TV Challenges

Okay, I have to say I love the challenges.  I am talking about TV shows like Fit Camp, Biggest Loser, Gladiators, etc. and so forth.  It’s the challenges that I can’t get enough of.  Who thinks of these things?  What will people agree to do in the name of TV?  So you are being filmed for this show and therefore have agreed to do WHATEVER you are asked [sorry, not asked - told].  Why don’t we ever hear about the people coming up with the challenges?  They are like mini gods.  They get their kicks out of making people pull hot air balloons, run up mountains, and complete rediculous obstacle courses (which in turn remind me of dog obedience and agility competitions). I have to admit, it seems a bit silly.

Why do we need to watch TV to get our fill of these ‘challenges’?  It seems like there should be clubs, organized sports even, dedicated to the creation, participation, and observance of just such events.  Maybe we all just want to act like kids in made up games and competitions. ‘Bet I can race to the end of the street, around the light-pole and back, before you.’

Something Out of Nothing

I am sitting here staring at this blank page, WANTING to write something.  Nothing. I look over at the “Categories” column and the the word ‘inspiration’ that I put there at some time or another.  That’s it.  That’s what I feel like I don’t have.  Not that I am really complaining, it’s just that I only truly feel inspired to write when I am distraught over something – anything really.  Why is this?  Why can’t I WANT to write about the good times, the light-hearted, happy-go-lucky times?  Their banality is overwhelming.  Who the hell cares?

It’s this ironic?  I’m willing to bet that a large majority of us are tired of reading the same old complaining, irritable blogs – yet the only thing we write on is that which attempts to incite some pathos or another.

When my day goes without a major hitch I avoid my blog.  I don’t want to face it because in someway I have not experienced some blog worthy, traumatic, or contemplative event.  If I’m not distraught about something, how the hell can I write anything meaningful? <–How can I think this?  Whats wrong with the pleasant, day to day experiences?  If you think it’s their frequent appearance that makes me shy away from them, think again.  More often then not I can – FIND – something to complain about. [This search is not a conscious, purposeful endeavor yet I inevitably find something nonetheless.]

It is as if my nature is a brooder – a melancholy dweller on the trivial - and I can not accept the persona of someone who can just BE.  It’s the ’Oh wait, I happen to be in a good mood? Give me a second and I will come up with something that is bugging me’ idea.  How pathetic.

An Endless Production

So I sit here mindlessly waisting time as I push the ’scroll-to-the-next-random-blog-button’ over and over again. Why? Probably because I have a ton to read by tomorrow and an essay I really should be working on.  What’s driving me nuts right now is not the reading or the essay.  Well, I guess it is the reading – the blog reading – that’s getting to me.  As I click from one site to the next I am searching for something – anything really.  I just want to read something that is a part of the person who wrote it.  I want to read some insightful observation or a blatant honesty that will remind me of the vulnerability of the AA meetings I used to attend.  I want to read something that will make the day feel real.  Apparently, this will not be happening.  It feels like I am reading the same nonsense – or sense rather – over and over again.  Give me pain and struggle – but not of the everyday variety.  Give me something that hurts and feels real. 

 Have you ever had that moment when you are in a phone conversation, telling the other person something, and you realize that the responses you are getting are fake?  Filler or auto responses.  You hear the ‘un-huh’, ‘oh yeah…’, ’sure’s’.  Suddenly you realize that it all is a sort of production.  Your telling them something – their listening.  Why?  As I read through random blogs it is gradually dawning on me that they are all essentially the same.  Filler or auto blogs.  People writing because they haven’t said anything for a few days and they feel obligated to do so.  I guess this is okay, who am I to judge?  It just doesn’t make anything feel real…

Some of The ‘Kids’

[EDIT][picture of cat's] hmm…the photo wouldn’t load as a reasonable size.  Have to work on that….

They always make me happy ;-)

Today was a good one.  C taught me to ride the 500 Polaris ATV [okay so I have the basics down, but apparently trying too go fast in a low gear is a major no no...], then we drove around going to fish stores.  This going to fish stores is something we do ALL THE TIME.  I know it’s a bit strange, but I love it.  It all started about a year ago when I told him I had an empty tank sitting at my parents.  I wasn’t sure if we had the room to set it up, plus I didn’t want to get stuck as the only one cleaning and taking care of it.  This could not be further from the truth.  That original tank was a 29 gallon.  We have since added a 110 and a 25 gallon to our collection [we live in a one bedroom apartment at present...].  Despite my hectic schedule and C’s on-call full time job, he always is on top of cleaning their tanks and bringing home feeders. 

Our other ‘kids’ include an Argus monitor, a green iguana, and Chaos and Psycho - our two cats.   Some may be a bit nicer than the others but in truth – we love them all ;-)

A Quoter at Heart

I am a quoter.  Have always been and will, in all probability, always be.

 It doesn’t seem to matter what I happen to be reading, I will find passages that stick out so strongly I feel compelled to copy them down. Why do I do this? I’m not exactly sure – I don’t want to forget them but that’s not the whole of it.  It is as if they hold some key. Some deep meaning that I will need to be reminded of at a later point.  – - – Well, that sounds a bit confusing.  I suppose I have no precise idea why I am driven to copy them down.  Mind you this is always in my own scribbled hand – never typed. 

The result? My life has become inundated by tiny scraps of paper bearing interesting insights, philosophies, perspectives, and revelations of others. [No, no, a list would be too simple...] My life is so infiltrated in fact, by these jotted down glints on life itself, that they are rarely, if ever, revisited.  I have no distinguished place for them so they tend to travel with me – tucked into the bottom of my jean’s pocket, disintegrating in the depths of my purse, populating the pages of my organizer as I try to mark some relevant date or another.

All in all, they tend to stick around with me until their ink fades and becomes illegible, or they become indistinguishable from the various scraps of trash that also surround me - receipts and the like – that I eventually throw them out. 

The need to pause

I quit smoking on December 14, 2007.

 A couple months smoke free and I still feel the pull.  I will be the first to admit to the relatively short time it has been.  What they say, for the most part, is true.  The first week is the hardest (getting over the hurdle of nicotine cravings and addictions cold turkey…), then it eases up a bit with the occasional intense desire spurred on from long practiced habits, such as lighting up the moment you get in the car for the long drive home or seeking an escape from a stressful situation.

It’s not the smoking itself that I miss.  It’s the solitude, the quiet, the pause from life.  It’s going out on the patio at five or six in the morning – breathing in the biting cold air – feeling a somehow comforting detachment from the rush, the hustle and bustle of things – taking a moment to breath and think about life’s bigger picture.

 This is what I miss about smoking.  It’s un-replicable.  I’ve tried.  I’ve tried going outside or opening the windows when I drive in the car and it’s never the same.  Always too cold to be worth the effort or otherwise too inconvenient.

I crave these pauses in my day and it’s learning to function without them that is where the difficulty lies.

comments…

For some reason I have been a bit of a comment junkie of late.  Something to do with not wanting to deal with the minor details of my life – I have been scrolling through the blogs of others looking for ways to offer encouragement, hope, or anything I have to offer.  To me, it seems to have all the hallmark signs of an avoidance tactic.  [Don't deal with your own things, try to help someone else deal with there's...]

For better or for worse:

I came across a blog (online journal entry) in which a mother was desperate about her young son and his psychotic behavior.  (He had just decided to get married for the 2nd time..baby from 1st marriage at her house..misc details…).  The details are not important.  What I did want to share with you is the message I sent her – hoping to offer some glimmer of hope.  Her name, by the way, is Andrea as well.

“Andrea to Andrea. While I can only imagine what you are going through, I have been in the position of your son. I have abandoned everything and everyone close to me in the pursuit of “love” and drugs. I hurt so many people – but what kills me inside is how my parents would look at me. How they would look at me when I slept through Father’s Day and the anniversary of my brother’s death. How I could take all the love, support, and friendship I have always had with them and throw it down the drain.
The reason I am telling you this is because today I have that amazing relationship with my parents – and everyone else I truly care for – back. It has, and will always be, a long road to regain their love and trust. I speak with my mother daily and have moved back to within 5 mins. driving distance because in truth, she is my best friend. While I am still with the same “love” that I was back then, we no longer enable each other to do anything except relearn how to live soberly and responsibly. My parents, who at one point despised him so vehemently, have seen in him a ‘fine’ young man and one who has moved mountains as far as they are concerned. [In so much as how he has changed and is caring, responsible, respecting, etc.].
I don’t know that this will ever happen with your son. I have not read through all your posts to glean every little detail I can. What I want you to know is that it is possible. I once heard that ‘people never change.’ Well then maybe C and I haven’t changed. We have only found who we once were. Who we were before each of us, in our own way, got off track.
Good luck in life. Sincerely and from the bottom of my heart, Andrea.”

 I posted this because there is always hope and always individuals in need of hearing it exists…

I don’t really want to do that either…

Today has been interesting.  So the status is that C went offroading in the desert with a bunch of his friends and I ‘chose’ to stay at home because I couldn’t leave at the drop of a hat (studying, work, etc.).

 I went over to my parents and picked up Karma (my Doberman).  She does wonders for my mood.  She would be with me constantly if I had more time and didn’t live in a yard-less apartment.  Plus she loves their other dogs, the pool, the 3 acres.  I took her back over around lunchtime to feed her and we stopped to visit the horses at the end of the road.  Not mine (although I stopped there too ) but the ones that are boarding at the farm.  We walked around for a while and I let one of them lick my hand for five minutes straight.  It was amusing.  What was more amusing was playing hide-and-go-seek with one of the mares.  She was hilarious.  Anyway,  I left there happy but now I’m in a bit of a funk. Nothing bad, just searching for something to do.  Well, that can’t be true.  I have a ton of things I need to, or could do, I just don’t really want to do any of them.  Which is making time drag by ……………….. 

 Why do I have to work against myself?  The need to plan out every moment of my day wastes so much of my energy.  Plus my stubborn mind likes to make plans just to break them.

Maybe Karma needs a bath…

Introspective Danger

The only things that seem consistent in life are the inconsistencies.  I get that.  I get that we are all searching to define ourselves in a world that doesn’t seem to enable any true definition to exist.  Nothing can be explained, nothing remains explainable save the futility of this attempt and the essential inconsistency of an existence that is entirely subjective and fleeting.

What I don’t get you ask?  I don’t get how everyone continues on with this knowledge – or non-knowledge if you will – how everyone is able to continue on as if nothing had changed.  As if realizing this, or accepting it, doesn’t change you.  Okay, so lets see, supposedly everyone knows this and nobody cares.  Lets Proceed.

I can hear it already.  You want to offer up some cliche.  Something along the lines of – ‘Everything is meaningless,’ ‘All you have is today,’ ‘Enjoy life and live every moment like its your last.’  Let me tell you – none of that means anything.  A while back I spent a full year of my life [no breaks to come up for air, no imposing reality, all alone in a discussion with my stream of consciousness] living out of my car because I was living, breathing, and at times making methamphetamine(speed) – all mind you, in the pursuit of some greater ideology.  I wasn’t screwing up I was, ahem, ”experiencing life,” I was, “living as if I was dying,” I was – and actually told myself repeatedly – “conducting a psychological/societal experiment – placing myself in the role of an objective observer who must assimilate herself into a different culture to more fully understand”. [You see I didn't have those 'causes' that you hear others speak about - I had an amazing, fortunate childhood with supportive and loving parents.  I did well in school. I simply glimpsed a world I didn't know existed and became obsessed with the desire to know and understand that of which I was (and despite it all, still am) ignorant of]. 

I spent a good while doing this, writing down anything and everything I thought of along the way – and what did I end up with?

 After shedding my ‘assumed’ role of druggie, attempting to regain and rebuild what I felt should constitute my life – what was I left with?  What lasting impression or grain of wisdom have I discerned – - – that people will do just about anything to escape their present reality.  My usual justification was that I needed to remain “fucked up” (a term I use in an almost endering  sense) in order for me to pass from this reality into the rabbit hole of a new, alternate meaning – and my ultimate goal?  To arrive at the other side, to see past all the confusion.  To find an answer.  I have spent my whole life questioning – and I was sure this was the way to an answer.

 Was it?  Who knows.  I have a tendency to block out, skim over, and plain forget memories that do not coincide with my present sense of self.  Unfortunately (or fortunately?) what I gained in shedding my assumed role and re-learning to live sober is my complete and utter loss of self.  My sense of self – of who I am – is now only as strong as a passing whim or a breeze upon the arm.  Its fleeting to say the least.  I said ‘after shedding my assumed role’.  I lied.  Yes I shed the role of a drug user, along with various other labels I have acquired during my life, but the only sense of reality, the only role I have is one of assumption.

At times it’s entertaining.  When I am alone I look at other female (girls, women?) passing by me as if I am flipping through the pages of a catalogue.  This ones too tall, too blonde – not that one she seems – get this – too self-concerned and involved. Ha! What a hypocrite. I’m ridiculous.  Believe me, I am more than well aware yet find myself unable to do a damn thing about it.

 The only things I am sure about:

I am not religious, yet I have always had and continue to have an incredibly strong sense of morality.  I do what is right. Why, I have no idea…I used to consider myself as moral but wavering on a ledge between what I believed to be good and bad.  Now I am just moral, there’s no denying it.  I always want to do what I consider to be the right thing. I think it must have something to do with all the people I hurt through my using.  I will always feel a sense of being in debt to to my family for their continued support and love  – and perhaps providing me an avenue to find my way back through the fog to life.

There is this hidden bravado, cockiness - that smirk in your eye –  that always sneaks its way back up to the surface of my personality.  While it tends to be short lived it is truly addictive and returns when and where it decides.  It’s as if this sense of myself know something and finds the whole of everything to be just a bit funny. 

 [As a side note: reading Luigi Pirandello's One, No One & One Hundred Thousand is adding fuel to a fire I normally try my best to push into the darkness and cram into a closet.]

Side-stepping Truth

I abhor the fake, the untrue, the pretense of life…yet at times I feel I have become the embodiment of these things.  Even the placement of my feet as I walk takes on an air of falsehood.  They do odd things like mis-step as they become conscious of themselves and all the while there am I - curiously watching the situation unfold.

 I sound crazy, I know.  But have you ever tried to concentrate of how you breath? I mean concentrate on each breath, how deep it is, how shallow, how quickly its followed by the next.  As soon as you start consciously thinking about it - it changes.  It changes from a completely automatic biological function to something your mind attempts to govern.  It’s the same principle.