so this is christmas...

shortly after my last post i decided to get of the meds that i had been given a few months prior...  "fuck medication!  it's all a ploy."  and a ploy turned out to be.. as i came off and the season began to change i wanted to just melt into the ground and no longer be a player..   thoughts of suicide were rampant.  i felt like i was at ECU again circa 1996.. 

a few weeks later i got back on them..  but it only helps so much... 

all i have been able to think able lately is either the decisions that got me her or the decisions that will take me into tomorrow..
if it weren't for mom being sick, there is a good chance that amanda would have never been in the picture.  and now eight years later...  and i'm more sober now than i have been in 12 years..  and i feel nothing but remorse from amanda..  pushing me away like i'm a leper..  and yet, i am doing the same.. i want nothing to do with her and her over-nurturing of loki...

and maybe that's it..  she has what she wanted...  and by my going to rehab, it just solidifies me as a broken part of that emasculate plan that she has for her and her offspring..  that child that is going to be force-fed years of guilt because mommy made a decision when she was very young... 

and that's why i stay away.. 

and that's why i need a new beginning.. i have no romantic/sexual feelings for amanda anymore..  and i don't know why..  and i hate it.. because i owe her so much...  but then again, i gave her what she always wanted.. 

so now i have no idea where i stand... in life, in love, in the super-retarded scope of things.. i just want to feel again... i want to care...  i want to be horny.. i want to....      be someone else...  

the awkward balance

since rehab i've never been a full month sober...
there's something about sobriety that just pisses me off. and there's something about being drunk that does the same.  that weird balance.  the things i can do with that and the things i can do without it.. but the feeling of being FREE without... yet the constraints of be within.. but i need the freedom with the chains..

today i was smoking with beth talking about a friend of hers that got out of control while drunk in downtown charlotte.. and i thought back to the last time i was in downtown fucked up... and i acted it out, very animated.  and she laughed, as i am sure she would have in that moment.  but i was sober, and for two seconds, i was me being drunk sober...   that almost hurts my head now..

then tonight i was watching a movie about "ttat-guy" actors..  those people that you always see in movies and never know their names..  that just caught up to me wanting to do stand-up..  but i remember  how i was in the old vidoes for class..  in a character.. i was someone else..  pretending..  far from my self. 

there is... me..  that is torn between two worlds..
maybe even three...
i rarely think of myself as a dad..  but i am..  and i need to be...  just to alleviate him from mom.. like today as he ran through the rain and thunder without fear..  

but i cannot be myself in the reality of today..  and in the drunken stupor of friday, i am free to whatever..  how to balance that?   nothing i have read makes sense to this...  i feel like i am back in baltimore again..  trying to understand something that will never be seen for many year...

thank you tori for coming on right now.. you played pawn, rook and queen in that whole battle..

i want to break free.........................

brutal honesty

today 3 of my closest friends...  no, let me back up.   if i am being brutally honest.. who are my closest friends? 
i restart..  my old assistant that is like a brother to me, my old boss that i feel helpless at many times to progress her efforts towards the company..  and a kindred that is just a sick bastard wrapped in shiny bubble-wrap to the rest of the world.. but needless to say three people that i have come to know and know me.. people that i have spoken candidly to and have spoken the same to me...  and that's rare for me in any aspect..  especially given the understanding of the walls that i put up towards anyone close..  but these three were gathered today on a quest via work.. i cruised down to greet them this morning, but apparently my medicine is still not strong enough to allow me to walk amongst random strangers.. 
at the end of the day i called one to find out what they were doing (knowing that they are rarely ever in the same place at the same time and what good times we always have when together)...  and i was told they were at the local uptown bar..   BRICKWALL!  as my friend said "i know you don't drink the alcoholic beverages now"..   'BUT I DO... I CAN...  I WILL BE THERE IN A SEC"...  screamed my mind..  and my inner self sulked in shame..  shame that i could no longer join them.. an outcast now.. i mean, i could have gone up to the bar and tried to have a coke while they sipped the nectar of comfort.. and what if my constraint failed?  and i drank?  what would they think of me then?  3 pair of eyes staring me into the floor as i took a long-denied gulp of draft beer.. judging me..  no..  not so much judging and empathizing..  and feeling like failures themselves.. like they lead this on..
but i wanted to be there so bad..  this wasn't the shit i was told in treatment..  it's like being part of the "out" crowd again like i'm in fucking fifth grade...  the odd man out..
and now i hide it.. i hide it from amanda (who knows but rarely speaks about it).. i am a lie..
i think that is my main reason for not going to the bar.. yes, i could sit there and drink soda, but it would all be a lie..  as i eyeball every beer being poured.. 
i must say that my sobriety, as now just stands as the weekdays, is a welcome.. especially without the AA meetings to remind me that i am some invalid that needs a room full of old men to tell me i have issues..
i got enough of that thursday..................................
dad came over thursday..  it's the first time he came over while i was on the meds..  and i was ok..  he brought over homemade ice cream mix to make..  and a dvd of old movies from when i was a child..  birth to 5..  that kind of floored me..  WALLS!...  i made myself put up defenses everytime mom was on the screen..  and then the subtle glances of my dad to my mom in a bathing suit..  i felt the sexual attraction that was my dad to my mom.. and i understood it.. mom was fucking hot.. and then the camera would scroll to me playing with a fucking stick or something..  or bud and jeff jumping off a diving board.. 
but i wanted to be there behind the camera..  i wanted to be seen playing with loki (which is never seen when amanda or anyone else is around).. and i wanted to be the one filming my wife, however briefly...
the fucked up thing is that since coming out of treatment i have been bombarded with feelings and emotions that i have no idea how to deal with sober..  at the current moment i am able to release them while drinking in secret..

III Sides To Every Story

yours, mine and the truth... 
but how does one distinguish between the three??  i guess that is ruse of life...
currently the story of my life is what i am told i am, what i feel i am, and what everyone else thinks..  life was so much easier when i was just a drunk bastard that just stayed in his room, did his chores, excelled in his job, and made sure that his family was taken care of...
now that the label of alcoholic is tattooed across my head for all to see... well..  let's think about that for a moment..  wasn't that label attached before i ever became aware it was there?  so now, in the light of the last 6 months, maybe it is more apparent to me that the errs of my ways in the past have been seen by all of those around me.?  lately it's seemed like everything is focused on my drinking..  well to some.. those that still think that the drinking is my underlying problem..  but i can't write, i can't draw..  i can't free my mind (insert en vogue video here)..  and even though that was a joke, that video meant a lot to be as i was freeing myself from the commonplace racism that was western lincoln county north carolina..
the songs and music i embraced as i saw the light...  the feeling i felt..  the feeling as i learned..  the greater feeling as i expressed it to another person..  but now that starts to sound like the AA shit...

well not entirely... sometimes the AA shit sounds like the way i used to feel way back in the day..  back when i had faith.. back when i felt more alive than ever..  back when i listened, learned.. read and wrote..  it was never pride that failed me... not in the beginning.. i was fearless...  utterly fearless...

now i need a drink to just express the slightest thoughts that are close to my heart.. 

matching old thinking with new is turning out to be a bitch...  the sad thing is that i know there is something there..  inside of all this insanity..  a steampunk version of me...  buried deep inside myself...

  this was track from an album that made a very big impact on me..  this song was included in the last concert that PHD ever did.. 
it was me... losing my sight..  my innocence.. the pride of being a youth pastor with ideals well beyond the realm of thought for a backwoods baptist church...  maybe i grew too fast... 

regardless of how i bash the church or christians as a whole..  i know that i was one..  whole and strong... and i stood as an outcast, but proud, and i was respected.. but i can never be there again...  i am torn and tattered..  i have raged war on god and now i pay the price with my disease... 

i have thought about what it would mean if i just took the mantle back and stood.. but even in a drunken state i have never thought of myself as a larger-than-life asshole..  i picture myself trying to hold that sword, that flag, that brand of faith..  and falling hard..  failing Him and myself.. 

there are times like this that i feel like the prodigal..  but even in that i don't want to put myself in that place..  i am the lowest of low... i bite at the heels of those above me.. i find folly in those "new-christians"...  or worse yet.. those that have no fucking clue but "believe in god"..  i watch movies like "constantine" and understand his plight...
deep down i know what to do, what to say.. but i am scared shitless to even say it.. 

so where is it that i have to drink to be able to express this to yourself?

Another Horsedreamer's Blues

the counting crows song drifts through the back of my mind.  the drawings from the weekend really have to say something.  i kept focusing on the tears..  on the avatar of sorts that i have given inphynyty, the long pointed nose turned to a growth of sorts..
to explain, inphynyty was the pen name i concocted the year after high school before i went to ECU..  a journal that i have always titled "the perfect year"..  later on inphynyty became myself when i was in my artistic mode..  the quiet and brooding extension of my persona that was the deepest and most genuine part of me..  the guy in the corner just watching as the past, present and future collided.  somewhere around 2003 i gave him a face as mom was dying..  a broad black hat to cover his eyes and a long pointed nose..  and a slight smirking sadness to his lips..  when i drew him the first time i wrote "lost amongst a world of merriment".   and that is how i have felt for a long time...
last weekend was the first time i have drawn him in quite a while...  but this time his head was kneeling..  his pointed nose (an obvious subconscious lean to pinocchio..) and this time i wanted to show the nose as if it were a false appendage..  like an attached part of my face that like a leech had become attached to the face...  foreign and not an original part of the whole of inphynyty,,  the part that i spent a lot of time on was the tears..  and the blood...  i remembered the night i cut myself so badly that i called Jethro to come over because i was scared..  once again a night that i truly came close to ending it all..  but i did not... i never would let myself believe that the end was near..  i just needed someone to tell me it was ok..
i am almost there again..  the awesome fact of alcohol is that i can unleash thoughts and dreams and ideals without any whim of ramification..  i can bare my soul..  if to no one else but myself..
how great would it be to be able to do this sober.  but what is this lie that has attached to my face?  that has been attached?  that only now that i am able to see... looking from the outside in.. drunk looking upon the sober me..  and the cross-scrutinizing that is happening..
the sad thing is that the drunk me is the only one that wants to speak...  the sober me hides..  inphynyty hiding behind the hat as my lies protrude and control..
the fucked up thing is whether i could deduce this sober??  i think not....  so wherein lies the happy medium?
society screams that i am ill and diseased...  and that there is a way to reach this inner person..  the deep down inphynyty... without chemicals...  but how?   how can i find a way to be truly honest with myself?  by talking to fuck-ups and mental cases that need this coloring-book living where it's all slogans and retarded sayings? 
the not-so-fun thing is that i have to face whatever i said tonight...  and not to amanda...  not to the general public..  but to myself..  i hate this...  and thus the tears that inphynyty bleeds that i cannot..........

Where Is My Mind?

so i may have fucked myself into a corner last week with working at food lemur and missing my meetings..  but it was nice to change up the pace..  and what of my so-called sponsor?  no call to check on me.  have i fooled him in my understanding of all things alcoholic?  that i understand and thus do not need guidance?
hey!  even retards can tie their shoes..  but that doesn't mean that know which one goes on what foot.
the bombardment of Seaman (say it out loud and insert joke here)..  a million dollar new customer has stressed me to my limit on top of working a second job...  how does this shit come about during the one time in six months i'm asked to work at food emu for inventory??
and the whole week, the beer isle just calling my name.. and yet i resisted..  mainly because i didn't want those around me to see my weakness.  but yet i succumbed on my way home on friday..  i was so depleted mentally and physically that i wanted my mind and my body to just shutdown... or at least focus..
i thought the welbutrin (who knows how to spell it) would have helped in that matter..  but i have yet to see it..
today was the worst..  the barrage of emails that everyone and their dead aunt is copied on..  so the slightest mistake or misinterpretation is scrutized by one and all..  and the primates that are also copied on this email all jumping up and down at the sign of fire and how to put it out...  and all i want to say is "roll around in it, you'll disperse the flames"...  but yet i play the vigilant role of stop to think before reacting..

and deep inside i think to myself,  "i was able to do this when i was drinking daily, so where was the downside to my work production?"  ...the downside is that it was it dragging me down health-wise...  and socially..  and mentally..  i'm sharp as a fucking whip..  (that really doesn't make sense...  who ever heard of someone sharpening their whip?  and how is that achieved?)  but i can't keep mind away from the instant gratification that i have sought for since time immemorial..  well since the time god has granted me the ability to be aware of my actions and their repercussions..

and then there was this email i received from a good friend on friday..  an email that will not leave me alone..  an email that almost haunts me.. the email simply said, (and i'm paraphrasing here), "i don't want to sound silly, but i have been praying to god a lot lately.  i remember the talks we had about it.  i just hope that god can help me and my family."  and that shit scares me back into ever hole i've created over time..  i don't want to hear this shit..  i'm a helper, much less a messenger?   i don't know how to respond... 

ok, maybe i do... but how?  to take back the mantle that i forsook.. as Marilyn Manson once said, "it's a long hard road out of hell"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSOKsBTK7AQ  
 

"YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME!"

call me gay for thinking about this every time i think about alcoholism..  this scene plays over and over in my head..  but it has for years before i ever started drinking.. the place you don't want to be.. that bad dream inside of a good dream.. that force that draws you close for a moment and you know you shouldn't fuck with it.. and yet you do.
i did the same thing as a child..  i remember the japanese hornets trying to make a nest in the back yard one year under the porch..  i took the pool net and caught them.. and put them in jars..  these huge red bastard hornets that would hurt more than anything i had ever been stung by in my entire life, i caught them..  jarring them as if superior to their horrible sting..  but i was never stung..  maybe if i had i would have left them alone. 

 it's shit like this that makes me feel invisible..  the times i was able to get out of ridiculous circumstances..  getting unstuck from a muddy creek 5 miles from nowhere when i was 13.. riding atop an Explorer doing 75mph, sitting on my knees, holding nothing but the luggage rack...  being so deathly alone that i stood almost at the top of a third floor balcony handrail and wished for it all to end.. and yet, i am still here...

i think it's much too easy for people to say that it's because i wasn't meant to die...  or in light of my current dilemma, that i was meant to be here for a purpose.. 

but being sober, being in "recovery", meant i had to go to meetings, see a therapist.. (and thank god, she has not become 'the rapist')..  a week ago i went to a fucking psychiatrist.  meeting, coupled with finding a sponsor (aka. some guy you don't know to help you deal with what he's gone through)  notice the wording there..  help You though what He's gone though..  but that dude spent a year in prison, smoked crack, snorted pills and probably fucked his semi-hot daughter when she was twelve (and not chunky).
my plight seems to become more about this mess called sobriety fucking me up than drinking ever could..

to be honest though..  drinking reverts me.. it takes me back to that place that i want to be..  even now i am just happy as a...  as a..  ............ i'm not happy.. where the fuck was that going?

it does revert me to a happier time.. before the night is over i'll hit youtube for dctalk vidoes..  the shrink last week tried to tell me i always had social anxiety.. but from 92-95 i never saw it.. so what did i have then that i don't know...  oh wait?  was it jesus?  was it his infinite wisdom and grace that pushed me?  a hardcore believer.. to denying it all..  just because oh one aspect in life that i couldn't control..  that forced me to change.. that made me push myself outside of it all..  and somewhere i guess i when outside the boundaries.. 

i would like to say to it all "YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME!"..  but it does..  it all does..  and it binds me and chains me to the ground...  it takes what i am now and shoves it in my face of who i could be... it pushes my face in the mud and reminds me of what i said i never would be,..