Out tonight with JT and G3, to the brauhaus with a aging German band playing Elvis covers, of course it was hard not to think of G1 when I first met her and a Montero with a bumper sticker that cried out "recognize me." This city has swallowed me up this weekend, like telling me of what I have been missing in a city all of my life. It has not been too hot, or cold, or anything. It is just a city, and of the best variety.
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| Porch view (click photo to enlarge) |
Sitting in the Atlanta airport awaiting a flight to Chicago where I will have a date with destiny and the course of my whole life could change - for better or worse I do not know. Getting here was an adventure. It involved a skittish emphysemic cab driver named Gerald Cody, who seemed like a really nice guy, but couldn't help from going over the lane separator lines and quickly jerking the Atlanta Lenox Ford back into the correct lane. Upon dropping me off at the airport, he told me to have fun at the party in Chicago, and to try not to burn the city down. I didn't tell him of any party - I guess I did tell him about Chicago, but I do not remember - so I guessed he was referring to the White Sox win in the World Series last night. I told him I would put out any fires that I saw.
It's nearing 2 AM and game 3 of the World Series is still on the TV. I am still awake watching and trying to get all of my financial information entered into a budgeting and accounting program so taxes and keeping track of expenses will be easier. If you really know me, this doesn't sound like me at all. With the medication making it so I require less sleep, and the wagon making it so I have extra sober time on my hands, and because I need things to do to keep my mind off the obvious situational difficulties i am having, I do things like getting on top of my finances. I also keep my fingernails pruned and I am reading no less than 5 books concurrently right now.
I thought I was doing alright coming home this afternoon. I've had a day that was pretty good, not too much depression or melancholy, managed to really throw myself into some work that needed to be done. Was looking forward to having a willing night at home alone until I arrived at home, and coming along the sidewalk by the side of the house, I remembered that the area where the azaleas now sit empty, was where earlier in the late spring or early summer we had weeded together when we got back from dinner. We were quiet and intent, only talking to figure out how to dispose of the refuse. G was so happy out there just pulling those weeds with ugly stalks a pretty, but tiny, flowers on them. It seemed the more that we pulled the more there was.
Out this morning
the malignant gardener
moves the bin to the curb
and straightens his shirt.
Later he will do a little
pruning of this and snipping
of that until it is right
or he is tired.
I sit in the Florida room
putting out a cigarette in
an ashtray that cannot let
one in without letting one out.
The gardener will later turn
into a bird. It will not
be many days now, as they are
turning cold enough to crack bones.
I will later turn into a bird as well,
an autumn bird, and will migrate,
this nest left behind, and flight
and warmth and motion will become home.
It's been restless
being man lately.
The pleasures of the bird
have appeal.
Success, then, is that when you are
gingerly nudged from that nest, like the
cigarettes in the ashtray, your
wings will work before you hit the ground.
On the other hand, we must
continue to feel failure
in our hearts, even as all the
world lays its garlands on us.
What does the bird know
that we don't? Or the gardener
when he turns into that sparrow?
What does he then know?
What can that cigarette butt there
teach us? Or the end of
these days? Or ours? And, where
will we winter this year, or next?
To be a bird, maybe,
get to the end of it all,
a good son, a good friend,
a good husband, and father,
And nothing more.
Ah, day 40. The amount of time it took for a full inundation, and I had an inundated weekend. You would have thought my eyes were the cause of the flood. I couldn't seem to keep it together. I fell apart at every juncture. I guess that is always the danger when you feel you have gotten stronger. J says just mark it up as a bad day, or a weekend in this case.
It's all gonna be alright,
breathe fucker, breathe!
Ooooohhhhm!
It's all gonna be alright.
I am a bird and there is
no land and no nothing,
and I will fly on knowing
it's all gonna be alright,
and on and on.
Up too late again. This is how it goes these days. After the break up I could not wait to get to sleep. I would sleep anywhere at any time if given 5 minutes just to relax. Now, I have not had but about 8 hours of sleep over the last two nights. I have been feeling mostly good until today. I spent much of it by myself. I went tonight to a movie and music festival by myself, but it only stood to remind me of how alone and lonely I have been all day. I have gotten used to weekdays, but I have far fewer Saturdays - many of them spent other places - and it takes some getting used to when you awake alone and realize that the rest of the day will be much like that. I don't know. I want some sort of relief and I cannot figure out how to get it. And all of this after having a great day yesterday. I was strong, forward-looking and hopeful. I don't know where it all went today. Listening to sad songs and reading way to much good, but sad, poetry probably doesn't help the cause much. I think the medication is part of the late nights. I want to fall asleep right now and sleep a very long time. Maybe the morning will bring a new reason. We'll see.
It was on that last night,
before I took you out to the truck,
and before mother's litany
of photos from the Northeast,
and before the phone call,
that phone call,
later the next day,
and even before the final foot rub
for my parents, and all the world,
to see, as we sat on that
love seat, and I believed
that being there may indeed
make the love possible -
you and I were in the bedroom
one last time (why
were we there?) and
I asked would you sleep
here with me again before
I have to leave this place and
you said, "yes," and I fell for it, and
later we kissed and said goodbye
for the final time out by your truck,
and that too was before
I knew what the next day would bring,
and now I sit here in this bed, and
I haven't washed the sheets or made
the bed since then, and it stays wrinkled
and in the space where my body usually lays
there's an indentation, and where yours laid
there is a chalk outline
surrounding a lone pillow,
and where my heart lies,
restless most nights,
there's a chalk outline
around it too.
Esteemed friend, steward of Pembroke College, and occasional bullpencatcher author, Robert Wilson, of Ferry Road, Oxford, UK, is having a birthday today. Hip hip hurray. For he's a jolly good fellow, please write him a message here or at his email address and wish him the best. If you get to see him today, you are lucky, and you should buy him a drink with top-shelf gin in it.
Happy Birthday, Robert!
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| click head to enlarge |
I thought of posting a full body nude photograph of myself here as well, so y'all could see how much weight I have lost (28 pounds since the beginning of August, or roughly 1/8 my previous body weight), but realizing I plan to keep the weight off until I see all of you, I decided to spare you and me the embarassment. Besides, the company that hosts bullpencatcher will not host pornography, even though I assure you, despite the facial hair, this would not be pornographic or titillating in the least.
I know that some of you think that I should be over this by now, and I guess I think it at times too, but I am still struggling with the breakup. G was the one, so I thought and still do to a certain extent, and it is just so hard to get over that.
The days are going on and our relationship now has become mostly electronically epistolary. It is frustrating at times to have to wait for a response to an email, to not be able to just call her up - even more, not to be able to see her. It is odd that one of the people that you love most in the world, and that you think the highest of, is also a person that you cannot just pick up the phone and call. I guess that's what most people feel when standing on my side of a breakup - a little bit helpless, a little bit crestfallen, and a little bit confused.
Awh, babe! Where are you? I know you are there, I felt it tonight. See, it has turned cold out - a little nip in the air tonight - the first of the season, and I am coming back to this house, and this bed and the AC is finally not working overtime, and I have to keep socks on as I walk around on these wooden floors. Out tonight, late, I went to retrieve T on his return from gambling wonderland, he did not win. From the airport and to the Winchester and a sandwich and then delivered him to the highrise and all of that. I didn't even mention you one time to him tonight. Nothing about where my heart is, or if it is hurting, healing or just hanging on. Just a sandwich too late for proper sleep and rest, and then home. And during the getting back part it takes me by that place where you are, and I feel it, up the steps with lights out and two hours into slumber and I feel my heart adhere lock-step to the beating of yours, and I feel warm, and the bed seems less lonely, and I know that this cold winter may be a little easier to get through, now that I have found you.
Oh, it's Friday and I greet these weekends with relief and apprehension. They definitely have not gotten back to being the relaxing time they once were, although they slowly move in that direction. I left work early for a 1 PM therapy session only to wait in the waiting area until 1:25, then to find out that my therapist was not in. I knocked on the door and there was no answer. I checked voicemail, but nothing from him. I imagine he either had an emergency, or he simply forgot. I left a message and hope to hear the reason soon.
Shannon and her friend Christa are starting an ad hoc creative writing class and they asked that I join. I said okay and this week's assignment was to write something about grocery shopping. Here's mine.
I am standing in the A&P parking lot, trying to drink this six pack of Old Milwaukee tallboys as quickly as I can, so I can get back home before she expects anything. I bought a roll of Certs and a roll of Rolaids to handle the inevitable problems of breath from the booze and heartburn from bad living. I was just sitting at the house, and a half hour or so ago she says to me that she is out of tampons, and that her period will be starting soon, although by my calculations it shouldn’t be here until next week. She also said it would be nice to have some milk for the coffee in the morning and maybe some cereal to go with the coffee and milk. And don’t forget the tampons. OB, the kind without the applicator because she cares so much about the environment.
The things they didn't tell you when you checked into this world... it was all printed in a booklet given to your mother just after you had descended the birth canal and she was in no state to be the keeper. It was written in type way too tiny for little baby eyes to read anyway. They intentionally keep this information from you, and you eventually learn the hard way. There will be no repairs, refunds or exchanges for certain types of damage caused by misuse, or any of these other scenarios:
Sitting in this room that I have known for years, yet now looks nothing like the one in which I put you to bed those nights. Kissing you on the cheek. Then I wanted to go to sleep, as I did just after the sky fell and I started my medication. Those nights when slumber came so easy knowing that you were still there, in there, waiting for me. We would awake in the morning, and like the night before go out on the porch, and it would be cold, and we would smoke cigarettes and the cold would work up through our feet to our head and it would be like drinking a milkshake too quickly before we became mutually lactose intolerant. I haven't figured out the pill for that. Or were we just intolerant, and irritable, and the pharmaceutical companies haven't yet made a cure for those things.
I guess this is the way it is. Funny thing memory. Funny how it works. Or the cosmos. Oh them? Are they conspiring again? A man's book across from me upon closer examination is Marathon: You Can Do It by Jeff Galloway. A word on the crossword was "a city in Wyoming." You can only guess. All of this within an hour. And the news from New Orleans. Another crossword, another clue: "Relative of the cello" - guess you can figure the answer there as well. I am not making this up, folks. It is written out like the stars may spell your name if you squint and tilt your head appropriately. We live in an intricate trap. Everywhere there's something to totally floor you, or lift your spirits to the sky.
It's nights like this, the ink black ones, that keep me in too long. Like a heavy black cloth has been dropped over the house and you can't see out, no moon, or stars or circling satellites. I sit here until the walls start to move toward me, the eyes in the photo on the mantle start to move as I do - jittery, shaking. The TV might as well be blue screen. Some guy trying repeatedly to sell you something you don't want, that you can never want, that you decided a long time ago you didn't want. He still keeps on knocking.
Tuesday was one month since G and I broke up. Yesterday was her birthday. In the month after the breakup I worked on a long series of short pieces about G and what she means to me, why I love her and such. So much had become confused in me and in her and between us in the last few months and I needed to start sorting it out in my head. All of the pieces were attached to a memory of her, and involved me remembering small details and talking about what those details taught me about her. The aspects of G that were brought to light ranged from the very cerebral to the somewhat goofy. All of it was heartfelt, and I spent many tearful hours sitting over the keyboard to work out all of the stuff. I gave it to her for her birthday yesterday and I hope it means, and will continue to mean, a lot to her.
Yesterday in my therapy session, I was discussing these writings with my therapist and he made the suggestion that I might think of doing the same for myself. He said that part of the process that I was going through right now was learning to like and value myself more, and that he thought going through this process would maybe help me identify some things that would move me in that direction.
Today is G's birthday. She turns 28. I think she is still plenty young enough to give away her age. Those of you that know her may want to drop a line and wish her a happy one. You can post the wishes here or send her an email if you have her address.
I realize that the hardest to get through time of day that I have is the hour or so after I arrive home every afternoon. When G lived here with me I always seemed to be in a bad mood when I arrived home from work. Looking back, I really do not know why. It seems foolish now. Why wasn't I happy having the life I had? Now I get home and I am not in a bad mood, just a sad mood. I think every afternoon I start partially daydreaming as I am driving home, and when I get here I expect to find G watching Oprah or taking a nap. It never turns out that way. Walking into the house feels lonely and empty. I think that is why I have started writing this at this time of the day. It gives me something to do until I start feeling better.
I know I usually write these things later in the evening but I have had some things on my mind since having lunch with T earlier today. While at Manuel's I told him of starting to wonder whether or not the way I feel, and have tended to handle things is all that radically different that the norm. In other words, am I possibly over-pathologized, or at least do I feel that I am a lot worse off and abnormal than I really am?
Today began late. I any of you noticed the timestamp on last night's post, you will see that I was up late. I awoke this morning around 11, immediately got a Diet Coke and popped my Wellbutrin. Last night was somewhat of a blur. Too many stimuli, felt like nights that I have been nostalgic for many times over recent years. Interesting conversation with interesting people about things that most of the time would seem so un-ininteresting, but that due to the circumstances are just perfect.
Okay, I guess this is the way it should be. I finally have reached the point that I have stayed up with my friends until way in the morning. Colleen has kissed me on the cheek in front of her other to tell me good night; to thank me for being a good club soda patron. It is too late. I am too old to do this kind of reconnaissance and I want to make everyone happy.
I spent some time time talking to K tonight who probably gave me the best advice - spliced into the middle of tales of anal sex exploits. He told me that I needed to figure out who I was, a scary proposition. Who am I?
Today was a departure from the norm lately. I awoke again to no Diet Coke (things I seemed to always take care of when G was in the house have become, apparently, less urgent now), no cereal today either. I had to go to my therapist earlier today than usual, an 11 AM appointment. Afterwards, I had lunch with T and then came back home to work. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just a day, too much time spent again on technical issues.
Later in the late afternoon/early evening G called and we talked and I broke down a bit. I try so hard not to. I want to be strong and good and something worthy of her, or anyone else's for that matter, affection. I think I have been walking through this week trying to steer a middle path between the peaks and valleys that I have been experiencing lately, and today it all just came to a head, I had to let out the missing and sadness that was still inside. I had even broken down during my session a little earlier in the day. I think it was the first time I had allowed myself to really think about the situation in a few days. I had managed to distract myself for much of the week with various technical issues and projects.
