pulse

the week begins.  i slept a solid sleep and woke about four-thirty, alert and refreshed.  after fucking around a bit online, a bad habit that must be broken, i said my prayer and got dressed for the gym.  i saw R had been up again last night and may have still been up so i sent a good morning.  got back a good morning and a notice that she'd been having a rough day emotionally.  i sent love and support as best i could and went to the gym after catching a bit of Richard Pryor's 'live on the sunset strip', still one of the finest comedy performances ever done.  mostly because, a lot of people don't realize how much emotional pain Pryor revealed in that bit.  if you've never been addicted to freebasing (or smoking crack) then you may not be able to relate.  but i was and am, and i could definitely feel his recollection on a visceral level.  anyway, i went on to the gym, got a mile in on the treadmill (thanks, toti) and did some reps on some weight machines.  i got home to the coffee pot just finishing brewing for the morning and i had a cup of coffee and a big glass of lemon water.  my blood sugar was 169, a bit high, not high enough for me to change my strategy of insulin intake though.  i am going to call my endocrinologist as R suggested, make sure i'm doing right things.  as well, i am going to put in an application for the 911 dispatcher again.  i may not get it.  i know what went wrong last time.  i know i had things on my record that shouldn't have been there, things i knew nothing about.  i am hoping, i am PRAYING, that everything is clear now, but if its not then at least i'm putting in effort.  i found a corruption in Open Office, so i can officially apologize to toti about the loss of Mechanical Jesus, and i can actually thank him because this re-write is so much better.  i feel good.  shoulder is sore, and i can still feel this cold laying in wait on my ass, but that's just life on life's terms stuff.  you can't do anything about five minutes from now, because in five minutes it will have retreated back five minutes.  existentialism...

return to the food/calorie log:
breakfast -
2 boiled eggs - 144
1 wheat toast - 69
1/2 cup grapes - 60
total calories -273

not a bad way to start the day.

...and then...

well, the food log is shot to hell.  i went to lunch with my homie, and there went calorie counting and all that shit.  i am really having to look at what my adult mind is trying to do.  i got good results last month, but i'm riding on two wheels now, and the vehicle is four wheel drive, and that's a problem.  i had bunless burgers and some eggplant spaghetti for dinner, but the point is i have to monitor it all.  i can't relax, or i can't get lax, rather.  because if i do, the result is out of control eating, food fiending, and back to the insanity.  i think part of the problem, as it would be if i were observing such behavior in a drug addict or alcoholic supposedly involved in the working of the program, would be a lack of willingness to change.  I have a chance to make a big difference in my own life.  i know the sacrifice must be made if the next level is to be reached.  but i keep losing momentum.  the next thing will be just gorging on chips, or not writing except as an afterthought.  approaching that already.  discipline isn't something you get and have, like a nickname or a social disease.  discipline is something that must be reinforced every day, or one becomes undisciplined, such as it were.
i went to lunch with Lonnie.  had a decent lunch, good conversation. i came home, did some writing.  i saw Syd in from school and then out the house with a friend.  i ate early just to get it out of the way.  i didn't check my level, just took my fast acting and had dinner.  i did some more writing.  i did the things i needed to do today, and that's good, and i give toti the credit for that.  but i have to get back on point.  not because i have to be anally rigid but because the more rope you give me, the more elaborately i'm going to set out to hang myself.  that won't always be true, but it's true right now.  and right now is what matters the most.
i hope i can allow myself more clarity tomorrow.  thank you, Jehovah, for a day of learning.  

mind-fields

this is a lazy day, all the way around.  i was going to go to the Kingdom Hall, but i didn't feel it once i was up and into the day.  i had breakfast and i wrote in the book and i filled out more of an application to turn in tomorrow and i said my good mornings, and i guess in an hour or so i'll get ready for my meeting.  i feel a bit wistful today, a little nostalgic.  i'd been thinking about my ex-wife.  we split up because we were going to end up killing each other, though that's not the reasons i thought at the time.  she was, and likely is, very wounded, but she didn't know how to deal with her wounds and i, in my 'know-it-all' way, wasn't much help.  i left her after 3 years of a relationship and after 3 months of marriage.  but that's not what i was thinking.  honesty is everything, after all.  i was thinking about how she had gotten with someone i sponsored, because his woman and i went to columbus on my vacation.  fact is, his woman ended up being Syd's mom, but that wasn't the intention.  i don't know what i wanted, to be honest.  i wanted to stop fighting, but that's not the same as wanting things to work out.  i wanted her to learn how to be herself, to let go of her pain, but hell, i didn't even know how to let go of my own.  i spent a lot of time as a younger man just going through the motions.  and when i saw how she was with the guy i sponsored and the people in the meetings had turned on me, i stopped giving a damn about program people.  maybe i still don't give enough of a damn.  after my ex-wife and Syd's mom, everything sort of changed in me.  it was practically the same relationship, except one had a lesbian focus.  and ended in a child.  but i no longer felt that i wanted to have groups of people in my life.  groups of people have more than their share of bullshitters.  i don't know.
anyway.  today has been sedate.  i did get to my meeting.  i ate, i napped, i fucked around on the computer.  i had a sugar of 199 this evening, after a pumpkin roll that R left over, and so i took a higher shot of my fast acting, but not the long acting.  tomorrow i go back to logging food and calories.  tomorrow.
i talked to R about some things i had theorized earlier.  thinking about the evening yesterday.  i realize that the 'hurt people hurt people' cliche, clever though it is, has its power through the subscription that people give it.  hurt people who recognize their hurt are capable of bringing something different to the table, if they are capable of acknowledging the fact of being hurt.  if their desire for something substantial and healthy is greater than their fear of being hurt again.  every single person who has lived longer than a year, i think, has a mind-field, very like a mine field.  life gives us the mines, and we bury them in our minds, from the surface of conscious thought and recollection to the depths of sub- and unconscious autonomic action and memory.  we get hurt, and we set it in our memory banks.  we experience trauma, and we set it in our memory banks.  we grieve, and we set it in our memory banks, and if it is painful enough, it has triggers and is laced with explosives and we do it to protect ourselves from a future that seems determined to kill us, or at the very least make us bleed emotionally and maybe even physically, a bit.  and when we encounter people, new people, we try our best to allow them the newness they deserve, but the mind-field has already been laid, and they have to run a gauntlet, blind and without the benefit of the map that we ourselves have forgotten most of the details of.  they have to come through the dangerous field of our hurts, pains and fears, and they have to risk being destroyed, that part of them that wants our friendship, our love or even just our respect and association.  and the question becomes...is that person worth it?  is the person we're trying to get closer to worth the pain that may come from running that gauntlet?  Hurt people protect themselves.  hurt people don't want to be hurt again.  some people who have been abused become abusers.  but many, many people who have been abused go so far in the other direction that they become overly permissive with their own children, for fear of becoming the abusive parent that they had.  so, is R worth the chance of being blown to smithereens?  is R worth the likelihood that she will leave me a twisted mass of mental anguish?  that's a damn good question.  for now, the answer is yes.  but change is the only constant in the universe.
tomorrow.  thank you, Father, for this very thoughtful day.

recalibrations

saturday morning.  sugar was great waking up, 128.  nice nice.  i woke slow, but not rough, and got up late, which was cool.  spent most of the night talking to R.  so waking after 7 wasn't too surprising.  had breakfast with my brother, talked about family things and upcoming holiday things, and am getting ready to clean and write.  i am feeling pretty good, not sluggish, alert, aware, and ready to do the things that i know have to be done today.  i guess that's about as good as you can ask for on a cold autumn saturday morning.  

i have to do some re-calibrations.  i plan to start digging again on monday, but that's the first recalibration.  i'm not going to dig for a cure, but i'm going to excavate for knowledge, which will lead to the facts about the past, which will allow me to rechart my future.  does that make sense?  i feel, at this time, i have been sort of on a guided rocket, but i've never understood until yesterday that i was just as responsible for the launching of that rocket as anyone else in my life.  i set parameters for the course that i'd been on.  i went along with the mission outlined in the dossier, and i actually made changes that made it more arduous.  i was the one the pushed the button, though others vied for the privilege.  easier way to put it is, thank you VF for helping me see how i have worked to program MYSELF for a lot of the pain that i have experienced.  it makes some of this 'inner child' work hard as fuck, because IT MAY NOT BE MY INNER CHILD WHO HAS BEEN THE SABOTEUR, BUT THE ADULT THAT I HAVE BECOME IN MY NEGLIGENCE OF MY OWN BEST INTEREST.  a child can't make decisions to not finish his education, but an adult can make a childish decision to do so.  a child can't just refuse to learn things that assertive adults seek to teach, but a passive/aggressive reactionary adult can 'forget' or 'un-learn' things that they know for the sake of being a victim, a martyr or abandoned along the way.  and if this is true of me (IF) then it could be true of so many others.  i'm not stating this as a fact; i'm stating it as a hypothesis.  i can test it, and i will, but first i have to change the parameters of the control.  i have to have a different criteria, and i'm not sure what that is just yet.  i'm so used to feeling a certain way, and i was certain that i was being sabotaged by toti, but more than likely i was sabotaging his efforts to move us forward.  (i know this is starting to sound like a personality rift, but i don't think of toti as separate, aside from the presence of the wall in my spirit.  i think of that part of myself as in need of an identity at this time so that i can hear the different messages that i've both integrated and am trying to integrate, and so i can tell what is coming from my intellect and what is coming from my emotional center.  that's the core of the toti references, to anyone who may read this and think 'this mothefucker's losing his goddamned mind!'  that's already happened.  i'm working on restoration now.)
unexpected evening.  got my cleaning done, R made arrangements to come by, though i picked her up.  my black beans and rice were pretty damn tasty.  it was a learning day.  it was a learning visit.
first static:  car on at gas pump.  me:  don't care.  R:  problem
second static:  black beans, vegetarian.  me:  that's how its done.  R:  problem
we had some words over the gas pump thing, and i'm pretty sure that's what my lack of real approachability was this evening.  but, the whole 'car can't run or start if you're pumping gas' is just mythology.  i can't really get how a person seemingly so nonchalant and confident can be afraid of so many different things.  but, we got through two movies.  oh, right.
third static: applications.  me: let's get these filled out so i can drop them off monday.  R: didn't do it.
i think toti is just letting me figure this one out myself.  i guess that's cool enough.  it was still good having someone to watch some movies with.  BROKEN, with Tim Roth.  great movie, i'd advise it.
okay, busy day tomorrow, got to hit it and get my ass in gear in the a.m.  thank you, Father, for a good, good day.  

refracting pool

so...beginning a new month.  beginning a new day.  both are significant.  but this is about moving forward, so i want to make sure i draw the distinction between the two.  it's not a restart of a month, so much as i continue on this journey.  my projected orbit time is a year, so i am only one/twelfth completed.  but at the same time, each new day brings with it a new focus, a new perspective, and therefore the need to journal continues.  i believe tomorrow, during my cleaning time, i am going to continue my systems check so that i can get back to the work at hand, but for now...
i think i mentioned yesterday that i've lost nearly fifteen pounds.  that is a good job, and i thank my inner self for allowing me to see the wisdom at our disposal.  but that's not the entire picture.
see, a year ago, i was shooting between sixty and eighty units of Levamir, a long-acting insulin, into my body in two installments.  i now do one shot of 20 units of long acting.  i was shooting about twenty to twenty-two units of Novolog, a fast acting insulin, about three times a day, and now i do between 8 and ten units, twice a day.  my sugars had been as high as the high 200's, now they're about 140 on waking.  what i mean to imply is it's movement in the right direction.  and i didn't convey that yesterday.  and i don't know why.
today i had two scrambled eggs with a small amount of cheese and a piece of toast for breakfast.  breakfast is still a good eating time for me.  i don't mind the egg reduction, and it gives me what i need to start my day.  when i still feel the hunger, i can now clearly see that it's not toti that is craving.  it's the grown, self-centered, self-indulgent, spoiled and scared adult that i have become.  it's such a chore, trying to figure out who's actually behind that damned wall.  but, it's one month in.  in a year, the picture will be much clearer.  i need revelation and not precognition.
for lunch i had a hamburger, yay!  i found the bread the ladies at the diabetic education class were talking about, the light bread wherein two slices are 90 calories and constitute one serving.  it was good to have what i wanted.  wish i'd gotten some soup to go with it, but we enjoyed what we ate.  for dinner, i made an eggplant spaghetti with orange, yellow and red pepper slices, onion and mushrooms in a red sauce.  i have to work on my eggplant for the consistency of the eggplant itself, but the dish was very tasty.  made a nice side salad to go with it.  i ate my last muffin and had some sugar-free jello.
i had counseling today.  VF was sad because of things in her life.  i always feel a bit more sedate when she lets her armor crack just a bit.  i also feel bad to an extent, as if it were me that evoked this sadness.  i know that's not the case, but even though i am a self-saboteur, i am a care-taker by nature.  i am blessed to have her in my life though, because she is intuitive and very accurate in her assessments.  it helps to have a counselor who actually pays attention and feeds back with authority.  weak counselors are useless to just about everyone, my opinion, which means nothing at all.
i washed clothes.  thats all i managed to do today.  my landlord came by and tried to get me to buy into some kind of pyramid scheme thing, Primerica.  that may not be fair; it may not be a pyramid scheme.  i do remember, though, in Columbus while i was in my job drought, i applied to them and they wanted me to buy licenses to begin to learn their thing, which was sort of sucky since i didn't have money and if i did, i wouldn't have been at primerica in the first place.  but there's a lot of people who do that kind of stuff.  i don't feel compelled to venture into that because one thing is for sure.  when you know people are seeking out the poor and the struggling to sell their party favors to, you know some kind of bad things are going to follow.  but that's neither here nor there.
after counseling i came home.  i got the Awake and the Watchtower from two brothers who came to call on the next door neighbor.  i will probably go to the kingdom hall on sunday.  early meeting, at nine thirty, so i can do that and my CA group.  i had wanted to start cleaning but that didn't happen.  so tomorrow.  cleaning, a walk, writing.  and i have black beans in the crock pot for black beans and rice for tomorrow.  that is happiness right there.
what i have to remember is this:  patience, progress and perseverance.  i am not in a hurry.  and i am doing much better than i sometimes believe, and much MORE than i sometimes acknowledge.  i have some good things happening.  but i tend to look through the refracting pool, where close up things seem far away and things across the waters seem close enough to touch.  it's important to be able to just say, 'enough is enough!'  sometimes, that's all the situation requires.  sometimes not, though.
i guess that's it for today. above all else, i am blessed.  Jehovah, thank you.

new day

well, we're going to get back to the good stuff, action wise anyway.  it is cold this morning, and i had to turn the heat back on.  i love sleeping in a chill, but waking up with a flu is not fun and i have no wish to repeat that.  i woke rough, which is another side-effect of sleeping in a chill, and i haven't gotten to the gym today.  gonna have to take a walk later, do a mile, get the time in.  i took five extra units of long acting insulin this morning, not because i'm doing bad, but because at the class they reiterated the long acting i'm using should last 24 hours, i am going to see what better coverage i can get with enough long acting to keep me on point, with proper diet and exercise of course.  so i have to get ready for the last diabetic education class, and i'd like to grab a cup of coffee before i go in.
i got a shower when i got up, after my prayer.  i had two poached eggs, a piece of toast and three pieces of cheddar cheeses for breakfast.  i am thinking about going to the Playhouse with R this weekend, see a production i saw in the Metro.  gotta take a dvd back to the library today.  it seems, at times when i read this stuff, that my life is really, really...BORING, and ordinary.  but then again, i have to get back to working on my books, i have to gather information as to why customers in their particular demographics enjoy reading my books so that i can pass that on to the person who's helping me to promote my stuff, and i have to see what i can do about a cover for the book of old lazarus.  so its not really completely pedestrian.  i just do things, everyone does.  i worry about money still.  i'm waiting to hear back from the lady from the Clinic about the recovery coach position.  i am moving in the right direction, so even if i don't get the whore position at the Clinic, i will still be working again soon.  that's one of the side projects of this trip.

i'm having a problem.  i am glad tomorrow is counseling.  i did get a weigh in, and i've lost 14 pounds so far.  my insulin is down, way down.  why do i feel like i want to run the other way?  i have to figure out why i'm slipping and get back on track.  nothing much to write tonight.

One Month In Orbit

...well.  this has been interesting.  I didn't realize until this morning that it's been a month since i began this journey.  i think this is going to be a review type day.  it is an awesome and scary feeling.  i know that when i started this i had big year-long plans, but they quickly simmered down, as a boiling pot does when you turn down the heat, into one day at a time.  and in that respect, it has been pretty good.  the ups and downs have been kind of amazing.  what has transpired in the course of a month?  what does it indicate for the future?  but enough marination...

quick today update:  i woke up, prayed, had breakfast.  sugar is okay, took my meds and insulin.  i'm taking Syd to bus stop and myself to the gym.  another day of diabetes education.  another day, maybe, with R.  still feeling out of sorts from yesterday, but i believe this has turned from a dance to a boxing match, albeit one of those long, drawn out defense oriented boxing matches.  i think maybe therein lies the problem.  more on that later probably.

september 12 was when i began journaling but it was on the 14th i began eating more responsibly.  in fact, i was rigid, and i was logging all my food intake.  that is a habit i am going to resume tomorrow, as i have been pinching more between meals and my meals haven't been as structured as they were in the beginning.  i don't have the discipline yet to just eat completely healthy because i should, therefore i have to keep being the guardian of my own best interest, as really everyone should.  counting calories and watching carb intake is not a punishment.  being sick and incapable of simple activities is not a punishment either.  both will feel like a punishment but it takes a mind of reason and increasing discipline to understand that there are privileges we abuse and consequences we bring upon ourselves.  this is the reality of 'doing what i want to do, all the damn time'.

i started the journey in proximity to R.  i am still in proximity to her, and i have no regrets about that.  i am seeing the fading away of some of my female friends, and i know that is giving me a tendency to try to place more gravity around R, but the truth is, she is what she has been for the last couple of years:  a good friend, a woman who loves me, an auxiliary mind, a kindred spirit, an outlet for my lustful inclinations and the woman i most enjoy spending 'extraordinary' time with.  in some ways, she has given my so much more than i ever thought she would, and in some ways, she has given me so much less than she is capable of.  but...the same is true of what she's given herself, i'm sure.  the same is true of what i've given myself, i know for a fact.  so there is no blueprint.  there is just a day added to another day.  we'll be spending the morning with each other anyway, and like Talking Heads said, "nothing is better than this...or is it?"

i've seen family issues come and go.  before i began this, Syd had run away from home.  she was doing things that were very counterproductive in her own life.  she is still doing things that are counterproductive in her own life, but she is also acting a bit more responsively.  i don't want to take credit away from her, but i know she doesn't, at this time, have the skills to lead her own expedition in her life.  she is too busy trying to find where she fits in to actually make decisions for herself.   it is harmful to her, but in the long run, she will have to own the results of the choices she makes, as we all will.  but i am trying to be more hands on, as with the realization that a child, even a teen-age child, cannot always make the decisions they need to make, and they need help.  whether the can admit that to themsevles or not.  the time to take hands completely off will make itself known, i am sure.

time to start motion.  more later.

quarter after 8 in the morning.  i've dropped off Syd.  i've done my workout.  only walked a third of a mile, but i did strength work today and i'm satisfied that my elbow is holding up well enough.  i am going to get ready for diabetic class, and i'm pondering a good lunch for the day.

i'm still thinking back over the month.  i've had times of so much inconsistency it has been ridiculous, which is prone to ridicule.  but ridicule is bad for toti.  i have to remember that a part of me translates with a child's ears, and therefore messages can't just be left floating for the inner me to try to understand through a haze of pain.  i have to consciously translate for him, and that increases his understanding and his maturity.  toti is coming along as well.  i don't mind getting up for the gym.  i don't mind the walking, or the attempt to walk,as this morning.  i don't stay in my bubble, apart from everyone else.  i speak, i laugh, i've made an amend to a woman whom i took for granted her comfort at my constant remarking on her height, when i would feel like shit at a constant, even if playful, remarking on my size.  translations are dangerous without proper interpreters standing by.

I'm drinking lemon water.  i don't know about all that 'it sweetens the water' crap the woman was saying yesterday.  it tastes like a lemon immersed in cold water.  fortunately, i've grown to like that taste.  i look at the day now, with anticipation of events rather than dread at having to do something.  i believe i'm making progress, which is a big part of making progress.  and i want to go back to the 'defense oriented boxing match', so i don't forget.

people say Floyd Mayweather is a boring boxer, though he is undefeated in his championship career and will likely retire as such, if he doesn't get stupid at the end.  the reason he seems so boring to most people?  his defense is impeccable.  he almost cannot be seriously hit.  his father, uncle and trainers have instilled in him an understanding of the ART of boxing.  its not just punching the shit out of the other guy, its not getting hit as well.  so in his riches fight of all times against Manny Pacqiauo, or however you spell his last name, he made a bazillion dollars for not getting hit,not hitting very much and retaining his title.  that's the deal, and like lottery tickets and unprotected sex, win or lose, you get what you get.

R and i have a history of friendship, intimacy and distance.  she has faded from my life for years, because she's gone into pits of depression and not been willing to be reached.  she has been as intimate with me as any woman ever has.  she has said she doesn't want a relationship as she is still discovering who she is.  but she has said she 'loves me to death'.  she's comfortable in my space, but she has yet to really invite me into hers.  she is contrary as a habit, but we get along despite our many differences of opinions.  she thinks emotional content in men is 'weak', which may or may not be her playing, because when talking to her about the lack of actual emotional support in my efforts to grow and set a foundation, when i began crying she was up and holding me without hesitation.  there are huge discrepancies in her dealings with me, and i'm fairly sure there are huge discrepancies in her dealings with herself.
but.
i dont' push, though i say i do.  i don't because i don't want her to run, but if she does i've become able to deal with it.  i am afraid of being vulnerable, but my heart is compromised because i do love her.  i have times where her sarcasm irritates the shit out of me, but i am a sarcastic motherfucker.  i have about two steps on her in case i need to cut and run, but i won't take them, despite all the red lights and klaxon horns sounding in the distance.  we are both full of discrepancies.  we are both on defense.  we both feign, parry, dodge, back away, fake punches, shuffle our feet, it looks pretty, it's kind of exciting, the anticipation, that is.  and then...

so, that's what i mean.  i don't have a conclusion to draw yet, as i have to get ready to roll.  but i am going to get back to that when i get back to this.  time to get dressed.

the diabetic education class was sort of irritating to me.  i guess it was just the information that didn't seem to be taken seriously by most of the class.  but i think that's more my problem, and an issue that i need to work on.  like, people are always childish when it comes to stuff that scares them.  diabetes is a very scary thing.  i remember when i first contracted it.  i was afraid i was going to die.  i'd been weeks and week exhausted, dry mouthed, super-thirsty.  i was undiagnosed and getting worse.  i actually put together the symptoms and put it together for my doctor, at which time i began treatment.  but when i was in for the class, i was afraid.  i didn't know what to eat, or if i should eat.  i didn't eat that morning, and i took insulin and it was the first time i had bottomed out.  i thought i was going to die again.  diabetes is as scary as anything else i've had to deal with.  and though i tried my best to absorb every scrap of information the dieticians gave us, not everyone did and at that time, it was okay.  now it is irritating, because i've got a better handle on it.  but it's important to remember that everyone has a beginning, everything has a timeline.
so we're here, R and i, and we've had salad and cranberry ginger ale, diet of course, and i've not touched her or kissed her or spoken of anything serious yet.  i'm still contemplative.  i guess it's just the month, it makes everything seem more necessary to analyze for some reason.

evening now.  i took R home.  i went and had coffee with my friend T.  i went to see my mother, to discern the matter of some payments that apparently hadn't been made to some accounts she has.  i could only find that nothing had been paid out from her bank, but i couldn't do anything about it.  she was in a not-good space when i got there, and a worse-seeming space when i left.  i'm not ever happy when i leave someone feeling worse than when i came, though i do it deliberately at times.  this wasn't one of them, though.
syd is gone, i've had my dinner, a concoction of several scraps of things thrown together and seasoned with some heat added, and it was tasty and filling.  i am feeling a bit of a cold creeping on me again, but i'm doing pre-emptive strikes at this time.  i'm going to try to write for a bit, put some things down on paper, get back to a story because i need to work on one, and i'm going to try to make it an early night.  i've got things to do tomorrow, a good deal of running, and it would be nice to be refreshed and ready for it for a change.  a new month begins in the morning.  i thank Jehovah my heavenly Father for the good month passed.

...by any other name

well, i finally missed a day, completely.  i don't know why.  i had it in mind to do this several times yesterday, but i didn't.  i don't believe it's any kind of issue, i don't think it's indicative of any particular thing.  i just don't remember being distracted by anything, i don't recall any particularly bad things occurring.  i guess it was just the sequence of things that happened yesterday.  i am on my way to a diabetes education class with R.  i will continue this when i'm done.
so, i started yesterday at the gym.  got up at five and hit the gym by five thirty.  got in a good forty-five minute workout and then got Syd off to school on time.  i ended up at my mom's house early because i had to get some things for the dish she asked me to make.  had a conversation with my mom about her and my dad and the issues they've been having lately, the same issues they've had for all my life.  it was very sad, because it brought about some realizations that i hadn't had before, and left me wondering if i am actually able to be any kind of catalyst for change.
after i left, i went to the store, got some other things and went home.  i worked on three different dishes because i had to fix what my mom asked for, as well as dinner for syd and myself.  i was tired but my mind kept running over things that my mom had spoke about.  her having my oldest brother and the tumultuous relationship between herself and her mother.  her relationship with my dad and how she didn't get with him because of love but just to escape her mother's home.  the early years of my dad's alcoholism.  there was a lot of stuff that was leading me toward what i wanted to know, which was about my brother's birth and the possible emotional scar that may be keeping her from moving in any other direction.  but i didn't want to push too hard, as sometimes what you seek to pry can break, and if you don't have the tools to repair something you shouldn't fuck it up.  sort of a street level Hippocratic oath.
so i finished the day with talking to R, eating my meat loaf, finishing the cover for Mechanical Jesus and posting a preemptive flyer on Facebook.  i put on some relaxation sounds and crashed out hard.  i woke this morning rough, didn't make it to the gym, i got breakfast, took a bath and got ready for the diabetes education class with R.  we had a discussion on latent sexuality which was interesting.  we seem to be able to range across a great deal of topics without reservation.  i enjoy that in a person.
we met at the hospital and sat through the first day of diabetic education.  there were things that i learned, things that i feel i could modify in my insulin intake to get better coverage and results.  we left and got lunch and came back here.  we ate and went through some job stuff to put in applications for R and get her resume together.  i am enjoying the time we get to spend.
there should be a 'but' here, but i don't want to put one there.  i still don't have the entirety of R in my life.  we are both going through things, and it's not the most conducive situation to be romantic in, but for both of us, this is the life that we have, the time we have to share, and the things we choose to do.  i don't force emotions upon her, and she hasn't forced them upon me.  i just want to be able to know she goes as deep down into this thing as i do.  and yet, if i get too intrusive and ask, i'm afraid she'll run.  and one thing i do know about love:  you should not have to spend so much time worrying about the validity of it when you're trying to invest in it.
i am finding myself snacking more often.  i am approaching my time for a weigh-in, and i don't believe i've lost any significant weight.  but i'm feeling better, and my mind is sharper.  i just need to re-calibrate and move forward.  gym tomorrow.  R tomorrow, diabetes class.  it's going to be what it's going to be, and my only real choice is to go through it to see how it turns out on the other side.  i'll let you know.