To be clear
ok, for those of you who haven't gathered this from the rest of my writing, I'll do my best to clarify...
With changing my "legal letter" in the past, my body actually did most of the deciding for me. My guts were screwed up, and so I waved bye-bye to them when the doctor told me that they should go. After that, I had to pick a hormone. I decided to go with the one which was, in my opinion, more gender appropriate. After that, I fine tuned my chest because what little there was which looked feminine bugged the shit out of me. (Look up gynecomastia. Many men choose to have things done to their chests.) Anyway, this all categorized me as legally "M".
It was tough for people to shift gears with me, I think, simply because I'd always encouraged them to redefine their definitions of sex, gender, and sexuality in order to deal with me, and with the world in general.
The majority of people first called me "he", and then I told them, or they were told by someone else to use "she", and so they did. Then, later, I asked them to call me "he" because I figured out that it was actually more accurate for me? Holy brain-fuck, Batman! (Toss a name change onto that and you have people really struggling to keep up.)
In all of it, after my name and letter were changed, I hadn't changed much at all in comparison to how much the people already in my life changed when it came to dealing with me and my place in their lives. In effect, they were the ones who more had to "transition", not me. I just got to stop trying to convince everyone, including myself, that I wasn't a guy.
The trans label doesn't really fit me. At first, I used it, but then I realized how ridiculous it was for me to use. It mis-represented me. I didn't go from Barbie to Ken. I went from feral Teddy Bear to G.I. Joe.
I started out legally "F" but was changed to legally "M".
I started out masculine and stayed masculine.
I started out being perceived (99% of the time, by people who had not been told differently) as a young guy, and ended up being perceived as closer to my own age.
So... "trans"? My using the label, I feel, would only serve to completely invalidate trans people, and their shared experiences, and to misrepresent me.
I never even really looked like a "dyke", as in a very masculine lesbian - derogatory. I just looked like a normal, young guy. Even the women who ran the lesbian bars were confused by me and didn't really want me in there, until they all knew my face. ("Do you know what kind of a bar this is, sir?" "Ummmm... yes?") At my (second) High School, I was routinely escorted out of the building because there were "no boys allowed" in the school, until the whole school knew that I was actually a student there. (I think that I still have my ID card from that High School. I'll have to see if I can't scan it at some point.) Trans people and Gender therapists alike did not peg me as "trans" upon sight. To them, I just looked like a "normal" guy. The Gender clinic folks at the one and only meeting I ever went to were rather baffled by the end of it. Throughout the time I was there, they thought I was a pre-transitioned MtF transsexual in my currently gender appropriate street clothes. I was also routinely not allowed onto the bus because my bus pass was required to have an "F" stamped on it, and because it did, the bus driver thought that it wasn't mine. If I went to a men's bar, they looked at my ID, saw the age was legit, and then called me "Alan". They changed my (horribly feminine) birth name in their head, before thinking I might be a female.
All of it took me forever to sort out. I didn't really have to "transition". I just had to learn to "fag it up" a little bit more when I wanted to be in the lesbian bars with my friends, as to not intimidate the women there, or give anyone the message that I was there to compete with them for the available women there.
Settling into "Intersexed" took time. Even that label has rules which I don't know whether or not I completely adhere to. It fits ok though, when I'm forced to label myself. People don't really need to know what parts I have or don't have... had or didn't have... but people are weird with stuff like that. In general, people define themselves by comparing themselves to other people; they feel the need to know in order to feel secure in their own identities. It's a scary truth. It's a truth which touches on some very raw nerves in our various sexually polarized cultures. It's a truth which has killed many, and made the lives of many more completely hellish. I use "Intersexed" because I do not want to misrepresent myself to others. Yes, I'm a guy, but if people go by the male stereotype in order to define the word "guy" in their heads, they might be a bit off in their perception of me, when it really comes down to it.
I'm an "Intersexed guy", or a "masculine Intersexed person". My pronouns are "he" and "him". Using "it" as a pronoun when referring to me says more about the person using the word than the word does about me, and it's nothing too nice. "They" is a bit kinder and gentler, and so I use it myself in order to refer to a person whose pronoun I cannot determine, rather than polarizing the whole world into he and she. "She" is fabulous for me, as long as you have also queened up the rest of the sentence, girlfriend *snap* *snap*.
Anyway... enough of this rant. I just wanted to respond to some questions asked, and some most likely not.
- I really have to stop re-wording this. Step away from the edit button, Cutter... just step away...
At least I tried.
It's tough to stay present. Playing with the dates is seriously fucking with my head. I have to keep checking my phone to adjust the date in my mind.
Although the project is distracting me from some of the bad shit in the present, some of the shit is just too damn present for that to happen with. Mostly it's the more physical aspects of the MS. My eyes are really fucked up, I've been getting those myoclonic jerky things again, and this, that, or the other muscle keeps dancing. Then, there's the pain factor, the sleepless factor, and the fatigue factor. Fun stuff.
I learned to live with a lot of the shit over the years... but some of the physical stuff has really been rattling my chains lately.
I'm trying not to read too far ahead. I'm trying to force myself to just take one day... one entry at a time, but it's difficult. It's like I'm trying to brace myself for the fallout...
This is not stuff I want to post online. This is not stuff I want to read. This is not stuff I want to be put in a position to explain, translate, or elaborate on.
Yes, it would be a lot easier to hide from it, to just leave it to rest in between the pages of that old notebook, but that's not who I am, and if I were any other way, although I'd understand myself, I don't think that I'd respect myself very much.
With all due respect, unless you're Intersexed or Trans, you'll never really understand this... but one of my truths is that, deep inside... I feel like I was too weak, like I wasn't strong enough to be a woman. I feel like I failed.
Logically, I know better... but my insecurities are not logical.
It is something at which I tried pretty damn hard, but at which I failed completely. You can't be someone you're not. So, rather than die, I chose to give up. I chose to just be myself, and take whatever help I could get in order to best do that.
I suppose that I thought that maybe, if I didn't die, I could still do some good.
Whether or not I have? That answer will vary, depending on whom you ask.
The Toy Surprise
(PLEASE NOTE! This writing is from 1994!!!)
Jan 27
At J______'s apartment. In writing mode. I can feel a blast coming on, but I'm not sure if I want to write in here or in another book. I guess that it would make sense to just write in here.
I sort of tired, it may make even more sense to just to take a nap.
I'm up to June '89 in my reading to J___. It fels odd having someone know so much about me. Even in our conversations I tell her things I've never told anyone - not even in this book.
I keep shutting down, attempting to keep the walls in place. Listening to 'The Wall' The tape - appropriately enough - is warped. Talking with J___ last night - songs from the album kept popping in to my head. Walls. Don't know whether to vegetate or write. Allow myself to keep feeling. Feel myself loving this woman, feel this woman's love for me.
Eyes closed rocking back and forth, back and forth in time with the music.
Daddy's gone 'cross the ocean
Leaving just a memory
A snapshot in the family album
Daddy what else did you leave for me
Dad what'd you leave behind for me...
Feel feel feel. Head spins, looks for a place to hide, trying to make bricks. Alcohol - want to drink - feel feel feel.
D___ J______ L___ C______ C_____ C____ Mom S___ A__ S___ R_____ - sister. Big wall, protecting me from her memory.
Helicopters
Drum beats
Stare at blank page
Write god damn you.
Institutions
Medications
Rivers of blood
Scream
All in all it's just another brick in the wall
Light a cigarette
Acid spiral
Nights spent puking vodka
Speeding speeding
Brain increasing thoughts per second
Violence
Suicide
Homicide
Masochist
Misogynist
Neo nazi
No more pain it said
Mother should I build a wall
Innocent child
ruined
Accelerated maturity
What's behid the glass that covers my eyes
She won't let you fly but she might let you sing
Of course mother's gonna help build the wall
Evil mind
Satan with the eyes of a child
Holes, thousands of holes
Nothing but holes
Fish - dead
eyes glassy
mouths open
Mother did it need to be so high.
Slice and bleed
Slash and bleed
No more tears
No more pain
Burnt flesh
Holes in skin
No more pain - it said
See in your eyes - my pain
Your eyes
burning holes into me
Love
Waiting Tempting
Arrived
But the pain lingers on
Goodbye blue sky
Goodbye
Goodbye
Marching
Boots clicking
Black and dangerous
Strength
fear
...Click click click
What shall we use to fill the empty spaces
when we used to talk
How should I fill the final places
How should I complete the wall
The wall is complete now.
It's safe in here
...Scared...
Can't see out
No blue sky
No light
How did she get in here
How did she get the key
Her pain
Pain is the key
Pain is the key
Intensity
Only some can see through the glass
Which covers the eyes
Telephone line
Give me
Give me...
Wanna take a bath
Building
Building
Are you feelin' o.k.?
Like skin on a dying man
Cold as a razor blade
Dry as a funeral drum
favorite axe
Just a passing phase
One of my bad days
Breaking glass
Why are you running away
Poetry
Poetry
Collected words thoughts explosions
Read between the lines
Dare you to see through
ooo babe don't leave me now
Feel feel feel
Anger Pain Hurt Fear
Tripping Spiral Waves
Loss of control
Burning soul
Running away
Why are you running away
Tired. Eyes heavy. Trying to shut down
Preserve the wall
I don't need no arms around me
And I don't need no drugs to calm me
I have seen the writing on the wall
Don't think I need anything at all
No
Don't think I need anything at all
Wall wall wall
Feel feel feel
Goodbye goodbye goodbye
Who is she
Where did she come from
How is this happening
Brick dust
Falling bricks
Blinding light from the empty spaces
Why now?
It's all there - me - in her
She within me
Intensity
Creation of being
Must sleep
It's all too fast
too loud
too painful
too real
Previous entry in series Next entry in series Beginning of series
it's all relative
The whole "date system", which I'm using for this project of mine, is something which I've been doing for years with friends who are younger than I am. It keeps me in check, in so far as treating younger people with some respect is concerned, I think. Maybe it's just because I have a younger sister (we're 13 months apart)... because I'm "the oldest". I don't know.
It's interesting to see patterns emerging as well. Bro was having a rough-ish day, so I looked up the (retro) date in my journal.... and there it was. YEESH!
Doing so enabled me to better see him as a PERSON, above and beyond being my "little brother"... or as "terminally two", so to speak.
My brother is a MAN... an ADULT, not a toddler!
Freeze-framing people in your mind's eye only serves to hurt the person you've freeze-framed.
We all grow. We all change. That's just life. (Thankfully!)
This is getting old.
Yeah... 1994... Holy fucking SHIT, I remember the pain... I remember all of it, at the very least, emotionally.
Pretty fucked up though... compared to now? I was doing well.
I fucking HATE that it's true.
I HATE the shitty part of this life.
Hopefully, next time, I'll choose to give myself a fucking break.
Normal is rather boring.
(PLEASE NOTE! This is part of an ongoing project. The writing is from 1994!!!)
1/25 @ 4 AM
At J______'s. (She's in the shower) I'm really tired. Started work on Saturday ("Today's" Tuesday) Painting. So far I love the job, and my boss - D_____ - is pretty cool. She's a real flirt - especially with J______, but as a boss she's good. Made $120 so far, 40 of which I spent taking mom and (bro) out to dinner at Dimitri's Sunday night.
Things with J___ are still fantastic.
We've been out a lot, being social, as well as spending a lot of time talking together. Hung out tonight with D____ and F___, friends of ours who recently hooked up. D____'s looking for a roomate. I offered. I want to be back in town. Not just because of J______, but because it's where I'm happiest. If J______ moved to West Philly tomorrow I'd still move in to town. People around me - namely N_____ and J2____ seem to think I want to move because of J___. My priorities are straight - work - writing - then girlfriend. I believe that this move will be in my best interest.
So tired. J______ just made tea. Will probably be up for a little while longer. I'm fading fast, so most likely it won't be for too long. Lots to do tomorrow. Try to go to the clinic (still a little itchy) Must call A__. More recording for C_____.
Over all I'm feeling pretty happy. I'm exhausted from averaging 3 hours of sleep a night, but other than that I feel pretty good. Eyelids are heavy. Will go now - maybe I'll write soon.
Previous (beginning) entry in series Next entry in series
Triggers and dates
Damn. With some of this shit I feel like I should post "trigger warnings" for random readers. I suppose that's the risk you take online though. Anything can trigger a person. Everyone has certain things which trigger them. What sets me off might not set off another person, and what sets them off I might be fine with.
It's my own life I'm reading about. Perhaps what needles me is not the writing or the subject matter, as much as it is the memories of the time. Then, that's all "triggers" really are. Things which remind one of a time past, specifically a negative time.
Tomorrow's entry will be rather brief, but after that... yeesh. I think that I more than made up for it.
I'm posting these (project) entries in chronological order, but the numerical day will always be off by 3. The object is for my brother to be able read the entry on the day where he is exactly the same age I was when I wrote it, if he should happen to hit my blog on the day I post the entry. Too, I guess it's for myself, so that I can easier know where I was at when I was the exact age my brother is "today".
In projectville, today's date is January 24, 1994. I did not write in my journal on that date, hence there being no project entry today.
but it feels like yesterday
Tired.
I had to go to the food store (yes, with RavensWings' help) yesterday, so I'm a little wiped.
Looked over the journal. I didn't want to, but I thought that I should. That time period is getting vague in my brain. Probably for a very good reason.
The next entry isn't for a couple of days, but things change, in so far as frequency and volume of writing is concerned. 1994 was a year in which I wrote more in my journal than, I'm pretty sure, any other year. Aside from the actual journal, there are a few notebooks, and misc. writing too. I won't be using those here though. The journal is more than overwhelming enough.
It... writing kept me alive, and I mean that VERY literally. There weren't no Internet then... not for me. Just paper and pen, pencil if I was desperate. Fucking matchbooks and blood if I was really desperate.
A lot will be lost in type. The handwriting alone speaks volumes. It's also difficult to get the spacing right. It took me forever just to figure out how to form proper paragraphs here. A lot of it is "artistic". The spacing is almost as important as the content. All I can do is my best though, and hope that's enough.
The actual notebook itself is a 5 subject, college ruled, spiral. It is "Volume IV" of my journal.
Chapter I, which is where we pick up, goes until March 4, 1994.
On the front of the chapter divider is a piece of note paper from a bar which I frequented, on which "J______" wrote (and then passed to me in the bar):
"you just burned the most wonderful hole into my back"
treading
Already it feels difficult to keep my head on straight about this project.
Although my brother was my motivation to start it, it's not that the project is exclusively for him. I could just copy pages and mail them to him, you know.
Of course, I am hoping that he will get something from my posting the stuff here, and as well from what it was that I was saying at the time. In the first entry, it SCREAMS, "my fault. my fault. I'm bad. Gotta fix myself. I'm broken. but look! I'm really good though, right? See! I've got a girlfriend, and she loves me!" You have to read between the lines, not just in search of intentional metaphor, but in order to understand the psychology behind it all.
I was experiencing some sort of, I don't know... catharsis? All of a sudden, I thought that I had to do inventory and find out what it was that I did which caused all of my pain, and what it was that I was doing or not doing that was still causing it. I wanted to blame myself so that I could easily fix the problem... so that others could not blame me!
I couldn't get it through my head that IT WASN'T MY FAULT. Too, I couldn't handle the concept of "Sometimes it's not about my weakness. Sometimes it's just that people are intolerable assholes, and nothing I will ever do or say will fix them!" Too, I was not aware of the fact that there really was something wrong with my brain, that I actually was sick. It was just a hunch.
So, why am I doing this, if not exclusively for my brother? Well... I guess that it's because I care about other people as well. I guess it's because I hope that as a result of my exposing my guts, someone else might somehow have an easier time of it if they ever decide that they want to.
Yes, my brother gives me a time frame, and an emotional edge, but aside from that, why am I doing this, if not exclusively for him? BECAUSE I LOVE MY BROTHER. My brother means the world to me. The world! Get it?
Don't Give Up
(PLEASE NOTE! This writing is from 1994!!!)
(1/22) 12:05 AM
& nbsp; On the 34. Realizing just how thick these walls actually are. Realizing just what is back there. I can't just drop them, it'd kill me, or drive me insane. The walls are there for a reason, to protect me. How can I protect myself without them? Yes, I know that they have to come down, but how do I deal?
& nbsp; Father, I've served you well for a very long time, and I will continue to do so. Things will change though, they have to.
& nbsp; Feeling scared. feeling very scared. I'll continue writing at Duck Soup. I need a cigarette really badly. Precious nicotine.
12:35
& nbsp; Duck Soup. O.K. Step one - figure out what these walls are constructed of, how they work. What parts are necessary, what parts create unhealthy temperence.
& nbsp; Drugs. Alcohol. Sleep. Shut down. Obsession. Promiscuity. - The Wall
& nbsp; Pain. Violence. Depression. Love. Anger. Hurt. Masochism. Rage. Despair. Insanity. Trust. Honesty. - Behind the Wall.
& nbsp; When did the wall start forming. 5th grade I think. Hm, in years? 1979 - age 10 or 11. What happened then? Remembering S___'s pen knife, slicing my face. Why. Desire to feel pain? Desire to make myself ugly? Fear? Of whom? S___?
& nbsp; J_____ - the waiter - is joking around with me. He's such a queen. Soup, salad, and coffee are here. Will try to eat and write at the same time.
& nbsp; There is an intense feeling of trauma, of fear, in letting these walls crumble. D___. She was right in the height of it. She helped me to seal the walls up. Still pain there. I've turned her into a goddess, a symbol. Firstly, I must put her where she belongs. Many times I've tried, many times I've thought that I had. O.K. knowing there's still pain there is a start. Must figure out what happened there. B.G. - used him as a safe outlet for love. H______ - transferred love to her. D___. Discovery. Acid created intensity of feeling, intensity of ability to love. Increased need to feel. Increased feeling of torment. I did love D___. Intensely. She provided a safe haven from my torment even though she added to it. Make sense? T/D___. D___ tormented. T sheltered.
& nbsp; People filtering in to the restaurant. Almost 1 AM. Soup still too hot despite the chill from the door opening.
& nbsp; Can I ever drink again? Can I break the alcoholism? I hope so. I want to. To most of the world, recovery from alcoholism means not drinking. For me, it means being able to drink.
& nbsp; J___ will be here in a hour and a half. Happy. J______ is a good thing, not part of the wall, only present for its being dismantled. Will be hard. Can she put up with me through this process? Is it too much to ask? Can I accomplish this without driving her crazy? She has a degree in Psych. Maybe that will help her to understand. Maybe not. Maybe I should just do my best not to involve her. Then again, as close as we already are, that might not be possible. If she were having a crisis, an ongoing one, how would I handle it? Hm. I'd be there for her. I'd do my best to help. I'd have to be careful not to let it bring me down or distract me from my own issues.
& nbsp; Finished eating. Need more coffee. Feet are frozen.
& nbsp; Should I continue reading Vol. II? No. I'll wait. I've read enough already for now. Tonight I'll re-read it with J______. So frightening, what's behind this wall. Looking back, reading what I wrote, makes me see it. Therapy. This journal sharing, that's what it is I guess. No shrinks, no drug counselours, no alcohol rehabs or AA meetings, no institutions, just me, my girlfriend and 10 years of writing. My writing, her writing, my strength, her strength. Will we become healthy people after all of this. Will the walls collapse. We both have them. Is leaning on each other healthy? It took 14 years to construct these walls, it probably won't happen overnight.
& nbsp; Place is filling up. Door keeps opening. Very cold outside. Sidewalks and streets are still solid sheets of ice. Long winter.
& nbsp; 1:15 AM
& nbsp; Thinking that maybe I should read. Force myself to deal. To feel. Need not to shut down. Internal struggling going on. Think of J______ asleep this morning. We still sleep wrapped up together. Seperate yet together. She fills my world somehow. Not a space inside, but a place inside. A place that is only emptied by loving, and only filled by love. She's not the source of my happiness, she strengthens the happiness that already exists.
& nbsp; I love what I have become. Walls included. I'll love what I will become after the walls fall down. Taking the walls away will allow me to feel my happiness more intensely. Yes, the torment and the pain will also be more intense, but somehow, somehow I'll find a way to preserve myself. Until I figure it out I'll cut or burn or punch if I have to, as long as I know that I'm working towards finding an alternative I'll be o.k.
& nbsp; More people coming in. Shit. I'm hoping that I won't be asked to give up my table. Need to write. O.K. moved to a smaller table. She'll be here in an hour or so.
& nbsp; How much more can I analyze here? I doubt much. I'll go back to reading Vol. II Maybe I'll be back.
& nbsp; "Don't give up" Juke Box. Pain. Unexplainably intense. Good lord this hurts.
& nbsp; Let me smoke in her room, after we smoked in her room. Remember that night, how it blew everything with A_____ and I.
& nbsp; Waiting for J___. So happy that I can feel love for someone again. Despite the price. I want to sit and write about her. About those stars, remember, the ones I saw with D___. They're still there. She helped me find them again.
Drumroll please
ok, folksies... let me set this up for y'all...
The motivation behind this project is my brother. My brother is 13 years younger than I am, which makes him the same exact age now as I was in 1994. There is no one on the face of the Earth who means more to me than my brother. Period.
So (and I'll link back to this entry in the future) what this next project of mine will be is posting my (very private) journal entries from '94... from 13 years ago. I don't know that I'll be able to post an entry every day, but I'd like to post one as often as possible.
You can comment if you want to, but just, please, be very aware of the date of the entry. The entries will be posted, with very few exceptions, exactly as I wrote them (poor spelling, grammar, and punctuation included) although I'll be using initials instead of people's names. I've grown a lot, learned a lot, and experienced a lot over the last 13 years. Don't assume that I have not.
oh... and as a final note... This project is not in order tell my brother that I know how he feels. It is in order to let him know that I know damn well that I don't, but that I love him and want him to know that I will not forget what the hell of being that many years into this thing we call life can entail.
Otay... stay tuned, I guess.
My shit don't stink.
started 1/23/07 -
There was a time when I would post more like three blog entries a day, every day. I suppose that at the time, I was capable of it. For starters, I could actually sit in the same position for the amount of time it took and it wasn't as painful then. Most of that stuff is stuff I deleted anyway though... stuff from '04.
At the time, I was trying to tell "my story", because I thought that it might matter to the person I was (in truth) posting it towards. I had things a little twisted in my head at the time though. None of it really mattered to that person, and even though I'd suspected that, I chose to ignore every last red flag anyway and kept on trying to make it matter. I guess that although no one wants to be judged based on their past, so on one level it could have been seen as a good thing that it "didn't matter", I suppose that maybe I just wanted someone to be that interested. I was that interested.
When I'm that interested, I'll often hang on every word... sift through whatever I can dig up about a person's life, because I want to know them like no one ever has or will, because I want to show them that I love them with the same amount of intensity as I desire them to love me. So that I can show them how to love me in a way I will understand? I dunno.
Truth is though, when you do that, start zealously sifting through a person's viewable life, you have to be really careful. As with anything else, when you've made up your mind what you want or don't want, you'll almost always find it or ignore it based on that model and your level of fatigue. Once you're really tired of sifting you may well end up just settling for a giant chunk of shit, which you end up hoping you can convince yourself is treasure.
10pm 1/23/07 -
It's sad that I cannot clear my head enough to finish this up and post. I can barely focus my eyes. I'm not doing well at all.
Yeah... I'm sitting here trying to sculpt a treasure out of a giant turd.
Maybe my head will clear up by the morning. I've had enough of this shit.
7:55am 1/24 -
After a couple of hours of sleep, and another hour of reworking it, it's just gotta do.
Somewhere in there, something should suggest that interest and caring should go hand in hand, when it comes to personal relationships, but often they do not; that if you try to sculpt a treasure out of a giant turd, in the end, it will still stink.
Denis
I had trouble getting my head to stop blogging, and so sleep didn't really kick in until PBS went from educational to morning babysitter.
Listened to a program about John and Abigail Adams, which I rather enjoyed.
My favorite part was the part where I heard the line, "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." which was somehow associated with Thomas Jefferson.
I then thought on reincarnation through the rest of the program, and tried to plant a note in the noggin to look up the quote after I got some sleep.
I think that I got about two hours before the snow plow decided that the 14 flakes of snow we got overnight just really needed to not be on the ground.
It's all good. I wasn't enjoying the company I had in my dream much anyway. That Psycho made me feel like the sanest guy on the planet.
Look for what seems out of place...
It's all the same... it's all metaphor... hidden meanings... symbolism...
Dreams - Tarot Cards - Drawing - Humor - Poetry
A good many of my blog entries are written, at least partially... in code. That's how I exist. It's how I write, how I read, how I speak, and how I listen.
When I say that "no one understands what I'm talking about" it's most often not because I think that I'm so much smarter than everyone else, or that I think that people are too stupid to, it's because my writing is, very often, directed.
You won't get the joke because I wasn't talking to you.
On a good day, an entry will be appreciated by many. I'll somehow manage to take what it is that I am trying to say to one specific person and form it into something which many, many people will be able to get something out of. On a very good day, I'll take something which I wanted more than a few people to get, and manage to also tap one specific person on the shoulder as well, when I express that something. If I'm very, very lucky I can manage to at least entertain or educate the majority of the people who read what I write, no matter what else it is that I am trying to achieve.
I'm not always talking to the same person or addressing the same reader. Sometimes, I'm just talking to my yesterday or tomorrow self. Sometimes I'm talking to your God. Sometimes I'm talking to my mother.
Sometimes, I'm talking to you.
Watching you without me.
Odd dreams last night. Odd, but comforting on one level. Comforting enough to make me want to go back to sleep so that I could return to the situation, after I woke up.
We meet in dreams.
Perhaps the truth is that my past is just one big dream. Perhaps this is just a dream... all of it.
It's not an unpleasant thought. If this is all just a dream, then anything is possible.
You didn't lose my ring, honey. I never took it off.
If I could...
As much as I enjoy having the ability to write, I often get stuck in feeling-sorry-for-myself mode, feeling angry about the fact that, in truth, it's simply one of the only things I can do anymore. Days and days of "If only I could..." pass by, and bitter turns to sad.
I do appreciate this cyber-reality, but it feels like a giant tease sometimes.
Sometimes, I feel that I'd walk away from all of it... if I actually could; that I'd drop it all for the right offline circumstance.
Then, I suppose that maybe things happen for a reason. Perhaps it was just meant to be that I scatter the energy I have to give, rather than giving it all to just one person.
A noble life, but dreadfully unromantic.
Obviously
I was getting bored of the old one, so I thought I'd switch templates for a while.
Oh... the things we do to entertain ourselves...
The home climate
It's snowing. This makes me smile. Selfish of me, I know, I don't have to drive in it, but I really love the snow.
In a city, it makes things look clean for a little while, and keeps a lot of the "trouble" off of the street.
It was always my favorite time to go out.
Maybe, tomorrow morning there will be enough there so that I can take advantage of it and sit and stare out of the window for a while. There's something soothing about looking out at the snow... before it's shoveled and dirtied by various cars. Something... quiet.
yawn
Spoke with Neurodude this morning about last week's blood work.
My cholesterol is pretty ok. My liver is healthy.
He's going to look into some things for me, treatment-wise. No clue how long that will take, but he said he'll get back to me.
Had to do the food shopping, and so I'm pretty wiped, but I've had worse days. If I'm lucky, I'll score a nap soon. Maybe it'll help.
Being able to write more than a few sentences sometime soon would be a plus.
The little things.
So, the temperature goes from (in fahrenheit) 68 to... 5. ...within a couple of days.
This just cannot be healthy... for anyone.
I really like the cold though. I prefer it.
Makes me feel more alive, and less like wanting to die.
That's a good thing, in my book.
Times like these
I think I need a Buddhist.
The daily whine.
I keep hoping for some sort of second wind... but day after day I just feel tired and incapable. If I'm lucky, I'll have a thought or two worth sharing with people, or enough energy to do something I need to do in order to care for myself, but generally speaking it's just day after day of being tired, fighting depression, stifling rage, and trying to psych myself into believing that pain is actually a good thing because it reminds me that I'm still alive enough to suffer.
I can't help but wonder if there have ever been any long active cases of Progressive MS which just suddenly, one day, went benign. I want to find that case and do what that person did.
I'd settle for just being able to retire Nessie though.
I really do think that being able to confidently walk without any sort of assistive device might really help me out in other ways.
Don't mind me... just wishfully thinking.
Can I get a cookie?
So, it's MLK day.
I don't have it in me to go off on a long rant about the fact that discrimination is alive and well in the US and in the world today.
I'll just post a thought...
Non-violent, social change.
In our bag of tricks we, the "online community", because we are lucky enough to have both the ability and the platform on which to write, have the potential to open the eyes of many. We have the opportunity to drip our drop into the bucket. We have the blessing of being able to use this virus called "language" to make the world a better place for many, many people.
Bitch, whine, moan, complain, at the top of your lungs! If your only strength is to speak, even if you don't feel you have much to say, then do so for those who cannot. There are others who will take the words and chew on them. They will take your epiphanies and run with them. They will react to those screams.
Your God may hear your silent thoughts, but the rest of us cannot, and we are the ones who might actually be able to get you a band-aid when you're bleeding, and/or try to avoid hurting you, or those like you, in the future.
It's just a thought.
Hopefully you'll at least chew on it for a while.
Stupid forms
I know, I know, agencies can't just take a person's word for things, but for fuck's sake, do they have to make the fucking forms so goddamned motherfucking confusing?!!!?
Yeah, I know, just call the office and ask. Yeah, I'll get to that right after I recover from actually attempting to get through filling them out the first time!!!
Maybe I'll be able to handle making a phone call tomorrow. It could happen!
What?
What's that?
Tomorrow's a holiday??? The office is probably closed?!?
Right. A holiday. A day on which people get a "day off" in honor of (or should I say, in order to appropriately honor) someone or something. As if the majority of people care about whatever it is they're supposed to be honoring anyway.
So, fuck me. Maybe on Tuesday I'll manage to get back to the spot where I can risk worrying about the damn forms. (grumble grumble bitch bitch whine moan sulk)
Happy MLK day, everyone.
It is quite easy for me to think of a God of love mainly because I grew up in a family where love was central and where lovely relationships were ever present.
- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I wish...
I can say what I wish were true about my reality, but that's only because I'm well aware of what my reality is. I am doing my best to deal with my reality, and I try to avoid wasting wishes on trivial things concerning it. I just try not to get too lost in "I wish" when it comes to it.
They say that you're supposed to make lemonade out of the lemons. Well, not only am I allergic to citric acid, but life has not handed me lemons. The way I see it, it has violently thrown them at my head.
I feel that I actually am doing the best I can, with what I have to work with. I could say, "I'm doing better than other people would be doing if they were in my shoes." but I don't know that that's the case. Most people are fighters, survivors; they're industrious, creative and principled. I'm not doing "better than", I'm doing my own version of.
So, what do I really wish for when it comes to wishing time?
I don't really know. It changes... minute to minute sometimes.
Being "satisfied" or "content" can easily lead to the cessation of forward progress.
I suppose that what I wish for most is the constant ability to hang onto that thought, so that when life starts to feel unbearable to me, it's easier to keep going.
This too shall pass.
(...and if it kills you, my guess is that you probably won't care too much about it after that anyway.)
sick of it
Whatever it is that's going on with me, I sure hope that it passes soon. I felt a little better this morning, but then went quickly downhill.
I'm very frustrated. I want this to be a flu or something, and I want it to go away soon. As morbid as I can be, feeling like this makes me ten times worse, and that's not the way I want to feel.
Even sitting here reading is painful.
FUCK
I DO NOT WANT TO FEEL THIS WAY.
The Outsiders
If Johnny had lived to write a book or a blog?
*smirks*
I really didn't plan this.
I wasn't supposed to make it past 16. 'member?
Yeah... that became my bible, after I gave up on the other one as a source of guidance... maybe around fourth grade.
I haven't read the book since then.
...but I have a copy of it. It's something which has survived many purges.
I fear reading it now.
I fear looking at something which most likely had a lot to do with forming my self.
I fear seeing the game for what it truly is.
The short of it
So, (a needle pulling thread) I went to see Neurodude today. (woohoo!)
My blood pressure was FUCK high for the occasion. 160 over 92. (woohoo?)
He wrote me some scrips and sent me to the lab so they could suck out some blood for blood work. (ummm... wooHOOuch!)
I'll be visiting tubey in May. (Yay!) (That was Nessie, because she'll get to wave to chairy again.)
For now, he raised my Atenolol dose and told me that I should try Tramadol for some of the pain problems.
I like Neurodude. It sucks that he'll be leaving later this year. Probably sucks worse for whoever comes in to take me on next though. (heh heh) I'm not the easiest guy to treat. I keep eating all the text books.
youman nature
I've been writing this blog for almost three years now.
Aside from growing a lot and figuring out a lot about myself, even to the point of understanding that many of my original conclusions about myself were incorrect, I've been able to come to this conclusion about the nature of blog readers...
Often, there's a part of a writer which reminds a reader of that reader's self. Often, when a reader comments, that reader is talking to that part of that reader's self, as opposed to truly addressing the writer.
Too, often when people feel guilty or insecure, they look for something to beat the writer with.
Third Serve?
Apparently there's going to be some work on the tblog site being done at some point over the next 24 hours.
Cross your fingers.
--""^..^""--
6am - 1/11/07 - Everything seems to have gone ok with whatever they did last night.
Now back your your regularly scheduled program...
Undead like me
I think that out of all the television programs I've watched in the past couple of years, "Dead Like Me" is probably my favorite. There are a few others which I have grown fond of, but "Dead Like Me" is the only program which leaves me feeling more positive about things.
I often laugh at "The Daily Show", but it does make me scared or sad sometimes. "The Wire" is always an eye opener, but it also leaves me rather sad. "House" is educational and entertaining, but reminds me of the realities of the current Health Care system, and those realities are not something I find entertaining in the least. The various crime dramas are great for a dose of "who-dunnit", but being reminded that there are some really fucked up people out there is not something which cheers me up.
"Dead Like Me" always makes me laugh, even the cut up reruns which are now being aired on Sci-Fi. I'm sad that the show was canceled. I'd lose weight for Showtime, if the show was still on. Even with new lead characters (different actors), I'd watch it.
I suppose it's because the whole concept gives me a fantasy... that there's life after death... real life, not Jesus and butterflies. I don't want Jesus and butterflies, I want the freedom to just be myself, for better or for worse... minus all the suffering and the fear of dying crap.
Update
ok, just so that I don't send anyone into a panic...
I just called RavensWings because I was freaking out, all but ready to go into the ER.
As it turns out, she's sick too. We've both been feeling sick for days, but we didn't really compare symptoms. From what we discovered, we're both having a lot of the same symptoms.
Too, from my own notes, I was able to determine that it started with me on New Year's day. It started for her on that day as well.
click!
We went out for lunch on New Year's Eve day.
The symptoms are SCARY, and most of them are identical to much of what I experience when my MS flares really hard, only right now, they're worse.
I have no clue what it could be, but I'm hoping that whatever it is will pass soon. It's done nothing but get worse since the first, and I was already flaring. (There WAS a reason I posted that "I can't do this anymore." entry when I did.)
Whatever the case, it's MUCHO bed rest for me. Keeping calm is essential. Panic won't help me get better.
For now, I'll just dub this "The Cloth Napkin Flu".
If you want to pray, go for it, but there's two of us down with whatever the fuck it is. Pray harder for her though, she's the one who has to drive, and who has a kid to take care of. I think that both of us will take any help we can get.
rough
Over the last couple of weeks, I've not been doing well at all. I'd wanted to explain it more... better, but since the whole thing went down with that Psycho a few days ago, I've been restricting what I say here.
The truth is that I'm at the point where I'm afraid to even eat anything. There's something really, really wrong with me. If it's not MS related, my best guess would be something like Arteriosclerosis.
I'm doing everything I can to avoid the worst (dropping dead) and I do have a doctor's appointment scheduled in a few days. If I didn't fear the ER (because of the last time) I'd risk a trip there.
I'll see what the doc says about it all. I'm not going to be a stubborn fuck when I go. Whatever he thinks I should do, I'll do. In the meantime, I'm trying my best to avoid stress, being careful with food and drink, and even with smoking, and keeping to my bed as much as possible.
While not online, I'll be thinking about all of you, and wishing I could be in front of this machine reading your words.
I just wanted to let people know what's going on. I didn't want anyone to think that my not being around was anything personal about anyone. I'll be online as often as I can be, if only just to check here for a few minutes.
- Cutter
try, try again
When you try so hard, it's often because you think that because you previously failed, you need to redeem yourself.
Creation is a metaphor.
I did dream... very, very vividly.
I don't know what to detail about the dreams, as many of you were there. So vivid some of you are in my thoughts...
I was with one of you, and we were in a coffee shop type of a place, trying to talk with a couple of others. Every time one of them would get up and write his thoughts on the wall, you'd get up and erase the "n" word from the expression.
You also tried to get me to pay attention to someone... but when I tried to, I started to panic. I couldn't recognize anyone aside from you. I started making guesses... but before I could hit the nail on the head, that person had run "upstairs", hurt because of my lack of clarity.
Upstairs, I tried to explain that I recognized the feeling, but that the name got tangled up with other names.
If you won't let me see you, how am I supposed to find you through this metaphor?
waving
I should probably wait until later to even attempt writing, but for some odd reason I feel obligated to. Maybe it's sort of like a wave... something which says hello to people, to let them know that I'm thinking about them.
Not too sure if it's the weather, or a bunch of physiological problems which are being made worse by the weather, or what, but I feel pretty damn shitty.
Back to bed I go.
Some like it hot, but not me.
It's the beginning of January, my windows are open, and I live in New England. Yesterday it hit 80 degrees in here.
Fuck what's wrong with this picture, and at the moment I don't care too much about the why either. All I know is that when those birds pitched a fit when I took the A/C out of my window, they were probably trying to tell me something, as opposed to just complaining about their loss of a playground.
That'll learn me to jump to conclusions.
Commentus Interuptus
In an odd way, I'm sort of liking this. I think that in the past, I spent way too much energy worrying about whether or not one doofus or another would decide to post crap on my blog in an effort to irritate me.
Too, I like that the main page of my blog is, to the eyes of the general public, just my blog entries; no comment count to lure lurkers or to provoke competition.
I suppose that I'm pretty good like that. I can adapt pretty well when things blow up in my face.
Once you know the magnet is in the Pinball machine, you just have to perfect the art of beating the high score in spite of it. Everyone else has to deal with the magnet too. It's all fair, in the grand scheme of things.
It's a challenge.
The spice of life, on a good day.
Too many nuts
I've had all day to think on this, and the conclusion I've come to is that I'm going to have to disable the option for non-tblog users to post comments on my blog. This will be my loss, in many ways, but I really can't deal well with online events like I had to deal with today.
In the future, if someone wants to threaten my life, then that person can take responsibility for doing so.
I apologize for inconveniencing any of you, and hope that at least a few of you will choose to sign up for a tblog account, as I very much value your comments. (Just go to tblog.com, and you should be able to register there.)
Thanks,
Cutter
Feb. 19, 2007 - note:
tblog isn't letting people open accounts right now. So, sucks to be me. Hopefully tblog will work out whatever it is they're trying to work out and will be allowing people to open accounts in the future, but sending an e-mail to support@tblog.com might be able to score you an account. I don't know. They're automatically sending people over to another site, when you try to open up an account here, but unfortunately an account there won't get you access here.
May 6, 2007 note:
If you want to contact me, just read the links on the right side of my blog. There are other ways to contact me, until tblog is again allowing people to open accounts.
For the record
I'd rather someone have a meltdown on my blog, if that's the only place they can feel heard, than to have them actually hurt people in order to make a point. I wish that people had more effective options though. Everyone deserves to feel heard and cared for.
Sailing the seas of Please.
I'm going to do my best here, to explain myself. I can guess that no matter how hard I try, there will still be many who won't understand, but I'll try anyway.
When I say that I've put a lot of work into this blog, I'm not referring to the design, or even the writing.
I write as easily as I breathe. True, it has been more difficult for me to write lately, but that's the very least of my problems concerning this blog.
My hit count is important to me. Why? Because it means that people are hearing me... that something I say might make a difference. The fact that non-tblog users' hits aren't counted by the tblog stat counter anymore, unless they've arrived at my blog because they clicked on a link which is posted somewhere else, and a large number of my readers are not tblog users? Yeah. It bugs me more than just a little.
The "work" I put into this blog involved sites outside of tblog, as much as it did working within tblog itself. Tblog benefitted too. Many people opened accounts here and started blogging because of that "work".
That's the thing with blogging, it's not as simple as: you write and people magically appear. As well, with my style of writing, it's rare that someone just stumbles across my blog and decides to stay. Depending on the day, you'll want to hunt me down and shoot me before wanting to read another word. (and I think that my comments section now has an official body count.)
My blog has to be read, if not in full, then at least for a little while, in order for people to have the slightest clue what I'm really talking about. Just like my life is not just one event, my blog entries are not just about one subject or aspect of myself.
The "work" I did on my blog had mostly to do with what might be called "publicity". I went from site to site, interacting and offering up my blog link. For a few hits a day, I'd very literally make myself sick trying to be social online. I'd, metaphorically, run buck-ass naked through a crowd of people for the chance that even one of them might start reading my blog.
I didn't beg. I didn't post ads or scripts on my blog to generate hits. I didn't even attempt to encourage comments. In fact, I did the opposite. I often snarled and spit at people. I was genuine.
I did this hour after hour, at all hours, well or in so much pain that I could barely sit in front of the computer.
Everyone I have ever met, that I was able to even bump into indirectly has this address. Family members; One time therapists; Old lovers and friends... I "worked" in the only way I could, and I put my ass on the line.
So, that is what I mean when I say that I'm having trouble doing this anymore.
Do I want to leave tblog? No. I put too much into this blog. I could not do it again. Do I wish that tblog would fix a few of the things with the site that would make my life a little easier? Yes. I have to do a lot of things on "autopilot," so to speak. The slightest change can completely fuck with my head. The smallest extra step can completely throw me off for an entire day. I'm still trying to recover from what happened to this site last January, but do I fear tblog going "belly up"? Hell yes! I need the address! I need what I get from having the address!
Any sort of social interaction can end up landing me in bed. That is the truth of it. I have to recouperate from even being taken to the food store by my best friend! but do I need to feel like I exist? Like I have something positive to offer to the world? Like maybe I'm good enough to be cared for and respected? YES! That's what my focus on the damn hit count is all about! Would I want to sacrifice the hundreds of hits a day I get to have it be a little easier to manage my comments or for a spiffy, custom template? FUCK NO!!! For a more social environment? FUCK! Even tblurt can annoy the piss out of me most days, and there's no way to avoid seeing it. Why would I want an even more social blog?
When I can be social, I am. When I can't, I have to be able to retreat... to hide... and to not have to clean up a residual mess from doing so, and that includes having to say "I'm sorry!" 14,000 times, both online and off.
Less and less it is that I am able to be social, and so less and less it is that I am able to handle this blog along with what it takes to keep the hit count up. I'm going to have to count on just riding on the work I've already done, when things get worse. If I stay at this address, I should be ok. At another address? Not so much.
It's not that I don't want the option of being social when I am able to be, but I can't keep forcing myself to be social when I know full well that I will suffer for doing so.
I guess that all that is to say that until I lose this address, or lose the ability to blog at all, I'll be blogging here.
Cracker Jerk
Sometimes it's very, very tempting to just turn into an online liar.
It would make life exciting. I don't have to have MS. I don't have to have a trauma filled past. I don't have to be a "gender minority". I don't have to be a Pagan. I could just create a character. I could just fill my hours laughing and posting quizzes and flirting. I could throw in a dose of sadness, every now and again, to help convince people that I'm real. I could just make sure that I stay offline during certain hours and then I could tell people that I had a job. The possibilities are endless!
Having a chronic disease sucks. At first, when people find out that you're sick, they're all over it, wanting to "help". It gets old after a while though. People stop trying so hard, and often they just disappear entirely. They have lives to attend to, and only so much they want give without reward. It's not their fault, they're only human. They deserve happiness, and don't need a child or a pet, especially if they already have one, cramping their style.
Once people realize that you're not going to get better, once it really sinks in, I think that they start hoping that you'd just die already. That way they can run to all the people in their own lives, getting sympathy and compassion.
I'm too much work...
I'm not worth the effort.
Once you get to the bottom of me, once you've devoured my insides or tossed them all over the place, there is no toy surprise.
Middlesexed
I spent some time today watching the HBO documentary (on demand) called "Middle Sexes".
It's not that I want just you who are reading this to watch this movie, it's that I want the whole damn world to watch it.
I'm not going to talk about its content; not today. I've spent a lifetime talking about it and writing about it, and trying to get others to "get it".
It's available for sale at the HBO website, and it's "on-demand" on HBO this month.
There. There's something you can do for me. Watch it, think about it, and get others to as well.
'nuff said.
On your marks... Get set...
I'm still tired. I slept, but apparently not enough.
Watched the ball drop in Times Square, on tv, and then watched the local fireworks from my window.
It was an odd reaction, in me, when the ball hit the bottom and the year officially changed over.
I looked out of my window at the fireworks, and I cried. I begged and I cried...
Please
I'm trying
