FeelsBadMan

The aspects I desire of you
You find abhorrent in me,
Which fits in my mind
As a key to a lock,
But maybe not
The lock.

Fuck. Ok.

Discovering that you're a giant pussy is so fucking important.  Really glad this happened before turning 35.  Thinking about it and recognizing it I see the metastasizing effect it has had on almost every aspect of my life.  I called it being sensitive, but no, it's worse than that.  Being a pussy has been a total cancer.  Everything gets to me.  Affected by the world constantly I'm finally affected by myself.  This should be good.  Yeah.  No doubt in my mind.

Drunk Corner

Upside Down

If I am to be honored
Which I most definitely
Am not to be
Do not think of doing it
In the days leading up to, during, and after
You are about to put me underground.
That shit is bullshit.  I have gone.
I'll never hear it anyways.
It's not for me, anyhow.  It's for you.

On second thought.
Go for it.  Don't care.
Dance the days away.

getting past

Last night I texted a friend just to tell her I don't have any friends.  What a fucking joke I've become.

It's been a little bit since I've posted in here.  That's the way of things though, for me at least.  I feel like there are a lot of people who don't have the problems with inertia and frustration that I do.  Some people seem like they can just get up and go, right from the start of the morning.  I've never been that way.  It's a struggle just to get out of bed.  Everyday.  Throw on top of that an unhealthy dose of attitudinal saltiness and I wonder if my inertia isn't a benefit to the rest of the world I might encounter.

Struggling for the bright side but if you squint hard enough it's right there.  I can't explain it more than I already have without sounding like I'm throwing a pity party or being unreasonably harsh on myself.  But just trust that there's a bright side.  Even if you're not always in it.

Maybe cars are coffins.

Today, on my way home from work I was nearly run over by a car.  I was nearly run over by a car as I was crossing the street, in the rain, after work, at the job I've been employed at for 8 years.  An old man, with distinguished, white hair nearly killed me with his nice car as I was crossing the street thinking to myself "what is my dharma, am I fulfilling my dharma, how will I know once I find it?"

I've been reading the Bhagavad Gita and listening to Ram Dass's commentary on the book lately so dharma and the fulfillment of it has been on my mind as of late.  Aside from the Dharma Initiative in the show LOST I never really thought about that word much.  But the idea of this cosmic duty that is personal and real strikes a chord in me more than any other spiritual mode has in a long time, maybe ever.  And I can't help but think that this near miss with the old, white haired, man wasn't some kind of wake up call or punctuation mark letting me know that my questioning is valid.

So what is my dharma?  Is it to write?  Make music?  Continue being a business analyst?  Is it to love?  To have children?  To play Hearthstone?  Is it something I've never even encountered yet?  Can it change over time?  Today's dharma could be music and expression, tomorrow's could be rest and contemplation, no?  

I'd rather not continue to almost be run over, but if another sign from the incarnation of my spiritual guru could be delivered that wouldn't be so bad.  Perhaps my awareness just needs fine tuning... 

Maybe the only way I'll really know is if in every action that I partake I inhabit that action fully and perform it to the best of my ability.  Even if that action is inaction, whatever it is I'm doing I need to do it without worry and without expectation of result.  I am not the doer but the vessel for action and as I sift through these daily actions the dharma of each individual action can be fulfilled and the truest, best action will shine through.  Hopefully. 

I think Doogie Houser invented blogging.

I noticed that the height of my blogging activity was in 2008.  It's picking back up again.  2008 was the worst year on record.  There's most likely a correlation.  Can't stop.  Won't stop.  Calling the cops tomorrow.  Filing a worthless report.  Hopefully renter's insurance can cover.  F words.

just because you have separation anxiety don't mean they're coming back

The cat is still here, alive and guarding the house.  Though she did get out once on me already.  Just a few minutes ago, in fact.  I was on my way out the door with my laptop so I could enjoy the night air while doing a little writing and she ran out right through my legs.  I yelled, she rounded the corner and stopped.  I picked her up and she hissed at me almost all the way back into the house.  But she's fine.  She just really wants to be out.  I feel for her.  I wish I felt more at ease about letting her be an indoor/outdoor cat but there's just too many cars and other cats around here.  Plus people tell me that there are still assholes out there that kill black cats?  I didn't know that was a thing outside of the Salem witch trails days.  So my paranoia coupled with my total lack of faith in her physical capacity to run from an oncoming car (i.e. she's a fat house cat) keeps me from letting her out and thus every once in a while I have to put up with having to chase her down.

Maybe I am too paranoid though.  It struck me tonight as I was talking to my friend Steve about the incident last night, how I was convinced that the bike thief must have kidnapped Under and was torturing her inside a cage in some hellhole of a St Paul basement.  Hearing my crazy thoughts actually come out of my mouth and then seeing the reaction on the other person's face helped bring me this realization.

I could just be bored with an overactive imagination.  I think, though, I do have some separation anxiety.  I don't know if it started when my mom passed away but I can tell you it's definitely become more pronounced since.  Maybe that's why I'm always looking forward to solitude because there's no risk of separation.  On one hand it doesn't make much sense, because what is the fear of separation besides the fear that whatever or whoever you're separating from won't or can't come back?  There has to be more to it.  Maybe it's the act of separation itself?  The cutting of that tie is what hurts the most perhaps?

But I feel like the paranoia is a separate issue.  Separation anxiety just plays well off it.  It's like the imitation butter oil topping on the $8 bag of popcorn at the movie theatre: free of charge and may very well kill you.

That's a shitty joke.  But it came out in this flow and fuck it I'm keeping it in there.  I love writing in this thing again.  I'm pretty sure no one is reading it and that, in a way, makes it almost better.  I can just do it and not have to hear about it from anyone.  Not that that would be a bad thing, it's just a different thing.  But whatever, this feels good.  And this night is a good night.

Stolen Bikes Type Faster, or How I Learned to Keep Worrying Until I Found My Cat.

Well, I was going to write about how lately I've been really fucking down on my life and where I'm at as a 34 year old single man.  I got my laptop, changed the coil in my stupid fucking vape pen, went out to the porch and my bike is gone.  That's two bikes I've had stolen since I moved up here.  One in Minneapolis, one in St. Paul.  One for each of these fucking towns I guess.  Fuck.  I don't even know why I bothered to call the police.  Fill out a report online.  Sure.  That'll get 'em.  I guess I could've had an officer come down but no, not in a good state of mind or sobriety for that.

On the bright side, this thief kept me from writing something entirely way too self absorbed and melodramatic.  I mean, in my head as I was pre-writing this I had it all planned out so that it wouldn't be heavy handed or a pathetic cry for help.  I wanted to take a very matter of fact look at some honest feelings I've been having lately but now, mostly I just want to punch something.

So now if you're reading this you probably feel culpable in some regard.  Like, "shit... I should say/do/think something.  But don't do anything because there is nothing to do.  Because you've been there too.  We all have.  I think it's natural.  I mean, for fuck's sake, we live in a world where people's bikes get stolen right off their goddamn porch, probably when they're home.  I have no idea.  I could've been downstairs watching The Wire and some kid walks by, sees my bike on the porch and makes a go at it.  Smart kid.  Stupid me.  I'm glad the cat is safe and they didn't take anything else.  I should move the other bikes inside.

It's probably not a big deal.  I'm just depressed because I'm lonely.  Not a big deal.  What's weird is I look forward to solitude so much and then when it's finally here shit gets dark.  Fitting that in the midst of my self imposed yet bogus solitude I unknowingly had a visitor.  Did my negative, bummed out, alone-on-a-Friday night vibe attract this criminal to my doorstep through our shared kismet and bad karma?  Or was this my spiritual guru manifesting itself in the form of a bike thief to wake me up out of my self pity, to stir inside of me an awareness of the outer world and that no matter how badly I want to be alone I never truly will be?

Either way, I shouldn't have been keeping my bike behind an unlocked door.  I think I'll go visit the heavy bag downstairs.

::EDIT:: Ok... so, not entirely sure if the cat is safe... she's nowhere to be found in the house.  I've walked all over the neighborhood calling for her.  I'm freaking out.  I can't believe I didn't notice she was gone right away.  I could've sworn I saw her after I noticed the bike was missing.  Maybe I didn't.  Fuck.  I don't know.  I'm the worst human alive.  I don't know where she is.

::EDIT NUMBER 2::  SHE'S back and safe!! And I probably saved the life of a neighborhood cat.  So I'm awoken to a sound I'm only accustomed to hearing indoors: the blood curdling, high pitched scream only little Under can make when she sees another cat.  It is unmistakable and unforgettable.  You feel it in your spine.  And I felt this even though it was coming from the alley.  I quick throw my clothes on and rush outside calling for her and I hear it again this time much closer.  I see a small cat like shape run past me and out into the street to the other side.  Not far behind is Under's fat ass in hot pursuit, chugging along as best she can.  I yell her name and she stops and runs towards the house and runs under the bushes.  I had to wait for her to calm down but eventually she came and sat by me and I took her inside for a second dinner.  Not so much as a reward, but as a precautionary measure in case she ever gets out again.  Had she been in any better shape we'd be short one neighborhood cat.

What an exciting, terrible, awesome night we had.

Turf Snub

Tough calls over places

I could never see again 

And by places 

I mean people 

Going there

Getting lifts to where 

I'm probably not wanted 

Dead and dried out trees 

Full of booths 

Full of folks and punks 

Donating side glances 

To more than the corner 

Of my eye.

This is a post I never published from a blog I never started

From 10/24/13

Gradually, over the last several days I've been actively weaning off my SSRI, the generic Zoloft, sertraline.  I've been on this thing now for at least several years.  I started off easy, just 25 mgs.  Eventually, after maybe 6 months, it was upped to 50 mgs.  For the last year I've been on 75.  I asked to be upped to 100 mgs but my doctor suggested trying 75 first.  I didn't think that a mere 25 mg boost would actually do anything so I was a little skeptical.  Hypocritical, I suppose, once you consider I had no qualms with the two 25 mg boosts I had already received previously.  Just one of those things, I suppose; you don't mind so much when they're handing it out but any hint of a pullback and you blink a few times and begin to question the intelligence of a person who went to medical school for 8 years.  

But I went along and ended up sticking with the 75 mgs for an entire year.  Which brings us to the here and now where the prescription has run out and I'm still trying to get in to see a doctor.  This scenario isn't anything that's taken me by surprise and I'm not compromised by negative financial circumstances.  I just need to find a new doctor.  My girlfriend and I moved to a new city and if you combine that with a natural talent for procrastinating you'll arrive at the spot I'm in: out of meds.  

I did see this coming, obviously.  As I said earlier, I've been weaning myself off this medicine.  In actuality, though, it's probably been for more than just a few days.  I cut back down to 50 mgs well before we moved which was at least 3 months ago.  I want to get off this thing eventually.  I don't like that it works so well.  I appreciate that it works, I like that it works, I love what it's done for my overall mood and well being.  But I want to feel this way on my own.  And if that's hubris so be it but there's practical aspects to this feeling, not just ego.  

Well, I'm no longer on the SSRI.  And I no longer have a girlfriend.  Not sure if there's a correlation.  Maybe a small one.  But I'm writing again and I feel interested in myself for a change.  That's kinda nice.  Happy Independence Day.  

Not like this. Not like this.

Out of understanding
Unending reverberates
a center and a point
Two nascent triangles
sub dividing
Their way past sky
And void, away
from songs and shivers
Sheets that flowed as rivers
Where the timbre of being
Does not ache
In our heart
To a cold coda
Of check-ins and intentionally misplaced
Charm.  There is no harm in a circle
and confusion is not a hurdle.
I welcome whatever
Will not gather.