On Fire and Feeling Alright

 I can feel the sweat pouring off of me. 

Only feedback screaming and soaring around the brick basement, under yellow garden lights. Holding the moment.

Joseph is watching me and I am keeping eye contact. For when the moment needs to break.

Jane, waiting, glances at her scribbled notes. Hank is letting his last chord, high on the neck, ring out.

I start nodding my head to Joseph and I can feel the pulse building inside of me. He feels it too. I can tell. We build off of each other and we build well. Tapping in to similar patterns and references and spontaneities. In that basement, under those yellow lights, we build. 

I am nodding and the moment needs to end.

Jane looks at me and is ready. Hank will get there exactly when he wants to.

Soon Joseph starts quickly building on the tom and snare and in four quick hits the moment explodes apart. 

The basement erupts in a thick and heavy blanket of chords. Pounding and infinitely dense. Heavier than we've been in a long time. I'm more excited than I've been in a long time. I'm present. 

I'm there. 

In that shattering moment I feel what I felt a year ago. I'm smiling behind my drenched and erratic hair, flying wildly around me as I'm hunched over, stomping my foot and beating the fucking life out those five strings.

It's a song we worked on a couple times over the last year but it never felt right. It never fit. Until tonight.

The chords give way to melodies and the melodies give way to shrieking leads. Drums explode like mortars and it feels like Jane is going to pull the fucking house down on top of us and I am smiling. 

Eight measures. Thirty seconds of weightlessness. Two chords of total and all consuming bliss and I step to the microphone and months of sadness and anger and rage, seconds of joy and excitement and relief all pour out of me.

Words I absent-mindedly tapped into my phone who knows how long ago. A dream I had. Driving in flames. Careless and burning and knowing I too will become ash and I hope that seeing me here, seeing me sing, hearing my voice will satisfy whatever you feel about me. Who fucking cares what that is.

I'm screaming. 

I hope you saw what you came here to see.

I hope you saw what you came here to see.

I hope you saw what you came here to see.

I hope you saw what you came here to see.

And I do. I hope it was worth it. Because for me, burning and careless, soaked in this moment of cacophony

I am here.

I am back.

I am alive.

I am on fire and feeling alright.

An Inconvenient Moment on a Monday Night

I was overheating. My skin felt wrong. Like it didn't fit. The shorts were too tight and I pulled them off. My hair brushed against my face like a broom and the music from the phone speaker was eating into me. I was overheating. Sweating suddenly. 

I got out of my chair and walked to the kitchen. Maybe I just need to eat. I hadn't eaten since noon or so and it was about ten something. I kept forgetting to eat or telling myself I didn't need to and lately I've been getting nauseous when it had been too long. I opened the fridge and pulled out a container of chicken breasts that I had cooked for the coming work week lunches. Pulled out a breast and bit into it, ripping a chunk off and stood there trying to chew it. I was dizzy now and the nausea was noticeable. I tried chewing for another moment or so and put the chicken breast back and spit the mouthful into the trash.

I was beginning to tremble.

I wasn't hungry. I was overstimulated. Overheating. Trembling and nauseous. 

Usually I can figure it out. But none of it lined up.

I just need to cool down.

I walked quickly into the bathroom, ran the cold water, and stepped into the shower. The change jolted me and I felt my stomach churn. It was coming. At least I'm in the shower, I thought in scattered words and pieces. I pressed my hand against the wall and my legs got weak. I leaned on both arms, cold water pounding into me. Too much light. Too much sound. Too much on my skin. In my skin. In my head and my stomach. Too much. Too much.

I began to worry it was going to over power me. The heat had subsided for a moment and I lurched around slowly, bent to turn the water off but as I bent I could feel my stomach revolt. The first heave began.

Tightening. Releasing. Threatening.

I had learned a number of years ago that when I overheat, when I become nauseous, when I have panic attacks (which this shared a number of symptoms with) laying down quickly was usually the best option. Ride it out. Hope for the best. 

Bent, holding my stomach, feeling the heat rise again, I stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel and sat slowly on the toilet and tried to towel off. The towel was too heavy. The texture was somehow too coarse and too light. I got what I could off and threw the towel into the shower. I'd deal with it later.

I have to get to bed. Lay down. Breathe.

I stood slowly, pressing my hand against the wall and another heave came. I stood, waiting, but nothing happened. Using the wall to guide me, dizzy, nauseous, and burning, I left the bathroom, into and out of the kitchen, and into the bedroom where the AC had been running for an hour or so. 

I sat gently on the bed, trying to keep my stomach in place and laid down, first on my back, then on my side. Curled up. The heaves were increasing in frequency. The AC helped the heat a little but it was ever present. I was clenching my jaw and I could see my hands trembling. The trembling had began in 2018 or so, after an overdose, and for only a second an image of a brainscan came to mind and I know I did damage that day that I'll never be able to fix but another heave came and I forgot about it. I didn't want to puke in bed. 

My body was cooling, but the heaves came. Again, again, again. I didn't know if my legs would carry me to the bathroom. 

Just don't get it on the carpet. Anywhere else, not the carpet.

Breathe.

I released my jaw, closed my eyes and tried to focus my breathing between heaves.

In. 1. 2. 3. 4. Out.

In. 1. 2. 3. 4. Out.

So on.

After a few minutes The heaves softened, and with the heat eventually disappeared.

I couldn't feel the suit of skin. The trembling had stopped. 

Soon my body regulated and I was laying on my side, curled, and breathing for a minute or so longer. To make sure.

Good job. You did it.

Thanks.

I sat up. Moved my hair behind my ears, and looked around. Found my phone and messaged Grace.

"How are you?"

I took a few more deep breaths and slowly stood. I still had shit to do. 

Hide from this Lovely Daydream, Listen to My Friends

Hide from this lovely daydream so I can listen to my friends. All with broken hearts. All desperately wishing. 

All grieving. 

I laid in a circle of grass in a concrete ring on top of a hill. Stared up into the sky. There was only one person who really checked in on me, but I couldn't burden them with everything. So, I asked whoever, whatever, for help. Help me solve this or please take it out of me. Please. I did other work. I put all of my effort in, but it's important to know that I asked for help. That I stared into the sky, put my heart into it, and asked. It did fade quickly after that. Part of me wants to say immediately, but no, it faded quicky.

So I want to tell them all to find their hill. Their circle. Their sky. I want to tell them that they have to want what's best, not just what's familiar. I want to be there for them and hold them and listen to them and guide them, and I try, but ultimately, they have to want it. They have to know that they need to keep moving forward. Keep growing. They have to know that these days come, but they do go. They disappear into the years behind them, giving way for new, beautiful, and rewarding days. 

You love, you lose, you repeat. 

Each cycle brings new beauty. New hope. New lessons. New chances.

You keep going, because if you stagnate, if you just settle for what's familiar, but painful, you won't grow. You'll diminish. You'll suffer long, slow, and deep pain, rather than the momentary sacrifice of doing what needs to be done. You have to want what's best. For you.

I laid in the grass and stared at the sky and I asked to either solve the problem or take it out of me. I wanted what was best. I grieved. I meditated. I spoke openly to my therapist and the one friend. I made sure my meds were working. I exercised. I walked. I wanted what was best. And I took the pain out of me. 

And you can also. 

You can find a hill with grass and sky. Or whatever that looks like to you. You can ask for help. You can do the work. The pain might seem insurmountable, impossible, entirely wrong. But you can get through it. You will get through it. If you want to.

You have to want to.

So I hide from this lovely daydream to listen to my friends. I can't make them want anything. But I can be there. I can be the friend that's there. 

And then, now, I can go back to my lovely daydream, in new beginnings and new hopes and new chances. And maybe it will go better this time, or maybe it won't go anywhere at all. Hell, maybe it will be worse. I can't know, but it doesn't matter. I have to keep moving. I want to. I'm excited to.

Three Moments from a Rainy Morning

 Feels wrong going in.

Not in the usual "overwhelming sense of dread" way, just incorrect. Turning left when you should have turned right. Wake early. Make breakfast. Watch the minutes vanish. Drive. All of it. Wrong.

Catch my reflection in the doors as I walk in. Look away. Scan my key fob. Clock in. Down the hall I can see my office and the overhead flourescents are on. My supervisor stands in the doorway speaking to my office-mate and a small panic breezes over me. 

Something's wrong... 

It dissipates but I note its presence. Everything's fine, even though it feels wrong.

Did I forget something? 

Am I avoiding something?

I assume I'll figure it out soon or forget the feeling entirely. Once the day has applied a little heat. A little pressure. Coal into, well, broken coal.

The supervisor leaves, distracted in morning conversation somewhere down the hall and I slip into my office.

"Why are these fucking lights on?" I say.

My office-mate, Elise, turns slow in her chair and deadpan; "I don't know but it's gotta stop. Turn them off. Right now."

I do and turn on the dim lamp, set my bag of bullshit-that-I-never-use down in a chair next to my desk, turn on my computer, and sit. Where I will mostly remain for the rest of the day.

"How was your weekend?" she asks.

I only half hear her. It doesn't register. Everything feels wrong.

"...better than 'meh'?"

"What?"

"I asked you how your weekend was. Was it 'meh'?" 

It takes me a second to remember what she's talking about. An app on my phone. Tracks my moods. Helps with not getting stuck in the 'I always feel awful' trap when I can look back and see the data that says that isn't true. Except, most days I log as 'meh'. Middle of the road. Feeling nothing. I must have talked about it at some point. Fucking memory is fading.

No, I did. I remember talking about it.

Was my weekend 'meh?' 

At first I can't quite pull together whatever happened. Years of alcoholism, depression, and a recent bout of covid have all taken their part in destroying my memory. This is probably the best it will ever be again. 

Eventually the weekend slides back into place. I had an okay couple of days. Meeting people. Visiting friends. Exploring new places. 

No, no, not okay. Those days were 'good'.

I'd been opening email to stall while I sorted it out.

"No, actually, it was really good. I think I even logged both days as 'good'."

"Wow. Maybe you're coming out of the depression."

"Let's not count our chickens," I say, half joking. "Two good days, that means I'm bound for... let's see." I turn my chair to face her, but I'm looking away, running the numbers. "Last summer I had two incredible weeks. Just... beautiful weeks. I've never felt more alive or happy or thankful. I can't express it. I felt so fucking happy. Then, I had eleven months of goddamn misery. So..., let's do the math. Two days of happiness, that equals... a month of misery? A few weeks?" I'm smiling. I'm serious, but I'm smiling.

She nods. "Makes sense to me," she says and turns to her computer. "I touched a stingray. A starfish. A shark..." She goes on.

I assume that at some point we'll hate each other, but for now it was a nice part of my day. Come in. Hang out. Crack jokes and speak in characters. Do some work and go home. It made the day tolerable. I was lucky that we had ended up sharing an office. But I did assume we would someday hate each other. I have nothing to base that on, in fact my time around Sacha would even make the argument that it would never happen. But if I expect the worst, I can't be let down. I tell myself, anyway.

The morning is slow. Monotonous, as per usual. I'm filling out federal reports. I'm scanning. I'm printing. I'm listening to the phone intercoms beckoning for so and so to come to whichever office. So and so to pick up whichever line. So and so, whichever whichever whichever.

Eventually, lunch. Chicken. Cauliflower rice. Verde. Microwave, two minutes. Stir. Bring it back to my office, close my laptop, feet up on the desk, eat. It's one of a few mile markers in my day. I come in and I think "make it three hours to lunch." Then "make it two hours to go outside." Then "make it two and a half hours to go home." Each day. Over and over. I try not to think about that part. But I feel it. Some great call to run. To disappear. I feel it here. I feel it always, everywhere. I try not to think about it.

"You want to go do an apartment inspection with me?" Elise asks, staring at her screen.

"When?"

"Twelve-thirty. Gotta leave in a few minutes."

"I'm on lunch."

"Well, hurry up."

* * *

Drive 20 minutes out. It isn't Albany, but it's basically Albany. All of this is. All of this unending same. It's raining. Grey. Wet and broken concrete sidewalks. Houses wearing peeling paint. I'm sitting in my car waiting for Elise to show up. I don't know the landlord. I don't want to be first to talk. I don't want to talk at all. I have the wipers off and the rain isn't heavy enough to make a sound, but I can't see through the windshield. Under a thin layer of anxiety (I don't know these people. I don't want to talk. I don't want to wait. What if someone speaks to me? What if this isn't the right house? What if I lose this job? I'm going to starve. I'm going to lose my home. My car. I'm too old to start again. I'm going to die alone. I'm going to die alone starving and hiding in the woods and no one will find me for weeks...I'm), I'm at peace.

She pulls up behind me. I crack my door and wave, but she doesn't react. I open my door and stick my head out. She nods. I close my door. I'm getting fucking rained on. Happening a lot lately. In the side mirror I see her get out of her car and I get out of mine. She has a pile of shit in her hands. A phone, more than a few keys & bullshit on a keyring. Just a pile. For whatever reason I focus on it for a second. For whatever reason my brain decides I need to keep a note of that. For whatever reason, if there ever is one.

"(She says something I don't hear)."

"(I say something that doesn't even register)." I'm thinking about the house we're standing in front of. How it seems as though it may sink into the earth. I wonder if it will take us with it. I hope it takes me with it.

"Well, let's see," she says. 

The front door opens and a large and unhealthy man lumbers out. "You here to look at an apartment?" he asks.

Elise responds. I don't want to talk.

"Yeah, we just have to do an inspection."

"Landlord ain't here," he says. "Maintenance man's here."

"Well, we're meeting the maintenance man, so that works," she says. 

I'm caught up in thinking about his diabetic legs. Will mine become that? Will I become this? Is he happy? Does he have regret? I'm sure. I do. I'm sure he does. I notice my mood drop a little and try to stop thinking about it. Elise is already halfway through the door and I follow. 

A thick stink of mold and mildew fills the air. For a second I think it's cat piss, but it isn't sharp enough. I wonder how the condition of the roof is. Is it rain damage? Do the people here smell it? Are they sick? Mold almost killed me once. Will it kill them? 

"Do you have your work phone on you? Do you remember which apartment it was?" she asks.

"No and no idea."

"I'm gonna grab mine out of the car." She walks away and I lose a moment or two because now she's back and looking through her work phone.

"Maybe I have it in my email," I say. I open my phone. Log in. It takes forever. No apartment number. "No, I don't."

"Hmmm," she says.

She looks at the apartment door next to us, and walks down the hall a little ways. It's dark. We stand there while she continues going through her phone. I find myself texting someone about Kenny Rogers. Someone else about pro-biotics.

The smell. The dark. The rotten yellow paint on every wall. "This is how movies start," I say. It isn't even the full thought I wanted to get out, but I guess it was enough.

Elise laughs. 

"Umm, what do we do?"

"I don't know. I'm just here."

We walk up a thin and steep staircase that feels soft in a bad way. Unstable. Only fading daylight up here. No light bulbs at all. Three apartments. 2, 3, and 4. I didn't notice the number downstairs, but it must have been 1.

2 has a sign on it that says "Closed for Caffeine Maintenance" with a cartoon cat laying over the row of letters. We're looking for the maintenance man. I make a note of the sign and walk down the hallway. The doors to 3 and 4 face each other. I pick something up in 3. Some feeling. 

"I think it's this one," I say.

"We can't just knock because you have a feeling."

"Okay, but I think it's that one."

She looks at it. "Maybe I can call the office."

We head back downstairs and stand in front of what I now know is 1. Elise is on the phone. No one is picking up. She tries number after number.

"Maybe something happened," I say. "Some disaster while we were gone. I woke up feeling very unsettled this morning."

"Maybe," she says, dialing someone else.

I go to look through the glass of the front door for no real reason and as my face gets close, the door bursts open and I jump back in time to not break my fucking nose.

"Maintenance man?" she asks.

"Yeah," a young man says. He reminds of an old co-worker I didn't like.

We inspect the apartment. It smells worse. A layer of cigarette smoke on top of the mold and mildew. I check the windows, I pretend I know what I'm doing. Faucets. Outlets. I think I would kill myself in this apartment and then I think that that's ridiculous. It's a roof. It can be a home. It could be salvation for someone and that's why we're here. To make sure we can get them something up to some livable standard. A small wave of shame rolls over me for my first reaction and I let it dissipate. 

Elise tells the maintenance man what needs to be fixed. A window lock. Then she explains some of the paperwork we'll be sending to the rental company. I haven't said a word. I just pretend I know what I'm doing. Pretend I'm important.

We leave the building back into the rain and toward our respective cars.

"I'm going to Target," she says, letting me know to take my time getting back to the office.

"I'm going to get stuff at the gas station," I say. I wasn't planning on it, but I guess I was now.

* * *

I grab a redbull. A cookie. Wander around for a minute. A man tries to walk out with an armload of food and an iced tea. 

"Excuse me!" a cashier calls out. 

The man acts like he had forgotten. I know the act. I've been there. He walks to the counter and sets everything down, fumbles around in his pockets and finally says he has forgotten his wallet and walks out. When I get to the register his things are still piled behind the counter. Small piles. I consider just buying them and giving it to him but I look around through the windows and I don't see him. If he's outside when I'm done, I'll go back.

The cashier makes a snide comment, gloating to a customer that she knew he was a thief. I want to throw my fucking red bull at her. I don't. I pay for my things, and walk out.

The man is nowhere. Gone. I walk around the corner of the building and I don't see him. I walk to the corner of the road and look up and down the sidewalks, but I don't see him. 

The man is nowhere. I've been there. I imagine I'll be there again. 

I go back to my car. Drive back to the office. Write this.

Cinema

 Car is fixed. 

Waiting to go pick it up.

Waiting to see what will happen later. Nothing, I assume. I have a way of getting my hopes up. I have a way of projecting my expectations onto other people and letting myself down when they don't live up to them. How could they? They have no idea what it is that I want. 

I tend to naturally lean toward a sort of cinematic structure of the world around me. You'll turn around, run back. You'll grand gesture. You'll know exactly what to say and when to say it, because that's the script and we follow the script. We follow the rules. 

But the world doesn't operate like that. People don't operate like that. We watch movies as escapism. Fantastical and perfect situations where everything goes according to plan, even when it doesn't. This isn't a movie, and none of you are characters in it. 

So why do I base my expectations in that way? I don't think I'm alone in it, I see others do it. But it does nothing but cause stress and pain for everyone involved. It's a habit I need to break. 

The other side of this is that I often find myself acting outwardly in a similar way. It probably goes back to my dissociative tendencies. My alienation. I don't feel at home here and I am not naturally like you. I have to take my cues from elsewhere. I have to study patterns and language and characters. Base my idea of romance on whatever my internal algorhythm decides is best, based on the input. Say the right thing. Do the right things. All at the right times. It's much easier in the beginnings of relationships, before I'm comfortable. When all of my focus is being what I think you want. When there's no room for me. That isn't to say that I don' mean or feel the things I say in those periods. Only that I have no idea how to naturally express them. What if my natural state repels you? What if I'm not a person to you? So keep to the script. The character. The film. But, when the ease rolls in, when I relax, when I am comfortable to show you who I am, it begins to fade. The character. The script. The film. My focus becomes a need to be loved for who I am.

But that's not the same person you've been seeing. 

It's jarring for people. Rightfully. Some handle it better than others, but it is jarring. I understand why those are the days when I feel less important to people. Well, I do now anyway. On one hand, I'm trying to expose myself to you and ask you to love me for whatever is behind the curtain. I feel closest to you and I am finally comfortable around you. I always think of this as a deep display of love. Actual love. But you already loved the person I had been and now you are looking at a stranger. Disappointing, as it's been called, is probably an understatement.

So why then, if I can recognize that I act cinematically, and how that operates, do I continue to hold people to that same cinematic standard? Both issues are from within me. As far as I can tell, both issues are entwined. Why would I forever hold a person to that impossible standard, if I can't even uphold it for a few months? 

Do I think I deserve more than them? Do I think I'm above them? 

Or is it protection from the pain of the inevitable collapse of these relationships? Or some kind of purity test? "If it's real love, then all of this will click."

I am trying to figure this out. Here I am writing about it. I don't know if I'll post this one, it's a little naked. Similar to so many left in my drafts. But I also think that maybe exposing this branch of destructive thoughts could help in rectifying it. Force me to break that branch off. 

I am actively pushing back those expectations as I type this. It isn't fair to anyone. It never has been.

A ridiculous and destructive standard that I hope to dissolve.

There are No Casual Guitarists

 Robin Finck is my favorite guitarist.

Has been since I was a kid. Since I first watched Nine Inch Nails' Woodstock appearance on pay-per-view at a friends house one night. Captured me.

There are a number of others I greatly admire, respect, and steal from. Reeves Gabrels. Thurston Moore. Nick Zinner and Nels Cline. So on. But Robin Finck has always been my image of what guitar music could represent. Should represent. Bordering, straddling, dancing on the line between noise and music. The capability to accurately cover damn near the entire spectrum of human emotion without uttering a single word.

One minute classical and clean finger-picking, and the next screaming feedback and ripping strings off guitars. All with an attitude I can only describe as chaotic indifference. Robin Finck doesn't play guitar. He commands it.

Why am I writing this?

I don't know. It's on my mind.

Occassionally I've been called a guitarist. But that's not accurate. I'm not a guitarist. I play guitar. 

I think there's a distinction that needs to be recognized more often. Calling me a guitarist seems disrespectful to the people, like Robin Finck, who have achieved a level of both skill and voice in their playing. There's also a certain amount of dedication that I believe should be factored in. How much time, energy, and love have you poured in to those six strings? There are no casual guitarists. Only guitar players. 

I'm a guitar player.

Robin Finck's a guitarist.

Climbing into the Back and Watching the Scenery Pass

I was losing weight. 

Quickly.

Fitting easily into clothing that only barely fit me the last time I had a period like this, eight years ago. I only worried a little bit about it, but I thought about it often. From an analytical point of view. 

Why was it happening?

I thought that it was a number of things in conjunction. First and foremost; depression. In these longer waves I almost always lose a lot of weight. This one was ending though (finally), so maybe it would no longer be a factor. After that, the anti-depressant Welbutrin. I was on the max dose and two common side effects that I was experiencing were weight loss and lack of appetite. It wasn't safe to take myself off of the medication, especially because it had so far been the only one to produce any results. Lastly, I had been avoiding carbs for close to a year, on and off, save for a beer or a slice of pizza here and there. The combination of all of that made the most sense.

But I guess I looked all right, so there's that. Not that it made much of a difference to me.

I had tried on a shirt for a movie my friends had made almost a decade ago and was surprised at how well it fit now. It hadn't even come close to fitting since I got it. I took a picture in the mirror. Not with my face. 

Usually never with my face anymore.

I am not my face.

I am not my wasting body.

I am not my rat clothing. My long and rapidly thinning hair. I am not the bags under my eyes or my shitty tattoos. I'm just trapped in here. For now.

My therapist and I had begun to discuss it lately. My sense of being. My identity and body issues. My dissociation and PTSD. All of it, and how it was all related. 

I just disappear sometimes. I never think about it as "leaving my body". More like stepping out of the drivers seat, climbing into the back, and watching the scenery pass. I don't leave my body, I'm trapped here. A friend once told me "Sometimes you are so far away." She was right. Others have called me back from time to time, or stopped it from happening. Recently, as I was stepping back, someone quickly said "are you dissociating?" and I came back. "I was," I said.

It happens a lot (though not always) in times of fear, panic, pain, or stress. A defense most likely borne from growing up the way I did. From seeing. Over time it grew and changed and now I feel almost a complete seperation from my body. I am not my body. I am trapped in here.

In the last of these long waves, eight years ago, I remember noticing for the first time the total seperation (though looking back I do see at least a handful of other occassions that had happened before that). I remember being there, inside, and just watching my body move and reach and touch and I was only observing. Indifferent. I was not moving, or reaching, or touching. I wrote a little about it elsewhere, but we don't need the details here. The point is; it's a problem. There's no way this is healthy or sustainable if I plan on living much longer. And I suppose I do plan on it.

But, I've always felt alien. I've always felt detached. Outside. 

Because of this I've also put a lot of effort into reinforcing a very social and personable persona. Loud. Funny. Flirtatious. Large. It really came to life in my alcoholic years, but even now, diminished, it remains. It's the only way I can get through interactions with people who are not intimately close with me ("intimately" meaning a number of things here). When I am away from that scene though, it slides right off of me. The person you may have met is almost certainly not the person writing this. Recently I was told how disappointing it was to find that out. 

I'm sure it is.

Can I reconnect with my body? Can I see myself as more than an imprisoned conciousness? Can I show you what I really am? 

I want out. I want to feel like a person. I want to look in the mirror and see me. Not this shell. This other thing. I want to take control and reconnect and feel a part of you. You all out there, living and in love and in pain and part of it all. I want to be a part of you. 

Or nothing at all.