He's Dead, Jim

Lost another parent on the fourth of March. At this rate, I am out of parents already. I am the old man of the family now. Dad passed away on the walkway between the house and the garage in the late afternoon.

I was at work, and my phone was in my locker. When I checked my phone around seven, there was a missed call from dad, and from Becky. Both had left voice messages. I checked dad's message first, and the voice was Ruby, his roomy. She said that he had fallen and hit his head, twice. I covered my heart with my hand.

I called Becky right away and she wouldn't tell my what happened. "Is dad okay?" I asked. "Not really," she said. I thought maybe he was in critical condition, at some hospital, but was aware that he may have died.

After work, I sat in my car in the parking lot of work and called her back. "He's gone," was all I heard. That's not how it's supposed to happen! He's supposed to slip away in his sleep in about a decade!

At least we reconciled. All the kids shared their thoughts about dad at the service for him, as we put out of Newport Harbor. The air was damp and cool, and I appreciated how happy he must have been to live here, and how he deserved it by working so hard.

I recounted how his greatest gift to me, personally speaking, was his amazing power of forgiveness. There was no transgression too great that he couldn't forgive. I would receive the full measure of punishment - there was no escaping that. But somehow he knew that being separated from him was the greatest punishment of all.

As Sherry and I drove away from the dock after the service, the radio mumbled something that made me say aloud, "Zaphod Beeblebrox." Just at that moment, on 32nd Street, we passed a business with the serendipitious name, "Don't Panic."

A Last Engagement

A voyage to Santa Barbara, to visit Sarah House, a hospice for low-income individuals.  That makes it sound kind of low-rent, shabby.   Eldest sister has visited, and deemed very nice.  At least the ersatz matriarch is comfortable, and surrounded by loved ones.

Ersatz because the erstwhile patriarch is esconced elsewhere, and kept in the loop.  There will be a few days concluding with Christmas, spending time with her beloved children.  What to do, then, apart from feeling horrified at nature taking its due course?  

There will be time, later, for feeling empty because there will never be another email, or phone conversation.  The time is now for comfort, and attention, at the brink of her lonely exit.

In the background is the guilt of not calling every time the occasion demanded, and not being present at the very end.  And fighting for attention, the nagging feeling that all this exercise is just a bit futile.

Auto Parry

The road was very wet yesterday morning.   A light rain was falling.   I left for work a few minutes early, in case there was traffic.  I drive much more cautiously in the rain, turning on headlights, allowing extra space,  and reducing speed.  

Lots of people like to drive aggressively, even in the rain.  Maybe the slick conditions add to their self-satisfaction, since they have brand new vehicles with brand new tires, and think they are smarter in general.  Most people believe they are better drivers than average, which is statistically impossible.

There is a connecter ramp from 125 N to 8 W.  There is always a backup on this ramp, with cars driving on the shoulder, and slowing in lanes, making general hazards of themselves.  This is because there is a signal at the bottom of the ramp, controlling flow onto westbound 8.  A completely unnecessary signal, because there is always excellent traffic flow on the 8, and because there the ramp doesn't merge into traffic, it has it's own lane on westbound 8. 

When I approach the ramp, I always reduce speed, because it's unpredictable.  People are always entering the freeway from Spring Street on the ramp, and this adds to the mess.  Lots of people evidently took this Monday off, because there wasn't a single car on the ramp.  A car pulls in right behind me, probably thinking to themselves about what a slowpoke I am.  I don't care, because I don't want to spin out on the wet 270-degree curve.

The ramp signal was still controlling traffic, and flashed red as I approached.   I almost never stop for a ramp signal if there is no one in front of me.  The freeway I am merging into is going to gain one more vehicle anyway, what does it matter if I stop and wait or not.  I knew I could jerk around my tailgater by pretending to stop.  I tapped my brakes as if I was going to stop at the signal, but then just kept going.   I crack myself up.

Then I gassed it and merged onto the westbound freeway, which was clear of traffic.  I saw my tailgater friend stop for the signal, then punch it.   He closed a two hundred yard gap in less than a quarter mile, rain, wet road and everything.  He signaled that he wanted to get around me, but I was already going for the number three lane, so he sat on his horn, took the number two lane, slowing as he passed so I could see how furious he was.  He cut into my lane,  then back into the number two.  His female passenger must have been terrifed.   

I shouldn't behave like that, but I was still pleased with myself.  I'm probably just jealous of his car, and what I perceived as his exaggerated sense of self-importance.  I was happy that he almost hit my car, because it would have been his fault.  "Gee officer, he just came out of nowhere and hit me from behind."

Amber Chrome

I am surrounded by amber light.  Still feeling the power of a long-ago nap at my father's house, whence I awoke to my nephew's voice and my gaze bathed in the sunlight of Back Bay filtered through heavy amber curtains into my sleeping chamber; the bedroom upstairs next to Dad's.  For two weeks now I have summoned the conscious memory of perfect light surrounding me and penetrating me, each and every cell, buttressing my fortitude.    All because my beloved betrothed  woke me up to some 'nut' on the "Coast-to-Coast" radio program.   And because I have never owned the figurative purple cloak he spoke of, and because the white light he mentioned only rated a weak recollection from a video game, "The Legend of Zelda."

Some paragraph to begin my first impression of Google Chrome, the latest web browser.  That replaces Mozilla, which seemed to lock up and crash on every summons.   That replaceth the ill-begotten Microsoft Internet Explorer versioneth ten point ten or thereabouts, which reeketh mightily of spyware or malware or whatever causes the browser to open three other useless windows each time out.  I just like that Google Chrome has a snapshot of each of the last web pages that I have visited.   I know what a one-tenth sized thumbnail of the Jerusalem Post or American Thinker looks like.   That positive re-inforcement collides with every last visit to EOnline, where I can't see "The Soup" like I used to.   So, there is the need to re-invent my web experience, resulting in finding, again, Hulu.com, and a viewing of the Simpson's Treehouse of Horror XIX in my pre-dawn hazy phantasmagoria.  Random headaches at five in the morning will do that to a person.

Dappled Normalcy

Here I am in the land of self-recrimination.   All because the side gate was left open and the dog got out again.  This is the second time she has escaped.  After the first time, I vowed to put a lock on each side gate.   I didn't, and the inevitable, second fooling of me occurred.  Shame on me.

I thought she was sleeping on her round bed in the other room.   I walked into the living room and looked through the picture window, to see her on the deck.   She was wagging her tail and being petted by the stranger currently sharing Elizabeth's bed.   "Yeah, she was roaming around all over the place," he said.

Trying to catch her added fury to my embarrassment.   She thought we were playing, so she tried to elude me.  I lunged to grasp for her, scraping my knuckles.   I got enough of her to elicit a yelp, and it dawned on her that I was angry.   

I wasn't angry at her, just at myself.   I felt humiliated by calling her to come, while she ignored me and wagged her tail next to the young couple kissing goodbyes poolside.   The sight of which turned my stomach a pale green.

"Thanks for corraling her," I said.  Great, I thought, now they are big heroes, and I am the total loser zero of a pet owner, who lets her prized animal wander the middle of the street.  

A shower yielded little comfort, so I drove over to Long's for a pair of cheap padlocks.  Very small satisfaction gained from putting them on the side gates, knowing that I was responsible for whether that side gate was open or not.   Whether the tenant left it open, or whether my beloved and I left it open capturing a spider web.   Whether the canine herself lifted the latch, exited the yard and replaced the latch herself, totally immaterial.   I wasn't taking care of my own business.  That is the humiliating part.   At least this time I have been saved the torture of actual harm coming to my beloved.   I know that I will still feel the hot sting of anger and it's aftermath, the frustration and sadness.   Achy.

Sleep Resumes

Haven't been keeping track of how long I've been on the Cymbalta. Probably for about a year, not continuously. My first dosage was 30 mg, for about a month. Then I was on sixty for a month, only to have my supply interrupted for weeks, during which time I went back to the thirty mg dose. The beginning of August 2007 seems about right.

I started sleeping better around then. It helped that I changed my room to the top floor, here at the Baltic Inn. When I was on the ground floor, I was convinced that my upstairs neighbor was insane, clomping around in his heavy shoes at all hours of the night. That was the most difficult time of all.

The Cymbalta helped a bit, I guess. For sure my dreams became more vivid, more detailed, which I like. Mostly the drug helps me stay balanced if an event becomes emotional. Then I have the time to recover and pull myself together before my brain starts the downward spiral to depression.

By far the best friend to my sleep has been the exercise, which I started about two months ago. I fall asleep when I want to, all the time. I don't get full of sleep and then can't sleep on Thursday nights, like before. I still wake up three or four times during the night, but have no problem returning. I admit to being the type person who needs ten hours a night. If I have a few nights of eight hours, then I start needing a nap. Just how I am. My dad is the same way, so it has never bothered me.

Time for some therapy.

Sleep Eludes

Looks like two hours is all I get tonight. So sleepy during the Simpsons, then tossed awhile, very surprised to turn to the clock, and see it was only ten. Mother fucker. Stared at TV for awhile. I know that sleep will again beckon, but that it will do so inconveniently, when I am supposed to go to work.

I can't take this anymore. I am so numb that I can't even cry. I haven't cried for months. I don't understand the point of weeping, either that, or I don't want to go that low.

Sleep is the only narcotic, other than food, that I have left. Goddam Areta Crowell has been keeping me waiting for five months for services. On Wednesday, I had an appointment to see the doctor, to go on medication. When I show up, I am told that the doctor was unavailable, and that I needed to reschedule. I folded my appointment card into a wad and let it drop onto the receptionst's desk. I wanted to utter a stream of profanities, but didn't.

This whole experience has been so dream-like. I feel like all the light of my soul has drained away, and nobody wants to come near me. This is hell. It's not hard to go and do my job, most days, but today will be rough. I don't want to make eye contact with anyone. Even when I watch the History Channel, and there is a portrait of someone who lived two hundred years ago, I cannot make eye contact with it, like I am being called out.

I guess the thing that hurts most is my pride. I used to have a good job, and prospects. I used to have a family that I called my own. I used to have a place to live that held all my belongings, my plants, my lamps. I used to have a woman, who lived with me. In the space of two weeks, it all went bye-bye.

If God could just cut out my pride, then maybe I wouldn't hurt so much.

Fidgety Rhythms

She posited the diag of ADHD, as in, "are you familiar with ADHD?"

I think that I am angry inside, and somehow, have managed to get this far, by suppressing my emotions. Today, I got frustrated, but only for a few moments. There was no going over to the other side.

That was the deepest emotion I have felt lately. Uncomfortable numbness, mixed with vague resentment. There is no joy, no satisfaction. There is very rare humor. It is difficult to feel any kind of happiness. I feel almost completely unloved, and totally irrelevant.

I don't know why I continue. Seems life is without meaning. I did make a deal with my maker, that I will try to survive as long as I am provided for. But what kind of existence is that? What is the point?

My sister is fifty tomorrow. I am not welcome, apparently. My father is eighty next month. Even less welcome there. When the pain is so great that it is unbearable, there is just denial. Welcome to me.

Skateaway (Rollergirl)

Music is a universal language. Everyone has their own tastes, but deep down, we all respond to music. Truly it soothes the savage beast.

There are subtle patterns within good music, that help people acheive a desirable emotional state. The state of tranquility is on the table, today.

I have played "Skateaway" time and again, always amazed at how soothing it is. And I'm not alone. When I am at the gym, and "Skateaway" comes on, I can see other fellas mouthing the words.

The song itself is a feast for the imagination. The rollergirl is also listening to music, giving the listener a tantric experience. That is, they are able to step outside themselves for a moment, and view themself from the third person.

"She gets rock n roll, a rock and roll station,
and a rock n roll dream,
She's making movies, on location
She don't know what it means."

I like to close my eyes and imagine a lass on skates, whooshing around crowded streets, leaving a crowd of admiring onlookers in her wake. She has incredible grace, and breathtaking speed, and exists in a world all by herself.

The song makes me forget what it was that frightens me. I play the song repeatedly whilst flying, to smooth out the turbulence. And, when my feet are on terra firma, the tune takes the edge off worldly tribulations.

"No fears alone at night she's sailing through the crowd,
In her ears the phones are tight and the music's playing loud,"

The climax of the song takes me to an absolutely transcendant plane.

"She don't know what it means,
but the music make her wanna be the story,
and the story was whatever was the song what it was,
Rollergirl don't worry
D.J. play the movies all night long."

And with that effort, breathing out in synchronized patterns, fears subside.

Albanians

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, there was a bit of collateral effect. One tiny nation, Albania, had been run by the dictator Tito. His legacy: more than 3,000,000 dome-shaped concrete bunkers, in case of invasion by the West. Or, approximately one bunker for each man, woman and child of his nation.

I have had the distinct priviledge of knowing many people of Albanian descent. They are a very proud people. Of what, exactly, I have no idea.

Some may remember an incident in the mid 1990's. This impoverished nation was convulsed in a giant Ponzi scheme. Almost the entire population, simple-minded people who had been denied even a subsistence-level standard of living, completely fleeced by a few early entrants.

The lucky ones were already out of the country by then. Unfortunately for peace-loving individuals, everywhere. Albanian people whom I consider 'nice,' are pathological criminals. For example, when Samir emigrated to Holland, he told me how much he liked the people there. "You see, the people are very beautiful, and happy, and they all have nice wristwatches which are very easy to steal."

Intelligence is not a primary trait of these people. I would phrase their level of brightness, something like, 'clever.' That is to say, completely backward. If an Albanian person is found to be a homosexual, well, that person simply disappears. Tribal justice.

When the Albanian people crossed the Atlantic Ocean, they brought their peculiar sense of honor, here. One person marked for death had his sentence carried out by hook and by crook. This person was invited over to their 'friends' house, late at night. He was greeted with a bullet to the head. When the police arrived, they were told a perfectly plausible story.

The deceased had been breaking into the house, via an unlocked back door, the police were told. The homicide was actually an accident, a case of mistaken identity. The tale went something like, "You see, the house was dark, and I didn't know it was my best friend. I bought the gun on the street from a drug dealer, no, I don't know his name. I bought the gun for my personal safety, because sometimes I have to walk home alone after work, late at night." Case dismissed.

My life may very well be marked. One of these sub-humans enjoined my services as counter-person, at the restaurant Florencia's. The first night of work, I was told to go sweep, then sent home for no reason after ten minutes. The next night, I showed up on time, and put in a four-hour shift. I was told to show up the next day, same time.

Next day, when I arrived, my supervisor was not present. He left word that "he will call" when he needs me. In sixteen years of dealings, I am aware of one characteristic of Albanians: Once the mouth starts flapping, the only thing likely to fly out, is a bald-faced lie. I demanded my wages, and threatened to stay on the premises until I was paid.

That got him riled. He told me to come to his house, and he would pay me. Hah! Won't work on me! I told him to come down and pay me, in person, and he said he would, and ended the phone call with a vicious epithet. The one with Oedipal / Freudian implications.

When he arrived, he had a big, disingenuous smile on his face. He could barely contain his hostility, through his clenched teeth. I demanded my money, and an apology for the "m-fer" comment. He denied even making the slur! And then, he put his hand on my elbow, imploring me to join him in a darkened corner, so I could collect my 'pay.' I refused, calling him a liar, repeatedly jamming my index finger into the palm of my left hand. Dislocated the finger.

I phoned 531-2000, and requested a policeman. My personal safety was in grave danger. I ended up walking away with sixty bucks for three nights work (including the two nights I was instructed to show up, only to be subsequently turned away).

Sixty bucks is at least two hundred dollars short of what I was going for. I already put an entire week in, at the North Park store, under his very fair-minded brother. As a consequence, I am seeking redress through channels. Channels like the Labor Relations Board, to collect unpaid wages. I filed a complaint with Cal-OSHA (because there is no posting of minimum wage, or Worker's Comp, or MSDS info). And, I got one more round in the chamber. The Immigration and Naturalization Service. Why? Just sick of the drivers, who are all in this country illegally. They come here on a student visa, and never attend class. Unless their idea of higher education is shredding the waves all reefered up, and practicing their lethal form of martial arts.

I'll probably let that one go. Not a single driver has harmed me in a personal way. On the contrary, they are some of the most beautiful and good-natured people in the world. Nothing personal against any person of their particular origin.

This profile in racial unity and harmony begins and ends with (most) Albanians.

The Core Belief

Each and every rational human being has both a conscious mind, and a subconscious mind. Our subconscious mind is influenced at an early age, by teachers, peers, and parents.

For example, one supervisor I worked under, once commented, "You are damaged goods." This was a well-meaning and light-hearted statement, in his point of view. I received the words and deeply internalized them. I believed and still do, that light-hearted sarcasm was just his style.

I have always been a tremendously empathic individual. Some people may even consider me a bit too sensitive. I am the type individual always who felt an emotional response to simple, derivative telephone company advertisements.

While being a new-age, sensitive guy may be my personal style, it is very conducive to effecting changes in the core belief. I could hear an off-hand, careless comment, and internalize it, to the point of self-detriment. Why? Because my real self is buried somewhere very deep within my subconscious.

My real self is very closely aligned with my first name. When I was born, my mother told my father, "We finally have our Matthew." My name translates into the phrase, 'gift from God.' When I am at my un-selfconscious best, I truly give unconditionally, and seek to validate the nature and potential of all living things.

I am the first son of an Earth Mother. Born into a family with a powerful father and two generous sisters. For years, no doubt, I ruled the household. Somewhere along the way, my feelings of safety and trust became undermined by challenges to my core belief.

Such challenges to my core belief caused years of conflict within my soul, feeding anger, and fear, and resentment. Every perceived slight was filtered through a prism of self-doubt. Even the driver ahead of me who failed to use their turn signal, was perceived as being personally against me, in some metaphysical way.

I believe that most, if not all, physical disorders, originate with some deep conflict in a person's core belief. I met a wonderful woman, a gifted psychologist, who was generous enough to share her 'core disbelief' with me. I couldn't fathom why a beautiful, ultra-talented female, who turned me on and excited me like no other, would consider herself "not good enough."

Yet there is was, everytime she suffered a minor annoyance. The 'core disbelief' controls all our conscious thoughts, and hence, behaviour. After she shared with me this deep-seated lack of faith in herself, it was a very short path to understanding my own, 'core disbelief.'

I believe that my 'core disbelief' is something like, 'wow, that's disappointing.' I imagined myself as a five-year old boy, whose father decided to leave the household, and tried to understand how that boy felt. Other than confused and betrayed, that is.

As an informal healing process, I seek spiritual re-birth. I practice forgiveness, as a firm principle. I forgive people much more readily, in a very light hearted way. My current style is a quick, sincere apology, as if someone had accidentally broken one of the Absent-Minded Professor's pencils. "No problem, I really didn't notice."

The re-birth and re-creation of a person's spirit is totally dependent on forgiveness, and complete gratitude. I consciously say grace over my food, and drink, and attempt to consecrate every aspect of my life. There is no other way to accomplish spiritual re-foundation.