Let's talk about The Force. Only, let's not call it The Force. It's too, uh, forceful. I am forcing you to do this. No, that's not it. There is a connective ethereal tissue that winds through each and every one of us. It seems to be the same in each of us. Fine. The difference is in how each of us sees it. I think we all, even the most removed of us, feel the cord, the tissue, the juice that flows throughout. It covers several channels. That's how we relate to the differences between us. We discover the channel it takes to communicate or make ourselves known to someone else. Or something else. Through this life we learn, if we are able, to recognize the channels. If we follow the channels, they begin to thin out. There are fewer and fewer channels the older we become. Soon, we are operating through very few channels. Life stabilizes? No, that's not it. either.
I'm looking forward to some time at Lake Chelan this summer. I can of if I'm around. I am probably going to the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. The particular lake is called Detroit. It's in Minnesota so try not to get confused. I don't think there is anything named Detroit around here. I don't get out much, though. Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels came through Wenatchee in about 1969 0r 70. I had a girlfriend, Leanne, and I remember it being in the Cascade Hotel Ballroom. 1000 could easily fit in there, and we did. He rocked the place. Remember how Eric Clapton looked during his heroin days? All fuzz faced and hairy? That's what Mitch Ryder looked like. To this day, i wonder if that really was Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels? Doesn't matter. I didn't even think about getting laid. It never crossed my mind.
The next band we saw at the ballroom was a band from Seattle called Chrome Syrcus. They were the loudest band I have ever heard. But then, I was about ten feet in front of the guitar player and his Fender Twin Reverb Amp. Goddam! I don't blame the totality of my hearing loss on those guys, but, sheeeeiiitt...they were wall busting loud. Clean, though. Like a knife.
I may have already been playing in a high school rock band, I can't remember. I remember the feeling of physical response to the force of the music. It came at me like a wind, the guitar player scanning the audience to see who he was mowing down with his slicing rhythm. (Oh man, those heart shaped cookies are good but rich. It's a good thing I have self restraint. I only ate three.)
After that, high school ended but my social life had expanded beyond that slim realm. I was hanging with dorm rats from the college. After high school I went to Wenatchee
Valley College for three months. I withdrew on the last day possible without academic penalty. I ended up in Seattle, living with two gay guys on Capitol Hill, working for my girlfriend's father's janitorial company. I was out of Wenatchee, at least. Fred, the guy that owned the house on Capitol Hill, was a mentor, a spiritual guide for me. We took very pure LSD one night and slipped through the "hole in the fence," Fred's secret way of entering the Seattle Historical Cemetery. Fred had been an experienced guide and had helped me breathe as I peaked on the acid. I still her him say, "Breathe, Tim, breathe." And I did. Slowly, in and then out again. Still, he gave me a valium, which I took. In a bit, I was quite calm but effervescence was the color theme now. I watched from the tomb of Chief Sealth, for whom the city was named, as the sun rose over the Olympic Mountains. A more magnificent site I had never seen and as I sat there I began to feel the connecting thread. It flowed through me through the tomb through Fred through the sun and the morning clouds. It flowed on and on and so did I.
Eventually, after the sun had awoken the rest of the city, we made our way back to the house. We sat on the couch for a while. Fred wanted to make sure I was ok. I went to bed and slept for a long, long time.
I woke up in Alaska.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Monday, January 21, 2013
It All Started When I...
I have been electrified the last few days as the reality of changing this house into a home has brought a certain sense of ownership. Maybe even a sense of stewardship. It is a good lot, on a corner, most of which is set back from the street. A windstorm came through in January of 2007 and blew down three spruce trees, the smallest 75 feet in height and the largest 100 feet in height. It ended up being a lot of wood. I did not burn wood for heat and did not need the wood. My neighbor did so he took it all. Thank you. Eventually, I planted bamboo to replace the spruce. I wanted it to fill a large area. It is yet a work in progress. The bamboo is having a mild winter. There is still plenty of time for a hard freeze lasting a number of days. That would take out the bamboo but only to the ground. In the Spring, the shoots of bamboo pop up a little further than the year before. If the bamboo can make it through the winter without significant frost damage, they will be about twelve to fifteen feet tall. All that vibrant almost electric green mixed with a bit of yellow always produces a smile when I watch the wind blow through.
Yes, stewardship, I think. I'm not nailed to it. Or am I? For the time being? For a while? For...? Stewardship in a minimalist way. Get it in shape, keep it in shape. I have until April to execute this task. I did well this weekend, a three-day weekend. Martin Luther Gandhi Day or something...either way, I was rested by the third day and, as mentioned in the first paragraph`, "electrified." I started the weekend by working on a guitar project I had going for longer than I remember. I put tuning keys on the newest neck I was putting on this Telecaster styled guitar. I will be the first to admit I am a cocky dumb ass sometimes but I was stupid enough to drill holes through the original neck. Long story short (too late) I put the other neck on, soldered the volume, tone, and three-way control switch connections, crammed all the little teeny weeny wires into the cutout in the guitar body, drilled and screwed little, teeny weeny screws in the holes to hold everything together. The big question was: will it make sound? I didn't string it up just yet. I wired the output plug and plugged a guitar cord plug into it and turned on the amp. It buzzed a bit. Good sign. Then I tapped the bridge pickup. Click click click. Good sign. I switched the pickup control to the neck pickup. Click click click. Goood sign...put the switch in the middle. Click click click. Not a good sign. Only the neck pickup is working with the switch in that position. I strung up, tuned it, adjusted the neck rod, let it sit overnight to work its way into the adjustment and tension put on the guitar and the neck from the strings.
Got up the next morning at 6AM. BAM! I was awake. I felt as if a force were bombarding me with granules of energy. I sat up in bed, swung my legs down to the floor, went out, tuned that guitar, plugged it in and played it. Still needs work.
I then switched to Tim, the Fastidious Painter. I painted the room I sleep in, everything except the trim. I did very well in not getting any paint on the carpet or the bed. Ok, that's not true. In fact, it is a blatant falsehood. I did do well in containing the paint. I brought the vacuum in, snaking the electrical cord through the room to get toward the window. I vacuumed the debris left from my scraping loose paint from the sill. I finished and saw that some of the wood was wet. That has to dry. I'm still waiting. Almost all of the gallon of blue paint was used. I placed the lid on it, tapping it with the butt of the paintbrush. Time to let the paint dry. I went to the room with the big tv and started to move the love seat from in front of the tv in the room with the big tv to the wall just inside the entry way. That way you can sit in that seat, listen to music or the radio, and watch the sun go down, or up, for that matter. That opened up a big space and made it feel open.
Before planting the love seat, I wanted to vacuum. I had moved my drums to the basement which left a space with sawdust on the floor. I grabbed the vacuum and the cord and dragged the cord across the floor. Although I don't see any paint on the cord of the vacuum, dragging the cord under the paint can tipped it over so that the remaining blue paint pooled on the white close knit carpet of the bedroom and onto the rustic colored wool carpet. If that doesn't fly then it was the cat. I want to blame the cat. Ok? Here's why: because that's what cats do. They have built into their feline DNA a little twisty gene that makes them jump up and knock things over, like what's left of the paint in a can. To me, the cat is guilty. The lack of evidence is cause for concern. There are no paw prints leaving the scene, no sign of anything being dragged through the pooled paint. Just a kidney shaped puddle of Waterfront blue looking like the island of Hispañola, with the blue paint on the white carpet being Haiti and the blue paint on the rustic wool being the Dominican Republic.
How long had it been laying there? I just got off the phone with the person who makes my heart flutter. That was at least an hour, maybe two. The door from the room with the big tv to the hall that ends at the bathroom (can't miss it) was closed. I opened the door and looked down into a pool of latex congealing on my carpet. The can of paint had been knocked over. Yes, it was on the drop sheet but when it tipped, the lid fell off and it flowed onto the carpet. What to do? I went to the towel closet, grabbed a porous towel and began to sop it up. That wasn't working. I would eventually run out of towels. I broke out the carpet shampooer and tried to suck the paint up that way. Big mess. It was out to the studio to get the shop vac. I pulled that in the house. I grabbed a 2 quart pitcher and filled it with hot water. I then turned on the shop vac and, as I poured water on the carpet, would suck it up before the paint settled. Pitcher after pitcher, taking the shop vac outside to empty, spilling painted water, finally deciding enough had been done and to let it dry and assess the damage.
That's where I'm at now. I watched a movie called "Super 8." That's the third time I've watched it. In the middle of writing all this, I received a text message from a colleague. This colleague was instrumental, in my mind anyway, in getting me get my shit together as an online dater which ended when I met that someone. This friend insisted I rewrite my profile and get new photos posted. Ok, ok, I will. I did. In her text she told me her father had passed away this morning. She said it was ironic that he passed away on MLK Day as he was quite the racist. I have personal experience with his racism and I'm afraid I might have egged him on. Wentachee had terrible fires last summer and all locals looked for relief. The colleague and I drove to Kirkland, WA., to meet up with her friend who was escaping the smoke from Yakima. This smoke was killer. Thick as dust sometimes. We drove to Kirkland to her dad's house. He was supposed to be gone but showed up the day we were leaving. It was just he and I in the breakfast nook. I saw he was reading the sports page. I didn't know he was racist until I thought I would be funny and mention my cousin, Marshawn Lynch, of the Seattle Seahawks. A very black man with some good dreads. Yeah, I'm kidding...whoa, dude...and off he goes on the reasons, all black, that he CAN'T watch basketball anymore. No more white people in the game. Now, he's dead, just like that. He died in his sleep. I got to meet him. I hope people can say that about me.
We were just wondering what is under the carpet in this house. I guess I will have a chance to see if I can't get the paint out of the carpet. I'm a wood floor kind of guy anyway.
Yes, stewardship, I think. I'm not nailed to it. Or am I? For the time being? For a while? For...? Stewardship in a minimalist way. Get it in shape, keep it in shape. I have until April to execute this task. I did well this weekend, a three-day weekend. Martin Luther Gandhi Day or something...either way, I was rested by the third day and, as mentioned in the first paragraph`, "electrified." I started the weekend by working on a guitar project I had going for longer than I remember. I put tuning keys on the newest neck I was putting on this Telecaster styled guitar. I will be the first to admit I am a cocky dumb ass sometimes but I was stupid enough to drill holes through the original neck. Long story short (too late) I put the other neck on, soldered the volume, tone, and three-way control switch connections, crammed all the little teeny weeny wires into the cutout in the guitar body, drilled and screwed little, teeny weeny screws in the holes to hold everything together. The big question was: will it make sound? I didn't string it up just yet. I wired the output plug and plugged a guitar cord plug into it and turned on the amp. It buzzed a bit. Good sign. Then I tapped the bridge pickup. Click click click. Good sign. I switched the pickup control to the neck pickup. Click click click. Goood sign...put the switch in the middle. Click click click. Not a good sign. Only the neck pickup is working with the switch in that position. I strung up, tuned it, adjusted the neck rod, let it sit overnight to work its way into the adjustment and tension put on the guitar and the neck from the strings.
Got up the next morning at 6AM. BAM! I was awake. I felt as if a force were bombarding me with granules of energy. I sat up in bed, swung my legs down to the floor, went out, tuned that guitar, plugged it in and played it. Still needs work.
I then switched to Tim, the Fastidious Painter. I painted the room I sleep in, everything except the trim. I did very well in not getting any paint on the carpet or the bed. Ok, that's not true. In fact, it is a blatant falsehood. I did do well in containing the paint. I brought the vacuum in, snaking the electrical cord through the room to get toward the window. I vacuumed the debris left from my scraping loose paint from the sill. I finished and saw that some of the wood was wet. That has to dry. I'm still waiting. Almost all of the gallon of blue paint was used. I placed the lid on it, tapping it with the butt of the paintbrush. Time to let the paint dry. I went to the room with the big tv and started to move the love seat from in front of the tv in the room with the big tv to the wall just inside the entry way. That way you can sit in that seat, listen to music or the radio, and watch the sun go down, or up, for that matter. That opened up a big space and made it feel open.
Before planting the love seat, I wanted to vacuum. I had moved my drums to the basement which left a space with sawdust on the floor. I grabbed the vacuum and the cord and dragged the cord across the floor. Although I don't see any paint on the cord of the vacuum, dragging the cord under the paint can tipped it over so that the remaining blue paint pooled on the white close knit carpet of the bedroom and onto the rustic colored wool carpet. If that doesn't fly then it was the cat. I want to blame the cat. Ok? Here's why: because that's what cats do. They have built into their feline DNA a little twisty gene that makes them jump up and knock things over, like what's left of the paint in a can. To me, the cat is guilty. The lack of evidence is cause for concern. There are no paw prints leaving the scene, no sign of anything being dragged through the pooled paint. Just a kidney shaped puddle of Waterfront blue looking like the island of Hispañola, with the blue paint on the white carpet being Haiti and the blue paint on the rustic wool being the Dominican Republic.
How long had it been laying there? I just got off the phone with the person who makes my heart flutter. That was at least an hour, maybe two. The door from the room with the big tv to the hall that ends at the bathroom (can't miss it) was closed. I opened the door and looked down into a pool of latex congealing on my carpet. The can of paint had been knocked over. Yes, it was on the drop sheet but when it tipped, the lid fell off and it flowed onto the carpet. What to do? I went to the towel closet, grabbed a porous towel and began to sop it up. That wasn't working. I would eventually run out of towels. I broke out the carpet shampooer and tried to suck the paint up that way. Big mess. It was out to the studio to get the shop vac. I pulled that in the house. I grabbed a 2 quart pitcher and filled it with hot water. I then turned on the shop vac and, as I poured water on the carpet, would suck it up before the paint settled. Pitcher after pitcher, taking the shop vac outside to empty, spilling painted water, finally deciding enough had been done and to let it dry and assess the damage.
That's where I'm at now. I watched a movie called "Super 8." That's the third time I've watched it. In the middle of writing all this, I received a text message from a colleague. This colleague was instrumental, in my mind anyway, in getting me get my shit together as an online dater which ended when I met that someone. This friend insisted I rewrite my profile and get new photos posted. Ok, ok, I will. I did. In her text she told me her father had passed away this morning. She said it was ironic that he passed away on MLK Day as he was quite the racist. I have personal experience with his racism and I'm afraid I might have egged him on. Wentachee had terrible fires last summer and all locals looked for relief. The colleague and I drove to Kirkland, WA., to meet up with her friend who was escaping the smoke from Yakima. This smoke was killer. Thick as dust sometimes. We drove to Kirkland to her dad's house. He was supposed to be gone but showed up the day we were leaving. It was just he and I in the breakfast nook. I saw he was reading the sports page. I didn't know he was racist until I thought I would be funny and mention my cousin, Marshawn Lynch, of the Seattle Seahawks. A very black man with some good dreads. Yeah, I'm kidding...whoa, dude...and off he goes on the reasons, all black, that he CAN'T watch basketball anymore. No more white people in the game. Now, he's dead, just like that. He died in his sleep. I got to meet him. I hope people can say that about me.
We were just wondering what is under the carpet in this house. I guess I will have a chance to see if I can't get the paint out of the carpet. I'm a wood floor kind of guy anyway.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
And it goes like this...
I have told myself and a significant other that I wouldn't write about love or being in love or any of the personal part of the personal romantic relationship I am enjoying. I did say that. I did mean that. At the time, however, the situation was less tenable. There were issues and I decided to not include anything that would stir the pot of affection that would metamorph into the land of love it is.
I am 60 years old. Some of us who have reached this age console ourselves by saying "60 is the new 40, or 50, or maybe 55..." Really, it is 60 years old. The body doesn't hold up as well as it used to. Drastic measures are taken by more than a few in my age bracket to mask the wear and tear of 60. A nip here, tuck there, a stitch to tighten it up...
So I guess falling in love at 60 is worth speaking of. How many of us ever have that opportunity? Most are in marriages, content or otherwise, maybe more in love than ever before. The children are grown up and gone, you can have sex whenever it's convenient. No worry about the children bopping in at an inopportune moment, no babies to start crying and interrupt the amorous moment. If you are in a relationship or marriage or together with someone, the possibilities are only limited by your mind.
What happens when you get divorced at 60? For me, it was devastating. The end had been coming for a long time. I am a child of adversity. Fighting, bickering, and arguing were family staples growing up. So, I'm used to adversity, maybe to the point that I don't notice it sometimes. Or choose to ignore it. Adversity was built in to the marriage in the form of spiritual differences. They could not be overcome.
Then there is the derailing of my psyche. That started five years ago and is ending as we speak. I have been diagnosed bipolar, ADD Without Mention of Hyperactivity, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Chronic Anxiety. I will own up to the ADD and Chronic Anxiety. I'm done with the PTSD and a psychologist told me I was not bipolar. I instantly bought what he was selling. I had already stopped taking Lamictal for being bipolar. It constipated me. I hated it. My emotions were squeezed to the middle. No ups, no downs. That's what it is supposed to do. It eliminated most emotion for me and any emotion I did have I always cried. Happy, sad, pissed off, weirded out, whatever, I cried. No withdrawals from that one once I quit taking it. I started to shit again. That was the big payoff. Unfortunately, I was prescribed stimulants to combat ADD (without mention of...) and benzodiazapines for anxiety and Trazadone for sleep.
I took Adderal XR, the extended release version of the amphetamine, Adderall. I took that for about a year. Problem was, I couldn't control it. Once it started to release into your system, all that was left to do was hang on for 6 hours and then brace yourself for a letdown in energy and mood. I hated it. No control. Taking benzos to get rid of the anxiety caused by the Adderall. Taking Trazadone to sleep. Wild ride, whooping circle of activity repeated every day. Minimal control.
Then I asked for the non extended release. It was hard to get. Impossible at the time. They could get Ritalin, though. I made the switch. That was a ride compared to Adderall. I went on the ride for quite a few months. Ritalin is a nervous drug that works. The side effects are horrible. Adderall became available again so I switched back. Then my dose was upped to 80mgs a day. I was singing and whistling, hollering, randomly playing air guitar to a song only I could hear, stuff like that. Then, the shit hit the fan.
My wife at the time informed me that she was divorcing me. I could say it was a bombshell, that it dropped on me like a sudden rain shower or lightning storm. Not really. At the time I thought I was done. 58 and getting divorced. Crap. I guess that's when the shitstorm hit. ("Randy, there's going to be a shitstorm when those two get out...") I was unceremoniously moved out while at work. There is an apartment in the next building and I was living in it. Neither could afford to move so the arrangement became long term. For a while, anyway. Eventually, I began looking at houses. It was frustrating to think that I was going to lose my house. I was afraid. I didn't want to move. I was psychically burned out. My brain was mush. I had three concussions in one year. I had trouble speaking. I had to talk very slowly to be understood and to get out what I wanted to say. Bad enough having to brace up for a divorce but losing a house and not being able to adequately express my frustration, I was quietly losing it. I needed to find a way to absorb the pain and move on. For a few dark winter months, maybe all three of them, I would find solace in the utility bathroom in the hallway to the pottery studio. The light switch is outside the room. I switched it off. As I was pulling the door shut, I was sitting down on the toilet, lid down. It was no doubt about it pitch black dark. Even after a few minutes of acclimation, the oblique was all I could see. Seated, I placed my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. I prayed for the pain to go away. Nothing else, just the pain. It takes time. I knew where I was on the it takes time continuum and that's why I prayed for the pain to go away. I knew it wouldn't just yet but would on down the line. Even so, it wasn't much help to know that.
The dark bathroom was my salvation. One night I left the light on. I was looking at myself in the mirror. I don't remember thinking anything significant until the person in the mirror looked back at me. That's when it occurred to me. I said, "Hey, I still have you!" to the guy in the mirror. That is when I started to feel better. I'm back in the house now but sometimes when I'm in the studio, I'll go in there and pee in the toilet for old times sake.
And now we're back to the part of the conversation where I will speak about falling in love at 60. Number one, I didn't think it would happen. I wanted it to happen but it doesn't just happen because you want it to. The world is a complex, sophisticated place. Just about every aspect of our life can be done online. School, bank, utilities, credit cards, etc. At 60, I didn't want to hang out in bars or where ever people go these days. I do like coffee shops. The caffeinated euphoria of a coffee shop is contagious even before you get your euphoric laden highly caffeinated drink and add to the collective. As part of the more or less amicable split, I received ownership of the dog, a Border Collie named Banjo. Banjo is a black and white BC with a superb spirit and gentle personality. He virtually loves everybody. When he wags his tail, it starts at his shoulders. He was my companion. I still take him almost everywhere.
Where does a geek meet people? Online. Facebook has an online dating site. Online Dating. What a concept. I think I read that in 2011, 12 million couples who met online married. Online dating accounts for a significant number of successful relationships. The concept is good if one is honest. Once you start playin', forget about it. You gotta be honest, with yourself and with others. It works much better that way.
There are a ton of people with profiles on online dating sites. You can choose a site by religion, genre, age group, just about any sort of group of people you can imagine have an online dating site. I put my profile up on a site for people aged 50 and older. I met someone. We communicated via email until it was decided to call and speak to each other. Then we Skyped. The situation was progressing. We hit a bump, then another. We worked together and fixed the problems. That is huge. Imagine the odds of meeting someone anywhere that would work together to stay together! We made it through the Thanksgiving holiday in one piece. I don't know if Christmas was mentioned before I left her house or after I returned to East Wenatchee. Either way, there as some tension about the holiday and whether she would have to work and whether I would come back.
I did go back, this time driving across three and a half states with Banjo in the back seat. The days spent with her during the Christmas holiday are days that my life changed in a totally unforeseen way. I could not have imagined what happened. My life has had moments of surrealistic clarity almost as if i were an outside observer, watching myself from across the room. That didn't happen this time. What did happen is that I found someone cared for me, enough to make sure I took a good look at what I was doing to me. Yup, the Adderall comes in to play again here. I lost the Adderall and haven't taken any since Christmas 2012. It was one of my Christmas presents. Not the best one, though, that one was laying next to me in bed. That was clarity, looking her in the eye, her brown/hazel eye peering at me over a fold in her pillow. I knew I was in deep. And yes, I appreciate the concern shown me in alerting me to my emaciated condition. Who else would do that? No one else did. Sure, the Office Manager brought it to my attention more than once but I never listen to that anyway. I knew I was wasting away. I wondered how I would stop and when. I wondered if I was doing permanent damage to something I probably needed, like a thought process. I weighed one hundred and thirty fucking pounds when I arrived for Christmas. I didn't eat much while travelling. It showed. The person I had been corresponding with, had visited for Thanksgiving, and was now visiting again at Christmas, took it upon herself to let me now I was in poor shape. I was in worse than poor shape. I was strung out.
Now I'm not.
I feel much better, thank you.
We have continued to communicate either texting or talking on the phone, sometimes twice a day. We will Skype tomorrow for the first time since I returned. We have given our love to each other. I am enriched and feel vibrantly positive about my life. We fit fine. Physically, psychically, cosmically, karmically, emotionally, heartfully, honestly, genuinely...it all fits. It is a we thing, not a me and her thing. A we thing. It's us. We love it. It is nothing but good.
I am eager for this phase of my life. We're in love.
I am 60 years old. Some of us who have reached this age console ourselves by saying "60 is the new 40, or 50, or maybe 55..." Really, it is 60 years old. The body doesn't hold up as well as it used to. Drastic measures are taken by more than a few in my age bracket to mask the wear and tear of 60. A nip here, tuck there, a stitch to tighten it up...
So I guess falling in love at 60 is worth speaking of. How many of us ever have that opportunity? Most are in marriages, content or otherwise, maybe more in love than ever before. The children are grown up and gone, you can have sex whenever it's convenient. No worry about the children bopping in at an inopportune moment, no babies to start crying and interrupt the amorous moment. If you are in a relationship or marriage or together with someone, the possibilities are only limited by your mind.
What happens when you get divorced at 60? For me, it was devastating. The end had been coming for a long time. I am a child of adversity. Fighting, bickering, and arguing were family staples growing up. So, I'm used to adversity, maybe to the point that I don't notice it sometimes. Or choose to ignore it. Adversity was built in to the marriage in the form of spiritual differences. They could not be overcome.
Then there is the derailing of my psyche. That started five years ago and is ending as we speak. I have been diagnosed bipolar, ADD Without Mention of Hyperactivity, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Chronic Anxiety. I will own up to the ADD and Chronic Anxiety. I'm done with the PTSD and a psychologist told me I was not bipolar. I instantly bought what he was selling. I had already stopped taking Lamictal for being bipolar. It constipated me. I hated it. My emotions were squeezed to the middle. No ups, no downs. That's what it is supposed to do. It eliminated most emotion for me and any emotion I did have I always cried. Happy, sad, pissed off, weirded out, whatever, I cried. No withdrawals from that one once I quit taking it. I started to shit again. That was the big payoff. Unfortunately, I was prescribed stimulants to combat ADD (without mention of...) and benzodiazapines for anxiety and Trazadone for sleep.
I took Adderal XR, the extended release version of the amphetamine, Adderall. I took that for about a year. Problem was, I couldn't control it. Once it started to release into your system, all that was left to do was hang on for 6 hours and then brace yourself for a letdown in energy and mood. I hated it. No control. Taking benzos to get rid of the anxiety caused by the Adderall. Taking Trazadone to sleep. Wild ride, whooping circle of activity repeated every day. Minimal control.
Then I asked for the non extended release. It was hard to get. Impossible at the time. They could get Ritalin, though. I made the switch. That was a ride compared to Adderall. I went on the ride for quite a few months. Ritalin is a nervous drug that works. The side effects are horrible. Adderall became available again so I switched back. Then my dose was upped to 80mgs a day. I was singing and whistling, hollering, randomly playing air guitar to a song only I could hear, stuff like that. Then, the shit hit the fan.
My wife at the time informed me that she was divorcing me. I could say it was a bombshell, that it dropped on me like a sudden rain shower or lightning storm. Not really. At the time I thought I was done. 58 and getting divorced. Crap. I guess that's when the shitstorm hit. ("Randy, there's going to be a shitstorm when those two get out...") I was unceremoniously moved out while at work. There is an apartment in the next building and I was living in it. Neither could afford to move so the arrangement became long term. For a while, anyway. Eventually, I began looking at houses. It was frustrating to think that I was going to lose my house. I was afraid. I didn't want to move. I was psychically burned out. My brain was mush. I had three concussions in one year. I had trouble speaking. I had to talk very slowly to be understood and to get out what I wanted to say. Bad enough having to brace up for a divorce but losing a house and not being able to adequately express my frustration, I was quietly losing it. I needed to find a way to absorb the pain and move on. For a few dark winter months, maybe all three of them, I would find solace in the utility bathroom in the hallway to the pottery studio. The light switch is outside the room. I switched it off. As I was pulling the door shut, I was sitting down on the toilet, lid down. It was no doubt about it pitch black dark. Even after a few minutes of acclimation, the oblique was all I could see. Seated, I placed my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. I prayed for the pain to go away. Nothing else, just the pain. It takes time. I knew where I was on the it takes time continuum and that's why I prayed for the pain to go away. I knew it wouldn't just yet but would on down the line. Even so, it wasn't much help to know that.
The dark bathroom was my salvation. One night I left the light on. I was looking at myself in the mirror. I don't remember thinking anything significant until the person in the mirror looked back at me. That's when it occurred to me. I said, "Hey, I still have you!" to the guy in the mirror. That is when I started to feel better. I'm back in the house now but sometimes when I'm in the studio, I'll go in there and pee in the toilet for old times sake.
And now we're back to the part of the conversation where I will speak about falling in love at 60. Number one, I didn't think it would happen. I wanted it to happen but it doesn't just happen because you want it to. The world is a complex, sophisticated place. Just about every aspect of our life can be done online. School, bank, utilities, credit cards, etc. At 60, I didn't want to hang out in bars or where ever people go these days. I do like coffee shops. The caffeinated euphoria of a coffee shop is contagious even before you get your euphoric laden highly caffeinated drink and add to the collective. As part of the more or less amicable split, I received ownership of the dog, a Border Collie named Banjo. Banjo is a black and white BC with a superb spirit and gentle personality. He virtually loves everybody. When he wags his tail, it starts at his shoulders. He was my companion. I still take him almost everywhere.
Where does a geek meet people? Online. Facebook has an online dating site. Online Dating. What a concept. I think I read that in 2011, 12 million couples who met online married. Online dating accounts for a significant number of successful relationships. The concept is good if one is honest. Once you start playin', forget about it. You gotta be honest, with yourself and with others. It works much better that way.
There are a ton of people with profiles on online dating sites. You can choose a site by religion, genre, age group, just about any sort of group of people you can imagine have an online dating site. I put my profile up on a site for people aged 50 and older. I met someone. We communicated via email until it was decided to call and speak to each other. Then we Skyped. The situation was progressing. We hit a bump, then another. We worked together and fixed the problems. That is huge. Imagine the odds of meeting someone anywhere that would work together to stay together! We made it through the Thanksgiving holiday in one piece. I don't know if Christmas was mentioned before I left her house or after I returned to East Wenatchee. Either way, there as some tension about the holiday and whether she would have to work and whether I would come back.
I did go back, this time driving across three and a half states with Banjo in the back seat. The days spent with her during the Christmas holiday are days that my life changed in a totally unforeseen way. I could not have imagined what happened. My life has had moments of surrealistic clarity almost as if i were an outside observer, watching myself from across the room. That didn't happen this time. What did happen is that I found someone cared for me, enough to make sure I took a good look at what I was doing to me. Yup, the Adderall comes in to play again here. I lost the Adderall and haven't taken any since Christmas 2012. It was one of my Christmas presents. Not the best one, though, that one was laying next to me in bed. That was clarity, looking her in the eye, her brown/hazel eye peering at me over a fold in her pillow. I knew I was in deep. And yes, I appreciate the concern shown me in alerting me to my emaciated condition. Who else would do that? No one else did. Sure, the Office Manager brought it to my attention more than once but I never listen to that anyway. I knew I was wasting away. I wondered how I would stop and when. I wondered if I was doing permanent damage to something I probably needed, like a thought process. I weighed one hundred and thirty fucking pounds when I arrived for Christmas. I didn't eat much while travelling. It showed. The person I had been corresponding with, had visited for Thanksgiving, and was now visiting again at Christmas, took it upon herself to let me now I was in poor shape. I was in worse than poor shape. I was strung out.
Now I'm not.
I feel much better, thank you.
We have continued to communicate either texting or talking on the phone, sometimes twice a day. We will Skype tomorrow for the first time since I returned. We have given our love to each other. I am enriched and feel vibrantly positive about my life. We fit fine. Physically, psychically, cosmically, karmically, emotionally, heartfully, honestly, genuinely...it all fits. It is a we thing, not a me and her thing. A we thing. It's us. We love it. It is nothing but good.
jambalaya with invisible cat
I am eager for this phase of my life. We're in love.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Ok, Don't Get Lost...
Another feeble attempt at putting a band together was even feeblier attempted this evening when an unsuspecting bass player answered our beck and call and walked through the door, equipment in hand. The guy is good and has a family and a job and we, the guitar player and myself, will probably never see him again. There is a standing offer, until position filled, of drumming for a blues rock band in Cashmere. I've worked with the guy in Frank Cook's band (RIP) before and I shouldn't be mean but, I just don't want to. I have a drumset in my living room that is the best set I have ever owned or played on. It is fucking loud, dude. They are fucking loud drums. I put on a cd, headphones, get reasonably aware and play. It is sort of like masturbation. It will do until things get real, if they do.
I did get busy and paint this weekend. I didn't get all done what I thought I was going to but there is detail in painting and I had to slow down to get it done right. I'm still stuck on a trim color but I've had plenty of input from at least four people and I pretty much agree with them.
In my journey to find just the right color combo, I landed at Lowe's where my eldest by blood, Caitlin, is a cashier on the weekends. If I want to see her, I just go buy something. That way we only have to be uncomfortable with each other for a few minutes. "Call me!" I say departing. "Sure," comes her reply. Yesterday, the lady behind me in line as I was paying for the paint dropped two twenty dollar bills on the floor at the precise moment I dropped my paint mixing sticks. I bent over to see two twenty dollar bills staring me in the face. I don't believe what I am seeing. Then the lady who dropped the cash swooped in and scooped up the green. I fumbled for the paint sticks. The lady, embarrassed a bit, started saying something about throwing money at me. I looked at Caitlin and said loud enough to be heard in the power tool aisle, "Does she KNOW I'm single?" To which the lady replies, "No. Does he know I'm married?" To which I replied, "I do now." Laughs all around. I look behind me and there are two lines about five to seven people deep. Whoops, holding up the machinery. Gotta go. Call me!
Don't fuck with the machinery.
I am going to work willfully tomorrow. I cannot believe that I am all caught up. Wait, I'm never as caught up as I could be. I have no papers to correct. In that respect, I am caught up. As far as making it five more years, no I am not caught up on that yet. I am actually getting caught up on retirement after some bad years but nowhere near a comfortable transition. I gotta work. Good thing I like my job.
Yeah, I don't need to sit around and grouse about women. I'd feel like too much of an old man. I don't think I'm ready to be old yet. Some people are. So what? I am slowing down and I've lost a lot of strength. I'm off stimulants. I was down to a mere 140lbs and wasn't hungry too much and got anxious a lot. I couldn't smoke enough weed to keep it calm. When I travelled to Fargo for Christmas, somebody took one look at me, decided I was strung out (I was) and tossed the pills. So, I suppose that is my Christmas gift. I'm not strung out no mo' an' I aint had none since then. They got tossed. I was beginning to wonder how I was going to get off those goddam stimulants. Yes, they do work as they should if one is ADD. I used to be able to sleep while taking them. That went away and I had to take Trazadone to sleep. As you know, you get to a point where you gotta wonder what the hell is going on? Am I that fucking nuts that I have to take all this pharmaceutical profiteering into my body? Contrary to popular belief, no, I am not that nuts. Anymore...still taking most of my heart meds although I see no reason to. My HDL was higher than at any other time in my life. I don't like taking boner killing meds, either.
Fuck.
I suppose this has turned into an essay or blog entry. Thing is, it's a big deal to me. It is mind blowing how blind we can become. Both Lani and I knew years ago we were in a tailspin. Clash of the Titans. Even though she had to instigate it, it is good that it is done. The story is in how it ended. Not as easy as it should have been. Mostly my fault, I would say. At least that is what I have been told. Ha aha hah...I digress. My goal is a tome. Sit easy.
Since my return, I have been unable to locate the remote for my Apple TV. Fortunately, I can use my iPhone as a remote. Still, that damn thing has to be here somewhere. I'm sure Kieran's cat, Beirut, knows where it is and may have actually hidden it from me. Penance for leaving her in the house for ten days. Travelling with Banjo was fun. With Border Collies, though, they must be kept busy. During his time in the car on the way to Fargo, he learned to masturbate. He's been doing it ever since. Even when he has been active. I can't wait for warmer weather to get him outside. I don't like the noise he makes. He's a dog. What do you expect?
If you don't expect much, the loss is less.
There you go. Another angry tirade from a despondent Democrat.
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