ramblins

it'd be easier to just give up.  i have to admit that.  in the admission, there is no give.  there is no surrender in saying that it would be easier.  there is just truth.  at times, i don't know why i'm doing any of this anymore.  coming upstairs, putting down vocals, putting in applications.  it seems that i have reached a point in my life of just being stuck.  yet, i don't know what else to do.  i wasn't raised to give in, but i taught myself through the years.  suicide was never not an option.  it was just never seen as 'the solution'.  it is, as it always was, seen as the MacGuffin of life, more or less, the 'god in the machine' answer when nothing seems to have a summary that works.  but i don't want that now.  i want something to work.  i want things to get better.  i'm willing to put in the effort, but i need to know something is coming.  i don't know if that makes sense to anyone else, but it does to me, and that's what's important, i'm thinking.

last night sleep  was miserable due to this gout/neuropathy flareup.  nothing is really helping, but i took something a bit more high octane today and i'm hoping i can get my chores done if nothing else.  i'm flailing though.  i hobbled to the bathroom this morning, hobbled through the kitchen, made the simplest of breakfasts, two boiled eggs and some instant oatmeal.  i did say my prayer, but it was so diffuse and scattered it was more the acknowledgement that was from the heart, because i can't even remember it now.  my dad called and asked me about calling a treatment center to see about work, but i'm not going down those roads again.  no fake treatment centers, no more walking jobs, no more physical labor.  i can do this:  i can work on my computer.  i am pretty good at data entry.  i type well enough (blogging aside; i don't bother with proper grammatical structure for my thoughts, cause that's not how they sit in my head, in case anyone wondered).  i can read, proofread, i can edit.  i can deal with customers.  willing to get a landline phone if need be.  but i'm not going to keep walking on this pained foot or ankle or leg just for money that is all temporary anyway. and, truth is, if i make it for just five more months, it eases up significantly.  but next month is going to be tight, and april is new license as well as tags for the car.  so knowing those things, i keep searching.  but not for a treatment center to work in.  and they like women for those positions still; a fat black man with no teeth and a lack of smiling capacity is not really the first face one wants seen for their corporation.  i can't blame them for that, either.

i'm going to get my trash out to the curb today.  i'm going to call my mother shortly.  i'm going to shave and groom, shower this afternoon, get myself together to minimize my morning activities tomorrow.  i have my meeting tomorrow if they've finished the floor at the fellowship hall, so i want to be ready, or able anyway, to take care of business there.  and i don't really have much else i have to get done today.  try these vocals again later.  maybe do some composing, see what else i can do.  but, an easier day of nursing this pain, while i hate the sound of it, is not the worst thing in the world.  the guy with no leg wishes he had my pain if it meant he had the leg to hurt.  perspective is still paramount.

thank you, Jehovah, because this pain is not killing me, and i am getting stronger by dealing  with it.

wistfulness in november

this is one of the summer pics that i asked Rachel to take for me.  i was looking to get my sense of being an author reestablished, in the wake of all the losses i'd incurred over the course of a few months.  there wasn't a lot of satisfaction in the pictures; i didn't get many suggestions from Rachel.  it's just funny how things become clearer as time goes on.  i miss her, not in a diminished amount, but in a different capacity.  i wish i had my friend around.  but i can see further how much distance she was maintaining at this time. 

today i have to get some supplies.  i'm running low on daily coffee, as well as milk and eggs and shit.  it's okay, i have the money for these things, but i don't have much more than that.  i got up feeling okay though.  and that's despite some fairly pressing things to deal with.  for starters, i have to talk to my dad about the roof over the downstairs bathroom.  the leaking is pretty heavy now, so either the thing is getting worse or the heavier rain is revealing the amount of existing damage.  but it is as a colander at the moment and that's not going to work.  i also need a printer, because i have to be able to print some of the documents i'll be working on soon, and writing things out longhand print is not my cup of tea anymore.  but that's peripheral. 

i didn't find any apps this morning, but i'll check the vindicator online later, when i return home.  i'm going to check on my parents and i'm going to hit Aldi's while i'm north.  i also need to get that switch put on my heating system, but i have something else wrong that i need to get checked out and need to consider what to do about that as well.  it's the nature of things, i'm not weeping about it.  life in this particular time in history dictates that unless you have an abundance it's likely you don't have enough of something that you need for real.  but you have to be able to survive regardless, and that's what i intend to do. 

regarding the picture.  i cut it from the center of a picture that i wasn't crazy about.  it's not the weight at all, so much as the composition.  some people feel editing is a cheat, but i'm not in agreement with that.  it was a color picture, heavy shadows in the face and the foreground.  i cut out the figure and with some gamma correction got a lightening of the features and changed the shadows appropriately.  because life is what it is, and the tools that we have are all the instruments we've got to work with.  i'm not unhappy with it now, and still have the original because regardless of my perception of where Rachel was at the time, she took the picture and it will always mean something to me because of that alone.  so, we make do with what we have, and we change the perspective and it becomes something we need.  that's my mantra for today. 

thank you, Father, for life today. 

Dinner With Friends

today was one of those strange days.  so many turns to it, so many different elements, it's just easier to sum it up as strange rather than try to figure out what made it so.  but the devil, as they say, is in the details, and so, the journey commences. 

i am still off as the residual of the daylights saving nonsense.  but having taken the gabapentin to try to dispel this pain in my foot that has gone nowhere, i slept deeper than usual.  not longer; that would have been nice.  but i woke, early and groggy, spending a lot of time on the side of the bed, hurting.  but i said my prayer, with some nodding, and i got coffee started, and that was the big part of the morning.  i read my books and took my meds and i had a breakfast sandwich and started some greens as i was planning a sunday dinner for myself.  i went to the office and put in a couple apps and did some music and got my composition almost ready for vocals, and i came back downstairs after a while and got dressed for the meeting.  it was said to be a warm day today, but i didn't let that fool me into dressing for spring. 

i sat at my kitchen table and wrote out a long hand printed letter to the club where we have our meeting.  the gist of it is this:  we've been there for over a decade now (time flies, don't it?) and we've paid out 75% of our donations for rent, as per our agreement.  it's steep, but when you don't get many people, it's helpful.  we've had space provided for our books, as we are a book study 12 step meeting, and once our books were stolen from an unsecured location, we were provided a locker for our things.  this arrangement, with little variation, has lasted for quite some time.  recently, however, we've been moved out of our locker, we've received no receipts for our payments of rents in months, and we're feeling, by and large, pretty unwelcome.  the officers of the meeting have been silently bickering about the right path to take on this issue, so i said i'd step in and get things started.  i texted the club secretary earlier this week, asking if something was going to be done in any measurable time period, to be told it was unknown when we'd be provided with more space.  so, i wrote out my letter.  it wasn't anything confrontational or demanding, but it was asking for someone to contact us about our concerns, so we can decide on a course of action beneficial to our membership.  responsible.

well, our treasurer was in a foul mood today and went off on the secretary for a spilled cup of coffee and left the meeting.  but one monkey never stops the show; the meeting went on, and we got the letter signed, sealed and delivered with our current rent payment.  all we can do. 

i talked to my friend TP today, but she was on her way to work.  i talked to my mother, she sounded better than she'd been lately. i think the concert did her some good.  i told her i'd be by tomorrow, and i will.  i talked to Lonnie finally, and he invited me by for dinner.  though i've been in pain today, i accepted, because i wanted some interaction with other humans.  it was a nice evening, and the food was good.  i stayed several hours and i came home just recently.  i feel okay, think i'm going to go upstairs and start working on these vocals.  i have no complaints except a bit of a headache.  felt very stuffy earlier, so it may be a cold trying to come back on me.  don't really know.  i catch a lot of hell internally lately.  but if you have a day where you get done what you need to get done and get to spend the end of it with friends, it ain't a bad deal in my opinion. 

thank you, Jehovah, for friendship and love. 

disrupted sunday

upon tiny feet, sunday approaches.  not the usual sunday, but a sunday that shall hiccup in the conscious mind of most Americans, a blink and an hour gone and disruption of activity and a week of confusion that will follow as body clocks are out of whack.  one of the greatest testimonies to the absolute stupidity of daylights saving time is this:  i've never heard of one individual who has a body clock that automatically adjusts to the change of the clocks.  if this were a natural thing, the internal system would respond accordingly, and you'd best believe that.

but this is saturday.  saturday is not daylights saving.  today i got up with prayer, after sleeping a sound, un-binaural sleep, as i'd spent yesterday at my parents and was exhausted by the time i got home.  again, the natural adjustment...i was AT my parents', and i CAME HOME.  these are new feelings, adjusted to by the nature of the situation.  regardless, i got up, got it started.  i had chores to do, and i got them done with the exception of bringing my clothes up from the basement, but that's going to get done tomorrow.  i had said prayers, read meditation and scripture and taken medicines.  i had breakfast and after i did my cleaning and took a shower, i went to the stores to get the few supplies i could and came back to make myself lunch.  before i left, i'd worked on some music and was working out some chords for a guitar app for the song i've been working on.  i didn't find anything to apply to, but that will happen on Sunday.  i didn't do dinner, as i had a bag of chips in the evening, and i made myself half a peanut butter sandwich rather than cook.  just needed some moderation. 

i talked about Syd's expectation in counseling yesterday, and i've been in touch with her over the past several days.  she's going through some heavy morning sickness, but it comes with the territory.  i'm still not feeling one way or another about it.  i've no real idea of where she is mentally or emotionally, or where Joe is for that matter.  i only know that at least she checks in, and that's all i could really ask for for the past several years, seems like.  didn't talk to Chris much.  i know what the deal is, but it's not for me to say.  its enough for me to have someone checking on me, and i can have expectation should i choose to, but its enough to be grateful for what's been provided for me.  so many gone now,so many i don't hear from at all.  i just leave it where it is. 

my mom and dad went to a music venue yesterday, a lot of old doowop bands down at Stambaugh.  i'm glad they went, my mother said she had a good time and there's no question that my father did. 

i am grateful.  i took gabapentin this evening, so i'm going to find my video for the night and slip under sleep.  thank you, Jehovah, for keeping me on point today and always. 

RE: formation (get it?)

...currently, I'm on the north side at my parent's house.  I've been here most of the day, and will be here until around 11 this evening.  it's only for the purpose of seeing them through their outing tonight, but it's a time of some reflection for me.  I'm not unhappy about it.  I'm really not.  I'm more content at the moment that I likely would have been had I not come here.  I guess it's because I've gotten some things done that were very necessary, got some things started that needed to begin, and I'll have some things in place that may just make the whole job hunting thing a better experience. 

Before I left home today, I checked my bank balance, as I always do on the 3rd of the month, that is when my disability comes in.  I saw that it was short money, and looking into it I found it was probably because I didn't reapply for Medicaid this past month. I didn't reapply because Sydney is grown and gone, and I have never one time received an 'approved' response for my own application for Medicaid.  but I imagine it is some bureaucratic thing, wherein they actually use some technical form of Medicaid to defray a part of my medical costs.  Regardless of the reason, the point is that I was far outside of my financial expectations.  And that means it's going to be a pretty tight month. 

But I didn't panic.  I didn't feel like the walls were immediately closing in.  I felt a flash of anger, a brush of irritation, and then I felt, thank you, Father, for allowing me to tend to the things I had to pay at the end of last month.  And I got on with my day.

What have I been doing today?  Well...

I reapplied for Medicaid, with my new address, with my current information, in a new county.  I don't know if it will make a difference, but it is necessary in order to know.  Syd is already taken care of, having submitted her own application for herself and her expected child, so I only have to worry about me.  I also changed my contact information with the Social Security Administration, so there'd be no further confusion there.  And I updated my resume in my cloud, and completely re-did my resume with the Vindicator online so maybe some of the jobs I've been missing out on will start to respond with a legible, readable resume to peruse. 

I'm about to take my parents to their show, and I'm going to find myself something to eat here while I'm waiting for them to finish.  I am cool with it.  I feel pretty good, a bit of a pain in my foot but nothing I can't deal with. 

I am grateful to my Father for the blessings of the day. 

in the morning...

friday morning now.  i missed yesterday, not for any particular reason.  my Chromebook computer is working on blowing up, literally.  lack of ventilation, the casing is warping, something inside is overheating.  i need a new laptop, but that's going to be a minute.  my desktop, of course, is in my office, and i didn't feel like climbing the stairs, so i didn't come up to write in the afternoon.  that's the story, the one that i am endorsing, anyway.

but, yesterday was okay and it was frustrating all at once.  getting up, i prayed and i got it moving.  i'd had to put a bucket in the bathroom to catch the rainwater, the rain was so heavy.  gonna have to tell my dad about the roof there, before the thing falls in, but i'll get to that.  anyway, i did my meditation book and scriptures, had my coffee and water while i took my meds and i got myself together for the day.  i was heading north to a mechanic to see what was going on with my heater.  i mean, my car is actually two years younger than my child, so what can you say except things fall apart, right?  but while i can deal with no air, no heating is not a good thing, as the weather gets colder and i am in need of a defrosting unit.  so i made my way north, warm day, just rain.  mechanic checked it out and said it was the switch in the dash, little wheel thing on the right, that needed changing.  he said he could do it and it wouldn't cost much but i had to get the switch.  and whatever he was messing around with under the hood, he managed to do enough that i got the heat on, so i went off to return later for him to get the thing done. 

i went to my parents, as i'd not eaten breakfast and was hungry.  i got there and my mom was in what seemed to me a very confused state.  she was talking but it was very low and she was sitting in her room.  i made her coffee and started working on breakfast.  i made enough for myself and my parents and my aunt.  i talked to my mom who had a doctor's appointment that day, and i talked to my dad as well.  i'd talked to Chris and to Syd earlier and also had spoken to Chris throughout the day.  just to log events accurately.  but dealing with my mom made me kind of sad. 

i went on my hunt for the switch after that, which is when the day got stupid for me.  i went to O'Reilly's first, and got so many different 'opinions' on what part i might need that i ended up leaving, almost going home.  i was there for a switch, and they seemed to not have one.  and they wanted to sell me a bunch of different things, and some redneck mechanic came and checked my heater and said something else and go to the junkyard and just replace the whole thing and i was ready to go home.  i talked to Lonnie and he suggested that i just stay focused, as i'd need to get it done.  i circled back around and went to autozone, and i got one 'opinion' from the guy at the counter, but he found and ordered my switch.  that was enough for me though; i was already thinking of splurging and getting food and i'd just eaten breakfast, so i knew it was frustration.  i went home and i read some and actually napped.  i spoke to Chris one more time, and eventually i got to work on my dinner about 430.  i made steak and a baked potato and some sauteed spinach with onions and mushrooms and peppers.  i had dessert afterward, and i cleaned my dishes and got things together for the next day, coffee and whatnot. 

so it's friday morning now.  i've gotten up, done my morning stuff, worked on a song that is slowly being constructed, and i'm going to see if there are any applications i can put in on indeed.com.  i have counseling today.  i need to eat something, but i'm not feeling cooking right now.  so i'm going to get dressed, grab something along the way and get this day started.  things in the evening i have to do for my parents as well, so we'll see how it goes. 

i am grateful, as i've had time to spend with my family lately, and i am in far less pain that i have been.  thank you, Father. 

run on day

i guess today was sort of a continuation of the previous one.  i didn't do a lot of new things, but i got some things done, and had some other problems that have to be worked out.  life goes on, right?  i am grateful for having the breath in me and the life in me to encounter those things and to write about some of them later, cause everyone can't.

i got up just about 6, seems, and i said my prayer.  i went in the kitchen and got it going.  i made coffee and did my readings and lit incense and drank a cup of mud and one cup of water.  i made myself some bacon and eggs and had them with my leftover rice from last night.  i went upstairs after that, put in an application, cleaned out an email box, got clothes put away from sunday and took it a little easy for a bit after that.  i didn't have a meeting today, as they're reportedly retiling the floor at the Fellowship Hall, so i was going to do lunch with Lonnie and had until about 1pm to kill.  i talked to Chris (text), and i took a shower and got my head and face shaved.  i got rid of some game apps on FB as it's time for me to start thinking more about my art and my work than my playtime.  finally it was time to go so i left out. 

that was one of the first things i discovered; my heat wasn't kicking on at all.  i think it did the same thing last time i was in it, but it was colder today, and it was bothersome.  i picked up Lonnie and we had Mexican for lunch.  i took him back, went to UPS again and dropped off the headphone set and the tokens Amazon sent me to do the job they'd hired me to do.  i had stopped at my parent's house before that but didn't stay because my windows were fogging over quickly and with no heat, no defroster.  i called my mom and let her know i couldn't come by and asked her to have my dad call me. 

i got home and jumped back into my shorts and tee shirt.  i tried to work on some music, but a call to the gas company to find out about a new bill that just arrived in my email today despite paying a bill laft friday.  i got it explained as best they could, and then i couldn't focus on the music anymore.  i came back downstairs and rested and just messed around on the computer.  things got done as the got done, i guess i'd have to say. 

it's seven-thirty now.  i've had a light supper.  i'm passing on dessert tonight.  i'm going to shut it down soon.  i have to go north again in the morning, see about a mechanic.  i need someone who works cheap and is close, though it should be warmer and i guess i should be able to see out my windows.  i'm tired, though.  a good tired.  i did some things, and should God bless my eyes to open tomorrow, i'll do some more things.  i am grateful, i've been blessed today.  and i say thank you to my Father, for seeing to my needs as He always has.  run on