Pissing on the Side

I'm typing and deleting. Rosemary is trying to fall asleep in the bedroom.

The fan squeaks above me and when I stir my mug of kratom the spoon clinks against the ceramic and I feel guilty for these things that I assume are keeping her awake. They'd keep me awake. I try to stir without hitting the sides. 

I find myself doing things like that a lot. Walking as softly as I can. Holding back my opinions or thoughts. Pissing against the side of the bowl instead of directly into the water. Trying to be unseen in close quarters with people. Unnerving when compared to my social persona, a loud and chaotic fool using volume as distraction.

Earlier I had an intake appointment for a new therapist. The first in four years. A little under an hour of being cordial, smiling, and laughing with a very pleasant woman who was attempting to jot down the broad strokes of me for whoever became stuck with me as their patient. She mentioned the possibility of Borderline Personality Disorder (though she insisted that she disliked the term). Another depressive disorder diagnosis was certain. Another anxiety diagnosis. She ruled out panic disorders as my roots seem to be in anxiety, though she acknowledged that while I do have anxiety attacks, I also clearly have panic attacks (the two of which are often confused for each other, colloquially). She also mentioned without hesitation PTSD. Said it was obvious. I agreed.

I'm typing and deleting. Rosemary is trying to fall asleep in the bedroom and the fan squeaks above me, over and over. 

I walk as softly as I can. I tend to hold my tongue. I piss to the side. I feel the energy of the room and the people around me and my anxiety flairs. I've been on alert all day. I've been on alert my whole goddamned life.

Yeah, PTSD makes sense.

I turned 39 recently. I was supposed to die at 38 and never did. I turned 39 and that morning my mother sent a message to tell me that my father reached out to her to wish me a happy birthday.

My earliest memories are centered around his rage. His brutality. Until the day he left, 12 years later. 

Well, that's not true. After he left he attempted to break into our house and then, screaming in our driveway, pulled out a gun and swore he was going to kill himself. He followed us around town from time to time. He popped up here and there. His rage eventually subsided, but when I see him, when I picture him, I see the look in his eyes. A dead black rage. I see his swing. I see hair flying. I hear his bellow. I feel in my chest a deep ache for my family. A deep fear. A deep fucking rot. 

I messaged back "k".

PTSD makes sense.

I'm typing and deleting and I think about how loud the keys are. If I get up, the chair will rub against the floor. The floor might squeak when I step on it. 

I tried to explain throughout the intake that am constantly coming up with systems. Plans and back up plans. Escape routes. What if I do everything right and I still have to run?

When I get up I will lift the chair under me and set it down softly on the floor. I will walk near the walls where the floorboards creak less (a habit that's earned me many bruises from walking into doorways). I will turn the knob on the door first, then open it. No clicking.

I know that Rosemary is most likely asleep. I think that if I woke her up with these natural noises, everything should be okay. I know that she can be kind and understanding. Nothing bad would probably happen. I think.

But my body disagrees.

When I was 24 I went to the dentist for the first time in four or five years. It was a bleak situation. They peered into my mouth and said "Wow. Saved it all for me." I was horrified at the time, but it's funny now.

I assume the new therapist will feel the same.

Dream

 I kissed you.

I hadn't put the air conditioners in yet and we were on my now bare bed and sticking to each other and gazing. Two fools.

You were impossible. A dream.

"Do you wanna get breakfast?" I whispered.

You took a moment. 

"Mmhmm." 

You smiled a little and as you did your front teeth shown between your lips and my heart filled suddenly, a overwhelming wave of warmth. Dizzying, and I was right where I should have been. With you. Holding you. Just near you. Impossible. A Dream.

You kissed me. 

It had been a week since day one. Well, what we were considering day one, but it had been so fast and right that it was hard to tell when it actually started. The first exchange? The first moment outside talking about records? The first morning? Whatever it was, it had been about a week.

It took some time, through a chain of distractions and touch, stops and starts, but we got clothes on. Washed my face, pulled my hair back, threw shoes on. You grabbed what was closest to you. A sports bra and shorts. The smelliest fucking shoes I've ever been around. Out of the hot apartment, down the stairs, and out into the June morning. 

The sun bounced off your slowly tanning but still somehow pale skin. Through the brown but still somehow also red hair. Onto us and only us. I held your hand and it felt like I always had. There had never been any other moment than this. There would never be any other moment but this. The sun and the air. You and I. There was just nothing else.

Impossible.

A bistro around the corner. Breeze in the leaves above us. Shadows swaying and dancing around us. We sat at the only table outside, eating breakfast sandwiches and drinking Turkish coffee and there was no one else in the world. Your teeth just barely from between your lips. The shape of your jaw. The curve of your neck into your shoulder. The look in your eyes.

"We don't really get along," you said. "My mom's a lot better now, but we didn't talk for a long time. The whole time I was homeless she never reached out. Then the whole thing with my dad."

"Your dad-dad?"

"No. Thomas. Step-dad."

"What whole thing?"

I wanted to learn everything. I wanted to know everything. 

You took a sip of your coffee. "I don't know. It's bullshit. They split up for a while and he moved back to New York."

"And that was your fault?"

"No, no. But he came to visit me for a few days and we hung out, but my mom thinks I fucked him and she still believes it, I think. That's what my brother said."

I stored that. There was something else you had said a few days before, but I couldn't quite dig it up.

"Hmm. Weird."

"I know," you said, and took a bite of your sandwich. "I don't care though. I'll be out of there soon. I just needed a place to stay while I put myself back together."

I held my arm across the table and opened my hand. You took it and smiled a half smile at me. "I'm glad I met you," you said. "Re-met you." 

"Me too."

We finished our breakfast and walked back toward my apartment. The greens GREEN and the sky BLUE and the world ALIVE. Next to you. I wondered if I talked too much. Or too little. I wasn't nervous, I only wondered. It didn't seem to matter. It felt like you would love me either way, the way I knew I loved you.

Impossible. A dream.

"I love you," I said. We had crossed that bridge the first night. I had been staring at you and you had said "Why aren't you saying it?" and I was silent for a minute. "Is it because it makes you nervous to feel it so quickly?" you asked and then paused and said; "Well, I'm not nervous. Say it," and I said it. "I love you too," you had said. That first night on my couch, the outline of everything glowing and blurred.

And now here we were, a week in. In love. In sun and holding hands. Impossible. A dream.

"Do you remember when we met?" you asked.

"I mean, mostly. You saw me. I was a drunk back then."

"So you don't remember?"

"I remember chunks. Flashes."

"Like what?" you asked.

"A flash of laying on your floor. Looking at your records. Getting breakfast the next day."

"But you don't remember looking at my rabbits with me? You don't remember talking to me? Nothing else?"

"Not really. It's mostly a blur."

"Then I don't know how you can say you love me." You let go of my hand

We walked a few steps in silence.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"I just think it's bullshit. How can you say you love me if you don't even remember meeting me? If you didn't know you loved me right away?"

"I was in a relationship anyway. We both were. Did you know you loved me?"

You didn't answer and began to walk slower. "I think I should just go."

"What? Why? We have the whole day ahead of us."

"I don't know. Why don't you go find some other bitch you can just forget. I'm sure your fuckin ex was fine being forgotten but I'm not."

We had come to my steps. 

"Let's go inside," I said. "Don't leave."

"I have to go inside and get my stuff anyway you fucking idiot."

"Knock that off. You don't get to speak to me like that."

"Can you just open the fucking door so I can get my things and then you can go fuck and forget some other bitch? It's obviously what you actually want."

I didn't know what to say and it took me a moment to pull something together. "Please, can we not do this outside?"

Your eyes were on fire and one had begun to drift at some point. I made a note of it. I could feel my heart in my chest, pounding away quickly. It all reminded me of something, but I couldn't place it. My entire body wanted to run, but I fought it. I tried to remain cool. You were going through something and I wanted to help. I pushed it down, walked past you

distance...

distance...

and unlocked the door.

I looked at you and you didn't move. I walked in and up the stairs. You followed slowly behind me, and shut the door.

Inside, I went to the kitchen. I filled a glass with water and stood over the sink, drinking slowly and disconnecting from the moment as best as I could. A trick I had learned a number of years ago to slow my racing heart and brain. After a moment I went out to the living room and you were sitting sideways on the couch and staring into space.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

Your mouth was tight and you didn't move or speak. Only stared. 

"Is there anything I can do for you?" 

You turned, and bent and began to dig around in your small backpack, eventually pulling out head phones and putting them in your ears and then you were gone entirely. Somewhere in music. I sat on the couch across from you and didn't dare to look at my phone or to pick up a book or to do anything. You weren't there with me, but I knew that anything I did in that moment was inflammatory. So I did nothing. I showed you I was there, for you, and I waited.

Nearly an hour passed and I had found myself staring out the window at a spinning weathervane on someone's porch. I felt you move on the couch and then sit back again. I looked at you.

"I want you to take me out."

"Okay," I said. "What do you want to do?"

"Think of something. It's not my job to make me feel better."

It stabbed into me, and immediately walls went up again. "Okay. Well, do you want to get food?"

"We just ate. No I don't want food."

"Okay... Do you want to go walk in the woods? Go swimming?"

"Swimming where?"

"I know a spot a little ways from here. It's my favorite spot on this planet. It's beautiful."

You just looked at me blankly. I thought I could see gears and boilers, all re-pressurizing and working together. "I'll call my brothers and see if they want to come."

"I thought it could just be..."

"I want to take them, if that's what you're saying. You hurt me. I want to take them."

I wanted to go to hide. Sleep. "Okay."

We got ready to go swimming.

Impossible. 

Only a dream.

Good Days

What's to be said that needs to be read?

It's been nearly two months and I'm happier than I've been in a decade or more. It's strange to type, it's strange to think, it's disorienting to feel. As if I'm betraying the person I've been for so long.

But these people. This town. This life. It all fits.

In a journal, the blue journal I bought after the gun a few years ago, I've written about the lake. I've written about love. I've written about work, tarot, hope, and here in unpublished posts I've written about the fire and darkness. 

All of these ingredients, swirling, changing, growing. Becoming

(a life)

(a future)

something more. 

What's to be said that needs to be read? I don't know. Maybe nothing, but in my chest there lives a great need to declare. A need to scream out. A need to acknowledge loudly and earnestly and gratefully that these are good days. 

So;

These are good days.

And I am thankful.

First Day in New York

 First day in New York.

Well, no, that's not true. I got back yesterday. So, first full day in New York I suppose.

Water bottle leaked all over the comforter. I'm under it. No sheets on the bed yet, but I have a bed. A pillow. A headache.

The sun burns through the window. No curtains yet. No energy. Drove only a few hours yesterday to get here. Pulled up, unpacked the entirety of the truck. Truck to stoop. Stoop to the second floor. Up, down, up down. An hour later and I am near collapse and hunched over in the shower. Back hurts. Legs hurt. The job's done. So am I. 

Barb lives downstairs and is a close friend. I get dressed, I head downstairs and the welcome wagon rolls out. I'm thankful for it, don't get me wrong, but I am tired. Five days of driving, packing, unpacking, those fucking stairs over and over. I have nearly no money for groceries so I am rationing as much as I can. I feel weak. Barb takes me to a bar. Buys me a glass of wine. Then to a Korean place. I get chicken and rice. It's not expensive and the food is good. Then she takes me to another bar. Another glass of wine. Then back to the house. A fire in the backyard. Friends. Talking. 

I feel good. I feel welcome and loved. 

I'm thankful.

I wake up with a headache under a wet comforter with the sun burning through the window. I pull the comforter over my face, kick the now empty water bottle off and into the living room and stare blankly, trying to rearrange the flashes of memory from the night before but I don't feel guilt or shame and I remember that I'm just old and a couple of glasses of wine just fuck me up now. I'm old. 

Eventually I roll out of bed. I'm still in my clothes from yesterday. I don't know where my phone is. My legs don't want to work. Fuckin stairs.

I piss. I find the box with the coffee maker. Set it up, put coffee on. While I was unpacking the day before a friend came and dropped off a pizza, some eggs, and a couple burritos as a welcome gift, and it was a welcome gift. I put the pizza in the oven. Wait for the coffee. Dig around in a box looking for a curtain and eventually tack it up over the bedroom window. That'll do for now. 

I'm grateful. I'm lucky. I'm loved. The thought of it makes me emotional, but what doesn't these days? 

I stare into the living room in disarray. There's something about a fresh apartment. Before you make it your own. A fresh beginning. A fresh life. Empty walls and second chances. 

When the coffee is done I sit at the table and drink a cup. When the pizza's done I remember I don't have an oven mitt or a cutting board. I improvise. I drag it out with a spatula. The box it came in is the cutting board.

I have my coffee and eat the pizza for breakfast and I think about how thankful I am. 

How lucky I am.

How loved.

Last Day in Texas

 Last day in Texas.

Well, that's not true. Leaving Austin tomorrow morning, and it'll take me a full day to cross this state, so, last day in Austin, I suppose.

It's raining. Heavy and loud. For months we had been told off and on that big storms were coming, and they never did. A light sprinkle. A tornado or two. But no real downpour.

Until today, anyway. 

Of course.

The house is filled with boxes and I am filled with baggage. Elle and I have amicably decided that the best thing we can do is to go our separate ways. I'm not happy, she's not happy, and we are creeping up on the age where we need to start considering that a priority or abandon it entirely (and neither of us deserve that). It's the right thing to do, and as much as I can I am avoiding processing it until I get settled again. Until I have slightly less on my plate. 

It comes in waves anyway. Petting our cat for one of the last times and I well up. Catching the wrong glance with Elle. Sorting out our stuff. I well up, I shove it down. 

I look back on what we achieved in the last six or seven years. Individually and as a couple, and I am proud. We covered a lot of ground. Metaphorically and literally. We grew, and traveled, and we became far better versions of the people we were at the start of it all. I do not feel like I have wasted my time here, as I have felt with others in the past. The experiences I have had have been vital, and I am grateful for them and grateful that we are able to recognize the end calmly and logically and without anger. About as good an outcome as you could ask for, realistically. 

I've longed to escape Texas for nearly two years and now I am a day away and I am grateful to be going home. I am grateful to see my loves again. I am grateful to have the opportunity for another cross country road trip (even if I am too broke to stop and enjoy any of it). But there is a deep melancholy, as you would expect.  

Do you want the bookshelf or the DVD shelf?

You keep the bed. I'll find one online.

At least you'll have room to spread out now. And me too.

We're doing the right thing.

We're doing the right thing.

The cat and I have been close friends for a year and a half. I take her outside on a harness and leash and we sit in the sun watching the grass sway in the wind. We explore the neighbor's fence and we go check the mail. She sees me in the morning and purrs loudly and smears her face against my leg. She sleeps on my lap every time I sit down for as long as I let her. She has no way of knowing. I wish I could explain it to her.

But the alienation is almost over. The utter loneliness. For nearly five years I have isolated myself from family and friends, first in Florida, then Texas, then Vermont, then Texas again. I remember sitting in isolation for days in jail and the way I would imagine being out. I would imagine it so vividly that when I would open my eyes I would be surprised I was still sitting in a cell. And I remember walking out of there, into a freezing early March morning, alone and down the highway for miles, my feet throbbing and my skin chaffing and cracking and being more grateful and happy than I could ever remember being, because I was going home.

I wonder if, during the coming 2500 miles, I will feel the same. After years of imagining so vividly my life with people I love and who love me, of the mountains and lakes, of home, will I feel the same? Will it be as overwhelmingly beautiful as walking out of that cell had been? Or will it seem marred and small? Will the reality of failure and loss stain it all? 

Well, column A, column B, I assume.

In the end, I know that Elle will do well, and I know that I will try to do well, and I know that in our time we did well. 

I do wish I had a little more cash though. I'm fuckin' broke.

C'est la vie.

We Went to the Art Museum

 I don't know, we went to the art museum.

All these days, for months, and years, now, they are all the same day and sometimes I miss the life I knew. Shows and friends and the fire, but I'm an isolationist, I think I thrive in solitude. These days of unending same are nothing to me. Sit in the dark bedroom. Write. Paint. Sometimes pick up the guitar, and sometimes watch a show I love, but I don't need to do or be anything. I thrive in solitude. 

I tell myself, anyway.

I've been practicing waiting out my sentence. First in Florida, then in Glens Falls, and again here, in Austin. These days of unending same, they mean nothing to me. They are just ticking seconds. Flipping by unnoticed until they eventually are gone.

They were maddening to you. 

I understand. 

"Let's go to the Blanton," you said yesterday.

"Okay, sounds good."

And we did. We drove there in the morning and parked in the parking garage. It was complimentary parking and we found a space on the second level and walked down. The grounds were under construction, and to accommodate it the entrance to the museum had shifted like a river but we made our way inside.

You paid my ticket. I didn't ask you to, I didn't expect you to, but you did.

"Thank you," I said.

"No problem."

We went to the contemporary section first. I'm a fan of skill, sure, but contemporary wings are always where the heart lies. And what is skill without heart?

Incredible sprawling displays of injustice and sadness and heartbreak and vengeance and I stood with my hands in my pockets staring, reading, seeing. Taking a few breaths at each of the pieces I didn't care for but trying to find the beauty in. Three times as long in awe of the ones I did care for, unable to express what made these stand out to me beyond an emotional resonance I found myself failing to contain.

People shuffled around me. Around us. Here and there. In they come, out they go. We stick close by each other. Like a kid holding opposing magnets together.

I try not to think about it.

In a room with the lights off and two videos displaying closeups of two people on opposing sides of the room telling one story of a tornado, we sit on a bench and after a moment you hold my hand. I don't know what to make of it, but I am thankful for the acknowledgement and attention and vulnerability. I'm so used to, well, you know. It catches me off guard.

We continue on.

In the classical wing, the wing of portraits of the long dead and wealthy. Men in naval jackets and women with one breast out and fruit laying carelessly around, a group of loud people infect the moment. A man and two women and three children and for all of the peace in that place five seconds of it was too much and we rushed through the wing. Past the Caravaggio inspired darkness, though they are all among my favorites. Past the later renaissance religious iconography. Past the 16 and 1700's and out.

I look back at them and the phrase "Top Five Places to Visit in Austin" pops into my head and I've been doing my best to fight my kneejerk disgust in people so I try not to think about that either.

Eventually hunger hits us both and we cruise swiftly through the museum. We've been here before. We got out of the house. We did something today. No loss. Oh, that's nice. Oh I like that one. Okay, let's go. Let's go.

On the way home you want to stop and I buy you food, but I don't get any. We sit on the patio of a co-op and you eat a salad. Then to a gas station and then home. I have a thorn in my side to paint.

I'm constantly ashamed of being an artist. To the point where I won't talk about it when someone asks what I do. I let people find it out, but I feel awful talking about it.

It's not something I've really explored or attempted to get to the bottom of, but, I'm always aware of it. I wish I was someone else. I wish I was happy making a living doing whatever it is people do. "Y'know, I've worked 22 years at the plant. The wife is happy and I'm a good person!" Jesus christ I wish I was built like that. 

But I'm not. I'm... 

not.

We go home and I set up a space to paint. I hate setting up a space to paint. It all feels temporary and it feels like I am cheapening myself. It feels like a betrayal somehow. 

Sometimes I miss the life I knew. Shows and friends and the fire. The space.

You lay down in the other room and I paint and between layers I visit you, but you have headphones in and you held my hand earlier. I don't know what to make of it.

So, I don't know. We went to the art museum and, well, we got out of the house.

An Escape

It has been years since all of this happened, and I will try to tell it as accurately as possible, but details fade. Memories become corrupted. On top of that, it is now proven that depression slowly obliterates the brain, and it's basic functions, like memory. So, I will do my best.

 Now, a decade ago I wrote a book about the broad strokes of the year that closed out my childhood. I never published it and have repeatedly meant to revisit, revise, and release it, but each time I question whether or not I really need to put those thoughts and memories out there. I don't think I do, so, though it does set up what follows, I won't necessarily fill you in. All you need to know is that shortly after, and partially because of, the events in that book

I had been kicked out of school.

I was fourteen, and it was the end of my freshmen year of high school. I had been having a particularly rough go at it all, often lashing out in any number of ways, that, again, I don't feel the need to retread (use your imagination if you find it important). 

1.

There was a letter I had written out of frustration and anger, which made a number of empty threats, and had found its way to the principal. It was May of 1998 and school shootings were blossoming all over the country. Schools were taking any precaution they could to prevent these horrors (save for providing emotionally safe environments or any attempt to actually face the root causes of the issue, such as dismantling paid lunch/breakfast systems, or providing free licensed therapists for kids who may need more than an ill prepared guidance counselor, or actively rooting out bullying, but that's a whole other bag of shit to shovel through). Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars were being spent nationwide on metal detectors, guards, undercover police officers, clear backpacks, signage, and expelling students that schools believed displayed troubling behavior. A reactionary response instead of a precautionary one. God bless America.

So, when they got ahold of that letter, boy howdy, was I fucked.

I was sat at a large table in the principal's office with my mother, the guidance counselor, the principal, the vice principal, and a few others. I remember feeling nothing. Just the heat of the situation. I remember trying to explain that I didn't mean anything literally. That it was all bullshit. That I was angry. But they believed they had to take the threats seriously. I also believe that since I had long been a thorn in the side of many of the teachers and administrators there (I was poor, I wore makeup and dresses and ripped clothing, I fought, I came in high and left to get high, etc., etc.) that this seemed to be as good an excuse as any to get rid of me.

At some point during the meeting I remember dissociating (as I have been prone to do throughout my life, and especially in times of stress) and the next thing I remember is my mother and I being led out of the office quickly by a woman I only kind of knew but was certainly on my side, and who I will refer to as "Miss O". My mother and I got in our van and sped out of the parking lot. We drove toward Saratoga Hospital, a half hour or so away.

I remember staring out the window. Seeing myself in the side mirror. The late May air on my face. Not serenity, not emptiness, but somewhere in between. Another day to live through, like all of the others.

On the trip I learned that the school wanted me arrested. They had called the state police during the meeting. I had already been arrested once that year (and questioned more than a handful of times about various things) and there was a distinct possibility that I may be sent to a home if it worked in the school's favor (it surely would have). During the meeting Miss O had quietly phoned Saratoga Hospital's MHU (at the time the Behavioral Health Units were "Mental Health Units") and was attempting to reserve a bed for me. The idea being that if I were safe in the MHU, I couldn't be arrested. It was the best of two shitty options, and to this day I thank her for it. We had sped out of the parking lot explicitly to beat the cops. Another moment of my mother's support that it took me years to comprehend, and for the rest of my life I will be grateful for.

The bed reservation at Saratoga fell through. Why? I don't remember. It may have been an age issue. Mental health at this time was still widely considered unimportant, and especially among children and teens. Kids were often considered to be brats, not sick. Because of this there were few options for people my age at the time. At some point Miss O had also arrived at the hospital, attempting to work with my mother on coming up with a plan to both keep me away from the cops and to get me the help I very obviously needed. 

A call was put in to Four Winds, a mental rehabilitation facility on the other side of town. I had heard of it vaguely, as I was friends with a number of foster children who had been shoved around varying aspects of the system, but I wasn't entirely clear on what it was.

Four Winds didn't have a bed available at the moment, but they believed one may be opening up that afternoon. 

So off we went. If we were pulled over on the way, it was over. If we made it, I was safe.

I remember walking into the administration building and thinking it looked like any number of model homes my parents had looked at while I was growing up. Sterile. Pseudo-comfortable. Silent. Over the next six hours or so we sat in waiting room after waiting room. I was interviewed, re-interviewed and re-interviewed. We filled out form, after form, after form. The amount of bureaucracy astounded me. I was bored, tired, hungry, drained. Now that the heat had disappeared from the situation, I was back to ambivalence. 

Finally, around nine or ten p.m., A case worker brought us to a unit. The compound (campus, whatever you want to call it) was eight or nine brown buildings situated in a circle with a large field in the middle. The unit I was brought to was an adult unit, where I would stay until a bed in the teen unit opened up. Again, the best option in a series of shitty options. The case worker brought me to the kitchen of the unit and gave me a small box of cereal, milk, and a bowl. I ate my dinner, and then the counselor, my mother, and I went to the rec room to hammer out the last few details, mostly unit specific. Visiting hours, unit rules, that sort of thing. The caseworker stepped out to give us privacy.

My mother was very strong throughout the entire process and in my opinion, knowing that I was finally going to be getting the level of help necessary probably helped to reinforce her, but as we came to the end of the process, the weight of it all began to become apparent on both of us. She told me she would be back the next day to visit and bring me clothes. We hugged. She told me everything was going to be okay, and to be strong, and to use the time wisely. To accept the help. 

When she left, I was alone there and could feel the panic of the unfamiliar situation, the alien ambiguity of what was happening to me, the hundreds of unknown variables surrounding me. I am someone who needs as much data as possible. As many answers as possible. As much understanding of any given moment as possible. This moment, standing alone in the rec room of the adult unit in a mental rehab after an emotionally exhausting day, I began to fight a panic attack. The first one I had ever fought on my own. Without friends near me. Without family. I remember catching my breath. Squeezing my hands. I remember trying to hide it.

There were no beds open for me in that adult unit. I was handed blankets, and was put in a small room with padded mats on the floor, ceiling, and walls. This was my room until a bed opened up.

When the door closed and the lights were out I remember laying on the cold padded floor, under the blanket and trying my goddamned best to not make any noise while I cried.

I was alone.

Let's Talk About Something Else

 There's a contradiction somewhere in my ribs. The fear of writing about things that I have moved past. A desire to relay my memories. Events of importance. Moments of truth and beauty. 

A deep fear of being misread.

I don't care about these things anymore beyond only referencing their importance in my history. Their track marks upon my life.

It's 1989. It's 1995. It's 1999. It's 2002. It's 2005. It's 2009. Its 2015. It's every year since and it's right now. Some years tied to others and some only stains on the canvas and I know many more are coming. They might lead to patterns. They might form an image. They eventually all explain

me.

But scars aren't wounds. 

The memory isn't the moment.

I am not who I was.

I have had such a habit of reporting immediately, that reflection has become alien in regards to my writing. "I feel this now" is not the truth. Wounds aren't scars. Moments aren't memories. Who I was is not who I am. 

What is it that I find so difficult about reflection? Where does this fear come from? An act of always being okay? Of always being right? Of always trying to be strong?

Or is it embarrassment? Shame? A fear of just being misunderstood?

I don't feel free.

I don't feel the freedom to speak or explore my thoughts or feelings, my history or my future. I'm not allowed it.

They're just scars. 

Memories.

Someone else entirely.

Let's talk about something else.

A Spattering of Thoughts During New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve.

I sat down to gather some thoughts regarding the year, maybe post only the second public entry this year. A record low.

Typing and deleting.

Typing and deleting.

I have nothing to say.

No, that's not true. I only have nothing I want to say to you.

This year;

After a string of sheer luck at the end of the year, I am making enough money to live now in some sort of comfort. That isn't to say I am making any decent amount. I can just pay my half of the bills and buy shoes when I need to. Or a Fante, when I find one I've yet to read.

I spent eight months working on a project I hoped would pick up steam, and it did a little, but not before burn-out caught up to me and a heavy depression shortly after. The project is dead now, despite the hundreds of hours I dumped into it. The ninety or so scripts. The research, the editing, the ambition and hope. Gone and I feel nothing.

I wrote a good amount otherwise, most of which I left private. Those will probably end up as a book later. They always do. I also wrote a handful of scripts and outlines for pilots, or web-series', or stage plays, and 15 or 20 half finished and mostly songs. Painted what I consider some of my best work, but nothing was regular. Nothing was inspired. Nothing felt important. Just killing time. Until

I don't know. Until there is no more until, I guess.

I read. I dove into books all over the spectrum. The aformentioned John Fante, some Rogo and Keel. A fair amount of anarchist and communist theory and discussion. Finally got around to diving into the grandfather of cosmic horror, Robert Chambers. I suppose that's one thing I can count as a net positive. Another year in a row when I read more than the year before. Keep the brain moving. Keep learning. Keep growing. Keep stepping out of my echo-chamber. 

The only stimulation I really need. Thought.

...I tell myself.

Every morning the same. Heading nowhere. Doing nothing. I'm not playing shows. I'm not making headway. I'm rotting. This city is for people ten or fifteen years younger than me. When you're still bloodthirsty and cruel without realizing it. I see no good here, but, truth be told, I don't see any good anywhere else either. So, while I admit that I often feel trapped and alone, I also accept that there is nowhere else for me either. A sort of freedom in surrender. 

Goddamn, what a year. 

What a year of absolutely fucking nothing. 

The administration that people far more naïve than me swore would save us, swore would be harm reduction is as bad (and often worse) as the previous villain. It's so tiresome to watch people fall into the theatre of it over and over and over. No one is coming to save us. We are on our own.

Jesus Christ,

The back half of this year has left me exhausted and overwhelmed. Joy is hard to come by. Listen, this is beginning to meander and spiral and I don't want to get into some diatribe of hopelessness, so