SYSTEMS CHECK, part 3

well, my apologies.  i was sicker, apparently, than i thought yesterday.  i'm still feeling pretty shitty, but i got stuff to get done today and this is part of it.  i didn't finish writing, but i wrote.  i didn't see my uncle but i saw my mom.  made her a breakfast sandwich.  i didn't get to clear up much, but i did see where i need to be more attentive to Syd, because as i think i said earlier yesterday, she's a teen, and teens can't make good decisions ninety percent of the time.  that's why they have parents.
so i'm starting today, still going over my systems, stalled out here in space.  in space...innerspace.  and it's time for me to start moving toward getting ready to do the day, because it's going to take that kind of energy to move things along.  i ended with some family stuff, grandparents.  i guess i'll move on to peers.
people say kids can be cruel, but kids are just mirrors of the world they inhabit.  a baby is born as a feelings monster.  it can't enunciate, it only knows impulse and reaction.  it takes jelled and cohesive behavior to bring a baby to the point of actually having a personality, making decisions and being a particular way toward another individual.  a baby will let you know when something or someone makes it feel discomfort, but a baby won't let you know specifically when it really loves a particular kind or piece of music, or when it prefers one human over another when it likes both.  those are the idiocies of adults, and it passes on from one generation to the next.  i say that to say, kids were cruel to me.  but not all kids, and not the same degree of cruelty.  and it kind of segues back to my mom because...okay, i was picked on, but i wasn't bullied or beaten up for being fat.  i was called names, yes indeed.  i still have a knee-jerk reaction to Fat Albert (i remember early in my sobriety, i was listening to a Bill Cosby comedy album and he did his first HEY HEY HEY, and something in me cried out and ran for a closet.  like, literally.  that was when i realized, after so many years of drug abuse and alcoholic anesthesia, that there was a place where i hid things that hadn't quite died yet) and i still cringe somewhat when encountering laughter as i walk past people.  i sincerely hope this goes away one day, but self-consciousness is not easy to take on, and it's a damn sight harder to take off once you've got it on.  it is very symbiotic, very parasitic and it hooks into the nervous system and the respiratory system.  brains and lungs, man.
anyway, there were names that i was called.  tub of lard, that was always a bad one.  it was like one word, like a nickname.  i think that's when it gets lower level bad, when you hear the names and they become yours.  chicken fat, that was a weird one.  that was because of a record, early on, like second grade, that the teacher would play for our exercise time.  jesus, exercise in the classroom?  does that happen anymore?  probably not.   probably went out with prayer.  i don't know much about the impact of prayer in the classroom, but i'll tell you this:  when teachers could enforce silence, could mandate exercise and could paddle when needed, kids didn't grow up killing kids, beating up teachers and punching their parents and grandparents around.  some things, the design is evident only by the results attained.
chicken fat.  fat ass, that wasn't as popular, as only the worst kids cursed in my childhood, but it was there.  the one that stuck, even more than tub of lard (i bet they didn't even know what lard was) was monster.  that was the one that made me feel the worst.  monster.  not human.  something that people ran screaming from.  that was all i could associate a monster with.  i started getting quiet and going inside myself then.  monster.  i watched Frankenstein as a kid, against my mother's will of course, and the scene where the monster threw the little girl into the water because he wanted to see her float like the flowers, that was heartbreaking to me.  because i wanted to do what others did too.  and it just ended me up as the target for more laughter.  monster.  i got quiet.  i stopped laughing.  i was a very jovial child in kindergarten, in first and second grade.  i was a joker, i was sociable, i was a class clown.  and then monster came, and i became introspective.  i became suicidal.  if i was a monster, there was no good ending for me.  monster were killed off before the end of the picture.  monsters lived in isolation, misunderstood and sullen, until one day they decided, fuck peace, and they went on a rampage and the army killed them.  i wasn't that kind of monster, but i didn't realize back then i wasn't any kind of monster at all.  so i tried to kill myself in grade school.  pills, because after all, i did have a sleeping drug addiction after the AYDS candies.  i was sad all the time.   and it only got worse as i got higher in grades.  i was brilliant, from kindergarten to first grade in weeks, and in the top three of my class all through elementary school.  then i plummeted to d's and f's in 8th grade forward.  barely graduating.  because i was a monster, and i couldn't shake it loose.
so, my school mates.  not all of them.  i had some great friends, who are still my friends today.  but the overview, i learned despair, i learned depression, i began romancing the notion of me not on earth anymore.  it definitely affected my social life, my self-esteem and self-worth, it made me wonder about the legitimacy of my human-ness, and really, what could be worse than that?  and the only way i knew to dull the pain of living in a tormenting world, at that point, was to eat, and to eat in a way that would numb the pain was to perpetuate the state of existence that brought on the insults and ridicule.  vicious cycle.

before i go run my bath, i did get to the gym today, got in a good walk and some machine lifting to keep working on my shoulder.  i had breakfast, and i had coffee and water.  i'm going to make another cup of coffee and take my meds after i take my bath.  more later.

SYSTEMS CHECK, part 2

good afternoon.  its rough today.  head cold like a motherfucker.  stuffy, nose runny, sluggish.  took some alka-seltzer cold last night, about to take some more.  make some tea, instead of coffee.  try to loosen this up.  i have to do something physical today, but i'm not sure what just yet.
stress with Syd this morning.  i know old habits die hard.  i need to be more attentive to her because she's not really able to find consistency by herself.  very few of us are,and i have to remember that as i'm struggling for consistency at 47 years old.  still, no blaming me for you fucking around until its time to go.  going to work on finding the medium and being more attentive.  goal for the week.
breakfast, two boiled eggs and toast, no jam.  milk.  i didn't hit the gym, aforementioned cold.  its taken me forever to start this today because i really feel like shit.  but i got a book to finish, which i did write in, and i've got some other projects demanding my attention.
starting with, mailed re-assessment papers to HEAP today.  had to go to the post office to do it.  i find that dead or dying post offices are the saddest indicators of the condition of a city.  because, houses crumble in the most progressive towns, and streets always need some kind of repair no matter where you go.  but when you see a post office that is doing nothing, that has no vehicles in the parking lot or their vehicle area, you know that things have gone downhill all around you.  it was sad, but i got it done.  i visited my mom, made her a breakfast sandwich.  talked with her for a bit.  i am working on better a day at a time.
i am going to break shortly, because i have to eat some lunch and i have to have a nap if i'm going to be any good for the rest of the day.  but i know i have to log some stuff in the systems check.  if i don't stay consistent with this it will get away from me.  and i can't teach consistency by being inconsistent, can i?
so, did the parents, and the oldest brother.  the rest of my sibs, i don't think they contributed to the food fiending that i tend towards.  the grandparents, they also were not diet oriented, were not harping on my weight or the need to lose said weight.  they in fact mostly took it as me being stronger than i was, and with the intelligence i displayed they often treated me much older than i really was.  i was witty, and i was conversant, and i loved using the new words that i used.  it was something of an anomaly, i'm certain.  so i ate because i wanted to fit in.  it doesn't happen much anymore, i'm sure, because society has deliberately erased the lines between being grown and being a child in order to make grown people more susceptible to childish purchases.  like grown ass men sitting around video games.  or, so as not to shine a light that doesn't illuminate self as well, grown ass men watching cartoons or staying on the internet all day.  BAM.  we are not maturity oriented in this society.  but back in my childhood, you had the kid's table.  it was a smaller table.  it was shorter, and it was tiny and it had little chairs.  sometimes it was just a series of folding tables that you set off in another room for the massive amount of nieces and nephews at a holiday gathering.  but under any circumstances, it was the little table.  and the big table is where all the grown-ups sat.  all the BIG people sat at the BIG table and all the little people sat at the little table.  i'm sure you can imagine that i strove for the big table.  i wanted it so bad.  it was like being big enough for a big mac, having two hands large enough to hold a whopper.  it was like, in my child's mind, being equal to.  i remember an episode of Sesame Street where Big Bird strove to be treated like an adult and he put on a mustache and a hat to speak to the grown ups.  that was what it was like for me.  and when i made it, i had increased in mass, in intelligence and in shame as well.  so it was a bittersweet victory.  so my grandparents...just mostly misleading.  nothing malicious, nothing purposefully hurtful.  just not aware of my reasoning and therefore feeding into my -isms unknowingly.
uncles, different story.
uncles were brutal.  not abusive, just brutal.  you had to be strong, you had to learn to hold your own.  some of what they put me (and my brothers, i know Jerry went through it at least) was because the world was against us as black people, and they wanted us to be able to defend ourselves.  i was, though, a very timid child.  i wasn't into violence, but we'd often be forced to wrestle and fight against my uncles and their friends, to make us tough.  it left us banged up a lot, and bruised and once left me with a twisted knee that i couldn't walk on for a period and had to be helped into the house.  but it wasn't abusive in the truer meaning of INTENT, rather than just event.  they weren't really all that bad on weight either.  no one ever called me fat anything except my school peers.  but my uncles would push us all, that was their thing.  we played street football at an organized football level because my uncles were relentless.  but...they let me play receiver.  organized team didn't.

SYSTEMS CHECK, pt 1 (step 4&5)

Step 4:  Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step 5:  Admitted to God, to ourselves and to an(other) human being(s) the exact nature of our wrongs.

it's monday again.  i feel pretty good.  it's a rainy day, gloomy out.  didn't get any residuals from the eclipse, but i wasn't expecting any.  i haven't been tuned in that way for a long time.  physicality requires spiritual sacrifice, and vice versa.  so i slept okay, with the ocean in the background, and i got up okay, though my thoughts were a bit diffuse, and my workout was okay, though my music was not shuffling like it was supposed to.  but i made an amend to Patricia, a friend i've known at the gym for a couple years now though i just today learned her name.  she's a lovely, tall black woman, and i would make statements about how she was getting taller with all the pedaling she was doing on her machine, while she would always offer me kind words and encouragement.  i know enough about me today to know that though consciously i wasn't trying to be unkind, pointing out someone's height without thought of whether it could be an issue for them is a misdirection.  in this time of self-exploration, i have to see what's really there, not just what i want to see.  and when i saw her friday and realized that's all i've ever had to say to her, i knew i had to own it and make that amend.  that's step ten:  continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.  which is a great segue to the systems check.

the reason why i altered step five as i did is because i don't know who the recipients of this will be, if anyone.  i only know that this week is going to be dedicated to digging in the dirt, as Peter Gabriel sang.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0C3DHp36zc)  in order to live unburdened by the past i have to see the past for what it really is, what is has been, what its dimensions are and how they have impacted my todays.  and it's not an easy process when it's done as written.  going back through the bad times, seeing the people and the attitudes that i fostered and nurtured against them, back to where i was on the playground with my demons, thinking it was fair games being played but discovering later in life that they were all rigged against me.  that's the nature of a fourth step by itself.  and then to have to tell someone MY PART of those situations, to own the stupidity and the ignorance of who i was...it is humbling in the most plane crash surviving sort of way.  but it is the basis of everything else to come.  if i don't know how my system has been designed, there is no redesign that will take.  if i don't know how it's supposed to run, there are no repairs that will make sense.  and if i can't repair the system, then i am at the whim of the universe, moreso than i already am.  and i don't want to just float out here forever.  hell, i've only got a year, one day at a time.

so let's get started.

born normal, but grew fat.  mom and dad were at war.  oldest brother, resentments.  he was the golden boy.  he was special to everyone.  he was like an uncle more than a brother, because of the weird dynamic of my grandmother's youngest being several years younger than my mother's firstborn.  he called my grandmother 'ma' because he was partially raised with my uncles.  he didn't get in trouble from my dad, whereas Jerry and I would get the hell beat out of us for the slightest infractions.  i know he exposed himself to me, but i am not aware of any other abuse, sexually.  that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it means i won't condemn a person for something that my mind can't recall.  but emotionally?  he treated me like shit often because i was fat.  his determination seemed to be that my fat was my failure, though i wasn't failing until i decided i'd had enough of feeling like shit for everyone's obsession with my weight and discovered that weed and alcohol numbed most of that out.  he was a sports hero, and i know i was jealous of him in a lot of ways.  i also know i wanted to be like him in a lot of ways.  he was a receiver on his football team and i wanted to play receiver.  always thought it was Lynn Swann and John Stallworth until this very day, but i see now that it had a lot more to do with my eldest brother.  his name is Rick, by the way.  named after my oldest uncle.  hmmm.  

yeah, anyway, basketball star, so i wanted to play basketball.  i got good at street ball, but i never was on his level and he never let me forget it.  he had the whole attic to himself while Jerry, Rob and I were cramped into one bedroom.  eventually we would claim areas of the house, like the basement and the attic once Rick was gone, but in the beginning, he was the king of the kids.  so there's a lot of resentment that i need to own there.  self-esteem issues, self-worth, some fear generated, socially less than and never being able to measure up.  plus the sexual inappropriate actions that i can remember, creating a sense of unease about myself.  i never stopped loving my oldest brother, but i stopped wanting to be associated with him by the time i was done with high school.  his disdain for me was such that when i asked him for cash assistance to take a girl on a field trip that i wanted to go on (being very insecure about myself and feeling, at that time, that i had to buy affection), he made his refusal a morality lesson about the wrong that my mother said i was doing, rather than asking how i was, or how i was feeling, or anything else.  the last straw between us was him coming to columbus when i was still living there, visiting our uncle Howard and not contacting me at all.  after that i gave up on him.  nothing more to say.  i will have to put some prayer in that one, because i am going to have to make an amend and i still won't want to be bothered with him.  but we'll see what God has to say when the time comes.

fat kid.  uncles and grandparents and parents all hung up on my weight.  mother gave me speed laced candy called AYDS diet candy to curb my appetite.  mother was also the one who would feed me the most.  i think she thought she was a bad mother and was trying to learn, on the fly, how to be a good mother.  i believe that sincerely because i know today she mostly thinks she failed.  nothing could be further from the truth.  we all fail, and we all succeed, and that's called learning. but with nothing as a comparison, how do you know those things?  my mother was about surface things early.  things had to look right.  things had to appear right in the eyes of anyone who might be looking on.  again, had a lot to do with her seeming to be a success at being a mother.  she's very intelligent, in a native and intuitive way.  but if you stepped out of line of being perfect in the eyes of a beholder you were apt to be beaten with a Hot Wheel track.  left welts.  very precise, intelligent instrument of punishment.  my mother forced us to the Kingdom Hall, and as a grown man i realize most of it was just to keep my dad from taking us to his Baptist church.  because when the opportunity presented her an out, she no longer forced us to go.  and of course my oldest brother was never required to go.  my mother poisoned us against our father.  in dozens of little ways, she set us against him to aid her in her war against him.  the only thing i've never really been able to get my mind around is why, with so much disdain and disgust, did she marry him?  and i don't think he's a bad guy; i've never consciously seen my father drunk.  but i do know that they've been fighting through forty seven years of my memories.  that's a lot of fighting.  my mom also kind of tried to poison us against my dad's family.  which is strange, as i discover lately that my mom and my dad's sister were good friends at one point.  there is an untold story, one that is growing in its need to be heard by me in my head.  but that's a different time, and a different blog entry.  my mom was very needy and very bitter, but she was a fun person often.  she would take us to drive-ins, she would experiment with different foods before she gave up on cooking, and she would take us down to Mill Creek to play.  she used to draw, and she was kind to all sorts of different people.  but she also did not let us see Roots, or King Kong, because of how she interpreted her religious teachings.  she would disapprove certain music for the same reasons.  and later in life, she embraced many of the things she made off-limits for us, though she's still a member of Jehova's Witnesses.  so there were self-esteem and self-worth issues, social issues, fear and disapproval, and shame and the seeds of my drug addiction sown into the earth with my already budding food fiending.
my dad, he was absent, and he was always there.  i have a great understanding of that now, but i didn't when i was a child, because i couldn't.  my dad worked.  he worked a lot of hours, because alcoholics accumulate debt and he had children to take care of.  my dad was one of very few blacks in recovery at that time.  he did a lot in the program, he did a lot for a lot of people.  but i didn't know him then.  he'd be on a local television show, Expressions, with Sophia Brooks, i believe.  in school they'd say they saw my dad on television, but i would say that guy wasn't my dad.  i may have gotten that from my mom, i am not sure right now.  but there was some validity in it.  the guy on tv was smiling, joking, personable, friendly.  my dad was none of those things.  my dad dealt with problems with beatings and intimidation.  my dad was a pair of hands wrapped around a newspaper in the living room.  i remember my brother Jerry and i would run up to him and hit the newspaper, just to get his attention.  it would make him mad, but at least he was acknowledging us.  it was an interesting trap.  my dad was thrifty, but my mom said he was cheap.  my mom was spoiled and contrary, and my dad never said an unkind thing about her that i heard, consciously.  but i know he used to beat her when he was drinking.  my dad was a beating man.  not betting, beating.  slightest infraction, as i said earlier.  it was sometimes impossible to not get a beating.  and he would act as if it hadn't happened when he was done, which made the beating worse somehow.  however...i don't ever recall my dad being overbearing about my weight.  my dad forced us to do the things he wanted us to do.  my mom gave us choices in most things.  my dad tried to trick me into getting baptized in his church.  ammunition in the gun in the war between my folks.  my dad would throw amazing tantrums at the holidays when he and my mom would fight about whether we were going with him for Christmas or Thanksgiving or not.  she would cook so we could stay home.  my dad would throw the food on the floor, turn over the table.  its funny, how neither parent seems especially bad in light of what passes for parenting today.  all of us, all their black children, are still alive, in a land that murders black people without hesitation.  there's something to be said for that.
i have flocks of mosquitoes, apparently, in my apartment, because i'm getting bit the fuck up.  i did get to see my sponsor, he was doing better, looking much healthier and that made me happy.  i had a chicken sandwich and soup for lunch, i had salmon croquettes and california blend veggies and rice for dinner.  i've done the dishes, spoken to my mother, written over five thousand words today in Mechanical Jesus and i'm tired.  i've got the rest of the week for system's check, so i'm going to call it a night.  brain is weary now.

free fall

...i miss R.  this is becoming a theme.  i didn't hear from her last night, and i have no idea how she's doing.  i'm starting with that because i have a feeling i'm not going to hear from her today either.

it's sunday.  i woke early, drifted back off, woke again.  i said my prayer, came in the living room and made my breakfast while watching an old Dr Who.  fourth doctor, Tom Baker.  hated this show when i was a kid and this was new, but now i go back and realize the writing on Doctor Who was always pretty damn good.  i had two poached eggs with cheese sauce on wheat toasts rounds.  i started writing already.  i've notified one of the group officers, the other keyholder, that i won't be at the meeting today.  i feel it would be beneficial to write, to go through my paperwork, to chill.  i don't feel good or bad, i still feel a bit sleepy, but i doubt seriously if i'll be able to go back to sleep.  hasn't been happening that way lately.

i have to go to the store to get something for dinner.  waiting for Syd because if she's taking a lunch then i need to get stuff for that.  but only if she's actually going to take a lunch to school.  if she's not, then i'm not bothering, as its a waste of food and money.  five days until the month begins again for me, financially speaking.  i gave my dad twenty dollars on the tire he bought for me in august.  i will give him more money next month, pay my uncle back at least a part of the fifty i borrowed for Syd's ipad insurance.  i am glad i made it through the month.  i'm sure i could ask someone for groceries for the day, but i don't really think there's a need for that.  i think i planned better than i was aware this month, and i am grateful to my Father for keeping us secure.

i want to wrap up the first draft of Mechanical Jesus by the end of next week.  i know that i can, if i just stay focused.  i am laying a good foundation for a better future.  i feel that strongly.  i am, almost by proxy, readjusting my parameters of self-analysis.  maybe that's the reason for doing this daily.  you start to change when you get the thoughts and feelings out of your head.  maybe that's why society has been programmed for voyeurism and away from introspection.  because to sneak around, peering into other people's windows and lives prevents a clear vision of even the most obvious personality flaws; namely, being nosey and voyeuristic.  but that's neither here nor there.  i have to keep doing this, because it's making things better.  and that's the foundation i can appreciate, because it's the foundation i can build something sustainable on.

i decided on something inappropriate for lunch, but i've been doing so well i couldn't even go way out of the box, so i got kfc, which is disgusting, but the grease and salt were like ambrosia.  for dinner i went semi-healthy, with chicken cordon bleu, sauteed spinach with peppers and onions and garlic, and sliced roma tomato.  i heard from R finally, and was happier than i'm comfortable admitting.  although it is nice to have someone to look forward to, but it still means the set-up for the fall is in place.  i guess that is the risk of life on planet earth, isn't it?  you can't be safe and live at the same time.  life is the greatest progenitor of death that exists.  but all i can do is to walk with the assurances that i'm on the right life path, keep plugging away at the things that are important to me, and trust God that everything will be made clear in the end.
i spoke to Patrice, i heard two of my friends, male and female, got together for pizza and some conversation today, and that made me happy.  i'm going to go see my sponsor tomorrow, just for a quick visit.  i'm going to go see my uncle Tommy tuesday.  i'm going to stay in the day, however, because tomorrow is not promised to any of us.  but i have to remember that.  because the truth is, since it's not promised, i could go before either of those good men.  and if i do, i go with the question mark hanging over my head in regard to how much i could have made things better for them, since i've been mostly absent lately.  what's out of character changes as you make your character conform to God's will and the life happening around you.  that's my belief.
good writing done today, maybe four more days and it's done.  and i'm really going to do a painstaking edit on this one, as i have more at stake.  i think i am good.  i have nothing more to really add.  i didn't really do anything new today, so i'm not fabricating that.  but i am going to keep trying to find the happy thing every day.  until tomorrow, good night, and thank you, Jehovah, for a beautiful day.

pulse

Saturday morning.  i'm feeling pretty good.  it's been a good sleeping night, but it was broken about 130 or so, no real reason.  the relaxation sounds have been working pretty good.  i'm going to clean today.  living room, bathroom, bedroom.  then i can get some charcoal, grill those venison chops and see what i've got going on.  going to text my friend Bob, let him know i'm not going to the meeting tomorrow.  i think i need a day away from people.  a Sunday away from people, i guess.  

so, i had breakfast, made a pretty elaborate omelet.  still amazing what i can do with two eggs.  chicken, spinach, peppers, onions, mushrooms.  and a piece of toast with sugar-free jam.  i talked to my friend Patrice this morning.  just touching bases this morning.  i'm still trying to change some of my perceptions and hence change how i deal with some people.  right doesn't always mean better, i'm learning that.  just because i'm not wrong in feeling neglected, to react out of that feeling tends to make me more isolated than the neglect does.  so if i stay in touch, and keep the expectations at zero on the meter, i get what i need.  smaller doses, but some medicine is better than no medicine at all.  that is a logic that the poor and downtrodden will understand.  

i didn't talk to R yesterday.  i know she's having it rough.  i know she's thinking about me.  those are the cool things in the world.  but they're also the sad things.  i hate and love when i feel someone inside me.  i love that a person can mean that much to me.  i hate that i can go through ups and downs because i care about a person.  only because the downs have been so much deeper than the highs have been high.  but to know that a broken heart still beats with love, despite the cracks and fissures, it is good knowledge.  i wish i could spend twenty-four hours with her.  i wish i could go to bed with her and wake up to her.  but that's all in God's time.  i get greedy, i think hearts always get greedy, especially in a world like this.  it is a bad place and a bad time to live.  the world is a painful, scary, selfish and uncaring place, by and large.  wars are everywhere, people are needlessly starving and suffering, and progress and profit make people in developed countries stupid, boring and crazed.  how do you get to the point where you can actually feel good about living?  i am watching R going through horrible changes, for a human, for a woman, for a parent, for a spirit.  her resilience is amazing, but her pain is palpable.  i know she's going to be alright, but there's a reason they call it the 'mean'time.  it is a very mean time.  it is a time of pain and of madness.  and i cannot change that.  i am trying to be a respite in her storm, for she has surely been that in mine.  i guess that's what this is about today.  it would be nice to spend the blood moon with her.  

i have to go and plunge my mother's toilet.  cleaning begins after that.  so, more later.
okay, toilet was easy.  requisitioned cleaning sponges and charcoal from my parent's house, so the cleaning shall begin and the venison chops shall be grilled later.  but i was talking about a mending heart, i think.
i look at my face.  i can see some loss of weight there.  i am not the best gauge of this.  fat minds see fat everywhere on them.  but the other side of insanity is, i believe its just my imagination.  i don't go to weigh myself until the fifteenth of october.  that will be a month.  i'm going to do one weight per month.  that will keep me from concentrating on weight and focused on doing better things.  better things bring better results.  but i do have to learn to see, and i have to learn to let others 'see' things i can't.  and that involves trust.
so, where i am today is to just do the cleaning, do the writing, do the cooking, and stay out of the way.  because soon enough there will be a fourth step to categorize and inventory my food fiend sickness.  and that's going to take me to some very unpleasant places.  so i think for today and tomorrow, i'm going to get spiritually prepared, and hope for the best, and prepare for whatever, and stay in a zone, and maybe i'll even get to see R, and at the very least i'll get to talk to her, i'm sure of that.  and when monday comes, if monday comes, i will start on my inventory.  it will be a combination step 4 and 5, so that i can not duplicate the process and not have to live there for a prolonged amount of time, but i can get in, get it done and get out and get on with my process.  i know, i'm babbling.  i'll get with you later.
okay, confession:  i HATE not hearing from R.  its been about 3 days now.  i know she's in a bad place, but that's part of why i hate not hearing from her.  this has been a long day because i've spent it waiting to hear from R.  also because i really didn't have much to do.  bathroom and living room are done,just need to vacuum out here.  and the bedroom is still more about putting mail where it belongs and filling out the HEAP re-application than anything else.  but i miss the fuck out of R, and was hoping to see her this weekend.  but life will go on.  it always does.
i ate good today, not detailing.  i did pan-fry the venison in olive oil and a touch of butter.  that was good.  i love deer meat.  and i saw my mom, and i saw my dad and talked with him, and saw my sister, and i saw my uncle Tommy.
my uncle has Parkinson's really bad.  he's donig really not-well these days.  my aunt needed help with him, as he was very sore, in some pain in his hip.  i helped him stretch it out.  i got him to smile.  i feel so shitty.  i barely see him.  he was one of the most vibrant people you would ever meet on this planet.  he was an avid reader.  he was a cop.  he was a fisherman.  he was a photographer.  he was a mechanic.  he was so, so very many things.  he was a radical thinker (still is).  now he is on his back.  he hates his situation.  i'm fairly sure he doesn't really want to be doing life like this.  i wouldn't.  he tries to get out.  when he walks he falls.  he falls down basement stairs.  my dad just went by with his neighbor to put a lock on my uncle's basement door.  now.  why am i crying?  because if someone, a brilliant mind, trapped in a completely uncooperative and degenerating body continues to have bad, injurious, potentially fatal falls, why is it that no one speaks on the possibility that he is trying not to exist anymore?  i got him to laugh.  i have to get him a new book soon.  i'm a shitty person.  i don't see him.  i don't see my sponsor.  i guess that's another aspect of this belligerent little fuck that keeps trying to take the body control panel.  i can't take my mentors failing.  i can't take my elders dying.  it feels like that part of my life, like my schools and my stores and my favorite things that fade into the woodwork, never to be seen again.  i can't take that, or i don't take it well anyway.  hence, the avoidance.  but i guess i'll have to stop avoiding reality in that.  i love my uncle and my sponsor.  i have to do better by them.
these pulses.  they are like throbs in the temples of the head when a headache is imminent.  they're like a muted heartbeat when you're making sure you're not about to die.  they are the fingers digging into your wrist, seeking the pulse of life.  these are life pulses.  and as long as you feel them, regardless of how much pain you may be in, they mean one goddamn thing:  you're alive.  you. are. alive.  and the orbit continues.  good night.  

Pushing the Envelope, part 2

when you set an objective, it's a good idea to make certain your obsessive/compulsive synapses aren't firing at the same time.  i forgot an important part of doing this kind of journaling:  you have to accomplish things and give yourself credit for the accomplishments at the same time you're rooting around in your own spiritual graveyard.  i have been in heavy space.  i have gone down into the muck a bit further than i have before.  i was really sad yesterday.  and i cleaned out the fridge, got rid of some really smelly stuff, washed the drawers and the shelf, and have room for everything now.  i successfully blackened chicken thighs, though as everything, some tweaking is required to make it better and thus make it mine.  so today, i'm going to implement something that should have been in orbit with me all along.  and it's okay that i forgot, because i'm allowed to.  today, and on forward, i'm going to try to do something that i want to do every day, something that makes me feel good, and i'm going to include those things in my trip, so that i can look back and realize some of the things that have come as a result of the sacrifices i'm making.  so, let's start this right, okay?
woke up, said my prayer and nodded back out til 0545.  it was a sluggish morning, but that's because i had a nice video last night, rain fall for 8 hours accompanied by floating candles in random patterns.  good lord, that put me right under and the sleep was marvelous, relaxing and refreshing.  i woke up, again, and i got ready for the gym and to take Syd to catch her bus.  i put clothes away that i washed yesterday (when i washed my coffee cup drying mat, washed all my cups and put a clean set of coffeeware back on a clean counter) and i got trash ready to toss.  after i took Syd to the busstop i went to the gym.  i took it a bit lighter as my shoulder has been bugging me a bit and i mostly wanted to focus on that, but i did a half-mile at a decent incline on the treadmill as well.  i came home, and i did something i'm proud of.  I POACHED EGGS FOR BREAKFAST!
i know, you probably poach eggs in your sleep.  but i've always wanted to poach an egg and never bothered to learn.  there's a reason i'm mentioning this now.  i never bothered to learn because, like guitar soloing, it always seemed to be some kind of arcane magic.  i could see turning my fuck-up into egg drop soup, from my lack of belief that i could do it.  and the sad thing is, that's pretty indicative of my of doing things.  i was afraid, i'm saying, to fail.  and because i've been afraid to fail, i have been afraid to try.  and because i wouldn't try, i limited my knowledge and my skill set.  this has been true of my writing, of my art, of my love life, of my education, of so many things.  so it's not just a poached egg (or two, with a piece of wheat toast, 200 breakfast calories), it's a metaphor.  and it's the opening of the envelope i'm going to push today.
i started learning to cook as a reaction to the fighting that was constantly going on in my house of origin.  my mom and dad fighting over every conceivable thing, but the essence of it was a treated but neglectful recovering alcoholic trying to re-claim head of household status from a dysfunctional co-dependent with unknown issues and a need to not feel unsafe any longer.  that made everything a battlefield and every object (people, places, things, situations and circumstances) weapons and ammunition.  i hated their fighting.  i hated fighting of all kinds, as a result.  i would cry at the top of the stairs when they would fight.  i was far too smart for my own good.  i thought to myself, 'dad complains about things around the house that aren't the way he wants them to be.  if i make sure things are done the way he says they should be, then my parents will stop fighting'.  combine this with a food fiend mentality, or an obsession/compulsion with the numbing and soothing properties of food and you have a time bomb waiting to explode.
we had the big blue good housekeeping cookbook, at least that was the one i was most into at that time.  i would find a recipe, see if we had what i needed, and follow the instructions.  i made some horrible things over the years, but i would succeed from time to time.  i'd also watch my grandmothers cooking, and i would stay in their kitchens as long and as much as i could, trying to learn different things.  i was, by trying to help, maybe doing more damage than i knew, because my dad never did get to the point of feeling 'at least someone is trying', but to reason he would have makes sense for a child.  instead, i think he took it as more indication of my mother's defiance.  his second child in the kitchen, where at that time it was assumed no man was supposed to be in the kitchen anyway.  he would not eat what i cooked, good or bad.
admittedly, my fried chicken was horrible for a long time.  learning to cook a piece of chicken all the way through was work.  my dad, though he will eat things that i cook today, won't eat my chicken still.  i have no problem with that.  but i did.  i had to tell my dad, once, that he had to stop talking about me to other people like i was still in grade school.  that was within the last fifteen years or so.  eventually i just stopped cooking for him, and continued to experiment, because the other side of not being willing to try when you're obsessive/compulsive is that when you lock onto something, you're like a pit bull.  your jaws lock and you are not going to be shaken loose, even if you land in hell for your efforts.  i am a very good cook now.  my son keeps me humble, because he is a GREAT cook and a damn fine chef as well.  i know i'm getting better because i learn from him and he still comes here for my greens and sweet potato pie.  it's a nice balance.
its like when i lied in the first grade about being able to draw.  i had to learn to draw in order to erase the lie.  many people would have simply admitted they lied, or they would have just stayed belligerent despite the clear knowledge that they'd been revealed as liars.  but i set out to correct my lie, to turn it into the truth.  i don't know exactly where that came from.  i don't know why i couldn't just let it go and just be a guy who couldn't draw.  but up to the time i went into treatment for my drugs and alcohol, i drew constantly.  when i got sober, i stopped drawing for the  most part and began writing again.  man, i'm sleepy at the moment.  sitting here nodding off.  not sure what that's about.  like i said, i did get a good sleep last night.  blood moon this weekend, could be spiritual slumber.  i don't know, but i know i'm going to let this go for a moment, get back to it after a quick nap maybe.

i don't know what the problem was today, but i had no energy whatsoever.  it was really weird.  i mean, i did the gym, like i said, and i think that was kind of it for responsible things.  i didn't sleep, or maybe i powernapped for a minute or three.  but i couldn't get my brain engaged to do things.  but...i did a bunch of writing on Mechanical Jesus.  that counts for something, but i need to increase my physical activity as a catalyst for the weight loss to be as efficient as possible.  anyway, it was what it was.

its night now.  i am still tired.  i ate good, responsibly, and i wrote quite a bit.  i will get my cleaning done early tomorrow, because i want some leisure time.  it doesn't look like i'm going to see R this weekend.  she's holding steady, but things are still falling from the center.  i have no right to demand time if i can't offer any stabilizing elements to her life, so i don't.  but i miss her, and that is still a good feeling; that i can be so connected to someone that their absence affects my presence.
i think the part that gets me is that i'm not trying to find a stand-in.  i want R, and i don't want anyone in R's place.  i am without a doubt that i could have someone here, but it wouldn't be what i wanted.  i don't know what that is exactly.  love is already a given.  i have no issue with love.  it's the 'break your ankle and bone sticking through the skin falling into' love that i don't believe in anymore.  i guess it used to work for people, and i know it happened to me once, but every other time i 'fell' in love i injured my heart in the fall.  how's that for some profoundly disturbing shit?  and i don't even think its a mommy issue.  i don't need any woman to take care of me.  not even looking for an emotional surrogate mother for Syd, though i maybe should have thought on that a bit more.  i want a woman who's going to be there for me, who can be real and honest and firm, while being loving and caring,  who will have my best interest at heart, parallel with her own at least, because that what i will do with her.  these are selfish times, we're all sort of wrapped up in our own shit.  time to worry about someone else is not a priority in most lives.  and when we want to see other lives, we want to do it vicariously, like reality tv shit.  but i know R cares for me, about me and loves me.  i know that she has my best interest at heart.  were i to trip and break my ass in the fall into love thing, i'm fairly sure if she didn't do her Jackie Joyner track star run, she would be there to make sure i was okay.  and i don't really mind with her.  i used to,  it used to really infuriate me, but even that's just indicative of how much i care about her.  love is funny.

house is quiet.  i had a salad, soup and a yogurt this evening.  talked to Lonnie briefly, considering a new program that Amazon has to offer for actual publishing with contract.  i am going to ponder it for Mechanical Jesus.  i keep yawning.  its a bit too early for me to put on the relaxation vibe.  i am so digging that stuff.  i mean, to listen to waves or rain or just the wind, to let my body relax from head to toe and to let those peaceful sounds carry me into a solid sleep...its like a massage by a million faeries.  but for early cleaning, i guess an early night is not a bad idea.  i'm not done with the excavation, but i don't want to start in the heaviness at this time of night. think i'm going to find a good long vibe and just go under.  R will be in touch as soon as she can, and i'll talk to her then.  i feel good today.  i feel accomplished, because the writing was nice.  talk more tomorrow, promise.

pushing the envelope

good morning.  it's early, but it's always early somewhere.  i feel a bit sluggish today.  ate a mess of fish last night, and i'm feeling pretty guilty this morning.  as well, i feel the resistance was up earlier than i was, and i'll likely have a fight on my hands.
i don't like this site as much as the Blog.com, but that site is still not up and running.  this one is more for writing, but i think it was the ease in mixing media on the other site.  but i'm just trying to get the discipline back of doing this daily.  today, i don't have a thing going on, so i'm going to try to get back on track all the way.  i have to take a friend to a counseling appointment this morning.  but i'm going to clean my fridge out, finish my living room cleaning, get my bedroom together.  i want to start putting some real order to my home, because i'm trying to put some real order to my life.  if i can get my cleaning done today and tomorrow, i can do the serious chill over the weekend.  and that would be nice.
pushing the envelope.  significance is that i feel if i could get explosively honest, i could find the secrets.  i'm going to try to stay focused on that today.  as i clean, as i do life stuff, i'm going to keep writing.  intermittently and consistently, until i see if i've gone further than before.
i know that some of the stuff i've hidden is based on shame.  i'm not looking for that.  i've spent so much of my life being ashamed of myself, i've had that instilled so deep inside me, that i'm not going to bother with that for this part of the journey.  i know that a lot of my shame was religious in nature.  to be ashamed of sexual feelings, to be ashamed of pleasure, to be ashamed of not being everything that my parents wanted me to be, those things were based on belief systems more than on actions on my part.  there was also a lot of shame that came from others in my family.  my mom's mom often compared me (my brother Jerry as well, but this is my thing) unfavorably to my oldest brother Rick.  in most things, we were told how Rick would have done things, which was always better or different than we, or i, was doing them.  it may not have been intended as a put down, but it was.
but there's deeper shame.  shame is an internalized thing.  shame is something that comes from the deep part, the roots of a human.  guilt is something different.  guilt is like lotion; it puts the guilt upon its skin, and then it feels the pain again.  shame is an enema.  it may start outside, but it gets all the way into the guts, stirring up shit over and over again.  so what's in my gut right now?
food was a numbing agent for me.  it was also the only excitement that i felt consistently when i was young.  i would steal food though we always had more than enough, that i can remember.  i would open a pack of hamburger, scoop from the bottom enough to make myself a couple of burgers, then close the pack looking very much untouched and put it in the freezer.  i would volunteer to put groceries away so i could plan my secret meals according to what was in the bags.  i always felt that the flaws in me being fat were permanent.  when you hear your parents use that one small word when talking about you..."IF" ...two letters and whole words of separation.  'you'd be so handsome...IF...'.  you'd be so happy 'IF'...it was like fat was making me less a human, rather than more of one.  that's a sad thought.  i did feel like less of a human.  when i was playing, i'd be fine.  i could play and run and jump and kick and hit and throw like every other kid.  i was fast for my size, i was very agile, i was quick too.  but there was the pre-destined limitations of being fat.  fat meant you couldn't be considered as a receiver, though your hands were impeccable.  it meant you were going to be on the line, and not even a defensive back position was considered.  fat meant you weren't considered seriously as a basketball talent, though you had a real nice fadaway jumper.  but fat also went the other way too.  though i was very active, i wasn't about distance, not about endurance of one thing.  i couldn't do long running.  i couldn't do laps very well.  there is nothing that is more of an example of a shame enema than a coach jumping down from a tree, screaming at you because you can't run laps like the other boys.  and there would always be excuses.  i felt it necessary to make excuses for myself.  for my limitations, as if i weren't allowed to have any.  i would lie about dropping things and having to find them while running, when i was truthfully just winded from carrying more weight.  i was not weak.  when i say that, it makes something resonate in me.  i felt like i was weak, but i wasn't weak at all.  my first job was on my uncles moving truck.  i was around ten.  my brother and i became the grass cutters for the family.  it was how we made our extra money.  there was no weakness.  there was shame, there was guilt, there were lies and excuses.  and there was my older brother.
i don't know why he exposed himself to me.  i know he was laying on my parent's couch.  he asked if i wanted 'bacon and eggs' between his legs, that exact rhyme.  he then exposed his genitalia to me.  i remember it clearly.  i don't know what else there was.  i don't remember anything else, not like a blackout, just as having no further details.  i don't know how old i was even.  i just know that has not left my mind, where so many other things have.
i know i first tasted alcohol as a very young child.  my parents would have gatherings, many families did.  they had a fold down record player, and they would listen to music and drink and smoke at night.  one thing the movies have gotten right.  i would taste from the glasses left over in the morning.  i don't remember much about that either.  not like a compulsion, not like a need, just as a fact.  it had to be as a very young child, because my dad was done drinking when i was four.  so i don't think it even happened very often.

breakfast:

two egg california blend veggie omelet w cheese: 200 calories

one piece wheat toast: 60 calories

its funny, when you know a two egg omelet fills you up pretty nice, why do you still want three eggs and grits and two pieces of toast?  because you are addicted to carbs very possibly.  

i am thinking about my early years.  about having to apologize for not being perfect.  i remember when my mom came to my school once, just visiting, as parents used to do to check up on their kids.  i'm sure she was a PTA mom at one point.  i was spelling a word on the board and i got it wrong, which was rare but it happened.  that was maybe second, third grade, but whenever it was, i was completely demoralized by failing in front of my mother.  i cried in school, and when i got home, i got beat.  now, i'm pretty sure that the beating was for the crying, but even that is really unreasonable.  but that's the point.  we were a sick household.  whether the beating was for misspelling the word or for crying, there is nothing that i can say, as an adult, to justify that action.  

i'm halfway done cleaning out the fridge.  it needed to be done.  there were things, ARE things, living in there, things that were dead when i put them in containers and refrigerated them.  not to mention the horrible spills and stains that have been uncleaned for i don't know how long.  i don't know why i do this.  but it's part of what i'm looking at now, my relationship with myself and the world i inhabit.  

i am seeing that emotional turmoil triggers the eating response.  that has never really been something that i've looked at, but it bears some consideration.  case in point:  i just got a letter out of my mailbox.  well, a letter and a package.  the package was addressed to a male Thomas who doesn't live here...far as i know, though i kind of figured what it was.  but to be certain, and because it's not addressed to any of the 'known' residents here, i opened it.  and it is stuff for Syd, from a gay/lesbian/trans support group, i would imagine.  stickers and a rainbow lanyard and all types of gay swag.  however, one sticker that's included bothers me very much.  

now, i'm not a supporter of 'trans-gender' philosophy.  i don't believe it.  i think who a person sleeps with, chooses to live their life with and have a family and spend their important time with, regardless of what scripture or Republicans or any other source says, it up to the individuals in question.  i've believed since my early sobriety as my sponsor taught me, 'you can do anything you want, as long as you're willing to own the consequences'.  that's choice, and the freedom to do so.  but to be born in a specific body, with specific genitalia, with a particular chromosome count that gave you your particulars...it will always be, in what i know is just my opinion, a program that has been installed and run for the benefit of politicians, television producers and plastic surgeons.  but in this world, you can say you're anything and it's true.  woman says she's black, lives a black life, becomes president of her chapter of the NAACP and is discovered to be white.  immediately after that caught the public feeding frenzy, she suddenly became 'bisexual', and pregnant, and broke.  so she stayed in the public eye, with the possibility of a reality tv show somewhere down the line.  or this bitch who decided she should decide the parameters of her job by denying same-sex couples marriage licenses.  its just grist for the mill.  she doesn't care who gets married, she don't care gay or straight, and she don't really care about christianity.  she cares about the cameras that were on her, the politicians who were in her corner and her time in front of the mic, praising Jesus and forgetting her divorces that make her, by her own logic, a fornicator and an adulterer, deserving of being stoned to death.  

anyway...

lunch was a taco wrap, seasoned ground turkey with diced tomatoes cheese and sour cream, and half a cup of chili (as in an emotional state i spilled half a cup.  dinner was a blackened chicken thigh, boneless and skinless, a half cup of mashed potatoes and spicy cabbage.  my spicy cabbage has an afterburn to it that is nice.  if i do dinners for sale anytime soon that's definitely going to accompany the fish.

so, i talked with Syd about the package that came.  i never did get to the point with that, did i?  this is very hard writing for me, to be honest.  not just the looking at myself.  i know how to do that without much flinching.  but the nature of the things i'm seeing are very goddamned emotional.  like, okay, there was a sticker in the packet that said 'my allies are those who respect my pronouns'.  see, that's the era we're in.  and i can understand not allowing anyone else to put you in a box, but i can't understand just climbing voluntarily into another box and saying this is your freedom.  i'm old, maybe dumb, but that still don't make sense.  so i thought about the wording, and i thought, 'ally is an interesting term.  its a term that one would use as an identifier in a war situation.  like, the Allies in WW2 were the ones united against the Nazis, Italians and Japan.  you want your allies around you when you have to go into a confrontational situation.  and so i thought, what's the opposite of allies?  because i am not a respecter of pronouns.  i am a respecter of people.  i am a respecter of intelligence.  but i don't find it necessary to call my daughter, who has a vagina and goes on menstruation once a month, a boy.  so if i'm not an ally...that makes me an enemy.  the nazis were the enemy of the Allies.  

so i talked with her, and though she says that she understands my neutral position (which is exactly what i can maintain, because like abortion i have not had firsthand experience and therefore do not assume to preach or moralize, but i also will not allow the world to dictate policy to me.  i love the expression 'not my monkeys, not my circus', i probably wrote it backwards, but more than that one, i have my own in situations like this;  'i will not join your snowman league, i will not play your reindeer games'.  the snowman league is a reference to an old charlie brown serial, wherein he is told he cannot build a snowman unless he is part of a team.  and the teams get uniforms and banquets and trophies and whatnot, and they have rules (like illegal mittens) and charlie brown feels its stupid and builds his own snowman in defiance of their league and they've moved on to some new fad by that point.  my life.  charlie brown was a very heavy young man.  

VF has made sense of much of what i wrote early.  i can feel my inner child angry at this stuff.  my sugar, not high, is not in the low end range it had been, but i'm eating better than yesterday.  i'm going to the gym in the morning.  i'm going to push the envelope some more tomorrow, so it will likely just be part 2.  oh, i finished cleaning the fridge and cleaning out the fridge, and i washed all my coffee cups and the drying mat they sit on.  i washed my flatware yesterday, and i washed the countertop holder that was very filthy.  i am doing this because i find order in my mind when i manage to reduce the clutter around me, and because i don't want R to feel antsy when she's in my space.  i miss her, and i wish she had been able to come by today.  but life goes on, and i'm sure i'll talk to her tonight.  i am going to decompress now.  tomorrow will be here soon enough.  

...the heart of the natural satellite

well, it's an interesting morning.  Syd is sick, throwing up, so i called her off from school.  i woke refreshed, after a very good nights sleep.  i listened to thunderstorms for 8 hours on youtube.  going to have to remember that one for my nighttime relaxations. waking, i said my prayers, got into my shorts and gym stuff, went out and had a cup of iced coffee and water, blood sugar was 155, not bad.  then came the Syd thing and after calling her off school for the day i went to the gym to find it closed.  Yom Kippur, a Jewish holiday.  if i'd gone yesterday as i should have, i would have known that.  so i have to walk today.  my plan is to go to the meeting a bit early, set up, and then go for a walk before the meeting starts.  that way i kill two birds with one stone.  breakfast was two boiled eggs and a piece of toast again.  200 calories to start the day.

i have some things that i have to get down today.  in counseling, for a long time, VF would listen to me talk about a 'gray wall' inside my soul, maybe?  some place that was impossible to see through and impossible for me, unaided, to get through.  i took her suggestion that maybe there was nothing behind it, and that regardless, getting on with my life was a good thing, but i've come to it again.  it's not a questioning of VF's skills or her abilities as a counselor.  i do believe she's top notch, and the best mind-person i've ever dealt with.  but i am a metaphorical realist.  i am speculative reality in my outlook.  i don't believe in divisions between dimensions.  i believe if you squint enough, you can see eternity through your altered gaze.  and that's what keeps me coming back to this place.  to wit:

i noticed monday i was sabotaging quite a bit.  nothing heavy duty, just grazing all day, pinch and eat and pinch and eat.  that's a bad sign for me.  most of my destructive eating starts out that way, like the 'ex-smoker' who 'borrows' just one cigarette.  or the drinker who keeps going to the bar for coffee when its right next to a coffee shop.  i've done it before, in fact, which is how i know.  and my thing is, there's something that makes me do this.

i am the child of an alcoholic.  i am an alcoholic.  i am the child of a co-dependent.  i am co-dependent.  i am a product of my environment.  i was a very bright child.  i was too smart for my own good.  i built this wall of which i speak.  i built it for a specific reason.  like so many other things, though, i can't remember what i built it to hide, or to protect myself from.  but there were an abundance of things around me as a child to necessitate the building of a wall.
my dad's drinking, which didn't end until i was was four.  my dad and mom's fighting, my dad beating my mom when i was a kid.  i know my brothers likely have very clear memories of this, especially the oldest, but it's in my memory banks somewhere (behind the wall).  i know my mom was borderline abusive, in some of the things she'd say, but i don't recall many of them.  i remember when i asked her, as a junior high school student i believe, how i would look with my head shaved, she angrily said 'like a bald, fat fool'.  i know if that is there, other things must be as well.  behind the wall, most likely.  that doesn't mean that i think my mother is an intentionally abusive person or that she set out to hurt me.  i'm saying that a child would internalize something different than a grown person would.
i know my eldest exposed himself to me.  i have that as a clear memory.  but i don't have anything further as clear and defined.  i am not trying to crucify someone.  i want to see, and so i'm going to tunnel through, like a ship trying to get to the center of the earth, to see what's really there.

when i was very young, my parents fought constantly.  i believe a lot of it had to do with my mom having an issue stemming from being pregnant out of wedlock before she married my father.  i now wonder at the circumstances of my eldest brother's birth.  why would my mother continue on in a reactionary fashion fifty plus years after the birth of her child?  is there more to it?  was there something specific, like a rape, or an assault by a relative?  something so dark and so 'bad' that no one would ever speak about it?  it's possible.  secrets keep us sick.  that's what they say in the recovery programs, which has now become a common saying in society.  but that's my mother's thing.

i was sexual early in life.  maybe i should say i was a sensualist as a child.  i liked the feel of things.  i had no hesitation about running my hands over women's legs for the feel of their hose.  i liked to touch things.  i still love different textures.  i used to have sexual dreams as a first grader. that would have been at five years old, as i was advanced a year from kindergarten.  i had dreams about beating a woman with a belt in my parent's basement.  i had dreams of feeding a naked woman to dogs.  i had dreams about my first grade teacher doing a handstand.  i don't recall dreams of specific genitalia, so i don't believe it was anything other than some kind of basic porn that i discovered, as the cartoons that my dad kept in an old album cover.  i never found porn from my dad.  my dad had a book about sex that he used to try to teach the kids about sex.  i never got that talk but i did masturbate to the very real pictures that were in the book.  i remember the beatings.  not all of them, of course, but a lot of them.  beatings for accidents while playing.  beatings for accidents while at school.  beatings for leaving the cap off the toothpaste.  beatings because of not getting straight A's.  sometimes i think that's the genesis of the wall.  Roger Waters would probably agree.  "mother, can you help me build a wall?"
i learned to hide a lot of myself away.  i had to.  if i didn't, then i would have to be perfect.  perfection is a very hard thing to be.  perfect grades, perfect manners, perfect actions.  i had to lose weight because it made me less than perfect to be fat.  i had to be perfect on the piano because i liked to play piano.  i had to be perfect in school because it reflected well on my parents.  i thought, sometimes, if i could just find the real family that i came from, everything would be okay.  but i'm writing in circles here.  i am looking for me behind a large gray wall.  i am seeing sabotage in certain actions that may get me closer to the child feeling threatened. so the question is, what makes me feel so threatened that the system begins to shut down?

relationships used to do that.

i was made to feel like a complete freak as a young person.  a monster.  that is not random language.  i felt like a monster.  i watched Frankenstein when i was a kid and i immediately related to the monster's sadness.  i watched the Elephant Man, first movie that i ever cried at.  'I AM NOT AN ANIMAL...I AM A HUMAN BEING!'  i could have had that tattooed on my forehead.  it would have said exactly how i was feeling.

and i was a sexualized young person, as i said before.  i was about little girls in my kindergarten class, my first grade class.  i remember coat room antics.  i remember wanting to know the secrets that girls possessed.  it was often to my detriment as far as correction from the teachers.  but i don't think that was so much as all the ridicule.  i wanted to talk to girls.  girls mostly, like everyone else, just sort of laughed at me.  i had friends who were girls, but i always screwed something up in those friendships.  too smart for my own good.

its funny, yesterday i could see pretty clearly what may lie at the heart of this satellite, but today, it's sort of elusive.  what i'm going to do is back away, let the drill cool, and come at it from a different angle tomorrow.  got my walk in, got a meeting done, lunch with Lonnie, fish and soup for dinner and i'm feeling pretty okay right about now.

asteroid fields

i'm writing this entry on Notepad, because Blog.com is a really crappy site.  i have to build something else to journal on, because i don't have the patience to both keep records and wrestle with the website where i keep my journal, so i'm going to set up something else.  but for now, that's just one of the asteroids.

i've been orbiting now for nine days, if i'm correct.  i'm drifting farther away from my own gravitational pull, and i'm finding that most of the things i encounter by way of obstacles are things that i've placed in my stratosphere myself.  such as the crappy blogsite.  so, if you set up all types of detritus in your immediate air and bio-space, and you have to one day travel through those things, then you have to clear a path.  and, in truth, though i didn't look at it that way, that is the beginning of step four.

yesterday was a strange day.  i felt good, but i was listless.  i didn't want to keep track like i know i should, which is indicative of the child within me being fearful about something and being angry with me because he's not being medicated.  i would imagine, in the physical world, children become addicted to the narcotic adhd drugs they've been subverted into taking all the time, but i don't read much on that.  i don't know how to combat this.  i'm being honest.  i've never really tried before, never looked at things that way before.

yesterday i went to the gym, today i didn't.  yesterday i ate pork rinds and thought more in terms of how to lower my carbs on paper than on eating correctly for the results i wanted that day.  yesterday i turned my will and my life over to the care of God and i almost immediately lost track of that decision.  self-will is childish.  tantrums are childish.  forgetting promises is childish.  so i know, if i look closely, that my child is acting out.  i am pretty sure it is fear, as i said.  but what's happening that i need to be afraid of?

i am close to finishing both MECHANICAL JESUS and the screenplay, MURDERER'S ROAD.  i am seeing progress with the book sales.  i've been looking into having WAITING FOR JESUS put on as a play, looking into doing the play myself.  that absolutely engages the child in me, as that was one of my favorite things when i was a child.  when i was in grade school, i would be permitted to do plays for the class.  i would write them out, and get my friends to help me with them, and we would get to rehearse and we'd get to perform and i can't remember if anyone liked them or not but i remember i had fun.  but it didn't change anything.  i was still a tub of lard, i was still fat albert, i was still talked about and laughed at.  i think the drawing that i faked was a way for me to internalize my creativity, to express without being seen.  but i could start seeing some results; its not like i haven't been grinding for the last 5 plus years on this writing thing.  i'm 47.  i'm young enough still to do things that could prove successful.  i can see this as being extremely frightening to the person that i used to be.

i think everyone, every relapser who is honest with themselves, especially serial relapsers, can see a point where they hit a place, a wall or a hole or something, where they balk.  a place where they come up against an inexplicable thing, maybe, or a thing that they simply refuse to look at, and they go back to what's most comfortable, most familiar.  recovery from anything is almost absolute change, and that is a truly frightening proposition to most people.

for breakfast i had two boiled eggs, which was 140 calories, and a piece of wheat toast, which was 60 calories.  for lunch, chili, 270, with a roast beef wrap, 200, and half a cup of chicken salad, 200. 870 calories so far, but all meal, no in-between snacking.  i went to the tuesday noon discussion.  it still feels amazing to see how much conventional recovery has suffered from the unwillingness of addicts to read the available information.  if my opinion could save my life, then i would never die, cause i have opinions on everything.  but if i need to do a specific thing, i need specific information on that thing, and that's what is not being given out these days.  i continue, despite my self-will telling me i don't want to, because i am a recovering addict and my obligation is to God, not to humans.

i'm feeling out of sorts again.  i think it's the chicken salad, but at least it's gone now.  i got a cramp in my stomach like you wouldn't believe as i was riding with my friend Tina to the meeting.  i worry, i get pains, i get cramps, i take megadoses of potassium, my sugar's been good, up and down, and the child in me doesn't like the inconsistency.  but it's getting better, and i know that.  i am not going to fall apart, but i am going to do what i can to keep turning it over throughout the day.

so, dinner was good.  chip-less taco salad, 379 calories.  bringing my total to 1249.  not to shabby.  my blood glucose before dinner was 155, also not bad considering only took insulin in the morning.  i took 8 units of novalog, fast acting.  i had been, earlier this year, up to 30 units of the fast acting.  i was, in fact, eating myself to death.  that i am lowering both long and fast acting makes me happy.

i just backtracked and erased a line, because i realize i sound often as if i'm whining when i'm really not feeling whiny or bitchy or anything.  i am going to the gym tomorrow.  i have a foot doctor appointment tomorrow, and i have my noon meeting tomorrow.  i've not spoken to R since sunday but i'm sure i'll hear from her soon enough.  i have some money in the bank, some in my wallet, the writing is moving along just fine and i'll be done with both of my current efforts, first drafts anyway, by the end of october.  gives me a good start to 2016, and it makes the winter more exciting as it will be time to work on THE BOOK OF OLD LAZARUS.  but i feel melancholy.  it is fall. this means my bad season is coming.  last year it took me forever to get past November.  i don't know how long it will take this year, but i know i'm working on not being silent, not being still and not giving it more power than it deserves.  i'm trying to keep feeding the Tim in me that deserves to be happy and productive.  that's what the deal is.  

i think i'm going to try to turn in about 10 tonight.  i want to try the relaxation vid on youtube again.  it worked so well sunday night, but i just couldn't get under with it last night.  i really have to stop always trying to find better when i have good enough.  i also have to close my bedroom window and turn the fan on low.  i need circulating air, but i don't do extremely chilly or cold for sleeping.  i think i'm going to just leave things in the hands of my Father, and i'm going to turn on the auto-pilot and the asteroid destroyer and i'm going to float until the sky is clear, and then we'll start dealing with the debris left in my wake.  but for now, i love myself and i hope whoever reads this loves themselves too.