31 May 2011

Cover of Ark

We went to see Brendan Perry last night at 6th and I.  Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins) played the first half, some it was good but he almost seemed disinterested.  Perry’s show, however, was moving, very much a modern take on his work in the later years of Dead Can Dance…   and his voice is dripping molten copper, it’s beautiful.  He released a new album, first in a decade, called Ark last week.  It’s good.

His show made me think, while sitting there enwrapped in the music.  I wish I had had something to type on there.  One thought that music, as an artform, is a bit of a cheat.  It connects so directly with the emotional me, bypassing layers of defenses, persona, interpretation, etc  with an ease that would make pottery or a painting jealous.    So it is…  at least for me.   And I assume for most people, but who knows?   Hmmm…  maybe in theatre this would explain musicals.

I thought about what I’ve done in the past decade or so…  the usual feelings came up, the largest being a lack of fulfillment or meaning.  Nothing new.  But some of the songs did get me to consider that maybe there’s meaning in just being who I am…  I mean as opposed to seeking some value or meaning in achieving some technological advance.  What about just existing to express your own existence?

I could see developing / chasing tech as a form of self-expression but that’s not what I’ve done.  I’ve been working on other people’s projects not toward my own dreams.
There’s gotta be something that holds meaning to me…  right, somewhere??

State of me, October 2010

Blech!
That sums it up..  thought this would take longer.

Generally down and isolated, very isolated.  If it wasn’t for Monica I’d surely have gone over the edge by now.
Aging just reminds me of all the things I thought of doing or started but never actually did.  I still come up with new ideas all the time, but try to ignore them.   A long string of half-steps.

I started looking for a job.  Maybe having one will make me feel a little better.  But nothing seems interesting and what little seems not too bad tarnishes overnight.

R.’s husband killed himself a couple of months ago.  There’s times I can see that path.
I miss Rochester sometimes.  Or think I do.  It’s not like I was social then either, even though the people I did know were good and accepting.  I didn’t like the bleakness; grey skies forever.  I miss Michele.  She has gone silent.  She moved out of Scott’s place, but isn’t responding and I don’t know where she went.  I miss Tom, one of the few people I don’t feel anxious around.  I miss photo school   … I think.  Well, I miss having something like it.  I miss my youth.  It’s amazing how dumb I was.   Lucky thing I’m sooooo much wiser now….  yeah.
It’s disturbing how so many personal goals, traits, issues, etc do not change over time.  I still feel like the lonely 14yo staring at the clouds in class imagining waves of screams that no one else heard.  Guess I always will.

Grandma is pretty far along the Alzheimer’s collapse.  Mom and Aunt Anne take care of her, for now.  She’s ancient, they’re growing old…..   so is dad,  damn them!   They’re making it harder and harder for me to deny I’m immune to aging.

The last real thing Grandpa said to me before dying was, “David, I’m scared.”
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck…..
I haven’t been able to change the universe yet.

People are still determined to be as dumb as possible, on a massive scale.
We keep tearing ourselves apart.

I don’t really want a job, I want to be part of a ‘tribe’ and feel useful, appreciated.  Jobs provide an extremely shallow social pool that dries up the second you walk out the door.  Well, lately it’s been that way.

blech

Enduring visitors

15 May 2010 – DC

A good friend is visiting us / attending a conference, so we’re doing the tourist thing.  The weather has been normal for late Spring, lots of sun, too warm for my taste but nothing compared to July or August.

I like this friend, I like hanging around her.  But this routine we play we visitors drives me crazy.  It’s so incredibly not me.  I”m so uncomfortable with this kind of thing.  It doesn’t take long before it feels like I’m being dragged around by my parents on some bad childhood vacation.

It would be better if it didn’t feel like such a song and dance. It would be better if people came in with very specific things they would like to do.  It’d be better if there was some built-in down / alone time in visits.  It’d be better if people came to work on some kind of project together.
But…

I should speak up more often.

State of me, 07 May 2010

I’m still not working.
Taking a basic drawing class at the Torpedo Factory with Anna.
Doing a little volunteer work for Rosemary Covey.
Generally lost.
Think the drugs aren’t working.
The hopelessness gets really old.

Still seeing Barbara Sobol.  Sometimes this turns out to be useful.  But I feel a bit trapped by the relationship.  The old initial setup trap.  Stuck along a rail, along a worn path.  Too shy to just leave.

Monica is getting antsy about me not having a job.  I guess I understand, but sometimes I think she doesn’t get what the problem is.

Sitting in Rosemary’s studio while she’s out of town has taught me that even this is too isolating.
On a smaller scale it’s also shown me that I’m still stuck in the mind of a child seeking approval.  I’m afraid of touching or moving anything here yet feel disappointed in myself that I didn’t do something impressive while here.
I wish there was some way to experience being someone else for a little while.

Still have no idea what to ‘do’ next.   I wish I’d just go crazy and launch off in some mad direction.   The worst option seems to be to continue down the same kind of path I’ve been on….   and wind up regretting the misspent time.

TODO:
Get Rosemary to put a pic and a sample on wikipedia.
“An Engraver’s Globe” by Simon Brett to Michele.

bomb the system (remix)

24 July 2009
there never arrives explanation things, longing..  i don’t understand. never have.  lost boy.  “i hate this life” is a perpetual refrain, but i don’t.
The longing is godlike.  well, ethereal anyway.
lost touch with what matters, lost the cold stone, promised not to…   i keep the memory but it feels false.     older further older and older, stuck.
not sad, but confused.    lost is the word.
so lost
but there’s a dream inside that has nothing to do with this. yet i keep paying the rent here.
staying still

bomb the system
(too scared)

Losing my mind?

26 Apr 2009
I’m feeling scraped away, raw, scared.. When I see others be able to recall memories that to me are so far gone that I can’t see anything even after they’ve described events in detail, it really freaks me out. I’m so scared that I’m losing my memory and that it’s likely to be more than just memory, that my brain is deteriorating and I’m drifting away into nothingness.
Combine that with this change over the past several weeks of wanting to be ???? …more open, more intimate with more people, and I wonder if it’s a sign of disintegration rather than finally beginning to be bold enough to be myself.
—
At work today (peb) I was zombiefied while listening to a talk on business practices. The question came to me, what kind of work would respect and engage my emotions? I just see this kind of work and workplace as a place that wants you to constantly shun your own feelings. Too much time in a place like this… the ‘lesson’ is bound to seep in, change things for the worse.
So what to do?

Beginning to learn

25 April 2009

..scattered pieces:

I’ve spent a large portion of my life learning how to think analytically about a number of technical topics. It’s something I’ve always gravitated toward. And with most of the jobs I’ve held, that way of thinking has been reinforced daily for years. I’m pretty good at it by now.

What I know I’m not good at are social topics, especially relationships. Routinely I miss cues others would easily pick up, or just can’t figure out where the boundaries are. I’ve never really thought about what I need or want out of my relationships.

Outside of the time I really want to spend alone, I’m usually very lost. I feel hopelessly troubled and tormented by longings I have no idea how to handle. These insistent longings range from simple sexual desire to finding friends with who I could feel a real connection; somewhere to belong, my tribe, etc.

Don’t mistake this for a trivial issue, the result of this frustration has been truly torturous. There are friends that I really value, and feel at ease with, but they’re very very few and seldom available. Almost of of the people we socialize with are either friends of my wife’s or people from work. I simply don’t know how to find new friends, my social skills are very thin. …even thinking about it can make me feel I”m a freak, an outsiders, that I really don’t belong anywhere and never will, that I should go hide and fade away without bothering anyone. ( The people who even casually know me would probably say that hearing me admit to being desperately lonely, and that I have a very strong need for more meaningful, more intimate social interaction is something they never thought would come from my lips. )

As a result I’ve learned to bury myself in the technical realm. I’m an expert at jamming my brain’s cogs by saturating it with information, analysis, problem solving, plans, ideas, and so on. Then, I’m “busy”, I feel like I’m doing something.. and one trait I’ve always had is that I must always be doing something. I just never saw why before (or at least what seems to be why). It’s a trait that is unlikely to ever really change, but it’s liberating just to see a connection that might explain it.

And that, in an odd way, is the larger point.
I’ve begun to think about the social aspects of my life rather than just let them be, let go unexamined. This is new to me. And I’m just beginning to get a glimpse of how much there is to learn. Yeah, this little hint is a major revelation to me… Major.

In the past month I’ve gone from miserable, continual suppression of a large portion of my emotions as a matter of the status quo, to focusing on thinking about the problem, to being confused with this whole new arena of thought and becoming filled with worry that the only way out is to throw everything up in the air and run, to thinking about exploring the options, which somehow brought me to the realization that there was even more here than I thought. Lots of thinking, lots of self-doubt, confusion, and concern. But as I tried to figure this out, it became apparent there were other, related problems.

More thinking, new questions arose. “Why hadn’t I really thought about this stuff before?” “Why am I so inept at addressing these needs?” “I’ve sat in this pain for so long, and I’m scared about trying to change.”
But isn’t learning something I am skilled at? Can I just fess up, admit I’m highly ignorant about social stuff, and start playing, experimenting…. learning?

True learning is usually quite difficult. It’s time consuming, often frustrating, and can instill embarrassment. But it’s possible, approachable, do-able.
I can learn.
All I need to do is sign up for a few classes, maybe get a basic degree … in.. um… ohhhhhhh.
Yeah, they don’t teach this stuff at school. Which strikes me as not only neglegent, not only irresponsible, but downright immoral. So those of us who don’t just “pickup” these skills while in school are doomed bang blindly into maze walls until, hopefully, we figure out something on our on?!? Immoral and obscene, it is.

So what happens now?

I can write the words, “fight the fear, and learn”, but the fear is pretty damn serious, and heavily entrenched, with reinforcements spread across time, and double agents installed in my mind. It’s not going anywhere. One little rock thrown at the beast doesn’t even get its attention.
How do I get to the point where I do more than just think and analyze, and begin to act, experiment, play? I want to run away, hide.

‘Double agents’ refers to my social phobia, among other things. I’ve got to be able to meet other people to make changes. But this sits in the middle of my fears. I’m scheduled to see a new shrink next week, and am trying not to get hopeful that we’ll find something that might lower the fears a bit. But if we did… sigh, I cannot afford to rely on the possibility.

At the moment, and things have been changing rapidly, I see two I can do; 1- try to figure out what I need, want, am hoping for out of my major social ties, 2- find a site aimed at matching people up as friends, and start trying to meet people that way. The second may not be the most effective approach but, at least initially, it’s still in my comfort zone.
Oh, 3- look around and see if there are classes, courses, meetings, books, whatever for learning basic social skills.

Kick out the blues..

and pull down the wall..

burn down the house, burn down the street..            …it’s a perfect day!

I want out

I

Want

Out

There’s so much more in me than this technical crap that only serves to make circles, in circles, in circles.
It’s never too late to get up and….   !

Nothing really holds you back.  All of the blockades exist only in your head.
I CAN step out of this house.
I could, well…  do anything.  The only thing stopping me is myself.  The “rules” got imbedded but I don’t have to follow them.

so fucking sick of myself, of this life i lead             ..

nothing new

cranking away, day on day, trying to ____   what?!, competition? trying to be good?! what is the fucking point??!!!

no point
none at all
just a game, you fell for
time to call bullshit
time to walk away from the table
it’s about fucking time to be myself, right, wrong, ugly or not    …there’s just no time left to play these stupid stupid games.

got to get out

to where?

13 Mar 2009

Fri 13 Mar 2009
Can’t break free.  Trapped being the good boy, trapped living up to expectations I never wanted.  I fantasize about escape; one way or another.  I long… as always, for something but don’t know what.  It gets worse with time, not better.  Creates fractures inside.     ..nothing new.

Everyone else looks trapped too.  We’re all caught in the collective tilt-a-whirl.  It’s difficult and rare enough for someone to push everything out for a moment and question what they are doing, to question their job or relationships, to ask if they might me happier with another choice.

But such a perspective is still centered deep within the societal tilt-a-whirl.  It’s a way to look at different flavors of ice cream, to examine the possibilities of more of the same..  not to consider the real range of options, not to consider say collecting a stack of leaves versus eating ice cream at all.

It may be impossible to step outside of civilization to really question what you’re doing, but why not try?

19 Feb 2009

19 Feb 2009

Irritability runs amuck, dancing wildly, incestuously with nervousness.   It’s very ugly.

There is no social, external cause..  it’s something inside..   and it feels chemical / biological to me.
If the irritability is leading, then I hate everything, it all rubs me the wrong way, every little thing, good or bad doesn’t matter, close / far,  etc.     But if it’s more than a couple of people around, if I’m alone in public..   nervousness takes over.   It’s almost too much to handle.  I can summon a facade of anger to mask the fear..  it’s an unpleasant, awkward mask, but I can keep going..    god, i hate it.

Waves of fantasy sweep me away fairly often.  Sex or escape or power.
….        sigh

It all distorts my view of things…   sure, I don’t like this entire way of living…          ack.  non-sequitor.  too bad.

So afraid to change,  so clueless as to what changes to make, where to go.. what to do    (hehehe).
Tears my heart out.

Old forum post…

In response to “Are there other ruminators out there?”, on 26 Oct 2007  I posted:

yet another ‘me too’ post…

the idea that others are living with this as well is both comforting and a touch worrisome. now i’ll start thinking that everyone is like me.. seeing little ‘indications’ in completely unrelated behavior…

anyway.

I’ve always had trouble with depression (and *who* exactly has had *pleasure* with depression -geez) and went through about 8 years of experimenting with different treatments. Slowly, methodically, painfully. SSRIs were useless, anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers, herbal medicinals, talking therapy, exercise, etc … were too. Started Emsam (selegiline) when it came out. Started at 1/4 of the 6mg, have been at 6mg for a year and a half now. Insomnia comes and goes… I’m up to a minimum of 2mg lorazepam to sleep.
.
But these thoughts described in this forum.. they’ve always been there. Seems like there’s at least 3 varieties.
– running thoughts
– obsessive thoughts
– anxiety-driven thoughts

The running thoughts tend to be the worst for me. Nothing stops them, except time… way too much time.
A couple of different ideas will pop up, one will take over, I’ll be soaked in it for a while, until it leads to another, and another… the only time I know I’ll be free of this is on a day after heavy drinking (a rare event)… although taking benadryl at night generally leads to a quiet day, if not completely numb and removed.

Trying to escape them by doing something else only puts them on hold. The second I get back to, say, trying to sleep, boom, they’re off and running.

At first glance this may not sound sooo bad. It’s just a long series of ideas, right? But there’s a point at which it becomes a little annoying, which quickly grows into painful and frightening as I realise I can’t stop them. Mentally screaming at them to shut the hell up does nothing. So many ideas. I’ll never live long enough to follow them all. Failure am I.

The obsessive ones, for me, are more of the endlessly repeating song snippets. Like right now it’s: “see you again. again. again. see you again” Beth Orton I think, blended with some other word and sound snips from that album… which I haven’t listened to in years. It’d be a rare moment when something like this wasn’t playing in my head, but they’re usually not too annoying. The theme to the Johnny Carson Show runs through my head often while walking down halls at work. -who cares?- yeah, yeah.

did i mention being a little self-critical?

The anxiety thoughts are the worst as far as trying to live a normal (pfffp!, typical, productive, satisfying, not-too-f__ed-up, choose your own) life. Leaving the house on my own is usually a challenge. What clothes do I wear? Do I look as off as I feel? This really isn’t worth the time anyway. etc.

So I’m going to take a walk. Well, it has to have a purpose, otherwise it might look weird. So I’ll imagine walking to the grocery. If I get to an intersection and there’s a car there but the walk light is on for me, here’s how I’ll walk, and move my arms, and what I’ll do with my eyes -oh those D*** eyes are sooooo troublesome! Don’t slouch, try to keep your chin up -cause even with your best effort you’ll look like a soaked rag doll, there’s no danger of you looking pompous despite the dry-cleaning bills.

If someone is walking the opposite way… agghh, it’s hopeless… just try not to freak out, only allow yourself a change in position of your head or eyes once every 5 seconds or more NO MATTER WHAT … and for freak’s sake, try not to trip on the perfectly smooth sidewalk.

At the store… omg. I would willingly pay twice (maybe even “thrice” simply because it’s a ‘more funner’ word) as much for groceries if, 1) there was only one grocery within 50 miles, and 2) they only carried one of any particular item.

Oh, you wanted the Drost 72% not the 68? Geez, sorry fella, looks like your outta luck. Or was it the 68 I wanted?? Really it’s not the amount of cocoa that is the critical part, it’s more the amount of sugar and milk. You can have a very nice dark chocolate at 50%cocoa if you… blah blah.
My wife knows to allot *hours* for me to go pick up a few things.

And then there’s all the preplanned interactions in case I actually have to talk to anyone. Usually with the result of me thinking, ‘that was so meek’ or ‘i probably sounded like a jerk’… let’s replay this a few times to see what went wrong and where improvements could be made.
-you’re still reading this tripe?!?

sigh

And yes the visits to the shrink (“pdoc” pfffp!) are played out endlessly before and after. The shrink visit: here’s what I want to convey, but she will probably brush it off and head back toward focusing on chronic depression.. so I’d better emphasize it.. but then she’ll think I’ve gone overboard on it, and will simply discount the whole idea.. best to sound detached, maybe I can find an article to cite, or pick up some more of their jargon.. and who are you fooling and why? oh brother, lemme think about this a bit, a bit, a bit, abitabitabitabitabitabittttttttttt……

see you again
again