I am a big eighties fan -- the music of my youth. I hear this song and I want to wear parachute pants, Air Jordans, and go hang out at the mall all weekend. Missing Persons was one of my favorite bands. Their music is the epitome of the sound that was characteristic of the eighties. Rosa says this band gets on her nerves I listen to them so often.
Much to Rosa's chagrin, I talk about the people whose blogs I read like I know them. Like they are a part of my life. This morning I was cooking breakfast as Rosa sat at my kitchen table. I began talking about my online friends as if we had known each other for years. I think Rosa is a tad bit jealous of my online friendships.
"Cheryl's daughter had a birthday the other day," I told Rosa. "Annabel is at a conference in San Antonio. I love Summer's blog, but feel like an outsider looking in."
"You talk like you know these people," Rosa replied.
"I know as much as they will write," I said. "They know pretty much everything about me."
"Do you write about us?"
"Quite a bit actually, but nothing too intimate. I am not writing about our sex life in gory detail if that is what you mean."
"Well, I hope not," Rosa said.
"Writing about sex makes me uncomfortable. And I am sure it would make my readers uncomfortable as well."
"What have you been writing lately?" Rosa then asked.
"About Clara, the gang, and getting drunk," I told her. "I almost ran off my readership."
"Well, you are a different person when you drink," Rosa told me. "It changes your very demeanor. You become cold and uncaring. Distant. You don't think about the consequences of your actions. You basically don't give a shit about anything except drinking another twenty beers."
I did go to a morning A.A. meeting for which Rosa was pleased. It was a small meeting of elderly men and just a handful of us younger drunks. It is interesting hearing the tales of these men that have been sober for more than twenty years. I find it almost incomprehensible that I could stay sober for so long. It makes it hard for me to believe they were actually alcoholic. I am under the delusion that I am some special case that is going to take an extra concerted effort by my A.A. groups -- the incorrigible, hopeless drunk. That's why they tell you in A.A. to take it one day at a time. You don't have to tackle years of sobriety all in one day as us drunks tend to do. Eventually growing discouraged and downtrodden, and turning back to drink.
I was talking to my father last night about my experiences with A.A.
"Dad, I thought I would just be run over with friends after going to A.A. for awhile," I said. "I thought us drunks would look after each other."
"You got discouraged, didn't you?" he asked.
"Yeah, I thought I would have an instant support group. I then realized it was going to take months of going to build that support group up."
"When you want something, you want it now. You can't wait."
"I never could," I said.
"You just keep going and good things will happen. It certainly won't hurt you and can only help."
I do hope my camera comes today. I don't think I can wait until Monday or Tuesday. I have so dearly missed taking pictures and look forward to starting up a photography blog. This new camera is going to be fantastic!
It was a much needed quiet day. I prepared a brimming thermos of hot coffee and just walked to clear my head. The skies were overcast and gray keeping it cool all throughout the afternoon. I kept hoping for a thunderstorm and/or rain. I walked probably six miles this afternoon clearing the cobwebs out of the upper works of my cranium. You could literally see the dust blowing out my ears.
I didn't stop by the shopping center as that usually ends up with me drinking beer or wine. I am trying to be a good young soul and will attend an A.A. meeting tonight as well. I tend to flirt with danger or disaster from time to time and I know it can be exasperating for some of you that have read me a for a long period. It can take years to build up a blog readership and you can destroy this relationship with your readers in a matter of weeks or even days pulling some of the stunts I have lately. I have gone a long way to bringing about the demise of this blog. What surprises me most is that I will unabashedly write about it knowing the consequences when I could just keep it to my self and fall silent. No one, but those in my immediate life would ever know. Most alcoholics spend years trying to hide their disease. I get on a blog with a thousand readers a day and blather about it in vainglorious fashion like some complete idiot -- my own personal Don Quixote complex.
I haven't checked my comments in a better part of a week. I looked today and things were civil. I decided to leave them up for the time being as a forum for my readers to interact within. Someone emailed me telling me the only reason I blog was for attention and that I had been trying to garner attention this past week. I just plainly wrote what is, and didn't embellish. I wasn't even checking my comments. My life, like yours, has it's up and downs, but I usually always come out on the upside. I blog mainly to practice writing, and it helps me to continue this writing experiment knowing someone is enjoying what I write and taking strength from my own trials and tribulations.
My Google Adsense account got suspended. Someone spent the better part of the past few days clicking my advertisements with the same IP address. This raised red flags at Google and they suspended me. It was the only viable way I had of making money besides working a job that wouldn't adversely affect my disability income. For this suspension, I am sad. It was so liberating to be able to make $300 to $400 dollars a month doing something I immensely enjoy, writing. Maybe I will try Yahoo ads.
One of the biggest reasons I started to hang out with the gang again was to get up reasons and material to write. I harbor some strange delusion that all of you want to read about homeless people and drunken debauchery. I realize it was me, and only me, that wanted to read and write that stuff that harkened back to the beginning days of this blog. I also feel I write more creatively and with more passion after a few drinks. Maybe I was wrong. My writing has certainly suffered since this all started, hasn't it? Let's see if I can get this blog back on track along with my personal life. You all are going to get a lot of stories about Alcoholics Anonymous, Rosa, and sobriety as I am an all or nothing kind of fellow. I can't do anything in moderation. I either drink twenty beers or I don't drink at all. I will either not go to A.A. or will go to three meetings a day. Just another day in the life of an obsessive compulsive schizophrenic dude.
Days with weather like this will always remind me of my homeless days -- overcast and dreary, and threatening rain. The temperature being less than optimal and feeling rather chilly. One time in my tent comes particularly to mind as I was trying to stay warm on a cold and rainy night. I had rode my motorcycle in from the country to update my blog at my late grandmother's house. I drove home in a driving rain, freezing cold. I could feel raindrops like shards of cold, biting glass leaking into my shoes making my socks grow wet. It was mid December and was threatening sleet with the temperature just hovering above freezing. I finally made it back to my campsite out in God's country and wrapped up in my warm sleeping bag after changing into dry clothes. My feet were icy blue and cold after I took off my hiking boots. It took hours to finally warm up. I wanted to build a comforting fire, but the rain prevented this. Long hours were spent sleepless and shivering. I would have done anything for a warm hotel room, but was running low on money.
My father started giving me a new pill last night causing me to sleep ten hours or more. He would not tell me what it was saying, "Trust me." I do know it makes me sleep like I haven't slept since I took Zyprexa.
I talked to my father about the voices I hear. It was a rare moment of introspection and revelation, and one that I have never shared with him nor anyone else. Not even my psychiatrist or therapist. I am always in fear that I would be locked away in a mental hospital for revealing such things.
"What do your voices tell you?" my father asked, intrigued.
"To do terrible things like steal or lie," I replied. "To act out impulsively."
"But you don't act on them," dad then said. "You never get in trouble. You never have."
"I know, but they are always there. They make me cringe. I shudder every time that voice tells me to grab beer and run from the convenience store. I feel it is my destiny to end up in jail and I have urges to do something that will put me there."
"How long have you had these voices?"
"Ever since I was a small child -- 1st grade. They used to constantly tell me that I was going to hell when I was a youngster. They are haunting."
My father gave me a hug and told me, "I wish you would talk more openly about your schizophrenia so you wouldn't have to deal with this stuff alone."
"I'm scared," I replied. "I am scared that people will judge me and think I am a bad person who does bad things. My voices are so negative and criminal. It is like publicly decreeing your deepest, darkest secrets."
I walked my father out to his car to say goodbye. I felt I had said too much and have probably written too much as well. I was embarrassed. Very seldom have I acted on the voices and they are manageable with my medications -- just nagging urges in the back of my mind which I try to ignore. When I was off my medications, I would drink heavily to subdue these voices.
.This is my favorite video of me trying to get Maggie inside on a cold day.
Ended up sleeping for most of the day. I rolled my sleeping bag out under the boughs of the big pecan grove behind the abandoned cotton mill and slept for hours. I slept so hard I almost feel hungover tonight. Hungover and groggy, but I didn't drink a drop today. I guess I was just exhausted.
On the way home, I stopped to talk to Big S for a minute. Big S was sitting by the nail salon with his characteristic overalls on while he drank a soda.
"Seen Clara?" I asked as I walked up.
"She's been gone since yesterday," Big S replied. "I haven't seen her."
"Hmmmm... " I said rubbing my chin in deep thought. I hope something hasn't happened to my homeless friend. She has been talking about going to a women's shelter to stay. I hope that is where she is. I pray that she hasn't got a public intoxication charge with no one to bail her out.
"If you see her, tell her I was asking about her," I told Big S.
I walked on home and Maggie was overjoyed to see me. I sat in the floor and gave her tons of affection, rubbing and scratching her back. "Where have you been?" I could see in her eyes. I apologized for being gone all day and we curled up on the bed together and I slept some more before getting up to start a quick supper and to write this post.
My most pleasant memory of the day was the earthy smell of the ground and the grass as I lay on my sleeping bag around lunchtime. I lay on my side as ants marched by carrying this and that to their little abode in the earth. I remarked how scenes such as this will soon be gone with the first frost that will arrive near November. I pray I don't get SAD (seasonal affective disorder) this year.
McDonald's was blissfully warm this morning after a long and chilly walk. Sat at a warm table in the back near the children's play area drinking hot coffee as I ate my sausage biscuits and hash browns. Workmen behind me in their work clothes, talking loudly and boisterously. I was glad just to be around others and their jubilant speech was contagious. I wanted to join in as if they were long lost friends I had rediscovered after many years absence. I sat with a smile on my face looking pleasant.
Felt shabby this morning and usually this would combine with my social anxieties to keep me from going out of the house. It reminded me of my homeless days: day old clothes, two days without a shower or bath, a day old shadow of a beard upon my chin and face. I felt grubby. Felt too shabby for even McDonald's, but my hunger for a breakfast affair spurred me on.
I realized this morning as I walked home to write this that I hate pity. I hate the way people wield it as a weapon. But just as much, I hate the way my mental illness takes my peace away and exacerbates that feeling of everyone with prying eyes and the perceived threat of everyone meddling in my business. My father, the gang, Rosa, my family, blog readers. They all want a piece of me and I grow so weary and tired. They won't leave me alone, not even for a minute, always there hounding me with their eyes, their expectations, their wants for me. Their all encompassing desire for me to conform to the established norms of society -- a society which I see as mentally ill and dubious at best.
My father stayed over for hours last night. Clara never showed -- probably too drunk to walk the mile to my house. My father thrust that handful of pills upon me, checking my hand, and then under my tongue to see if I took them. Humiliating! I wanted to cry out for help -- to escape the pressure my family puts upon me and their ever watching eyes -- eyes I have to conform too and put on a grand facade of mental wellness for fears of mental hospitals and more medications. Luckily, my father largely ignored me as he watched television in my den. I sat for what seemed like hours until he left and I collapsed in the bed exhausted to get a few hours of broken sleep.
In anticipation of my new camera, here is a past hike on the rails I took last January. This brings back good memories.
A shaky morning evolved into a wonderful afternoon of lazily hiking down by the rails, dodging rain, and enjoying some beer by the river. I called them my sunset brews as the rain softly fell with me beneath my poncho on the river bank with an amber quart in hand. All seemed well and my turbulent mind early this morning fell quiet and calm as the day progressed, and seemed to correspond with the amount of beer I had consumed. I realize now why I drank so heavy for all those years as alcohol is my magic elixir -- the balm for my malfunctioning brain, bringing a calm and togetherness I usually don't exhibit on any given day.
Talked to George for a long time at one point up at the shopping center. The gang was all gathered around George's car as he showed us his new car stereo.
"I'm glad you didn't get one of those stereos with the booming bass," I told him relieved.
"That wouldn't be fit for gospel," George replied. Gospel being his preferred form of aural sensation.
As I was walking away, Clara grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side.
"Can I come over tonight? Please?"
I told her how to get to my house which is about a mile walk from the shopping center. I probably made a big mistake, but I felt sorry for her and wanted to help. I seem to collect homeless people.
"Bring something to drink. I'll cook us something good to eat," I told her. "How does breakfast for supper sound?"
Clara kissed me on the cheek and told me she would see me before dark. It is getting very late and she has yet to show up. I wonder if she is coming. At least I will have a drinking buddy tonight already having garnished my fridge with two bottles of cheap wine.
The camera is on it's way and should be here tomorrow or the day after depending on how fast it ships. I feel like a kid at Christmas in anticipation. I also ordered a 4 GB memory card so I could shoot hour long movies with it. I can't wait!
Talked to my father a moment ago and told him how "buzzy" my head feels. Everything seems to be moving in fast motion, but it is much better than it was early this morning when I couldn't sleep. I still say I am on too many medications and some need to be culled. I take a literal handful of pills every night and I am not quite sure what my father gives me. This will cause an uproar within my family when I suggest this course of action - my brother and sister both being doctors and my father a pharmacist -- they think drugs can cure everything. When I was off my medications, I had one of my most prolific writing periods and a period of great creativity. I feel drugged!
"Are you heading to bed?" Clara asked me early this morning as we sat in the park by the abandoned cotton mill.
"No," I replied. "I am just going to walk until I get sleepy."
"I'm coming with you."
I wanted to be left alone. By sheer coincidence, Clara ended up in the park with me. She had been drinking beer all night and was avoiding the police. My little place of solitude felt desecrated -- an interloper in our midst. I come here to think and gather my thoughts. To be alone. Not to sojourn with homeless drunks. I felt guilty for almost writing that, but it's the truth. Blunt honesty is always a weapon I wield when I am not feeling well.
"Can I come home with you?" Clara then asked with a whine in her voice. Her inhibitions dashed by a dozen or more beers.
"You know my girlfriend would never approve," I responded.
"She will never know... "
"Yes, she will," I replied. "Nothing escapes her."
I walked on down to the rail yard with Clara in tow. I sat on the bench by the old Chattahoochee Valley Railway caboose on display. Clara sat next to me. I noticed she had on short sleeves and it was very chilly this morning. She needed a jacket.
"Aren't you cold?" I asked her.
"Yeah, in a way," she said, "but the beer helps me stay warm."
"You are going to get sick."
We both grew very quiet as I sat and watched Clara take drink after drink of tepid beer from her backpack. I had a warm flannel shirt on and took off my fleece pull-over and gave it to Clara. Clara scrambled to put it on. Thanking me.
"I feel interesting," I finally told her as we sat. Hoping it would scare her off.
"What do you mean?"
"Mentally interesting," I replied, tapping my index finger to my temple.
I felt as if I was a third person, out of my body, watching everything unfold. As if I was having a near death experience and I was floating above at the ceiling, watching, as they tried to revive me. Schizophrenia can be so disconcerting at times.
"You're freaking me out," Clara said, slurring her words, but not daunted enough to miss another drink of beer.
"Oh, I am not interesting in a violent kind of way," I replied as I backpedaled. "I am just having trouble organizing my thoughts -- discerning reality from fantasy."
I then went on to tell Clara how alcohol helps me during these times. She handed me a quart of Colt 45 and I drank it with gusto. Soon, feeling quite swimmy headed. I know I shouldn't be self medicating with beer at 5 a.m. in the morning. I just needed to escape -- to feel some solace. I needed the calming effects of that alcohol.
Me and Clara finally parted ways as she walked back to the shopping center to go sleep off her drunk in her little nesting spot on that loading dock behind the dollar store. I ran across the highway and purchased two bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits when Merl's Diner opened for breakfast at 6 a.m. Followed by purchasing two more quarts of malt liquor at the convenience store next to Merl's. I sat drinking my malt liquor and eating my biscuits as the first light of daylight began to show.
I so wish I could sleep. I was hoping the beer would calm my mind and make me crawl into the bed to sleep until this afternoon. No joy. I was haunted by thoughts of Clara curled up in her sleeping bag on that loading dock. Alone, with no one who cared. I wondered if I was eventually going to end that way like I once was when I was homeless. I realized I should have brought her home to let her sleep off the drinking on my couch. Rosa would just have to get over it. Clara was long gong by then, though. My mind having changed.
Finally made it home as the sun was rising following Venus high into the sky. Soon, clouds rolled in from the Gulf of Mexico obscuring the sun and creating a depressive ambiance to the sky and out-of-doors. It would be a perfect dreary day to just sleep until I could sleep no more. So glad I have a journal I can come and write in to share what I am experiencing. Some of you mean the world to me and your comforting comments making journaling all the worthwhile.
It's Tuesday evening. I should be cleaning up my house and doing laundry, but I have been lost in a book all day neglecting such mundane things. I find myself reading with an author's eye -- being very critical of everything I take in. It is fascinating that writers can dream up such grand worlds with rich characters that seem to jump off the pages. I also feel kind of hungover from a lack of sleep. I spent another sleepless night pacing the floor and intermittently reading books and smoking cigarettes. Luckily, Rosa is staying home more days than not lately. It was growing tiresome not have some alone time -- time to myself. I have to put on a front of "everything is well" when she is around. I can digress back into my comfortable mental illness and it's harsh embrace when confronted with solitude.
Lunchtime found me walking down to the shopping center. I stopped by the little Korean restaurant and ordered a to-go box of beef and mushrooms. It was delicious and their portions are so huge. I grabbed a bench by the Piggly Wiggly and read for hours while I smoked cigarettes and drank Gatorade. None of the gang was to be seen today. I was hoping to hear from Clara about her new sleeping bag. I have fears that it is too hot this early in the season causing her to sweat which is terrible for a down bag.
Talked to my father today about something Ferret told me yesterday. He said you can get high off of taking six or more Benadryl. "You can," my father said, "but your blood pressure will also shoot sky high. Your friend is playing a dangerous game." According to Ferret, the feeling is akin to taking a handful of Xanax or Valium. The addict in me was tempted to try it just as an experiment until I saw how much a pack of pills costs. There are cheaper addictions if I want to feel out of the ordinary.
I can't express in words of how glad I am to be alone tonight. I can stay up. Walk around in my underwear. Let Maggie bark till midnight. All things I can't do when Rosa stays over. Rosa has been telling me that my sleeping habits or lack thereof are keeping her up at night. She is staying home more often and it takes a lot of pressure off of me. I feel the need to cook for us and to keep a more normal schedule when she stays over. It is going to feel like a teenager at a sleep over tonight.
Feeling really strange lately -- like my medications are amiss. My head feels buzzy and so busy. Thoughts come and go like the wind and it makes it hard to write coherently or concentrate on anything of merit. I have tried to write dozens of times today only to stop mid paragraph and give up. I sometimes would rather deal with the symptoms of my schizophrenia than all the side effects of my medications. Medications for mental illnesses are a definite catch-22.
Wil Wheaton's new book is on sale. I have good intentions of ordering a copy next month after the initial shock of my recent camera purchase wears off. Will is a wonderfully talented writer whose experiences growing up mirror my own in a good kind of geeky way sans the acting jobs. We both loved video games, Star Wars, and Dungeons and Dragons. I lived to put a quarter in the Donkey Kong machine down at Rose's which is now the shopping center where the gang hangs out. Wil tells his tales with a contagious exuberance I have seldom found in the writings of other authors.
I admire Wil for going the route of self promotion and self publication bypassing the big publishing houses. It is what I want to do with my book Hardscrabble Times and my memoirs.
Wil Weaton's The Happiest Days of Our Lives. Click on the link for ordering information.
My camera should be here in two days. It almost feels like Christmas. I haven't been this excited about something since last Christmas and the camera I got a few days after. I adore taking pictures! I have so many grand projects dreamed up to share over the next few weeks.
I have just been so blah about blogging lately. Usually, it is something I immensely enjoy. But lately, it has been hard to write -- everything feeling forced and unnatural. I swear this is a side effect of the numerous medications I am taking. My mind feels buzzy and discombobulated. I read what I write and even I find it uninteresting and milquetoast, and I can usually be very narcissistic about my writings.
I put the advertisements back up to make a few more bucks as well. My father would shit a brick if he knew this. I want to get up the money to buy a new computer. A computer that will last me for another five years like this one has. I have to thank my ex-wife for this wonderful computer that is still fast, but showing it's age.
Seriously considering going invite only. Been really paranoid about comments lately. I haven't even looked at them in days for fear people are writing negative things about me and that everyone is giving me advice on how to live my life. Should I look? I am not sure. I feel so wary about it, scared of what other people think of me and my life. I had an actual physical reaction or anxiety attack about a comment a few days ago and it makes me scared to read them. I wish I would just write a bunch of bullshit and never wrote about having a mental illness or about being an alcoholic.I could just put on a grand facade for the world to see. I blunder on like the proverbial bull in the blogging china shop.
I have a ton of email to respond to. Don't fret. I will get to them soon. My social phobias extend to the online world as well making me not check email very often. I promise I will tackle them in the order they were received. I appreciate those of you that take the time to write me and also to comment.
Checked the tracking online and Clara's sleeping bag should be delivered today. The bag I ordered for her was only $120 dollars, but it's rated down to 20 degrees. It should keep her toasty warm until the coldest part of winter hits. Hopefully, she will have a home by then.
It was a long night sleepless in the valley. I passed the time listening to my radio as I sat down in my favorite park by that old cotton mill. It wasn't long until a patrolling police officer stopped to ask me questions -- his breath reeking of stale coffee. I watched warily as his patrol car pulled up into the Post Office's parking lot and he walked over shining his flashlight into my face.
"Sir, can I see your ID?"
"What for?" I ask, perturbed. I just wanted to be left alone and certainly didn't want to be accosted by one of the city's lapdogs. I was pleasantly minding my own business.
"It is just routine, sir," He replies impatiently. "It is odd for someone to be in the park so late."
I reach into my wallet and hand him my ID.
"You been drinking, sir?"
"No."
"You have a commercial driver's license. Do you drive a truck for a living?"
"No," I continued, keeping my answers to the bare minimum.
"What do you do for a living?"
"I am a writer and I am getting up material to write as we speak."
The police officer smiled and handed me back my license.
"I always wanted to do something like that," he told me as he shook my hand.
My tense shoulders slumped when I realized the policeman was just bored and doing his job. He turned out to be a very nice man and I let my guard down.
"Do you have a cell phone?" he asks me before leaving.
"No," I reply. I didn't go into why I wouldn't want one of those infernal devices.
"Great for safety," her furthers. "You could just call us if something happened. You realize a lot of people hang out in the park late at night drinking and up to no good." I have never before seen someone in the park after dark except for myself and I am down here often at night.
"Thanks for the tip," I say brightly, playing along and hoping the policeman would go about his business. I was tired and just wanted the solitude of the park. I wanted to be left alone. I watched as the policeman got in his patrol car and drove off shining his spotlight upon the nearby Post Office. I sighed with relief.
As I sat on my park bench, I could feel my heart thumping in my chest. Racing. I remarked at how nervous I still get around police officers even though I wasn't doing anything wrong. Why? What is up with this feeling? I felt stupid. Why did I act so suspicious? I had nothing to hide. "Guilty until proven innocent," I finally muttered to myself as I thought of the policeman's questions. He automatically assumed I was up to no good until he found otherwise. It is par for the course in this police state we live in after 9/11. It makes me defensive.
I left the park to walk on home stopping by the convenience store to refill my coffee. I bid my favorite clerk good morning and told him of my encounter.
"Just be glad he didn't write you a ticket," the clerk said. "The park is supposed to be closed to the public after dusk."
I sighed in defeat. Just another rule and regulation to take the joy out of something I appreciate so immensely. I will never again be able to sit in that park without worrying about getting a ticket or being bothered. My parade had been thoroughly rained upon this morning.
George makes me laugh. Almost every time I talk to him, I end up bawling in laughter. Today was the same. We were all siting down at the shopping center. George had just made a beer run to Auburn being that they don't sell alcohol on Sundays here. He pulled up in the fire lane with his captain's cap on, dark sunglasses, and a big toothy grin upon his face."Give this brotha some love," George says as he rolls down his passenger's side window.
George thrives on positive reinforcement and attention. I walked over and climbed inside his Buick.
"Me and Pookie were making love last night..." George started to say as I sat down.
"Gross man," I say as I laughed some more. "I don't want to hear about you screwing her." Pookie is entirely unattractive.
"Listen to me, brotha," George replies getting a serious look upon his face. "I was just about to cum when she started laughing uncontrollably. I thought she was laughing at me."
"What happened next?" I ask sheepishly, grinning from ear to ear. Afraid of what I might hear.
"I got to laughing, too, and we couldn't finish making love. We just laid in the bed talking to each other, laughing like little childrens, drinking wine, and smoking cigarettes."
"I thought you were going to tell me she stole your wallet again."
"She promised me she wouldn't do that anymore."
I burst out laughing at the seriousness with which George said that. George got to laughing as well. Pookie will no doubt sneak off with George's wallet once again. She just has to wait until he passes out after one of their drunken love making sessions.
I can't berate George too much though. I've been in some pretty dysfunctional relationships over the years. My marriage to my ex-wife was the strangest existence. It taught me to never get married again. Sure, I entertain getting married to Rosa, but I always have second thoughts. Doubts. There seems to be these tying chords all women exhibit. Like the possessiveness that so exasperates me. My ex-wife was terribly possessive almost as if she owned me. I have had comments on the blog about my and Rosa's relationship that exhibited this same possessive mind set as if I had to tell Rosa what I was doing every minute of every day. To hell with that.
For me, it's about being accountable to someone else which I guess is pretty unhealthy in it's own way. It helps me to moderate my self destructive behavior knowing someone else is dependant or reliant upon me. I need to be made to feel bad, but no so bad I excuse myself from the relationship. The same dynamics play themselves out in my and my father's relationship as well.
I am so impatient. I am chomping at the bit to get my new camera. I can't wait to start taking pictures again. This morning it was cold with clear skies. I watched as Venus soon rose above the horizon followed by the day's first light and then the sun. I wished I had my camera so I could capture this brilliant start of a new day. It is during moments such as experienced this morning that I relish being alive.I feel so stupid now that I am back on my medications, though. There are definite pros and cons to the anti-psychotic I am taking. A few days ago, writing came so easily to me. Effortless. I felt so creative and couldn't wait to write more and more. Now? My mind feels tired and slow. It is a major effort to get something written down for this blog. I am having to read other blogs to get the inspiration to write. Slow. Dull witted. My mind aches. Writing is a painful process.
Last night, Rosa and I were talking on the phone about things sexual. She asked why I never want to make love anymore.
"I can't," I reply. "My medications completely blunt my sex drive."
I now know how all those frigid wives felt trying to spurn their sex starved husband's advances.
"But you were so amorous a few days ago," Rosa says.
"I was off my medications. I can't even get excited about porn when I am on them. These medications make me entirely asexual."
"Have you thought about Viagra?"
I laugh and say, "I am leery of taking more drugs. My drugs are already costing over $2000 a month."
I got out of the bed to come and look at pictures of naked women pulled up with a Google image search. No joy. It did nothing for me and I sighed, growing bored at all the fake and unrealistic looking women on the Internet. It was like giving a gay man a Playboy magazine and expecting him to get aroused. It did nothing for me.
I still couldn't sleep last night. I had all my windows open and listened to the wind blow and the last sounds of summer's insects as they faded away while the temperature dropped. Gone are the katydids and the cicadas. It will be a long winter until I hear them again. I also thought of Clara on that loading dock behind the shopping center. She must have gotten chilly last night. The temperature dropped to near 45 degrees. Her sleeping bag should be here in a few days and she will be toasty warm at night.
I managed to sober up enough to be able to take my mother out to eat. We went to local restaurant called Barnes that has been around since the sixties. I got the scrumptious baby ribeye and my mother got the baked catfish, staying true to her diet. It was delicious and the only mar to the evening was seeing my former in-laws. As expected, they treated me coldly. I just smiled, said hello, waved, and put on a brave face.
"We would have to run into them, tonight," my mother said quietly over the table. My mother always disliked my in-laws.
"It would be just my luck," I replied, looking pained.
I took mom home and swung by the shopping center to check on Clara which is just behind my parent's house. The sun was setting in hues of beautiful orange, yellow, and pink -- almost like a vivid oil painting hung on a gallery wall for all to see. Oh, how I wish my camera was here.
Clara was sitting in front of nail salon with her legs crossed bouncing her foot as she smoked a cigarette. She looked terribly bored.
"It is going to get cold tonight," I told her as I walked up and sat down beside her on the bench.
"I know," she said. "I am going to freeze my ass off. That's why I got this."
She pulled a bottle of Captain Morgan spiced rum out of her inside jacket pocket and showed it to me.
"When do you think that sleeping bag will be here?" she then asked.
"The first of next week," I replied.
Clara has already put a twenty dollar down payment on the bag and promised me she was going to pay twenty a week. The sleeping bag was only a hundred and twenty dollars so she should have it paid off soon. The weather guessers are saying we are going to have a warm winter, though. But warmth is relative to a homeless person. What is cold to a homed person is downright balmy to someone living out of doors, or on the streets.
Was determined to give the drinking a miss tonight, just for the rest of the day anyway. I guess I am going to just go walk for a few hours -- walk until I can walk no more.
The morning started out innocently enough, but went downhill as the sun rose high in the sky. I found myself standing in the line of the convenience store with four green bottles of Thunderbird wine in hand and an uneasy feeling. I almost felt nauseous knowing what I was doing, but the urge to drink was just too strong. It is a compulsive urge that is hard to describe. You can't think farther than the moment at hand -- an acute lack of foresight and conscience.
"Did you get them?" Clara asked me anxiously as we walked back up to the shopping center. She had been waiting outside the store for me.
"Here," I replied as I handed a bottle of wine to her.
Impatiently, she unscrewed the cap and took a long drink after looking around for the police. I walked quietly drinking my wine, as well, feeling defeated. It was far too early in the morning to be drinking, but I always was a morning drunk.
"What are you doing today?" Clara then asked me.
"I am supposed to take my mother out to eat to a new restaurant tonight," I replied. "My father is in Florida for a football game."
"Doesn't look like you are going to be doing that!" Clara said with a laugh which only further deepened my surly and foul mood.
"Why do you drink?" I abruptly asked Clara in a moment of candidness.
"I just get bored and it passes the time. There is nothing to do when you are homeless," she said. "How 'bout you?"
"I drink to hide bad feelings and emotions. I drink to hide my pain," I said, finishing a bottle of wine -- that alcohol making my head swim.
I wanted to just go home and drink my Heineken and my last bottle of wine. I left Clara to trudge the thirty minutes home drinking wine as I walked. I didn't even care if someone saw me -- imbibing in broad daylight -- garnering many steely stares from passing motorists. I just no longer cared about anything. I was kind of hoping I would get arrested so I would have to stop drinking.
As I passed my mother's Catholic church, I said a prayer looking at the cross out front -- a prayer asking for healing and to cure me of this inescapable urge to drink. God didn't answer me back though. I was only consoled with an empty feeling. At least, the pain and the turbulent emotion I had been experiencing and feeling all morning were gone. I felt like a blank slate.
Sometimes I get winded by the truth. Suddenly, just out of the blue, every now and again, it hits me hard. It did just then, on my walk back home. This is normal for you, I thought. You're an alcoholic and alcoholics drink. Remember what they say in A.A. about being powerless over alcohol and you are. I never thought I would use a twelve step from A.A. as an excuse to drink. I chuckled to myself at the thought. I stepped into my bathroom upon arriving home to look long and hard at the man staring back at me. Sad eyes. Weak smile. So much history in the lines upon my face. It suddenly occurred to me what I was doing, how I was living -- how completely insane it is to be living like this, drinking my life away still, after all this time. And I almost just turned and ran in repulsion. I just couldn't bear it.
The rains of yesterday were a distant memory on this gloriously sunny morning. I trudged through my neighborhood on the long thirty minute walk to the shopping center -- keen to tell Clara I had ordered her a nice goose down sleeping bag. My Google check having arrived and being much more than I thought it was going to be. Dew glistened in the grass on the side of the road like little twinkling diamonds in the rough. Mesmerizing me. These days I seem to see beauty in the most mundane things -- an artist's eye I hope to nurture when I start painting in a few weeks.
Stopped by the convenience store on the way there -- the beer was so tempting, but I purchased a harmless Gatorade instead. My favorite clerk had long gotten off for the day. No doubt sleeping. The little lady cashier was abrupt and surly making me want to respond in kind. Brusquely, I thanked her and continued on with my journey -- a journey of good news and good tidings.
Arrived at the shopping center to only find Big S. The rest of the gang was nowhere to be seen. He was sitting in front of the little Korean restaurant drinking his sweet tea from a straw. He had on his characteristic overalls which prominently displayed his Buddha-like belly.
"Seen Clara?" I asked, shaking his hand.
"She is panhandling over by restaurant row," Big S replied as he pointed to the east.
Near this shopping center is another shopping center where all the restaurants are located. An Internet cafe. Mexican. Chinese. Pizza. Barbecue. Steakhouse. A little English pub. All can be found the twenty minute walk away. Clara has learned that satiated shoppers are more likely to share their wealth after a good meal or a few drinks. She pounces upon them as they leave the restaurants for their cars. I was far too lazy to walk over there after my initial walk to the shopping center, though. Clara's good news would have to wait.
I took a seat down near the grocery store to smoke and finish my drink. I can see why the gang hangs out down here every day -- the shopping center being so vibrant, social, and the center of activity. If you wait long enough, something is bound to happen. It seems to draw interesting people out of the woodwork. I thought of all the interesting people I have met these past few years hanging out with George and the gang.
Back to blue skies again today after the gray of yesterday, cloudless. The last of this old year unfolding hesitantly as if it can't decide if it wants fall to start -- heading towards Christmas and the new year. The holidays will be here before we know it. I can't wait for Halloween, the smell of burning leaves, and the sound of my doorbell ringing as children come trick or treating for candy. Candle lit pumpkins on my front steps. The planting of fall mums in my flower boxes also being a favorite ritual of the year that I always shared with my ex-wife when we lived together.
I feel really strong and well today. A fitting reprieve from the dour doldrums I experienced for days earlier in the week. Felt like I could take on the whole world in one big embrace earlier as I sat at the shopping center enjoying my surroundings. Thus goes the teetering tenuousness that can be schizophrenia. Maybe, it was because my medications had run out for several days before I got my next injection. I don't want to dwell too much on the whys as I want enjoy what is. These little eyes in the storm should be savored and lived like no other moment in the life of a mentally ill person as sometimes the good days come only seldom -- like little oasis of light on a dark, moonless night.
Ah, what a perfectly calm and serene night. It's cool and I have my whole house opened up -- every window is letting in gloriously cool, rain soaked fall air. A moment ago, Rosa and I were sitting on the porch as we watched a lone, solitary storm to the north drift off to the east. A grand show of lightning was displayed for us by one of nature's anomalies -- at least it's an anomaly for this part of the country this year.
"You feeling okay?" Rosa asked. "You are awful quiet."
"I'm fine," I replied. "I am just enjoying the show and enjoying a calm moment without terrible urges."
Rosa has only known me while I was on the medications that work for me and my schizophrenia. She asked me tonight what it was like all those years I wasn't medicated.
"Extreme paranoia," I told her. "I always thought my neighbors were plotting and planning against me. I would think cameras were in my ceilings and that my phone was bugged."
"It is hard to believe you're even schizophrenic now," Rosa said, cheerily. "You're so normal most days."
"That is the nicest thing someone has said to me in weeks," I replied as I turned to look at Rosa and smiled warmly, reaching out for her hand.
So many times in my life I was berated for having a mental illness -- only when things went wrong would my family get involved. No one ever came around to say how well I was doing, or took the time to encourage me when things were good. So many "shit hitting the fan" scenarios played out in my mind as I told Rosa of my mental illness's past, my symptoms, and how my family handled them. I really appreciate acclamations when things are going right. It can make all the difference in the world for someone who suffers from a mental illness. Just a simple, "I'm proud of you. You're doing great," from my father would mean so much to me.
Rosa and Maggie are already in the bed -- Rosa having taken her bath and blow dried her hair. I heard Rosa a moment ago loudly telling Maggie to scoot over and that she was being a bed hog behind my closed bedroom door. The biggest, goofiest grin erupted on my face hearing those two tussle over sleeping real estate -- the women in my life. It's these little intimate moments I most enjoy about living with two determined and incorrigible ladies. I better go get in the bed and referee my two prize fighters before one or both end up sleeping on the couch. I can't sleep without them.
I parked at the Post Office and sat in my favorite park awhile ago. You could hear thunder in the distance and the sky was a beautiful, if ominous, dark blue. Juxtaposed on that deep blue background was the most beautifully green old oaks and the carefully manicured lawn of St. Augustine grass. And my eyes, almost famished of beauty and color after being inside all day, feasted upon this sight. I didn't realize how much I missed the out of doors until I spent a day writing in my dark and drab front bedroom sequestered like some monk in a dank chamber. It was a wonderful fall day with cool breezes blowing out ahead of all the storms on the way, and everything in the foreground was saturated with color too: the dark red brick of the old abandoned cotton mill, the vibrant cars on the highway, a bright yellow and black butterfly fluttering nearby, the numerous colorful mill houses across the parking lot from the park. I almost felt as if I was in some picturesque painting being unveiled right before my eyes with nature and God being the artists.
Tried another online A.A. meeting today. I am surprised at how orderly they seem. Sure, you have a few detractors who shouldn't be typing, but the moderators take care of them pretty quickly. I grow impatient, though, at the people that want to share and can't type fast and some that apparently can't type at all. Minutes can go by with only silence in the chat room as they peck away. My butt also grows numb sitting in this office chair in front of this computer for any length of time. It can make for a long and uncomfortable hour of tedium and boredom. I think I will stick to real life meetings for the time being.
I kept going to the fridge just to look inside it a moment ago, opening the door and standing there as all the cold air ran out. Rosa walked in to see what I was doing. She thought I was getting supper started.
"I keep looking at my Heineken and trying decide if I need to pour them out," I said.
Rosa laughed and then I burst out laughing at the silliness of it all. A much needed laugh amid the serious business of addictions.
"Let me pour out that six pack," Rosa said with a smile. "It is going to drive you crazy."
"No," I replied. "I promised Wanda I wasn't going to drink today and I am not. I can handle having a six pack of my favorite beer in the fridge. It will be a true test of my mettle. You can drink them. That six pack cost me eight bucks!"
"Okay," Rosa said, walking out of the kitchen. "Don't be surprised when I say, 'I told you so.'"
She's probably right. I probably won't be able to resist them come dark fall and my favorite radio programs come on.
"I've heard you've been struggling a lot lately," Wanda told me after the meeting. "Your girlfriend just said something to me about it."
"The only time I feel well or okay is after drinking a six pack of beer," I told her. "I feel like a hopeless drunk."
"Just don't drink today, okay?" She said. "One day at a time. Let's do this together. Read the stories in the Big Book about the hopeless drunks that got sober. They were so much worse off than you and they got sober for years until they died."
I agreed to not drink just for today and promised my friend that I would try and stay sober to be there for her. Wanda told me she had a slip up as well and got drunk and said terrible things to her daughter.
"I destroyed years of built up trust in just one night," she told me forlornly. "All for a bottle of Cuervo Gold. I don't think my daughter will ever forgive me. Tequila always did make me mean. It seems I have to constantly remind myself why I can't drink."
I gave her a big hug and told her to hang in there. I am so glad I don't have children as I would have put them through hell over the years with my drinking and crazy ways. God works in mysterious ways and I think he worked wonders when he made me a very asexual creature -- no rug rat's lives to destroy in the process. I was never much one to sleep around.
After the meeting, was my shot for my schizophrenia. I have been afraid of driving lately and Rosa drove us down to my father's pharmacy to pick up my injection and to go to the doctor's office. I got my digital camera ordered while I was down there with my father's American Express card and it will be here next week. I can't wait to take pictures again and videos. It was a $380 dollar camera so it should take awesome pictures. I had to borrow the money from my father to be able to afford it much to my chagrin.
Tonight is our usual Thursday night hotdog supper I host for my mother and Rosa. Rosa went by the grocery store a moment ago and got some delicious looking Hebrew National 1/4 pound hot dog wieners. Even after a big breakfast, my stomach is already grumbling and it is going to be a long wait until tonight. One of my favorite foods is a dog with mustard on a toasted bun piled high with kraut.
Felt so frustrated by the whole drinking, alcoholic thing and told Rosa about it after she had arrived back home.
"Why can't I just have two or three beers like a normal person?" I decreed. "I just want to be normal and average."
"You're not a normal person," Rosa said, plainly. "You're an alcoholic."
I get so tired of labels. Alcoholic. Mentally ill. Bulimic. Schizophrenic. Food addict. Bi-polar. The list could go on and on. I wanted to lash out and it is a shame you tend to lash out at those you most love when this happens.
"You can't drink for the same reason I can't smoke rock," Rosa finally told me after my little temper tantrum. "We get carried away. We can't stop once we get started."
I sat sulking on the couch as Rosa held me, frustrated. It doesn't help that I have a $269 dollar check coming in the next few days that I consider frivolous "play money" -- the money from last month's Google Adsense revenue. All my bills are paid. The car has a full tank of gas. I have plenty of food in my pantry and fridge. Two cartons of cigarettes. And I could just get rip roaring drunk for a few weeks with the only repercussions being the damage to the relationships I have by neglect. I sometimes wish I worked, as I would think that would help moderate these urges. I tend to have far too much freedom and free time. I would be too tired after working all day to even think of drinking and would just watch t.v. and go to bed.
The deep inner struggle is the hardest part -- that "stinkin' thinkin'" as they say in A.A. I put up this big charade that everything is okay for my family and Rosa when I am two steps from just saying, "to hell with it all," and walking away in a drunken stupor. Somehow, amazingly, I manage to keep it together everyday. For my loved ones. For Rosa. For Maggie. I've been pretending all my life really, since I was that young teenager hiding in that crawlspace in my bedroom drinking a bottle of wine as I smoked cigarettes. I've been hiding and struggling ever since -- putting on a brave face for a world the completely exhausts and exasperates me. For a daily mental grind I sometimes wonder if I can keep up.
Lunch was a greasy-spoon burger all-the-way down at Merl's Diner -- money I shouldn't have spent being almost broke after paying a hefty bill this morning. An empty wallet greeting me after paying for my meal. Ferret accompanied me -- my now un-homeless friend having gathered himself, shaved, taken a shower, and wearing clean clothes. His new living arrangement is humble, but seems to suit him well. His spirits shining brightly with a renewed vigor. Anything is better than that leaky tent in the woods by the river for him.
"I've got to get a job," Ferret told me as we sat eating -- surprising me as Ferret has been so anti-establishment and anti-work lately. "I thought about getting a job at the grocery store in the shopping center bagging groceries."
I agreed it would be a good and simple job for Ferret -- a job he could easily walk to and handle. He would have to curb back his drinking, though, I told him. A twelve pack of 'light' beer every night instead of a 24 pack of 'stout' Budweiser, or that terrible alcoholic swill Ferret so likes such as Steel Reserve or the ice beers. Possibly even just a six-pack.
"Having a safe place to stay picked up my spirits," he told me as he ate his fries with ample ketchup. "It gives me hope that things are going to get better for me. They couldn't get any worse. I tried to tell myself I liked living that way, but it was just my way of coping."
Sometimes, that is all it takes for things to start looking up. A helping hand out of a quagmire of a situation. Homelessness can be a hopeless feeling predicament. Thank God for lucky breaks -- breaks that can make all the difference in a life. Lucky breaks I've read about countless times on the blogs of other homeless people that brought them out of living without a home.
Ferret left me to walk to his mother's house to get his birth certificate with the hopes of obtaining a new state ID for getting a job. I walked back up to the shopping center to sit with Clara and Big S for a while until George showed up. I was so glad to see George and we went for a long drive out into the countryside as we drank beer and talked. George was in fine spirits and regaled me in tales of last night's poker game over at Pookie's house.
"I love her to death," George told me of his girlfriend, Pookie. "But she will get high on that crack and steal everything I own. I don't know what to do with her at times."
George's dysfunctional relationship with his girlfriend amuses me in an understanding way. He never gives up on her. Pookie will do dastardly things to George, but he rarely complains about it. Loving her all the same. Pookie will come down from her crack house high, so sorry, and apologizing profusely to George for him to forgive her. George always does. Each storm is weathered and forgotten only for history to repeat itself.
Near my home there is house in a dilapidated and poor neighborhood where great groups of people go to hang out on the front porch everyday despite the heat -- throngs of cars lining the road. I drive by there often on my way to my parent's house and long to join them, feeling lonely. George was talking about going on a previous day and what he did, accompanied by a friend of the owner of the house.
"We just sat and talked for hours. Shooting the shit and drinking beer," he told me. "It is good to have friends, ya know? People to hang out with. Good folks."
I agreed. It is good to have friends and I urged George to bring me along the next time he went. It is strange how despite my social anxieties I feel so at ease with blue collar, working class people. People of simple means and simple pleasures. My mother is the same -- her best friend being the polar opposite of her own sheltered life, being dirt poor and having a lay-about alcoholic husband who won't work. My mother loves Sandra and feels so at ease around her. They go out to eat every Tuesday night. It reminds me of my own relationship with George and the gang.
Having not really slept for twenty-four hours, I feel a nap coming on. The sleepy embrace of my bed is calling me. I have also read over everything I wrote this past day and it seems I am on a manic high -- the words coming so freely and fast I almost can't get them all down with this computer keyboard. I am worried I wrote too much -- shared too much. I rarely see other people express such emotion and thoughts as I do on my blog and that makes me think I am obviously doing something wrong. People live such guarded lives with guarded feelings and emotion. Afraid that to show them would express weakness and weakness is picked upon and taken advantage of by unscrupulous people. People are obviously being guarded for a reason -- a reason that escapes me. I try to reassure myself that I am anonymous for the most part -- the only clue to my identity being a three year old picture of me on this blog. It is still unsettling anyway.
Still can't sleep for thinking of all the homeless out there. Ones that were like me -- lost, helpless, wounded, without anywhere to go home to. The ones without families to coddle them like mine. I become deluded thinking I must live like that -- my cross to bear. I never talk about it in my real life much for not wanting to upset Rosa or my family. I write about it in excess though -- grand lists of preparations. Determined this time to 'do it right'. Visiting Campmor and looking for hours at all the survival and camping gear I could order. I keep thinking I am far too intelligent to live like your average homeless person. That I have the skills and knowledge to make it a pleasurable experience -- an adventure. Like Don Quixote tackling a windmill, I want to tackle my own deluded dreams of living sans home. It is a fitting aphorism for my madness.
I lay there in bed a moment ago. Thinking. Thoughts of people in sleeping bags in the bottom of doorways and alleys. People with sheets of cardboard for a bed. Great throngs of sweaty, unwashed men grouped together like sardines in a tin inside Rescue Missions. The eyes of sad children, hungry and homeless. Worried mothers, helpless, not sure of what to do next. Their lives being blown like feathers in the wind. Vulnerable and many of them harmless, the waste product of societies madness and avarice. Many of them sleeping out of doors to not be institutionalized like me when I was homeless. The mentally ill -- fearful of medications because that is the way, 'the solution', the convenient way society deals with the insane.
Bleary eyed, I leave Rosa in the bed to come and write about it. To get my thoughts down and out of my head with the hopes that by doing so I will get some release from these images that haunt me. I harbor a keen sensitivity and empathy for people experiencing such plights. I think I shall go curl up in the bed with a novel -- like all those nights I spent as a child under the covers with a flashlight trying not to disturb my brother or alert my parents. That would always make me sleep so well afterwards.
I sometimes think there is nowhere for me to go to get comfort and solace — no base, no point of reference for me in the whole universe, how utterly alone I am in my madness, I can't continue on. That is when I write. It is like standing at the edge of a precipice and almost losing your footing, you can't go on, your mind won't let you. I try and shake loose these thoughts -- the precipice being my urge to be homeless again and dwelling on such predicaments. Writing seems to help -- the balm that soothes my wounds.
I walked down to my favorite park, smoking cigarettes feverishly, and talking to myself like some madman, quietly, well after midnight. It seems like such a long distance to the park from my house, but only takes thirty minutes to walk -- that thirty minutes feeling like an eternity I am so excited to get to my favored place. The park has a different ambiance at night that belies it's presence during the day. A quiet calm -- almost spooky. Serene and yet eerily foreboding. Dark, tall shadows are cast by the big old oaks in the light of the street lamps by the highway. I sat in one of those long shadows, smoking, as I watched the very few cars parade past on the nearby highway -- their headlights shining like dual beacons in the night. The coffee I bought at the convenience store and my radio, my only companions.
Was musingly entertaining thoughts of becoming a monk tonight -- leaving my life to join some monastery in Old Europe. A life of quiet contemplation not much different than the life I already live. I could spend my days writing in quiet solitude evoking thoughts of the monasteries of medieval times when men of the cloth would feverishly slave over tomes of knowledge and religious texts. Atoning for my lifetime of sins, maybe God would cure me of this unfit mind and this incredible urge and cupidity to drink. I wouldn't have to give up much -- my home, finding a home for Maggie which Rosa would readily agree to harbor her. Kissing Rosa goodbye would be the hardest part. It was just a passing thought, though -- a muse to entertain my fanciful notions. I would probably make a terrible monk as I would talk too much.
Walked by that Catholic church once again on the way home -- my wanderlust for the night satiated. The auspicious chapel calling out to me; the front lit by a lone spotlight showing a glaring white cross. I stood for a moment, looking longingly, thinking of the church as being a safe haven for us troubled souls. I said a little prayer for good health and then did the sign of the cross in good Catholic fashion -- the four points signifying loving God with all one's heart, soul, mind, and strength. Pleased with myself, I walked onwards as I talked to God. Pouring out and bearing my soul.
Stopped by the convenience store for some salt and vinegar potato chips and a refill of my coffee before arriving at my destination. My favorite after-hours clerk was pleased to see me, his moustache bristling as he grinned, greeting me as he looked over his glasses. We made small talk with him discussing the crazy customers he gets in the early hours of the morning. "It's a full moon," I told him as I smiled knowingly. "Ahhh," he said. "No wonder tonight's been interesting."
I have feverishly tried to gather my thoughts tonight -- my mind feeling chaotic and turbulent -- which is sometimes an embarrassing struggle. Most people take a fit and well mind for granted. Thus my insomnia. I want to try and will away my mental illness through prayer and sheer determination. No medications -- the same medications that make me constantly feel tired, slow, sexless, stupid. I sometimes feel that my fragile mind will just blow away like on a strong gust of wind in a storm. And that terrifies me — that one day, who knows when, my mind will just soar off on ‘the wings of madness’. It has happened before. So I come to write in this journal. Orderly organizing my thoughts and writing them down -- proving to myself that to do this means I am of a sane mind -- still in control of my faculties. Crazy people don't write blogs I try and tell myself. Proud that despite all my problems I can still think, can still put one thought after another -- that despite everything, I haven't lost it completely.
I don't know how other mentally ill people cope without a safe place to talk about it anonymously like I do on this blog. Families are terrible places to go to discuss an unwell mind. At least, my family is -- causing fear and harsh judgement. You turn to doctors and express forlorn and disorganized thoughts -- delusions and paranoia -- and they want to put you in the psychiatric ward of the hospital for weeks on end as has happened before to me and it is very much like being in jail. It is totally beyond me, how, when life and your mind spirals out of control and detaches itself from reality like a veneer detaching itself from on an old wall in a dilapidated house -- people survive without a safe place to write and express themselves. How they survive and still keep their dignity. I can see why so many mentally ill people turn to alcohol and drugs, and end up on the streets. How it is almost essential to be "fucked up" as much as possible -- anything to forget and detach ourselves from the reality that is our lives when feeling mentally ill.
A full moon greeted me outside my bedroom window as I sat down to write this evening. Framed perfectly in one window pane like some milky white, glorious globe. A crazy moon rising -- shining brilliantly and casting moonshine on the ground marked by long shadows in the dark. I had a girlfriend who once worked in our local emergency room at the hospital. She swore that us mentally interesting people come out of the woodwork on such nights. My father does as well. I would hate to disappoint them and you all by saying I feel mentally well. I have to live up to my moon's namesake. My mind is busy and yet tired at the same time. It has been a busy day that felt like a week's worth of days all rolled into one.
My and Rosa's little spat we were having didn't last long.
"I just can't sleep without you," she told me over the phone tonight.
"I'm coming to pick you up," I replied, missing her deeply.
She gave me a heartwarming embrace as I pulled up in front of her house to bring her "home." I have actually had trouble sleeping without her as well -- the bed feeling empty with it just being me and Maggie. I missed the feel of Rosa's cold feet as they would brush up against mine and her soft snoring as well. That wonderfully warm spot I would occupy when she would roll over to the edge of the bed wrapping herself in my covers.
I then let Rosa read some of my writings today written down at the shopping center when we arrived home.
"Why didn't you come and get me?" She asked, as she lives very close to the shopping center, jealous I had spent time with Clara and George without her.
"I was being self centered. I thought you would disapprove of my drinking beer. I was hiding."
"I don't mind you drinking a beer," she told me. "I do mind you getting shit-faced though."
"Well, we will just see how things go. I didn't get drunk today by any means."
One of the things I most love about Rosa is her nightly routines. Women captivate me in the great efforts they go about to make themselves presentable. Rosa is not much of one to wear makeup, lipstick, or fancy clothes, but she does like to tidy herself every night. Putting on her face cream, taking a long, hot bath, and putting lotion on her hands and feet. She will escape from the shower with one of my towels wrapped tightly around her head and hair, making me smile with amusement. These routines are comforting to me and I have missed them the past few nights. Intimate little shared moments -- the mundane aspects of another's life that often go overlooked by familiarity and routine. I savor them.
I also realized tonight I have shared far too much on this blog -- allowing strangers to glimpse into my world with a candidness that I know made many wince in discomfort. Blogging is addictive. My instinct is to now hide and shy away -- to no longer write of mental illnesses or addictions, having now been saddled with those labels. I catch myself doing it to -- defining myself by my flaws, my glaring defects of character and body. I am more than the sum of my parts, though. I am kind and caring. I have an enduring strength that I don't often show. I have healthy sense of humor that I should allow out of the bag more often. I have bravely kept on ever forward and I am writing a book about it now and that there is nothing to be ashamed of how I ended up. Lives unravel for a myriad of reasons. Some more simple or complex than mine. We all struggle everyday with just making sense out of a crazy world filled untold pressures and responsibilities that are thrust upon us.
Spangles of sunshine shone down through the trees as I walked home from the shopping center a moment ago. I felt so alive -- so fit and well. Vibrant. The first few days of fall are cherished by me before the nights grow cold, the days shorter, and the world turns a drab brown with winter's onset. Carefully dodging numerous cars on the highway, I listened to the radio on this fall day as Sean Hannity preached that spurious right-wing propaganda he is known for. It is the only thing on the radio during the day besides National Public Radio and I am a radio addict and will listen to anything except music. Even that right-wing bullshit. I am far too moderate in my political leanings to believe all that stuff Hannity and Limbaugh preach, though. I listen on amused, astonished people will believe such propaganda. Amazed that we allow such divisive people to play such prominent roles in our media -- given the spotlight for hours everyday. Giving rise to thoughts about how the public has little, to no control over our specious media these days.
I arrived home to find numerous messages on my answering machine. I had forgotten my injection for warding off my schizophrenia. I was already a day late. No wonder everything seems so technicolor and surreal -- my anti-psychotic medication having run out. I grow extremely impulsive and compulsive off my medications and the first signs of my disease are manifesting themselves. An incredible thirst -- I have drank over twelve sodas today. An incorrigible desire to smoke -- having smoked three packs already in this young day. One after the other, a cigarette is lit nervously. Thoughts of mind control by the medications my father forces upon me also erupt in my mind -- scared that the medications I take are hurting me, destroying my mind, controlling me. I will refuse to take them. It is the proverbial snowball rolling downhill. I can see the conundrum now, my mind still lucid. In a few days I will not be able to, caught in the throes of my mental illness. My family will cast disparaging remarks my way -- growing fearful of me as I become typecast as the stereotypical violent madman, a lunatic. I will be held in repugnant aversion by the people that I love.
I wrote so many things in my little black notebook today. Tales of Clara and George. Of Big S and Ferret. A dance of words played out on paper as I wrote about the lives of my interesting friends. Lots of dialogue as that's what I think I write best. Mistakenly, I think I am more creative when I am not medicated. I certainly feel more active and vibrant -- my mind so busy with ideas, thoughts, desires. It is an intoxicating feeling and state of being. Akin to a stupor. I almost want to burst at the seams to be a writer and to write, and couldn't wait to get home to share with you all my day down at the shopping center. I was weaving that tale with Clara and George as I was walking home -- carefully remembering all that was said. Knowing someone is reading is so comforting and encourages you to write in your journal every day.
My senses are heightened. I smelled burning leaves walking home today -- a comforting smell I normally associate with fall. It brought on a flourish of memories from my childhood as winter would set upon us and I would have to go back to that dreaded prison that was school. Thoughts of the big pecans in my grandmother's huge backyard on her farm as she would rake leaves into a big pile to let me light them excitedly with a match to burn. Those big pecans were always the last trees to lose their leaves near the first frost -- the last vestige of a summer's past.
Passed by that little Catholic church on my way home as well -- the same church my ex-wife would go to and my mother attended. I wanted to walk inside and sit on a pew in God's house. My inhibitions overrode my desires, though -- afraid that I wasn't a true Catholic, a true Christian, and wouldn't be welcomed. I wanted to pray solemnly for good health and fortitude -- to plead with God to sort it all out for me. One of the priests came out to tidy and tend the flowers on the front veranda of the chapel. I came so close to walking over to talk to him, drawn, wanting to confess my sins, wanting to hear encouraging words of God's love for me. A man of god -- he looked so pleasant and welcoming. Appearances can be deceiving I have learned. Even for a man of the cloth.
Think there must be something wrong with the wiring in my head. Because sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm schizophrenic, it's too frightening to remember sometimes. I sit here distracting myself with writing and reading, blanking things out. Even though I feel the first un-medicated symptoms coming on, I don't want to believe it -- I don't want to believe I'm actually mentally ill, or alcoholic for that matter. Who would? Labels, once given, you will never be able to shed unless you give up your current life and take on a whole new one. I still don't register it sometimes, even when I'm sitting here in my comforting home, writing, I stare up mindlessly at the blue sky out my window beyond this computer at the changing light and all around me the world swirls with a technicolor vividness brought on by my malfunctioning brain -- alternately stunned by either beauty or fear. I sit in awe.
"Don't you have a family?" I asked Clara today as we sat smoking and drinking beer -- lazily losing ourselves in the ambiance of the midmorning sun.
"Yeah," Clara said, taking a drag from her cigarette. "They won't have anything to do with me though. My father says I am a hopeless drunk. He was a worse drunk than me, but he was a functioning alcoholic. I'm apparently not a functioning alcoholic since I am homeless."
I told Clara of my family and the relationship I have with them.
"They (my father) think I am stupid and just a mentally ill dolt," I said, confessing. "I have to play the role of the sick son or all hell will break loose. If I show any signs of independence they up the dosages of my medications or threaten to put me in the mental hospital. They also hide things from me and sugarcoat everything to not upset me. It is so frustrating. I get tired of being coddled."
"I wouldn't put up with all that shit," Clara replied, tersely. "That is why I am homeless. My family is nuts as well. I could go live with my father, but would be absolutely crazy in a few weeks. My father is a mean and abusive man. I would rather sleep behind the dollar store."
"I sometimes wonder who is actually the sick one in our relationship," I said of my father.
"I would just walk away. To hell with all that," Clara told me, crossing her arms in a defensive stance. Clara could easily say that because she doesn't have anything left to lose. I still have a lot to lose. Thoughts of Rosa and Maggie came to mind.
"I think about it everyday," I finally replied.
It was so nice sitting with someone who actually understood me and who actually understood the urge to be homeless. I told Clara of Albert Vanderburg and The Panther's Tale. Albert was an artist and an elderly man in Hawaii who just quit his office job, let his apartment lease run out, and lived on the streets of Honolulu. He would make money by returning shopping carts at a shopping center for quarters and would spend his days reading books, eating discarded to-go boxes of food, blogging from a library, sitting on the campus of the University of Hawaii, and drinking quarts of beer. He was such an unconventional, unorthodox, and avant garde soul. I admired him deeply.
"All this is on the Internet?" Clara asked.
"Nine years of his life is written down and put on there," I replied. "It took me a week of continuous reading to finish it all."
"I would love to live in Hawaii," Clara said. "Tropical sunsets. Warm breezes. Exotic food."
"I've been to Honolulu and it is truly nice," I replied. "After reading Albert's tales, I have often dreamed of selling everything I owned and moving there to live homeless. Albert's tales explained how to do it successfully. You would never have to worry about cold winters."
George finally pulled up into the fire lane nearby breaking my train of thought. I walked over to his car to open his door and sat in the passenger's seat as a surly old lady got out to go do her shopping at the Piggly Wiggly. I reached into my backpack to pull out a quart of beer and took a drink. The beer was tepid and warm -- the carbonation harsh on the back of my throat. George was astonished.
"You off the wagon?" he asked with a surprised look on his face.
"I am trying moderated drinking," I replied sheepishly.
George laughed and pulled a bottle of liquor out from under the seat of his car.
"Old times," George said as he held up the bottle towards me in a toast and then took a drink. "Old times."
I told George about how I was about to go crazy in my sobriety. I struggled everyday with urges and all encompassing thoughts of drinking beer. I finally gave in and decided to try a moderated form of drinking -- only getting a buzz, and not getting sloshy drunk. I realize I am playing with fire, but so far all is well.
"A man ought to be able to have a drink when he wants too," my alcoholic friend, George, told me.
I sighed as I took another drink of my Colt 45. I just don't know. I do know I feel better the past two days than I have in months. I realize I am self medicating and in this age of morally indignant Dr. Laura's and Dr. Phil's that is a terrible no-no. The liberal use or abuse of alcohol upsets the delicate equilibrium that our society is founded upon. Inhibitions are lost. Laws are broken at times. Avarice and excess is displayed and shown. I told George that I was just an inch away from disappearing into the woods, forever lost -- to go back to that life I lived the winter of '03 and '04 -- tired of all the conventional souls surrounding me, the souls parroting Dr. Phil and all the moral declarations from friends and family, and the preaching from the pulpit of societal compliance. I realized then, if I were to ever have true freedom, I would have to pay a dear price -- a dear price indeed. I would have to give up everything.
I came trudging home early this morning in the predawn dark ravenously hungry. A grand breakfast was on my mind and thoughts of Maggie as well -- fried eggs, Colby cheese, country style sausages, Grands biscuits. It had been a wonderful evening out of doors. I have so missed camping out and it was nice to get lost in the moment -- my anxieties melting away. I realized lately that I have been a bundle of frayed nerves and these camping forays allow me to unwind, relax, and to forget about what ails me -- leaving my homed life behind -- a life that I would forego in a heartbeat. I feel like some modern day Thoreau making lasting memories and tales to adorn the memoirs I am writing. I grow so contemplative on these journeys.
The evening started out so simple. I hiked down to the tracks and the cotton mill nestling myself in my tent. My headphones of my little Sony radio adorned my ears as I listened to Bob Mitchell out of New Orleans. I feel a certain connection with that city since my brother and sister both lived in New Orleans for years and both graduated from Tulane. 9 pm arrived and I pulled out my portable Radio Shack television and watched the last hour of Ken Burn's The War on Public Broadcasting. What a wonderful documentary and what arduous times this country experienced. It makes this little war we are embroiled in Iraq seem like a minor skirmish in comparison. The hour flew by as I was enthralled in that program.
My most lasting memory of last night was the stars in the sky. I sat on the threshold of my tent near midnight taking sips of warming Southern Comfort as I looked up at the expansive sky above and the skyline over the Chattahoochee. Orion and his sword paraded across the sky along with Leo the lion and Cassiopeia. Behind the mill was sheltered and dark, and the stars seemed to stand out amid a pitch black sky with regal royalty, twinkling brilliantly. I thought about how we must not be alone in this grand universe and how inconsequential my little life is in the grand scheme of things -- my problems paling in comparison. Those were humbling thoughts. The late Carl Sagan's words of this little world being a mote of dust in a sunbeam brought a melancholy, nostalgic sense of purpose to me - the Earth being one tiny little rock amid a universe so vast it is mind boggling.
One of the things that has continued to amaze me these past few months is my will to fight and to survive. I thought this morning of all I have been through -- schizophrenia, homelessness, my battles with addiction, the exasperating social dances I have to endure everyday despite my social anxiety. My life continues to fight for itself and I never give up. The way I continually adapt to survive despite myself and all my problems. I get up to soldier on another day. And sometimes what saddens me most is knowing that I always will...that no matter what happens, I will be here to face it and to fight -- the tenaciousness of life is absolutely amazing.
I've done a bit of thinking over these past few days -- my mind busy with thoughts about life and the grand scheme of things. I'm not sure I know all the answers or that I have the key to success. I do know that I want a simple life of simple pleasures. It seems to suit me best. Pleasurable meals. Amber beers. Camping trips. Railfan excursions. Works of non-fiction that make me ponder and think, and not the fluff that can be most fiction. Days spent alone and away from the humans that so exasperate me. I have all these grand ideas I want to pour out onto the blog, but can't. I would upset people and my readers would just dismiss me as crazy -- ideas on our puritanical work ethic obsessed society, the nuclear family, religion, politics. I can almost burst wanting to express my ideas. I keep them to myself, though. It is safer that way. I dare not bring about the ire of the thought police. Most people are too encapsulated in their comfort zones and the rote routines of their lives, and to write about these things would upset them -- questioning the very fabric of our mentally ill society, and I do believe our society is mentally ill. I struggle with the idea that I am actually the sane one amid millions of crazy people with my medications being forced upon me to bring me into line with our crazy society -- my soma as Aldous Huxley would say. A Brave New World is a brilliant book, by the way, that you should read. The comparisons to modern society are uncanny and foreboding.
Today shall be a writer's holiday from my memoirs. I intend to mosey on down to the shopping center to wile away my day, writing in my little composition notebook my observations as I nurse beers and smoke cigarillos -- a lazy day spent being the quintessential writer. Tales of Clara, Big S, Ferret, and George I hope to write, wanting to capture these unique souls and their lives in words. They all have a tale to tell. Lives that would be dismissed by most conventional souls as useless, addiction addled, unorthodox, lay about. The freedom their lives seem to harbor intoxicates me and seems to draw me like a moth to a flame -- the freedom to follow their whims not saddled with families, jobs, and all the modern conventionalities of society that we are all so pressured to follow and obey. As free as the wind. I want that freedom. Freedom is something that is a myth in this day and age in the complex society we live in.
I was pleased to learn from George this afternoon that Ferret has a more sheltered place to stay. He moved into the heated garage of a house not far from me. The house is actually right across the street from my grandmother's house.
"Everything he owned fit in a brown paper bag except his sleeping bag and tent," George solemnly told me. "I gave him a ride up from the river. There wasn't much to move. It was sad."
"What happened to his t.v., clothes, and all the stuff at Monte's house?"
"I guess Monte threw it away or sold it," George replied. "He never came back to get it."
That made me sad hearing that. Ferret tried so hard to work, take his medications, and hold things together while he lived with Monte. All those things were hard earned and were not charity from his friends.
It is a humble start, but a garage is a much sturdier shelter than a tent in the woods. Ferret's so called landlord is a known drug dealer, though, so that alarms me about the situation. My grandmother was always complaining about the activity late at night at that house across her street. Ferret might have a drinking problem, but nothing would be worse than getting hooked on crack. I hope he keeps his head firmly upon his shoulders. With winter coming on, he needed a place to sleep that is warm and dry and I guess that garage will have to do.
George went on to talk about his mother. I adore George's mom and what George told me concerned me. George's mother is in her eighties and growing frail. I love how she always calls me, "baby."
"She's getting real forgetful," George said. "She left the oven on after cooking a pan of biscuits the other morning."
"I've done that," I replied, trying to assuage George's worries.
"That is not the only thing," George went on to tell. "She keeps asking me who some of my cousins are. She doesn't recognize them."
My grandmother had Alzheimer's and didn't even know her own son in the later stages of the disease. This news didn't bode well.
"Aricept," I told George.
"What?"
"Aricept is a medication for senility and Alzheimer's. Ask her doctor about it."
I had to spell it out as George wrote it down. He assured me that he would get his mother to the doctor in the next few weeks. I would hate for something to be wrong with Mrs. Jones. She is such a dear old soul.
I seem to have the sharks circling in my comment section just waiting for me to falter and fail. It is rather amusing, in a way, that someone would expend all that energy just to take delight in my downfall and tell me about it. I was expecting some, "I told you so's," but not just so soon. I've been through much damn harder times than just having a morning drink and a lunchtime beer. I lasted six months homeless in the woods by sheer determination. Don't count me out just yet. I get tired of everything having to be so black and white -- so polarized and divided. I see it in every facet of our society these days.
I am headed back down to the old cotton mill to camp tonight. I just have to wait on my father to bring my nightly medications. I am going to sit in my tent Indian style until late in the evening as I listen to the radio from far flung cities like Chicago and New Orleans after dark. Looking out my tent door at the horizon over the Chattahoochee -- a skyline that brings me joy. I may even build a small fire outside my tent. I went and bought a pint of Southern Comfort to keep me company and to chase away the blues. It is going to be grand and much needed evening. I will feel like the hobos of yesteryear.
