CHANCE

I'll tell you what I want. I want a house with a broken stair leading up to the backdoor. I want faucets that need replacing and walls that need to be stripped of moldy wallpaper. I want something I can fix and make better. And I want the time to do it.

my problem, in a nutshell

1. "God I feel fat and disgusting. I have got to lose weight. Jesus, these pants are even tighter this morning. Did I gain weight while sleeping?"

2. "Oh look, a donut."

3. "I'm not going to eat that donut."

4. Eats donut.

5. Repeat steps 1-4.

Or, come to think of it:

1. "I dislike [bad behavior], dislike myself for doing [bad behavior] and want to stop doing [bad behavior]."

2. Opportunity to [do bad behavior].

3. Decision to not [do bad behavior].

4. I do [bad behavior].

5. Repeat steps 1-4.

tuesday

It's cooler here, now. Left the air conditioner's fan on here in the office these past couple of days, mainly because the knob fell off, but today it actually felt cold and I had to search for the knob to stop the air blowing on me as I sat at the computer.
Nothing I intended to write about here today, other than the weather. I much prefer any cold to the heat of summer. I feel much more comfortable and less stressed.
Tired this morning. Not one of Ella's best sleeping efforts last night. She got her latest round of shots yesterday, which probably has something to do with that.
This room is full of clutter. I wish I could throw everything out and start over. I could. I can, at least, with my own messes. The real problem is that it's not just mine any more. Amy's things are in here too and I'm not good with the subtle negotiations of property. I'd just as soon as trash everything as find a new place for it. Simple. Clean.
That is the one thing that was good about the separation and divorce — I got rid of everything and started over fresh. How to capture some of that feeling while being in a permanent relationship is a good question: how do you continue to change and redefine yourself to yourself when there's someone around who knows you so well? Hard to jettison that piece of you that you no longer want and say "I am no longer that. I am now this." when there's someone to remind you that you never remember to use the recycling garbage for paper and plastic items and who hears your farts at night.
I want to draw an imaginary line and say "Okay, from here on I will be different. I will think less and do more."
Done.
Now what?

ella

Ella is asleep. The last time I checked on her she still had her head turned to the left, her right arm slight up and resting against the wall of the cosleeper. When I put her down I put her too far to the left wall and now I'm concerned because her arm is up and what if she doesn't move it? Or what if she does and it wakes her up, etc.

I haven't written about Ella in here yet because, well, aside from the fact that I haven't been writing in here until lately, I've been afraid to because I didn't have anything good to say. Not about Ella — she's awesome — but about the way that I interact with her. This is not all the time, mind you, but there are times when I swear at her ("go to fucking sleeeeep, Ella") and I have put her down perhaps slightly roughly and then gone into another room and screamed). She'd be a real good teacher of patience, if I was willing to learn.

I try. I swear that I try. But there are times when I'm too exhausted or want too much for her to go to sleep, or just am not willing to put up with what I consider her fickleness — and then I lose it.

Amy doesn't like it. I don't like it. I'm not sure what there is for me to do, other than try and try harder. I come back, always, to something my therapist said years ago after I went on one of my typical long, rambling stories: "expectations, expectations, expectations." If I could release myself from the burden of expecting things and wanting them I swear I would be half-way to self-fulfillment. (Oh the irony: fulfillment through emptiness. My erstwhile buddhist teacher would love that.)

There's no point to all of this except to put into words something that I feel humbled by and makes me question my ability to be a father or to interact with other sapient beings.

Right now I am enjoying the time alone while Amy is away at a private client. I have forced myself to turn off the tv — no shows or games. And I am going to read a little bit, and think a little bit, and contemplate my return to writing which I feel is right around there corner... oh wait, is that it now? Oh. No. That was something else. But it's coming.

cranky dave

A comment on my favorite discussion website MetaFilter.com:

'One of our major problems in this country is that most intelligent people have an overdeveloped sense of "fair play", which dullards and ideologues constantly take advantage of. We waste far too much time on fools. Rather than writing them off, we scramble to accommodate their idiocy and provide them with a platform to perpetuate it. If someone injects a full-goose crazy idea into a discussion, the tendency is NOT to dismiss it as "full-goose crazy" -- but to seek a middle ground. All in the name of "everyone is entitled to their opinion". That's nonsense, of course. As Harlan Ellison countered: "No! You're not entitled to your own opinion. You're entitled to your own INFORMED opinion."'

In response to this.

WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO LOSE

1: What have you got to lose?
2: You're kidding, right?
1: No.
2: Jumping into a river from like a hundred feet above and what do I have to lose? How about my life?
1: Don't be so melodramatic. It's like — fifty feet.
2: Oh, I'm sorry if I take my life too seriously.
1: You're not going to get hurt.
2: You don't know that.
1: Alright, I promise you you're not going to get hurt.
2: That doesn't make it better! You've never seen this river before! You've never been here.
1: I don't know that.
2: You have never --
1: We're lost. I could have been here before but just don't remember.
2: Give me a fucking break.
1: It's the quickest way down. We're lost. It's getting dark.
2: It's one thirty.
1: It's hot. We're going to get dehydrated.
2: That doesn't mean we have to jump into a river.
1: I think we need to be down there. This could save us a lot of time. I don't see any other way down.
2: Being down there with two broken legs, cracked ribs and a probable concussion isn't going to help.
1: You're so negative.
2: Right. Great. Fuck you.
1: What?
2: This isn't about this.
1: What is this about?
2: I really don't think you're in a position to attack me for being cautious.
1: I don't know what you're talking about.
2: Fine. Whatever. But you are just as much to blame for what happened with dad as I am.
1: Everything is — everything for you, isn't it? Could you just shut down the ego for a minute, and deal with the problem —
2: Right.
1: — at hand?
2: Let's go. Let's go. We're walking. Let's go.
1: What if I jump?
2: Don't.
1: What if I jump and I'm fine? Will you jump?
2: No.
1: Really?
2: Don't do it.
1: Someone's got to.
2: You jump and get seriously hurt then I have to take care of you. Just like —
1: Like what?
2: Let's go.
1: I'm not going to get hurt.
2: Right.
1: This is what I mean about being negative.
2: Do you know what is generally on the bottom of mountain rivers? Large fucking rocks.
1: It looks slow. That means it's deep, doesn't it?
2: Don't. Seriously man, I mean it. Fucking don't — DON'T! ASSHOLE!
[1 has jumped. pause]
2: Are you alright?
[pause]
2: Jesus. Thank god. [shouting off:] Yeahyeahyeah, you're a fucking genius!
[beat. paces]
2: You'll be fine. It's deep. It's totally deep. He was right. Shit. He was right. He was fucking right. That asshole. Shit. Shit. Shit. This is all his fucking fault in the first place. The only reason we're out here is his stupid fucking motherfucking ASSHOLE! SHIT!
[beat. he runs off and jumps]

arms around the world

Thinking about what has changed for me, in me over the past several years. I feel like I crashed down to earth about three years ago, suddenly aware of my limitations in ability to handle difficult situations and people. I froze at the opportunities I had and my sudden dawning awareness that I wasn't as great a writer as I'd thought I was. Nowadays I look back at things I was thinking and writing and wonder where the hell I got the hubris to write what and as much as I did. Nowadays I try to think about a large project and it feels impossibly daunting. I try to break things down to chewable pieces, but the whole of it looms above me, weighing me down, as does the past. I carry every minor failure, every obscure fear, every possible thing that has gone or could go wrong with me into the present moment. As if every action needed to apologize for or make up for my history of broken promises or un-lived-up-to potential. I need to learn to sidestep. Let that weight come crashing down to the ground and leave it in a crater of its own making. I can come by and observe it from time to time. Maybe mark its destruction on the calendar and tilt a glass to it every year. I need to move on with my life.

read me

Read Me.

books

The thing about a book is that it makes me feel like I'm doing something. If it's non-fiction, I'm "learning something" even though my retention is horrible and any boost I get in understanding of the subject I'm reading about fades to a vague mush pretty quickly. Fiction gives me the feeling of forward momentum as I follow the plot to the conclusion, as I count down the pages toward the end. I swallow books the way I eat my food — greedily and with hopes that it will fill me up in a way that is more than physical. I am living my life on hold these days; getting done what I can get done, trying to keep a lid on the constant fear and stress that comes with keep a little three-and-a-half-month-old alive and happy while toying with the idea of some kind of fulfillment outside of day-to-day need completion. I do not claim to be unique or special in this. Every parent must go through this. I am just blowing off steam, trying to find a way forward that isn't just thoughts in my head; trying to move toward action. 

CORY

The problem, as I see it? Is other people. Hard enough to figure out what the hell you're doing with your life by yourself but you get yourself attached to someone — some girlfriend or somesuch — and then the next thing you know you got to think about them all the time and you can't just be, you know? You wake up one morning and all of a sudden you can't just go down and shoot some hoops or — what? — just fuckin' sitting around beating off to porn. Yeah, you're laughing but you know it's true — I see the way you look at Trudy, looking for, uh, approval or permission. Probably the same way you look at her when you want to get some. [laughs] Admit it, buddy, you are fucking bought and paid for. You can run as fast as you can as far as you can but you've got Trudy and Tricia — don't get me wrong, Trish is a fucking angel and I would give my life for her and I'm just some guy she hardly remembers — but the point is, what I'm saying is that you are settled, amigo and you aren't your own man no more. You are part and parcel of this group and it affects your brain. You tell me you feel like you have two seconds to rub a couple brain cells together to think about something other than what you got to do for them. You tell me that you don't wonder if you missed your chance. You tell me that and then tell me you don't want to do this thing with me.

MITCHELL

I felt like I was contracting. You ever feel like that? You can see your world shrinking around you — you're taking up less space. You see fewer people. You know fewer people. You run into people you used to know, people you used to stay up into the small hours talking passionately with dramatic hand gestures and empty pint glasses on the bar in front of you. But somewhere along the line you made one decision that — I don't know — that took you a step away. Maybe you needed a break. Maybe the life you created — maybe you needed to rest. Maybe you got afraid. And then a couple years drag by and you're still — disengaged. A few people call. You still get invited to places, to see  things. They ask what you're doing. You have to find creative ways to say "nothing." But then — it's like a map of the city that's your world and all the people you know, all the places you go, are colored on top of this black street map. And, as goes on the color fades and you realize that nobody notices this but you. You always thought you were important to people; that if you were gone people would notice and that maybe things wouldn't be as good, somehow. But the world just keeps going on and you don't really matter. And then you don't really care that much. You convince yourself that the small life is one you can be happy living. Your — drive, passion, whatever — your energy to — do — anything is fading and dissipating. That's a good word for it: dissipating. It sounds like a hiss — like a slow leak. Then, one day, you realize how deflated you are. You realize the battles you've fought are all in your head and that there's no reason to go on with them. All the things that stop you from — all the things that make you small — maybe you could set them aside. Maybe. And then... what?