I feel like the highs in the last years have been equal to the lows. This universe is a double edged knife I feel like I am dancing around it. As I sit here I look back through my day thinking about how little I have actually accomplished. In a few minutes Chantha will call me and I’ll smile and go to be missing him again.
He is sleeping at his house tonight, but we spent the whole weekend together. I also spent a lot of time thinking about all kinds of stuff. It was important because it was time away from the computer and out of any routine.
Fuck… this is a world I just can’t keep track with.
I am looking at the end of the $$ that has been coming in and I need to find some source of income. What do I do in days when there is no more.
My whole life is being dumped on its side and the only things I want to hold on to I can’t seem to do at the same time. I miss Tom the Dog so much. He’s with grandma right now and I know it is a place he is happy at…. but I know he misses me too.
I let the puppy down and I let my mom down. I let people and animals down all the time it seems. Meh, sounds like a bad Korean soap opera.
Bottom line it is hard and I have no one to blame but myself. Seems like the fuse is lit and the next two weeks is the length of the fuse.
Category Archives: Things that haunt me
Aftermath
I have been at my moms since Tuesday and since becoming officially homeless in San Francisco. Nothing is carved in stone and life has to be a little fluid right now while I figure out exactly what is going to happen with me going forward.
My plan is to head back to San Fran on Saturday so I can return the rental car on Sunday and then make it to an interview on Tuesday for a job that might be really cool, but the problem is that it is not paying well. BUT! It is where I want to be right now and hope I don;t get over looked because of my age once again.
Why go back to San Francisco? It is hard living there. Everything is expensive and there is little actual sympathy from one human to another. People care more for strangers than … well, I can’t finish that statement. Between #Occupy people taking over apartment building for homeless people I stand around kind of stunned.
Why? Well, I see so so so many homeless people around the city and they all need. Some are completely out of their heads. I worry I will end up like them. Back to the point… they need money, food, housing… all of the things I need too. I am just lucky enough to be just above the line where I am in their shoes.
I would help them if I could. I sometimes feel I can’t help myself. That, or I just cannot get any traction.
In the way to my moms place I had a couple small break-downs. Not full mental melt-downs or anything like that, just a spiritual one way shouting match with God and this dumb-ass guardian angel that may or may not be around me for the fucked up support I have had. I did a lot of shouting up there and expressed my frustration.
There is this non-stop crapping on my head lately.
Poor me… yeah I know and I am not oblivious to the ways of self-reliance in the world. See the world through my eyes and understand that life has provided a lot of interesting emerging paths. Doors opened almost the moment when windows closed and visa versa; I felt charmed for a long time. What happens then one goes to that bank one too many times? Coins of chance turned in my favor more times than I could count and all of a sudden I started crapping out… a lot.
Maybe there are still some invisible chances coming my way or window yet unexplored? Always the optimist.
…but in this latest fall I might actually be starting to lose faith for the first time ever. I am now to the point where it does not matter of the glass is half full or half empty. I pushed it over and smashed the glass.
p.s. – my original plan with going back Saturday is not looking so good right now.
Stressed Out / Fried Out
Days are ticking down to the point where I have to move out of my current situation and need to find a new one. The main reason for the shift was to get away from my current housemate, Mark. In that effort I led myself right off a cliff so far.
One of my biggest fears is to end up homeless. Technically I am ending up that way as of next week. I made an offer on one place… she wanted much for rent and the room was 1/3 of the room I am in now. A twin bed barely fits in it. So she has not accepted or declined. It’s in a pretty decent area but certainly nothing I would scream over.
Alas nothing else has prevailed. I am looking for work at the same time and doing both has me freaking exhausted. The last two days I have been running around checking out places and doing interviews. I came home both days exhausted.
I am supposed to be, right? If I don’t work for it what will it all mean? Well, this is a huge test.
I do not want to leave San Francisco. I have people here I really like. I am dating a guy who is pretty awesome, still. I have a life I like and I do not want to lose it. If I have to go I will do so sadly. I crashed and burned again…
Memories Love Lost
Today I had some thoughts left over from yesterday. Well, after a restless night last night I woke up feeling kinda crappy. Once in a while I have dreams through the night that only set me up full of anxiety when I rise and this was one of those days.
A dream I had … what I remember of it … I made dinner for people that included what I recall was a pot roast with brown gravy and root vegetables. I added bourbon to the gravy and it made this woman (who looked like Fifine Brightman) and the other guests so excited. For some reason I remember all the guests being black people.
I digress here as last night I was working on my Sun Guardians site and noticed this guy Joel Wang was someone I thought was so sweet and wonderful. I never met him except through Facebook; but one night at a Comfort and Joy party called Afterglow I finally got to meet him. Well, every day on Facebook I see us tethered in some way through a mutual connection or even a Poke I never got rid of. He died, for me which was suddenly, not very long ago. Maybe it’s been a month maybe more.
Last night I just passed through his profile looking at pictures and remembering the wonderful things he said to me over the last…. I don’t know how long.
Furthermore, it got me thinking about how many people I have lost so far in life. Almost all due to HIV/AIDS and this includes 2 people I was very much in love with. Ron Herrera was my BF in 1992ish and we were together a while but I broke it off for stupid reasons… then he met this guy named Peter and next thing I knew they were both dead.
As for the second person, he is still alive, but I lost him long before the diagnosis. When his mom died he turned to stone a bit and my flakiness did not help the situation much. Yeah I was a douche. I openly admit it.
Yet the list goes on and on. Almost every friend of mine who became HIV+ became this mean, self-involved, self-loathing, angry person and basically shoved people away who wanted to care and be supportive – loving – and helpful. This includes the douche I live with… talk about universal payback.
I sat downstairs this morning and all I could do was cry at what I appreciated from Joel. I felt overwhelming grief for those two men whom I loved unlike any other and probably like anyone in the future. These were all funerals I never got to attend. I get to grieve only in my heart.
In loving memory:
- Ron Herrera
- Irwin Bajadas
- Scott Foster
- Taylor
- Eloy
- Joel Wang
Just the names I think about a lot… for some they passed so long ago. It never feels good.
VLOG: Thoughts
There is a point just after 7 mins where it gets a little long… the transition before the out take should be FF…
back from where…
I have not written anything here since coming back from Burning Man probably because I really have not completely landed. When I try putting the puzzle pieces together I am finding they did not really fit.
When I sit here looking at the screen determined to write something there are too many things trying to get out at the same time. I will, for your information, be writing more on my burner blog talking about my actual experience out there but these pages are for me. My burner blog is on this site too here.
Anyway, this may sound cliche, but I am back and changed down to my soul. There is this vein of anger I am missing and left somewhere and the way the universe works I pity the soul that may have taken that energy into him, her or other. Not trippin’ either. When you read the burner blog maybe you will understand… if you do.
I did come back determined to put a foundation under my feet. There was an unexpected upheaval in that plan when my wallet was left in Reno. It basically forced me to put life on pause a moment longer and make some evaluations. In that I updated my portfolio site called StudioSK. I don’t want that any more… I am sick of technology and am burnt out on it.
The burning desire to be creative and put my art out there kinda got a kick in the groin too. My art piece Final Passage was a ship wreck. All the work and all the energy I put into the piece itself was a total failure. I did take away the journey as the win in this case, because the people I was able to work around and I hope I learned something. In fact an idea for my next art piece can be very exciting.
One big issue is the problems I have had with my birth father. This is a demon that haunted me a long time and 2 years of therapy only took me so far. The anger that was inside of me and the pain of struggling with the life of being with him in my formative years was more damaging than I ever imagined.
Without sounding crazy, which some people think I am anyway, a woman named Gigi and a man named Coop helped me strip something out of me that left me softer. It left me more fluid. It took away a lot of anger.
No. My sails are unfurled and I feel like I am in the sea. I root out the people who cause pain and I refuse to acknowledge their attempt to pull me down. I look into your projection of pain and your false empathy and let it roll right past me. I am like the wind and you are the trees and I will become water and you will be the rocks.
I am rediscovering my spirit and I will not let you take that away from me. Let me tell you your spirit is important too. When you try to steal mine you are losing a bit of yours.
1964
I have shared a lot on this thing. This is my personal journal. I have also sorta faded from posting as often as I have because it feels like writing here results in more negative drama than I would like. I am trying to focus more on positive things.
Right now my stress levels (as mentioned multiple times already) are through the roof! I need to find a job. I need to find grounding. I need to find myself again because I have tried wearing so many hats that none of them fit anymore. Going to school for 2 careers only led to confusion. Trying to please other people has led to disaster. Looking for greener grass has led to anxiety. Past regrets and mistakes have become this creature always at my back scratching me and cutting me.
I’ve known I had a problem with anxiety that went back to 1996. I can almost give you the date when something inside of me cracked and the fissure kept growing for a long time. I had a lot of things to help me hold it together, mostly my optimistic youth and a lot of friends I loved and counted on. But something happen when those things broke too.
My interpersonal relationships are hard to maintain and I feel like my connections to people are lost in something related to this feeling of Chaos I bring with me all the time. It is this perception that I somehow instinctively see the cracks in people and examine them to death and sometimes bring it to the attention of that person thus bringing that chaos into their world.
In 2009 I lost a good job to this issue and I went to see a doctor eventually and was given a medication to help with it. It has been a great equalizer and over time the medication has evolved but the anxiety has too. It has become much worse and came with depression that occasionally put me in a hole from time to time.
I am dealing with this mental illness and I have never said anything about it before in the blogs posted here. It is anxiety and depression and I am dealing with it. It has made some of the irrational decisions I have made, bad choices, and kept me from finding comfort in my own skin. My weight issues have been holding me back and my age are all feeling like bricks on my shoulders.
No one is out there who can help me and I try to help myself. That whole Burning Man principle Radical Self Reliance has been my credo and I refuse to need anyone to exist. I rely on someone and I can bet that person will let me down anyway.
I am writing this posting to talk about this subject here for the first time. It was years ago someone told me they were impressed with how much I put out there and how honest I am. I have been lying to anyone except family who has been reading this because you don’t know what is going on.
- I suffer from severe anxiety; to the point where it is literally debilitating and cause me to freeze up, lock down and shut off more than panic attacks. I have been in treatment with a doctor for more than a year and a half.
- I suffer from severe depression where I sometimes drop into a hole and can’t see out.
- I take a mild medication to keep it under control; Wellbutrin and Clonapan.
When someone recently made a lot of angry posts publicly claiming I was mentally ill it hurt pretty deep. There was truth in it, but this is a world where using those words is a condemning as telling someone you are a felon or a child molester. There is this shroud that because you have issues that you have chosen to deal with that it is your fault.
I am a good guy. I have a good heart. I have courage and I have character. I am brave and I believe in justice. Your baggage cannot be my baggage and visa versa.
Friends
After my last posting I got calls from my mom and sis-Christine trying to find out if I was ready to drive off a bridge somewhere. I love their concern, but no one should take anything I write too seriously. I think I mentioned that a few times before.
In the last blog I just felt like there were some things I would have to say to some of the more stable people in my life or were in my life. My ex’s, dead or alive, will never understand the emotional investment I really had in them. It’s the same with some of my friends which is making this move to San Francisco troubling on some level.
- Gene aka Bam Bam called me today because he only just heard I was moving. He’s such an amazing guy and the woman he is with is also an amazing woman.
- John was my best friend for almost 4 years but turned into a douche bag not only to me but to everyone we knew. Not sure what happen there, maybe he is writing his own chapter.
- Freddy is my newest shining light and I just really met him. He and his boyfriend have become good friends and I worry a little about Freddy.
There are so many people I met here and really loved a lot. It is probably more than anywhere I lived before, but I sincerely have to relate that to the Burning Man community connections I made here.
When I left L.A. / Long Beach I left some people behind on that level, too. We stay in touch, but nothing like when it was more geographically preferred. But the thing is, that people like Kaidy, Jeff and Ed are still in my heart though we either don’t talk or barely.
So, there is one thing missing from most people I would call a friend and that is I don’t think most would help me in a pinch. It seems like most “friends” have a universe that ends 2″ past the end of their noses. NOT ALL are like that, but I seem to invite people in my life that are pretty self involved.
Now, I am certainly to blame. I am selfish myself. I want my own time to write and make things and just chill. I am not high maintenance, but at the same time I want a companion pretty bad. Maybe just a friend, better if it were more.
I have been going through a lot of changes in the last couple years and will bring a new outlook to San Francisco.
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.
-the above was posted on Facebook today by a wise man
In My Head
I am feeling very reflective lately and without any doubt it is all about the coming changes coming into my life. I made the leap from the plane to say ‘I am moving to San Francisco’. I made a choice for change and I am falling out of through the sky headed for earth with my fists clenched and teeth gritting together….
At some point the parachute is going to open… right? At some point fate and life is going to shift speeds and I am going to land and be able to walk on a new path and start making a new life.
I have to be able to to walk and keep walking because I am at middle age. I have to look to the future and say – ‘hey, you have no retirement and no pillow if the world falls out from under you’. There is no one who is looking out for me or can rescue me will have my back.
When I think about those people I CHOSE to have in my life I have chosen to be involved with people who would never help me. That is until I met many of the Burners I have met. In the default world one of two things have happened:
- People in the world I have called friends (the kind of friend you think always had your back) have about 90% of the time stabbed me in the back and tried to destroy me…
- Or ask for help and see their hand jut out looking for something in return…
More people and family have failed me than I can really stomach.
I have failed a lot of people in life myself and at some point realized it. The problem with having an epiphany like that is that there is no going back. There is no building that bridge again because it means trust has been destroyed.
I do think I am different in this area though and in rare cases hold real grudges. I can think of some people who I felt really betrayed by and if they sat down with me and had a good conversation I would open up to them really quickly.
That’s neither a fault or a blessing, as it were, neither being conducive to ruminating on the past or carrying that baggage any further into the future.
The one relationship I will never be able to recover that I regretted fucking up more than any other is the one with my sister. Her and I have not got along well our entire lives. There is a ton of baggage on that and inside me from it. This does not include my step-siblings whom I feel close to.
If I died tonight I would ask this site be kept alive as long as possible and people get to know me. I do want my story told, but somehow I would think I would have to be the one who wrote it. There are some features in that story that would make a lot of jaws drop open and… most guarantee that the people who think I am nuts… would be sure I was nuts.
I have a lits of people I would apologize to and ask for forgiveness to:
- Mom: I wish I was a better son and I wish I never went to you to borrow money and failed to pay you back. You probably should have told me “no”, but I know you love and cared for me more than anyone. I know you did more for me as a kid and as an adult than anyone.
- Bob: You were at times more of a dad to me than my own father because you were open with me, you set boundaries, and you proved you can be vulnerable. I see the relationship with your biological children and see it very different than they. I feel lucky to see you as I have. I respect what they perceive.
- Lynn: There are no words to tell you that from the beginning that I would imagine what future we had and did not have. I was a horrible brother and I got so caught up in the wrong things. I still get lost in them, but finally I am seeing that I have made a lot of stupid and selfish choices.
- Jack: I want nothing to be like you. If I open my mouth and hear your voice come out I actually shake. We were father and son for most of the first decade of my life, but when you decided to make our lives an accessory to yours you found out you could detach and divorce what anyone else cared about. You have no idea how many mean and evil things you said to me since in I was a little kid. You have no idea how much you screwed me. You think when I divorced you that it was about money but it was an epiphany that I was not the fat, stupid, worthless, not worthy of your name kid you abused the shit out of in his teens. And the shadow you kept casting over me in adulthood had to be turned off.
- Christine, Jennifer and Sean: It was good growing up with you. You are like my own blood, but Jennifer these days I barely know you.
- Rob, Mona and Tracey: I like you very much and I wish we had more connections.
- Ron: My first true love and soul mate – I still think of you and regret that I lost you. When you died I was left with a big weight on my heart that never went away.
- Adolfo: The last man I can imagine ever loving as much as I did and a soul mate that gave me this awkward balance I wanted to keep so badly. Then it all went horribly wrong and it was my fault. Then we tried something for a moment and it broke like a crystal ornament falling to the ground. I wish you peace and love in your heart.
I suppose I would think of more one day. But these are the people that dominate my mind and my therapy. The biggest demon of that time has been the issues I had with my father and that is a mountain unto itself.
I regret that my heart has been seemingly made of green grass and I have been out and out cruel to so many people around me. I am sorry I have been so impatient to so many. It bothers me I can look into someone’s eyes and see an empty void. It is hard to see through people who are so disingenuous and actually lie so easily.
There has been a lot said here tonight and a lot laid out that no one will care about and no one will appreciate for the right reasons.
If this was a suicide note I might have expanded a little more, but suicide is something I could never do. I have wished for death and prayed for a swift end… even often wishing I would never wake up in the end. In some ironic metaphysical bitch-slap our dear God has managed to keep me healthy and strong as a cosmic ‘kiss my ass‘.
These Times
…they are a changing. So… I think in recent months (years) my direction on this blog has been to bitch about something. More like vent about something bugging the shit out of me.
Whatever… I am stressing about a lot of things and principle among them is that I am about to be out of money. Work is not coming in fast enough, but I am hoping for a miracle.
Alas, next week I am going to San Francisco for a few days to participate in another Burning Man thing. It is a leadership summit which I can benefit from in life as much as the things I do with Burning Man. It is relevant that I am seriously questioning my ability to continue with Burning Man at all.
I ask myself… where am I going? I am fearing where I will end up. Is Burning Man a vehicle for me or is it the path to my own demise; not Burning Man itself! Burning Man has opened up something inside of me like a window on my heart, but it’s still an empty window.
I can put flowers on the sill, maybe a fresh baked pie, but really it is all set decoration.
On this road I have planted seeds and raised flags. I have shaken hands but some home I managed to burn a lot of bridges. My karma points board is looking very sketchy and I look up… I look to the horizon… I find tears in my eyes and a hand to my heart. That hand looks for a pulse and the eyes cling to hope.
Plan A: Find a job now and start working full time and do everything I can to make it made….
Plan B: Keep trying to the end and if I fail be prepared to deal with the consequences without putting my weight on anyone else.
Plan C: (pending)