Old things revisited

                             unfiltered                                                    '02

revenging circle of a stabbing sane less cycle
perpetual strumming with blood stained fingers
into distortion from mind alterance
beating my other unconscious disillusioning decisions
thought provoking silence from coldness
trapped within a razors rusty edge
or even the fading in your strained gasping breath
smoke vigorously exiting your cursed lips
as it disturbingly vials a stormy cloud
settling above.
sex building, wanting to exert, electrically performing
to shock and petrify your hand clumsily fumbling down
the valley of sweat dripping reflection of flesh
into battered clothing you wear preciously without comfort
hiding from the unconquered rat race, still staking bricks
balled up raging emotion you've hidden from the rest
tears from withholding what my heart has said so
hysterical convulsions spilling sluggishly from my
dissected, over-analyzed words, formed wrongly by imagination.
Skin bulging out of the self-mutilating bars
of you're staged imprisonment.
uncomfortable selfish silence created by your arrogant
AVOIDANCE, sudden thrustful burst of forgotten
unrealistic situations.
outlet of unawarable loss of control spilling paint onto
any blank, untouched, seemingly challenging surface
obsessed with the self-indulgent misery of craziness forever building.
praised puppet string go free fucking flowing
blindsided annoyance, grumbling echo of flutter fucking
cyclone within the emptiness of my unsustained addictions
so insatiably unkempt and left strangely unresolved
foolishly conversing a scheme unthoughtfully gathered.
clenching fists wrapped around my pulsating arch
leading up the path of skin into further worthlessness
of existence undesired to proceed the journey to the next
step of higher place, mesmerized, melting, inter folding
center staging the spotlight around the gleam
of shot sparkles, light from your fire lite torch
held under my undeservedly spanked ass.
Playing off every anticlimactic word with gesture
intended twitch ass willing by curiousity
to experiment
with a phase that euphorically collects into more trouble
then is worth to maintain your normal life
that I'm meant to viciously destroy without choice.
Impatiently awaiting confrontations that muster
with the shaking of your blood dripping bristles, you unkindly
thrashed across my beaten bare body still scarred
from the melting rubber you forwardly left across my chest.
Images clashing, emerging into the diminishing being of self.
Mysteriously affected by your absence, left abandoned
spontaneously leaping into a broken glass that can't be filled,
cracked, smashed, shattered and used for convenience.
Bewildered by my constant attempts of failing fixation denied
with rejection,
I hang from the noose you've tied around my tired head.

Dec 18

They say the universe never gives you more than you can handle. I'm wondering how much he/she/it thinks I can take.

It seems as though this is my year for learning, growing, and beginning to like myself.

My wife left our relationship technically in August, although my heart was trying to tell me this for a large part of this past year. In hindsight, it never should have gone on that long, but apparently there was reason for it. I learned a lot about myself, I bended in ways I didn't know were possible, I sacrificed my dream of being a mother, I learned that monogamy was possible, and I gained a new sister, nephew, and niece. I stayed the night with her family the day she left. I cried the whole time with my sister by my side. She stayed with me for a week and 2 friends I work with turned out to be more supportive and compassionate than friends I've had for years. Through the heartbreak of the break up, I grew to love these girls fiercely. It's funny that it took my heart break to bring the three of us together, separately and together. It was worth it. Out with the bad, in with the good? I lost my best friend but gained two more, both of which accept and embrace who I am and give me the courage to do the same. I've gained more self-confidence and happiness I didn't seem to have the strength for with Sarah. She feels dead to me, it's slightly awkward, but I'm allowing myself to feel whatever I need.

There's this positivity about me, this weightlessness, this palpating heart once again. I can't for the life of me remember a time in my life that I felt so free, so self-accepting, so vulnerable and so happy. Shit still happens…total your car, get charged for an OUI, cars getting towed, fights with the neighbors, people die and dogs get fleas. SHIT STILL HAPPENS. And most times all I can do is laugh, because breathing, beating, flowing, eating, shitting, ambulating, etc…might just be But I have faith, in myself, in the universe, in the people I surround myself with, and in the chance that I really am a good person. I started online dating, which I always use to pick on my friends for doing. It's been a lot of fun and has pulled me out of my shell. It's been exciting meeting new people, and I've had more sex in the past 3 months then I did for the past 4 years. I feel more accepted and more myself with strangers then I did with her.
I crashed my car into a tree Nov 23. No one should ever "put the baby over there" while driving. The car was totaled, S had to meet me where the car got towed because it was still registered in her name. It was beyond awkward and the first time I had seen her face in 2 months. I saw my car and almost pissed myself laughing. What is a girl to do? S said I was being a dick for laughing, which only made me laugh more.

I haven't gone home in almost 3 months which is the longest time away since I moved to Portland. I had a "Divorce Party", which my mom came too. Friends from home met my friends from Portland. It was a shit show and I had a blast. I have moments, small periods of time, where I realize how much I am loved by the people I surround myself with. No matter what happens, I am grateful and proud of how far I've come and where I am. Life is good, life is funny, life is complicated and life is a gift.

I heard a rumor Sriracha was going out of business or some shit. WTF?

Grey

Life is so fucking unbearable at times. Nothing is for certain.

Many people grown up thinking that unconditional love comes naturally from their parents, then their parents beat them or molest them or are too caught up in what's happening for them they don't realize they are allowing someone else to. You go to school, you socialize, you learn human behavior, you're disappointed by human behavior, you have best friends you have boyfriends or girlfriends, you lose some you win some. You're heart gets broken, you learn a few things, you do a few bad things. It's suppose to be this journey, it's suppose to be a learning experience, the end is suppose to justify the means.

What happens when it doesn't? What happens when you grow up envisioning what you're life is going to be like, and it turns out you don't have any of it? What happens when you do all this gut wrenching, soul vomiting, someone put your body through a meat grinder without an anesthetic, hard work, and you still feel just as lost and lonely only more complicated? Life throws you lemons so you make lemonade? Fuck that shit. The universe only gives you what you can handle? Fuck that shit.

I've spent 31 years on this earth, everyday trying to thank whoever is responsible for all the beauty in this world, and still everyday not knowing if I'm doing "the right" thing. Everyday I'm unsure of myself. Everyday I'm saddened by the ways of this world. By really good people dieing of cancer, of babies being born addicted to drugs or being beaten and killed, of woman selling their bodies for sex, of animals being tied up and left for dead, of some stranger barging in your home and stealing your hard earned things or raping or beating or killing you and your family. I'm sickened, I'm scared and I'm completely fucking baffled. I grew up feeling lonely and displaced, I grew up not wanting to live the way I had seen, I grew up wanting to be something great. Even if by great it meant a great friend, or a great painter, or a great doctor, I had these really high hopes for myself. Instead I have this heart that feels to big for my chest, that feels too heavy to be real. I don't wonder why people commit suicide, I don't wonder why people turn to drugs and alcohol. I wonder what you're suppose to do when every day hurts, when everyday you cry because you're not who you wanted to be. Why when the things that keep you up all night aren't even real or because you still feel guilty for making your mother by you a toy she couldn't afford.

I've spent 31 years trying to grow up, trying to learn, trying to be better and trying to accept myself for who I am and what I've been through. Still I just go to bed panicked, still I see what I assume is a struggling mother and cry in grocery stores, still I listen to a song that gives me temporary release, still I stare at the floor speechless and wonder if my brain is the correct shape.

My biggest accomplishment is that I'm still breathing, and it fucking hurts.

I am laying on the couch with my dog, Mallon.  We have had her for 4 months now? I have the receipt, somewhere.  A few months after Flash died, unexpectedly, we were searching for a new dog. I kept putting it off, in fear of the feeling of "replacing" Flash,  and Sarah was sending me pictures everyday of rescue dogs to get. See Flash was a special dog.  He was short, he had droopy ears, he drooled and when we first got him he had a hard/stubborn time walking a single mile.  He was stinky, he shed all over the place and he liked to go on nose bound, people loving, adventures from time to time.

I haven't liked dogs all that much in the past, I mean I liked them well enough but I never wanted to live with one, I never wanted to have to vacuum everyday because of one.  But Flash was a special dog.  I brought him in to my work a few times to introduce him to some of my favorite residents.  I became, rather quickly may I add, proud that he was mine.  I lay ed on the floor with him and didn't care that that meant dog hair coated clothing.  I enjoyed having him lay on the couch with me (poor Nubs, I'm sorry it took me so long), I fell in love with this dog.  His ears were my favorite, and he was so handsome.

Sarah called me at work on the house phone one night, which she never does and said that she wanted to bring Flash to the vet, that he was acting funny and not moving.  He didn't budge for food or even water, which he was obsessed with, he wouldn't get up to go outside.  She had a few hours before taken him and Nubs for a dog walk, so we assumed that he ate something that didn't quite agree with him, or that he somehow ingested a pair of our underwear. So we would wait until morning and if he was still acting funny then we would take him in.
A day or two had passed, maybe even three and he was acting like his normal self.  Then he had another one of those episodes.  Meanwhile, in the world outside of our house, one of my favorite residents had been battling with pneumonia during the same week.  My emotions were already trying to prepare me for the heart break of my friend. Sarah came with me to my place of work to be with Blue Jay, I'll call her, I knew she was dieing, I didn't want to miss a minute of her last days.  I was in love with her too. 
When we returned home that night, about 11, he still wasn't moving.  We took his temperature, 98 something, and after reading on the inter web about appropriate dog temperatures, we knew he was in some sort of danger.  I wrapped him in a blanket, put him in the back seat on my lap and we drove to one animal clinic which didn't have an xray machine so we drove to another.  After they took an Xray, and an ultrasound and drew out the contents of his abdomen, within seconds, we realized the depth of his pain, of his injury.  The tests revealed that he had tumors on his liver and spleen, too large to do anything about and too late because they had already burst.  We went over surgery options, taking him home options, and finally, decided to spend our last hours hugging him, loving him and crying with each other. Deciding to let him go was the hardest decision I've ever had to make.  Not jail, not rehab, not dirty streets, not family dysfunction, not every relationship I've ever had to end, has ever compared to the feeling I had that night.  He was laying on the table, with an IV in one foot, just breathing and looking at us.  Licking his lips and looking around, and we couldn't stop crying. I didn't want to say goodbye.  I didn't want to be without him.  I didn't want him to go.
We left with him in a box.
I wanted to bring him to my mother's and bury him.  I also didn't want to miss Blue Jay's passing.  I was so fucking torn between the death and dieing of two beings that I loved so dearly.  Blue Jay would have wanted me to go, Blue Jay loved animals.  Blue Jay met Flash.  So we drove to mom's the next morning, we put some things in his little long box, my brother Tristian read a letter he had written to Flash, and we buried him.  It was all so god damn surreal.  I week later and I still couldn't believe that had happened.
I returned to our home in Maine and I went back to work. That very day I clocked in and went to visit Blue Jay, I was so surprised that she was still alive.  I was so selfishly grateful that she was still alive. She passed that night, and all I could think of was, she waited for me to say goodbye. Not ten minutes after the nurse officially declared she had no heartbeat, I heard her daughter walking down the hallway.   I knew her walk, I knew her footsteps.  I walked into the hallway and tried my hardest to keep my cool.  I was so confused as to the right thing to do, do I tell her before she enters the room, do I let her walk into the room on her own...I started crying and told her Blue Jay was gone.  We hugged and we cried and then I left her alone to cry over her mother.

to be continued...

Is drinking a glass of Jameson at 1:09 AM ever a good sign?  I worked until 10:30 tonight, took a shower, drank some sleepy time tea and tried for the last hour and a half to fall asleep. My mind sometimes, a lot of times, doesn't get negative or positive signals for that matter, to shut the fuck up. I try to let the bitch down easy, but the brain is a powerful bitch with a stubborn mind of it's own.  Oh and my wife has decided we are not getting pregnant right now, or basically until she decides it's time. And this is me trying not to blow the whole ship up.

2 months have past and I have shit to show for it. I messed up the fertility monitor (your only allowed 1 fuck up per cycle, I managed 2), so we weren't able to inseminate last month. Here's looking forward to a September made baby :)

Turns out more than a beer a day, 2 cups of coffee a day and I forget how much sugar, is detrimental to your infertility. A new study for some idiot suggests that having your cellphone in your pocket does as well, although that wouldn't too much surprise me I guess.  So, I cut down on everything and am trying my damn est to switch to decaf. 

My wife and I attended two free Yoga classes last week through a space on Congress st. Never have I taken a serious yoga class before, but it was nice. We took a beginners class (didn't like) and a Gentle/Restorative (did like). I think something I need more in my life is quiet, stillness, stretching and most of all breathing. 

It's a funny thing, these blogs, your writing into the "air and space" as if people give a shit to read it. Mostly I like typing on a computer and use to journal EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME, so in pen and ink's memory I try to keep it up.

I survived Pride and all I got was some fucking diarrhea.And it's true, when people say "HAPPY PRIDE", I want to punch them.

Post Vegan/Pre Pregnancy

My 6 month experiment has come and gone, the time I set aside for it anyways. I dream of bloody steak sometimes, but my love and desire to jump in a swimming pool full of goat cheese has passed. Fuck cheese. For now, maybe.  Sarah hates and has hated every minute of my vegan challenge. She has since explained the many ways in which it affects her too, however, it does remain my body and if I don't feel good putting something trivial into it, then I won't. And I won't feel bad about it either. For once in my life, I have a reasonably good relationship with food.


My memories of food in general have not been that positive. When I lived with my Dad and his 2nd wife, they would serve us our meal plates and we had to eat everything on them before we could leave the table. Oh, you don't like brussel sprouts, "your not leaving this table until that plate is spotless". Oh, I gave you 4 cups of mashed potatoes and your already full, "your not leaving this table until that plate is spotless."  When their heads would turn, you had 3 seconds to feed all you could to the 2 dogs drooling under the table. However, they couldn't stand brussel sprouts anymore than I could.  Or, you could ask to leave the table to go to the bathroom, and after being granted permission like a fucking prisoner, stuff your mouth without being noticed, run to the bathroom and spit it in the toilet. Growing up with 5 other kids allowed for the advantage of not being noticed.

Still to this day, I find myself wanting to be unnoticed.

Another memory of food was donuts.  My mothers 8 year relationship with a perverted, alcoholic, mentally compromised, physically abusive boyfriend use to take me to a donut shop every Friday. We would get a dozen donuts to bring home. Chocolate eclairs and lemon filled powered sugar coated donuts, were my favorite. I would eat as many as I could, make myself throw up, and eat as many as I could, and maybe throw up once more. I also remember my Mom making chocolate eclairs once in a while, I did not abuse them however, because my mother had made them, I cherished them.  Much loved staples were  Banquet $. 99 chicken pot pies, TV dinners and spagettio's.  If my mom made it, even just microwaved it, chances are I loved it.

Still to this day, I find myself wanting to throw up.

Onto good, the fertility tracker we call "The Robot", was received in the mail and am excited to start using it. It may be the only time in my life where I'm waiting with excitement to start my period. On that day "The Robot" and I get engaged, and she begins to learn my cycle. Our plan is to start inseminating at the end of July. Course it may take more than one cycle for "The Robot" to learn, so this may get pushed to the end of August. Although it's been years of waiting, I can wait another month to get pregnant. I refuse to use a known donor so as expensive as the price of sperm is, we want those 2 guaranteed fertility days. The possibilities are so fucking exciting. Some people dream of a career, some people dream of meeting their "soul mate" and getting married, I dream of birthing a healthy, adorable baby.

Lazy words

I have no inspiring words for the love for those who are dieing today. I have a new chapter that's speedily approaching, and that is the exact opposite, the possibility of starting a new life.  We had a June start date but that had to be pushed back, due to life getting in the way. Fucking asshole.
Our new start date is July, and with all the luck and positive thoughts on our side, it will only take one insemination.

Onto the business of dieing

I forget sometimes where I work, what it is I'm doing for these people and where the residents end up after all. I love my job, I fucking love my job. I'm surrounded by these once to me, strangers. I'm sought after and demanded by a bell. I'm told what to do and objects to get, sometimes feeling like a "glorified" waitress, housekeeper, punching bag and personal assistant.

 I change beds, I give showers, I get hit and kicked,  I make snacks, clean up spilled drinks or vomit when all other bodily fluids are held in, I get pinched and scratched and told to go to hell. I give back rubs and hugs a plenty, I toilet too many times to count every day. I work about 50 hours a week, waiting, tempting fate to people who mostly don't even remember me.  And I love it, most of it.  

I had a resident die the other night, a lady who sang "Amazing Grace" more beautiful and pure then John Newton.  A woman who told me everyday that she loved me and upon entering her room would say "Hello Daahlin". I would reply "Hi sweetheart" and she would say "Your so beautiful". Alot of the time I would tear up and say " No _______, your the one that's beautiful."  She had rheumatoid arthritis, alzhemiers, dementia, etc. and her whole body was contracting and her bones sounded like they were breaking everytime you moved her.  She would talk in her sleep, making almost no sense but  mostly to her husband who had passed years ago. Listening to her talk of him made my heart soft, daydreaming myself, believing in love ever after.

I've been a CNA for almost a year now and have worked at the same facility this whole time. At which I've watched 7 residents pass on. Some were more sad than others, some affected me more than others. The first time I did post mordem care, it was surreal. So fucking strange and facinating at the same time. Washing up this body that was once alive and able to communicate, once able to consume and be comforted. I helped the guy that came to pick up the body, put it on his stretcher. I started feeling uncomfortable as he put her head on a head block. It then hit me in that moment, that she was just a body. He turned the white sheet over her and covered her face. My face started burning and I felt the panic and sadness fill my chest. Then he zipped up the body bag and placed a decorative quilt over it. I had to excuse myself in which I went to a private room and sobbed uncontrollably for 20 minutes. I'm a visual person, I'm a "in the moment" kind of person, and watching him zip her up was so final, so sad. It wasn't the first time I witnessed this process, this business of dieing, and it won't be the last.

It's very obvious when a person is beginning the dieing process. First they start sleeping all the time and stop taking in food or fluids (not to be confused with having a passing cold or other sickness). Next they start mottling, the feet and hands turn whitish/blueish and the underside of there body (decreased circulation). All of these didn't bother me with ______, it's the death rattle that hit me, that broke my heart instantly. I walked out of her room and told my nurse that she was rattling and instantly started crying uncontrollably. The nurse tried comforting me and told me "you don't always have to be superman, it's ok to cry." She hugged me, which is a little out of character for her despite having 4 adorable children. All I could say was "it's just not fair."  I tend to forget that this is the last stop for these residents, the only way out is in a body bag. They move from the other, more independant, ambulatory floors and end up on our floor.  I forget that they are not here to get better, but to maintain any normalcy they have left, show them love and comfort and give them the attention and respect they deserve.  Even if two months prior they had punched you in the chest and called you "a shit ass Nazi lover".



to be cont...

I get a little shit from some assholes (one being my acupuncture guru who I love) that I eat fish and claim to be Vegan. Here's my explanation, fuck off I do what I want and make my own rules. This is an experiment. Do I sound resentful, maybe that's my mood in this moment. I guess when people bring things up aka " you still eat fish", there's a small part of me that wants to stomp my feet and explain myself. The truth is I try to maintain a "veganish" diet, and yes for me, that includes eating fish. After all I like to think I'm partly Asian. Not racist, just Asian.

On a seperate topic, this virus shit. A large number of my residents were struck with the vomit/diarrhea stick. The smell, the cleaning, the coughing, I could literally watch theses super germs flying, clawing their way through the air, and into my body. I knew it was only a matter of time, and it was. After 4 days, I'm still a little nauseous but I'm back. Onto the next dilemma, my wife wants to go back to vet school. Virgina I fucking you. To be cont..

PBR=Vegan

It's been awhile I see. The past few weeks I keep coming to this empty screen to write something and just end up staring blankly. So I close it down and quite usually lay back down. I've become a big fan of online television and the comfort of sweat pants. I wonder if I'm depressed, in a rut for the moment, or just lacking creative energy. I'm a photographer at heart and haven't touched my camera in months. I brought it places with me, then lacked the motivation to take it out of my bag.

Food, ah food. The Vegan thing is going great, my wife finds it annoying and worrisome, but for me it's going great.  It's like I finally have control over food. No longer do I eat a jelly donut or a 3lb cheeseburger and make myself throw up. In high school I use to make myself throw up quite regularly, but since I became serious about therapy, I always felt guilty when I'd do it. And now and then over the past few years, I've done it a few times, still feeling that guilt. Still hating myself for eating something, whether the quanity or how much fat it had in it, that made me feel so fucking gross. 

I've lost 10 lbs since beginning the diet. 8 lbs in the first 2 weeks, which made my head turn a little. Thinking that I was carrying around 8 lbs of cheese and meat made me laugh, and also reconsider what "we" put in our bodies.  I don't work out, I haven't changed my life in any other aspect, 8 fucking lbs of bullshit. I find myself hungry more often and eat more then I ever have before, and don't feel disgusting or ashamed once it's traveled down my throat. Going out to eat presents a little challenge at times and I have to bring my own food to my mom's house. But it's a challenge, it's an experiment, that I'm comfortable handling. In short of having IBS, I've never had problems in the bowel movement department. I've always been pretty regular, but now jesus, I shit atleast 3 times a day. All this chatter, I should go lay back down.

Fucking chocolate is everywhere. Cakes, cupcakes, Snickers, Reese's, fucking chocolates. Fucking Nutella.

Nubs didn't even care to chase him.

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I had a cup of coffee yesterday and put half & half in it, then got called out by a friend. Whoops FAIL. I'm surprised all the birds in China didn't die. 

I've noticed I'm hungry a little more often. Like an hour or two after a meal I need a snack.  The trouble with this is I've had eating disorders in the past and sometimes when my body tells me it wants food, I tell it to shut the fuck up. I am guilty of a little self seeking torture at times.  My wife is my supervisor of sorts, for example " you sure you need that next beer?" or " I'm concerned your not eating enough.." or " will you put on your seat belt?". Sometimes I'm grateful for this because she's caring and sweet anyways and sometimes I want to wear ear plugs and be mute. She's dairy free (most of the time) because it helps with her ever lasting allergies and the bottom half of the freezer is full of meat that is now claimed by her. I mention this because this whole new diet started off a little easier by already loving soy milk and tofutti cream cheese.

Two of my favorite friends and the wife and I were going to go have brunch this morning, then I got all anxious about not being able to eat anything besides a fucking fruit cup so I decided I would make then breakfast. It's obviously easier when your in control.

What Dreams May Come....fuck you Robin Williams

Yesterday I think I gained 10 pounds from stuffing my face all day with meat, cheese, and yogurt and found myself drinking a carton of milk just because I could. I went to work and a co-worker ordered buffalo wings and mozzeralla sticks, as my final supper.  For dessert I had chilli then crackers and cheese.

 I had so many anxiety filled dreams last night all about food. I was at a party and took a bite of a cookie, then a friend looked at me disapprovingly, and it dawned on me that the cookie probably had butter in it, so I had to put it down.  Then there was a giant table full of different sized platters of food, I scanned the entire table, tray by tray, only to put my head down in disappointment that I couldn't eat any of it. Then I woke up and ate a banana. Here we go.

Almost the Last Supper

Should I start panicking now or tomorrow when I sign off from my beloved affair with steak and eggs. Let's be fucking serious, it's the cheese, it's the not having cheese that's going to bring this whiny bitch to her knees. And most of my cheese and  bloody steak loving friends are asking me why. "Why the fuck are you doing this?", "No more goat cheese? Are you mental?" The simple explanation is this: Because I want to. It's an experiment. To either prove to hippie dippie assholes that their theories are full of shit and their parents passed down conversation are all lies or that it might just make you feel better to stop stuffing your face with "man making money off of animal" bullshit. Can I survive and prosper off of vegetables, fruit, grains and legumes? Or will I wither away bitterly, and pick up knitting and English tea? There are  hundreds of thousands of medical studies done, Anthropologists, New Ageists and Farmers, who will all tell you their view on either side. Some have money at stake, some have sponsors that out of pure obligation and cowardly misfortune they have to stand behind, and some are just crust punks living off of trust funds who have nothing else better to do with their food stamps. And it makes for a better life story. Either way, I figure I'll feel like baby Jesus walking on water never to break anything but a happy smile or I'll be miserable and hungry and get sick from this deficiency or that. So why not, it's not as if I have anything more exciting going on in my life at the moment.

Starting Dec 1 I am taking on an experiment I like to call "Keep Your Beef and Cheese Away From Me". I am going Vegan for 6 months in order to declare some truth behind those "animals have feelings" queers. Mostly though, I just want to see if Jesus speaks to me. So if I ever look like this, tie me up and shove a bloody steak coated with butter and cheese down my throat.