I’ve spent several afternoons over the past months sitting here at my desk, at the end of a day. The light for most of the summer streamed through the windows that are straight ahead, and I battled that late afternoon light with baseball hats, pieces of cardboard taped to the window, my tennis racquet in its case, and odd body contortions. The days are getting shorter and the light is not an issue any longer. Today it is making orange quavers full across the office and living room, and on the fireplace all the way over there. It gets me to thinking that I likely will not be here in this place next year, and in that I will not be here during this time, I will never see light quite like this again. I try to enjoy it for today. Try to take a picture, but although photos are really made of light, they never quite do it justice. The way in which you experience it in person cannot be captured. I am not sure whether that is good or bad. I would like to keep a little of this orange light today in a bottle to bring out and remember this place on days like this, in the early fall. I am house hunting and will be gone within months if not sooner, and that new place will not sit on top of this hill just so, at just this angle, with those trees just there. Everything will be different, the light, my likely preoccupations, me in general. I will have to see what the summer is...
I walk into therapy today hellbent on not crying like i have the last few weeks (Steve and I are set to discontinue our meetings next week so he can get on with taking care of his health issues and I can get along to whatever it is I will do next), so I don’t. I tell him that am feeling more motivated, getting things done, not feeling like an impostor, not letting the women get me down. He says since I don’t have much to talk about, maybe we should just let today be our last session. I agree, holding back tears. It just sneaks up on you. Then I come home. Down the highway and the parkway, through the detour, and into my driveway. Coming up the steps and along the walk that borders the front corner of the house, right before the dogleg, hidden by those unruly shrubs, I find a man-sized pile of shit: first the smell, then the flies, then the visual. It’s either from a man, a bear or a great dane, and I’m betting on a man. There aren’t that many bear sightings in my neighborhood, and why would a dog find its way to that hidden spot when in my experience they would rather do it in grass where they can scratch? Dogs don’t ever seem to have issues squatting and doing the deed right in front of god and the whole world. The pile is right up close to the exterior wall of my house. Just where a man could’ve squatted and rested his back against the bricks, extending his...
Those of you who know me will think me up all night on a drunken bender, but my life is filled with profound sadness this evening. There’s the one friend whose love of his life is leaving him, and another that just wishes that he had such a love of his life. It’s early and the morning birds are singing and my tongue is...
So long and not much noise here. My therapist may very well be dying of lung cancer. Not the type of lung cancer that builds and builds, but the little nefarious sonofabitch that gets right in there next to your aorta and tries to take it all out of you. The guy’s skin is turning gray and his hair is already gray and I feel like it’s any day now, and I ask why him and not me. We’ve got two weeks left of this experiment that we started three years ago: three more weeks of therapy and then I got to do something else. He says he thinks it might be good to pursue a woman therapist since that’s where my problems lie, with women, and that she may teach me how to trust the universal her. We talk lots of how I am feeling. I guess that’s what therapy is. We have been especially keying in on how I feel about the separation. He asks if I feel anger, and I guess I do. The adult part of me understands the state of things, the child feels abandoned – the worst and constant fear. I cannot talk to him about it until he tells me to talk to a third person in the room that is not him. I tend to cry a lot during these recent sessions. I guess I feel the whole bundle of emotions that are going on. I guess I am angry on a level. I guess I do feel abandoned just like I have so many times. I guess I want to...
Beware the ides of July, the day before you leave for Chicago and the day where every minute will be twice as long as they were yesterday. And the day after… before the airport, every minute thrice as long as even today. Logarhythmic expansion. And at work there’s too much to be done. Self-imposed deadlines the I am trying to shirk. Trying to just cruise into it all, to not have an all-nighter like I seem to always have when getting ready to depart for a few days. The weekend was long, even with not leaving the house all day on Sunday. Bad Buckhead cover bands on Friday. In fact, just bad Buckhead; cover bands are what they are, better and worse. Then to the restaurant run by the TV chef, a visit to the table by said newfound celebrity. This following a day of drinking, talking, smoking with my just-starting-to-rebound friend. Sunday indeed was a day of rest. I haven’t seen Leroy in a few days so I am expecting a request for a full twenty with the next knock on the door. I think the last “loan,” because he is always asking to “borrow,” was for $3, and a soda that I had but didn’t give because it was my last one and I had to wake up the next morning somehow. By the time of my return from Chicago, I will have the first of my two new employees. Hopefully that will mean relief from the overload and the increasingly grueling schedule. A couple of weeks after, my second will be here. Maybe by the end...
I’m having the after lunch cigarette and reading my book about the 60s around-the-world sailing race, when he walked up, looking like he had taken a hammer rather than a toothbrush to his teeth. “What’s that book about?” I show him the cover, A Voyage for Madmen. “Ah… vo…age…for…madame… What’s it about?” “About these Europeans who raced each other in a solo non-stop sailing race around the world in the 1960s.” “Sailing?” “Yeah, with boats that have sails on them?” “Oh yeah, that reminds me of… what’s his name?… You know who I am talking about… What’s his name?” “I don’t know.” “You know!… What’s his name?…. It’s uh… It’s uh… Oh, that’s right… Columbus!” “Well he was an explorer and sailor. Not really in a race around the world. But I see what you are saying.” “Yeah, Columbus. Just like him. Have you ever raced an ostrich?” “An ostrich? No.” “What about an elephant?” “No not an elephant either.” “A horse?” “I’ve ridden horses before, but not in a race.” “I’ve raced all three.” “Really!?!?!?” “Yeah, that ostrich, you gotta hold on tight. It runs like 100 miles per hour and bounces while it does it. Grab hold around that neck and hold on.” “Elephants go faster tan you think too. You have to hold on tight. Grab hold to them big ears and hold on. Got hit by a tree limb while I was on that. See. There. That scar on the back of y head came from the tree limb and that elephant. Don’t want to fall of one. Hold on to them ears.” “I’m from...
Yesterday I heard a co-worker that sits near me, who I don’t really know, was speaking frankly with someone on the phone. From the best I can tell the person on the other end asked one of those simple questions like, “So, how are things going?” I guess we most of the time fall into the pleasantries of saying, “Things are going fine,” but that’s not where Peter went: Well, Katie and I are getting a divorce, and my brother calls everyday and he’s losing his mind. Says he needs to check into a psychiatric ward. Wants to know what I think, but won’t tell me what all is going on. This guy is in the office everyday when I get there at 7 a.m., and he recently did a cancer fundraising walk which I meant to donate money before but forgot about. He is pleasant with the co-workers I see him interact with. Just the divorce prospect alone would change me, make me want to crawl in a hole for a while. I really know nothing of is life. I imagine things, just like I do with most people I don’t really know ut have to be around. I’ve “eavesdropped” on his internet browsing and know that he has a fantasy baseball team. He wears a bowling shirt regularly, one of those types that were very popular in the late 90s. I even received a similar one at a conference from an internet start-up that didn’t. He’s balder than me, but I don’t imagine him to be too much older. His cell phone ringtone is Elton John’s “Your...
Outside the morning birds are singing: Doo ree doo, doo ree doo, ree doo, ree doo, doo, doo, ree, ree, ree. Not trailing off in a doppler way, but in a song of their own. I should not be up this late. Should be asleep. Faced too much art market, divorce market, break-up market, make-up market. Too old to spend this time in bars. In bars, as most of us, looking for connection, love, acceptance, novelty. I start with birds. I end with me. Women can do anything that the boys can do. Insulate me from this world. Show me your paintings. Let’s love one another in a melting igloo, or at least, let’s love each...
My therapist has not called me back. It’s not that I need it. It’s like a friend said, “you go to it because you like it more than you need it.” I agreed at the time, but I cannot underestimate the benefit of a weekly unloading of all of the “snakes in my head.” There’s always a peaceful serene feeling when leaving, even when I am leaving in tears. He hasn’t called though, and I am worried. I guess you may thing that’s selfish. He was diagnosed with lung cancer a couple of years back. Has been receiving aggressive therapy, and generally seems to be doing okay. I guess it wouldn’t be right for him to let on otherwise. I just don’t know. I went so far today as to search the obituaries on the newspaper web site to see if there was any news there. I was glad to find none. Even given my problematic relationship with God, I have spent time praying for him on my nightly rituals recently. Today I daydreamed as I was driving home, dog-tired, what I would feel like if I found out he was no longer with us (can’t even say the words). I started to weep in the car. Like I had lost a friend. I pay to go see this person once a week and he knows more about what goes on in my head that anyone else in the world (including myself), I know nothing of him except I think he has grand kids, and a daughter, possibly a wife, and this growth in his lungs of which I...
Leroy came by today. He fixed the flat on his bike so he’s back rolling rather than walking, although he still hasn’t started to put on weight. I gave him a handful of change because he said he was hungry. He’s always hungry. I guess that’s the nature of living like he does. We also finally interviewed the woman from Houston today, and when Kristie wrote, “Do we love her?,” I responded, ” I believe we do.” That might mean some relief at the job if it all works out. I just don’t know how long it takes to get someone to Atlanta from Houston. How long does it take to pick up your life? She’s younger, less encumbered. And the wart that’s been gone from my left upper arm for several years now is coming back. WIth the workplace stress, and some of the issues going on in friends’ lives, it very well may be a worry wart. I am chock full of the old “imposter syndrome” lately. Feeling that I haven’t paid my dues, nor do I have the skills and training, to be where I am. It just feels like I work hard and a lot, but I don’t feel like I accomplish much. I am not sure how to measure success as a manager. I talk a lot to people. Make long-term plans. I seem to stay bogged down in the day-to-day grind. The list gets longer. Never shorter. Maybe if we can get the Houston girl, since I hunted her down, that will be some small victory and will put things into place for...
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