Nocturnal Chatterings #11

-- (in bed during the am) I try to fall asleep on my back with good
alignment so that circulation is increased throughout my body and so
that I do not wake up with so much stiffness and pain.

-- The problem occurs sometimes during the night when I end up in
embryo-position anyway.

++ That's probably natural.

-- It's almost as if I need a body cast ... hmmm ... maybe wrap myself
up in blankets?

++ As in mummy-style?

-- Yes but I'd probably worm my way through so I'd need to thin boards
... plywood ... on each side of me.

++ That sounds painful.

-- I could cover them with carpeting.

++ That sounds like allot of trouble.

-- OH, I KNOW, I COULD GET A COFFIN!

++ That's morbid...

-- Yes, but then no one would have to buy one whenever I die because
I'll already have one I'm comfortable with. ...not to mention that I could pretend to be a vampire!

++ I don't think those are made for comfortable sleep. They are for
dead bodies, not live ones.

-- Yes, but I could customize it ... say, fit an air mattress in there
with some memory foam ... or fill a raft with water as in a waterbed !

++ It's still morbid. How would you explain that to visitors?

-- Well, the bedroom doesn't get any activity anyway ... but I could
hide it in the closet!

++ Somehow, that is even more frightening to me ...

Ten Lessons II

Ten more lessons I've learned from living alone in a crappy apartment:

1. My cooking is worse than I had thought and will have to splurge on a cheap microwave.

2. No need for bottle openers - kitchen drawer handles work just as well.

3. Survival on plastic ware is possible but glassware is more sturdy.

4. If I am elderly and look back on my life, am I going to care that I paid my student loans on time, showed up to work everyday at a steady job, got a promotion, and kept my laundry up? Or, will I look back to the trespassing and skinny-dipping, dancing under the stars with a nice boy to a song on the scratchy radio of the old 60-something rusted Nova, lying in middle of a wooded park watching the sun shimmer through the leaves above, speedy Ninja rides under the night streetlights, walks in the summer rain?

5. Preparing for the future is good, living in today is better.

6. Fun and side-splitting laughter are 100 times better than Prozac but harder to get.

7. I am a hoarder of ripped media and am ashamed ... though not enough to quit.

8. Do not give pity to a man or he will wallow in it and use it against you as entrapment. Same probably goes for some women (I try not to be gender-biased.)

9. I need to be able to organize my belongings once a week.

10. I do not have peers of my own age & interests but need them badly. I do not know what to do about the situation and this has been a long-term problem.

Taking Myself Back To Court

“Tennis is more than just a sport. It's an art, like the ballet. Or like a performance in the theater..." *

The quote above is true and, like art, ballet, or theater, either you have "it" or you don't. The first time I stepped on a tennis court was in junior high intramurals and I had "it". Despite being black, tarry, and highway-like (poverty-rural-American version tennis), I was immediately drawn in by the court and tennis became a miracle relief from my awkward puberty-ridden frame.

No one else really cared about it much because we lived in basketball country but my body, for the first and only time, knew immediately what to do -- the footwork, the ready-position, getting level with the ball ... FLOWING ... I've never done ballet but I'm sure it's the same ... like figure skaters who make it their routines look so natural and graceful.

There were not many people to play with but I still visited the courts daily. Subsequently from being alone on the courts so often, I developed a very bizarre, but effective, serve which I eventually tried to rectify to better form and is now a mess. For a while, I had someone go out with me and we'd play from morning to evening most of the summer. The only other serious players lived in neighboring towns and were members of elite country clubs that would have nothing to do with the likes of me.

So desperate for ball feeds, that I actually convinced my angry mother to come out to the court on occasion and feed me the balls. I clearly remember her struggling in the 110+ degree Missouri humidity with her face beet red, a ball in one hand, and a cigarette in her other. ...she had to take lots of breaks. I had hoped these outings would convince her to invest in a ball machine for me but that was too expensive.

Anyway, I stopped playing a few years back but, during a recent state of insomnia-mania, I enrolled in a tennis class one AM and had the first session yesterday. I was initially afraid since sitting slumped in front of pc has been my main activity over the past years. With my blood pressure low and fibro pain high, I was afraid that I would be horrible or would faint but I did quite well. Even though I was the weakest hitter in the class – including the elderly – my form was well. For a moment, I felt redeemed.

Today I am quite sore ... but I want to go again for the redemption ... the feeling of my body doing something right again for once ... if you ever find something like that you have to fiercely bite down and clasp like a bulldog protecting all that is his.

*Bill Tilden

Time's A Revelator

Five Lessons I've Learned From the Album "Time (The Revelator)":

1. Time's a revelator
2. Emancipation requires a bullet in the back of the head
3. If there's a song you want to hear, you can sing it yourself.
4 I dream a highway to myself, a windin' ribbon with a band of gold, a silver vision to arrest my soul.
5. I want to sing that rock and roll. I want to 'lectrify my soul, 'Cause everybody been making a shout -- So big and loud -- been drowning me out. I want to sing that rock and roll.

Time (The Revelator), Gillian Welch, 2001

Ten Lessons I

Ten things I've learned while living alone in a lousy apartment:

1. Cats are very important and have trouble with change.

2. I like lavender baths each night in a clean tub.

3. I like to keep my belongings organized.

4. I like lights low.

5. I prefer background music instead of TV, but generally like quietness.

6. I've missed reading.

7. It is harder to make myself eat.

8. I am surprised how some people have emerged as friends when I would have thought otherwise.

9. Thus far, I've been able to pay rent.

10. Unscented candles are peaceful.

Another Black Failure

I had the day planned out. Study date, tennis, appt, get my hair cut (which I hate), get other necessities but when I started up my car I new something was wrong when the engine light started flashing, the car shimmying back and forth, and the smoke coming out of the exhaust. I managed to make it one mile to a car place before it pretty much died.

Damn, I had wanted to pay for my summer pool pass and get a microwave to aid in my eating issues. I have no idea what this will cost. If it weren't raining then I would have just used the Ninja but there is this bizarre winter weather in April here and I've ended up with a yellow rental.

This is the way life works. Crap happens. My favorite cat is extremely depressed and there was blood in the litter box when I got home today. No clue but I am afraid.

It was the first new car I have ever owned. Nothing fancy about it but I like it allot. It is paid for. These things happen. Maybe I should stop getting everything black?

Black On Black II

2:48 AM: This is not the black hour of depression that awakens me this night. This is the hour of the black-cat-hairball-hacking-in-my-face-while-sleeping.

I gave him some hairball remedy and tried to go back to sleep but then he kept jumping on the bed, completing a circle around me, then jumping back down. It is my hope that he is doing some type of ritual-spell that will cast us out of this darkness we have been living under. With my bare hands, I'd go take out the eye-of-a-frog if it meant getting myself together.

I've missed a couple of days worth of work this week due to my distress and my bp is low probably due to my not eating or something and I panic when trying to decide what clothes to wear. I'm wearing unmatching socks right now which would be a catastrophe in my normal life.

Missed Connections

It's 4am and I am awake...again...this is the black hour...the hour of depression where all my haunts come to wrench my chest.

The spouse came over tonight for dinner and a movie. Both quite tired, I think we each dozed off periodically. When it was bedtime, I offered for him to stay but he did not. I cried when he left and woke up crying at 4am.

My life is filled with connections that are almost made but never met.

I remember once when my mother was angry and/or depressed at something I do not know. There was an old cardboard box...I think a perfume sample had come in it...anyway, it was very shiny and was quite attractive in my child's eye. In those days, you could get a pound of beads for, like, a quarter. I had some of the round transparent colorful ones that had the diamond cuts in them and they enchanted me. There was no glue so I taped them to the shiny silver box and drew little pictures and messages of love with my little fingers. I remember writing that I was sorry on the box. I placed it by her bed while she was sleeping in the hopes that it would cheer her up when she awoke.

She never mentioned that gift. I think it was a decade later when I had accidentally come across it safely stored away. I was touched that she kept it...but it was too late.

Black On Black

It was difficult but I managed to get black cat #1 to the apartment. He hisses, grunts, and growls at black cat #2 but #2 just stares at him as if he is a crazy cat. #1 has batted at #2 twice, as far as I can tell. The second time, #2 batted back. I hope this is the worst of it but it is not possible to know. I can hear growling at this moment. The messes I create....

Another Black Screw-Up

the rescue cat

Yesterday I became overwhelmed, lost all rationale and bought a black rescue cat in attempts to drown my pain from missing so dearly my other black cat. I know --- I've lost it again. Chalk up another one to neurotic insanity.

I realize that I have made an awful mistake. It was unfair to the rescue cat and it was unfair to my own cat whom I WILL be back again with someday. But now when I live again with cat #1 then what will I do with this new cat?

Most people would wonder why all the fuss over cats? For goodness sake, just taken him back to the shelter or replace the old with the new. A cat is a cat, right? Or, perhaps, they can co-habitate and all will work out. After all, what is wrong with having some extra cats in a safe loving environment (as opposed to a shelter?)

THE PROBLEM IS that I have LOST ALL RATIONALE when it comes to this situation. Forget the psycho-bullshit for a minute. I lost a child in a most cruel manner and will not be able to have another. In the process, I lost all that was whole in me. I've never been so close to another living breathing being as cat #1. He represents so many things to me that I ache and cry and lose all grips without him. I cannot concentrate on anything, am truly lost, and care for nothing else.

I'm at a point, which I seem to arrive at often lately, where I dearly wish that someone would just FIX this one.

Thoughts From A Walk

In midst of a depression, I somehow managed to force myself to do some local errands on foot today. There is something about walking that, sometimes, seems to cause my brain cells to open up and cause me to think about the here and now. What is it that I REALLY want?

I've always tended to live for the future. The present was too terrifying so I planned goals to reach my hopes and dreams. Looking at my life now, however, I just see the broken hopes and the lost dreams.

I have to stop drowning in my loss because it is getting me nowhere but I do not know how. Quite honestly, I do not even know if I WANT to stop drowning because then the hopes and dreams would be really gone, right? ...I don't know.

So what do I WANT now? It will take a while to think about but here is what I've come up with thus far:

1. Companionship
2. Friends of a like-nature
3. Fun
4. Success at my job

Number one, companionship, is at the forefront of my mind at this time. I recently read that when your significant other just holds your hand chemicals are released into your brain that are better than anti-depressants. Just imagine if everyone had someone to hold hands with. Would we still need antidepressants?

Often when I walk around this neighborhood I always think "geez, I wish I could show that house to someone and talk about why I like it ... or why does that lady down the street have those statues in her windows (it confuses me because I think someone is watching me) ... or "... I have allot of thoughts I want to share.

Unfortunately, it seems that most people have been too hurt and beaten down to respond or have thoughts of their own. ..well...at least I run into allot of people like that. I'm sad for them but, quite honestly, they bore me. How can I be attached to someone who has nothing meaningful to share?

Yes, it is possible that I ask too much...which is probably why I am alone.

Nocturnal Chatterings #10

--It's 4am.

--My stomach hurts again.

--I'm sickened by my loss and want to move on with it.

--Today I made a terrible mistake. I got a black rescue-cat from the shelter. He is not Baby the other black cat who doesn't want to be here in this lousy apartment.