July 1st, 2022 12:43pm pdt If you are visiting for the first time, go to the beginning. Ut Agnoscis Malum read ( words) "1013 and I have half the routine finished. For whatever reason, sweeping the house into the spare bedroom and cleaning the litter always seems daunting, yet the task takes less than fifteen minutes. The positive is that once finished, I feel good about it. Both are now complete because on Sunday I toss the bag which has been catching litter all week into the trash as a first step to the business of the day. Now I can sit and keep the house quiet for a while while sipping bourbon with my friends in the background. And this... Whatever it is. The episode airing right now has a beautiful ending, one which brings a tear to my eye every fucking time. ‘The world is changing.’ – Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, little did she know. Indeed, I am feeling the losses more acutely this morning, in part due to visiting that store the other day, and some because of so much emptiness surrounding me. I feel as if I am in a small boat wandering an endless sea, alone and with no oars. Pushed by the currents, influenced by the Moon’s pull, and lost for all time. There is nothing more than a few key comforts left in my life. Every show, movie, outing, or event brings memories to the surface which then illuminate the gradient. When I walk into the garage for a break or whatever else, I feel differently than even yesterday. I no longer have regard for much of what I see each day, even less so when a person speaks to me. My devices have taken precedence in the worst way. This condition is not my doing. Not even close. Others have done this to me and forced the perspective of the thousand-person analogy. My sole embrace is the voice. Still, I must truncate the words. Interference could be disastrous. The necessity of holding my tongue around people has never been more dire. I still don’t understand the difficulty, and I am quite certain I’ve been forcibly driven to such a conclusion by lions. There can no longer be any doubt and I feel hatred toward them. All of them. The root cause is so many thousands of years back in history that I can barely identify the distinction, nor am I equipped to explain the whole fucking mess. Recently I mentioned the ‘blown gas’, or the manner in which the world is slowly going to hell in a handbasket. Everyone is at fault, and my situation or condition is mostly unrelated. Still there are connections, though, such as the dramatic difference in the sexes and our history of complete shit due to the same. There is no way of changing the way a person thinks unless they wish it. Such a statement relates not only to society destroying itself, but also the fact that I have realized who the true enemy really is. Understanding the difficulty inherent in certain situations from my past is probably impossible because if I speak to another person, their words CANNOT be objective, and I don’t give a blue fuck of their background or education. Even those who have had the misfortune of being physically or emotionally close to me have zero fucking clues as to how this condition has developed. Believe me, I’ve opened the doors often enough to realize that they are bent upon their own agendas. As a result of years of such behavior, I am now as false as humanly possible. This is necessary or the lawful evil shall reign. Lawful evil. If you don’t believe me, I really don’t care. The difficulty drove me to the end expected, a position within the world I predicted as far back as zero three. Go read something. 0706 on Monday. No garbage trucks as of yet. The world is very quiet right now. The usual has been done this morning. And now, last night. Something took place while visiting for the birthday dinner, and I believe it began with a discussion of very old video games, with my experience dating back to the late seventies. The conversation faded a while later. Upon returning home and into the early evening, I began to speak of the car audio days and the system built into my wagon. I think I’ve spoken of it before. Well, last night I tried to describe some details regarding amplification and speaker impedance, and for some reason the conversation led itself from the early beginnings of the hobby to the big electronics stores, and right on through to the short period of working with my parents in the valley. The phase lock era. I also made a stopover at the outset of the computer era. I was speaking on and off (mostly on) for roughly three hours. And then I stopped. And then I began again after apologizing for not ceasing the exposition. Two more times I cycled through starting and stopping before finally deciding to go to sleep. I was sure to put a fine point on the fact that working for my parents was the best job I’ve ever held, bar none. Not even working within the space program was as enjoyable. That one had its moments, though. I don’t know why I went around the world like that last night. Something must have struck me at some point. 0757 and the morning business is finished. I am going to visit the wine store in a little over an hour, and probably next door, too. I need some shower items. I’ll probably see all sorts of shit, like yesterday on the way home from the birthday party. One near a little shop on the west side of the shipping center who promptly brought the damaging dream back to mind, and two others in the market. The first sight was horrible. Fortunately, we finished picking up a few items and I was able to stroll out without falling on my face any further. I’ll tell you something, though, the first was very difficult, especially considering how closely connected to the dream she was. That dream sliced me open and I am still bleeding over a month later. Watching a form such as the one gliding along at close range yesterday does not help me cope. The two in the market did not compare very well. Still, I’m tired of this. Heading over the hill to a few places may or may not yield its share of problems. I can still see the pants walking through the storefront. Not good. After last night’s tirade, I was hoping for some quiet today so I could reconcile everything. There is an ass in my eyes. Black pants and long, black hair. No one cares. No one is listening. The voice is loud. The paragraph below will not allow me to rise in any fashion most mornings. In fact, seeing it there generally causes difficulty and helps the information to maintain a grip on my throat. I cannot remove it, however, because that would be akin to denying the facts. I can’t have that right now. I know what I am, and I know some of what delivered me to this place. Denying the truth does not make it false, and things are only impossible until they are not. 0917. Half the routine finished. There is not much to the kitchen this morning because we were out yesterday. I’ll take care of it after returning from the shopping trip. I also have some laundry to care for and a bit of organization in the garage. Everything will be in order by the afternoon, like most days. I wish the inside of my head was in order. Fourth show, rolling along. I’m going to try avoiding anything enticing while out. The resulting torment has become too much to bear at times. Yesterday, for example. The girl walking into the store just down the street is still spinning and I have no control over the process. It’s not her fault. She is just a person who happens to carry lines all over the fucking place; lines I cannot seem to reconcile. The wine store may be a problem, so I’ll have to steel myself upon entering, take care of the shopping quickly, and get the fuck back out of there before anything can develop. As of yet, I have not been able to cruise through there without glancing around. Looking is simply a way of life, and probably perfectly natural for the average person. For me, however, it has become the tipping point which always drives me into the ground. I need to leave soon so I can return early. 0646 on Tuesday morning. The usual setup, fourth show still going, you know the rest. I did all the shopping yesterday with zero problems, returned to my space and remained comfortable for the rest of the day. Nothing above and beyond the norm was accomplished. The beginning of my end The image above is of the actual Slipper that I owned, and only a day after I purchased it. Other than the fucking story I continue to be compelled to write, that car is the biggest loss of my life. Believe it. I see it and my insides become sliced to ribbons, even more than a decade later. If I cannot be defined as an idiot, no one can. Anyway... The only problems were inside me. I don’t know how I managed to visit three different stores in two shopping centers without seeing anything. I am always looking. Well, the girl attending the self checkout lane had beautiful hair, but I honestly did not see her face. She was tiny, anyway. I recall dreaming of being near my place of work in the space program, yet despite being in proximity to those facilities, I somehow knew I’d been on the outside of such a world for several years. There were rotorcraft approaching in large numbers and flying in formation, something I’ve never seen in my life. Once long ago near the Mojave aircraft graveyard, I spied two of them (Ospreys) from a distance. That is all. The dream had a multitude of them flying nearby and then setting down on the tarmac near where I worked. We were on the opposite side of the freeway and peering through a fence. Moments later, I was driving my Slipper near the same area. My two coworkers were beckoning me to follow them across a pedestrian bridge so we could get inside the Center. Someone else was there, too. He was talking about a strange railing running along the center of the stairs which blocked people from passing, as if that particular entrance to the Center had been cut off and abandoned years before. Just as we were about to turn back and leave, I saw a huge torque wrench standing next to a light pole and was intrigued. I wanted to bring it along but my boss stated that it would never fit in the car. Heh. He was correct. Dreaming of the Slipper can be debilitating at times. Nothing in the world – not even a person, be it friend or family – has moved me and caused such levels of love and admiration. I was obsessed with that machine for nearly twenty years before finally acquiring my favorite model, and then owned it for less than eighteen months. I really fucked up that situation far worse than I had previously thought possible. Ah, but I was driven into the ground by a lion. Never mind that part. I don’t like admitting to such vast amounts of weakness. Anyway, I’ve missed the work and that special location (the period is also rolled up like a burrito into my love for those big electronics stores) for many years now, but the clincher was the Slipper. This morning I saw visions of driving it to work for the first time just over twelve years ago. I was in the dark leaving so early, and that day became the first occasion of marveling at the amber lighting inside the cabin, along with the fact that the windshield was so dramatically raked that the rear view mirror was actually behind the shifter. On the bottom of the mirror was a small lamp which caused the center console to glow. I’d sat in a few models before owning one, yet never at night. I felt like I was sitting inside a very comfortable leather glove, and one designed around a mannequin of me. I may be at more of a loss right now than I was when the car went away. I really don’t need that kind of dream these days. I don’t need reminders of everything I forfeited, either. 0754 and the morning business is finished. I have peace and quiet along with the space to do whatever I feel is best. 1013. The routine is mostly finished. I haven’t dried the dishes yet because I may prepare some stuff for dinner. I can polish off everything afterward. Fourth show, still. Sixth season. The downside is I am once again very angry due to not understanding why some very critical aspects of life must be so fucking difficult. Sometimes I see things (not that one I mentioned before which is extremely tough to consider) and my mind wanders a bit toward machinery, Ashley, and other subjects. I do not seem to have any control over when this takes place, although I can force myself to become distracted at times. This morning? I have not been able to extricate anything difficult from my brain in favor of work or other shit. I don’t know what to do with this situation. I am not the type of person who easily deals with unchangeable circumstances. One might say that the healthy choice is to focus elsewhere and attempt to ‘let go’ of those subjects which have no solutions. Well, I do not often look at the healthy aspects of life, nor do I feel that there is a coping method available to me that will actually help. Nothing has helped as of yet. Time continues to burn away. ‘They say that time is the fire in which we burn.’ – Malcolm McDowell as Soren. No shit. Burning. The feelings inside me burn as does the time on the fucking clocks. I wish there was some device in existence which had the power to either help me forget everything or alter my psyche to the point of feeling different about all that I do not understand. Well, there have been a few devices that actually eased this type of shit situation, yet they are all fucking gone, likely forever. I keep looking back to bad things I’ve done in life, yet still nothing seems bad to the point of causing this much heartache at my age. I don’t get it. Maybe I never will, and maybe this site I’ve worked so hard to maintain will also remain as it has been for years. I have no power. The fourth of July is six days away, and that is one of the two holidays in which my little empire is lit and in full swing. Unfortunately, the feeling of being out there amidst the color and music during the holiday is not enough to effectively offset my daily decline. I’ve stated several times in the last two years that this shit is going to come to a head because I only see one way out. I will not lie about it. Suicide is unlawful, yet if an individual succeeds, there are no consequences to the person in question. Only others are affected. One tidbit about the fact that such an act is unlawful is the idea that threatening or ideation are neither against the law nor can they be controlled. The blown gas illustrated that changing the way a person thinks is impossible if they are unwilling. This is the way I think, and the idea of suicide may be the only power I will ever know. Sad? Yes, but I’ve been driven to this by other people. That was a nice paragraph. The bourbon is very cold. I just don't understand. 0701. Wednesday. Last night we were tested, something that has not happened in many years. It came on the heels of a meeting Sunday which caught us off guard... All of us. A short conversation later and we knew more needed to be discussed. The test was simple and quick. From here on in we may be checked nightly. Today will be a little different than yesterday. Well, different than many of the past days. I pretty much decided that moving away from the norm must happen pretty quick or I’ll really lose direction. I can’t have that right now. The simple fact is my lifestyle inside this little house is currently very agreeable and I have not appreciated it enough this year. A very long period of time found me in dire need of breaking free from the work routine and scene afterward, and here I am with much more control over my days. Nearly all of it, really. I have not appreciated this situation enough for more than two years. The beginning was when I became very angry at a certain event and flipped out for a while. By the time I truly calmed myself enough to think clearly, an entire calendar year had passed. And now another year has elapsed and left me considering my place again. This will not be anything dramatic, though. Just a few small changes. 0804 and the morning stuff is out of the way. Now I have a ton of time to consider the ramifications of yesterday’s test and make a plan to come out the other side of this day in better shape than the last several months. I’m in a bad enough spot right now. I don’t need this to go on any further. The news is rather ridiculous this morning aside from the weather. A different end Trying to find more images of the Slipper has become futile. I’ll have to move around soon, lest I become a part of this sofa/computer combination beyond two cups of coffee. That is a very dangerous situation. I’ll become disillusioned and angry, afterward finding little reason to do anything. It happens too often, and I simply cannot have that shit today. And the flags are not out due to some precipitation. My flags are not of the storm variety. I have plenty of small items to care for today. Keeping fairly busy should not be a problem. I just have to push, and I’ve succeeded in the past. The fourth show is up there again as I consider the work today and how I can cope with being so empty all the time. The paragraph below continues to rear its ugly head, though. There are three names within that thought (realization) and I cannot deny the individual influences they had upon me during each of those three periods. Andrea is not there, nor is the Raven. Three other names I think about on a daily basis, especially when I dream of the girl. Zoe’s eyes are gorgeous, especially with the shape of her nose and the Bajoran makeup. I could swim in those eyes, and such a feeling is partly due to the paragraph below... A need I cannot spell out here. There have been two occasions when I reached. I will not do that anymore. The reaching caused more harm than good, and at one point when I nearly opened the floodgates a third time, I feared being accused of manipulation. If that fucking person only knew of the truth. I guess sometimes my words fall of deaf ears, or worse, ears that just don’t fucking care. Deception and manipulation each work in two directions. Remember that the next time you feel the need to belittle another person’s deepest fears. Anyway, the three names have become a part of the girl and will probably remain as such forever. 0903. Last of the coffee. I am not going to have the typical morning cocktail because I know full well that one of the effects is a lack of ambition. Consider this day an experiment. I am mere minutes away from beginning the work. 1024. Routine finished. I have some laundry to do, as well. I’ll get to it very soon. Right now my head is filled with enough shit to derail my thinking. I passed on the morning cocktail. Well, that may change if I can’t force the shit out of my brain. So far, I’ve done fine. I jumped up and began the work just to help right myself after nearly falling all the way down less than an hour ago. I just don’t fucking understand why some parts of life must be so difficult. I don’t get it. The fact that no one is listening continues to contribute to this current state of mind. The double-edged sword is wreaking havoc right now, meaning I need help but am terrified of the possible consequences. This has been the case for so long that I no longer have any hope that the lack of understanding can be alleviated, even a little bit. I need it so badly now that everything I see or do is partially masked by heartache. Even those ideas which are very enticing cannot reach their full potential for more than a few seconds before I regress. Damn this whole situation. Damn it. The woman on the patron’s arm is unreal, and she doesn’t matter in the least. Just another image with which I can do exactly NOTHING. There will be more. I need to go to the dry cleaners after lunch, which is near the goddess market. No doubt I will see some errant pair of pants attached to a dream and then fall on my stupid face again. The woman on the screen is the same, yet no pants of the sort which scream at me. Basket case, as always. The title has not been mentioned much, but that is part of the process. It is there, within me, yet I cannot spell out even a fraction of what I believe, nor can I glean the simplest aspects of the same. Backlash is not good, so I’ll keep everything inside. Perhaps after several more related titles, someone will get the fucking point. I really don’t care anymore. Everything has been ripped away. Even while littered with difficulty and trials, the presence of the ethereal was still a positive. These days I cannot STAND dealing with other people. Unfortunately, the material which has been removed requires some sort of connection, the type of which I do not want. I do not trust anyone and will not expose myself again in this life. The damage has been done. At times the damage was offset, yet now I have learned too much to allow another soul to become close to my issues. I am alone in my thinking, alone in this house, and I fully intend to remain as such until my death. That fucking paragraph is nearly too much to bear, but I already pointed out the fact that if I remove it, I am eliminating truth. I’ve never been in more of a fucking scrape than I am at this very moment. Angry. I fucking hate everything yet cannot do a thing about it. 0736, Thursday morning. No flags again due to the heavy drizzle. I always say there is little chance of accurately predicting the weather here because the ocean is right down the street. Heh. Sometimes the ocean makes us feel small. My interest in weather patterns began way the hell back while working for the parts house during the glow. The latter part of the glow, if I recall correctly. I was driving a small delivery truck around town and sometimes over the second set of hills leading to the Central Valley. Damn, but it was hot out there. We had no air conditioning in those trucks and usually ended up sweating the entire way. Sometimes on the way back into town I would look over to a nice car with a lady at the wheel – all windows up – and see her hair being blown back by the cool air from the climate control system. During those times I often dreamed of a nicer car with options, as opposed to the very old truck I owned. Day after day I’d see newer, more expensive vehicles nearby, all with nice, cool air coming forth from the dash. That period was also when I first spotted a ZR-1 while delivering parts two towns away. I was immediately in love with the differences between it and the L98 version. Very soon, I began to assemble the image of sitting in that leather glove of a passenger compartment with the air conditioning blasting and completely defying the heat outside the windows. My sensitivity to weather and temperature seemed to increase after moving to the Midwest, too. I sat there during my first summer and watched the tennis championships from England while working with three box fans to cycle air around the bottom floor of the house. And on the screen were those well-off people living in comfort all the time simply because they could. I was overjoyed when fall arrived and everything changed. I think I only went on about the climate because I’ve been missing the Slipper and the biggest dream in decades. I finally achieved purchasing the car and then sat there in the heat with my air conditioning blowing nicely. Thinking of that time makes me feel like a fucking idiot anymore, though. Nice memories offset by damaging and destructive behavior. The only glaring positive is that I was able to move to the coast after dreaming of being here for more than twenty years. Even that one is offset... The car is gone. I have to stop talking about this. I don’t really need to concern myself with climate anymore, thanks to living so close to the water. The temperature does not get out of control here, although since there is no insulation in the house, once the mercury rises in the afternoon, an entire night can be required for it to drop back to normal. Other than that, the weather here is comfortable. A trip to the market is on tap for later this morning, likely after I complete the first half of the routine. Upon returning, I’ll be into ‘cocktail and kitchen cleaning’ hour. Well, I should go to the cleaners because I never made it out the door yesterday. Perhaps there first, and then I can swing into the grocery store on the way back. Hopefully nothing runs aslant while I am amidst society. I really don’t need to see anything formidable right now. My brain is already soaked through. The title is in the back of my mind, always. Don’t forget it. The steering column from the Slipper I’m still pissed off. There does not seem to be a way around this condition once the ideas enter my head. The only saving throw against losing my way is to work. Very soon I’ll have to hop to the first half of the routine and then head out the door for shopping. Sitting here pissed off all morning only reinforces the effect of being alone all the time, and those parts of life ripped away continue to plague me no matter what I’m doing at a given moment. I really don’t need this shit. There is already enough self-disgust and disdain inside me regarding the past. Thinking about my sensitivity to climate and that summer driving around the valley only reminds me of how fulfilling life was at that time. The memories do not bring a smile anymore, be those related to the work, a relationship, or the fucking Slipper. All bad. I don’t see an avenue available for me to let go of so much anger. As soon as the last of the coffee is gone, I need to step out the door to go shopping. At least I have things requiring attention that have a sliver of a chance of distracting me for a little while. Just a sliver, but it’s all I have right now. 1211. The routine is finished, there is a cocktail next to me for dealing with a sighting at the market, and I have a plan for the remainder of the day. As for what I saw over there, suffice to say that I actually protected myself as much as was feasible considering the circumstances of being in a public place. Being the creature of habit I am, I parked to the extreme right of both entrances to the market, leaving the ass-end of the car available for accessing the trunk. I usually prefer a pull-through to ease my exit, but I was to pick up cases of water. They are heavy and easier to load into the trunk. At that point I walked all the way through both breezeways to the far left end of the store to grab one of the shorter carts. They make navigating the aisles much easier. Well, that was the moment. I spied two women walking toward the entrance, one of them appearing very tall, well-dressed, and with long, flowing hair moving beautifully in the breeze. As I stepped along the second breezeway, I saw her face through the window not ten feet from my eyes and subsequently realized that she was going to be a fucking huge problem. Not pants or anything else, just her face. The woman appeared to have just walked off a magazine cover. Ouch. I can safely state that hers was the most beautiful face I have ever seen in this little town. I turned away, grabbed a cart, and tried to plan my route through the store in order to completely avoid what felt the most powerful pull upon my senses. As I rolled the cart through the left doors, I caught a glimpse of her heading toward the right-hand doors. I was correct... Very tall, and dressed professionally in slacks and a jacket. I made it a point to restrict my vision to the groceries. I only saw her once more, near the produce. I grabbed my items and made a beeline in the opposite direction to finish my shopping at the other end of the store. As my brain began to melt, I knew the only way to survive was to ignore others and take care of my business. I went to the self checkout, rang up the items and paid, and then moved at a decent pace back to the car. I did not see her again. Upon reaching home, I felt the sight of her face fade away. Sitting here over an hour later, she is gone. Thank the fucking maker. 0652 on Friday morning. No flags today, either. There is still lots of precipitation. Not rain, just that thick drizzle that feels like walking through a mister during a summer fair. Coffee, though. My fourth show, too. Yesterday worked out better than I had anticipated. Nothing overwhelming, though. Just some small tasks here and there, eventually adding up to my feeling decent about the day. Evening arrived soon enough and I avoided feeling worthless. This morning I seem to still be riding a bit of that train, too. After a strange dream involving my little empire, I am partially confused, however. Some dreams simply cannot be understood. We were out there. My garage. Lighting on, music playing, lots of people. Someone with whom I had been acquainted some time ago backed his truck into my driveway, tapped the garage door with the bed and the bumper of my car, and then came in like gangbusters, as if I would be as happy to see him as he was to see me. Well, I was not, but there was some sort of party going on, meaning I did not reject anyone. And for whatever reason, my car was parked in the garage and yet there was still tons of room everywhere. Whatever. He gave me a jacket with patches all over it. I was trying to maintain order out there with all those people, too. I don’t know why. Rain was pouring down outside. That is all. Thankfully, I was not reminded of some recent time spent out there during the night. Today I don’t have to go anywhere. Maybe more writing during the morning and some of my favorite media in the background. Later I will continue with the adventure of rearranging the office and master bedroom so I can build the little empire once again. I’ve decided to acquire a new desktop computer, twin monitors and speakers similar to those I used to have, and then work in that office most of the time since this machine may not last the year. Another computer will also free up this one to be upgraded on the hardware side of things. It needs help due to the software continually being updated and loading the resources. I need to finish the bedroom first before I can switch the two tables in the office. Too bad I gave away my fucking office chair a while back. I suppose I’ll have to find another very soon. 0821 and here I am for the duration. Still the weather is drizzling. And there is something wrong with the data stream for the show. It has been very choppy for a while now, meaning I had to restart the system and see if doing so helps increase bandwidth. Nope. No change. I’ll have to switch networks. No big deal. The rest of my morning is going to be very quiet and peaceful. I don’t plan to do anything for at least another hour, and even then there isn’t much. I keep thinking about that woman at the store yesterday. The incident now feels like one hell of a victory, even though I am still very weak and more desperate than ever. The reason behind this feeling is that I consciously avoided her as opposed to my typical behavior, which is to take in as much as possible knowing she will be gone forever, and very soon. I barely saw beyond that face, and immediately knew she would cripple me. I opted to save myself. This is very unusual, yet still I believe I did a good thing. Maybe there is a possibility that I can do it again. Self-protection. My brain pretty much turned off for a few minutes. A good thing, although I forgot to pick up salad. Perhaps I subconsciously let go of the salad idea because she was in the produce department and I had to stay away. I can’t see her face anymore. That type of appearance is so fucking rare that I am unable to compute the odds of catching even the slightest glimpse. She was unbelievable. The video playback has been back and forth between smooth and choppy. I didn’t switch networks. Now I must. The damned streaming device is literally fifteen inches from the gateway and should be fine. I can run tests on the throughput between the phone and this machine, meaning the issue may be the network itself. Maybe I’ll just leave it because I’m mostly listening anyway. Whatever the issue, time may heal it. The time is after 0900 now, so I'll be away from this soon enough. I have to care for my routine and then perhaps return here for a while before anything else. You'll notice I have not referenced the title or the girl for many lines. I don't really see the point anymore. Both are impossible to understand and taking their toll upon my well-being, and writing over and over has solved nothing thus far. Not a fucking thing. 0943 and this morning is becoming a problem situation. I was nearly pulled into an abyss yesterday at this hour and the only save was to grab my shit, lock the house and head out to shop. The only possible destination today is the cigarette store, meaning I have many hours here at home if nothing else develops. Well, I can also force the issue and take off for elsewhere while out. Right now I just don't know because there is a cyclone inside pressing upon my head enough to keep me still. No routine yet, and no other ideas of how to cope with feeling this way. It happens too fucking much these days. The fruit of my misdirection The face yesterday was merely a symptom of a much larger issue; just one facet of a dodecahedron I cannot control most of the time. I broke out for a little while yesterday afternoon, but I honestly cannot count on the ability to rise at all. The story I recently updated (something which absolutely must remain under guard) is another facet. I thought it was completely destroyed some time ago, but the truth is the entire shitaree lives on in my head. The more I think about it, the more pain I feel. Add to that the damaging dream and what it has done to my brain, and then pile the desperation and dreaming atop the entire situation, and the result is my feeling paralyzed all too often. This is not my fault. I’m not going to mince words here. My existence is completely fucked aside from the daily comforts of life. Physical comforts, to be sure. Everything else has eluded me or otherwise been removed, possibly for all time, and the difficulty in dealing with such loss is increasing each day. The simple fact is my weakness and desperation create feelings with zero outlet. The visions I run across from time to time only cement the emptiness, and losing my way completely is only a matter of that same time. I don’t know when I’ll be fully lost, but I do know there is no more ‘if’ involved. All the way back in seventeen I knew this would eventually arrive; this feeling that there is no way out. As I said, some were never there while other aspects have been torn away like bits of a dead tree in a storm. Little by little, I am shrinking. I am withdrawing more every day. The mindset right now is that aside from some extraordinary and very unlikely circumstances in the near future, this condition shall continue unimpeded. I see nothing on the horizon. Purples and reds, yet again. I still have yet to attack the kitchen, which honestly will not take long. I had to sit here again and gush more shit to the screen. Cocktail next to me, like always. I ran out of bourbon, so whiskey is my only choice. Icy and cold. The booze never abandons my need, nor will it judge. A depressant for the depression case. Today is Friday and the holiday is Monday. I’m going to roll the barbeque to the driveway and set up a food preparation area on one of the workbenches. That has been the norm for years. Only the two of us will be here unless her dad stops by to say hello and have a beer. After sunset, we will probably light some fireworks of the legal variety. I am not the individual to tempt fate by launching illegal shit. The simple fact is there will be tons of them in the sky that night, and my self-preservation will kick in and allow me to avoid doing anything stupid. The only laws I break these days are traffic-related. The occasional push over the speed limit while driving and nothing else. In spite of all the shit spinning circles inside me, I am still a good person. That probably sounds funny. I am looking forward to relaxing on the driveway in three days. It’s a distraction, like other holidays. The only downside is the noise. Our cats become very frightened, meaning I need to have all the windows closed no matter how warm the house may be by evening. I’ll do my best to ensure the indoor space is as quiet as possible. 1045 now. Maybe I need to stay away from writing that other story. It is only one hundred lines of code, but when I read or edit the content, my head descends to a dark place better avoided. The story is a very intimate recount of something which took place long ago and still haunts me to this very second. I can’t really remain away for very long, though, because revisions keep pushing me to expand on the descriptive nature of the story and add detail. Unfortunately, nothing I can write will carry even a fraction of the power involved in what took place back then. Think of a series of complex tumblers fully aligning after being disjointed for years, and then go further and imagine those very same tumblers have been obliterated forever. A one-time situation, and one of the most relevant reasons for why I feel the way I do. There is an uncredited character in this episode with a very stern expression on her face. I swear to everything holy, I can see that if she were to smile, my heart would melt into a puddle of goo. That kind of face just fucking kills me. If I could just tell her... But? There is much of the fucking issue right there. Dreaming, fantasizing, or whatever you want to call it. The years passed have turned me into a desperate, blubbering idiot who is completely bereft of anything powerful enough to alleviate these massive waves of sadness. No wonder I am pissed off all the time. Wouldn’t you be? ‘Nothing unreal exists.’ Thanks, Spock. I was looking at the top image again and realized that I shot that right before having the rear tires replaced. The car needed them when I bought it and I knew full well that the front and rear could not be rotated like on other vehicles due to very different tread widths. When I cruised to the tire store to inquire about having them replaced, I learned that the size of the rears was rare and very expensive. Eh, such was a pitfall of owning an exotic model. I spent more money on those two tires and the labor to have them installed than I did for FOUR fucking tires on my big truck, and keep in mind those were oversized, off-road tires. Oy gawd, what a machine I purchased. But I loved it. LOSS. If it weren't for the little comforts and enjoyments I can still embrace, I would have blown my head off already. The story is nothing when held against the massive victory of acquiring my dream car. The story can go and fuck itself in a frozen ditch in Winter. I hate this. 1221 and the routine is finally finished. Now I am without direction. Part of me wants to shower and cruise over to the electronics store to research a new desktop computer along with peripherals, yet my ambition to do anything is as a void. I don’t know what to do for the rest of the day. There is a lovely glass of bourbon cream next to me, all chilled and yummy. No lunch, though. I don’t feel hungry in the least. The morning has taken its toll. I suppose the circumstances through which I lived to this point in time have all remained inside me as opposed to some having been ‘let go’. I honestly don’t know how to let go of anything. Any situation which stands out in any way within my mind is still there. I recall conversations dating back forty-plus fucking years, yet I can barely remember to change the furnace filter ten minutes after my phone pops up a reminder. I wish I could understand. The words ‘torn away’ continue to resonate inside my head no matter what activity has priority. Everything is gone. The little things had better carry me through this netherworld of sadness and grief. My view of life has never been so narrow. I've done things that affected my ability to move forward and live, yet I have not done everything. The current period is not my doing. The title went away and I don't care. Titles come to mind when I think while working around the house or driving. They may be unnecessary these days. I can simply date the entries. Or I can stop the entries. Or maybe something else. I don't know anymore." This site contains mature content Created by REN in Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 Copyright ©2002-2024 Brandywine Engineering All rights reserved All other trademarks, logos and graphics are the property of their respective owners Questions? Comments? Gather your thoughts and compose a message to the assholes in charge
July 1st, 2022 12:43pm pdt If you are visiting for the first time, go to the beginning. Ut Agnoscis Malum read ( words) "1013 and I have half the routine finished. For whatever reason, sweeping the house into the spare bedroom and cleaning the litter always seems daunting, yet the task takes less than fifteen minutes. The positive is that once finished, I feel good about it. Both are now complete because on Sunday I toss the bag which has been catching litter all week into the trash as a first step to the business of the day. Now I can sit and keep the house quiet for a while while sipping bourbon with my friends in the background. And this... Whatever it is. The episode airing right now has a beautiful ending, one which brings a tear to my eye every fucking time. ‘The world is changing.’ – Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, little did she know. Indeed, I am feeling the losses more acutely this morning, in part due to visiting that store the other day, and some because of so much emptiness surrounding me. I feel as if I am in a small boat wandering an endless sea, alone and with no oars. Pushed by the currents, influenced by the Moon’s pull, and lost for all time. There is nothing more than a few key comforts left in my life. Every show, movie, outing, or event brings memories to the surface which then illuminate the gradient. When I walk into the garage for a break or whatever else, I feel differently than even yesterday. I no longer have regard for much of what I see each day, even less so when a person speaks to me. My devices have taken precedence in the worst way. This condition is not my doing. Not even close. Others have done this to me and forced the perspective of the thousand-person analogy. My sole embrace is the voice. Still, I must truncate the words. Interference could be disastrous. The necessity of holding my tongue around people has never been more dire. I still don’t understand the difficulty, and I am quite certain I’ve been forcibly driven to such a conclusion by lions. There can no longer be any doubt and I feel hatred toward them. All of them. The root cause is so many thousands of years back in history that I can barely identify the distinction, nor am I equipped to explain the whole fucking mess. Recently I mentioned the ‘blown gas’, or the manner in which the world is slowly going to hell in a handbasket. Everyone is at fault, and my situation or condition is mostly unrelated. Still there are connections, though, such as the dramatic difference in the sexes and our history of complete shit due to the same. There is no way of changing the way a person thinks unless they wish it. Such a statement relates not only to society destroying itself, but also the fact that I have realized who the true enemy really is. Understanding the difficulty inherent in certain situations from my past is probably impossible because if I speak to another person, their words CANNOT be objective, and I don’t give a blue fuck of their background or education. Even those who have had the misfortune of being physically or emotionally close to me have zero fucking clues as to how this condition has developed. Believe me, I’ve opened the doors often enough to realize that they are bent upon their own agendas. As a result of years of such behavior, I am now as false as humanly possible. This is necessary or the lawful evil shall reign. Lawful evil. If you don’t believe me, I really don’t care. The difficulty drove me to the end expected, a position within the world I predicted as far back as zero three. Go read something. 0706 on Monday. No garbage trucks as of yet. The world is very quiet right now. The usual has been done this morning. And now, last night. Something took place while visiting for the birthday dinner, and I believe it began with a discussion of very old video games, with my experience dating back to the late seventies. The conversation faded a while later. Upon returning home and into the early evening, I began to speak of the car audio days and the system built into my wagon. I think I’ve spoken of it before. Well, last night I tried to describe some details regarding amplification and speaker impedance, and for some reason the conversation led itself from the early beginnings of the hobby to the big electronics stores, and right on through to the short period of working with my parents in the valley. The phase lock era. I also made a stopover at the outset of the computer era. I was speaking on and off (mostly on) for roughly three hours. And then I stopped. And then I began again after apologizing for not ceasing the exposition. Two more times I cycled through starting and stopping before finally deciding to go to sleep. I was sure to put a fine point on the fact that working for my parents was the best job I’ve ever held, bar none. Not even working within the space program was as enjoyable. That one had its moments, though. I don’t know why I went around the world like that last night. Something must have struck me at some point. 0757 and the morning business is finished. I am going to visit the wine store in a little over an hour, and probably next door, too. I need some shower items. I’ll probably see all sorts of shit, like yesterday on the way home from the birthday party. One near a little shop on the west side of the shipping center who promptly brought the damaging dream back to mind, and two others in the market. The first sight was horrible. Fortunately, we finished picking up a few items and I was able to stroll out without falling on my face any further. I’ll tell you something, though, the first was very difficult, especially considering how closely connected to the dream she was. That dream sliced me open and I am still bleeding over a month later. Watching a form such as the one gliding along at close range yesterday does not help me cope. The two in the market did not compare very well. Still, I’m tired of this. Heading over the hill to a few places may or may not yield its share of problems. I can still see the pants walking through the storefront. Not good. After last night’s tirade, I was hoping for some quiet today so I could reconcile everything. There is an ass in my eyes. Black pants and long, black hair. No one cares. No one is listening. The voice is loud. The paragraph below will not allow me to rise in any fashion most mornings. In fact, seeing it there generally causes difficulty and helps the information to maintain a grip on my throat. I cannot remove it, however, because that would be akin to denying the facts. I can’t have that right now. I know what I am, and I know some of what delivered me to this place. Denying the truth does not make it false, and things are only impossible until they are not. 0917. Half the routine finished. There is not much to the kitchen this morning because we were out yesterday. I’ll take care of it after returning from the shopping trip. I also have some laundry to care for and a bit of organization in the garage. Everything will be in order by the afternoon, like most days. I wish the inside of my head was in order. Fourth show, rolling along. I’m going to try avoiding anything enticing while out. The resulting torment has become too much to bear at times. Yesterday, for example. The girl walking into the store just down the street is still spinning and I have no control over the process. It’s not her fault. She is just a person who happens to carry lines all over the fucking place; lines I cannot seem to reconcile. The wine store may be a problem, so I’ll have to steel myself upon entering, take care of the shopping quickly, and get the fuck back out of there before anything can develop. As of yet, I have not been able to cruise through there without glancing around. Looking is simply a way of life, and probably perfectly natural for the average person. For me, however, it has become the tipping point which always drives me into the ground. I need to leave soon so I can return early. 0646 on Tuesday morning. The usual setup, fourth show still going, you know the rest. I did all the shopping yesterday with zero problems, returned to my space and remained comfortable for the rest of the day. Nothing above and beyond the norm was accomplished. The beginning of my end The image above is of the actual Slipper that I owned, and only a day after I purchased it. Other than the fucking story I continue to be compelled to write, that car is the biggest loss of my life. Believe it. I see it and my insides become sliced to ribbons, even more than a decade later. If I cannot be defined as an idiot, no one can. Anyway... The only problems were inside me. I don’t know how I managed to visit three different stores in two shopping centers without seeing anything. I am always looking. Well, the girl attending the self checkout lane had beautiful hair, but I honestly did not see her face. She was tiny, anyway. I recall dreaming of being near my place of work in the space program, yet despite being in proximity to those facilities, I somehow knew I’d been on the outside of such a world for several years. There were rotorcraft approaching in large numbers and flying in formation, something I’ve never seen in my life. Once long ago near the Mojave aircraft graveyard, I spied two of them (Ospreys) from a distance. That is all. The dream had a multitude of them flying nearby and then setting down on the tarmac near where I worked. We were on the opposite side of the freeway and peering through a fence. Moments later, I was driving my Slipper near the same area. My two coworkers were beckoning me to follow them across a pedestrian bridge so we could get inside the Center. Someone else was there, too. He was talking about a strange railing running along the center of the stairs which blocked people from passing, as if that particular entrance to the Center had been cut off and abandoned years before. Just as we were about to turn back and leave, I saw a huge torque wrench standing next to a light pole and was intrigued. I wanted to bring it along but my boss stated that it would never fit in the car. Heh. He was correct. Dreaming of the Slipper can be debilitating at times. Nothing in the world – not even a person, be it friend or family – has moved me and caused such levels of love and admiration. I was obsessed with that machine for nearly twenty years before finally acquiring my favorite model, and then owned it for less than eighteen months. I really fucked up that situation far worse than I had previously thought possible. Ah, but I was driven into the ground by a lion. Never mind that part. I don’t like admitting to such vast amounts of weakness. Anyway, I’ve missed the work and that special location (the period is also rolled up like a burrito into my love for those big electronics stores) for many years now, but the clincher was the Slipper. This morning I saw visions of driving it to work for the first time just over twelve years ago. I was in the dark leaving so early, and that day became the first occasion of marveling at the amber lighting inside the cabin, along with the fact that the windshield was so dramatically raked that the rear view mirror was actually behind the shifter. On the bottom of the mirror was a small lamp which caused the center console to glow. I’d sat in a few models before owning one, yet never at night. I felt like I was sitting inside a very comfortable leather glove, and one designed around a mannequin of me. I may be at more of a loss right now than I was when the car went away. I really don’t need that kind of dream these days. I don’t need reminders of everything I forfeited, either. 0754 and the morning business is finished. I have peace and quiet along with the space to do whatever I feel is best. 1013. The routine is mostly finished. I haven’t dried the dishes yet because I may prepare some stuff for dinner. I can polish off everything afterward. Fourth show, still. Sixth season. The downside is I am once again very angry due to not understanding why some very critical aspects of life must be so fucking difficult. Sometimes I see things (not that one I mentioned before which is extremely tough to consider) and my mind wanders a bit toward machinery, Ashley, and other subjects. I do not seem to have any control over when this takes place, although I can force myself to become distracted at times. This morning? I have not been able to extricate anything difficult from my brain in favor of work or other shit. I don’t know what to do with this situation. I am not the type of person who easily deals with unchangeable circumstances. One might say that the healthy choice is to focus elsewhere and attempt to ‘let go’ of those subjects which have no solutions. Well, I do not often look at the healthy aspects of life, nor do I feel that there is a coping method available to me that will actually help. Nothing has helped as of yet. Time continues to burn away. ‘They say that time is the fire in which we burn.’ – Malcolm McDowell as Soren. No shit. Burning. The feelings inside me burn as does the time on the fucking clocks. I wish there was some device in existence which had the power to either help me forget everything or alter my psyche to the point of feeling different about all that I do not understand. Well, there have been a few devices that actually eased this type of shit situation, yet they are all fucking gone, likely forever. I keep looking back to bad things I’ve done in life, yet still nothing seems bad to the point of causing this much heartache at my age. I don’t get it. Maybe I never will, and maybe this site I’ve worked so hard to maintain will also remain as it has been for years. I have no power. The fourth of July is six days away, and that is one of the two holidays in which my little empire is lit and in full swing. Unfortunately, the feeling of being out there amidst the color and music during the holiday is not enough to effectively offset my daily decline. I’ve stated several times in the last two years that this shit is going to come to a head because I only see one way out. I will not lie about it. Suicide is unlawful, yet if an individual succeeds, there are no consequences to the person in question. Only others are affected. One tidbit about the fact that such an act is unlawful is the idea that threatening or ideation are neither against the law nor can they be controlled. The blown gas illustrated that changing the way a person thinks is impossible if they are unwilling. This is the way I think, and the idea of suicide may be the only power I will ever know. Sad? Yes, but I’ve been driven to this by other people. That was a nice paragraph. The bourbon is very cold. I just don't understand. 0701. Wednesday. Last night we were tested, something that has not happened in many years. It came on the heels of a meeting Sunday which caught us off guard... All of us. A short conversation later and we knew more needed to be discussed. The test was simple and quick. From here on in we may be checked nightly. Today will be a little different than yesterday. Well, different than many of the past days. I pretty much decided that moving away from the norm must happen pretty quick or I’ll really lose direction. I can’t have that right now. The simple fact is my lifestyle inside this little house is currently very agreeable and I have not appreciated it enough this year. A very long period of time found me in dire need of breaking free from the work routine and scene afterward, and here I am with much more control over my days. Nearly all of it, really. I have not appreciated this situation enough for more than two years. The beginning was when I became very angry at a certain event and flipped out for a while. By the time I truly calmed myself enough to think clearly, an entire calendar year had passed. And now another year has elapsed and left me considering my place again. This will not be anything dramatic, though. Just a few small changes. 0804 and the morning stuff is out of the way. Now I have a ton of time to consider the ramifications of yesterday’s test and make a plan to come out the other side of this day in better shape than the last several months. I’m in a bad enough spot right now. I don’t need this to go on any further. The news is rather ridiculous this morning aside from the weather. A different end Trying to find more images of the Slipper has become futile. I’ll have to move around soon, lest I become a part of this sofa/computer combination beyond two cups of coffee. That is a very dangerous situation. I’ll become disillusioned and angry, afterward finding little reason to do anything. It happens too often, and I simply cannot have that shit today. And the flags are not out due to some precipitation. My flags are not of the storm variety. I have plenty of small items to care for today. Keeping fairly busy should not be a problem. I just have to push, and I’ve succeeded in the past. The fourth show is up there again as I consider the work today and how I can cope with being so empty all the time. The paragraph below continues to rear its ugly head, though. There are three names within that thought (realization) and I cannot deny the individual influences they had upon me during each of those three periods. Andrea is not there, nor is the Raven. Three other names I think about on a daily basis, especially when I dream of the girl. Zoe’s eyes are gorgeous, especially with the shape of her nose and the Bajoran makeup. I could swim in those eyes, and such a feeling is partly due to the paragraph below... A need I cannot spell out here. There have been two occasions when I reached. I will not do that anymore. The reaching caused more harm than good, and at one point when I nearly opened the floodgates a third time, I feared being accused of manipulation. If that fucking person only knew of the truth. I guess sometimes my words fall of deaf ears, or worse, ears that just don’t fucking care. Deception and manipulation each work in two directions. Remember that the next time you feel the need to belittle another person’s deepest fears. Anyway, the three names have become a part of the girl and will probably remain as such forever. 0903. Last of the coffee. I am not going to have the typical morning cocktail because I know full well that one of the effects is a lack of ambition. Consider this day an experiment. I am mere minutes away from beginning the work. 1024. Routine finished. I have some laundry to do, as well. I’ll get to it very soon. Right now my head is filled with enough shit to derail my thinking. I passed on the morning cocktail. Well, that may change if I can’t force the shit out of my brain. So far, I’ve done fine. I jumped up and began the work just to help right myself after nearly falling all the way down less than an hour ago. I just don’t fucking understand why some parts of life must be so difficult. I don’t get it. The fact that no one is listening continues to contribute to this current state of mind. The double-edged sword is wreaking havoc right now, meaning I need help but am terrified of the possible consequences. This has been the case for so long that I no longer have any hope that the lack of understanding can be alleviated, even a little bit. I need it so badly now that everything I see or do is partially masked by heartache. Even those ideas which are very enticing cannot reach their full potential for more than a few seconds before I regress. Damn this whole situation. Damn it. The woman on the patron’s arm is unreal, and she doesn’t matter in the least. Just another image with which I can do exactly NOTHING. There will be more. I need to go to the dry cleaners after lunch, which is near the goddess market. No doubt I will see some errant pair of pants attached to a dream and then fall on my stupid face again. The woman on the screen is the same, yet no pants of the sort which scream at me. Basket case, as always. The title has not been mentioned much, but that is part of the process. It is there, within me, yet I cannot spell out even a fraction of what I believe, nor can I glean the simplest aspects of the same. Backlash is not good, so I’ll keep everything inside. Perhaps after several more related titles, someone will get the fucking point. I really don’t care anymore. Everything has been ripped away. Even while littered with difficulty and trials, the presence of the ethereal was still a positive. These days I cannot STAND dealing with other people. Unfortunately, the material which has been removed requires some sort of connection, the type of which I do not want. I do not trust anyone and will not expose myself again in this life. The damage has been done. At times the damage was offset, yet now I have learned too much to allow another soul to become close to my issues. I am alone in my thinking, alone in this house, and I fully intend to remain as such until my death. That fucking paragraph is nearly too much to bear, but I already pointed out the fact that if I remove it, I am eliminating truth. I’ve never been in more of a fucking scrape than I am at this very moment. Angry. I fucking hate everything yet cannot do a thing about it. 0736, Thursday morning. No flags again due to the heavy drizzle. I always say there is little chance of accurately predicting the weather here because the ocean is right down the street. Heh. Sometimes the ocean makes us feel small. My interest in weather patterns began way the hell back while working for the parts house during the glow. The latter part of the glow, if I recall correctly. I was driving a small delivery truck around town and sometimes over the second set of hills leading to the Central Valley. Damn, but it was hot out there. We had no air conditioning in those trucks and usually ended up sweating the entire way. Sometimes on the way back into town I would look over to a nice car with a lady at the wheel – all windows up – and see her hair being blown back by the cool air from the climate control system. During those times I often dreamed of a nicer car with options, as opposed to the very old truck I owned. Day after day I’d see newer, more expensive vehicles nearby, all with nice, cool air coming forth from the dash. That period was also when I first spotted a ZR-1 while delivering parts two towns away. I was immediately in love with the differences between it and the L98 version. Very soon, I began to assemble the image of sitting in that leather glove of a passenger compartment with the air conditioning blasting and completely defying the heat outside the windows. My sensitivity to weather and temperature seemed to increase after moving to the Midwest, too. I sat there during my first summer and watched the tennis championships from England while working with three box fans to cycle air around the bottom floor of the house. And on the screen were those well-off people living in comfort all the time simply because they could. I was overjoyed when fall arrived and everything changed. I think I only went on about the climate because I’ve been missing the Slipper and the biggest dream in decades. I finally achieved purchasing the car and then sat there in the heat with my air conditioning blowing nicely. Thinking of that time makes me feel like a fucking idiot anymore, though. Nice memories offset by damaging and destructive behavior. The only glaring positive is that I was able to move to the coast after dreaming of being here for more than twenty years. Even that one is offset... The car is gone. I have to stop talking about this. I don’t really need to concern myself with climate anymore, thanks to living so close to the water. The temperature does not get out of control here, although since there is no insulation in the house, once the mercury rises in the afternoon, an entire night can be required for it to drop back to normal. Other than that, the weather here is comfortable. A trip to the market is on tap for later this morning, likely after I complete the first half of the routine. Upon returning, I’ll be into ‘cocktail and kitchen cleaning’ hour. Well, I should go to the cleaners because I never made it out the door yesterday. Perhaps there first, and then I can swing into the grocery store on the way back. Hopefully nothing runs aslant while I am amidst society. I really don’t need to see anything formidable right now. My brain is already soaked through. The title is in the back of my mind, always. Don’t forget it. The steering column from the Slipper I’m still pissed off. There does not seem to be a way around this condition once the ideas enter my head. The only saving throw against losing my way is to work. Very soon I’ll have to hop to the first half of the routine and then head out the door for shopping. Sitting here pissed off all morning only reinforces the effect of being alone all the time, and those parts of life ripped away continue to plague me no matter what I’m doing at a given moment. I really don’t need this shit. There is already enough self-disgust and disdain inside me regarding the past. Thinking about my sensitivity to climate and that summer driving around the valley only reminds me of how fulfilling life was at that time. The memories do not bring a smile anymore, be those related to the work, a relationship, or the fucking Slipper. All bad. I don’t see an avenue available for me to let go of so much anger. As soon as the last of the coffee is gone, I need to step out the door to go shopping. At least I have things requiring attention that have a sliver of a chance of distracting me for a little while. Just a sliver, but it’s all I have right now. 1211. The routine is finished, there is a cocktail next to me for dealing with a sighting at the market, and I have a plan for the remainder of the day. As for what I saw over there, suffice to say that I actually protected myself as much as was feasible considering the circumstances of being in a public place. Being the creature of habit I am, I parked to the extreme right of both entrances to the market, leaving the ass-end of the car available for accessing the trunk. I usually prefer a pull-through to ease my exit, but I was to pick up cases of water. They are heavy and easier to load into the trunk. At that point I walked all the way through both breezeways to the far left end of the store to grab one of the shorter carts. They make navigating the aisles much easier. Well, that was the moment. I spied two women walking toward the entrance, one of them appearing very tall, well-dressed, and with long, flowing hair moving beautifully in the breeze. As I stepped along the second breezeway, I saw her face through the window not ten feet from my eyes and subsequently realized that she was going to be a fucking huge problem. Not pants or anything else, just her face. The woman appeared to have just walked off a magazine cover. Ouch. I can safely state that hers was the most beautiful face I have ever seen in this little town. I turned away, grabbed a cart, and tried to plan my route through the store in order to completely avoid what felt the most powerful pull upon my senses. As I rolled the cart through the left doors, I caught a glimpse of her heading toward the right-hand doors. I was correct... Very tall, and dressed professionally in slacks and a jacket. I made it a point to restrict my vision to the groceries. I only saw her once more, near the produce. I grabbed my items and made a beeline in the opposite direction to finish my shopping at the other end of the store. As my brain began to melt, I knew the only way to survive was to ignore others and take care of my business. I went to the self checkout, rang up the items and paid, and then moved at a decent pace back to the car. I did not see her again. Upon reaching home, I felt the sight of her face fade away. Sitting here over an hour later, she is gone. Thank the fucking maker. 0652 on Friday morning. No flags today, either. There is still lots of precipitation. Not rain, just that thick drizzle that feels like walking through a mister during a summer fair. Coffee, though. My fourth show, too. Yesterday worked out better than I had anticipated. Nothing overwhelming, though. Just some small tasks here and there, eventually adding up to my feeling decent about the day. Evening arrived soon enough and I avoided feeling worthless. This morning I seem to still be riding a bit of that train, too. After a strange dream involving my little empire, I am partially confused, however. Some dreams simply cannot be understood. We were out there. My garage. Lighting on, music playing, lots of people. Someone with whom I had been acquainted some time ago backed his truck into my driveway, tapped the garage door with the bed and the bumper of my car, and then came in like gangbusters, as if I would be as happy to see him as he was to see me. Well, I was not, but there was some sort of party going on, meaning I did not reject anyone. And for whatever reason, my car was parked in the garage and yet there was still tons of room everywhere. Whatever. He gave me a jacket with patches all over it. I was trying to maintain order out there with all those people, too. I don’t know why. Rain was pouring down outside. That is all. Thankfully, I was not reminded of some recent time spent out there during the night. Today I don’t have to go anywhere. Maybe more writing during the morning and some of my favorite media in the background. Later I will continue with the adventure of rearranging the office and master bedroom so I can build the little empire once again. I’ve decided to acquire a new desktop computer, twin monitors and speakers similar to those I used to have, and then work in that office most of the time since this machine may not last the year. Another computer will also free up this one to be upgraded on the hardware side of things. It needs help due to the software continually being updated and loading the resources. I need to finish the bedroom first before I can switch the two tables in the office. Too bad I gave away my fucking office chair a while back. I suppose I’ll have to find another very soon. 0821 and here I am for the duration. Still the weather is drizzling. And there is something wrong with the data stream for the show. It has been very choppy for a while now, meaning I had to restart the system and see if doing so helps increase bandwidth. Nope. No change. I’ll have to switch networks. No big deal. The rest of my morning is going to be very quiet and peaceful. I don’t plan to do anything for at least another hour, and even then there isn’t much. I keep thinking about that woman at the store yesterday. The incident now feels like one hell of a victory, even though I am still very weak and more desperate than ever. The reason behind this feeling is that I consciously avoided her as opposed to my typical behavior, which is to take in as much as possible knowing she will be gone forever, and very soon. I barely saw beyond that face, and immediately knew she would cripple me. I opted to save myself. This is very unusual, yet still I believe I did a good thing. Maybe there is a possibility that I can do it again. Self-protection. My brain pretty much turned off for a few minutes. A good thing, although I forgot to pick up salad. Perhaps I subconsciously let go of the salad idea because she was in the produce department and I had to stay away. I can’t see her face anymore. That type of appearance is so fucking rare that I am unable to compute the odds of catching even the slightest glimpse. She was unbelievable. The video playback has been back and forth between smooth and choppy. I didn’t switch networks. Now I must. The damned streaming device is literally fifteen inches from the gateway and should be fine. I can run tests on the throughput between the phone and this machine, meaning the issue may be the network itself. Maybe I’ll just leave it because I’m mostly listening anyway. Whatever the issue, time may heal it. The time is after 0900 now, so I'll be away from this soon enough. I have to care for my routine and then perhaps return here for a while before anything else. You'll notice I have not referenced the title or the girl for many lines. I don't really see the point anymore. Both are impossible to understand and taking their toll upon my well-being, and writing over and over has solved nothing thus far. Not a fucking thing. 0943 and this morning is becoming a problem situation. I was nearly pulled into an abyss yesterday at this hour and the only save was to grab my shit, lock the house and head out to shop. The only possible destination today is the cigarette store, meaning I have many hours here at home if nothing else develops. Well, I can also force the issue and take off for elsewhere while out. Right now I just don't know because there is a cyclone inside pressing upon my head enough to keep me still. No routine yet, and no other ideas of how to cope with feeling this way. It happens too fucking much these days. The fruit of my misdirection The face yesterday was merely a symptom of a much larger issue; just one facet of a dodecahedron I cannot control most of the time. I broke out for a little while yesterday afternoon, but I honestly cannot count on the ability to rise at all. The story I recently updated (something which absolutely must remain under guard) is another facet. I thought it was completely destroyed some time ago, but the truth is the entire shitaree lives on in my head. The more I think about it, the more pain I feel. Add to that the damaging dream and what it has done to my brain, and then pile the desperation and dreaming atop the entire situation, and the result is my feeling paralyzed all too often. This is not my fault. I’m not going to mince words here. My existence is completely fucked aside from the daily comforts of life. Physical comforts, to be sure. Everything else has eluded me or otherwise been removed, possibly for all time, and the difficulty in dealing with such loss is increasing each day. The simple fact is my weakness and desperation create feelings with zero outlet. The visions I run across from time to time only cement the emptiness, and losing my way completely is only a matter of that same time. I don’t know when I’ll be fully lost, but I do know there is no more ‘if’ involved. All the way back in seventeen I knew this would eventually arrive; this feeling that there is no way out. As I said, some were never there while other aspects have been torn away like bits of a dead tree in a storm. Little by little, I am shrinking. I am withdrawing more every day. The mindset right now is that aside from some extraordinary and very unlikely circumstances in the near future, this condition shall continue unimpeded. I see nothing on the horizon. Purples and reds, yet again. I still have yet to attack the kitchen, which honestly will not take long. I had to sit here again and gush more shit to the screen. Cocktail next to me, like always. I ran out of bourbon, so whiskey is my only choice. Icy and cold. The booze never abandons my need, nor will it judge. A depressant for the depression case. Today is Friday and the holiday is Monday. I’m going to roll the barbeque to the driveway and set up a food preparation area on one of the workbenches. That has been the norm for years. Only the two of us will be here unless her dad stops by to say hello and have a beer. After sunset, we will probably light some fireworks of the legal variety. I am not the individual to tempt fate by launching illegal shit. The simple fact is there will be tons of them in the sky that night, and my self-preservation will kick in and allow me to avoid doing anything stupid. The only laws I break these days are traffic-related. The occasional push over the speed limit while driving and nothing else. In spite of all the shit spinning circles inside me, I am still a good person. That probably sounds funny. I am looking forward to relaxing on the driveway in three days. It’s a distraction, like other holidays. The only downside is the noise. Our cats become very frightened, meaning I need to have all the windows closed no matter how warm the house may be by evening. I’ll do my best to ensure the indoor space is as quiet as possible. 1045 now. Maybe I need to stay away from writing that other story. It is only one hundred lines of code, but when I read or edit the content, my head descends to a dark place better avoided. The story is a very intimate recount of something which took place long ago and still haunts me to this very second. I can’t really remain away for very long, though, because revisions keep pushing me to expand on the descriptive nature of the story and add detail. Unfortunately, nothing I can write will carry even a fraction of the power involved in what took place back then. Think of a series of complex tumblers fully aligning after being disjointed for years, and then go further and imagine those very same tumblers have been obliterated forever. A one-time situation, and one of the most relevant reasons for why I feel the way I do. There is an uncredited character in this episode with a very stern expression on her face. I swear to everything holy, I can see that if she were to smile, my heart would melt into a puddle of goo. That kind of face just fucking kills me. If I could just tell her... But? There is much of the fucking issue right there. Dreaming, fantasizing, or whatever you want to call it. The years passed have turned me into a desperate, blubbering idiot who is completely bereft of anything powerful enough to alleviate these massive waves of sadness. No wonder I am pissed off all the time. Wouldn’t you be? ‘Nothing unreal exists.’ Thanks, Spock. I was looking at the top image again and realized that I shot that right before having the rear tires replaced. The car needed them when I bought it and I knew full well that the front and rear could not be rotated like on other vehicles due to very different tread widths. When I cruised to the tire store to inquire about having them replaced, I learned that the size of the rears was rare and very expensive. Eh, such was a pitfall of owning an exotic model. I spent more money on those two tires and the labor to have them installed than I did for FOUR fucking tires on my big truck, and keep in mind those were oversized, off-road tires. Oy gawd, what a machine I purchased. But I loved it. LOSS. If it weren't for the little comforts and enjoyments I can still embrace, I would have blown my head off already. The story is nothing when held against the massive victory of acquiring my dream car. The story can go and fuck itself in a frozen ditch in Winter. I hate this. 1221 and the routine is finally finished. Now I am without direction. Part of me wants to shower and cruise over to the electronics store to research a new desktop computer along with peripherals, yet my ambition to do anything is as a void. I don’t know what to do for the rest of the day. There is a lovely glass of bourbon cream next to me, all chilled and yummy. No lunch, though. I don’t feel hungry in the least. The morning has taken its toll. I suppose the circumstances through which I lived to this point in time have all remained inside me as opposed to some having been ‘let go’. I honestly don’t know how to let go of anything. Any situation which stands out in any way within my mind is still there. I recall conversations dating back forty-plus fucking years, yet I can barely remember to change the furnace filter ten minutes after my phone pops up a reminder. I wish I could understand. The words ‘torn away’ continue to resonate inside my head no matter what activity has priority. Everything is gone. The little things had better carry me through this netherworld of sadness and grief. My view of life has never been so narrow. I've done things that affected my ability to move forward and live, yet I have not done everything. The current period is not my doing. The title went away and I don't care. Titles come to mind when I think while working around the house or driving. They may be unnecessary these days. I can simply date the entries. Or I can stop the entries. Or maybe something else. I don't know anymore."
July 1st, 2022 12:43pm pdt
If you are visiting for the first time, go to the beginning.
Ut Agnoscis Malum
read ( words)
"1013 and I have half the routine finished. For whatever reason, sweeping the house into the spare bedroom and cleaning the litter always seems daunting, yet the task takes less than fifteen minutes. The positive is that once finished, I feel good about it. Both are now complete because on Sunday I toss the bag which has been catching litter all week into the trash as a first step to the business of the day. Now I can sit and keep the house quiet for a while while sipping bourbon with my friends in the background. And this... Whatever it is. The episode airing right now has a beautiful ending, one which brings a tear to my eye every fucking time. ‘The world is changing.’ – Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, little did she know. Indeed, I am feeling the losses more acutely this morning, in part due to visiting that store the other day, and some because of so much emptiness surrounding me. I feel as if I am in a small boat wandering an endless sea, alone and with no oars. Pushed by the currents, influenced by the Moon’s pull, and lost for all time. There is nothing more than a few key comforts left in my life. Every show, movie, outing, or event brings memories to the surface which then illuminate the gradient. When I walk into the garage for a break or whatever else, I feel differently than even yesterday. I no longer have regard for much of what I see each day, even less so when a person speaks to me. My devices have taken precedence in the worst way. This condition is not my doing. Not even close. Others have done this to me and forced the perspective of the thousand-person analogy. My sole embrace is the voice. Still, I must truncate the words. Interference could be disastrous. The necessity of holding my tongue around people has never been more dire. I still don’t understand the difficulty, and I am quite certain I’ve been forcibly driven to such a conclusion by lions. There can no longer be any doubt and I feel hatred toward them. All of them. The root cause is so many thousands of years back in history that I can barely identify the distinction, nor am I equipped to explain the whole fucking mess. Recently I mentioned the ‘blown gas’, or the manner in which the world is slowly going to hell in a handbasket. Everyone is at fault, and my situation or condition is mostly unrelated. Still there are connections, though, such as the dramatic difference in the sexes and our history of complete shit due to the same. There is no way of changing the way a person thinks unless they wish it. Such a statement relates not only to society destroying itself, but also the fact that I have realized who the true enemy really is. Understanding the difficulty inherent in certain situations from my past is probably impossible because if I speak to another person, their words CANNOT be objective, and I don’t give a blue fuck of their background or education. Even those who have had the misfortune of being physically or emotionally close to me have zero fucking clues as to how this condition has developed. Believe me, I’ve opened the doors often enough to realize that they are bent upon their own agendas. As a result of years of such behavior, I am now as false as humanly possible. This is necessary or the lawful evil shall reign. Lawful evil. If you don’t believe me, I really don’t care. The difficulty drove me to the end expected, a position within the world I predicted as far back as zero three. Go read something. 0706 on Monday. No garbage trucks as of yet. The world is very quiet right now. The usual has been done this morning. And now, last night. Something took place while visiting for the birthday dinner, and I believe it began with a discussion of very old video games, with my experience dating back to the late seventies. The conversation faded a while later. Upon returning home and into the early evening, I began to speak of the car audio days and the system built into my wagon. I think I’ve spoken of it before. Well, last night I tried to describe some details regarding amplification and speaker impedance, and for some reason the conversation led itself from the early beginnings of the hobby to the big electronics stores, and right on through to the short period of working with my parents in the valley. The phase lock era. I also made a stopover at the outset of the computer era. I was speaking on and off (mostly on) for roughly three hours. And then I stopped. And then I began again after apologizing for not ceasing the exposition. Two more times I cycled through starting and stopping before finally deciding to go to sleep. I was sure to put a fine point on the fact that working for my parents was the best job I’ve ever held, bar none. Not even working within the space program was as enjoyable. That one had its moments, though. I don’t know why I went around the world like that last night. Something must have struck me at some point. 0757 and the morning business is finished. I am going to visit the wine store in a little over an hour, and probably next door, too. I need some shower items. I’ll probably see all sorts of shit, like yesterday on the way home from the birthday party. One near a little shop on the west side of the shipping center who promptly brought the damaging dream back to mind, and two others in the market. The first sight was horrible. Fortunately, we finished picking up a few items and I was able to stroll out without falling on my face any further. I’ll tell you something, though, the first was very difficult, especially considering how closely connected to the dream she was. That dream sliced me open and I am still bleeding over a month later. Watching a form such as the one gliding along at close range yesterday does not help me cope. The two in the market did not compare very well. Still, I’m tired of this. Heading over the hill to a few places may or may not yield its share of problems. I can still see the pants walking through the storefront. Not good. After last night’s tirade, I was hoping for some quiet today so I could reconcile everything. There is an ass in my eyes. Black pants and long, black hair. No one cares. No one is listening. The voice is loud. The paragraph below will not allow me to rise in any fashion most mornings. In fact, seeing it there generally causes difficulty and helps the information to maintain a grip on my throat. I cannot remove it, however, because that would be akin to denying the facts. I can’t have that right now. I know what I am, and I know some of what delivered me to this place. Denying the truth does not make it false, and things are only impossible until they are not. 0917. Half the routine finished. There is not much to the kitchen this morning because we were out yesterday. I’ll take care of it after returning from the shopping trip. I also have some laundry to care for and a bit of organization in the garage. Everything will be in order by the afternoon, like most days. I wish the inside of my head was in order. Fourth show, rolling along. I’m going to try avoiding anything enticing while out. The resulting torment has become too much to bear at times. Yesterday, for example. The girl walking into the store just down the street is still spinning and I have no control over the process. It’s not her fault. She is just a person who happens to carry lines all over the fucking place; lines I cannot seem to reconcile. The wine store may be a problem, so I’ll have to steel myself upon entering, take care of the shopping quickly, and get the fuck back out of there before anything can develop. As of yet, I have not been able to cruise through there without glancing around. Looking is simply a way of life, and probably perfectly natural for the average person. For me, however, it has become the tipping point which always drives me into the ground. I need to leave soon so I can return early. 0646 on Tuesday morning. The usual setup, fourth show still going, you know the rest. I did all the shopping yesterday with zero problems, returned to my space and remained comfortable for the rest of the day. Nothing above and beyond the norm was accomplished.
The beginning of my end
The image above is of the actual Slipper that I owned, and only a day after I purchased it. Other than the fucking story I continue to be compelled to write, that car is the biggest loss of my life. Believe it. I see it and my insides become sliced to ribbons, even more than a decade later. If I cannot be defined as an idiot, no one can. Anyway... The only problems were inside me. I don’t know how I managed to visit three different stores in two shopping centers without seeing anything. I am always looking. Well, the girl attending the self checkout lane had beautiful hair, but I honestly did not see her face. She was tiny, anyway. I recall dreaming of being near my place of work in the space program, yet despite being in proximity to those facilities, I somehow knew I’d been on the outside of such a world for several years. There were rotorcraft approaching in large numbers and flying in formation, something I’ve never seen in my life. Once long ago near the Mojave aircraft graveyard, I spied two of them (Ospreys) from a distance. That is all. The dream had a multitude of them flying nearby and then setting down on the tarmac near where I worked. We were on the opposite side of the freeway and peering through a fence. Moments later, I was driving my Slipper near the same area. My two coworkers were beckoning me to follow them across a pedestrian bridge so we could get inside the Center. Someone else was there, too. He was talking about a strange railing running along the center of the stairs which blocked people from passing, as if that particular entrance to the Center had been cut off and abandoned years before. Just as we were about to turn back and leave, I saw a huge torque wrench standing next to a light pole and was intrigued. I wanted to bring it along but my boss stated that it would never fit in the car. Heh. He was correct. Dreaming of the Slipper can be debilitating at times. Nothing in the world – not even a person, be it friend or family – has moved me and caused such levels of love and admiration. I was obsessed with that machine for nearly twenty years before finally acquiring my favorite model, and then owned it for less than eighteen months. I really fucked up that situation far worse than I had previously thought possible. Ah, but I was driven into the ground by a lion. Never mind that part. I don’t like admitting to such vast amounts of weakness. Anyway, I’ve missed the work and that special location (the period is also rolled up like a burrito into my love for those big electronics stores) for many years now, but the clincher was the Slipper. This morning I saw visions of driving it to work for the first time just over twelve years ago. I was in the dark leaving so early, and that day became the first occasion of marveling at the amber lighting inside the cabin, along with the fact that the windshield was so dramatically raked that the rear view mirror was actually behind the shifter. On the bottom of the mirror was a small lamp which caused the center console to glow. I’d sat in a few models before owning one, yet never at night. I felt like I was sitting inside a very comfortable leather glove, and one designed around a mannequin of me. I may be at more of a loss right now than I was when the car went away. I really don’t need that kind of dream these days. I don’t need reminders of everything I forfeited, either. 0754 and the morning business is finished. I have peace and quiet along with the space to do whatever I feel is best. 1013. The routine is mostly finished. I haven’t dried the dishes yet because I may prepare some stuff for dinner. I can polish off everything afterward. Fourth show, still. Sixth season. The downside is I am once again very angry due to not understanding why some very critical aspects of life must be so fucking difficult. Sometimes I see things (not that one I mentioned before which is extremely tough to consider) and my mind wanders a bit toward machinery, Ashley, and other subjects. I do not seem to have any control over when this takes place, although I can force myself to become distracted at times. This morning? I have not been able to extricate anything difficult from my brain in favor of work or other shit. I don’t know what to do with this situation. I am not the type of person who easily deals with unchangeable circumstances. One might say that the healthy choice is to focus elsewhere and attempt to ‘let go’ of those subjects which have no solutions. Well, I do not often look at the healthy aspects of life, nor do I feel that there is a coping method available to me that will actually help. Nothing has helped as of yet. Time continues to burn away. ‘They say that time is the fire in which we burn.’ – Malcolm McDowell as Soren. No shit. Burning. The feelings inside me burn as does the time on the fucking clocks. I wish there was some device in existence which had the power to either help me forget everything or alter my psyche to the point of feeling different about all that I do not understand. Well, there have been a few devices that actually eased this type of shit situation, yet they are all fucking gone, likely forever. I keep looking back to bad things I’ve done in life, yet still nothing seems bad to the point of causing this much heartache at my age. I don’t get it. Maybe I never will, and maybe this site I’ve worked so hard to maintain will also remain as it has been for years. I have no power. The fourth of July is six days away, and that is one of the two holidays in which my little empire is lit and in full swing. Unfortunately, the feeling of being out there amidst the color and music during the holiday is not enough to effectively offset my daily decline. I’ve stated several times in the last two years that this shit is going to come to a head because I only see one way out. I will not lie about it. Suicide is unlawful, yet if an individual succeeds, there are no consequences to the person in question. Only others are affected. One tidbit about the fact that such an act is unlawful is the idea that threatening or ideation are neither against the law nor can they be controlled. The blown gas illustrated that changing the way a person thinks is impossible if they are unwilling. This is the way I think, and the idea of suicide may be the only power I will ever know. Sad? Yes, but I’ve been driven to this by other people. That was a nice paragraph. The bourbon is very cold. I just don't understand. 0701. Wednesday. Last night we were tested, something that has not happened in many years. It came on the heels of a meeting Sunday which caught us off guard... All of us. A short conversation later and we knew more needed to be discussed. The test was simple and quick. From here on in we may be checked nightly. Today will be a little different than yesterday. Well, different than many of the past days. I pretty much decided that moving away from the norm must happen pretty quick or I’ll really lose direction. I can’t have that right now. The simple fact is my lifestyle inside this little house is currently very agreeable and I have not appreciated it enough this year. A very long period of time found me in dire need of breaking free from the work routine and scene afterward, and here I am with much more control over my days. Nearly all of it, really. I have not appreciated this situation enough for more than two years. The beginning was when I became very angry at a certain event and flipped out for a while. By the time I truly calmed myself enough to think clearly, an entire calendar year had passed. And now another year has elapsed and left me considering my place again. This will not be anything dramatic, though. Just a few small changes. 0804 and the morning stuff is out of the way. Now I have a ton of time to consider the ramifications of yesterday’s test and make a plan to come out the other side of this day in better shape than the last several months. I’m in a bad enough spot right now. I don’t need this to go on any further. The news is rather ridiculous this morning aside from the weather.
A different end
Trying to find more images of the Slipper has become futile. I’ll have to move around soon, lest I become a part of this sofa/computer combination beyond two cups of coffee. That is a very dangerous situation. I’ll become disillusioned and angry, afterward finding little reason to do anything. It happens too often, and I simply cannot have that shit today. And the flags are not out due to some precipitation. My flags are not of the storm variety. I have plenty of small items to care for today. Keeping fairly busy should not be a problem. I just have to push, and I’ve succeeded in the past. The fourth show is up there again as I consider the work today and how I can cope with being so empty all the time. The paragraph below continues to rear its ugly head, though. There are three names within that thought (realization) and I cannot deny the individual influences they had upon me during each of those three periods. Andrea is not there, nor is the Raven. Three other names I think about on a daily basis, especially when I dream of the girl. Zoe’s eyes are gorgeous, especially with the shape of her nose and the Bajoran makeup. I could swim in those eyes, and such a feeling is partly due to the paragraph below... A need I cannot spell out here. There have been two occasions when I reached. I will not do that anymore. The reaching caused more harm than good, and at one point when I nearly opened the floodgates a third time, I feared being accused of manipulation. If that fucking person only knew of the truth. I guess sometimes my words fall of deaf ears, or worse, ears that just don’t fucking care. Deception and manipulation each work in two directions. Remember that the next time you feel the need to belittle another person’s deepest fears. Anyway, the three names have become a part of the girl and will probably remain as such forever. 0903. Last of the coffee. I am not going to have the typical morning cocktail because I know full well that one of the effects is a lack of ambition. Consider this day an experiment. I am mere minutes away from beginning the work. 1024. Routine finished. I have some laundry to do, as well. I’ll get to it very soon. Right now my head is filled with enough shit to derail my thinking. I passed on the morning cocktail. Well, that may change if I can’t force the shit out of my brain. So far, I’ve done fine. I jumped up and began the work just to help right myself after nearly falling all the way down less than an hour ago. I just don’t fucking understand why some parts of life must be so difficult. I don’t get it. The fact that no one is listening continues to contribute to this current state of mind. The double-edged sword is wreaking havoc right now, meaning I need help but am terrified of the possible consequences. This has been the case for so long that I no longer have any hope that the lack of understanding can be alleviated, even a little bit. I need it so badly now that everything I see or do is partially masked by heartache. Even those ideas which are very enticing cannot reach their full potential for more than a few seconds before I regress. Damn this whole situation. Damn it. The woman on the patron’s arm is unreal, and she doesn’t matter in the least. Just another image with which I can do exactly NOTHING. There will be more. I need to go to the dry cleaners after lunch, which is near the goddess market. No doubt I will see some errant pair of pants attached to a dream and then fall on my stupid face again. The woman on the screen is the same, yet no pants of the sort which scream at me. Basket case, as always. The title has not been mentioned much, but that is part of the process. It is there, within me, yet I cannot spell out even a fraction of what I believe, nor can I glean the simplest aspects of the same. Backlash is not good, so I’ll keep everything inside. Perhaps after several more related titles, someone will get the fucking point. I really don’t care anymore. Everything has been ripped away. Even while littered with difficulty and trials, the presence of the ethereal was still a positive. These days I cannot STAND dealing with other people. Unfortunately, the material which has been removed requires some sort of connection, the type of which I do not want. I do not trust anyone and will not expose myself again in this life. The damage has been done. At times the damage was offset, yet now I have learned too much to allow another soul to become close to my issues. I am alone in my thinking, alone in this house, and I fully intend to remain as such until my death. That fucking paragraph is nearly too much to bear, but I already pointed out the fact that if I remove it, I am eliminating truth. I’ve never been in more of a fucking scrape than I am at this very moment. Angry. I fucking hate everything yet cannot do a thing about it. 0736, Thursday morning. No flags again due to the heavy drizzle. I always say there is little chance of accurately predicting the weather here because the ocean is right down the street. Heh. Sometimes the ocean makes us feel small. My interest in weather patterns began way the hell back while working for the parts house during the glow. The latter part of the glow, if I recall correctly. I was driving a small delivery truck around town and sometimes over the second set of hills leading to the Central Valley. Damn, but it was hot out there. We had no air conditioning in those trucks and usually ended up sweating the entire way. Sometimes on the way back into town I would look over to a nice car with a lady at the wheel – all windows up – and see her hair being blown back by the cool air from the climate control system. During those times I often dreamed of a nicer car with options, as opposed to the very old truck I owned. Day after day I’d see newer, more expensive vehicles nearby, all with nice, cool air coming forth from the dash. That period was also when I first spotted a ZR-1 while delivering parts two towns away. I was immediately in love with the differences between it and the L98 version. Very soon, I began to assemble the image of sitting in that leather glove of a passenger compartment with the air conditioning blasting and completely defying the heat outside the windows. My sensitivity to weather and temperature seemed to increase after moving to the Midwest, too. I sat there during my first summer and watched the tennis championships from England while working with three box fans to cycle air around the bottom floor of the house. And on the screen were those well-off people living in comfort all the time simply because they could. I was overjoyed when fall arrived and everything changed. I think I only went on about the climate because I’ve been missing the Slipper and the biggest dream in decades. I finally achieved purchasing the car and then sat there in the heat with my air conditioning blowing nicely. Thinking of that time makes me feel like a fucking idiot anymore, though. Nice memories offset by damaging and destructive behavior. The only glaring positive is that I was able to move to the coast after dreaming of being here for more than twenty years. Even that one is offset... The car is gone. I have to stop talking about this. I don’t really need to concern myself with climate anymore, thanks to living so close to the water. The temperature does not get out of control here, although since there is no insulation in the house, once the mercury rises in the afternoon, an entire night can be required for it to drop back to normal. Other than that, the weather here is comfortable. A trip to the market is on tap for later this morning, likely after I complete the first half of the routine. Upon returning, I’ll be into ‘cocktail and kitchen cleaning’ hour. Well, I should go to the cleaners because I never made it out the door yesterday. Perhaps there first, and then I can swing into the grocery store on the way back. Hopefully nothing runs aslant while I am amidst society. I really don’t need to see anything formidable right now. My brain is already soaked through. The title is in the back of my mind, always. Don’t forget it.
The steering column from the Slipper
I’m still pissed off. There does not seem to be a way around this condition once the ideas enter my head. The only saving throw against losing my way is to work. Very soon I’ll have to hop to the first half of the routine and then head out the door for shopping. Sitting here pissed off all morning only reinforces the effect of being alone all the time, and those parts of life ripped away continue to plague me no matter what I’m doing at a given moment. I really don’t need this shit. There is already enough self-disgust and disdain inside me regarding the past. Thinking about my sensitivity to climate and that summer driving around the valley only reminds me of how fulfilling life was at that time. The memories do not bring a smile anymore, be those related to the work, a relationship, or the fucking Slipper. All bad. I don’t see an avenue available for me to let go of so much anger. As soon as the last of the coffee is gone, I need to step out the door to go shopping. At least I have things requiring attention that have a sliver of a chance of distracting me for a little while. Just a sliver, but it’s all I have right now. 1211. The routine is finished, there is a cocktail next to me for dealing with a sighting at the market, and I have a plan for the remainder of the day. As for what I saw over there, suffice to say that I actually protected myself as much as was feasible considering the circumstances of being in a public place. Being the creature of habit I am, I parked to the extreme right of both entrances to the market, leaving the ass-end of the car available for accessing the trunk. I usually prefer a pull-through to ease my exit, but I was to pick up cases of water. They are heavy and easier to load into the trunk. At that point I walked all the way through both breezeways to the far left end of the store to grab one of the shorter carts. They make navigating the aisles much easier. Well, that was the moment. I spied two women walking toward the entrance, one of them appearing very tall, well-dressed, and with long, flowing hair moving beautifully in the breeze. As I stepped along the second breezeway, I saw her face through the window not ten feet from my eyes and subsequently realized that she was going to be a fucking huge problem. Not pants or anything else, just her face. The woman appeared to have just walked off a magazine cover. Ouch. I can safely state that hers was the most beautiful face I have ever seen in this little town. I turned away, grabbed a cart, and tried to plan my route through the store in order to completely avoid what felt the most powerful pull upon my senses. As I rolled the cart through the left doors, I caught a glimpse of her heading toward the right-hand doors. I was correct... Very tall, and dressed professionally in slacks and a jacket. I made it a point to restrict my vision to the groceries. I only saw her once more, near the produce. I grabbed my items and made a beeline in the opposite direction to finish my shopping at the other end of the store. As my brain began to melt, I knew the only way to survive was to ignore others and take care of my business. I went to the self checkout, rang up the items and paid, and then moved at a decent pace back to the car. I did not see her again. Upon reaching home, I felt the sight of her face fade away. Sitting here over an hour later, she is gone. Thank the fucking maker. 0652 on Friday morning. No flags today, either. There is still lots of precipitation. Not rain, just that thick drizzle that feels like walking through a mister during a summer fair. Coffee, though. My fourth show, too. Yesterday worked out better than I had anticipated. Nothing overwhelming, though. Just some small tasks here and there, eventually adding up to my feeling decent about the day. Evening arrived soon enough and I avoided feeling worthless. This morning I seem to still be riding a bit of that train, too. After a strange dream involving my little empire, I am partially confused, however. Some dreams simply cannot be understood. We were out there. My garage. Lighting on, music playing, lots of people. Someone with whom I had been acquainted some time ago backed his truck into my driveway, tapped the garage door with the bed and the bumper of my car, and then came in like gangbusters, as if I would be as happy to see him as he was to see me. Well, I was not, but there was some sort of party going on, meaning I did not reject anyone. And for whatever reason, my car was parked in the garage and yet there was still tons of room everywhere. Whatever. He gave me a jacket with patches all over it. I was trying to maintain order out there with all those people, too. I don’t know why. Rain was pouring down outside. That is all. Thankfully, I was not reminded of some recent time spent out there during the night. Today I don’t have to go anywhere. Maybe more writing during the morning and some of my favorite media in the background. Later I will continue with the adventure of rearranging the office and master bedroom so I can build the little empire once again. I’ve decided to acquire a new desktop computer, twin monitors and speakers similar to those I used to have, and then work in that office most of the time since this machine may not last the year. Another computer will also free up this one to be upgraded on the hardware side of things. It needs help due to the software continually being updated and loading the resources. I need to finish the bedroom first before I can switch the two tables in the office. Too bad I gave away my fucking office chair a while back. I suppose I’ll have to find another very soon. 0821 and here I am for the duration. Still the weather is drizzling. And there is something wrong with the data stream for the show. It has been very choppy for a while now, meaning I had to restart the system and see if doing so helps increase bandwidth. Nope. No change. I’ll have to switch networks. No big deal. The rest of my morning is going to be very quiet and peaceful. I don’t plan to do anything for at least another hour, and even then there isn’t much. I keep thinking about that woman at the store yesterday. The incident now feels like one hell of a victory, even though I am still very weak and more desperate than ever. The reason behind this feeling is that I consciously avoided her as opposed to my typical behavior, which is to take in as much as possible knowing she will be gone forever, and very soon. I barely saw beyond that face, and immediately knew she would cripple me. I opted to save myself. This is very unusual, yet still I believe I did a good thing. Maybe there is a possibility that I can do it again. Self-protection. My brain pretty much turned off for a few minutes. A good thing, although I forgot to pick up salad. Perhaps I subconsciously let go of the salad idea because she was in the produce department and I had to stay away. I can’t see her face anymore. That type of appearance is so fucking rare that I am unable to compute the odds of catching even the slightest glimpse. She was unbelievable. The video playback has been back and forth between smooth and choppy. I didn’t switch networks. Now I must. The damned streaming device is literally fifteen inches from the gateway and should be fine. I can run tests on the throughput between the phone and this machine, meaning the issue may be the network itself. Maybe I’ll just leave it because I’m mostly listening anyway. Whatever the issue, time may heal it. The time is after 0900 now, so I'll be away from this soon enough. I have to care for my routine and then perhaps return here for a while before anything else. You'll notice I have not referenced the title or the girl for many lines. I don't really see the point anymore. Both are impossible to understand and taking their toll upon my well-being, and writing over and over has solved nothing thus far. Not a fucking thing. 0943 and this morning is becoming a problem situation. I was nearly pulled into an abyss yesterday at this hour and the only save was to grab my shit, lock the house and head out to shop. The only possible destination today is the cigarette store, meaning I have many hours here at home if nothing else develops. Well, I can also force the issue and take off for elsewhere while out. Right now I just don't know because there is a cyclone inside pressing upon my head enough to keep me still. No routine yet, and no other ideas of how to cope with feeling this way. It happens too fucking much these days.
The fruit of my misdirection
The face yesterday was merely a symptom of a much larger issue; just one facet of a dodecahedron I cannot control most of the time. I broke out for a little while yesterday afternoon, but I honestly cannot count on the ability to rise at all. The story I recently updated (something which absolutely must remain under guard) is another facet. I thought it was completely destroyed some time ago, but the truth is the entire shitaree lives on in my head. The more I think about it, the more pain I feel. Add to that the damaging dream and what it has done to my brain, and then pile the desperation and dreaming atop the entire situation, and the result is my feeling paralyzed all too often. This is not my fault. I’m not going to mince words here. My existence is completely fucked aside from the daily comforts of life. Physical comforts, to be sure. Everything else has eluded me or otherwise been removed, possibly for all time, and the difficulty in dealing with such loss is increasing each day. The simple fact is my weakness and desperation create feelings with zero outlet. The visions I run across from time to time only cement the emptiness, and losing my way completely is only a matter of that same time. I don’t know when I’ll be fully lost, but I do know there is no more ‘if’ involved. All the way back in seventeen I knew this would eventually arrive; this feeling that there is no way out. As I said, some were never there while other aspects have been torn away like bits of a dead tree in a storm. Little by little, I am shrinking. I am withdrawing more every day. The mindset right now is that aside from some extraordinary and very unlikely circumstances in the near future, this condition shall continue unimpeded. I see nothing on the horizon. Purples and reds, yet again. I still have yet to attack the kitchen, which honestly will not take long. I had to sit here again and gush more shit to the screen. Cocktail next to me, like always. I ran out of bourbon, so whiskey is my only choice. Icy and cold. The booze never abandons my need, nor will it judge. A depressant for the depression case. Today is Friday and the holiday is Monday. I’m going to roll the barbeque to the driveway and set up a food preparation area on one of the workbenches. That has been the norm for years. Only the two of us will be here unless her dad stops by to say hello and have a beer. After sunset, we will probably light some fireworks of the legal variety. I am not the individual to tempt fate by launching illegal shit. The simple fact is there will be tons of them in the sky that night, and my self-preservation will kick in and allow me to avoid doing anything stupid. The only laws I break these days are traffic-related. The occasional push over the speed limit while driving and nothing else. In spite of all the shit spinning circles inside me, I am still a good person. That probably sounds funny. I am looking forward to relaxing on the driveway in three days. It’s a distraction, like other holidays. The only downside is the noise. Our cats become very frightened, meaning I need to have all the windows closed no matter how warm the house may be by evening. I’ll do my best to ensure the indoor space is as quiet as possible. 1045 now. Maybe I need to stay away from writing that other story. It is only one hundred lines of code, but when I read or edit the content, my head descends to a dark place better avoided. The story is a very intimate recount of something which took place long ago and still haunts me to this very second. I can’t really remain away for very long, though, because revisions keep pushing me to expand on the descriptive nature of the story and add detail. Unfortunately, nothing I can write will carry even a fraction of the power involved in what took place back then. Think of a series of complex tumblers fully aligning after being disjointed for years, and then go further and imagine those very same tumblers have been obliterated forever. A one-time situation, and one of the most relevant reasons for why I feel the way I do. There is an uncredited character in this episode with a very stern expression on her face. I swear to everything holy, I can see that if she were to smile, my heart would melt into a puddle of goo. That kind of face just fucking kills me. If I could just tell her... But? There is much of the fucking issue right there. Dreaming, fantasizing, or whatever you want to call it. The years passed have turned me into a desperate, blubbering idiot who is completely bereft of anything powerful enough to alleviate these massive waves of sadness. No wonder I am pissed off all the time. Wouldn’t you be? ‘Nothing unreal exists.’ Thanks, Spock. I was looking at the top image again and realized that I shot that right before having the rear tires replaced. The car needed them when I bought it and I knew full well that the front and rear could not be rotated like on other vehicles due to very different tread widths. When I cruised to the tire store to inquire about having them replaced, I learned that the size of the rears was rare and very expensive. Eh, such was a pitfall of owning an exotic model. I spent more money on those two tires and the labor to have them installed than I did for FOUR fucking tires on my big truck, and keep in mind those were oversized, off-road tires. Oy gawd, what a machine I purchased. But I loved it. LOSS. If it weren't for the little comforts and enjoyments I can still embrace, I would have blown my head off already. The story is nothing when held against the massive victory of acquiring my dream car. The story can go and fuck itself in a frozen ditch in Winter. I hate this. 1221 and the routine is finally finished. Now I am without direction. Part of me wants to shower and cruise over to the electronics store to research a new desktop computer along with peripherals, yet my ambition to do anything is as a void. I don’t know what to do for the rest of the day. There is a lovely glass of bourbon cream next to me, all chilled and yummy. No lunch, though. I don’t feel hungry in the least. The morning has taken its toll. I suppose the circumstances through which I lived to this point in time have all remained inside me as opposed to some having been ‘let go’. I honestly don’t know how to let go of anything. Any situation which stands out in any way within my mind is still there. I recall conversations dating back forty-plus fucking years, yet I can barely remember to change the furnace filter ten minutes after my phone pops up a reminder. I wish I could understand. The words ‘torn away’ continue to resonate inside my head no matter what activity has priority. Everything is gone. The little things had better carry me through this netherworld of sadness and grief. My view of life has never been so narrow. I've done things that affected my ability to move forward and live, yet I have not done everything. The current period is not my doing. The title went away and I don't care. Titles come to mind when I think while working around the house or driving. They may be unnecessary these days. I can simply date the entries. Or I can stop the entries. Or maybe something else. I don't know anymore."
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