Sunday, October 31, 2004

October 31st

Halloween.

I'm feeling really bad so my brother brought my son over to trick-or-treat. We normally get together at their house with my sisters family and go through that neighborhood. I hope he has a good take this year. We usually do pretty good. If I wasn't so desperate with money I would have bought a costume for myself.

It's getting really difficult to try and do anything these days. I'm feeling crushed by the world. It's bearing down on me so hard I'm going to get crunched into pancake. Life and the FM and work and everything is becoming to heavy. I can't see a way out of this. I've said that before, haven't I? Well, it's the truth. I can't work but I can't not work. It's hopeless.

I had more thoughts of killing myself today. Just a fleeting passage of a flicker of a thought. But it was there, none the less. I kinda wonder how I'd do it, though. I don't have a gun so I can't shoot myself. Hanging or any kind of asphyxiation is out. My "death fear" is not breathing. No drowning or suffocating or some such. I can always slit my wrists or some other body part and bleed out. I'd have to do it on a weekend when my son is with his mother and I don't want that. I've got a boatload of meds I'm taking but I don't know if OD'ing on them would work. Guess I'm not really committed to offing myself. If I were I'd know how I'd do it. Still, it's a real worry that the thought even exists. But the thought exists because the pain has reached a very serious level. It even infects my dreams.

I'm to trashed to go into anything right now. I'm doing my "asleep at the wheel" impression.

Time for bed.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

When does depression become despair?

Yesterday I couldn't make it to work. Another day of income lost. I couldn't walk until nearly 1400. How am I supposed to make enough money to support my son? But that wasn't even the real crisis. Something happened that is far worst than that.

I actually, for the very first time in my life, thought of suicide.

This scares me to high heaven, as they say. But the pain levels have been getting higher and higher so even with all the meds I'm taking I hurt so much that it encompasses my conscious thoughts. It's always been there, weighing like a boulder on my back. But it's normally just under the radar. Just under the conscious level. But now it's risen up to become the primary thought of every moment. I can't tune it out and get on with my life. It's blocking my cognitive efforts to do anything except think of the pain.

Now, I know that there are things much more painful than what I'm having. Hell, I had virile spinal meningitis two years ago. I now know what a scale of 10 is on the pain chart. But that was all temporary. All my other experiences with pain are temporary to one extent or another. It is my belief that the vast majority of people only ever experience temporary pain. The kind of pain I'm having is just like the afore mentioned boulder. It's a crushing pain that will not let up. Like being caught in the coils of an anaconda, every time I breath the coils get tighter and tighter. Soon I will not be able to do anything at all but fight the crushing pain. It is quickly becoming the only thought in my mind. It's all ready become the center point of my dreams. I used to have wild and fun and erotic dreams of all kinds. Now it's just pain. Me and pain in my dreams.

This is why the "S" word came into my head. I was finally able to take a shower at around 1500. I'm standing there with the water spraying on my head and face wishing the pain would go. Then, BANG! I think that I could slit my wrists (or some better place) and just bleed out in the shower. It wouldn't make a mess and I could just sit down and let the warm water spray on me as I slowly lose consciousness. Clean and fairly non-painful.

The real scary part of this, though, is that whenever these kind of thoughts would invade my subconscious I would just think of my son and I'd be able to push those thoughts back. This time when I thought of my son the pain was at such a level that I actually decided to let him live with my sister and her family when I'm gone. He'd have two parents who'd love him and two sisters to play with him. He'd be better off with them.

All of this thinking took about 5 minutes, I'd guess. I was finally able to push it back down out of conscious thought. But the fact that it did break through is beyond frightening to me. What if it comes back stronger next time? What if it comes back at all? What do I do? The pain isn't going away and I'm starting to see death as a viable way to deal with it. This is not something I can do. I need to be here for my son and also for the rest of my family. Killing yourself makes your problems go away but brings on more pain and anguish to those around you. I love my family and friends to much to cause them that kind of pain. But my pain doesn't give a rats ass what I want. If it keeps getting stronger, as it has been for over the past few months now, I don't know if I'll be able to keep these kind of thoughts out of my head.

I just don't know.

Brazilian GP incoherent babbling

Rubens was racing for his home town. He started from the poll and got out to an early lead. Michael had a crash in testing so he had to start 18th. Just as the race was getting ready to setup, there was a bit of a downpour so most of the cars started on wets. Only the Renault guys and one or two others started on slicks. The wets were good for the first 1/4 of the race but the track dried out and those who switched to slicks the soonest made strong advancements. Michael spun early and it dropped him back to nearly last. He ended up 7th, though to ad to his massive points total. Rubens was able to claw back in to third so that means there has been a Ferrari driver on every podium this year. Anyway, it was a fun race with JP and Kimi taking 1-2.

That's all for now. I can't see the keyboard anymore. I'm going to bed to dream of sex and giant boulders with snakes. Don't try to do this, though. It would not be bad to start out small, like with go-carts. It's dangerous but so is F1.

Monday, October 25, 2004

Good and bad all mixed up

Karma. The balancing of fate on a knifes edge. One little breeze and you're toast. That seems to be where I'm at right now. This weekend was both great and horrible at the same time. Often in the same moment. Right now I can't sleep. I woke up at 0200 Sunday morning and other than a few minutes dozing off on the couch I haven't gotten any sleep. Tomorrow is looking real bad but I have to figure out a way to get to work. But that's for later. Right now I have a small dilemma... I should be happy, or at least feeling a bit upbeat. But I'm sitting here feeling numb and lost. In two days I went on two dates. One a fresh, kinda-like blind date and the other with someone I knew last year who didn't seem to find me her type but who might have changed her mind. While I should be happy, I'm only scared. Not of the women (there's a psych book on that one), or the non-feelings inside of me but the feeling and, I'll go ahead and say it, strong desire to stop the pain and leave it to the gods or fate or Karma to sort it out when I'm gone. The glass is half empty and there really is no spoon.

I can't see straight and I keep node's off at the keyboard so I'm going to bed now. I'll try and get to the final GP race in Brazil. I also recorded the Farscape episod(s) today. Don't know when I get to watch either. 'Night.

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Oh, by the way...

I haven't had a cigarette since October 7th. This time is feels pretty good. I hate to jinx it by posting here but I haven't even had the faintest of cravings so there's a good chance it'll take this time. Man, I hope so.

Japanese GP Comments

I'm so far behind on this it's almost not worth posting. If you want to get more specific info you should probably just go to the F1 site and dig through the older news updates.

FWIW, the race started with an all Schumacher front row. Michael was in P1 and Ralf in P2. Within the first 10 laps or so it was clear that nothing short of disaster would keep the brothers from finishing 1-2. Which, of course, they did. The real drama was whether Takuma Sato could get a podium finish in his home race. He made a great try of it but just couldn't get by Jenson Button. There were also some fun driving in the middle of the pack and at some point David Coulthard & Rubens Barrichello had a bumping duel that took them both out of the race. The world feed missed the actual scrape so I don't know what happened (I'll be wandering over to the F1 site after I watch the Brazilian race later today).

The only other thing of interest is the poor showing of Jacques Villeneuve. He was brought into Renault replacing Jarno Trulli with the expectation of getting them some points in their battle for second in the Constructors Championship with BAR-Honda. After this race BAR has put a little gap in their points, though the position (and all the money that goes along with it) is still up for grabs.

Well, that's it for now. I'll try and do a better job for Brazil.

Sunday, October 17, 2004

I don't know where I'm goin'

But I sure know where I've been.
Hangin' on the promises of yesterday
But I've made up my mind
I ain't wastin' no more time
'cause here I go again
Here I go again


I haven't been posting for a while. I'm even late with my "Comments on the Japanese Grand Prix." Life hasn't been so good lately. Being a single parent is hard enough. Being a disabled single parent is bad. Being a disabled single parent on a fixed income where you're forced to work a part-time job in order to pay the rent and buy food sucks. Now, to top it all off, I might lose the part-time job. I've been so bad lately with the symptoms of the FM that I've missed a ton of work. I'm on a 30 day "probation" now. If I lose the part-time gig I can't live on the disability check at all. No house, and they take away my kid. His mom is "between dwellings" so that's a bit of a difficulty. It's not very sunny here these days.

Since you've been gone
Since you've been gone
I'm outta my head, can't take it
Could I be wrong
But since you've been gone
You cast a spell so break it


I ran across this site called imode the other day. It's really very lame and mostly seems to be used by AOL'ers, kids and IM'ers but I thought what the hell and signed up. It's free anyway. You can put up a smiley to show what your mood is. The cool thing is that it will use all the moods to make an aggregated mood for the Internet. Looks like this -

The Current mood of the Internet is The current mood of the Internet at www.imood.com.

At least it was when I typed this.

My moods have been rather dark so far. Wonder why...

Doctor doctor, please
Oh, the mess I'm in
Doctor doctor, please,
oh, the mess I'm in


Right at this exact moment iTunes is playing "2 Minutes to Midnight" by Iron Maiden. I'm really glad I got to live through the heyday of Heavy Metal. We were all living in Germany then so it wasn't like it was here with the hair and the glam and stuff. It was barebones, no-holds-barred, shred your face mayhem. $DEITY it was glorious. Heh, how Klingon of me to say that. But it was. I lived from about 17 to 25 in mind thrashing happiness. Hell, even when I was unhappy I was still happy. You know all those old guys who talk about the glory days? It's true. When you get to a certain time in life you realize what a great thing youth is. I'm going to try to do everything I can so that my son can have a life as wondrous and grand and humbling and driving as I did. 'Course a lot of that will depend on the coming US elections. Speaking of which...

If ever there was a time when "None of the above" should be on the ballot this is it. I know people out there who are very adamant about being either for one of the guys or against the same guy. I can't honestly, in good conscious, vote for either of them. But then I either have to not vote or vote for one of the fools running on various independent platforms. Either way it's a wasted vote. Sometimes it's not worth it but I will vote. I probably won't know who I'll vote for until I actually pull the leaver, but I'll vote. I mean, I am a USian after all.

The boys are back in town
The boys are back in town
The boys are back in town
The boys are back in town

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Hopelessness

Hopelessness. Despair. Depression.

Things aren't going to well at the moment. I've missed 8 strait days of work and they are starting to get a little unhappy there. I've never been out for more than 3 days so this is something serious. It started out just a couple of bad days with the FM but grew into something worse. I'm still feeling the symptoms of the FM but there's something wrong on top of that. The problem is that I am in a hopeless situation and there's nothing I can do about it. Even if I were able to work the full hours I am supposed to that plus my disability check aren't enough to live on. At least not enough for me. I'm not terribly extravagant, though. I know I piss some money away on crap that we don't need. But it's not really that much; maybe averages out to $150/mo. That $150 could definitely be spent wiser but the debt I have wouldn't even be dented by it. The vast majority of the debt is from the death of WebTrek and the divorce. But it's more than money...

I haven't been up to playing with my son in a long time. He's getting stir crazy with nothing to do but play computer games and watch TV. Ok, yes, he could be reading. We're going to start doing that. But that's not going to help let loose the energy that a young boy has. He needs to run and jump and dive and roll. I took him to the local park after school today. We stayed for maybe 30 minutes then I needed to get home. It's hard on him because there's no one to play with. I can understand what he's feeling.

Gods I'm tired. Not just physically but mentally and emotionally as well. I honestly don't know what I'd do if my son wasn't here with me. He's the only thing that keeps me grounded. He keeps me from entertaining some very unhealthy thoughts. I made an appointment to see a shrink tomorrow. I don't believe that they will be able to help me but I need to try something. I mean, I should have been able to go back to work last Wednesday. There's something that is keeping me from doing anything other than lay on the couch and watch ST:DS9 and ST:TNG reruns and the occasional paternity test on the Maury Povich show. You know, I even thought of writing into his show to see if he could do an episode on us people who fall through the cracks. I am medically and physically unable to work yet my retirement is not enough to live on so I much work. And, OC, even if just my retirement is taken into account I make way to much money to qualify for any kind of assistance. To much for help yet not enough to live on. It's the same with Social Security. They say I am not disabled yet I can't quality for Long Term Care because because of my medical situation. It's stupid!

Meanwhile, I'm stuck here trying to keep everything from falling apart so that my son will be ok. I just don't have someone doing the same for me.

I gotta go to sleep. I can hardly keep my eyes open.

Saturday, October 02, 2004

Can't quit smoking :-(

It seems that I am hooked on these Eclipse cigarettes. I have been unable to quit them though I've tried many times. This isn't an uncommon story for most smokers but I have, in the past, quite before. I smoked for 7 years then quite for 13. Started again for about 6 months then quite again for a year and a half. Then I ran into these Eclipses. See, they are smokeless cigarettes.

I've gone into them before in a previous blog (see homepage.mac.com/x_nc/iblog) but suffice to say they are extremely hard to quit. Mostly because you don't have the secondary annoyances like regular tobacco cigarettes. No stench in your clothes or home or car. No ashes making a mess. None of the bad, smellyness that usually comes with smoking. This convenient factor may seem small but you wouldn't believe how much it works towards keeping you smoking. I have decided that, for now, I will remain a smoker and not go through the anxiety of the back and forth. If I were ever to be financially stable I would return to taking Tae Kwon Do. That would possibly help me quit but even if it didn't I'd be counteracting the negativeness of the smoking.

In the last year I've gained about 12 pounds (just over 5.44kg [as determined by ConvertAll] for those on a sane measuring system). I am now 2 pounds under my all-time high weight and it looks like I'll top that soon. I'm not eating a lot and not that much junk food. But I'm finding that I'm eating later and later at night. Dinner at 2200 is not going to do much of anything except make you fatter. Heh, if I were healthy I could be a Sumo wrestler. Exercise in the morning, eat a big meal, sleep for a few hours, wake to eat again, then go out and have some beers and such. I got the eating and sleeping down just not the exercising. Oh well, I'm to old for Sumo anyway. But I am playing a number of the virtual Sumo games. Getting my @$$ kicked in them, too. It is fun, though.