Not (now) drunk but hurting like hell.

There’s a word for it.

Down. Down down down, suicidally down.

There’s another word, more precise, than that. Heartbreak.

My heart was breaking last night. Thus the post preceding.

It still is. But today I’m not under the effect of alcohol. Plus am beginning to process the heart breaking.

The situation and person involved are oh so very personal. Exposure/writing online, not gonna happen.

Suffice it to say that it’s someone I’ve known a very long time, more than 30 years, more than half my life.

A breaking heart makes for a memorable Christmas / holiday season.

I don’t cry easily or much any more. I used to. Childhood into adolescence was swamped with storms, tears of rage and pain and anguish — copious amounts far above the norm. All connected to home, parents, stuff I’d never return to even if a time machine allowed.

Later I learned to stuff the tears. Wall them off. Self-preservation.

So at 59, I very rarely cry and usually only when alcohol loosens the stubborn tight grip on my heart’s emotions.

Last night copious tears flowed, quietly, privately, head down. I’m not a wailer or attention-getting crier. I just remember sitting at one of my hangout saloons, there because I know the Monday evening bartender, looking online at my phone — at what, I don’t remember — and occasionally wiping away massive tears. Like melted snowballs.

Then when I got “home” eating the large remainder of my Christmas cookies my son baked — drowning my emotions in food, as I’m wont to do — and watching Netflix and then switching out the light.

I barely remember all that.

I can’t distinguish how much was the alcohol (in quantity, hadn’t been much though) and how much the meltdown of a heartbreak in the happening.

It can feel a lot like being drunk.

It wasn’t on heartbreak alone that I wrote last night’s post. (How I managed to do it at all is pretty amazing given my distraught condition!) It’s other things.

All coalescing into getting slammed by a semi that suddenly came careening around the corner.

I’ve got to keep it together. I can’t afford more crises on top of the crises already on my plate.

Merry Christmas to me! Maybe not.

Happy New Year! We’ll see.

Life’s dealt me some hard blows of late. I just want and need OUT of where I’m living and INTO a better space so I can at least deal with this stuff better.

Still waiting on Santa to deliver on that one item on the Wish List.

Nuthin’ more to say except though I’m tempted, I’m not deleting the post prior (“one week …”).

It may be drunk blogging, partly. Mostly it’s heartbreak blogging. I’m gonna respect that and let it be.

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one week. what do you do?

You have  one week left of life.

What do you do Not do? What matters? What doesn’t matter?

What are your thoughts with the impending end?

This is my exercise. One week left to live.

Do I care?

I used to.

Do I want to live?

Not sure. Definitely not as life has been for the past 16+  years.

Do I care what happens to my body?

Not really. Only that I NOT. BE. BURIED.

Set me free. Ashes to the wind. Medical donations. Anything but being stuck on this earth.

One week.

What would you do? What will  I do? How will I feel? Will I care about anything? About myself? About life.

Time will tell.

 

No exchanges, no returns. Was it really Christmas?!

It wasn’t the best of Christmases, it wasn’t the worst of Christmases.

… to spin from the famous opening sentence in the Dickens’ novel.

It was OK. There was a handful of highlights. There was baaaaaad behavior. Not related to family but the public. (see prior Starbucks post!)

Lemme ask: Does anyone really LOVE Christmas?!

I know such people exist. I’ve met ’em. My boss at one of my jobs is one. I marvel at their love of Christmas as I might an Olympic runner. “Amazing feats. Amazing athlete. But that’ll never be me. Never can be.”

Halloween, that’s my holiday.

Anyways, Christmas 2016 is past. I’m glad. I survived. Endured. What especially differentiated this one from most is that I wasn’t at some really shitty job that I hate. Any holiday, nee any DAY where I’m not so engaged, well, it’s a good day.

So attention turns now to New Year’s. In Japan, a much much more celebrated holiday than Christmas. You can take the girl outta Japan but you can’t take Japan outta the girl.

As usual, I have no plans. It sucks. It means I have no friends to call. No intimate get-togethers with one or close circle of 4-6. Means while life’s better than in the past, I’m still a long long long long long long long ways from the life I’d envisioned or would want for myself. Let’s get real: need.

I was at Costco the other day. Commented to one of the food-demo gals or possibly a passing customer: “There is a Santa. But there is no God.”

The words just spilled out of my mouth, as they oft do. Taking me by surprise, not in content but articulate expression.

I DO believe in Santa.

And I do and I don’t believe in God.

It’s complicated. I believe in part that there’s a God. But he’s not a loving or good God. Evidence abounds. Plus I have personal proof.

I hesitate to outright say I believe in God but he’s bad. I’d say vengeful and bad in the sense of not-good.

Anyways, ’tis the season of reflecting on big matters and the big man upstairs.

Thinking ahead, I need life to be better to me than it’s been. I need more from life than I’ve gotten or received. 2017 is an especially significant one for various reasons. I can’t have my decade in my 60s — 60th birthday in March! — as a repeat, rather, continuation, of my 50s. Or 40s. Two decades to “wipe off the proverbial personal map.”

Thing is, how do I get what I want. When what I want does not exist. Does not exist in this town (or most).

Fuck.

So much for any lingering good cheer of Christmas! 😀 😀

Best shut up before this takes on a rambling quality and let this post just traaaaailllllll offfffffff ………

Btw, about that headline. Every year I receive one present: homemade cookies from my son. So I ask: Without a gift to exchange or return — aka the National Pasttime of millionS of Americans beginning today — can it really be called Christmas?!?

I think not.

And I think so.

Where’s Silent Night when ya need it?

Merry Christmas to all!

And how’s your holidays? More peaceful than mine, I hope (haha).

I’m at a Starbucks (since both my jobs are closed today; otherwise I’d be working ..working and alcohol — best salves to forget it’s Christmas!).

It’s busy here but not unruly.

Until apparently a family of 10 entered. Took 3-4 tables and chairs just down from me.

A group with 2-3 kids, boys, probably brothers or cousins, ages around 5-7.

Are they hyped up on Christmas treats?

Or simply the result of shitty parenting?

Either way, they’re obnoxious loud misbehaving B-R-A-T-S! Punching each other, playing, doing what kids do. *In their own homes.*

Not in public. Certainly not if you’re a good parent.

So these rambunctious boys are screaming up a storm. Rolling around on the floor.

Yes, you read that right. ROLLING AROUND ON THE FLOOR. At Starbucks.

Not a damn adult in the group doing a damn thing about it. Well, one guy, probably the father, “told” them to behave.

As effective as telling the Pope to go hang out in a brothel.

Bad example. It’s been done. But you get the point.

Passing by, I shot them a look. An expressionless detached on-point look. A look that shouted: “Completely unacceptable.”

Put another way: “You’re the fucking assholes. And the rest of us here in Starbucks trying to have a jolly relaxing Christmas: Not.”

At my table, I stuffed in earbuds far as they’d go without damaging ear canals. Cranked Pandora as loud as it could go.

Still not loud enough to drown the Boy Monsters and their shitty parents.

Shot a few more direct looks.

I mean REALLY people!! Kids SHOUTING AND TUMBLING AROUND ON THE GROUND IN A PUBLIC PLACE. DOES THAT SEEM ACCEPTABLE???

Don’t answer that.

In today’s American society, it is. Dare point it out to a parent, ask them to quiet ’em own, put a leash on them puppies, consider the patrons … all falls on deaf and attacking ears.

I know. Because I politely but firmly SPEAK UP. And the response is NEVER good! As if I’d just announced I’d run over their dog.

(cancel cancel)

Finally, The OBNOXIOUS level of the Brant Tumbling Boy grew too much even for the (apparent) father.

He escorted them outside for a brief “talking to.”

Now, I did send direct messages nonverbally with dead-on glances that communicated in no uncertain terms that they were OUT OF LINE.

And they caught those looks.

So I’d LIKE to think that those messages had an effect. Maybe awoke them from the stupor of their self-importance. Reminded them for a fleeting moment that this is a public cafe, not their private living room.

I’d like to think that my direct but silent looks made an impact.

Truth is, it’s certain I did.

On this late Christmas afternoon, I’d like to think I contributed my small part to Peace for All.

Or at least those at this here Starbucks.

Merry Christmas, all. Peaceful may it be.

Pffffffffft goes the party

The party’s over. As of today. Christmas Eve.

Remember when you were a kid and the minute the parents were away, the cat did play?

Perhaps alcohol “or other substances” were involved. If not, rambunctiousness definitely was!

It was as if … correctional officers (COs)unlocked all the doors on a cell block … walked out … and left the prisoners to play!

Well, that’s the image that works. I had a particularly brutal childhood. Your mileage certainly will differ!

My current living situation needs to end. Pronto. As in by the start of the year — if only someone with a room to rent out appears! So far it hasn’t happened. But there’s, what, a week left in the year? I keep looking every day.

Point is, my roommate’s been away for a week. Today he returns. I’d almost rather have a root canal. I’ve had plenty so the procedure doesn’t bother me. The loss of any/another tooth on the other hand … that’s a whole other story.

When the roommate walks out the door on a trip (he travels occasionally, bring relief to the domestic situation), I don’t hasten to the liquor cabinet first thing. I’m not 11. I’m 59. I can drink any time I wish AND buy it!

But the WEIGHT of the situation (one that’s no longer positive for me) is lifted.

The oppressiveness is eased.

Then he comes back. Literally just as we speak!

And the COs have re-entered the building …

So there ya have it, Santa. No pressure or anything. That request for a new good place to live (and by year’s end is best) — the one desire on my Wish List that I posted the other day — still stands.

I want out. I need out. He wants me out. Get me out, Santa!

Please make the start of 2017 merry and bright and brimming with possibilities and positive change!

Thank you thank you thank you!

love,

a lifelong admirer and believer

me

p.s. prisoners out from under the thumb and playing even for a day feels so liberating! free! i’m not a convicted felon, as you know, santa, but have certainly lived too much of life like one! as you know. i’d sure like that to end as well but that’s a whole other complicated topic, eh …

p.s.s. thank you again, santa, for listening and gifting me with a door out, literally 🙂

 

 

 

 

Don’t go to Amazon for this gift …

Unless you live in a cave, an underground biosphere, a submarine, a prison or some other form of isolation, you’re in the City of Stress. Rather than the Spirit of Christmas.

Even if you don’t or barely do Christmas. The stress permeates. It’s impossible to miss. More impossible to fight it. And most impossible to cure or fix it.

I’m very Piscean. A giant walking sponge. It’s a curse and a gift but that’s not the focus of today’s post.

Especially when you DON’T do Christmas (and I don’t apart from creating cards and baking one gift for one person), you notice how STRESSSSSSSSSED OUT people are. Over-the-top assholes, the good lot of ’em, especially on roads, in parking lots, in stores.

Rather than Soak Up All That Stress of Others, stuff it to cope then stew in it to my detriment and/or illness, this year I adopted a new tactic:

Let the Harried and the Hurried go ahead of me.

Give them the right of way, even when it’s actually mine.

Even if it’s my turn next in line … or for that parking space … that left turn … or I’m crossing a parking lot on foot and narrowly miss getting hit by some speeded up on stress …

if a person is in THAT much of a hurry as to run roughshod over me/others, barge ahead, disregarding common courtesies, fairness or even the presence of another … rather than hold to my (rightful) claim, I let the person go ahead.

It’s me choosing Zen.

I don’t do it for them. I don’t do it to be nice for the sake of being nice.

I do it for me.

I do it to keep MYSELF detached from their rudeness and stress.

I do it to keep MYSELF from absorbing what’s theirs, internalizing it, then eventually taking it out on someone else … in some parking lot … a checkout lane … a traffic lane.

And what a difference that conscious choice has made. Not in THEIR lives. In mine.

Stress begets stress. It’s a vicious cycle, a creature feeding on itself into an ugly bloated beast.

Around Thanksgiving, the start of the holiday season, is when people started being nasty, short-tempered, rude to raging to downright dangerous.

I noticed it; couldn’t NOT notice!

Then and there I made a conscious decision: If someone’s that harried, hurried or stressed, I’m gonna give ’em the right of way.

And, if I’m feeling especially relaxed, I might feel sad for the other or say a quick prayer.

The World is a Place Gone Mad.

I was aware of that even before I was born.

During the holidays, that World becomes a Place Gone Insane.

Thinking you can change the world is naive. Once you really grasp that kernel of truth, you’ve accomplished the first step — the first of thousands to come — toward wisdom.

All you can change is within. Your response.

No earth-shattering discovery there. Nothing new under the sun.

But, if you can choose Zen, whatever that feels or looks like for you, in the most ramped-up stressed-out assholes-every-which-way — aka the Holiday Season — then you’re really onto something!

As I wrote, I give one gift to one person, a family member every Christmas. (Actually I mail it, leaving my Christmases utterly sans family — another way to avoid stress, fyi.)

But for the first time in the holidays, I gave myself a gift — a gift found in no shop. No mall. No Amazon or online site. The gift of:

Z ….

E …..

N ………….

ssssssh, my one secret wish to Santa

Thursday December 22

what can I say

roommate returns day aft tomorrow

hip hip hooray!

Or not.

My Wish List for Santa is purty short.

In fact, I’ve not devised or given one much thought. I’ve a plateful of problems and am in Lockdown Mode of: survive, cope and, of late, restore health as I’ve fallen quite ill.

Center on the plate, shouting reminders like slime-green neon light in Tokyo’s Entertainment District (lord I miss Japan sometimes!), is: The Need to Move.

I need to move. As soon as possible. The sooner the better. By new year’s. If only I can make it happen.

Availability. It comes down to availability.

Not my efforts. Those are substantial, diligent, dedicated, on the money. A grade of A goes to my efforts.

I need that A to float over to Availability, work mojo and open that door!

The details, challenges, issues with the local housing market — no need or desire to expound: but to say Availability is a major issue. Major.

Santa sees it from his workshop high in the North Pole. From his sleigh. He sees it for Santa sees all, ‘specially this time of year. 🙂

So, Santa, I’m no longer that scrawny strong petite 5-year-old tomboy on your lap whispering secret wishes.

Well, maybe I am on the inside. 🙂

And as you know, I rarely ask for things. From people. From life. Gotta work on that, I know. I have issues.

But this time, Santa, I really need your help. Your goodwill. Your Spirit of Generosity. Your Magic to Manifest.

Bring me please Santa a new place to live.

A good place, the right place. The place that meets the needs of the moment and the times. By January.

You know just what those are. ‘Cause you’re Santa!

I’ll be so happy to see

Under my pretend tree

a box prettied up with a tag for me

that I open up with care and glee

wheeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

a new place to live: where I can Be.

Thank you Santa! Thank you thank you thank you!

Love,

a lifelong admirer and believer

me

You rock, you white rock!

‘Tis the full moon.

In Gemini, 22 degrees. Tempting it be, not gonna write much about this full moon astrologically or personally. Only that full moons are when a matter or matters achieve fruition; what the matter is depends on where in your chart the full moon falls and other individual astrological aspects.

“Sorry,” guys, contrary to horoscopes published in newspapers would have you believe, astrology ‘n’ full moons ‘n’ more ain’t a one-size-fits-all deal. Inconvenient but true.

That said, this full moon in Gemini’s got me sitting up taking notice. Because, in my chart, it speaks of subconscious or deeply intimate issues achieving fruition or coming to a head.

Note: The effort, nee need, to move. Not written of it so not expecting anyone to follow along :-).

Suffice it to say it’s time to move on from this current roommate situation into albeit another roommate situation (ugh) with better harmony than this.

What can I say? Some situations just aren’t meant to last. They’re fine for a month or two in a terrible pinch. Beyond, let it go and move on. Literally.

Yes it’s the full moon, the time of fruition. Of issues coming to a head. Recent changes in the domestic air are damn clear. Time for me to move on, even if my roommate can’t entirely articulate it.

He wants me out. I want out. What more is there to say … except full moon. Completion. Been seeking a room share diligently, religiously for the past month. The challenge has got everything to do with availability nuthin’ with intent to move. Arrrrghhhh! The price of my town being discovered and all that that brings, i.e, doubled rents, etc. etc.

On the Full-Moon Fruition Front

There’s more.

Loooong story short, I finally today completed a letter to my former boss about incidences involving other employees of which he knows nothing. Denial and head-in-the-sand are effective means of “knowing nothing!”

It’s a deeply important letter that I wrote and one that had to be written for several reasons. It’s in the mail as we speak. Probably in the hands of my former boss in a day or two, max.

Fruition Part II

There’s still more.

Not only am I actively looking to move around year’s end, I’m also putting looking to put a period on a former housing matter that requires legal action. As in I taking the former landlord to court over a deposit illegally withheld.

Tomorrow paperwork gets filed with the court in an open-and-shut case.

Again full moons are all about fruition. Past matters coming to a head.

About issues coming into realization or culmination,= “for better or worse.”

In my case, the two most intimate and ever challenging areas — home and former work — are achieving their culmination simultaneously.

Gets no more full moon-y than that!

A thing or more coming to a head. Realize it. Become of aware of it. Then let it go. It no longer serves you.

{hand raised, doing both work & home!}

Didn’t really have much more to say than that.

Bye to my current shelter — albeit not before a better one’s found any time now by Dec. 3!

Bye to, frankly, the mountain of shit at my former job that I loved before two colleagues rendered it unloveable!

Bye goes the home.

Bye goes the former dream job.

Full moon in Gemini 22 degrees.

In my chart it’s about challenges and discipline and focus to grow and move to a better place. The coal becoming the diamond process.

I’ll take that challenge! Have taken it.

Looking ahead … new moon in two weeks …8 degrees Capricorn. Super-favorable in my natal chart!

Here’s what I wanna say / predict astrologically: Change of residence is coming very soon into the new year!

Somebody’s gonna help me out. Not an acquaintance. An individual / stranger inclined to lend a helping hand.

Also, I feel, the court will take my case regarding wrongdoing by the former landlord and we’ll proceed accordingly. This’ll please me greatly; justice ultimately will be served. Even if in just a tiny pocket of the universe, that it happens is reason to rejoice.

And my former boss who’ll soon receive a letter that’ll raise his head out of the sand … doesn’t matter what happens with those former coworkers. Most important is that I spoke / wrote the truth long secreted and am letting it go.

Full moon tonight, new moon in two weeks and on it goes.

What can I say but you rock, white inhabitable rock floating alongside earth!

‘Twas the night before Christmas

Actually, it was 16 nights.

Happens every year around Christmas time.

There’s no predicting it. No anticipating it.

There’s no planning involved. Imagine that! The uber-stressful season sans the exhausting list of Must-Dos, Must-Gets and Must Not-Forgets! Why, it’s almost sacrilegious!

It’s the Song of the Season. Specifically, my song.

Not really my song. You’ll see what I mean in a moment.

Let it be said that I don’t do Christmas. Not Commercially, that is. And yes, that capital C is intended.

The religious elements, also dare I say, are pretty meaningless for me.

Neither do I neglect the holiday altogether, however. I make my own cards and have for years.

They’re even put into envelopes, stamped and mailed to a dozen or so recipients.

I don’t do Christmas cards en masse any more than I live my life en masse. I’m an individualist. The whole power in groups thing, well, let’s just say I didn’t get that gene.

I also pen a “newsletter” — and believe me when I say that it ain’t nuthin’ like the one you get from Aunt June about how Tommy’s 8 now and the basketball team’s starter and how Gretchen’s entering her senior year. Stuff that’ll cure any insomnia’s unrest for a night!

I’ll admit that one year I aspire to author just such a letter: as a parody!

I generally give just one gift to one person, my son. Homemade from the kitchen.

So go on, call me horribly terribly old-fashioned and un-American because I keep Christmas from the heart, not the shops. Go on, I’m not offended.

What I am is a whole lot less fucking stressed-out than the average American consumed by Christmas consumerism! Sad.

Anyhow, back to The Song of the Season.

I never know when it’ll strike. Descend, rather — for the song really does come upon me. A shower of grace from heaven above.

It’s a piece of music that touches me deeply, moves me extraordinarily  and usually to tears. It’s a song or a carol that I can’t get enough of.

Every year it’s different.

And my heart knows it when it hears it.

Like I said, I never go looking for it. In fact, I give it no thought. It happens in its time. Like wind across the sea.

Like one year, I couldn’t get enough of “Little Drummer Boy.” Now, I happen to LOVE that song every holiday. But that year, I couldn’t get enough of it. I hungered for it, thirsted for it, satiated my self within it and even still, every listening was as remarkable as the first.

Even went to the library and checked out a buncha CDs with that song on it just so I could listen in my car and at home.

Some versions are better than others. Those CDs didn’t make the cut far as Little Drummer Boy was involved.

Another year, it was “O Holy Night.”

Only explanation for this mysterious bonding with one song and only one song  that changes every Christmas is that there’s something in the lyrics and musical movement that resonate with my unconscious.

In fact, reflecting on where my life, and I in it, were when O Holy Night was the Song of the Season,  I fully understand why it jumped out at me so.

Why it chose me. Not the other way around.

Yesterday evening the Song of this Season was revealed. The “Hallelujah.” From Handel’s Messiah.

Not the Leonard Cohen version, which I happen to love to death. Different tune, different time.

Like I mentioned, the seasonal song stirs me profoundly, usually to tears.

Like the national anthem. I can’t help it — or myself. Unless there’s some lame person singing it all wrong — like some dumb pop star at the start of the Superbowl. Boring. The rendition, not the game.

So in a sense, my Christmas song is my national anthem. An anthem with a shelf life of a month or so.

When the song is spontaneously delivered unto me from the forces above — the higher beings, the angels, Spirit, the Universe, the Creator, God or however you choose to conceptualize that which is greater and bigger than we mortals — Christmas c’est arrivé.

No cranky crowds.

No consumerism.

No credit cards.

Just the gift of music. Clear. Calm. Consecrated.

Were that Christmas could be that pure and true for all.

Hallelujah!

Heavenly Hogue? Not quite!

Psychic? No.

Psychotic maybe.

John Hogue is a well-known but not necessarily -renowned self-proclaimed prophet with a web site and books yadayada. I give him credit. He’s made a name for himself. Whether justifiably, that’s his karma and between him and God/Spirit.

He guests time to time on Coast to Coast, the national late-night radio show of questionable credibility and guests of dubious talent and character.

Unsurprisingly, George Noory had plenty of psychics — rather, so called psychics — on his show ahead of the presidential election.

As a curiosity, I noted which known psychics/”psychics” proved accurate after Trump.

Hogue was not among them, though he adamantly declared repeatedly that Clinton would win. For example, an excerpt from his web site:

“For the record, I say, for the last time before the election, it will*. Hillary Clinton will be your new president.”

{*my prophecy come to pass}

Bemused, I dashed off a quick query after Trump’s (resounding) victory. “Really? How’d that prediction work out?”

Hogue’s response was hysterical. “Yes, Really! She is your next president- elect. The popular vote of the people has declared it. The truth declared it.

Haha. Nice try but no. A president-elect is the next person declared the winner in an election who is moving into the White House.

Evidence is substantial that the individual is Donald Trump. It’s he who’s assembling his Cabinet and administrative staff. It’s he who is talked about around the world as the incoming president. Not Clinton.

Yet Hogue maintains that Clinton is the president-elect.

A short email exchange with Hogue shows a person who cannot admit he’s wrong and, worse, produces irrational, even pathetic, workarounds.  Whatever. Nothing new under that sun.

It gets worse. A precursory glance at his site reveals a man who wounds deranged, an individual apparently raging and tortured.

It’s sad. My compassion extends to any deeply-troubled individual.

The world’s filled with charlatans, cranks and clever connivers. In the history of mankind, Hogue is nothing new.

Only thing worse than Hogue and individuals like him is their followers. People who give an individual credibility where credibility is undue — and indeed dangerous to give.

I know individuals who are genuinely psychic, who are truly gifted and powerful with those gifts. They inspire awe and respect.

John Hogue is not among them. All indications are he’s a hoax and a hack. And a very very disturbed human being.

Only one thing left to say:

Merriam-Webster defines president-elect: “a person who has been elected president but who has not officially become president yet”

You may continue insisting that Clinton is the president-elect. That is your free will and right.

However, all evidence within the United States and world point to Donald Trump as the person soon to assume leadership.

So, Mr. Hogue, define president-elect as you wish. I will always pick Merriam-Webster’s definition over yours. Always.