It's not that.

It's a trap.
It's not leaving the house all weekend.
It's getting home from work and immediately laying down, and not going to sleep.
It's not going to sleep.
It's still not going to sleep.
It's sleeping for twelve hours and waking up exhausted.
It's being exhausted constantly.
It's being in a decent mood and deciding to cut your skin a little because it's a new feeling, a vibrant, living feeling and, God, it's been a while.
It's constantly distracting yourself from any introspection, contemplation, because all roads lead to Rome, and Rome is dead.
It's the rare game of Russian Roulette.
It's not joking about the little things, and always joking about the fatal things.
It's not letting anyone know you.
It's not asking out the girl at whateveritis because you know you'd be an affliction.
It's loving your friends and family and ignoring them for weeks.
It's being embarrassed about nearly every aspect of yourself.
It's eating shitty food, and lot's of it.
It's laziness.
It's having a filthy house, car, body, mind, soul.
It's the shades always drawn.
It's losing everything you're proud to be.
It's having a great day, a really great day, and knowing your going right back off the cliff tomorrow.
It's looking out from inside, with a telescope.
It's anonymity.
It's feeling naked all the time.
It's loneliness.
It's getting used to loneliness.
It's forgetting so much.
It's resetting the concept of normality.
It's acting normal.
It's second-guessing your acting skill.
It's feeling like your skin is on wrong.
It's knowing most compliments are given you in total ignorance of the truth.
It's the face in the mirror being remote, some kind of movie magic facade that let's you pass for a person.
It's being 'hollow, stuffed, headpiece filled with straw.'
It's being a coward.
It's doubt.
It's confusion.
It's helplessness.
It's longing.
It's pushing on the ocean.
It's pushing on the sea.
It's hiding.
It's fear.
It's attrition.
It's never going to end.
It's never going to end.
It's wanting to stop, somehow.
It's needing to stop.
It's needing to go.

It's hope become horror.

This was my Christmas gift to my mom this year.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8rjzb593a8urf92/Primary_Come%20Together_41000.mp3

I had some of the greatest times of my life as a teenager.

I've been happier at times since then. One time, almost deliriously so. But for three or four years running, I pretty much had a constant blast.

Then, by degrees larger or smaller, those things which I thought were so great began to go away. Don't worry, I'm not going to get onto some sad track. Bear with me (I nearly typed 'Bare with me.' You could do that too). Friends began to grow distant, or change too much, or move away altogether. Some of the talents I was proud of did too. They faded or I outgrew them. Some of these things I miss, and some I know I'm better off without. But I miss the times. You know what I'm talking about. Everyone has at least an idea.

Anyway, I reached a point where I was sure I was losing too much. That maybe I'd lose everything? And I clung to some things so hard, that if they drew away I might have panicked.

Now something new is happening. I'm letting things go. I'm becoming far more open to the idea of becoming one of them, in fact, and maybe just going.

I'm not the type of person to drift from place to place, niche to niche. Historically I've had a lack of confidence that leads me to be sure, somehow, despite any objective reason, that if I cut these roots I can't thrive. Not like a normal person. I can't stop the carefully maintained fairly normal life I have here, go there, and construct another one. Even typing it now, it doesn't make much sense to me. And it's been a pillar for as long as I can remember.

But even though in many ways my confidence is Swiss-cheesy (high-five me for that usage), it has somehow also managed to solidify, to strengthen. I didn't know until I once more thought of these things: loved ones leaving; me leaving.

Hey, look at that, positive growth.

I'm going to bake myself a cake.

_________________________________________________________________________



















PS- In the last picture, on one of those many valentines is written, "Dicks."
Lawl.

Continuation.

Life grinds on in the usual ways.

My love of music is solid, but my involvement in it oscilates. It seems to be on a rising envelope now, and it's the same old thrilling newness which makes me feel more alive. I've started prodding and fumbling with my guitar a little more (it always feels so small), and learned how to play Schism on it last night before a string broke. I'm happy with the way my bass sounds, and with the people I'm playing with. (withwithwith) I'm not at top creativity at the moment, since I can reach a little higher when solidifying a composition than when only jamming (yes, smashing the sounds and intents into the same place, hoping it sort of works)

I thought I was getting back into some sketches, but I'm not. Which is saddening, considering how proud I was of that growing up. Is it lost? Can I simply find it again? Hey, there you are! I missed you...

I'm still single, and I'm still okay with it. I'm not 'looking', but I'm not exactly hiding. I don't go to bars or coffee houses or malls or wherever it is that people might end up talking. My interests are almost exclusively solitary ones. Oh, I like being around people. Sometimes I'll go to one of those places I listed just to be around them, but it's always 'them', always seperate, and always absolutely so. Anyway, the point is that I'd be quite happy to get into someone's, erm, situation? (Did I say 'relationship' as awkwardly as I could? Up there, I thinks ), but it aint a priority.

What else, what else...

Oh, I got a cat. He's pretty great. Well, behaved (for a young cat, tearing up the ceiling an' shit).

I put some accent lights on my motorcycle.

Chrysis told me I'm a hypocrite, and that I can't say shit about gigantic spoilers and coffee-can-mufflers. I disagree, but I can't argue with her because she's wittier than me. And maybe she's right, but that's beside the point.

I'm ecstatic it's warming up. Winter doesn't bother me the way it does most people, I just think it's uncomfortable and inconvienient. It does make me apprieciate spring.

...

Hey, would you do me a favor? Take care of yourself. Really. I don't take very good care of myself sometimes and it's really worthwile, and apparently not as palm-face obvious as one normally thinks. And those people around you that you care about, you're lucky to have them, so don't take them for granted. I sometimes do, and I shouldn't. I'm crazy thankful to have it as good as I do. *shrug* Just thinking about people- hoping on their behalf.

It's hardest to begin.

Especially since I have nothing specific I wanted to say. If that's a put-off, then I'm sorry I wasted your important three seconds. I did, however want to just say, in general.

I'll start close to home. So: home. A long-time friend in I found ourselves in a position where we decided to buy a duplex, live in one side, and continue renting the other side to the existing tenants. Those tenants were a 92 year old woman and her slightly disabled son. They mostly kept to themselves, as I am prone to keep to my self, and we lived as friendly but distanced neighbors for a year, only talking as I fixed things in their quarters.

A short time ago, the neighbors moved out, very suddenly. A decision had been made by someone and things were arranged and only a brief and vauge hand-written note notified me they were leaving in a week. I didn't see her to ask what was happening. 10 days later, two men came to "clear out" the space, piling everything on the front porch, sometimes in trash bags but mostly not. It was one of these men who informed me that the ultimate reason was Alzheimer's disease. In light of the repetitive nature of all of the conversations between she and I, this was not a shock.

It was however disquieting. Normally, I would tell you that I'm not prone to superstition, 'the creeps', or any constant fear or nervousness from some half-concieved external force. I'm reasonably rational about the outside world, and those forces which touch coldly on my nerves are internal ones. This one subject --this one disease-- is an exeption. It makes me nervous, and a kind of superstitious. When people decline to fly or drive without having any normal, rational reason, it seems to me like maybe the same kind of dim, hindbrain, neurotic discomfort.

I never got to know my paternal grandfather. As I was just becoming old enough to make the kind of rudimentary decisions one must be capable of in order to form a social relationship, grandpa entered a nursing home. His Alzheimer's was just too bad for his (girlfriend? Wife? I can't remember if they married) to handle. I remember being with my dad at his house once: a tandem bicycle leaned against the side of the garage; a large hole gaped half-dug and empty; this Grampa guy looked very pale. All my other memories are of very uncomfortable and often frightening visits to the nursing home where he died.

I wish I had known him. My family tells so many interesting things about him. Everyone agrees I look just like him.

Hm.

Anyway, now my maternal grandmother is falling into the same gibbering scary rabbit hole. I was never close to her, either, which one could argue is fortunate in this case, but I would not opine on this at all. My mother and her mother did not get along well. Grandma was incredibly controlling, and bitter. Now... I don't know. My mom is very upset, and I'm proud she's handling it with such grace. I'm very proud of her. I've offered to help if needed, but I've volunteered nothing. This grandmother and I are distant, enough so that only two facets which reach me emotionaly are, firstly, the way my mother is affected, and, secondly, that nervous frigid tingle at the base of my brain.

...

I mean to move to another subject now, but I need a moment to change views.

...

...

I want to break a bone, pop a joint. Maybe yours, maybe mine. Lose water and skin and restraint. Laughing all the way, ho ho ho.

We'll go from there.

This is a beautiful Island. I'd like to see it one day. Guinness lists it as having the best, most equitable weather on Earth.

The highest point is often mistaken for an extinct volcano, when in fact it's only a limestone formation, formed calmly over thousands of years in the Pacific winds.

That cliff pictured above is where 20,000 Japanese citizens carried out the order to commit suicide. Or, if reluctant, were forced to at gunpoint.

About a mile south is a small flat island with a plain crushed gravel landing strip, where a pilot in a plane named after his mother took off and headed for Hiroshima city with a single bomb on board.

Dear God. We can do such terrible things.

"Many people don’t have anybody to turn to when they are in dire trouble. Even those who are determined to commit suicide still hope that someone will come from behind and stop them from jumping off the cliff," said Yukio Shige in more recent years. He's a retired police officer who spends most of his time talking people out of jumping from the Tojimbo Cliffs, and helping them afterword.

Don Ritchie lives across from a scenic cliff overlooking Sydney Harbor(/Harbour) in Australia. About one person a week jumps off. For about 50 years Don has been asking people if, rather than jumping, they'd rather come over an have a cup of tea instead. He's credited with saving 160 people, although he doesn't keep count.

Dear God. We can do such wonderful things.

(Sometimes a sentence, a paragraph or several, in a book, will state well the essence of a part of myself. Sometimes I fold the corner of its page to note it for that never day when I return for it.)

"Three," a voice said.

Will listened, cold but warming, glad to be in with roof above, floor below, wall and door between too much exposure, too much freedom, too much night.

"Three..."

Dad's voice, home now, moving down the hall, speaking to itself.

"Three..."

Why, thought Will, that's when the train came. Had Dad seen, heard, followed?
No, he mustn't! Will hunched himself. Why not? He trembled. What did he fear?
The carnival rushing in like a black stampede of storm waves on the shore out beyond? Of him and Jim and Dad knowing, of the town asleep, not knowing, was that it?

Yes. Will buried himself, deep. Yes...

"Three..."

Three in the morning, thought Charles Halloway, seated on the edge of his bed. Why did the train come at that hour?

For, he thought, it's a special hour. Women never wake then, do they? They sleep the sleep of babes and children. But men in middle age? They know that hour well. Oh God, midnight's not bad, you wake and go back to sleep, one or two's not bad, you toss but sleep again. Five or six in the morning, there's hope, for dawn's just under the horizon. But three, now, Christ, three A.M.! Doctors say the body's at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You're the nearest to dead you'll ever be save dying. Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open. God, if you had strength to rouse up, you'd slaughter your half-dreams with buckshot! But no, you lie pinned to a deep well-bottom that's burned dry. The moon rolls by to look at you down there, with its idiot face. It's a long way back to sunset, a far way on to dawn, so you summon all the fool things of your life, the stupid lovely things done with people known so very well who are now so very dead-- And wasn't it true, had he read it somewhere, more people in hospitals die at 3 A.M. that at any other time...?

Stop! he cried silently.

(Some things I read suspecting that they'll have a little substance for me. This came from Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. Most of my reading has been done to pass time, like watching television. Mostly to eat the hours between getting into bed and waking up. And I'm getting sick of it, like I get sick of television.)

Three A.M. That's our reward. Three in the morn. The soul's midnight. The tide goes out, the soul ebbs. And a train arrives at an hour of despair.... Why?

(No, of course it's not that simple. This is the world, and we are men and women. I've been living to pass the time.)

He did not answer.
He could not tell her how he was.

ihaterollercoasters.