Baby I’m a man and maybe I’m a lonely man

TPB

I haven't been sleeping much. I'm working the hours of two full time jobs in one and still falling behind. I'm underpaid, and I've got to figure out how to fix my car, get it smogged and registered, pay all of my bills, pack up my apartment and move, all by Saturday. I'm coming down with tonsillitis too. Today, at work, I felt the urge to shout out "I quit" and smash my keyboard against the desk. Yes. Petty violence sometimes *is* the answer.

I'm not sure if it's the stress from work, the being broke or something else, but I'm falling back into a mode of missing Mimi or, at least, of thinking about her a lot more recently. I find myself resisting the urge to call her, or wandering around parts of town where I suspect she might be. I tell myself that these are places that I like to go and that I shouldn't change my life around too much just to avoid her. There is some truth to this. Some. I even saw her drive by with her girlfriend this past Saturday while I sat and looked out of the window of a record store. It's didn't bother me as much as you would think.

I've met someone else, yes, though she's far away. I don't want to compare, because comparisons are useless. You can't line two people up and weigh them like a housewife come to market. You can measure how you feel about each one, or felt about, and use that as your guide. Is this one not to be as big a love, as much of a dying game, or is it that I've lost the ability to feel that way-- burnt it right out of me. You can only stick your hand in the fire so many times before there's no flesh left to burn. Really, it's the awful anticipation before you thrust it in that gets you. That, I do not miss.

Snapshot

It's not that I can't sleep, but that I don't want it to be tomorrow.

Life isn't bad, in fact, it's pretty good right now. Considering how hard I work at it, however, it doesn't seem as good as it should be, which is exhausting. I need a 3 week break from life...

...or something.

That sounds pretty winy, but I think maybe you know what I mean. Do you know those times when you just feel like your holding too many things up at once? You can't seem to get ahead, no matter how hard you work. You're in a holding pattern with your life. Yeah, holding pattern... that sounds about right to me. I'm not in any trouble. I've got enough to live and be comfortable, but I just can't seem to get ahead, or catch a break.

I hate to admit this, but in the end, it's coming down to money. If I had it, I feel like I could buy my freedom. Yeah, I know. Freedom comes from within. We make our own choices. I know, I know. And I have decided to stay and to work, but I'm trying to buy something now with my stress and long days. I'm trying to buy equity in a certain amount of experience and marketability that will help me later...

I think sleep is fast overtaking me. The above looks nothing like I actually feel and says nothing that I actually want to express.

Have you ever just surfed this thing?

WOW

People are so intensely fascinating and varied.

Cat's are weird too. I say this because one is sitting in my doorway bobbing it's head up and down and tentatively nosing around.

I want a slice of pizza with a intensity of yearning that is normal neither for a Sunday morning, nor for bread products in general. I'm off to see what I can do about that. After, of course, I say hi to kitty...

Crescent

Oh yeah.

When I got home last night, I felt a little lonely. I'm going out to DC next week (provided I survive this one), so I'll get to share a bed again.

Sometimes, sleeping alone feels relaxing. Sometimes it feels very adult and male... to have my own place... to have no need of a woman.

Sometimes it just sucks. It's been too few and far between. I'm over it. I'm not scared to admit that I need someone, sometimes, to take care of me. Wow. Writing that publicly feels like step one in some sort of twelve step program.

When did that happen?

A Love Supreme

If you know what I mean...

It's Sunday. Funny how that keeps happening. I'd have to say that yesterday was fairly excellent. The beach, though not very warm, was just what I needed. We lay our for a while, then my friend and I hauled out the kayaks and battled the waves for an hour or so. Surf was big today and Andrew, who grew up out in Southern California, had a much easier time making it over the breaks than I did. I must have been tossed of the kayak half a dozen times before I figured it out.

First few times were a little scary. I wound up floating upside down with my leg above me tangled in the wire that attaches the oar to the boat. Disoriented and vaguely aware that there's a 50 pound piece of plastic teathered to my ankle, thrashing about in the waves, I remembered the time I popped out of the water, after a similar spill, just in time to catch a kayak in the nose. Ouch. I broke the surface just around the time I was starting to wonder if I might be caught in a riptide and unable to get back up. My arms instintivly covered my head and face as I emerged. Lesson learned. Eventually I got comfortable with the whole falling off the kayak and getting tangled up routine. Then I figured out how to use my oar to stay upright long enough to get over the breaks.

Once in the calm water, Andrew and I looked around and decided to go back into the breaks. Not much doin' out past them anyway. I had a few more spills, caught some air on the big waves and surfed a couple in. At one point, an approaching wave was so intimidating I just keeled over off the kayak before it hit me. I know when I'm beat.

Fresh and Breathless

18, balding, star...

I went for a walk today, which was nice. Bought some tea, took a stroll to M-Theory music store and got some Kings of Leon and Louis XIV. I like walking. It's feels positively... jaunty.

As always, I'm overworked and underpaid. What else is new? I'm getting by, through I feel increasingly more nervous and overwhelmed by approaching deadlines. This morning I woke up all jacked up and ready to roll to work before realizing it was Saturday. What a relief. It's not that I don't still have plenty of work to do today, it's that no clients are around to hound me about it... not until 7AM on Monday at least when I have my first meeting.

I did find a new place to live and they're flying me out to the DC office, so I'll be able to see that someone previously referred to. She lives out there... yeah... I know... I can't seem to find something that isn't, at least in some way, complicated. At least this one is healthy.

OK, It's sunny and beautiful. I'm going to the beach. Rough life, eh?

40... and hear your old OLD heart...

I don't have time to be writing this.

I haven't blogged for a while. Since I last wrote, there have been several nights working until 4AM. There has been less sleep than I would have liked, less fun, and far too little writing. I got my first negative comment on this blog. Apparently, I suck. I deleted it, but should have kept it for posterity. I feel stressed and tired and broken and intolerably old, but calming, and healing and not without hope of rejuvenation. Life has been busy, but simple. Work and rehab, and that's pretty much it. Oh, and I met someone.

I met her earlier actually, but saw her again this weekend. She extended a trip to San Diego for an extra day (and that turned into two because of missed flights), pretty much on a whim to spend time with me. I like that. That sort of thing goes a long way in my book. We ate breakfasts and dinners and walked on the beach. We held hands in the park and both agreed that it felt eerily as though we were a couple and that this was not a bad thing. We slept together, and I don't mean sex, I mean crawling under the covers and draping ourselves with each other's bodies and falling asleep. We woke each other up every time one of us moved-- unaccustomed as we are to company in bed-- and this was not at all a bad thing. Sometime in the night we had sex, slow starting then mounting and building to a driving pace as we came more into the waking world-- the way mid sleep sex can be.

Home again, Home again

Yadda-da-yadda-da
I find myself falling into the normal day routine pretty easily now that I can walk. I drive. I go to work. I go shopping and I pay my bills. I limp somewhat, and I can not run, but otherwise, I'm fine. I'm pretty much back to normal, and I mean this in all ways. I get stressed out when work is busy. I get angry at heavy traffic when I'm late. I get embroiled in all the same silly issues. My happiness fluctuates from moment to moment as it always has, and this bothers me to no end.

It felt so wonderful to be able to walk again. My limp was more a swagger. At 5'7", I felt tall for the first time ever. I felt such confidence and happiness in the simplest of movements. I don't want that feeling to go away, not just because I don't want to be ungrateful, but because it felt so indescribably wonderful. It's only been a week, and it's already slipping. I wish I could hold onto it forever. Some lessons, I know I'll take with me. In some ways I'll be changed and, with hope, improved, but that feeling, I don't want to let go of. It's the feeling of completeness, self assuredness and calm that I've been searching for my whole life and, for a time, I felt it.

Imagine that.

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Soon I will change my number, change my e-mail, move from my home and leave no forwarding address. This must be done. It is simply the way it is.