August 2005 Archives

And you know.

And the knowing, like the freight train, becomes an everything that will not release you. The inertia carries you. Braking is futile.

Don't question it.

I know your fears.

Your desire to control.

I understand them.

You fear death.

But I am Death, Destroyer of Worlds.

I will bring you little deaths, again and again. It is my joy.

My inertia.

That I give to you.

Don't question it.

Baby, I want your flood. I am going to hold you out over the abyss until you give it to me. I want you to give it to me.

Give me your fucking flood.

It means more to me than you know.

And I will hold you there so sweetly.

So sweetly, baby.

I bought the new issue of Juxtapoz. It's an art magazine, but they call the genre alternately "low brow" or "absurdist pop art." Whatever it is, I adore almost everything in it, front to back and back to front.

It is inclusive of graffiti, tattoos, comics and traditional paint and illustration. I find it all witty, playful, and brilliant in the best possible ways.

Have you heard the Filter/Crystal Method version of this song? It rawks awfully hard!

I rank it on roughly the same level of aural crack as "Reload" by Rob Zombie. Not as fast, but just as hard.

…

Apparently I'm way behind the curve on this one. It's from the 1997 Spawn Soundtrack. I knew the original Crystal Method track was older, but I had never heard that version of it before. I think it's interesting that the clip on Amazon lists only Filter as the artist. That's so wrong.

They had the most delicious waitstaff…

Friday evening I went to the home of my ex-wife. She needed help with her PC and frankly, I never mind tech support for friends.

Yes, friends.

Our parting hurt like hell, but it was amicable.

Suffice it to say, being with her again for a few hours reminded me a lot of all of her good qualities. She is a beautiful human being in many, many ways.

Naturally, I found myself thinking back over my marriage with her wondering what the fuck happened and how it went wrong. I found that one thing we had in common was how good we both thought we had it initially, how certain we were that it was going to be better than everyone else's relationship. We actually thought we were better than everyone else.

How the mighty have fallen, eh?

I still have no idea what happened. Honestly I have no clue. I just felt like everything was wrong, so I gave up and said "I want out."

The therapist we were seeing (I'm convinced) thought I was a horrible sex-addict bastard, and also managed to convice my ex that were we to remain together, I would never 'get better' as she was co-dependant and enabling.

Well, to be frank, I think that's what a real relationship is. In good ways and bad we enable the fuck out of each other.

Do not ever go to relationship therapy. Never.

The insane societal pressure to get married and stay married is a good portion of the problem. We weren't going to get married. We thought somehow that our families might actually treat us like a real couple is we did. Nope. The institution of marriage and our expectations of it need a lot of work. It's all left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

I think 'Until death do us part' is a load of bullshit. I think 'As long as we're both happy' is a lot more realistic and probably much healthier.

But what do I know?

I was listening to the Dazed and Confused soundtrack tonight. I realize I was just a little boy when a lot of this music was popular, but I found myself missing a lot of the bravado that rock music used to have.

I came of age in the mid-eighties. I love me some new wave music. I really do. Human League, Gary Numan, Devo, Missing Persons, ABC… I could list a hundred artists.

But also I find that I am very nostalgic for 70s music. Yes, even disco.

I don't know. I guess it was just a moment in time when things happened a certain way.

But here's the vein I'm thinking in:

Ted Nugent
ZZ Top
Alice Cooper
Rick Derringer
Boston
Styx
Argent
Blue Oyster Cult (more cowbell)
Foghat
Joe Walsh (solo)
and the mighty Zeppelin.

Fuck, man! Where did that energy go?

And where's my half-derelict, half hopped-up V8 muscle car?

I've been up, I've been down…

But I'm trying to keep it all together. I just took a few minutes to check in and say hello.

I promise more soon.

I just bought and watched the Sin City DVD tonight. God what fun!

Second time seeing the movie was as fun as the first. I love the ultra-noir, ultra-violence and the oh-so-sexy stylization. Just a beautiful piece of filmwork.

I'm in Wisconsin this weekend with my parents. Using my mom's PC. After I submit this post I'm going to have to go back through and clean up my tracks.

I thought long and hard about setting up a wireless network for my mom… but I'm so tired of explaining things and she has a crude but effective way of sharing her connection between her work PC and her home PC so unless she brings it up again, I don't know that I'm going to mention it or bother her with it—even though it would be much simpler for me to make these sorts of updates from my own laptop. Maybe someday.

…

My parents took me on a drive around the countryside. They took me to the tiny country church where I was baptized. They took me to two places I lived during the first 2 1/2 years of my life. Before my mother divorced my father.

Seeing those places was an experience that I thought would somehow be more emotional or more moving. But I felt… nothing. The one place I felt a resonance for was a place my mom thought I would not remember at all. And the place I thought I might remember had nothing for me. Nothing.

Right or wrong, my mother stripped away that part of my life. What she wanted to provide was a stable place where there was no tug of war between parents. She fought tooth and nail apparently. My birth father fell far behind in child support payments and ultimately gave up any legal right to me by allowing me to be adopted by my mother's second husband—a man who has truly been my father and who even now calls me, and I think very rightfully so, his son.

My birth father won't go away, however. He has apparently named me in his will. My mother speculates that were he and I to meet, he would tell me that he's loved me and missed me all of these years. Apparently he has asked about me on all of those rare occasions that my mom and he have spoken. Asking if I'm happy.

And it's all so fucking confusing.

My mom left because she felt like something was missing. That he somehow didn't love enough.

And anyway I feel like I should meet him. I guess that's one thing that still nags at me. I'm afraid of confrontation. I don't want questions aout why I didn't do it sooner. The fact is, he has had no part of my life. The other fact is that my mother has seen to it that he has had no part of my life.

I just… I really, really do not want to open up old wounds. I do not want to be put in the middle of any sort of blame game. I do not want to answer the questions of his family members about where I have been and why didn't I try to find them sooner. I can't bear that. It wasn't my choice then, so why would I want my life to be more complicated now?

But anyway, my mother has run into him recently. She refuses to give him my contact information even now. And I don't know what to do about that.

I know how to find him. I've done it online already on more than one occasion. I just don't know if I'm ready for that.

And anyway, this weekend at home with my parents has been a damned good one.

And somehow, despite the fact that I believe I will meet my birth father at my initiation one day, I'm fairly certain it won't help me decide who I am any better than I can do right now, on my own.

I was frankly relieved that I didn't feel anything more when I was taken to those places. I can set that to rest, then.

But the man who gave me up. I wonder what it cost him. Because I don't think I got the shaft on the deal.

So I figured I might as well ask:

How did you find my site?

Checking my stats at Cunning Linguists just now, I was ranked number 69.

Such an odd thing to think.

But tonight I had the strongest urge to run. Away. Far. To just go.

I understand now how easy it is to just leave and take nothing with.

I can't explain, but I just felt strong emotional pain. I don't know where it comes from other than… well, it's my psyche returning to its un-drugged state. Which is to say, I am completely uninsured and off all meds. No ADD stuff, no bi-polar stuff. And no depression stuff.

So all of the emotions are coming back raw. Really, really raw.

The really sad thing is? Two and three years ago, I blamed my job, my marriage and my ex-wife for feeling like that.

None of those situations remain.

It's just me.

Which is really damned sobering.

So I got home from work feeling anxious and agitated. I changed into short pants, walking shoes, then plugged myself into my iPod and promptly left my apartment.

I walked for two and a half hours.

I felt like crying at first.

I wondered what the consequences would be of just leaving everything behind at my apartment save for a few clothes and some data.

And I was struck with very primal memories of my very young mother taking me and a few small suitcases and packing themand us into a car. And leaving everything.

Sometimes for only a few hours. Usually. But my birth father is long gone. I have no idea who the man is.

But what I'm saying is that in my urge to fly, I understood my mother finally. I understood why she felt that she could get somewhere better. And I'll bet I now have an inkling of what it cost her to return home. Feeling many times defeated because she knew she could not provide for me like my father could. OR feeling foolish and ashamed after the urge to flee itself had moved on.

So, if she felt strongly enough to act out at that level that early in her life… ( a little more than half the age I am now) then I don't know how she does it day by day.

So following my walk I feel a little better about the world and my place in it. Exorcising is good.

But still, I gotta watch it. Those suicidal thoughts sneak in all over the place.

I know to call for help if I need it.