You know, it suddenly(well a few hours ago) occurred to me that I am an idiot.

Specifically in regards to this guitar refinishing project. The refinishing part, well that isn't so bad, but it was all based around a bunch of hardware upgrades to it, that, after thinking about it, are just plain stupid.

All of it based around taking a 3 single coil guitar and turning it into a 2 humbucker shred machine. All told the upgrades I planned amounted to around 250 dollars. The guitar didn't cost me that much brand new. It cost half that. Yes, it is the best playing guitar I have ever owned, and I have owned very expensive(upwards of 1100 dollars... my old gibson), guitars. Still.. 250 dollars worth of hardware upgrades on this guitar seems mighty pointless.. all in an attempt to turn it into something it is not, specifically, a 2 hummer shred machine.

For 250 dollars I can buy a decent enough 2 humbucker shred machine. I even have HIGH HIGH end replacement pickups, just on the off chance that I find one I like that plays well but has shitty stock pickups.

So, I guess what I am really out is time and 15 dollars in paint, and brain cells lost to paint fumes. I guess I will just finish this refinishing job in a plain solid color, and put it all back together, and just have it as a spare *shrug*. As I said, it is the best *playing* guitar I have ever owned, even if its sound is too jazzy for satan.

A cross post from my OKC journal, not sure why I posted it there first, I think I get like one hit a year on my profile there. Bitches.

A do it yourself project that involves one of my other passions(as the mead thing involved my drinking one =p)

You see, I play guitar. Badly, in my opinion, well in some others. That is beside the point. There are so many beautiful and awesome guitars out there, with custom wondrous paint jobs that just pop out of you with their sheer level of awesome. Of course, these are guitars that cost in the thousands of dollars range. Fuck...that.

My guitar is a good guitar. Best guitar I have ever owned as a matter of fact, and I have owned some of the best brands on the market. But it is a cheapy. It surprises the hell out of everyone that plays it, how well it plays, how good the action is, all the usual mumbo jumbo, even my buddy with multiple 900+ dollar guitars picks it up and talks about what a fun guitar it is to play. But it is plain looking. Nice, but plain. Bulleted list with descriptions incoming...

1)first step, removing all hardware and dismantling guitar. No big deal, I have done this hundreds of times, with this and other guitars. Estimated time, 30 minutes, tops.

2)Stripping the old finish. I decided to chemically strip the finish, for two reasons.. a)I didn't want to strip too much of the base wood with sanding(solid alder) and b)I ASSUMED it would be the easiest method. Well, Fender is fucking awesome, because their finish was durable as FUCK, and it tool, literally, 2 days of soaking that bitch in chemical stripper that promised to work in 15 to 20 minutes, Lol. I was scraping and recoating and scraping and recoating that shit with paint stripper for 2 days straight, woe to my poor chemically burned hands, lol. But in the end, beautifully stripped wood, completely paint and finish free. Wondrous.

3)Filling holes and some sanding. I wanted to fill in all the screw holes with wood filler, simply because when I do finish it all up, and put the finishing touches and new pickguard, strap locks, etc back on, I wanted a nice tight fit. So I filled all the pickguard holes and the straplock holes, and filled up any incidental dents with wood filler. No big deal. Let it dry for a bit.. sanded it all down nice and flat and even and smooth with some 320 grit paper. It was one sexy piece of smooth wood after that. Estimated time.. couple hours off and on, was off doing other things in between sanding.

4)Masking cavities. I don't want paint buildup in the neck cavity, which was unfinished by default, nor in the electronics cavity, which will be painted with metallic shielding paint(to reduce electronic interference). So I had to mask that all off with tape. Holy shit was this part frustrating. A nice razor blade would have made it much more handy, but I didn't have one available, so it was tedious. Tape, tape tape tape tape tape tape tape. I probably spent an hour and a half taping. Then had to stop because it was just pissing me off. Finished it up the next morning. Estimated time for mass taping.. 2 hours.

5)Wood prep. The next thing involved brushing on some wood prep, which basically you paint on with a brush, it is very thin and water based, and it basically brings the grain up a little more, so when it dries you can sand it EVEN SMOOTHER. I was dubious about doing this step, but I did it anyway, figuring, fuck, I had the shit in the basement anyway. So I did it, waited for it to dry, and sanded EVEN MORE. Yay. The body was not noticeably smoother, but whatever, it didn't hurt it any, right? Lol. Estimated time? 20 to 30 minutes.

6)Priming. I figure fender had a wise thing going, their finish was very thick and durable, if boring. So the next step in my plan was to give it a nice coat of primer. So thats what I did, plain old gray wood primer on all sides. At this point it was late and I was high as HELL on paint fumes, so I hung it up to dry and went to sleep. Sanded that even more when I woke up. I figure I cant sand enough at this point. Plus primer is kind of rough. So I sanded it till it was bloody shiny. Also getting out a few more blemishes. Nice. Wiped it down with some cotton cloth(actually an old scrap tshirt I hate anyway. Finally got some use out of it. Estimated time, not counting overnight drying, 35 minutes tops.

7)Color base coat. Now, I wrestled alot with this. I don't want people to see my axe and think "oh, look.. just another guitar" I want old women and small children to break into tears and run away. But I still needed a base coat, and.. yes.. I went with a matte black(keep in mind, it wont be matte by the end. Why matte black? Artwork, of course. The idea here is that there will be, when I am done, some killer artwork. In a darker kind of theme, so I figured matte black would be a good base for that. Unfortunately I don't have a way to suspend this from a hook.. so I am having to do it one side at a time. Coat of paint, let dry, flip, coat of paint, let dry, flip, coat of paint, let dry, flip. I think I am on about 7 coats per side/sides. Going to just go balls to the wall and use the entire fucking can. It will be a nice thick base coat that I am not going to sand through unless I am drunk(or high on fumes) and not paying attention. So, once I finish this, and let this REALLY dry for 2 or 3 days.. yeah, more sanding, just to smooth out any imperfections.. though I must say, from touching it and looking at it, it is looking bloody smooth as hell, and pretty gorgeous. Estimated time? 7+ hours and counting, maybe 4 of 5 more hours to go during this stage.

8)Art stage. I am not here yet. And this is what is causing me the most fretting. Because I am no artist. As I said, I want old ladies and small children to run screaming. I want something evil, like satan eating a plate full of fetus shaped ravioli. Or something. I don't really know. I just want the artwork to be a)cool b)noticeable c)somewhat meaningful to me(not in a huggy lovey manner, but just in a "yeah, I get what that is saying", kind of thing. So.. suggestions are welcome. My little sister is a halfway decent artist, so I am going to ask her to draw out a few things for me to look at, maybe she will actually come up with something cool.

9)Clear coating. this will, by far, be the longest stage of all. You finish a guitar almost like you finish a car. Thin coat after thin coat of clear coating, with lots of drying and very fine sanding in between. I expect to spend a week or more just giving it clear coats, letting them dry and finely sanding them(with say, 800 to 1000 grit paper). 9? 10? 15? 30? however many it takes to get that miles deep looking finish and shine. Finishing up with 2000 grit sandpaper and some polishing compound.

10)Re-assembly. I plan to upgrade a good deal of the hardware, while I have it in pieces. Graphite saddles. Graphite nut. Sperzel locking tuners. Taking it from a 2 single coal/1 hummer strat to a 2 hummer strat(already have one duncan distortion, going to put a duncan jazz in the neck). Upgraded pots and switch. Hand wiring with high quality shielded wiring.

11)Headstock work. Have bucked tradition and sanded, primered, and painted the headstock also. So my decision here is to put the fender logo back, or just create my own, to triumphantly complement my(hopefully beautiful) custom guitar? Decisions decisions. My instinct is the buck tradition, say "Fuck the big corporate guitar factory" and create a name and logo of my very own.

ANYWAY, that was a huge paint fume inspired post. I'm sure it bored most anyone who tried to read it to sleep, but if you made it this far, I salute you. And if you have any suggestions, tips, comments, feel free. :)

Today my mind is aswirl with many things. And I haven't been able to find anyone to talk over them all with. Thus I fall back on my livejournal, as is usually the case =p

Nightmares. God. What a cruel thing it is that the things that trouble you most in waking, find ways to insinuate themselves into your dreams too. Or worse, things that you thought you left behind, rear their ugly head and make you think of things best forgotten. It seems like every morning for the past few weeks, I wake not from my alarm, nor from sunlight, or noises, or any of the things that would normally wake a person, but I am starting awake with a gasp of horror or shock. I think it is the time of year. I have dreaded this time of year for a few months now, and here it is, along with all the associated baggage and memory. Saturday after thanksgiving, that is the day. It all started then.

Politics. I am starting to loathe the word. Maybe it is easy for most to just go through the motions of society, hunting and gathering and breeding. I look at our society and I don't want to do my part to continue it. I joke about comets and whatnot all the time. But it is just that, joking, most of the time.

Lately though.. I have started to wonder. Where is the land of the free? I know it is not here, not any longer, not for many years. We parrot those words, land of the free, and home of the brave, while our country consistently and without remorse passes up freedom for safety every time. When did being "freer than the next country" become free enough for Americans? Ok, we are more free than Iran. Why is that good enough? Our country was founded by people that valued their freedom over anything else. Even their lives. When did we stop believing in that?

I don't mean freedom in the neocon sense of "free to vote republican, support the war machine, be a good a christian and spread american culture by fire and sword", nor do I mean freedom in the liberal sense of "hey man, lets smoke a bowl and give everyone free health care".

Maybe my idea of freedom is something that is gone from the world. Owing no man allegiance except for what you give of your own free will. Being beholden to nothing, lest you freely choose it. Now we are born and conditioned. We grow and we question that, maybe we keep questioning it for years, until finally, care and exhaustion weight us down, and we settle for less, we settle for the attainable goal, we vote for the lesser evil. And we drown our apprehensions with drink, or other escapisms, bread and circuses, if you will, and live in our minds, turning ever farther from the reality of what used to be the ideal we based our lives on, because it is too painful to watch its throes of death.

Lack we the strength to stand up and say "NO MORE"? You can scream it from the mountain tops, but it feels so useless. It does almost nothing anymore.

Well, my email is fucked. Dunno how, dunno why, all I know is that I cannot access my gmail account, because my "password is invalid". No, I never ever share my info, and have not, in over a year checked it on any computer but this one(er or my mac mini, which is still in my backpack in the corner at the moment). No, I am not misspelling it, and no.. caps lock isn't on(see, none of this being in caps for proof!). So.. to celebrate this calamity..

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
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90% of my online life for the past few years is in my gmail account. Images, phone numbers, online resumes, job contacts, friends information(both old and new), some 300mb of correspondence with my ex gf, just f'ing everything to do with my life in the past few years, UGH.

In a week I can try to reset the password, assuming I remember the f'ing security question, and who f'ing knows, as I created that email account nearly 4+ years ago.

April 13th 2029.

I know it is vogue nowadays to be a fan of the show "Mythbusters". But I have been watching it since the first episode.

"I reject your reality and substitute my own!"

Isn't this the clarion call of humanity? I love this statement because of its simple solipsistic overtone of telling the world to fuck off. Reading too much into it? Sure, but who cares, it is both an an inspiring statement and a testament to what is one of the worst parts of humanity.

Another reason that I like Mythbusters, is this quote by Adam Savage

"My goal this year is to prove natural selection on the show. It's gonna take a while, it's gonna be very hard to make it fascinating on film in the context of our narrative structure, but I figure screw it. The sky's the limit. Let's do natural selection. I'm sick of fifty percent of this country thinking creationism is reasonable. It's appalling. And I have the unique ability, maybe, to sell this idea to Discovery, and they'll, they might allow me to do it, and I'm gonna try as hard as I can."

Refreshing, that someone will make a statement so strong in the twilight of secularism in our country. In an age where ignorance puts on a mask and pretends to be faith, I love that at least one person in the public eye has the balls to cut through the fog of creationist "science" and states that try to legislate pi to equal "3" and punch em in the face.

Thus ends my Mythbusters inspired post.

My dreams continue to betray me.

I try to sabotage them by sleeping with the tv loud, hoping that figments of television will creep in and steal away what my subconscious wants to torture me with, sometimes it works, sometimes it just keeps me awake, which is good enough. That is my other avenue for stopping it, energy drinks and sleeping as little as possible. None of it stops it completely.

Have you ever woken up and had someone you really love, who really loves you just laying there watching you? That is the worst one, a memory of something that really happened, a precious moment that my dreams forever use to haunt me. I think I am awake and laughing eyes are watching me, and then I close my eyes and wake up for real, and all of my joy turns to ashes.

It is now nearly a week after. A terrible week. Bitterness is not even in it, just loss and emptiness. But most of the time I have, at the least, been able to distract my mind. I can be such an escapist at times, and I have delved into that, burying myself in one book after another. I have to, I can't let myself dwell on this loss, and because of it I am sleeping rarely. I have to read until I can no longer hold my eyes open, but at least it is keeping my mind away from things too painful to embrace. When I am awake, it works, to a point. Until someone asks me what is wrong, and usually I shake my head and say "nothing!".

But my dreams always bring it all back. First waking is the worst part of the day, as the vividness of my dreams bring it all crashing back to me. If there was ever a time I cursed my vivid dreaming, it is right now. What throughout the day is a dull ache of loss, after a night of clear and happy dreams and memories of her, it becomes a sharp stabbing pain, like a knife in the kidneys.. my eyes will pop open and my heart will begin to race as I am utterly convinced that everything is ok, and then wakeful consciousness comes, and with it that sharp and bitter stab of loss and despair.

Im not old, but I am no longer a young man, really. But in all of my life I have never felt the loss of someone like this. This wasn't the loss of some random girlfriend. This was someone special and rare. Not perfect, no human being is that, and certainly not I, but special. I don't really think I will ever meet her like again. There was nary an item I could mention(except maybe myspace) that we didn't both enjoy, and even moreso, enjoy twice as much together.

Every day I pray that she will call me or email me or IM me. Realistically, I know she will not. But right now the faint hope is all that I have getting me out of bed. My heart hurts so much that the thought of never hearing her voice or her laugh, of never seeing her or touching her again, I cannot even entertain it, because if I force myself to believe it is gone forever, I will break into a million pieces, and I don't know if I will be able to put those pieces back together again.

And over and over in my mind, I hear her voice telling me "I love you" as I was walking away after picking up my stuff. And that is the final memory that breaks me.

I shouldnt have gone drinking. I don't know what to do.. I dont know what to do, I cant stop crying, I cant stop just soobbing out loud I cant stop huting why why why .. .why cant anything meaningful ever stay in my life. Why does everything good in my life leave me... OH GOD IU CANT STOP HURTING IM so tired of hurting, the first thing in my life that made all that bad things go away in years and years is gojne..... oh god whyh.

I can't see a bright light at the end of this tunnel, I can't see the good that will come out of it, all I see is black and darkness and despair. I thought that finally someone saw something beautiful in me worth loving. Now I feel like everything beautiful inside of me is dying.

Well, it is over for reals, for sure and definite. All of my brave talk of the past few weeks is brushed away by the hot gusts of agony I am feeling right now.

For years after my divorce, I muddled through. A friend here, a fuckbuddy there, but I never really felt much for anyone I dated. I wasn't "looking" really. I wasn't looking when I met Karen either, not really. I was looking for some fun, maybe a friend, maybe a new fuckbuddy, but I had grown a bit cynical about real love. But it hit me like heat lightning.

And it ended, hard and fast. But I missed her. And I never stopped hoping, not in my heart. We tried to remain friendly, but it hurt too much, and eventually, other than an email once in a great while, we stopped talking. But I still kept hoping, deep down. I dated some other people, had a fuckbuddy here or there. Sex is not an issue, it is not hard to find, even for me. But to me every woman had become a paper doll, and when I closed my eyes it was Karen I saw.

And then, over a year after I first met her, it was on again, and aside from that, it was on good, and she was everything I had dreamed and so much more. I know that in a situation like that you can build up someone in your mind to be more than they really are, but it was the opposite. When I first(first time or 2) That I saw her again after over a year, and my first impression after so long was "well she is cool, but maybe I have been a little silly". But then we became closer, and I began to realize that she was so much more than I had ever imagined. She was my lover, and my love, and my best friend. The only person ever in my life that has gotten all of me, every last hidden bit, every nook and every cranny. Maybe the only person that ever will.

What do I do? The obvious answer is "do what you always do". But what I always do is wake up and immediately think of 3 things or more that I want to tell her. Go through my day and as a funny or stupid or angry making or inspiring thing happens, I file it in my head under the "cant wait to tell Karen" file.

I wish I could be angry, or frustrated, or pissed off, or anything but what I feel, which is just an aching, praying for the pain to end kind of sorrow. I don't even know what to write, except that my only other option is to curl into a ball and shudder in agony. And pray that it was all a terrible misunderstanding, a cruel jest. Pray that she will realize how much she loves me, and want to work it out. Pray that she will miss me so much she will realize how big a part of her life I was, pray that she remembers the awesome times and forgives me the bad, like I have her.

Probably none of that will happen, I know. It is not a lack of confidence in myself, but just an embracing of fact. Nothing I can say or do or be or become is going to change that, and all that that leaves me is pure despair. I am watching a piece of my soul tear away, and the only recourse I have is, nothing. I am helpless before the winds of apocalypse, and all is turning black.

And that is the worst feeling of all. Helpless. Yeah I could John Wayne it up and say "eh fuck it, she didn't matter!". But that is not true. She did matter. She does matter. And I am helpless in this. I love her, and I can't stop that. And because of that I have lost not only my love and my lover, but my best friend, the closest and best one that I have ever had.

I just don't know where to go, what to do, or what to say. Where is that comet when you really need it? Oh god, I hurt, I hurt, I hurt, I hurt, please make it stop.

The nonreligious, like myself, and some other people I know, often find themselves in a bit of quandary, and a bit of hopelessness and despair at times. Arising, quite simply from the notion springing from a lack of belief in a higher power or plan, that nothing we do REALLY matters. It seems like we are perpetuating our existence, simply to keep on perpetuating our existence. We work, pay the bills, eat food, all so we can go to sleep, and wake up and do it all over again, just to fuel ourselves so we can keep on keeping on. We have no belief or hope in an afterlife, or benevolent universe that cares if we are good people or bad people.

But, really, it is all about how you approach the thought. And I know that when feeling down, I often approach it that way, and my response is "what is the point??" and find myself reluctant to rise, reluctant to care, reluctant to invest emotionally in anything I do, reluctant to think down the road because, again.. what is the point, more of the same down the road, right?

NO!!!!!

It is the complete opposite. If nothing we do, or how we do it, really matters, than the ONLY thing that really matters is what we do and how we do it. It is a defiance. A proud proclamation to a cold and unfeeling universe. A statement proclaiming that the universe may not care, but I DO, and I will not let that cold and unfeeling universe diminish me, nor those like me. It is victory even in defeat.

Morality does not derive from divine guidance. Is it moral to behave because a giant cosmic bully is threatening you with hellfire and damnation if you do not behave? Morality does not derive from Government. Is it moral to behave only under the threat of jail for misbehavior? I have much more respect for people that live well and morally through self reflection, realization and criticism.

I guess my secular humanist libertarian(small L) is showing again. But I have ventured a little farther afield here than I had intended, so I am going to stop right here and consider this a complete thought, though it really is not. In my head I have gone off on half a dozen tangents already, and.. yeah.. this one is done.

The Lyrid meteor shower will peak early Sunday morning.

http://www.space.com/spacewatch/070420_ns_lyrids.html

Is my #1 favorite book. Anyone who knows me, knows how much and how obsessively I read, so that is a clarion statement, to actually define a single favorite. I will enumerate some of my reasons here.

Much of Stranger is almost a thinking exercise. What would it be like to bring someone completely and totally removed from the human race, in language and culture and reference, and try to teach them about man, and the human condition? But more than teach them about humans, but teach them to BE human, to identify with humans, to understand the joy and love and pain and sorrow and fear and hate and wonder and passion and fire and absurdity that it is to be a human.

I think that it would teach the teacher almost as much about humanity as the theoretical student. This is a fairly common theme, the idea that if you really want to understand something thoroughly, the best way is to have to explain it to a particularly dimwitted student.

I think most people are particularly dimwitted when it comes to understanding and empathizing with others. We get wrapped up in self, and fail to see and understand the joys and sorrows of others, even sometimes those others that are closest to us. I know that I do it, at times. We all do, I think. Maybe more, maybe less. And this is one of the reasons I value this book, because it makes me take my connection to humanity out of the closet, shake off the dust, and take a good hard look at it.

On the other hand, like the art of Rodin(one such pictured on the cover there), this book forces one to grapple with the idea that we do not live in a vacuum, others can and do perceive our joys and sorrows, from the greatest joys, to the blackest pits of exhaustion and despair. Humans have such a capacity for love and empathy that it can at times be shocking, especially to someone like me, often wrapped in self so tightly that I don't let anyone else in. People can tell us and tell us that they empathize, and understand, but sometimes it takes the shock of really great art to drive the point home. "Art" is not decoration, it is emotion. It should make us "feel". Sorrow, or joy or terror or disgust. This is another reason I value this book. I read it and I laugh, I cry, I feel scared, I feel angry and triumphant. And ultimately, I empathize, and feel more human.

That is all for now, perhaps more later, perhaps not.

An insurance commercial reminded me of these incidents. True stories both, and both from when I lived in Arizona and was probably still 19 about to turn 20. Read and delight in ridiculous exploits of a decade ago.

Once, I backed my car into the house across the street. How the FUCK do you manage to do this, you ask? Well I will tell you. Some background: I was working 10pm to 6am graveyard shift at Circle K at the time, so I kept night hours, and we didn't have a washer/dryer at our house, so I usually did the laundry at the laundromat at 1 or 2 in the morning, when there was little competition for washers/dryers. I drove a 1994 Geo Metro 5 speed(I loved this little car(it wasn't so old as that sounds, at the time it was 1996). Well, I had loaded up the back with the laundry and whatnot, and was going to start up the car and let the heater warm up a bit(in the night in the winter, it DOES get mighty chilly in the desert). It was about 1am. So, thinking I am cool and skilled, I reach my foot in and stomp the clutch, and start the car, then take my foot off the clutch. Thats right, without checking to see if it was in gear.(I had parked it and stuck it in reverse, in lieu of using the parking brake). I was parked in the front lawn, car facing the house. Car immediately started bucking and kicking and and grinding and MOVING BACKWARDS with me trying DESPERATELY not to get run over/caught in it somehow. All the wall off of our lawn. All the way across the street. All the way across the house across the streets lawn, and then I am finally able to jump in, but too late.. BAM, right through the bushes and into the neighbors house. It finally stalled out, so I took a breath, and in my head I was saying "Oh shit, oh fuck, oh shit, oh fuck", started the car, and drove away FAST. As far as I know, they didn't know it was me, but there was no damage to the house, and only some broken bushes that bordered the house, and noone ever said a thing to me.

The second item was not my fault, in any way, but was still crazy. Some background. My then new wife had wrecked my beloved Geo! So it had been in the shop for a week or 2 to get fixed(probably shoulda been totaled out), but anyway. Lo! Finally the day was here, my car was fixed! I got a ride over to the shop to pick it up, immensely happy to have my car back. Paid them, got the keys, got in the car, and drove away. It was early afternoon, and very very hot out, about 110f. So I am going about 45mph down the street(4lane road with empty center/turn lane throughout) and cranking some tunes, when the next thing I know there is a loud CHUNK and the front drivers side tire flies off, rolls up the street and bounces off the road into a canal. In my head I am going "Oh shit, oh fuck, oh shit, oh fuck!" as I wrench the wheel to the left, in a desperate(and successful) bid to get the car into the center lane, sparks a flying from the front driver side quadrant of the car(just like in the movies, was amazing, heh). I got out of the car. Looked at it. Went "FUCK!" and started to stalk my way back to the car shop. Through south Phoenix.(very heavily mexican). My rage building with ever step, also my level of sunburn and dehydration. For the life of me, I cannot remember what I said, when I finally arrived back there, I think at that point I may have been a little delirious.

And there you have it. The two craziest things to happen to me in a car 10 years ago stories. All thanks to some insurance commercial with a car sticking out of a house.

Since then, things have mellowed, and my driving record is so pristine as to be something one can eat off of. Some people accuse me of driving like a crazy person, but to them I say "Ha!" as I point to my record.

It has been a while since I posted anything comet impact related. I hope you enjoy this picture as much as I do!

Suffice it to say: my socket set has re-appeared. It had been missing for months, especially when I REALLY needed the son of a bitch. No one, including me could find it then, and I ended up buying a new socket wrench and sockets, cool, whatever. But at least it has been found, NOW.

*Grumble*

Well, this is going to be a short post, but it hurt me, alot.

Anyone who knows what is going on with my life, knows that my mom, my one brother and my sister all moved in with me when they sold their house.. originally it was supposed to be temporary, but well... it has kind of turned into a permanent arrangement, and that is cool... but...

Well I came home from a visit with my friend Dave and a short trip to the bar to find a spanish project of my sisters on the kitchen table... it was a little book detailing all about her family. My 2 brothers and my mom each had a page. I was not even mentioned. NOT EVEN MENTIONED. All that I have given up for my family to live here with me, and I didn't even get a fucking MENTION.

That hurts. Alot. If I hadn't stuck it through and did whatever it took to keep paying for this house, noone would have a fucking place to live, but I don't even get fucking mentioned in the project. That fucking kills me, and hurts me so much.

To reiterate: WHEN my ex left, I could barely/almost not afford this place, but I found a new job and worked 60 hours a week so that I could cover the fucking bills and keep the place, and when they sold their house in bfe and needed someplace to move, I was right here with most of an empty condo ready for them to come and move into. But when the spanish project about the family comes around.. I get not a fucking single mention.

Thanks Emily. My only sister and you just made me feel like I dont even fucking matter. Thanks a whole fucking lot. I am just glad that there are no time machines. I might be tempted to go back to 1995 and dash your fucking selfish skull against a brick wall. Fucking bitch. Pardon my beer induced bitterness, but it hurts to find that you family don't even consider you important enough to name in a school project.

fuck that.

I have been a troubled man recently, not just recently as in.. since I started making updates to my journal again, but for a while. I am not going to go into everything that has bothered me, that is not the point of this post, this post is about regaining some of my serenity.

*breathes deeply* I was outside for a couple hours today. It was a tempestuous day. Blustery and windy and a little wet and a little sunny, and a little cold. Ever since I was a late teen, it has been my habit to go out alone to a quiet place or a beautiful place, or a secluded place, to think and clear my mind. As a teenager I would wait until it was POURING RAIN at night, and walk out in the hot florida rain, and I would take my bamboo flute, and I would play in the rain and walk. And I would stop playing, and I would sit by the lake and listen. And I would play some more, and when I was troubled, well, I would still be troubled, but in the fury of the storm I was able to see hope, and gain the strength to endure, and I would know that the problems of life are like those raindrops.. they fall upon me, but they also sheet off. They splatter against me, they might soak my clothing, but they can never really harm me.

So, this afternoon I drove out to a quiet place and walked, and as I did I sought out my calm and my serenity. I have been troubled in my heart about so many things lately, frightened, feeling like everything is slipping out of my sphere of control. But I went to this lonely place, and I stood in a spot overlooking a bit of a drop, and all the trees are in their spring buds, and the grass is green, but it is still in early spring mode, so still not a lot of green yet. So I stood in this place and breathed, with my eyes closed, and the wind and the wet and the sun whipped around me, and the wind was NOT a small thing, and many times it threatened to blow me down.

But it never did. I stood and the winds buffeted me, and the intermittent rains blew at me, and the sun shined upon me, and the winds blew, and still I there I stood. And I was taken back. Back to when I was 16 and playing my flute in the midnight rain, 14 years ago. I thought I would never make it through the problems and sorrows that assailed me. But here I am still.

And in all of this, I regained a portion of my inner peace. A little bit of my calm, a helping of the serenity that has fled me of late. That secret place of perfect calm and peace, deep down in my heart that is one of the things I value the most about myself. As the winds blew and tore at me, I knew that they would not knock me down. As the rains fell and wet me, I knew that they could wet me and damp me down, but could never really harm me. And then the sun came out and shone upon me, and finally I smiled, and a tear formed in my eye and ran down my cheek, right out there in the afternoon wind and sun.

I am still troubled, and still worried, and still frightened about many different things, but I will endure them. And in knowing this, I am much relieved. I will always remember this afternoon, just like I will always remember that night 14 years ago when I first went out in a storm at midnight with my flute and first learned a portion of wisdom. Today I relearned a portion of that wisdom, I think, and will sleep calmer knowing that I have weathered the storms of the past, and will weather the storms of the present, and have all of the future ahead of me to weather the storms that will come.

I feel it returning, and I am excited. It is a dawning, the sun breaking the clouds after that stormy night, calm and serenity and love have been flowing through my chest ever since, and I want to burst with it.

My friend Dave who I had pretty much been playing music with for a couple years now with, joined another band. That is cool for him, but it bothered me a lot. It shouldn't have bothered me nearly as much as it did/does, and well.. THAT bothers me a lot.

The run down is, yeah, I am going through some issues right now, and most of them aren't even related to my Karen trouble, just.. alot of shit going on with my family and their health and me and MY health and I am a little scared on all counts.

My friend Dave recently got a nice mic input for his computer for recording, and a nice mic, and some badass speakers, and a brand new guitar, and some badass recording software. Good for him, it is all way cool. And it bugs the shit out of me EVERY F'ING time he calls me up and is like "hey dude come check out my new X, y or Z. Not because I am *jealous* about them, but because I feel abandoned in it all. We used to be the band, and now I am not, and it feels like rubbing it in my face. Im not saying it IS rubbing it in my face, but it feels like it sometimes, cause last summer I tried to get him into computer recording and mixing with the stuff we were playing and the reaction I got was "meh". Now with the new and improved band it is like "this stuff is badass" and Josh is like "... well what do I do with my crappy guitar now".

I know, look I know my upset over it is selfish. And stupid, and completely uncalled for, which is why I haven't said a single word about it to him. I just.. miss our playing together, and feel kind of left behind.

My girlfriend was telling me about her WoW character and how she got her first epic quality item, playing with one of her WoW friends. I was just struck with such an intense burst of jealousy I couldn't stand myself. I wanted to be with her when stuff like that happened, I wanted to help her get the uber gear she wanted, and now her character is surpassing my best characters, and I will be, once again, that lowbie guy that people group with on their alt characters. And it is completely stupid, because if anything I should feel good that people care about me enough to want to do that, but I still felt a little left behind. Again, stupid and selfish of me, I know it. I am happy that she is having fun with a game that I have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of, that I introduced her to, end of story.

It seems like right now, everything in my life is hanging in the balance. My moms heath and the sanity of my family because of it. My own health and the sanity of, well me because of it. My relationship is going through a rough patch, and my girlfriend is going through a rough patch all on her own, and It seems like I can't grasp a single bit of control over a damned thing.

Ok, so I have been eating better since my BP issues, and it has helped already. I have been more introspective lately, and it has helped me to understand some of the things bothering Karen, so that has helped a little bit too. I was very sedate today, so that has helped my back stop hurting. So yes, I DO some control over several things, if I calm down enough to realize it.

I have another post to make after this one, think of this post as a cloud you have to get through, before getting to the sun.. this post has been about folly, the next post is about growth..