new year's evisceration

For the first time, I actually followed through with a resolution.  I wanted to lose weight.  I did.  I didn't lose as much as I wanted but that's no matter because I still did it and consistently worked on it all year.  I have not conquered my weight and I suspect I never will but I do feel I have a better grasp on it than I used to so I consider that a victory.

But I'm not done.  I still want to lose more.

And I want to do more.

For 2013, I want to become more financially responsible.  I'm old now and I literally cannot afford to be so careless with my spending.

I want to finish my book (and get published if possible).  I'm so close already.  I've finished writing it and I've done a first edit.  I need to finish my second edit, write up all the changes, get some "test" readers, take their opinions into consideration, then publish that baby so I can start seeing the ones of tens of dollars roll in.

I'd like to re-discover my passion for drawing.

I want to find God again.  This one is a bit ambitious since a lot of people spend their whole lives trying to find God.  Not sure I can do that in a span of one year.  Maybe I just mean I want to find peace with how I feel about God.  Confession time: I don't think I'm a Christian anymore.  It's not that I don't want to be but I don't think it's fair to the true Jesus followers to call myself one because I would set a bad example to others.  But hopefully I can either come around (still waiting for God to come around) or I will just remain agnostic or maybe I'll go in a completely different direction and become a Buddhist.

I want to accept myself for who I am and who I will never be.

I tried the whole "alive" thing earlier this year and having a pulse hurt worse than withering.  I've retired the resurrection and have returned to rotting.  Sorry to disappoint.  I've made peace with it, though.  I don't have time to worry about a beating heart when I've got bills to pay.  I'll get all that sorted out later when I can concentrate on it.  For now, I'll just continue to coast as a corpse.

Cheers to the new year.

vent-ricles

Feel free to skip this as it has no significance other than me ranting about retail and who really gives a crap?

bran before and after

I waited a whole year for this picture.

When I saw the picture of my sister and me together last Christmas, I was heartbroken.  I was so big.  How did I get that large and not notice?  I'm sure I was in denial, sure I could ignore it until things in my life changed for the better so I could focus on bettering myself.  But nothing changed and when I saw the photo, I knew I had to be that change.

I told myself I would not repeat that Christmas picture looking the way I did.  Long time readers will know I've been dieting and exercising all year.  I've lost approximately 50 pounds.  I've probably gained at least 10 of them back in the past 2 months (I've been too ashamed to weigh myself lately so I don't know the exact number) due to birthday bingeing but that's another entry for another time.  For now, I want to focus on the positive.  Yes, I actually can do that sometimes.

I was excited to take this year's Christmas picture, anxious to see the changes.  It wasn't as big of a transformation as I was hoping.  Sure, clothing and lighting and angles play a significant role in revealing the body but I thought 50 pounds would show a more dramatic change. That's not to say I'm not happy with the difference.  I definitely look better and I'm happier where I am right now.  I can mostly tell in my face, which is good.  But I still have a belly.

I'm working on it, though.  I didn't put the weight on in a year and it will take more than a year to lose it.

I'm cool with that as long as I'm always making progress.

Starting January 1st, I'm going to begin my diet and exercise anew and at the end of the year, I'll take another Christmas picture and hopefully I'll see more positive changes.  And no man boobs.

Left: Christmas 2011 with my sister.  Right: Christmas 2012 with my sister.

christmas kitty

Our tree came out really well this year so I thought I'd share some pictures.  I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas/desired holiday of choice/day off from work and/or school.  

Not the standard tree topper.  I like it.

Moses says, "Where are all my presents?"

"Seriously.  I'll lie here until you bring them."

"This is where I want you to put all of my presents.  And then I'll eat the bows."

let's get drunk and kiss

"Excuse me for this
I just want a kiss
I just want to know what it feels like to touch..."
Kelly Clarkson, Can I Have a Kiss

Tuesday was my birthday and I've been trying to write this entry ever since then.  I've just been so tired from the long hours at work and general exhaustion and sadness.  I also believe I have a touch of ADD because I seriously cannot concentrate anymore.  I used to be able to sit down and pound out entry after entry with no problem but now it takes me hours, sometimes days, to write.  For once, I don't blame it on nature or nurture.  I think I did this to myself.  I've conditioned myself over the years to become an inefficient multi-tasker.  I'm usually writing while watching television and listening to music, eating, clipping my toe nails, doing my taxes and tempering eggs all at the same time.  I need to focusss.

My birthday was pretty blah.  It wasn't bad.  It wasn't the worst day ever but it wasn't good, either.  I had to work, first of all.  When I looked at my schedule and saw I'd be spending my birthday in that crap factory, I didn't even put up a fight about it.  I just shrugged my shoulders and put on my big boy briefs (and a bow tie) and walked in like I owned the place.  When you get older, you have to do stuff like that.  You grow up and your special day isn't that special to anyone else outside you and your immediate family.  Sometimes it isn't even that special to them.  But it's no big deal.  Just another day.

But it kind of sucks that the magic is gone.

After work, I drove home.  That night drive was the best part of the day.  Swooping through the orange and white lights.  The darkness pulling at my eyelids.  I just thought it would be nice to have someone I could share my special not-so-special day with so I could feel a little less alone, at least for the night.  And if lips wouldn't help me forget my crumbling world, maybe liquor would.  We could go out and get drunk and make out.  A swirl of inebriation and untangled inhibitions, taking a break from my brain for a while.  Release and regretful decisions.

It's something that comes so easily, something is taken for granted.  What might seem trivial to so many seems tremendous to me.  The intimacy.  The charged current.  The confidence to caress.  But it's all lost on me.  It shouldn't be so scary or foreign or vital yet I need to feel the closeness of body, the intensity of mind, the comfort of desire.  Yes, I'm wanted.  Yes, I'm needed.  Yes, I can be touched and be made to feel worthy of someone else.  Yes, I can give and receive pleasure.  I know it.  I don't feel it.

I don't think I ask for much.  Just to be happy and lie on the cold ground and have someone hold my hand a while.

my lorazepam says i'm happy for you

"We'll never be the same, never feel this way again
I'd give you anything but you want pain
 little water please, I taste you all over my teeth..."
-Jimmy Eat World, Just Tonight...

"She'll break your heart like she broke mine
bipolar, baby, make up your mind..."
-Forever the Sickest Kids, Bipolar, Baby

Wednesday at work, I had lunch with work girlfriend (WG) as we tend to do when we work the same shift.  Everything was fine and well until we clocked in to go back to work and a coworker walked toward us.  The coworker pointed to WG's hands and said, "Why are you hiding that?"

I looked over to see what the coworker was talking about and WG, who conveniently had her left hand covered with her right, uncovered lefty and held it up.

The coworker looked at me and said, "He did a good job, didn't he?"

Confused, I didn't reply.  I just looked at WG.  She held her left hand closer to me and pointed to a shiny silver ring.

"What's...that?" I asked, still confused.

"I'm engaged," WG said.

And my reaction went a little something like this:

"Da fuck?"

holding severed hands

"You wish that you won't wake up but you can't even get to sleep
six feet under for these six months, just dying to be buried..."
-Sacha Sacket, Sweet Suicide

"I'm waiting for blood to flow to my fingers
I'll be all right when my hands get warm..."
-Dashboard Confessional, The Best Deceptions

I've come across peculiar customers throughout my years in retail.  One gentleman used to come in through the rear entrance of the store and always went through my area to get to the jewelry department.  He was a tall man in his late 40s with a big, round belly.  He always wore polo shirts, shorts, and white crew socks that stuck out from tennis shoes, no matter the weather.  His shaggy hair was brown and unkempt, swept across his brown eyes and over his ears.  He had bristly hair that hung down from the nostrils of his Roman nose. 

He liked to pass the time talking to the jewelry associates, sometimes spending a whole hour looking at jewelry and chatting.  Sometimes he branched away from jewelry and talked to other associates in other departments.  Eventually, he made his way to my department to talk to me.  He spoke with a deep, booming voice and also with a lisp.  As he talked, his tongue darted between his small, brown teeth, muffling his "s" sounds.  Right away, I could tell he had a mental handicap.  He often spoke in circles, repeating himself as he stood with his hand propped on his jutted hip.  He talked about the weather a lot, hoping for rain or wind to break the southern heat.

I noticed he wore women's jewelry.  His hands waved in the air as he talked and I noticed several rings on his fingers.  The bands were thin gold that supported small diamonds.  He also wore a delicately thin necklace with a heart pendent nestled in the hair that crawled up over his open shirt collar.

I inquired about his taste in jewelry to one of my coworkers one day and she said the rings and necklace belonged to his dead mother.  He wore them to feel closer to her.  I didn't know if I thought that was touching or creepy.  Maybe a bit of both.

He also bought a lot of women's panties and his name was Roger.

But out of all his eccentricities, his incessant talking was the most problematic.  He talked about things I was not interested in, therefore it was painful to stand through one of his rants or daydreams.  He also often showed up when I was busiest and, not wanting to be rude, I stopped what I was doing to listen to him talk about hoping to win the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes and what he would do with his windfall.  I mostly nodded and even chuckled when appropriate.  Sometimes I folded a stack of shirts and then picked them up and slowly walked away from him to give him the hint that I needed to get back to work but he never picked up on any of my cues.

He made me uncomfortable in a way I couldn't articulate.  He wasn't rude or intimidating.  He was just awkward and I'm awkward as well so we didn't make a great pair.  I found myself hoping a customer would need help or the phone would ring so I could shimmy my way out of his conversational grip.  It came to a point that when I saw him stomping my way, I sprinted in the opposite direction so as to avoid his laser gaze.

I've known him for years.  He was one of many customers that I'd see and feel that sense of familiarity coupled with a bit of unease, but nothing I couldn't handle.  In his own way, he was a part of my routine, a consistent face, an expected presence during my time at work. 

While I was on vacation, he shot and killed himself.

One of the scariest moments of my life was when I had to talk a good friend out of committing suicide.  We were only children back then, in the middle of our teens and awkward with acne and agony.  I wasn't writing down my life back then so the events are foggy at best but I remember I caught wind that she was thinking about taking her life and so I called her on the phone at two in the morning and tried to calm her down.  She sobbed and I stuttered to find the words to talk her out of it.  I threatened to drive to her house in my threadbare pajamas if I had to just to get her to not hurt herself.

I remember the panic in my stomach and this heavy feeling of hopelessness that wrapped around me like a lead blanket.  I suppose she was feeling the same hopelessness, just filtered differently than mine.  I asked her to consider how killing herself would make her parents feel, would make me feel.  Through sloppy sobs, she told me she didn't care how it would make us feel.

I was hurt and offended but I pushed through my feelings to try to save her life.  Eventually, through an hour of calm coercion, she settled down and decided not to do it.

I didn't realize until several years later what it meant to not care about the ramifications of suicide.  I went through life with darkening eyes.  I felt the pain intensify every day, the hurt bubble up and bloom out over everything until it was all I could see.  All the laughter in my life didn't make a difference and was rendered ineffective, like putting sugar on a suture.  I realized I wanted out.  I realized how selfish it might be.  I realized I didn't care.  I saw how my friend's unconcern for my feelings was not personal.  I didn't want to hurt anyone but I was hurting more than anyone realized, more than I could express.  I was living in a skin that sizzled and the only way to stop it was to slide out of it.  Sometimes, pain is stronger than love or fear and you find yourself willing to do anything to end it, no matter who it might hurt.  It's not something you want to do but something you feel you have to do.

I think my friend didn't kill herself because she wasn't really ready.  I don't think I had much to do with it.  I was an ear and an assuring voice.  She just made a rash decision, a moment goaded by a bad day or dialogue.  I think if she was really ready, I wouldn't have been able to change her mind.  We always hope we have some kind of influence, that our love or language will steer the outcome toward life.  But I don't think that's so.  When someone is ready to go, there's no stopping them.  It may seem like a personal blow to you but it's not.  You can be there and try to create a connection.  You can reach out and hold their hand to comfort them but then you realize their hand is severed from their body and you're only holding onto a few fingers and a fledgling hope that somehow you'd be enough to make a difference.

You're not.

I kept thinking about Roger.  I didn't feel bad about him.  I wasn't upset over his death.  I wasn't going to miss him but he stayed on my mind and I wasn't sure why.  I guess I knew him enough to think it was a shame he passed away but it was also mixed with a perverted kind of reverence.  Some people think suicide is taking the coward's way out but I think it's kind of brave to belly flop into the unknown like that.  He was the first person I actually knew who had committed suicide.  This guy I saw around my store for years wasn't going to walk in with his tennis shoes and shiny gold rings on his thick knuckles anymore.  Why did he do it?  How had he summoned the sadness or courage to pull it off?  What was going through his mind?  Did he have anyone to talk to?  Did his impairment have anything to do with his death?

The possibility of ending my life is always there, always peeking its head out from under the shame and rage that fills my body.  It calls to me, reminds me it's there, waiting.  It all presses down on me until I feel crushed under the weight of every person and voice and insecurity and I have to put my hands up and wonder if I really want to die at all.  I say I do, under my breath when things go bad.  I say it almost every day.  I joke about it too much to be healthy.  But do I really mean it or am I exhaling empty threats?  

I keep imaging scenarios in which I'm faced with true death. What if a disgruntled customer comes in and points a gun at my face? Am I going to press my head against the barrel and tell him to do me a favor or am I going to piss myself and scream for mercy? If a truck comes barreling toward me, am I going to whip out of the way or am I going to stand still with a welcoming smile?  If I'm ever diagnosed with cancer, am I going to fight it or fall frail until I break apart?  Am I all talk and no toxins?   

I guess I'll never really know unless I'm confronted with the true possibility of biting it.  There's a wholly undiscovered world on the other side of a gun.  But I'm scared that world is as empty and cold as the one I'd be leaving and that's why I haven't pulled the trigger yet.  It's the unknown we fear, the possibility there really is a hell or there is nothing at all waiting for us.  We wake in emptiness and live in it and die in it and then we are extinguished.  We have to face the possibility that we are not important and our lives don't mean anything and neither do our souls.  We're all born and suffer and die and then grafted onto the Great Void and it's terrifying to think that there is no point to anything because pointlessness leads to chaos and chaos leads to death and no one wants to die. 

I have no roots, only regrets.  I have no wings, only chains.  I have nothing.  I think about my friend's nothing.  I think about Roger's nothing.  I think of the nothing hidden away inside everyone.  One day, I will be nothing.

I'm just exhausted.  It's that simple.  I'm tired and I want out.  I'm tired of living inside my head instead of living in the world. I'm tired of constantly feeling like there's nothing more to life than what I've already experienced.  I know there's more to life than what I've lived and that's almost worse because I know there's love and happiness out there and the fact that it dangles out of reach is what corrodes my insides.   My life is shallow and trivial and I've become petulant and pathetic.  I see the world through morose-colored glasses glued to my face.  The tentacles come out and lap at my face and neck and chest and sink thoughts of death and dying into me.  They slide the slime of self-hatred across my body, slicing at me until the light pours out.

I'm not ready yet.  But I'm making plans.  I've said to myself that I'll give it a few more years.  I'll give things a chance to turn around.  I'll try to turn things around myself.  I'll be proactive in producing better days.  But if I don't see a change, I'll have to get up and get out because I can't go on like this much longer.  And the consequences won't matter.  The words won't make a difference because I've come across worlds my whole life.  Words feel good on the surface but it's the actions, the feelings, the love behind them that make them effective.  And that's what's been missing all this time.  And it's kind of too late to correct that because that love would have kept me from ever getting to this point.  I'm beyond it now.  I'm coasting. 

One day, I will sever my hands so no one will be able to reach me or come running in their threadbare pajamas.  I'll be beyond help by that point.  In a lot of ways, I already am.

It'll take a miracle to move me.

santa claws me in the face

Thursday afternoon, I put on my frayed trainers and headed out the door.  The weather was perfect for a good walk to I had to go out and enjoy it.  I knew I only had a few days of good weather left before the air turned too cool to go outside.

Things were great.  I wasn't too hot.  I wasn't too sweaty.  Ear buds were firmly in place, pumping music into my extremities.

And then the school bus passed me.

It's always awkward when vehicles pass me.  I can see people crane their necks to look through the rear view mirror at the bearded stranger walking down the dirt road.

It's worse when it's a bus filled with curious and obnoxious children.  That particular bus has passed me a few times and I always caught glimpses of smashed noses and oily forehead prints on the smudged glass.

Being the beautiful day it was, the bus windows were down to allow the sweet little bastards angels to enjoy the cool breeze.  As the bus rolled past, I saw a white ball whirl by me and hit the blades of grass at my feet.

I looked up and saw glowing brake lights as the bus skidded to a stop.  Through the blasting music, I heard the bus driver's booming voice spill over the open windows.  I surmised he was yelling at the littering little snot.  I was only feet from the bus so I slowed my pace.  I didn't want to pass by and risk being pelted with more paper or insults.

"What the hell is this guy doing?" I asked myself about the driver.  The bus just stood in the road, the brake lights illuminating my embarrassment.

Finally, I just turned around and walked in the opposite direction.  I heard the squeak of the tires as the bus started up again.  I didn't look back until I was down the hill.

Oh, why do I always find myself in these awkward situations?  I kept thinking what the kids must have been thinking.  "Hey, John, let's throw this piece of paper at the fat loser walking in the dirt road!"  I don't like being "that" guy, the one people think they can push around or make fun of.  Especially when it's a bunch of middle school shits playing the bully. 

I looped back around to the spot where I was almost hit with the wad of paper and found it on the ground.  I picked it up, smoothed it out and saw it was poorly colored paper Santa.

By the way, you did a crap job putting that Santa together, Pablo Prickasso.

I just wanted to burn some calories and clear my head, not catch a paper cut from Kris Kringle.  Thanks for the holiday cheer, Timmy. I hope you get coal and canker sores for Christmas. And people ask me why I don't like kids! 

beard is good

Having lost a little over 50 pounds and wishing to change my appearance further, I wanted to grow a beard.  No Shave November was coming up so I thought it would be a great time to try it.  I have always wanted to, mostly just to see if I could, but also to see how I'd look with one.

I thought growing a beard would reduce blemishes while covering up current ones (which it has).  I thought having a beard would save time not having to shave (which it hasn't because trying to groom the beard is just as time consuming as shaving it off).  I also thought it would be cool to grow a thick beard and use it as a shield.  You know how some people can hide behind their glasses or heavy makeup?  I don't have those options so I thought I could keep people at a distance with my beard.  For a dude who sometimes strongly craves a connection with others, I also want to push myself away a lot of the time.  I know.  It's messed up.

I actually stopped shaving mid-October when I took my staycation because I have never grown one before and I knew Thanksgiving was coming up so I wanted to try to get a pre-beard going so I could shape it up and make it presentable in front of the relatives in time for the holiday.

After a week of not shaving, I went back to work and was surprised to find a positive response.  For me, I thought I looked just kind of dirty.  But all the girls not only approved but gave me a lot of compliments.  It was nice.  It was also very surprising.  I always thought girls generally shied away from fuzzy faced men.  Sure, there are ladies who are happy with hirsute gentlemen but I thought they were in the minority.  I was wrong.

Amazingly, the general consensus was that my beard is good.

I've learned a lot about my beard this month.  First of all, it's a multitude of colors, ranging from brown to blonde to-get this-red!  In fact, a large patch of hair on my right cheek is a nice coppery color.  Who knew I was a ginger?  I guess that partly explains why I have no soul.

Also, it grows in every direction possible.  The hair on my left side grows down.  The hair on my chin grows to the right and the  hair on my right side actually grows toward horizontally across my cheek.  This has made it difficult to maintain the uniformity of the beard while trimming.  I don't know if trimming is allowed during No Shave November.  It probably isn't but I work with the public so I have to maintain some sense of being groomed.

Not only did I want to cut down on the mountain man look but I also hoped frequent trimming would tame the quickly growing hairs while allowing for the tiny baby hairs to catch up and fill in.

Now, No Shave November is over and although I didn't exactly grow the beard just for November but in some ways, I'm ready to shave it off.  Now I face a seemingly unimportant decision:  do I shave or do I keep it?  It's not a decision I'm taking lightly.  I'm not developing an ulcer over it or anything but I've worked really hard on this bad boy.  I've clipped and trimmed and plucked and sculpted and shampooed and washed and itched and scratched and sure if I shave it, it will grow back.  But it took a long time to get it the way it is now and I don't want to have to go through all that prep again.

Plus, I'm saving a lot on razors.

writing my second novel

I participated in National Novel Writing Month again this year.  I did it back in 2010 and skipped 2011.  I almost didn't do it again this year because I have too many other book projects I should focus on but then I did it anyway and actually started on the 2nd.

The reason I participated in 2011, and one of the basic ideas behind National Novel Writing Month, is because I wanted to write a book.  I had been working on my memoir for years and not making much progress and so having guidelines really helped me discipline myself.  I had a goal and I managed to not only meet it but surpass it.  It was a great feeling and once I knew I could actually write a book, I was satisfied.  I think that's why I didn't do it the next year.

But this year, I decided to do it again.  In one way, I wanted to see if the first book was just a fluke because I actually had no trouble writing it.  Every day I sat down, the words flowed and it was a good feeling to know there was a story inside me.  The other fun part was I had the flimsiest idea and yet I let the story tell itself and nothing ever felt forced or rushed.  It just fell into place.  I wanted to see if I could recapture that.

In some ways, I did.  The idea for my first novel was a very basic idea that I had been floating around for maybe a year or two.  My idea was that I would maybe write a short story based on the idea but I never went as far as to develop it into something.  With this book, however, I had a good idea of how I wanted the story to go.  I've had this concept in my head ever since 7th grade and so I've had many years to mull it over in my mind and kind of expand the story.  It's a dumb story but yet it's one I've kept going back to and thinking about and so in a way, I feel I need to write it down and tell the story.  Because of that, I thought it would be a good idea to use for National Novel Writing Month because neither the story or NaNoWriMo are too serious so they fit together.

The cool/weird/disheartening thing is the story isn't finished.  The story in this book is finished but the story itself will continue.  I don't know if I should wait until next November to write the next part or get started sooner.  Well, I actually need to finish my memoir first and after that, then I can decide which project to tackle next.

It's been a long month and I'm glad I did it but I'm also glad it's over.