Meaty Doesn't Know I Call Him Meaty

One of the problems with telling tales about real people in your life, is remembering the "nick-names" you give them. Since typing this sentence I've gone back and found the name I gave to Poppycock's lovely man: ..."Meaty". It makes me snicker a little as to why I call him that. I'll just say it revolves around his penchant for testicles and let your imagination do the rest.

I needed to remember because I'm going over to their place tonight for dinner and Meaty's cutting my hair, so I look all nice-nice for my niece's wedding next week in Punta Cana. A beach vacation sounds sooo good right now. I can't properly express my longing for a week of sun, water, heat and nothing to do.

Today was Poppycock's Canadian Citizenship ceremony. I was up bright and early, holding up my right hand and swearing my commitment to Canada and the queen right along with him. Momentous day. I could have done without the judge blathering on about Venezuelan goat cheese, but "Hey"... she's a judge. She can talk about what she pleases. And "no", I'm not making that up. It's out of context obviously, but it was no less a topic of her "greeting/story" to the new Canadians in the room.

Friday night I hung out with Marty. She and Fucktard (that's not me being mean; it's his honest-to-goodness, affectionate nickname) have broken-up again. We had a very long, very heartfelt conversation. I think she appreciates that I listen, but I think I prompt conversation that goes a little darker and sadder than people want to venture. *sigh*
They've been together for more than 2 years now. They've built a house that's almost ready for them to move into. And they've suffered and suffered and suffered a really volatile relationship. Y'know one of those relationships in the movies that every one of a girls friends would tell her to cut and run? Well, I'm not one of those friends in the sense that I know you have to let your emotions run their course. (Look at me and Scooter for fuck's sake.) But I also know she's not really happy, and I lightly, ever-so-gently, acknowledge this with her. She's not unaware. There's just a lot of factors to consider.

Marty and I didn't spend the "entire" evening talking gloom. After I shared my woes, we watched 2 episodes of BBC's "Life" (narrated by Oprah). And when she started falling asleep, I said my good byes and was home by about 2am.

Saturday I was determined to go clothing shopping for formal beach attire that won't make me look like a homeless person or a dreadfully overdressed person when I give my niece away at her wedding. There was a lot of snow Saturday morning, I was lazy and horny and I hate clothing shopping - so, I procrastinated the endeavor well into the late afternoon. But since I needed clothes, I did eventually go. And I'm pleased with the boring pants I picked-up for the occasion. I needed boring pants. Doesn't everyone?

More pleasing, were the sexy athletic long-sleeved shirts I bought for volleyball and football. The strategic striping makes me look like my chest is massive. Me likey! I bought 3 of them for 45 dollars. (total) Which pleases me more.

After the shopping, I met up with Poppycock and we went to the new restaurant that Meaty now works for. PC paid for dinner for my birthday, and we kinda had a somber meal together. It was the first time we'd spoken since last weekend, (we had a scrap) so it was a little awkward. Fights will do that. But I think we were ok at that point.

Sunday, I went for dinner with Eak and used my gift certificate for The Keg that my mother gave me for my birthday. We had a nice meal and then went back to his place to hang out. I got a hero's welcome from the dogs and Eak and I just talked and played cards and listened to the new Kanye West album. I brought a joint with me, so we smoked that, and I have to admit I got a little lost in my own head.
There are still times when I'm around Eak that I just want to throw my arms around him and cry and tell him how much I miss him, and that I wish things could be the way they were before. Times when I miss him so badly because he knows me and loves me.
But that's just the loneliness talking... and the weed... and the nostalgia. We've both moved on, and I wouldn't muddy the waters like that, because I want him in my life, and I know that I don't want him to be my "partner" anymore. I just mourn him a little still. He was my best friend and now he's not. We may get back there some day. But not if I express any doubt in the roles we're developing in each others lives. Truthfully, I don't want him back the way we were. I just got to thinking sadly that many people give a relationship a second chance, and we're just not going to. Luckily, I don't think he wants that, but if he "did", there's nobody who deserves a second chance more than him.
I'm talking all of this sentiment for no good reason. He told me yesterday that he and his boyfriend are moving in together February 1st. There isn't a pang of jealousy or regret in me. So I know that everything is how it should be. Eak's going to be saving $400 a month, which will be good for the dogs, and for his debt. I honestly couldn't be happier for him. My lapse was just self-pity and THC.

For all my visiting this past weekend, I still feel like I've been spending a lot of time alone. But... I'm feeling good about it for the first time since I was single (before Eak) in my early twenties. As I was telling Marty on Friday night, I'm not certain there's anybody for me now. I've grown really wary of letting anyone get close for one thing, and as I've mentioned in here before... I'm a ghost/angel/alien. Who's going to be like me? Better yet... who's going to put up with my identity crisis? I'm better off dating myself for a good long time. The sex sucks, but no one can hurt me.

And sometimes in the time it takes to construct an entry, your plans change entirely. Meaty got called into work, so I'm headed home for a Skype session with Lion. No dinner. No hair cut. Just a chat with someone who "would" have sex with me were it not for the intercontinental boundary of an ocean. Pesky thing, that.

Kanye West - Hell of a Life

I think I just fell in love with a porn star
Turn the camera on, she a born star
Turn the corners in a foreign car
Call the coroners do the CPR
She gave that old nigga a ulcer
Her bitter sweet taste made his gold teeth fake, uh
Make her knees shake, make a priest faint, uh
Make a nun cum, make her cremate, uh
Move downtown, cop a sweet space, uh
Livin’ life like we won the sweepstakes, what!
We headin’ to hell for heaven’s sake, Huh!
Well I’mma levitate, make the devil wait, Yeah!

[Chorus]
Have you lost your mind?
Tell me when you think we crossed the line
No more drugs for me, pussy and religion is all I need
Grab my hand and baby we’ll live a hell of a life

Never in your wildest dreams, never in your wildest dreams
In your wildest
You could hear the loudest screams, comin’ from inside the screen
You a wild bitch
Tell me what I gotta do to be that guy
Said her price go down, she ever fuck a black guy
Or do anal, or do a gangbang
It’s kinda crazy that’s all considered the same thing
Well I guess alotta niggas do gang bang
And if we run trains, we all in the same gang
Runaway slaves all on a chain gang
Bang bang bang bang bang

[Chorus]
Have you lost your mind?
Tell me when you think we crossed the line
No more drugs for me, pussy and religion is all I need
Grab my hand and baby we’ll live a hell of a life

One day I’m gon’ marry a porn star
We’ll have a big ass crib and a long yard
We’ll have a mansion and some fly maids
Nothin’ to hide, we both screwed the bride’s maid
She wanna role play, ‘til I roll over
I’mma need a whole day, at least rolled doja
What party is we goin’ to on Oscar day
‘Specially if she can’t get that dress from Oscar de
La Renta, they wouldn’t rent her they couldn’t take the shame
Snatched the dress off her back and told her, “Get away.”
How could you say they live they life wrong?
When you never fuck with the lights on

[Chorus]
Have you lost your mind?
Tell me when you think we crossed the line
No more drugs for me, pussy and religion is all I need
Grab my hand and baby we’ll live a hell of a life

[Outro]
I think I fell in love with a porn star
And got married in a bathroom
Honeymoon on the dance floor
And got divorced by the end of the night
That’s one hell of a life

Shaky on Every Front

My anxiety is taking over.

I have an appointment with a neurologist on December 1st. As this date approaches, the fear I have about it gets a stronger foothold. I realize that fear in the face of something that needs investigation is pretty counter-productive, but I'm still afraid. For years now, I have noticed an increasing tendency for my hands to shake. Sometimes it's inhibiting to performing tasks. You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I have very weak hands. Opening jars and bottles is an ordeal.

Of greater concern to me... the shaking has gotten significant enough for people to not only notice, but comment... a lot. I've inherited it from my father. He used to shake quite a bit. But according to my mother, he would never visit a doctor to have it examined. He didn't like doctors. He didn't like hospitals. No small irony that he died in one. But at any rate, if he did have some neurological disorder that he could genetically pass on to his son, I'm soon to find out. And I'm quite thoroughly terrified.

It could be nothing. It could be emotional stress. It could be that I need to set aside 10 minutes per day to scream and cry like a crazy person. As emotional as I am, I feel repressed. I feel like a person who's screaming and crying on the inside. Have you ever seen that episode of Six Feet Under where David has a waking dream of screaming during a funeral? I'm reminded of that.

Insecure thoughts are circling and rattling my cage. I'm thinking of how my parents had me late in life. I'm thinking of the legacy of poor health in each of their families. All of my uncles and aunts on my father's side, are all gone. 10 of them. All dead. My father was the youngest, and he's been gone for almost 19 years. The siblings on my mother's side including my mother are all still alive, and I figure if I can avoid the plague of obesity they all suffer from, I can dodge a few of the bullets they've all taken.

I have no delusions of living forever. And I don't think I'm afraid to die per say. I just don't want to be sick. I don't want to suffer and degenerate. Given the fact that I'm (as I've pointed out ad nauseum) alone in life, the prospect of being unable to care for myself is frightening. But I suppose no-more-so than the thought of sentencing a loved one to care for me.

Couple this (perhaps irrational) concern with the take-over at work... the approach of Christmas... my collapsing faith in any hope of a friendship/relationship/anything with Scooter... my overall stress of social interaction... and the pressure of merely existing....
And I think I've got a pretty good recipe for an all-systems-failure.

Taking a serious look at my health, and the potential to be really unwell, sheds a light on the fact that nothing really matters, but I don't know that I "live" that knowledge... so maybe a crisis, whether real or manufactured could be just what I need.

Shut it down. Shut it all down. Everything that's not key to my existence. The friends and family who don't bother. The job that, if lost, could force me into action I've never had the courage to take. Shut down the worry. Shut down the mother fucking future I cannot see and cannot change and could not affect otherwise. Shut it down. I don't want to think about it.

I want to be a tree. I want to long for nothing more than the sun hitting the greenery and the water that nourishes the roots. Fuck health problems. Fuck worry. Fuck being loved. Fuck being known. Fuck ever wanting to please another human being on this doomed ball of dirt. Fuck it all, for tomorrow I could be forced down by winds. Struck down by lightning. Cut down by some unwitting lumberjack. Today. This moment I still stand.

I stand and spout empty words about bravery and apathy I don't possess.

And I go that much more crazy.

*sigh*

I missed my appointment with Dr Truth today. Totally forgot about it. You'd think my mind would be on therapy given how stricken I feel. I'm going to be penalized 120-dollars for missing the appointment. Which makes me think I should stop making appointments in the event that I'm going to fuck-up and miss them. I can't afford to miss them. And it's not that I have issue with the concept. Dr Truth's time is valuable. I have to make appointments well in advance because his calendar is full. When someone just doesn't show up, it's a waste of his time. That doesn't alter the fact that I can't afford a 120-dollar fuck up. Yet, my co dependence asserts itself in the pattern of thought, that without him, I will have absolutely no one to listen to me fall apart. And my ego can't handle falling apart all by myself now, can it?

Last night I went to visit my soon-to-be-nephew in the hospital. He was in Toronto (or Markham rather) to have a hernia operated on. I didn't really want to go. It was a case of feeling it wouldn't matter to him whether I did or not anyway. I don't know him very well, and thought it might even seem weird that I would go and visit him, but... he was all alone with no family up here, in a boring hospital in the middle of nowhere. So I went. He's a nice kid. I like him a lot. Mind you, I took the opportunity to deliver the bad news that I can't afford to go to their destination wedding in January.
It took me an hour and a half to get there, and even longer to get home because I don't know the transit system up there very well, and missed a bus on the way back. It turned-out to be a blessing. I had to wait an hour, so I took refuge in a Shopper's Drug Mart and bought things I've been meaning to buy, but for whatever reason, haven't. I picked up the November issue of Details magazine with Chris Pine on the cover... band aids, tissues, peroxide, nail clippers (to replace the ones I sucked up the vacuum cleaner by accident) and probably most importantly... a bottle of Valerian Root. I wish I had some right now as a matter of fact. I've used it before for anxiety. There's really no reason why I should ever not be taking it. It brings on a wonderful wave of calm. Which makes up for it's horrible smell. (wet dog in a bottle anyone?)

I am grateful for my life. I am grateful for my problems that pale in comparison to the hardship that faces so many other people. I am grateful to be alive. To love and learn, and feel disenchanted with the whole ordeal. I am grateful to be creative enough to even wish to be a tree. And though it causes me self-afflicted misery... I am grateful to be self-aware. It simply must be better than ignorance and oblivion. Ok gratitude... stay with me. Balance me, ground me, heal me. I need your help so badly.

Rattling chains, fine-tuning the probe... unfurling the wings... the ghost-alien-angel will dwell among the humans another day.

Today's song of the day, is by Amy Grant. I will forever love this woman. I don't believe as she does, but if ever a true christian existed, I think it's her. So I'm not waiting for Jesus, but these lyrics speak to me anyhow. It's a great song.

Amy Grant - The Water

Quick sand
My heart is sinkin'
I try to run
But I can't stop thinkin'
I'm climbin' walls
I'm on the ceilin'
It's gonna take a miracle to heal me

I'm starin' down
Into the quarry
I see a stone
For every sorry
I'm on the edge
I'm goin' under
And after I die
I'm gonna rise from the water (oooh)

I wanna blast off
Let gravity disappear
I'm tired of fallin', fallin', fallin' from the weight of fear
Come and lift me up into the clean and clear
I'm waitin' on you, Jesus, in the water here
So come and wash me clean

The sky is red, there's
Blood on my hands
I can't deny
I'm guilty where I stand
The verdict's in
I hear them shoutin'
Send me a river to drown this mountain (oooh)

I wanna blast off
Let gravity disappear
I'm tired of fallin', fallin', fallin' from the weight of fear
Come and lift me up into the clean and clear
I'm waitin' on you, Jesus, in the water here
So come and wash me clean

Wash me clean

(Heaven wash me, Heaven wash me, Heaven wash me, Heaven wash me, Heaven wash me, Heaven wash me)

Alien, Angel or Ghost

I'm in a place right now, where I feel nothing good will ever come from my relationship with Scooter. It will always be my effort for his apathy. And yet, I'm not the type of person who gives up on people that I love. I genuinely wish we could have some kind of friendship. I just can't see that far. And being the person I am, it's always an issue of letting go.

"Let go" of those who can't give you what you want. "Let go" of those who don't care for you the way you want or need them to. Where is the balance of accepting people for who or what they are, and what they can provide you ...with valuing yourself and not allowing people to take you for granted or abuse you? How many people simply walk away from everyone the moment something isn't right? And how many people stay long beyond what any sane person would tolerate?

After our "date" on the 24th, I'll let it die. I'll let it fade. I'll speak when spoken to, and leave an open door, but turn off the flashing neon sign. That in itself should satiate my need to "not give up", but no longer chase the affections of someone who just doesn't care whether I'm around.

I "think" that I'm open and giving, and forthright and genuine... and yet... I fear I don't let anyone in. Furthermore, I don't truly believe anyone "wants" in. I am that odd. I am that "unique". I am that egocentric and arrogant to obsess over it too.

I'm an alien, or an angel or a ghost. I am something otherworldly that doesn't belong here. More and more, I believe there is no one for me in this life. This time around the cogs my goal is to achieve happiness in solitude and enjoy the gift of life as an observer. I say this with only a sparing amount of self-pity, and a whole lot of awareness of what I've been through and how I'm treated.

I quite simply, do not fit in. And I'm largely ok with it, if a little lonely for my knowledge of it.

That person in the conversation who's always listening? That's me. If I don't pipe up and offer my thoughts and opinions on things, no one will ask. Of this there is a guarantee. I could wager money on it.

Of course, there's the possibility that I'm merely uninteresting. This makes me hold my tongue on occasion.

I am forever the pursuer, and never the pursued. And yet, when I stop trying, I am still not pursued; I'm merely given to solitude.

For anyone not following this, I assure you, I'm no longer talking about Scooter exclusively. He's just one of the many.

Whatever...

Like I said before... I just haven't spent enough time alone yet. "Do good and good will come to you."
I have friends that love me, even if I still manage to feel alone in their presence. And if my purpose in this life is not to discover how to live happily alone, then I will cross paths with a man who matches my paradigm - or blows it out of the water.

I am certainly a "strong" personality. There must be some guy out there hurtling toward me at the speed of gravity, that I won't have to "try" to love or be loved by.

It's hard to sound convincing saying you "don't want a boyfriend" when you obsess over loneliness that way I do. I don't view "being alone" as a bad thing. It's just a state of things. And I wouldn't have to be alone if I were willing to settle for the efforts of guys who just don't make the full grade and friends who don't give what they get. I swear I'm not sitting here saying "poor me". I'm just wishful. Longing even. It's not easy to be alone. And I know it's not exclusive to me.
How many people throughout history have pondered the same self-consumed things? Tiresome.

When you hear from me tomorrow, I'll be in a better state of mind. I have my dogs for the week while Eak is in Las Vegas for business. I'm really looking forward to having the boys. They'll be good for my soul, if not my social calendar.

*note to self* Just live your life Johnny. Live it for you. Happiness within. Dig it out. There's gold in them there chasms.

Song of the day is Jann Arden's new song from her live album "Spotlight". Sadly the audio clip I've linked to on YouTube is ridiculously sped-up, probably for copyright purposes. The song is still "listenable", but it's the Jann Arden "chipmunks treatment" to be sure.

Jann Arden - "I Can't Make You Stay"

Not going to lie across the subway track,
Not gonna pin you to the floor
Not gonna bind you up or pull you down
So what are you waiting for

After all we’ve been through,
I’m not gonna beg you

So go on, go on
If you wanna run run
I won’t try to stop you or stand in your way.
My love, my love
It will never change, no.. change.. oh
Seems your mind is made up no matter how I pray
I can’t make you stay.

I’ve given you what’s left of me
Everything I am.
I try to be the ocean you could float on baby
The fuel that made you fast.

If I’m not the dream you dream,
If I don’t make you happy

Just go on, go on
If you wanna run run
I won’t try to stop you or stand in your way.
My love, my love
It will never change no, change.. oh
Seems your mind is made up
No matter how I pray
I can’t make you stay.

Don’t need to see it in your eyes
To know it won’t be long, it won’t be long
Don’t need to hear your goodbyes
To know you’re already gone

So go on, go on
If you wanna run run
I won’t try to stop you or stand in your way…

My love, my love
It will never change no, change.. oh
Seems your mind is made up no matter how I pray
I can’t make you stay.

I can’t make you stay.

Oh no, no….

I can’t make you stay.
I can’t make you….