the past, the pain, the sorrow and fear and the twisted lessons, and cut that part of me free so it can go wherever the past is supposed to go? 

and of course, that's not really the question at all.  I can say that I know that much.  

the real question, if I am perceptive enough to discern is this:  am I capable of living in such a way that the child in me knows it is okay that I did not do everything perfectly?  

that's the crux.  because I can't plug back into all that old shit.  there's no way.  I don't believe i'd survive that, not in a quarantine, not in isolation.  i'm used to the aloneness, but only as a balancing act.  i'm not accustomed to sloshing emotions all over the place and trying to live with the mess.  hence, the disconnection.  but, so help me, that's what has been behind the gray wall.  did my brother expose himself to me when I was a child? yes.  was I raped or molested?  I don't believe so.  at least, not physically.  I was emotionally molested, by my intellect being twisted on other people's isms, by my parent's perpetual war, by my need for a fix as the condition of me being happy.  

Oh, I can.  I can do things to plug into today.  plugging into today will hopefully facilitate an awakening of my inner child (TOTI, to long-time readers...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!) to the fact that it's safe now.  and when I do those things, they must become habit, they have to become my personal 'new normal' which I hate as a term so I won't use it again but it is pertinent and resonates at the moment.  that is why the Journey is going to end soon, because writing as a Journey is only meant to happen until the real traveling begins.  

so, we're going to see, right?

Thank you, Father, for this lovely day so far. 

ORDER

 an intriguing proposition.
I miss my sponsor.  to this day, that has not ceased as a pain when he comes to mind.  yesterday I was listening to a rendition of the song 'I've Been to Paradise' by the Tempts, and it made me want to cry.  Johnnie would always end his lead by using the lyrics from this song to depict his life before recovery back in the earlier days of my recovery.  his delivery was great at the podium, and it always made the audience think; he'd take you back.  and back is where i'm trying to go now.  soon enough, though.

been a minute again, but i'm not apologizing.  the world is a mess; my life is a bit unkempt as well, sorry.  changes are, however, occurring and they deserve a voice on this Journey as well.  and if i don't give them that voice, where will it come from?  I am not, however, the Creator; i'm just a speaker on a stereo system. but i'll happily be that at least.

I was hanging with my daughter yesterday.  picked her up, brought her over, she cleaned my kitchen while i cleaned my bathroom.  we had lunch, i sprayed my house with the peppermint oil solution for mice, i took her home, let her raid my cabinets and gave her some money.  it was good for me to hang with her, i don't know if it was good for her.  that's not my business, though i hope it was. after i dropped her off, i went to Crandall park and waited for my counselor to call.

part of the so-called 'new normal', is the having of appointments over the phone.  i don't particularly like it; i miss my counselor.  she is a good heart in a comforting face.  she's been a part of the last 2 decades of my life.  talking on the phone to someone you've seen practically 52 times a year for the last 20 years is like either being sentenced to jail and maintaining communication...or having someone you love and care about sentenced to jail, etc.  but you take what you can get.

my counselor raised an interesting proposition in response to my query of my current disconnect.  i wonder very much about it.  it encompasses a lot of my life.  i am on the outskirts of a great number of details in my existence.  i can make myself speak to certain family members whom i have no real issues with; just don't speak to them anymore.  i can make myself keep appointments, but completely disregard the follow-through.  i don't know what the issue is; but i may have a better imaging on it when this is all done.  in fact, i'm moving mentally on it now.  but order is the name of this entry, and order we shall adhere to.

the disconnect in  question yesterday had to do with my physical therapy...or lack, thereof.  i was supposed to do some exercises for the past week, and i didn't do them.  no reason not to.  not complicated, not hard.  toe touches and backward bends, i think side stretches.  on the bed back stretch to help alleviate the sciatica pain i'd been having, and on the bed half-pushups.  on the step extensions to also stretch my back, from the 1st and the 3rd steps.  that's about the extent of a week's worth of a beginning.  and i did them the 1st day with the therapist (over the phone, using ZOOM), and i said i'd do them for a week...and i didn't.  and when the time came to set an appointment time for this week, i ignored the call.  and i had no idea why i didn't follow through.  this is in my best interest, after all.  and isn't that what i say a friend is to me?  ''someone who has my best interest at heart when they think about me'', that's my famous line when it comes to friendship.  so, the consideration becomes, if i don't have my own best interest at heart...i am not a friend to myself, am i?  and what the fuck kind of life can that possibly be?

i have learned to function, and that's something.  it is better than being totally dysfunctional.  i can keep my ass and home clean.  i can keep my bills paid-ish.  i can keep food in my fridge, whether i cook it or not.  i have a bed with clean sheets, i have a phone that's (mostly) only had one number.  i am employed when 20 million other motherfuckers have been laid off.  i make regular car payments.  i check on my mom every day, check on my parents several times a week (different things), and i try to do things for their well being (ahem).  i have learned to function.  but what do i DO for myself?

i've taken no real trips, gone nowhere significant.  i have not committed to weight loss since i worked at KA Menendian, and that's been about 30 years now.  i stopped daily walking.  i don't really tend to my diabetes as well as i should.  i don't draw, barely write, though when i do i'm pretty good at it.  i've not been on my upstairs computers in over a year.  i use the excuse of mice, but if i had been constant with it, mice would not have invaded my printer.  and so on, and so on.

little things, lumped together long enough, become a big pile, an overflowing closet that the door cannot be closed upon any longer.  and to see it, that is what i see.  un-care for myself, un-tending to many of the important details of my own life.  and my counselor raised the question, based on my past writings in this very Journey, based on our years of communication, "Can the grown you forgive the child you for not being perfect?"  or something like that.  because, what i discovered in that conversation over the phone yesterday was this:  when i fail significantly, I quit.  Period.

in one of my early years, first or 2nd grade maybe, my mom had come to my school (as parents used to do) and she was sitting in my class and i was up to the blackboard, think it was math, and i got a problem wrong, and i was so embarrassed about getting that equation wrong that i started crying, which is what i'd do often as a child.  i got beat when i got home; likely for the crying, which tended to run long for me, but i associated it with the mistake in the math.  i know i did, because this is the first time i've ever thought about it from the perspective of the crying being the motivator for the beating.  all i know is, i remembered it one way, and i reacted to that beating by disconnecting to the situation, and reframing it in a way that i would not have to deal with it, or anything that felt like it.  i can think back, now, to a number of incidents that i have done that with when i was a child.  the question becomes, when did that become the default position emotionally for me?

my sponsor would have told me, back in my younger years, to 'act as if' i deserved to take care of myself, and do the things i needed to have done to take care of me, to 'have my own best interest at heart; the things i'd want a friend to do for me', until they became part of my nature.  he'd be right, of course, and i wouldn't do them to completion, but significantly, i never really disconnected from him.  only in the very end.  when i wasn't in contact with him, i was trying my damndest to apply some of the things he'd taught me to my life, so i didn't have to be a disappointment to him.  like i'm doing with my PT now. 

i am fucked up sometimes.

well, that's enough on that for now, no point getting depressed in a pandemic.  MORE depressed, i guess i should say. i'm going to work on this shit.  a promise to myself.  i hope i value myself enough to keep it.  i do always value Jehovah, and I thank Him for the opportunity to reflect in life's mirror this morning. 

Sleepless & Exhausted

 this sucks. 
I'm very tired, but sleep is not coming tonight.  i have things that are obviously on my mind, but nothing that should prevent me completely from falling asleep.  yet, here i am.  it's almost 4am.  watching television earlier i was nodding, but that didn't translate over to laying down for the night.

the inclination is to eat, of course.  but i won't.  the only reason i won't is because i'm not hungry.  a good reason not to eat.  not one that i've put a lot of stock in as of late, i have to admit.  but still, i've not eaten.  i may drift off soon, may sleep a couple hours.  but i have things to achieve tomorrow.  cleaning to do, peppermint spray to mix and administer throughout the house.  i have to gather clothes for wash, have to do some banking early.  odds and ends stuff, perhaps, but my life is about odds and ends these days.  but i hate doing shit exhausted.  may not matter what i hate at this rate.

dreams are weird still.  external stimuli is translating almost immediately into symbolism in my dreams.  i don't know what that's about.  keep thinking it doesn't matter anymore, but apparently i'm mistaken.  something's bothering me.  something's keeping me conscious.

had a problem earlier today.  my hand swelled, left hand.  just swelled, noticed because i was unconsciously flexing my hand and it hurt to make a fist all of a sudden.  but that wasn't all, as the swelling seemed to ascend to my forearm. had a lot of swelling in my feet & lower legs after work too.  too much sitting, i'm imagining.  but i have exercises to do.  i can remain stubborn or i can get to  work.  hands swelling aside, i need to get to work.  i can not go on much longer like this, and i refuse to just remain passive about all this extra weight. 

i'm going to shut this down now, try to fade out, maybe get about 5 hours.  that would help.  i am exhausted.  thank you, Father, for the wherewithall to write. 

April 15, 2020 Summation from the FB files

A thought listed on my Facebook page, which sums up the where I am for the past 366 days, and maybe even the where I am going if tomorrow comes, God willing & the creek don't rise.  Thank you, Father, for whatever comes, and for so much that has passed.

So, what's learned? I mean, you travel around the sun for over 5 decades, you should have learned something, right? Nothing should all just be, 'Same day, different shit', not for real, right? And to cap it off, a global pandemic, and all the fears and paranoia, all the secret terrors and obvious character flaws a real crisis reveals, and a human mind has to deal with the truly supernatural for the first time in any of our realities, and something has to be learned, right? Well, this is what 52 has gotten me. Gonna try to condense it all into 10 items, and maybe they'll help another soul, or maybe they'll just help identify me when they come to take me away...we'll see, right?

10. Most people have no idea what to do when they are actually confronted by a fear beyond their imagination. So fiction writers have to try a lot harder.

9. It's easier to find the negative, because it's on social media and it's reposted over and over, ad nauseum. But the good is always attached to the stupid and inane. In fact, the good is usually happening in the background of the inanity, you just can't see it cause it's happening in the background. So learn to use your peripherals.

8. People want love and have been hurt far worse than they're willing to admit. Evidenced by the plethora of harsh, hard-ass relationship advice coming from hither and yon. Be you, and remember where you've been and who hurt you, so you don't take a hostage or hold an innocent responsible for your scars. Then you may actually recognize the one who's actually holding the elixir and the bandages. Only a suggestion, however.

7. Given a chance, humans will do the stupidest shit they can think of, and if there is a group of them congregated or a camera of some sort pointed at them, chances are greatest of that stupid shit taking place. BUT. I happen to know some very talented people, right on these pages, who have simply stopped doing their creative shit online because eventually, it feels like no one gives a damn. Tell you what; my experience is you plant flowers, you get flowers and weeds. you don't plant flowers, you get weeds. Better to have beauty amidst the ugliness because it allows sensitive, appreciative souls to make a choice. And maybe someone will eventually decide to get back to pulling the weeds so the flowers can flourish. Never know, homie.

6. No one is above being afraid, no one is therefore exempt from being courageous. But you have to practice fear as much as you have to practice courage. I know that sounds like bullshit, but think: when's the last time you remember ever seeing a newborn that was afraid of anything? All learned behavior. You're welcome.

5. Things...no matter how shiny or valuable...will never erase a painful past. But only you'll know that to be true.

4. Everything that a person says doesn't exist anymore (Big Mana's house, family gatherings that aren't funerals, social get togethers, what have you) are all blueprinted in the complainers memory banks. It can all happen again, if the complaining ever turns into arranging. What?

3. You will be sad. You will regret. You will realize a road you took was not a good one. You will bleed, a little or a lot. You will wish you'd done differently, moments after you made the choice that something in you screamed you shouldn't do. You will not do everything right. You will have fears, you will have doubts, from time to time. You have a right to any or all of these. They can, however, be the foundation to the prison you choose to live within...or the houses in a neighborhood you're walking through, to get to your true home. Again, you're choice, Podnah.

2. If you're looking for yourself, start with the mirror. Then consider therapy. Better to try the available resources before tearing down the walls of the life you're going to have to live in for a few more years. Just a thought.

and finally...

1. Apparently, sometimes life offers humanity a chance to change up some shit, to make some adjustments and do some things different so as not to use up everything in wasteful, greedy, gluttonous orgies of self-indulgence. But...it takes a lot of character to change a habit when the short term feeling is ecstatic and you're part of a collective condition of short term memory loss. BUT, as a man once advised me to my eternal benefit, when you don't know what to do, DO WHAT YOU KNOW IS RIGHT. This might actually turn out to be The Stand, but it could be The Day The Earth Stood Still. They may go back to reckoning time with B.C. (before Corona or COVID-19) and A.D. (after disease), and in the A.D. we'll all be considered one year old. What will be different in your rebirth? How will you be better made in your new life? What nonsense will you surrender for some deeper meaning? When enough individuals make better choices, shit changes. Just remember, it is not what we created, it is that WE create IT, for time and nature do not discriminate. Aspire Higher, and thanks for all the good birthday love. 😑

A Silence I Can Hear

 well.  been awhile, i know.  that's going to happen, i guess.  it's morning right now.  new day.  Tuesday.  I'm surprised I didn't write more last week, but writhing in pain on my bed for seven days did not motivate me to share much in the Journey.  the slow, painful process of falling apart that is called 'aging' is often more than I want to bear, honestly.  but i bear it, because that is what life has come to be; bearing up under the unpleasant weight of the day, because you do it one day at a time and happiness is in short supply right now.

life continues, though.  I had a sciatica flare two Fridays ago.  you think, in ridiculous fashion, that you're going through all the pain there is, and Life shows you there's always something more and new and fresh and agonizing.  Can't stand without pain.  Can't walk without agony.  Can't sit without writhing.  Can find a position on the bed, usually on the side or on the stomach, where the pain subsides.  every action is negotiated because any action is a monumental task.  going to the bathroom to pee means having to lean over on one side to lift the seat.  taking a shit means sitting, sitting means writhing in pain.  sitting to eat means writhing in pain, maybe screaming all through a meal.  easier not to eat.  no shower.  no washing.  no pain meds actually touch this thing, nothing the doctors are willing to part with anymore.  is it a punishment?  is it merited for past misdeeds forgotten?  is it torture?  it's torturous.  and in a pandemic, it is clarifying.  you could kill yourself and no one would really know.  you could just be sleep.  the mail carrier might eventually smell something un-good and call someone.  the mice would likely find sustenance before you were hauled away.  thoughts go that dark when you can't walk for the pain.  

found days of forcing myself to cook.  dinner has to double as tomorrow's breakfast.  coffee becomes a luxury, often unaffordable.  strange, this pain.  and as time passes, it becomes tricky.  it's not there.  what took it away?  i can walk!  but only an illusion; too long on my feet shows the error of my judgment.  back to writhing.  back to screaming, crying, confessing my sins and shortcomings.  almost 8 straight days of this.  Lonnie is a godsend.  so is my mother.  food comes.  i eat in bed, unable to sit at the kitchen table or on the couch in the living room, six feet away from my bed.  but i eat.  then i force myself to walk on the razor blades installed in my hip, down my leg and around my lower spine, to the kitchen to put leftovers away.  the mice can have the crumbs; i'll not share my dinner with them.  

Now?  still hurting some, but not entirely.  thankful to Jehovah.  but it's still there, dull, waiting.  arch on the right foot is aching, burns with gout and a touch of neuropathy as well.  i will go in spite of it.  have to make money to pay bills.  the human dynamic, what truly separates us from the animals.  not as many, not anymore.  i am blessed, no luck exists any longer.  that false god has fallen.

managed to finish a book cover for BITTER MIND that made it through the approval process.  so my book is for sale.  good thing.  another product that can be ignored.  but there are some very nice, strong stories in it.  not all of it.  some of it is sheer sensationalism, sheer flight of dark fancy.  but there is truth in it, because i wove myself into much of the fabric of these stories.  my mind is brittle, anyway.  it was not a hard write.  even the last story, the superheroes breaking the  5th wall, is included, and actually runs pretty cool.  but no one will buy it.  well.  FEW will bother to buy it, and few will share the accessibility of it.  that's okay.  i'm going to play the game, keep it moving.  maybe i've got some other things in mind for self-promotion.  just need a little extra dosh.  

listening to Miles, 'Sketches of Spain'.  perfect jazz work, lovely horn work & compositions.  good to ponder to.  not rushing.  no reason to.  just have to go to work, get one client, take him to his appointment, take him home, then try not to be a lazy motherfucker.  a short walk.  wash the van.  clean it on the inside.  run it through a wash if the day isn't too rainy.  wait til 4pm and call it a day.  nothing heavy, nothing stressful.  i'm okay with that, today.  or any changes to that itinerary.  just don't want to be laying in pain today.

a thing, though.  last week was the Memorial for Jehovah's Witnesses.  an acknowledgment of the Passover supper shared by Jesus with his disciples.  always something different with the Witnesses.  acknowledged by all but not participated in as far as the bread and wine.  only the 'anointed' partake of the items.  but, talking to my mother yesterday (her 78th completed journey around the sun) she stated it was the 'last Memorial', that the JW would not have anymore.  that the events of the now indicate the Last Days of this system of things.  it makes one think, if one is inclined to think.  and I am.  I said a long time ago, i just want to do the best i can in this life; if the end comes and I am still unaffiliated, i'd take with me the knowledge that I lived as close to bible principles as i was able to.  Now?  well, now i don't know.  now, i know i haven't done enough.  but maybe I have; who am i to judge me, and by what yardstick could I?  i can only judge myself in comparison to myself, and that is useless.  

so, I thank Jehovah for a life lived.  for it's ups and downs, for all the learning and for the lessons that didn't take.  for all the friends, for my mentor/sponsor, for my sobriety.  for my children and grandson.  I thank Jehovah for allowing me to be a spirit...and to be human.  

Aspire Higher.

Afraider (which is not a word, but perhaps should be...)

if done correctly on day one, leftover spaghetti is always the bomb.  that is gospel truth. i'm sitting here, Sunday afternoon, eating an early supper of spaghetti and meatballs, with a side salad, that I made fresh yesterday.  the spaghetti is good, and I am glad to have made it, though it's not a regular dish for me.  I just had a craving for it, and the means to make it, and that's what is up with that.

the book cover?  well, that's going to be out sometime in April.  I have slaved over it, worked and reworked it, and finally got some acceptable dimensions from Amazon, so I have submitted the book and am waiting to see if it has been accepted so I can also get the ebook formatted and get them out to the public.  such as that will be.  

it's funny, in some ways.  here we are, pandemic-down, quarantine-bound, socially distant by six feet or more, and I want to put out my book.  but it's been a couple years since I've done any writing to this degree.  it's been months and months since I've even updated the Journey with any regularity.  so I want to ride this small wave, and if it peters out, at least i'll have done something, and if it swells, then let's see if we can ride that bitch as well.

so, afraider.  of what?  same thing, always.  the unknown.  it is a manageable fear, but a fear nonetheless.  how do you dispel it? how do you make a fear of the unknown go away?  where does it go to?  I work my program as best as I can.  I am not unfunctioning right now.  I will put my clothes away that were washed.  I am journaling.  I will shower and shave and be ready for work tomorrow.  I did email my REAL boss our paperwork today, and the boss of the clinic I work at a request for information for the next phase of our work duty, which seems that we'll deliver meals.  something to do, not a bad deal.  don't even know if it includes us or not, HPH, whom I drive for, who signs my checks I should say. because I don't get those communications.  but it's okay.  I can't do what I don't know, and eventually they'll learn that.  or they won't.  either way...

but afraider.  the unknown.  this whole situation is like, when we were kids, you'd have massive games of 'Duck, Duck Goose', if you can recall that. where someone would go around the circle of people, touching kids heads and saying, 'duck, duck, duck...' each time they touched someone, until they got to who they wanted to be 'it', and they'd smack that kid's head and yell "GOOSE!" and the chase would ensue around the circle, and if the kid that smacked his head could get to the empty place before the Goose caught him, he was 'safe' and the other kid was it.  and so on and so on.  

this is something like that.  who's sick?  who knows?  who's dying?  unless it is someone you know, you can't know for sure anyone is. we live in that kind of reality.  who knows? but I believe people are dying.  they're not huge numbers, but it's predicted that everyone will end up with this COVID-19 virus at some point.  and that means, anyone could be IT. anyone could be the one smacked in the head, trying to make it to the empty place, and deathly afraid they won't.  what a relief it must be for those who contract it and live through.  what sorrow for the survivors of those who don't...

I do what I have in front of me to do.  I made dinner for my parents.  I made sure my father was masked & gloved when he left out of the house.  I washed and dried my work clothes, and a few other things.  I wrote a poem for my child, because she's been waffling on whether she's going to move in here or not.  you wanna hear it?

"if you wonder

if I miss you,

yes, I do.

if you wonder

if you're wanted,

that will always

be true.

if you wonder

do I care,

I always will.

I keep you in

my heart

from now until...

I can't invite you

to Sanctuary.

I can only make sure

you have a key.

if you do,

then let 

'Welcome'

be assumed.

No palace

but you'll always

have a room.

And just in case

it's too hard

to relate,

just know from me,

For you,

there is no hate.

my love for you,

my child,

is without end,

and that will end

this poem

that I send."

yes, cheesy, but heartfelt.  I can't invite her to live with me, because I have already told her she's welcome.  I won't help, because she has a right to her life, her mistakes, her pain, or her release, relief and reset.  everyone does.  I hate what she's going through but I did not put here there and would never do so.  

afraid for her.  afraid for my parents.  afraid for my friend who may or may not have contracted this thing.  afraid for my grandson, for my son and daughter.  afraid for the people I work with, the clients I've gotten to know, the people on my street that I haven't seen since they just moved without a word.  

Afraid for me.  Afraider.

that's what I got at the moment. Thank you, Father, for keeping me moving and safe.