The Right Sex?

“I don’t think I’m the right sex for anyone right now.” I said.

My friends laughed. It was a joke, right? Hmmm. Was it?

I was talking to two guys I know the other day. Guy talk. Don’t get all upset ladies. You do it too except you call it “girl talk”. It was a “she’s cute, she’s hot, etc.” the one guy said “You’re not the right sex for her?” implying that the woman we were talking about is gay. I just answered with what I was thinking. “I don’t think I’m the right sex for anyone right now.”

It’s an unwritten contract I have with women right now. I don’t get involved or interested in them and they don’t get interested in me. It’s a mutual agreement that seems to be working against my secret desires, my inner attractions, and basic needs.  For now it’s working. Right ladies? What was that? I didn’t quite hear you. I can’t be wrong can I? Ok so maybe I secretly or not so secretly have a crush or a desire or something. So what? What are you going to do about, huh? Not sure? Me either. Ok.

So let’s move on. I’m focused on my isolated world of creativity right now. Right? I think I am. I tell myself I am. I am working at working at it. I’m writing now, right? There’s a good start. Thank you. I have a book that’s almost published. Maybe some self-esteem will come from that. Will it? I did publish a book that collected my poems, stories, blogs and journals from 2004-2008. That was a good start. I do have self-esteem. Don’t I? Of course I do. So shut up. I was talking to me not you. You haven’t said a word yet. Or was I too busy talking to hear you?

Who am I trying to impress? Me or you? Are you impressed? I’m proud when I’m not worried about what you think. That’s more than not. Isn’t it? Say something will you? Validate me a little bit please. No. Never mind. I feel better now. I am happy with my progress and station in life at this moment. This moment too. I’m going to be ok. I am ok. You’re ok. Are you ok? I’ve been thinking about you in between my long-term self-absorption. You are there. Don’t worry. You’re not worried are you? You are? You’re not? Hmm. Interesting. I can’t tell the difference anymore. What is the difference? I’m stumped once again. Here we go again. No we don’t. I do. You?

Maybe I’ll figure it out and tell you about it. Maybe you won’t be there to hear me but I’ll say it anyway. Whatever it is. You can be damned sure that I will say it. I think I just said it, didn’t I? Were you listening?

Good Day Bad Day

I woke up today in a great mood. For no reason. I didn’t even do my morning meditations yet. I was friendly to my mother as I made my coffee as apposed to the usual grumpiness I express with my “leave me alone” face. I did my morning meditations and drank some reheated coffee from last night as I waited for the fresh coffee to brew. I smoked on my grueling hot porch and it didn’t seem to bother me today. I jumped right into the project I started last night.

I decided that while I am waiting for the designer to finish up the designs for my novel that I would move on to another project. I actually have two more book projects. First I started to collect my poetry, stories and journals from the past six years into a book. I started to work on that while I was waiting to get the photo shoot together for the book cover for Yellow Socks. Second I found the disc with all of my Serial killer Coloring Books on there a few weeks ago. The problem is that they are in PDF files formatted for an 11 x 17 magazine. I had to figure a way to convert them to a Microsoft Word document or jpg. Thank God for google. I found an online converter that was free and started with the first issue of my Serial Killer Coloring Book.

I spent last night converting the first issue and all of today cropping and resizing the files for uploading to be published. Today I jumped right into cropping the pics and saving them. I was having a great time.

The cleaning lady came over and didn’t annoy me like she usually does. I was more cordial that usual to her. The mailman was friendly. Even the lawn care guys didn’t bother me. I was on a roll.

My friend stopped by for our weekly twelve step reading and talking. That went well. We were both in god spirits. He left after an hour or so stay then I went back to work on the editing and cropping. It was going well until the internet kept going in and out and I was having problems with my power cord on my computer. Even though it’s a laptop I try and keep it plugged in even if I’m out on the porch. It kept going in and out. I started to get frustrated between the internet and the power cord. I didn’t want to take a break until I finished my project. I was debating on and off going to the Apple store but it’s Saturday and it’s in the mall. I hate malls especially on a Saturday and after working in one for so many years. I thought I got the cord to work and a half an hour later it went out again. Fuck it. I grabbed my laptop, my cords and the box I bought it in and off to the Apple store I went. To the dreaded mall I drove.

The store was crowded as usual but I got service right away. I had to speak to a specialist and he figured out I needed a new cord and replaced free of charge. He also cleaned the almost two years of filth of f of my keyboard and screen for me. I love the Apple store. I love my Macbook.

Luckily there is an entrance and exit right across from the store so I didn’t have to deal with too many people. I walked down the deserted hallway getting a cigarette ready to smoke and then I saw Nancy. Nancy is a cook at the Bistro. The restaurant that fired me. Actually she makes the salads. She was happy to see me and me her. She is a cute chubby Mexican girl in her mid twenties. I always liked her. Her English isn’t the best but she tries real hard and it improved a lot since I first met her.

I asked her if she was happy. She started to cry and tell me how much she hates her job. It gets too busy and she needs help keeping up with the orders. She said the manager yells at her a lot. I felt bad. I hugged her. She looked so lost and confused. I hate to see a woman cry. I almost wanted to cry. I tried to explain to her that I hated my job there too because I didn’t like it when It was busy. She had trouble understanding. I wanted to grab her and take her home with me and take care of her. If I could have I would have.

It was huge reminder of how lucky I am that I am not working there. Even though I have no job, it beats the job I had. Most people hate their jobs but not this much. It was crazy the amount of work and energy I put in when it was busy. I had countless panic and anxiety attacks while trying to keep up with the constant order taking, serving food and cleaning tables while the next party was waiting. Sometimes I’d have four or five parties sit at tables before I had a chance to even think about cleaning them. I thank Nancy for the reminder. I also will pray for her. She was so sad.

My life went on for the day. I went window-shopping at Best Buy for cameras and video cameras. I wasted a lot of the sales girl’s time because the one I wanted wasn’t compatible to a Mac. I left and went to Starbucks. I was still a little anxious and sad.

Once I got home I felt a lot better again. I was back to work on my projects. I kept in mind that my mood will pass and it did. It always does. Sometimes it just takes a little longer than others.

Hopefully, I’ll have a few books published within the next month and then I’ll probably keep moving along. Hmm. I already forgot about Nancy. No I didn’t. I hope she finds happiness too.

Anxiety Came Softly Through My- a WIndow Today

It seems like some days I just have to write off as a shitty day before it even begins. Days like today. In the middle of a decent dream. Nothing too crazy. Nothing too outrageous. I was in a deep sleep to be woken up with orders barked at me. I had to do this. I have to do that. I’m not one of those people that jumps out of bed ready to face the day. That’s why I always try to get up at least an hour earlier that I am supposed to leave or do anything so I get my “quiet time”. I usually take my morning medications then jump into my morning meditations and prayers while wait for my coffee to be made.

I realize that the coffee part of my morning is probably psychological but the meditation and prayers have become a necessity of my day. It centers me. It grounds me to handle whatever the day has in store for me. When I was younger and didn’t pray I slept to the last minute and either grabbed a cup of coffee on my way out the door or bought some on my way to work or school. Since I’ve been starting my days with prayer, I need my quiet time.

It’s funny that I just wrote a blog called “It’s Not About Me”. In the morning it has to be about me in order to begin a contact with my God so I can handle a day of what is to be thrown at me. So I can live my day being “not about me”.

Today it was anxiety from the minute I awoke. It keeps growing and I’m a nervous wreck in the middle of a very long panic attack that seems to keep growing despite my efforts to calm myself. I’m drinking less coffee so far. I’m going to eat. I’ll call someone. I am writing about it. These things seem to help along with my medication. Ugh.

Anxiety is something I developed as I got older. Things used to role off of my back when I was younger but not now. Since I lost my job a month ago the panic attacks lessoned. While I was working I would average at lest three attacks a week mostly while I was at work. I only worked four days a week. Go figure. In the last month I’ve only had about three or four for the month. It’s getting better. It seems that it will never go away. Especially when you are in it. It’s like when you catch a cold or the flu you feel like you are going to feel that way forever. It passes. This will too. I just have to do the things that help me feel better. Eat. Talk to someone. Take my medication. Even writing about it helps a little bit.

I have friends that get these attacks and in the past I never understood what they were going through. In my head I was thinking, “be a man.” Or “toughen up.” Now that I get them I understand and I turn to the people that understand. If I tell my friends that have never experiences it they just don’t get it and try to give me advice or tell me to toughen up etc. It doesn’t work that way. Most times I have a panic attack I have to ride it out and feel the anxiety.

At least I know in my heart that this too shall pass.

I hope.

I am a Slug

A little something I wrote on April 11th 2009.

I am a slug. I move slowly and eat and shit and sleep and for a few hours a week I move slowly through a job I hate so I can afford to eat and shit and sleep. I’m stuck in this prison shell of a body that looks like a man. An over weight, hairy, balding, middle aged, hunch backed, foot dragging man. I wasn’t always like this. A slug. I was once a young man full of energy that did things. I moved and shook like the best of the movers and shakers. Now I can feel my skin loosen and my limbs get weaker as I slide freakishly slow through a day as if one day everything will fall off my body and the transformation will be complete.

I am a slug. I move slowly and eat and shit and sleep. Love, passion, romance, creativity are not for me. Not this slug. Hope is not for this slug. Dreams are not for this slug. This ole slug is already set in his ways. Eat and shit and sleep. Eat and shit and sleep.

Stick to the Ground – A POEM

I wrote this on November 14th 2009. It was a bad week.

I feel the needles pressing my skin. Pressing harder and harder until they penetrate every part of my sexual appetite. I’m hungry and I can’t eat. Broken, poor, jaded yet lucid. I cry for more and I get less. I don’t want more and I get too much. The time it takes to get what I want isn’t worth the sheet of paper I write on. The terrible headaches and body spasms are permanent. I’ve come to believe that I believe in nothing. Pleasure has slipped away and pain is my best friend. The kind of friend that betrays you the minute you turn your back. Crying is useless and laughing is fake.

I spit on the ground and wait and watch and wait and watch and it doesn’t dry up. It stays there like the thoughts and obsessions of a possessed man. No dreams or passion. Only nightmarish obsessions sticking to the ground.

I eat what I see and see what I eat. I barely live on my own mind’s eye. Splintered vision separates me from you. I see only what I want. You see a ravished slave to his desires. I see a man living hand to mouth and ass to mouth. Shit. I hate when life creeps up on me and gives me what I deserve.

Maybe if I hide under a blanket of memories it will feel better. No. I have no memories. They go as fast as I come. Faster.

Women & Me

I’d rather be rejected than not know or be avoided entirely. I don’t even look at like a rejection anymore. It’s more like a “I’m not interested in you in that way” kind of thing. I’ve been in and am on the other side of that a lot and I wish I had the guts to be upfront. How do you tell someone you are not interested? That’s why I ask directly if I can’t tell. I should go with my gut. If I’m not sure and I can’t tell then 99.9 % of the time she isn’t interested in me. Otherwise it can become an unnecessary distracting obsession. Not the specific girl. It’s the question of whether she likes me that can consume me.

I’m too old and in too good of a place in my head lately to waste time obsessing over girls and playing games. Girls. Ha. I mean women. Even though I don’t have a “career” oriented job, hell, I have no job right now, and I don’t have a lot of money I am pretty confidant in who I am on most days. I’m an artist first and foremost and that’s given me problems in the past and it’s also given me great pleasure and self esteem. I am constantly involved in some kind of creative project and it keeps me confident in who and what I am.

So as far as dating goes, I’ve been taking it with a grain of salt. I talk to women that I’m interested in and sometimes vice versa. It either works or it doesn’t and I move on. Hopefully, I make a new friend or in some cases maintain a friendship I already had. This doesn’t hold true all of the time. Sometimes in moments of weakness I may obsess a little here and there but who doesn’t, right? Overall I’m at least trying to enjoy people for who they are and move on from there. It’s been fun and I’ve been growing as a person and an artist.

No Guilt for Fate

Fate. God’s Will. What is meant to be is to be. Call it what you want but I believe things happen for a reason. I believe in this more and more every day. Everything that has happened in my life has lead me to who I am now. For better or for worse depending on the day and my spiritual condition or mood. It’s all about today for me, today.

I don’t have any regrets of my past and what I have done or haven’t done. It is what it is. I try to make the best of each moment and when I’m down I just ride it out and it goes away eventually.

My recent unfair job loss has freed my mind up a bit. For now. I’m in a position to move on creatively and try to improve the quality of life for myself. By losing my “job” I got to thinking about what I really want to do. I’ve known it for a long time now but I want to write. I want to write and make a living off of writing stories, novels and poetry. I might get sidetracked here and there but I know deep in my heart what I want to do. What I’m good at.

Recently (but before I lost my job), I wanted to recreate myself as an artist. I’ve been toning things done a little here and there. I created a new blog page online to help promote me as a writer. I was going ot only post the less offensive writings. I’ve been holding back on my online social networking pages as well because family and people I know casually are on there. You know what? I don’t care anymore. To quote the great Popeye “I am what I am”. I did what I did.

I was worried about future employers googling my name and finding out about the xxx movies I’ve made, the serial killer songs I’ve written, recorded and performed, the sexual or offensive stories I’ve written and the “sick” drawings I’ve done. At one point I was considering deleting everything I could off of the internet. That’s impossible. I did what I did. Some things I’m proud of and some things I’m not but it all contributed to making me who I am today. It’s all part of who I am. People will see it and choose if they like it or not from there.

Anyone that knows me well knows that I am perverted, dark, and weird. They also know that I am a decent person that doesn’t revolve my life around my darkness or perversions. There is another side to me.

It took another loss of a meaningless “job” to open my eyes to see who I am again. To quote Patti Smith “I am an American artist and I have no guilt”.

Today I will either create something perverted, dark, or light and funny. Whatever it is I am on a mission to constantly create no matter what anyone else thinks or says about it. Amen.