This Is The End

This is the end of this blog and I’m doing it for the right reasons.

When I started this back in 2010 I didn’t really have a goal and I didn’t really have a purpose, I just wanted to write about the experiences I’ve had in my life. I wanted to have an outlet for my drama, and I wanted a way to look back at it years later and say Man, I’m glad I made that decision.” or “My God look at how much of an ass I was.” Both have happened.

I learned to laugh at myself and to not take things so seriously all the time I hoped that my silly stories and ironic experiences would’ve inspired other people to not give up or to try to see the bright side of everything.

I hoped that some of my experiences would resonate with people and they would laugh with me at myself and maybe see a little bit of me in them. Yet all I really wanted was to tell the truth which I always do and hope that people understand why I do the things I do and why I can’t lie about anything. So why start now?

The truth is….I cant go on with this blog because I can’t write the truth about my life anymore. People can be jealous and evil and they have taken my words and used them against me, or they have accused me of slander and had their lawyers read over an entry 15 times to look for examples of libel. They have threatened their own children and forbid them from commiserating with me.

That’s not why I started this blog, but that is the reason it is coming to an end. If something you do is hurting someone you love you stop doing that thing. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t just create another one and continue on.

Thank you for reading my words and commenting, and thank you for being inspired by my stories enough to write me a personal message about them, even if it was a cease and desist letter from your lawyer or a promise to call the cops on me if I stepped foot on your property. I truly appreciate all your love.

Bye for now.

-christian marc

Ghost

Why should I stop writing this blog which I’ve had for 10 years just because some crazy person, who happens to also be the mother of my fledgling girlfriend, snoops on my blog to find information out about her daughter?

When I put it that way, I feel like her mom should be asking me to blog more.

And so like a scorching case of herpes that you just can’t get rid of, I’m back. And very much unlike that STD, I’ve got something to say. But of course, that will have to wait until the two customers leave my store so I can continue with my thought process.

About three weeks ago, my life improved by about 11,400%. I tell you that I have never been so happy and grateful at the same time I was morbidly annoyed, frustrated and pissed off that I now had more money in one place than I’ve had since I was 39 years old.

I was planning on treating myself with a new newer car meaning, something that is probably less than 10 years old but also does not cost more than ten thousand dollars. I was going to put four grand down and finance the rest and I got within one document of that loan going through when it happened. Somehow I screwed that up. Somehow I was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Needless to say I was disappointed and almost wished I hadn’t gotten so lucky.

But luck really had nothing to do with how that compensation came to be. I guess you could say I wrote a lucky appeal letter, and then, using my memory and my imagination created a scenario in where I was able to disprove any good reason my employer had to terminate me. Is that luck or is that a well thought out argument? I have never won a case or anything like this in my entire life and I enjoyed it for about 10 minutes before I realized how much more stress money is when it comes from an evil source that kind of was your mortal enemy.

I felt more relaxed and enjoyed being able to be generous and gave the guy at Carl’s Jr. a $10 tip for my burger, and like it doesn’t matter, its just money and I’ll get it back somehow but in one week I went to the bank twice to take out $4500 and also deposited the exact same amount five minutes later after I realized I wasn’t going to finance the car.

I wouldn’t end up financing any car but I would take $4000 and purchase a 21-year-old Honda Accord so what do you think of them apples?

I wonder if sometimes my habitual drug use has made it impossible for me to feel any sort of joy or even happiness when I get something I deserve, I earned, and I had to fight for. It just felt so much like a hassle. But, of course I didn’t give it back.

I need it more than they do. I haven’t slept in an actual house since October of last year. I’ve slept in mind you it’s not that bad but it seems like every place I go to always ends in TEL.

Hotel, Motel, micro hotel…they are all just names for the places I feel normal again. Oh don’t feel bad for me I paid for it with money and in other ways like patient and time and understanding

But blame me too I’m the one who moved into his car to save money during a time when I am so “lucky to be gifted” And besides, Why would I wanna blow it on somebody’s cramped 10′ x 10′ room in Rohnert Park B section?

Fuck

That

Shit.

So 10 grand and a Full time job and a new car sounds like I’m doing good but the last phrase I would add to that sentences who has no home and nowhere to sleep every night except for the standard room which we call the or the upgrade which we call the front seat because that’s heated

I’m always two dimes short of a dollar. I’ve completed ten tasks out of eleven and the tax and tags are on everything.

I dont pretend to have all the answers to life and all of its questions, but I can answer a few and know that I have been questioning my purpose and I am looking for an answer, maybe a little bit too hard. Mimi I don’t even know what I’m looking for and I’ll know it when I stop looking for it because maybe I already have it regardless I’m not going to ever shut up or call it quits because somebody is fucking with me. People have been fucking with me my whole life and now it’s time to fuck them back but figuratively with words and schemes And maybe even a little fun.

And like that, I’m a ghost.

Sitting Here Like…

Around 3:15 in the morning I reopen the store. The coffee is fresh, the music, still stale and stagnant and on repeat like it has been since I started here. I don’t see many people in the next hour and a half, but in that time I’m able to get most of my work done and somehow find my peace of mind.

For the last few years I have been in and out of places that I call home, but only temporarily because I know that it will eventually come to an end. I’m not talking about my life, although that does fall into the same category as the temporary housing I have found myself bouncing around in and out of.

Until now. Now I choose to stop bouncing.

I’m not going to accomplish this feat by getting a really well priced room in someone’s house. I’m not going to clear this task by finding the best priced apartment for my budget. In fact, I’ve already had my apartment for two years. It’s just that it’s not very big, doesn’t really have a lot f storage space and it also is on four wheels.

How did I end up choosing to live in my car for the next few months? Have you seen the rents here in Santa Rosa? You have to take out a loan just to come up with the security deposit and first and last months rent. I’m being facetious, but it is a very hefty down payment to move into a place for an entire year lease and know that you can’t get out, because if you do, you’re gonna lose everything. And by everything I just mean money. I don’t mean my possessions, although that could easily be something I left behind many times before.

While you are waking up, I’m getting ready for bed. And when you’re asleep, I’m sitting on the curb of a gas station at 11:30 on a Saturday night writing a blog about my life and hoping that you can relate to some part of it .

I’m not lost, but I’m not found either. I’m still trying to figure out my way here but while I’m doing it I shouldn’t have to work to live, and only end up living to work. I don’t think I’ve seen my girlfriend between the hours of 10 pm and 6AM for three months now, and I know that’s not very healthy for our relationship, but I took the first job I was offered after I quit the bar, and I don’t regret that decision.

And I mean I don’t regret quitting a bartending job that paid me over $50,000 a year to go work at a gas station that pays me less than $45,000. At some point, my sanity and my way of life is more important than an extra five or $6000 every year.

I can’t change my hours right now and honestly I don’t want to. I can count on one hand how many blogs I have written since October of last year and I’m not happy with the fact that it’s literally only four. But I needed this time, and I need more time to think and to figure out what I’m doing here and I’m going to end up doing it sitting on a curb at a gas station at 20 minutes to midnight on any given day of the week from Tuesday through Saturday.I’ll keep doing it until I get interrupted by a car pulling in to get gas, like I am right now.

I got to go, but in the meantime I’m not totally disappointed with where I ended up I just wanna know why. I still am still loving my life here, but I don’t have a clue as to where I’m going.

I guess it could be worse I could just not be here.

I Guess This Is Growing Up

I couldn’t begin to tell you what is wrong with me. The list would probably be longer than the receipt I received at CVS the other night, and it wouldn’t include any 40% off coupons. It would be filled with words like depressed, despair, a man filled with woe and not a single way to express these feelings or a solution to working them out. I don’t know if they can be worked out anymore. I think this lethargic, overworked, and exhausted bag of bones I see in front of me is actually me.

I am unsure of my future, I am drudging through my present, and I try really hard not to look back into my past because if I do, I might see something else that I need to fix, but what I have learned these last seventy five days is that I can not change the path that got me here. I can only move forward, and I can’t stand still for too long while I’m trying to decipher which path to take next.

The roads in front of me might appear to go all different ways, but a part of me knows that any of these decisions I make will eventually spell out the same outcome to my life. The end.

Not literally, mind you. Although I’d be lying if I said I didn’t secretly wish it would all be over tomorrow. You might be thinking, what a morbid thought, but there is some peacefulness that I find in knowing how it’s going to end, or how it’s going to begin.

The problem, as I see it is that I don’t really know either of those facts, and I won’t really know them until they happen and by that time, it’s too late to stop it.

I’ve preached from the pulpit that “everything happens for a reason” and I still believe in that saying, but sometimes the reasons are unclear, or they are interpreted incorrectly, or sometimes they are not revealed until I follow through with the decision that I have been struggling to make or agonizing over for weeks.

I have been trying to go up and down this laundry list of issues I have and trying to pick out the ones that give me the most grief and eliminate them, but I don’t know where to start, what I need to do to get there, or if anything I do really even matters anymore.

I guess this is growing up. Accepting the things I can not change, and trying to live in the moment, all while not allowing my past to catch up with me, and dodging the bullets that life is shooting at me in the present. I didn’t ask for this, but in some ways I absolutely did.

Home Is Where Your Heart Is, And My Heart Is Here.

It’s a little bit after three in the morning and I’m on the clock working.  I’m pouring a cup of coffee and I’ll be here until about 5:45 and that’s when I head home to room number 226 at the Extended StayAmerica suites in Santa Rosa.

How did I end up living in a hotel and working at a gas station during the graveyard shift? Well, that answer is probably gonna take longer to explain than just one blog here, but I promise to try and explain  And when I say I’ll try, I mean I’ll actually do it.

When some people say that they’ll try to do something, that usually means they won’t be able to get to it, but they’ll think about getting to it, and that’s about all they will do.

That’s not trying, that’s contemplating doing something, thinking about trying to do it, but not actually putting out any effort whatsoever to do it, other than burn a few brain cells. 

People procrastinate, or are always too busy, or they are afraid.  Afraid of making a choice, because…what if it’s the wrong one? I’ve been somehow alive for the past forty odd years and there are two things I know about most people. 

Number one, they are creatures of habit who dislike change, and   they are afraid to fail, and I mean they’re afraid so much to fail,  that they will not take a chance if they think they might.

Now, that seems like a smart and safe way to live and if I were not me, I might have chosen to not take the risks I took, but I am me. I am in the middle of taking one of these risks.

Two months ago I quit my job and my girlfriend quit  hers the same day, and  P.S. we were both working at the same place.   We did not give any notice,  and we do not feel bad about that.  I killed myself for that place, and I almost lost someone I love.  And when you’re the whistleblower, they will jump at a chance to get rid of you, so I got rid of me.   

I went on three interviews and I took the first job I was offered.  On the third interview I was hired to work graveyard at a new 24 hour gas station.  It’s not at all what I thought I’d be doing, but I don’t regret taking the job one bit. 

It’s the first time I have worked overnight and aside from the sleep adjustment, I’m finding some other senses have gotten more acute.  There is no one there with me for 6 and a half hours, I clean and organize and run the place and I have to scrub toilets, but it’s not like it’s beneath me.  Fucking pride went out the door years ago.

It’s not as lucrative, and this is a risk that I took quitting that job that paid me more money than this job but as I’m finding out, the restaurant has been slow I’m told. Maybe I saw it coming and maybe we got out at the right time.

I didn’t look at this challenge and run away from it, or be afraid of what could happen if I did something.  I thought,  what could happen if I didn’t  do something?  Stagnation would be worse than trying, failing and trying again. 

That’s the key. You just gotta be OK with failing because you can always try one more time. Maybe it takes another time after that too, but I try again. Nobody is keeping score of how many times it takes for me to get something right. You don’t know what right is until you have tried.  You know what wrong is, wrong is doing nothing at all and letting it pass you by.  So when I was offered the postion of night time CSR for the low low rate of under $28 an hour, I said fuck it.  Let’s take a shot.

I can’t really elaborate more on how white bread, middle  America my life has become, and I’m not complaining about that at all because I’ve noticed my stress level has dropped significantly. Also I’m not angry anymore. I’m not feeling that any second now the toxicity of this work environment might ruin my life and get in between the girl that I love which it almost did. two months ago.  

 I don’t regret taking this risk, even though its sometimes creepy at 3:43 in the morning.  I tried something and I succeeded but…not exactly the way that I thought. 

And as I take a look aroundoutside my car window I see that Walmart has just opened.  It’s 6am, and for now this is home, and I love it here.

Sugar High

I just pissed off the clerk at the local 7-11. I was getting impatient, trying to put my number in their rewards system. I have something like 10,000 7-11 points and I never use them for free shit, I just go to Sev a lot. Like ever since I was seven.

Back then I used to get excited to see what new flavors of nerds had come out recently, what the Slurpee flavor of the month was, and whether or not I could slip in a pack of grape Bubble Yum before my Mom realized what she just purchased. She started me down a path of despair and sugar was my first drug of choice, and in some way we are all enablers and we should never feel bad about that.

Think about if you went through your whole life playing by the rules, being a conciencious citizen and never someone who takes advantage of people. One day you die and your soul meets another soul who tells you welcome to Heaven. The Bar is on the second floor, the towels are tracked with micro chips and oh yeah, nobody here cares what you did on Earth, and it didn’t even matter in the first place. You were going to get here anyway.

I would personally been shocked and not surprised simultaneously. Shocked, because I knew I was right and everyone called me crazy, and surprised at how straight forward dead people are. It would have been the start of reminiscing about all the times I got away with running those red lights, or how and Eagles bumper sticker saved me from three tickets.

Sugar makes me hyper, and if I were diagnosed today I would fall into the ADHD with hyperactivity column. But, I would have had no regrets at all because I did what I wanted to do, and I take full responsibility for my wins and for my losses and I get excited at 2 for $6 bags of candy at 3 in the morning because even at 47 going on 7, I remember ecstasy when it was just a feeling I got from eating a box of candy in five minutes. I think they call that a sugar high. I guess the clerk at 7-11 will never know how simplistic happiness can be sometimes.

Im Gonna Shoot The Whole Day Down.

Today is just another Monday where I would have had the day off from work and I probably would have not really been able to accomplish everything I wanted to do within those 24 hours. I would have to prepare for the next workday and even though I have two days of free time following, somehow it never really seem to work out that way.

I think for two years I put on a fake smile and a cheerful disposition and made myself believe that money and good compliments were able to sustain my lifestyle years past the time I would work there. I got to be honest, I didn’t realize how shallow my needs are in life, if the only things that I really desire are legal tender to buy a bunch of shit I won’t really need ,and compliments from alcoholics who probably go home at 8, fall asleep maybe cheat on their wives. Who knows.

I defined myself by that job meaning I knew who I was because of how much I was appreciated and how hard of a job that I did there, that the members noticed…. that isn’t until 9 one day they didn’t notice.

I’m not saying that I am not memorable, I am not saying that my job there was more or less important than anyone else’s or that my absence would create such an uproar that people wouldnt stand for it, but I am saying that I never wanted to do that job to begin with. I did it because I had to. There was no one else.

There especially wasn’t anyone else who cared that much about the bun on someone’s lobster roll, and there wasn’t anyone else who committed themselves as much as I did, but in June of this past summer, I knew I couldn’t continue this. I couldn’t keep the charade going.

We are all tested at certain levels and moments in our lives that we sometimes don’t even realize what’s happening. If something terrible is falling down, its not the end of the world, it is making its way for something better to be built back up. Yet, we sit there picking up the pieces of what’s left wondering how we defined ourselves without the puzzle pieces all in the right place that we figured out so long ago.

You are not your job, nor are you the problems that you face when you’re there. You are not stuck in any situation that you cannot just walk away from physically regardless of how much financial debt you may think you’re in. You can walk up to your boss tell him to go fuck himself, or herself in the face and walk away legally. Whether you choose to do that or not up to you. But when somebody says to me their life is spiraling out of control, I don’t know what to do other than think… I wonder how did they let it get that way?

If my life is spiraling out of control, and I am saying this out loud to somebody, it has already gone too far for me to do anything about it.

I used to hate Mondays. I used to curl up in my bed like Garfield and muddle some sarcastic negative comments, pull the covers back over my head, and go to sleep .

Now that I am free to do whatever on whatever day I can’t sleep past 9 o’clock in the morning on Monday without having the feeling like I gotta do something .

It doesn’t matter what it is now. It really doesn’t. It’s just that sometimes I wanna shoot this whole day down cause I’ll be honest with you. I don’t like Mondays, and I never will.

End Of Freeway

I’ve tried to get lost out here for awhile now, and I just can’t do it. I’ve lived here in SR for three weeks shy of two years and I can’t say I’m uncomfortable or I don’t know my way around, but I’m just as ready to go somewhere else if the opportunity arose. I mean wouldn’t you want to start over somewhere new? If you could, with the possibility of going back to being you, if it didn’t work out,

I’d do it. I’ve done it actually, and it’s quite fun. Scary at first, but I was alone too. I imagine with another someone it could be magic. I became whoever I wanted to be. I could and did go by a different name, but I could have spoke in a different dialect, or carried myself in less than a charming and polite way while also wearing a T- shirt with boobs on it.

This whole time, I’ve been thinking I become more myself every place I go. Yet the life I live here on earth is mainy my fantasies played out to the best case scenario. And, I dont mean in a reality show kind of way, although I have lived through, and been on a couple of my own. They are nothing like real life, but at least I got paid.

Every place I go I am able to be come more of who I really am, and that’s a gift life gives you that you don’t realize until one night in a Jack in Box parking lot in October.

But I can’t tell you to beileve in magic or even positive thinking, but I can tell you once you know what your’e doing you find it is easily replicated any where you go, and each time it gets better.

Ultimately in life, my one goal in every aspect of it is to get better at everything, but not all at the same time. That’s where I tend to push the envelope, as I write a blog from the drivers seat of my car, while taking a sip of ice tea and a drag off my cigarette.

I have some things to work on, but being comfortable can go both ways. Let’s see how it goes this time.

This is the Way the World Ends

October 10th, 2023

I saw this coming about a year ago. Then, I couldn’t understand how I would be able endure so big of a loss. I thought of my work as the thing that defined me and made me needed. It would have been crippling if I didn’t have another source of energy and something that I need too.

I could have done without the dramatics. I would have thought I collapsed, or had a heart attack, but no…not me. I would not go out with as much class as those respected emergency 911 calls, I go out having been aloof to the whereabouts of my belongings Tuesday night. Let’s just say I left them and my other purpose on the steps Tuesday night and I didn’t look back. That’s how I went out, and I’m perfectly fine with it, except that I’m surprised.

Surprised that it hadn’t happened sooner and maybe even with more of a police presence. Not that I wanted that, I never did, but the moral of the story here is sometimes you blow up certain parts of your life because there is no other way out than annihilation.

That was the final move, pretty or not.

Champagne Problems

Isn’t it ironic how life can be so bittersweet. It must be an addicting formula, because I keep going back for more sweetness, but I seem to ignore the bitter taste it leaves in my mouth when Im done eating. Then the rest of my day is filled with confusion and uncertainty, as I try to figure out why the bite seems to be worse that the bark.

I’ve been a shit before in my life, and especially to the few women who were brave enough to date me, but I took five years off from that scene to really define and figure out what it is that I want in a woman, if that opportunity ever manifested again. Needless to say, I had my doubts.

I didn’t care how tall she was, I didn’t care if she had money or good credit. I didn’t care what color her hair was, and I knew she’d be beautiful regardless, I just wanted someone to accept me for who I am, and love me unconditionally till the day one of us dies.

Morbid, perhaps, but I didn’t think I was even going to kiss another woman let alone fuck one or fall in love and find myself spending nights in a Four Points Sheraton that I would have been able to afford to walk thru let alone spend two nights as a guest.

But these worldly things I mention, they aren’t on my list of wishes or qualities in a soulmate. Sure, I’d love it if she were like me, a blend of blue collar and white trash royalty, who has, style, sex appeal and the occasional run in with the law that amounts to a verbal or written warning, but I never really defined that as a trait I desired.

But when she showed up in all of her Californian suburban glory one night at our local Walmart, not wearing a bra something clicked in me. A few weeks later she bought me an anniversary present. It wasn’t our anniversary at all, in fact we hadn’t even made out yet, but five years from that day I had been arrested in New Jersey, and she celebrated my freedom with two tailor made gifts that I treasure to today.

Now, again, it wasn’t about the item she got me, it wasn’t about the amount of money it costs, it was about how someone cared enough to remind me of how far I have come since that day in April 2018. A day that changed my life forever, and one that I mentioned to her off the cuff, and that might have been a little off putting to her. After all, I’m sure not many girls’ dream guys are forty something year old faded rockstar types, with a 580 credit score, and a felony drug possession on their record, but I guess those things didn’t matter to her because she was able to see me for who I really was.

I’m a good person with a kind heart who gets the occasional footprint on it as it sometimes gets used as a mat for people to wipe their shit. I guess I’m used to it now, most of the shit comes off with a little soap and water anyway, but I’ll never understand how this love can be so precious and fulfilling some times, and still so callous and spiteful at others.

But I don’t think that’s my problem to figure out anyway.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

September 24th 2023
9:36pm Fountaingrove Golf & Country Club

I remember being a kid in school and at the end of the summer, when September hit, there was this sudden feeling that made me uncomfortable. I knew that September meant no more late weekday nights, it also signaled the end of summer, and sadly, it also meant the beginning of school, which for kids now isn’t a thing. I always used to hate the month of September, until I stopped going to school.

Now, as I am creeping in on my late forties, every ninth month of the year signifies the start of the football season, and my woes about going to class haven’t been a reality since the mid nineties, but this year, all I want to do is crawl into my twin sized bed, and ask someone to wake me up when September ends.

I couldn’t tell you which one of the calamities I lived through this month finally put me over the edge. It might have been the twelve days I had off from work when I never really asked for it. It could have been the attempt at sabatoge I was keen enough to sniff out. It could be how my GM tried to go behind my back and offer another bartender one of my shifts. The bartender turned it down because we had an agreement before the summer began. This bartender also happens to be my girlfriend and even though she told me what happened, I don’t know if I’m surprised that my GM would even attempt such a thing if he knew we were together, or if I am angry and hostile because I later found out he absolutely knew. I can tell you with absolute confidence, it went the way of the latter scenario.

Trying to play my gf against me, was a tough pill to swallow. but it paled in comparison to the sudden change of address I had to endure, the $1500 in savings I spent on hotel rooms, storage units and gas driving back and forth for the last fortnight, and the utter shock and awe at the realization that I have only been here less than two years, and I’ve amassed enough shit to fill a ten foot by fifteen foot storage unit, three quarters of the way.

So to recap, I used to loathe September until I was 18, I own a lot of possessions, I need to find a second job, and I have nowhere to call home in 14 days. This is my life, and it is getting complicated just a little bit more each day I wake up, which leads me to the theory that maybe if I slept all the way till October 1st, this nightmare would end. But it won’t, because I can’t sleep that long, and I never liked hiding from my problems. If anything, I’d rather face them head on.

But it’s tricky. Not like the RUN DMC song either. It’s tricky to balance a job that under appreciates me, a landlord who has a wild imagination and too much time on his hands, and a relationship that I cherish and adore and don’t wish to see affected by the prior two conundrums. But, it has been, and to be honest, I’ve handled it better than I thought. That is to say, we’ve handled it better, and it’s still not over yet.

Life is somehow forcing my hand, and tugging at my wrists as it pulls me in a direction I’d rather not go, but something is telling me, it’s gonna be ok. Something is telling me to just let it all go, and something is telling me I’ve been here before. I just don’t have the patience for another train wreck, but between the flashbacks from Motel 6, and the last official stay in a Roadway Inn, if this is weathering the storm, then bring on the thunder and the rain because I can handle it. I’m a survivor. I survived jail, the death of my cat and my Mom, Anger, depression, death, and abandonment and two stints in the Garden State which I inevitably escaped from….twice. I think I can handle a part time job and looking for a place to live, but man….I was getting so comfortable until September began.

And that is what I keep telling myself. And it’s this very truth that I must believe to keep me balanced in this bi-polar world I live in. It’s all or nothing. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some sleep to catch up on.

The Other Side

Two years ago I took a picture of the sign for highway 101 here in Rohnert Park California. I remember remarking to myself how it has been so fucking long since I saw that sign, and then a feeling if comfort and familiarity swallowed me in for what felt like the ride of my life.

Tonight I sit on the other side of that sign, on a raised concrete slab on which another building or motel pool could have been. Or maybe, its just a stage.

Outside near the lobby, a soda machine calls me at 4: 30 in the morning, and then doesnt have the decency to take credit cards. So I remember a handful of quarters is in my car and I grab 6 cause how could a soda cost more than $1.50?!?

I found out it takes ten quarters to buy that soda after I lost two on accident. That fucking machine mocks me like my bar manager is trying to do unsuccessfully, but the soda machine is winning.

I have more money somewhere, I think to myself and as I grab whatever coins and dollars I had clipped to my cards, I return to the hallway, go into my pocket, and scatter everything on the floor.

Fuck
My
Life

And then, something catches my eye. Its gold. Clipped to my credit card is a ten and a one dollar bill. There are two quarters and a dime laying two feet away from a $1 Sacajawea coin.

I’m sorry, but where the fuck did she come from? I don’t remember getting a dollar coin to change a day but I guess I did and I guess I have exactly $2.50 at that moment that’s exactly what I had. Its ironic because it feels like someone is looking out for me.

Im headed into a difficult and tumultuous time right now in two major parts of my life., work and home. These radical changes are happening regardless of what I want, and I can’t do anything about it.

One change was overdue, the other one…might also be. Its too early to tell so its a wait and see for me. And what I see on the other side of the coin is that I will always be ok. All ways

When I needed there to be a car for me to buy to get to my new job back in December of 21, it appeared and then I took this picture.

When I started seeing the signs of fatigue and weathering on my face, I knew I had to take a break and I knew that would cause a fucked up mess that Im in now.

When I read a text from my landlord last night, my first inclination was to never respond, get my shit out, and figure out the next move. I hate moving again but maybe this time it means a little more.

You would think everything was falling apart, but I was wrong, the instant I saw her face, and I knew that it didn’t matter if my work was trying to fuck me, or if my home life has to be adjusted a fourth time, I planned for this by having her be here to remind me that it will get better, and that for the first time in awhile, I dont have to got through it alone.

I have been down this road before, but never at the same time, but the move now is to move out and move on. Life will always tell me when its time to go, and it will show me the other side of my life, the life I’ve always wanted and now I can appreciate it, even when everything else falls to shit.

Action and Actions

There’s something off about today. I went to bed with all the confidence in the world but no idea what I was going to do with it. I made a decision to simplify my life and that decision complicated someone else’s life. Of course they are just guinea pigs but they deserve better than what I can give them.

And simultaneously I am sending emails to corporate HR which I don’t want to do but I feel is the only way to get what I want. And what I want is to get back what was rightfully mine. I don’t know if I have to go through this to keep myself entertained or maybe there is a higher purpose for me to be where I’m at but I can tell you right now that no matter how high of a position I might climb to, I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to stand up once I get there.

I got these animals because I felt I was mature enough to be able to have a pet and to be able to be responsible to take care of them which I did in glorious fashion and fed them organic lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, peppers watermelon and pampered the hell out of those things and all I got in return was squeaks and two guinea pigs always running away and hiding.

Then two weeks later I took a major risk. One that I said I would never do but one that at the time seemed more possible then it ever had before. And also at some point I just couldn’t fight it.

I have never been pursued before in my life but I got to tell you, the longer I waited the better it has become. I have somebody in my life that loves me for who I am regardless of what my past may say or if my tone gets slightly frustrated when when the world starts becoming too much for me. She’s there to talk me off the ledge she’s there to trying to find my crazy, she’s there to talk to me and bring me back to earth.

I started off this journey almost 20 months ago and everything I owned fit into a suitcase and a messenger bag both of which I don’t own anymore, but I have certainly made up for the things that I didn’t have by now collecting too much stuff that I find myself getting rid of things more often than not.

I feel genuinely bad because I’ve never surrendered an animal but I knew it was the right thing to do just like I knew it was the right thing to be with her even though I was jaded and celibate and my mind kept telling me not to.

I don’t know how but I think I found the right formula for being me and getting what I want. And in the process I might’ve made some mistakes and I might’ve said some things I shouldn’t but I know this; Every mistake that I made, I couldn’t of made without you.

But I promise I’m never gonna make them again.

Is It Good Enough?

August 17th, 2023

It’s like I stepped outside of my body for a minute and watched an argumentative and immature version of myself take the lead. He did all the things I’ve tried so hard to stop doing, but I hadn’t gotten any practice in this particular field since 2009.

Fourteen years is a long time in between similar situations. I’d like to think I have learned what to do right, by constantly doing the wrong thing before, but I am really hoping that there is a different way to unlearn some of my bad habits. Yet, just like riding a bike, I find myself neurotic and confused, enamoured and intrigued, and sick to my stomach as I hear those gritty words spill out of my mouth like a swig of coffee I take that I find out is much too hot to swallow.

I end up spitting it out all over the ground, along with my idiotic reasons for losing my temper and for regressing back to an old way of life that didn’t work for me then. So, why do you think it would work for you now?

The morning always starts with me stepping on something that shouldn’t be on the floor, and sometimes it ends with my girl mad as fuck and rightfully so, calling an Uber and putting me in my place. That place is somewhere I don’t ever want to be again. Yet, here I am, living this wonderful and dreamlike life everyday, and yet still somehow I find a way to cry about it all.

Can I not just enjoy the moment for awhile before it dissipates into some petty argument about where we are temporarily going to put our stuff, or can I break out of the monotny and the vicious cycle I find myself in fourteen years after the last time I wore my heart on my sleeve?

Now here I am, living the outcome of one of the worst days I’ve ever experienced, wondering why every aspect of her is simple to understand and perfect in it’s own right, and why am I making it harder than it needs to be to be loved?

Untitled Blog Entry

I read my horoscope just now for today. I LOL’d at the irony of how a paragraph from a broad and generalized application could have creeped inside my head, and into my life and stalked me so well as to literally put my thoughts from yesterday into words on a screen that anyone who has the app can read. I’m impressed, but not surprised.

I’ve never really loved my job before, and never really thought of this place as home until last September. I was driving back to SR from LA, a horrendous trip that caused not one, but several cracks in the foundation I laid down in 2003 to crumble and dbreak away. That foundation is gone now, but that wasn’t the reason for the trip.

I had been fooled by time and space. I had been rejected by my own kind, unless it was that I wasn’t that kind anymore, but whatever, I was depressed and I was driving north on the 101 and I saw a sign that read:

Santa Rosa 12 mi

It made me smile. I thought of going back to work as something I got a chance to do, not HAD to do and it was comforting. At that point in my life that moment was all I had to call home, and I owned it. I turned up the music and tuned out the stress that was balling in my neck and what was left of my fried brain after the hottest drive in history.

I took a vow of celibacy in June of 2017. I didn’t know it at the time, but years would pass before I could finally tell this story because it has finally ended triumphantly. Although it was relatively easy to accomplish being high and in jail for the first two years.

So as September creeps in, and as another summer falls back into line, I find myself re-evaluating my life here and I am happy to report I can have a healthy relationship for the first time and I can take care of an animal or two again and I never thought this is where my heart is, but it is.

And yet as Im satisfied and content with my home, I find my work environment in a state of flux. It’s like I know something is coming, but I don’t know when or to whom. But It’s not me.

I guess I can find a flow through the flux. Maybe find my way to the other side, unscathed and more powerful than I imagined.

Capricorn Horoscope for Monday, August 7th 2023

It would be easy to get irritated by the changes that could take place today, Capricorn, but you are encouraged to be as flexible as possible. If you show irritation or become angry over a disruption of your plans, you will only cause others to feel the frustration too. But if you go along harmoniously, finding something positive in whatever happens, then you will inspire hope and good feelings all around you. This will earn you big points with those in positions of power, which will work out in your favor eventually.

Losing it All Just To Find It Again.

feel like Driving like 55 in a 40 today because nobody’s watching the roads. I can time my arrivals so I don’t have to stop moving before I takeoff again. I don’t know what other people must think of me as I blow pass them as soon as the light turns green going moderately faster than I should be.

Today’s the day where I decide to get out of the situation that is driving me crazy at home, and get into my car, surrounded by an idiot who has been losing and finding every object that isn’t nailed down.

I don’t know why, but its been like this. I might then drive a little crazy just so I can get to Target and cure my sickness with retail therapy.

And I will not forget, that is to say, I will remember to honk my horn and therefore piss off the Mexican American driver in front of me who apparently never learned both lanes can merge into one without stopping fourteen times. I’ll use the proper terminology here and I wont say “dont forget” because remembering is a positive affirmation and forgetting isn’t even in my vocabulary.

i’ll remember to feel proud and almost euphoric, and I’ll feel like I’ve won some sort of road game that has yet to be named but is might have a six in it.

And then I will proceed to purchase new storage bins for all my shit which I seem to be replacing without fully understanding why

And maybe Im losing my shit as I find a new place for it. Im not sure how Im moving or how the two are connected, but I’ll find out.

And at some point I’ll start talking to the guy who rung me up as he informs me the codes callled over the radio have nothing to do with the color they are associated with, which is why somebody bleeding is a code green.
because blood is icky and real life is just too real for Target who also had a red icky logo now.

Somewhere along the line I have paid for everything as my bins fall to the linoleum. That’s the last time I remember having all my debit and credit cards and ID.

It won’t dawn on me until 4 o’clock in the morning that I in fact have legitimately lost my wallet somewhere between the Target and my house.

8am is when Target opens and hopefully answers their phone.

I bet you the wallet is there.

What Do You Want From Me

This really wasn’t supposed to happen at all, none of it. I don’t know how it should’ve ended but I bet they killed off the main character. maybe it ended a million different ways before and I’ve just alleviated a handful of negative outcomes for myself.

I’ll tell you with the most honest truth behind it, I never saw this coming, but I’m so fucking glad that it’s finally here and I know I can’t hold onto it.

but I want to.

I never look back when I move forward because it’s hard to look in two directions at once but maybe you don’t even have to turn around anymore because you have that back up camera. I don’t know how to use one of those because I don’t like looking at the a TV when I can see better with my own two eyes.

Small towns in all parts of the country are very much alike not because of who lives there, but because of who can’t leave there. I was both, until I wasn’t.

So with my two eyes I’m watching your back and I’m watching my own. I am seeing you for the first time and I’m dumbfounded and wondering how. I’m gazing over at you and I stop for a second and remember how lucky I am until, I am snatched out of my fantasy, back into a reality and no matter what they asked me for, all I’m thinking is what do you want from me?

And it’s not being asked in a nice way it’s an irritated and frustrated type of question that needs no answer because if I’m asking that question they’ve already tried to take too much .

And try they will, until they think I dont have anything left. But I have two statements that used to be secrets cause I got a lot of it to go around, and I know where to get more.

Seems like I’m the one who doesn’t want leave now.

Ten Minutes

I have the next ten minutes to myself. There’s nobody here, just me and two dozen geese jumping into the lake 200 yards away as a random golf cart crosses the greens and the geese settle back in. It’s 70 degrees, and there is not a cloud in the sky. This is the epitome of serenity. I don’t know if my version is anything close to your version but even if it’s not, that’s OK .

I’m only here for another eight minutes and then I imagine the serene will dissipate and I will start to forget how relaxed I feel right now. I’ll probably have to do something immediately that will take me out of my zone and later on I’ll forget something kind of important, but only kind of important to me. No one will know, and no will would care, but I’ll get mad at myself and wish I had those five minutes back when I wasn’t thinking about stupid shit.

Also five minutes remain in my pre work break and I just told an intrusive fly to go fuck itself. I know how ridiculous that is, and I don’t care. That fly took a minute of peace away from me, but I don’t have the heart to tell him he’s gonna be dead in thirty six hours. I can’t relate to a lifespan of less than two days, but I can relate to wanting to be that fly on the third day. I remember sitting in the restaurant about 16 months ago not knowing if I wanted to be here. I don’t mean like I should find another job, but rather I wondered if maybe it was just time to clock out, but you know….for good.

I’m way past that now, and I know I want to live because I’m still fucking here and because I put my seat belt on when I’m in the car with her,. I’m not planning any early exits, but I realize that it needed to happen to get me to this place where I am now and that is watching these geese swim around in the recycled water on a perfect day at the golf and country club where I work and where I also never thought I would be two years ago.

Two minutes remain and I think about how in the past I had this problem of talking myself out of anything good like an opportunity, or a major move, or a new relationship. I could walk into a Target and pick out a whole office furniture set-up and probably have it put together within three hours of purchase, but I would question everything about a girl I just met and I think I’m fucking over that guy now.

And as I’m sitting here still trying to comprehend how I can be so lucky and clumsy at the same time, I have to remember that it doesn’t really matter how it all came to happen, so long as I keep it up, whatever it is that I did to get here and not to find myself guilty self sabotage. I’ve watched myself create something great in my only to have to tear it down years later and I think I did that so I could learn something from it.

But I don’t have to do that anymore. I learned that this week. Now all I have to do is walk up the stairs with a smile on my face and really mean it, because I deserve this time in my life, finally. For me this is heaven .

Nobody Likes You When You’re

It’s quite shocking how carefree I am with this. I’m literally unable to make a complaint or over think any scenario.

Do you know how stupidly I would’ve fucked this up years ago? I won’t now, cause I’m not that dumb and I’m not twenty two. Cause nobody likes you when you’re twenty three. But I did.

How can I just have fear of something my whole life, and wake up one day, and forget I was ever afraid.

It’s the first time I have waited and patiently and took the time that was needed. Got to know where her heart lies, and figured out which sleeve she wears her emotions on.

Ok, I love this, but I never wanted this, but this is the kind of love I would want to end the movie
.
Its both by the way. It’s the end of the movie and it’s both her sleeves because I watched them throw their arms around me, and I saw for myself what I needed to see again.

It’s All Happening

Something different has been manifesting in my life lately. It’s no surprise to me, as I have carefully executed our little plans to take over the world, and I’m starting to feel like it’s actually already happening. I’m past the point of feeling it, now I’m hearing it from other sources.

What a solemnly twisted and desperate little world we find ourselves in, as if we didn’t all need this to happen so we could finally come together. That’s right though, I needed something. I wanted to be a part of something else, and I got exactly what I deserved and I’m getting what I deserve.

It should come as no surprise that I haven’t made use of my HBO Max subscription, the Free TV that came with my room, or the two thousand I have in credit at finger hut and some other Amway product catalogue out there, but I’ve listened to 11,345 songs so far this year and I’m not stopping for no one.

I couldn’t write this unless it happened to me, and right about now it’s all happening.

Truthseeker

I found myself sitting in my car this morning drinking my coffee and listening to a song I first heard almost 6 years ago called Truthseeker.

The song, which I hadn’t heard for so long resonated in my heart and my soul years ago because of the lyrics, the fact that it came into my life at probably the best time, because it was the worst time in my life. It was right before my Mother died and this morning I was somehow taken back to that winter of 2017 and before I knew it, my eyes filled up with tears and I thought to myself, I haven’t cried in so fucking long, but my God how it felt like a relief.

What is a truthseeker anyway? Is it someone who searches for the answers to life’s most challenging questions or is it someone who can only live their lives through telling the truth no matter how much it hurts to hear?

I dont have the answer to that, but I can say that I am one, through and through who’s own plight to find out the truth about everything sometimes turns out to be difficult to comprehend but is a standard when it comes to qualities of myself that I am fucking proud of.

I’m not sure about where I’ll be in six months and I’m not that confident that I’ll ever really feel like I’m understood by anyone real other than these artists’ songs and lyrics I’ve come to accept and advocate as an anthem for whatever it is I’m going through at the time.

Music just finds a way to bring me back to a place where I feel grounded and I feel at peace.

I’m a truthseeker and I don’t know if it’s for everyone, but even though it causes me to break down emotionally in my car while I’m sipping a cup of coffee and balling my eyes out, I wouldn’t have it any other way than this.

Is There Something Wrong With Me?

I sometimes wonder about the things that happen in my life. I mean, I know I didn’t choose the traditional path to get to where I am, and to be honest, I didn’t ever plan on this part of my life being a final destination, yet here I am. Spilling coffee on the carpet of my room on a Monday has become the standard. It’s like the setting sun, but with absolutely no happiness or warmth involved in the process.

Today though, today so far has been the most outrageous Monday morning I’ve ever had. Aside from the spillage, my cell phone somehow flew out of my hand as I tried to catch the falling water bottle in my car. I was unsuccessful and my car paid the price. As the water bottle exploded onto my passenger seat, my i-Phone spun out of control and lodged itself into the crevice between my dashboard and my windshield, fracturing the glass from the inside.

From the inside? I find it hard to believe a phone can crack a windshield, but here I am, in a place I never planned on living with the floor of my room reeking of French Roast, and the floor of my car soaked it what would have been the liquid used to hydrate me which I so desperately need, all while staring at a spiderweb crack in the glass that protects me from the elements.

This can’t possibly be normal, so I have to ask, is there something wrong with me? Did I do something in a past life that is coming back to haunt me now, because it sure feels like I’m paying the debt of someone I used to be. It does make me think, and thinking is what gets me agitated and overwhelmed. I used to love how creative and forthright my mind is, but when I can’t get to sleep at night because I’m dwelling on the present situation I’m in, it makes it a bit more difficult to live. When I’m having dreams where I’m chasing my car, my luggage and my safe down the street as I’m running from the police, and sharing an apartment with some girl I work with, I wake up in a state of confusion and remember I’m alone in my bed and that every fear I had was imaginary.

Sometimes I hate being me, so I try to turn off my mind, and I hope that it somehow makes the stupid things like spilling shit all the time stop happening, and I wonder if I keep doing this how long can I last before whatever it is I’m running from catches up to me.

Or maybe it isn’t even happening at all. I feel like no amount of therapy or drugs is going to be able to cure this sickness and even if I was free of whatever this thing is, what’s to say it won’t manifest in some other form in my life? Maybe it already has, because in forty seven years I have never been more clumsy, yet well off in my life. I’ve never had it all together and neatly organized behind door number one, and my clothes, shoes and coffee grounds all over the floor behind door number two.

This is the price I pay for loss of control, but there are only so many things in the world I can control. Clearly, water bottles, windshields and thermal coffee mugs aren’t any of them.