Michigan

Back again!

So.  I left Huntington Beach... as it turns out, the rooming house was not so bad.  One of the guys living there hooked me up with an old laptop that he fixed up so I'd have something to jump online with on the road.  And, yeah, I hit the road... no job, no money.  Had a lead on a job in Kansas, recommended by a friend.  So I went there first and waited about for two weeks before discovering that they had given the job to someone else.  C'est la vie... but I had no plan after that, so I looked into staying with my cousin in Michigan.  I mentioned it to my aunt (his mother) and she said that she had a room I could stay in.  So I am in Michigan, at my aunt's house, next door to my cousin and his family.

And I am not yet working.  Getting antsy.  Have some more leads, and have been looking at everything from teaching to customer service to working on the line for Chrysler.  Not sure what's in the immediate future for work, but I am hoping to get working soon so I can fix up the car or buy a camper... maybe just a van with a bed in it.  I don't know yet.  And I'd like to go to GenCon, maybe back to Burning Man, and so forth.  Probably can't afford both this summer, but I'll try to head to GenCon for sure, as Indianapolis is only about six or seven hours from here.

I miss Jenny, my former girlfriend, and I miss Greta, my pit bull.  I guess "former" dog, but that doesn't sound right.  I'll always think of her as my dog, and I imagine she'll always think of me as one of her humans.

Just checking in... with myself, for the most part, as I'm not exactly advertising this blog or using it as much more than an online journal at the moment.  Maybe that will change.

I am working on a book, and discovering that it's work!  Surprise, surprise.  It's enjoyable, but there's much to keep track of.  I don't know who writes and just has a book flow out of them, but that's not me.  I am tracking bits and pieces of information, creating character profiles, creating a history for the world (it's fantasy fiction) and then going back and revising that history or those profiles and so forth.  I decided recently to start getting into the meat of it, even if I go back and change much of it, so I am now bouncing back and forth between writing scenes and adding to or revising the information in my notes.

I suppose I need to get my ibogaine experience out here some time.  Life-changing experience.  Terrible experience in some ways... horrific... but also perfect, and just what I needed, and insightful.  Worth Googling if you've never heard of it.  It has changed my perspective on the world as a result of allowing me an opportunity to change my perspective of myself through plumbing the depths of my consciousness.  And I feel that I have a better understanding of the nature of reality, and that it is awesome and terrible at once, and I am intimately a part of it, and that I forge my own destiny based on the way I think and the actions I take as a result.  Something like that.  Perhaps I will write more about the experience later.

Up late.  Insomnia is back.  Craving a smoke.

Change is coming.  I can't see the shape of it yet.  A new career and all that entails, or a new job that just gets me along for a while... maybe a new place to live, meet some new people who will impact my life.  Maybe things won't work out, and I'll be on the go again.  Maybe I'll have to sell the car, hitchhike, sleep in my tent in the woods, stock up on MREs.  Maybe I'll be happy.  Maybe I'll be happy.

Back.

So, right.  A few years have passed.  They slip right by.

Still a "serial monogamist", though I have been in longer relationships, and my latest girlfriend broke things off with me after something short of a year.  Progress, I suppose.  Mostly feels like I was dumped, and makes me wonder if my modus operandi of leaving a few months into things wouldn't have saved me some grief.  Maybe it would have.  But then I wouldn't have had the experience... isn't that what they say?  It has always seemed to be something of a cop-out.  If you are in a crap spot in life, you can imagine it's just so you can get to a better spot and remember how those crap times built character... but if you're in a good spot already, then it was all worth it, and all the pain was necessary.  It's as if we need to feed ourselves empty platitudes in order to continue with our lives and forgive ourselves for our own shortcomings and poor decisions.

Anyone who says, "Even if I could, I wouldn't change a thing." is insane.  If you could go back and you did not have the memories you have now, of course you wouldn't change anything, because you'd be just as ignorant and unaware as you were the first time around.  But if you retain your current memories of experiences you've already had, you would go back and do it all the exact same way again?  Lunacy, even if you had it good.  And I had enough moments of shame, idiocy, and crippling pain for a lifetime already.  

Who read that and didn't think, "we all have those moments", or "me, too", or "you're preaching to the choir"?  So, why go back and do it all the same way?  I have some great friends, sure.  But I've also lost track of people I cared about, and I've blown opportunities that could have changed my life drastically.  Sure, those other friendships and other avenues might have led to great pain as well, and might even have meant an early death by fire or gunshot or who-knows-what.  Still seems worth the risk, compared to walking around stuck in a loop of your own life, repeating every decision and every mistake.

Anyway.  So, what happened during these past few years?  I finished an M.Ed, taught briefly in Florida, moved to Connecticut, went to Burning Man, moved to California, moved in with a woman and rescued a pit bull, then left when she broke things off... she kept the pit bull, as I don't have two nickels to rub together and can't realistically care for it.  Love that dog.  I'm glad she has a good home.  I also took ibogaine at a treatment center in Mexico.  That was a real eye-opener, and I can't do it justice in a few words, so I won't try to.  Maybe later.

Now I'm in a crap rooming house in Huntington Beach.  Well, it could be worse.  But the guy who lived in this room before me left me a carpet that carries a slight odor, mildew maybe, and so far I can't get the smell out after trying baking soda and other remedies.  So who wants that?  And I hate living by myself, which is certainly what I am doing here.  It's like an apartment building inside, it just happens to be a house with a shared kitchen area.  Everyone locks their doors and pays no mind to everyone else.  There is no living area; it was converted to a bedroom, like every other room in the house outside the kitchen and the one bathroom.  I've had one conversation with one tenant for about ten minutes, and I've introduced myself to two others, but that's it.  There are two more I've never met after the better part of a month.  There seems to be an unwritten rule not to enter the kitchen when someone else is in it.  It's a strange, empty way to live.

I'm trying to find work.  I have been away from the job market.  Mentally, for while.  Depressed.  Then I had serious problems with my groin.  Infections, pain, sleeplessness.  Eventually had to have an operation, and I am nearly the end of the recovery phase.  Pain has now decreased considerably, as expected.  But it's been over a year since the ordeal began.  Could be worse.

Sort of found God.  Not the Abrahamic god, and not a god I can easily explain.  Nothing that defies current scientific understanding.  A god intimately connected to me and to all things by virtue of existence.  I am God, that is, and so are you.  And so is a tree, and a rock.  But we are part of a God-consciousness, whereby the universe knows itself.  Something like that.  Sounds like a throwback hippie definition, maybe.  But it comes of an ineffable mystical experience, so there's no good way to put it into words.

Speaking of which, that's enough words for the time being.  I hope you're doing well out there, and being good to yourselves.  Back later.  Maybe not even years later.  We'll see.

Redundancy

How many blogs are out there that contain the ramblings of disillusioned mid-life-crisis types crying about bad luck and shitty lives? I am aware, at least, that I have caused most of my own problems. Even when I was with a woman who was unbalanced and who caused me no end of pain, she was a woman I chose to spend time with, even when there were enough red flags to make sails for a fleet of ships.

I can't say life has not been interesting up to this point. It has tended to move in wide cycles that bring me into intense relationships and experiences, only to leave me yet again wallowing in self pity, spending my time in virtual worlds, watching movies, or escaping in porn long enough to make through it another day. So far things always cycle back around to trips around the country and occasionally the world, new friends, new experiences. So I suppose I'm hanging in for that. It's not that I expect thing to happen for me, it's just that I know I eventually become bored of a listless, monotone existence of digital mindlessness and light a fire under my own ass.

It's always work, though. Not just the sort of uncomfortable feeling one might get realizing that life as an adult is not all one might have imagined as a kid. The sort of work that makes a shower and cooking eggs seem like a tough row to hoe. It really takes me a while to get into a productive rhythm.

Oh. It occurs to me that marijuana, based on the initial post, could be unfairly blamed for my apathy. I may mention that I spent some ten years without smoking any pot... mid-twenties to mid-thirties... and I still had plenty of apathy at the nadir of the aforementioned cycles. I'm somewhat bipolar, perhaps. But it ain't pot's fault.

I should also add that what felt important about that underground newspaper article was the ability to express my freely, to have a voice in my world. A world that was much smaller back then. I suppose that if I did not feel as important later, I certainly felt inspired and passionate about other things. I loved doing stage productions in college, and moved to L.A. like a walking cliché to become a movie star. Still, I found work with a large entertainment company and I was on top of the world for while with that. A low pay ceiling and poor health left me coming and going for several years, always returning because I missed the people and the atmosphere.

And then there's a certain girl in Brazil I fell in love with. I miss her, and I miss Brazil, and I wonder sometimes if I could somehow still make that work. If I find a job there. If she'll still see me. If, if, if.

But the "ifs" keep us going, sometimes. Possibilities. Hope. It's in short supply at the moment, so I'll take what small solace I can from my pipe dreams. Figurative pipe dreams, people. Not that I'd mind smoking out, but my current employment and state of residence make that a risk I don't care to take. So ridiculous, though, to have angry drunks driving our streets and going home to smack their wives around while we can't light a joint in public without appearing before a judge.

Alright, that's a horribly stereotypical presentation of a drinker. Nevertheless, I have yet to hear of a pot smoker getting violent because he or she smoked. And driving tends to be more slow and cautious than reckless.

Back later. Maybe. No promises.

The Incomplete

So.

Once upon a time there was a kid who wrote an article about legalizing marijuana. It was not about to be accepted by the high school newspaper, so he gave it to a friend who put in on the front page of an underground newspaper at the school. The kid became at least a moderate sensation for a while as the author of the article. The kid was me, some twenty years ago. The underground paper was called, "The Lobotomy".

That was one of the last times I felt like I was doing something important. I was passionate about things after that, interested in things, in love with one person or another... but I never felt like I was doing something important the way I did then. I did not continue to write for the underground paper. I do not follow through with plans well, hence "The Incomplete". Even the name sounds incomplete, eh? Terribly witty.

So I've stumbled through life, as so many of us do. I hung on to an identity I had not really even defined, and refused to settle even though I had no idea what that meant. There were just things I could not do. Like settling down with the Mormon girl who wanted to marry me. I thought she was adorable. I thought she was hot. I liked walking by a lake with her and feeding geese, and I still smile thinking about the goose attack that changed the romantic mood a bit. But I couldn't be a Mormon.

And then there's the young co-worker, all of nineteen to my twenty-seven years at the time. Bright, wide eyes. Caramel skin. Loved wigs. Wanted to leave her husband and run off with me to Paris even though she had an infant at home. I couldn't be that guy.

But it's not just incomplete relationships. While I've had more girlfriends than I can easily recall (a friend calls me a "serial monogamist",) I've also had more jobs than I easily recall. Sales rep, real estate agent, cashier, camp program coordinator, Resident Assistant, government clerk for INS. Dishwasher. Pager salesman. Office temp. Storyteller. Custom paper products estimator. And so forth. No job ever quite enough. No girl ever quite enough.

Now I watch movies late at night and wonder at all the dynamics in the lives of others. In-between relationships I don't even expect to last longer than a few months anymore, my life has dwindled to occasionally going out with a friend to see a film and shooting the breeze over a couple glasses of wine afterward. That's not all bad. It's just all there is.

Oh, that, and staring at this screen for endless hours. A game, a social network, email, YouTube, anything. And now a blog. Maybe as an attempt to save myself. Maybe as yet another escape. Maybe just another ego-stroking crap blog by a disillusioned failure with a bent for self deprecation. In the end, I figure this is slightly less apathetic than the way I spend the rest of my hours. And as I feel almost completely detached, it's something to hold on to.

But I rarely follow through with anything. So if there are any readers, don't expect many entries. I ain't promisin' anything. I rarely do. Promises don't get broken when you don't make them. But I still manage to disappoint most everyone. And I disappoint myself, yes. Of course. Always. My ability to disappoint is far more reliable than, well, me.

Until next time?

The Incomplete