A Really Bad Month

Sometimes I feel like I’m just falling apart. I’ve never felt real highly of myself and lately with the job picture and financial situation it’s really smacking me around. Feeling as shitty as I always have about myself, I still always believed that things would work out for me. That feeling isn’t nearly as strong as it used to be and that scares me.

I feel like everything I have ever done wrong to anyone or anything in my life is all coming back to haunt me at once and I don’t think I have the strength to fight it all off. I wake up in the morning and I notice I’m shaking a little. There’s a cloud over my mind that has been raining for what seems like decades. I have no confidence in my abilities to do anything.

It used to be that when I applied for a job I would go in there feeling like they were lucky to have me. I don’t have that feeling anymore and I don’t know if I have the strength or know how to get it back. I have never been more afraid to get out of bed in my life because for the first time I really don’t know how this story ends.

Whatever friends or family reads this please know that this is in no way any kind of note to be overly concerned about. I’m not going to do anything to hurt myself, I’m just having a real bad month and it’s starting to feel like it’s gonna stay cloudy forever.

A Little Self Pity

“From all this you’d imagine, that there must be something learned,”

Feeling a little funky today. I think something may have bitten me. I didn’t sleep well at all last night and have felt like I’m in some kind of fog all day long. I went to a bar last night and I know what you’re thinking, “hangover”. No, I only had two Malibu’s on ice. Trust me, I hardly caught a buzz.

You’d think that staying home on a Sunday and watching football all day would be a dream come true for a sports fan like me. I gotta tell ya, kinda sucked. I used to be home on a Sunday thinking about what a drag it’s going to be to go to work the next day. I’d pretty much give up my left one to feel that right now.

I really am trying to stay positive but that becomes more and more difficult as the days go by. I’ve cut my spending so much so that I hardly leave the house. The only entertainment outside of the house that I’ve done is because friends have offered to pay for whatever it is we do. Don’t get me wrong, I’m real appreciative but I don’t like having to depend on friends to get my fun fix. I, and they, know I’d do the same for them without thinking anything of it but that still doesn’t make me feel any better about it.

I’ve got an interview tomorrow with a large drug store chain and I’m hoping more than anything that I hear from the folks in the D.C. area this week for an interview. I also keep applications flowing on a daily basis to retailers throughout the country. I have a list here of anyone I’ve applied with and have a system for calling them and checking on the applications every three days. Monday I have 16 calls to make and another 14 on Tuesday. I just want to keep my name in their faces.

I look forward to a day when I can look back at this time and understand the lessons taught. Right now I’m kinda confused by it all. I’m getting into the “whoa is me” phase and that’s a real uncomfortable place to be. I think of all the woulda, shoulda and couldas throughout my life and see numerous times where the course could have been changed. There are most certainly lessons learned throughout. Those are lessons that are too far-gone to fix, I’m not a kid anymore, at least physically.

I need to see what there is to learn from this episode. If and when this part of my life is complete I’m not sure I’ll ever want to think about it again. I just want to get some semblance of a life again. I don’t do much besides work so you can imagine how exiting life is when I’m unemployed.

I know, I know. Quit your moaning. Ok, I will. It’s just that every once in a while I think I have the right. Trust me, I could go on for pages and pages but I’ll spare you. Maybe it’s the bug bite.


From all this you’d imagine…

The Child Inside

I have always been accused of not taking things seriously when others feel it’s warranted. This has been an issue for others ever since I can remember. I would often get in trouble in school for making a joking comment in the middle of a class or clowning around in the back of the room. I would usually get let off the hook by teachers who knew that I meant no harm and it was just something to help me get through the day

As I was growing up I felt I was on par maturity wise with people my own age. Getting older though, that has most certainly changed. It seems that the older my age group got the bigger the gap became between them and I. I like to refer to it as the “stick in the ass syndrome”. It seems that after a great many of us lost touch with each other I continued along my toys r us ways and many others had a huge pole inserted into their ass. They became our parents. The way they speak and act has me convinced that I missed the boat on this one. So many of my old school mates actually have accents now that have nothing to do with where we grew up. They speak as if their names were Buffy and Thad.

Priorities seem to be the biggest difference between them and I. Many of them do nothing but work and attend dinners and conventions that show them how to work even harder and earn even more. Me? I work in a grocery store and spend my free time looking for things to laugh at. Don’t get me wrong, I take a great deal of life very seriously, I just look for things to soften the blows. It’s like the old saying, “If I wasn’t laughing, I’d be crying”. I am so bothered by the things I see and do in daily life that if I didn’t find things to laugh about I’d probably have to be committed.

I have been accused of being incredibly immature and I’m ok with that. It’s this child inside that lets me get through each and every day. I think that what happens, as we grow older, we lose that child. I, for one, have never been able to shake him. Truth be told, I hope I never do. It’s this child that allows me to have, what I consider, a great sense of humor. It’s this sense of humor that, in part, is what makes most of you want to still be in touch with me. It’s like I’m still a little kid sometimes and it’s always fun to get a youngsters outlook on things.

I hope you all enjoy that outlook enough to never allow that stick to completely impale your lives. I know that I am on one end of the spectrum but my hope is that you all find that mid point. If not, and you’re way over on the other side, go to the local park by yourself and get on the swing. Start swinging and just think. I used to do my best thinking on the swing. There was a time that this was all I needed to be content. Once in awhile it’s good to just be content.

Homeward Bound

I go home today. That’s always a depressing time for me. It’s not that I hate my living situation or anything like that, it’s just always hard when it’s time to be responsible again. I felt the same way when I would visit Michigan while living in Florida, California and Las Vegas. Real life means real thoughts and actions. It means paying bills and going to work. These are the only times I really regret my parents not being the Rockefellers so I wouldn’t have to worry about those little things that cause such stress.

It was a very nice trip. I got a lot of sun, too much, actually. My head is looking pretty ragged as it got burned and peeled but I’ll take the trade off any day. I saw a few old friends, went to a Polo match and saw the musical, “Jersey Boys” about Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. That was really cool. I totally understand how it has won the awards it has.

So now I go home and start the grind all over again. It’s snowing back there right now but that’s all right. I’ve got a really nice tan and that’ll keep me in that vacation mode for a few more days. We are just getting into March so that means the NCAA basketball tournament starts soon and then as we all should know by now, Baseball, which I feel can never start soon enough.
I like Florida. I don’t mind the humidity and the heat. I did get a number of bug bites that itch like crazy but you get the good with the bad and it all evens out. I’ll definitely return for future vacations as it’s cheaper than the Caribbean but has the same weather. Seeing Steve and his wife was great and there’s always the advantage of staying on the cheap with family where you vacation. It’s actually a good day to leave. The weather has turned and it’s getting cold out. I’ve had over seven days of sun and relaxation and it’s time for reality to rear its ugly head once more.

All I Want Is A Remedy

Sometimes, when I’m down, I try to examine the whole concept of feeling that way. I know, in a sense that I’ve been depressed for as long as I can remember. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on shrinks and different anti-depressants over and above whatever the insurance companies have paid. Adding it up, over the last three years alone, it’s been well into the five-figure range. To be blunt, it hasn’t helped.

There is something about me, and I’ve written about it many times, that just plain doesn’t work upstairs. There is never a time when I want to be around people. That being said the complete opposite is also true. I sit alone and all I want is to be around others. Quite a conundrum. I just never seem to get to the point of saying yeah this is all right.

I’m not saying that I wake up totally depressed every day or anything like that. It just gets harder and harder everyday to find the things in life that make me smile. It just seems like too much work to laugh anymore and being as lazy as I am I’m just not sure I want to work that hard. I’m just in a kind of blah state. I pretty much strive for comfortably numb and anything close seems to allow me to get through the daily grind.

This is nothing new. I’ve been like this forever and I’m always telling myself that I’ll get better at this whole thing but nothing ever changes. I’m incredibly honest with myself about this “problem” of mine. I know, as I’ve written about before, that it’s all because of me. You know, my own, and nobody else’s fault.

My mother calls and tells me that I should go see someone because she can tell that I’m depressed. Well, sure I am, but no more or less than I’ve ever been. This is nothing that I haven’t dealt with before and it’s nothing that I won’t have to deal with in the future. It’s just that every once in a while it all comes and hits me at once. When that happens I find that I need to find a release and those releases get harder and harder to find,

Well, this episodes release is a trip to Florida. The flight’s free and I’ll stay at my brothers and use one of his cars so that’ll be cheap. I’ll be taking three or four books with me and hope to see some friends that I made while living down there. I hope to be spending most of my time on the sand. I’ve checked the ten day forecast and it looks like there may be some rain on a couple days but, in general, it looks like it’ll be sunny and warm which may be just what I need.

It's That Time Again

So here we are again. It’s Holiday season. I wrote last year about how I dislike this time of year for numerous reasons and I still feel that I would not miss it a bit if these special days were somehow cancelled or I was placed into a coma for the entire month of December.

I know that this time of year also means a whole lot to most people and I can appreciate that. I actually have a great deal of empathy for those whose holidays are somehow not what they would want. I think we all feel that way about the obvious cases, the poor, the hungry, the ill and those who may have lost someone close to them. My ex-wife lost her brother to cancer in early December a number of years ago and I can assure you that Christmas time is a much more bittersweet time for her and her family than they ever thought it would be all those years ago.

I think it’s real important that now, more than ever, we think of those who can’t be here during this time even though they would like to be. I’m speaking of the soldiers stationed around the world. Whether you agree with the war effort or not you have to feel for these people’s families.

Yes, I know, this is an all volunteer military. That fact, however, doesn’t take away from the idea that there are many children involved who may have a real hard time believing in Santa Claus when Mommy or Daddy can’t be home on Christmas morning because they’re overseas participating in the war effort. Yes, I know I’ve stated it before, but isn’t this whole thing really all about the kids?

My suggestion. If by chance you know anyone who has a family member in the military, check and see if there may be something you can do to help make this a special time for the children. If you don’t know of any military families, check the local fire station and see if they are collecting toys for kids. I mentioned in a previous post about a family my store adopted for the Holidays a few years ago. Check with your church or other local charities and see if you might be interested in that.

When I was younger my Mother belonged to a Jewish woman’s group that gathered toys for local Jewish families and at one time I was asked to deliver them. She gave me the addresses that each bag would go to and off I went. One of the addresses she gave me was obviously wrong as I found myself in an area of Detroit that, I was pretty sure, wasn’t part of the charity drive. As I went up to the house to see if by chance I was wrong I decided the only way was to knock on the door and ask.

The man who answered the door was about 30 years old, African American, and had a cross around his neck. He had three little ones with him who couldn’t have been older than five and, by the look on his face; they were really getting on his nerves. Being the overly intelligent guy that I am, I quickly deduced that this man was not on the list of poor Jewish families. I asked him if he had ever heard of B’nai Brith, the group my mother belonged to, and he said he’d never heard of them.

So there I was, standing on some stranger’s porch in the inner city of Detroit with a bag full of toys and some stranger staring at me like I was some kind of idiot. I looked down at one of the kids, a little girl, holding on to her father’s leg staring at me.

Obviously there was only one thing I could do. I looked at the man and asked if he could use some extra presents to put under the tree. He replied with something like “who wouldn’t”. I then explained what my actual mission was for the day and that I couldn’t see how this could, in any way, not be thought of as part of said mission. I handed him the bag, shook his hand and bid him a Merry Christmas.

I got back in my car, lit up a joint, sorry mom, and started the drive home. The whole way home all I could think of was how cool what I had just done was. I knew in my heart that I had just done something that would help those kids have a good Holiday and the idea that I gave the toys to the wrong family didn’t bother me a bit. I gave it to a family that could use it, and to me, it was the right family. Not to pat myself on the back or anything but, not bad for a 17-year-old stoner.

I’m no longer 17 and far from being considered a stoner but I went to one of the local toy stores last Tuesday and bought a couple toys. I took them to one of the local churches by the house and asked if they might find use for them. Even us grinch type folks can get a bit of the season into our cold hearts. Enjoy your Holidays everybody, be nice to each other.

The First Snow

Thanksgiving 2007 and I just woke up. I’d had a feeling we might get snow as the weather had said it was a possibility. I got out of bed and walked to the window and took a peek through the blinds and there it was. It’s only about an inch or so but it’s there.

I thought I’d be down about seeing it and I’d start grumping about everything but this is OK. I took Lucky out back and, of course, she was completely baffled. She had lost all the familiar smells she had laid down throughout the entire back yard and she seemed kind of lost. She walked around a bit and started to come back on the deck to get back inside but I made her go back
down so she just walked around in it a little.

I grabbed my camera and took a few pictures of her out there. They aren’t that good, she kept her nose in the snow looking for something she’d left there before. I then went to the front yard and walked across the street and took one of the house and a couple of the neighborhood with its first white blanket of the year. It looks pretty nice but that’s before the business of the day has done its damage.

The area I live in has a lot of open space with a great many Pine trees and it’s really nice to drive around and see it. It’s like the post cards that you see with winter scenes in them. The trees are all shapes and sizes and it’s left pretty much untouched.

Tonight the temperature is supposed to get into the high teens. While that’s not an experience I’m looking forward to I guess it goes with the territory. I’m certainly not used to the idea of getting all bundled up to go outside. My sister had me try on a really nice jacket that someone had left at the office at a Christmas party a couple years ago and it fit like a glove. It keeps me pretty warm but I still need a hat to cover my head. No hair really does make a difference.

Give Me A Break Already

“I’m so tired,
I haven’t slept a wink.
I’m so tired,
My mind is on the blink.”

Another perfect evening last night. I fell asleep around 11:00 with Lucky on her bed in the corner of the room. At precisely 12:03 in the morning my eyes opened and they haven’t shut since. I even took an Ambien and I was never able to fall asleep again.

I can’t tell you how frustrating this is. It’s bad enough getting three or four hours sleep a night but to be completely shut out? Absolutely ridiculous. It’s not like I’ve got a lot on my mind, hell I’m pretty much a blank slate.

Everybody always has a solution to this problem of mine. Try this, try that, etc… It’s really nice that they care but if it’s out there, I’ve tried it. I’ve done the herbal stuff and the Melatonin and it hasn’t worked. I took Ambien last night for Pete’s sake and it didn’t work. I’ve been like this forever, or at least twenty years. Actually it started when I was married, don’t know if there’s some kind of connection, hmmm!

I have one of the stronger Ambien tablets left. I guess there are two different types and one’s supposed to be stronger than the other. I have one of the strong ones and a bunch of the weaker ones. Don’t even ask where I got them; let’s just say there are a few out there trying to help.
There are many nights where I’ll take a couple of PM cold tablets trying to get some sleep and the only time I ever really get a good knock out from them is if I’m truly sick. Even after a bee stings me and I take all that Benedryl, I still end up with just a few hours of shuteye.

I’ve come to the point where I try to make sure I fight myself to stay awake in my lounge chair watching television just to make sure I save any sleep I can get to when I’m supposed to.

It’s now Saturday morning and I took the strong Ambien. I slept for about seven hours and I feel great. I almost felt like crying when I woke up and saw how long I’d slept. My health benefits kick in at the end of the month and I really have to have a serious talk with the Dr. I choose. This can’t go on like it has. I have to be able to sleep. I don’t think it’s too much to ask.

Look At Me Being All Social!

I ran up to grab dinner from this local take-out Mexican place about a half mile from the house a few weeks ago after work. As I walked into the house with my dinner, my cell was ringing; I had left it home when I took off. I answered it and found that it was a woman from work. She said she had seen me as I was leaving the strip mall where I got dinner and that she was there at the bar next door to the restaurant with some friends and asked if I’d like to come and join them.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had the same or similar invitation throughout my life. I, like so many others, have grown into adulthood during a time when happy hour was and is still a very popular after work scene. I have gone to a few, more for the bar food buffet that you find at these things than for the alcohol. In all honesty, since I turned 21, oh those many years ago, I have probably gone to “Happy Hour” less than 20 times. That’s less than once a year.

I’m sure I could go through a long, repetitive list of reasons why I have only been to this everyday social gathering on so few occasions but I’ve said it all before. Suffice it to say, I’ve never felt comfortable in these situations.

My normal reaction to any invitation like this is to come up with some totally made up reason as to why I can’t make it. I’d normally throw in an apology and a profuse thank you for the invite but explain again that whatever it was that I had made up certainly had to take precedence over whatever the invite entailed.



This one was different though; I accepted and said I’d be right down. I have never done that before. I’m the first one to come up with a million reasons as to why I can’t make it, but the truth is, I’m just too self-conscious to join in with the group.

I don’t know why I agreed to meet them and I know that for normal, social people it wouldn’t be any kind of big deal. But, for me, this was huge. Once I got in the car I was actually telling myself to not start thinking about it and just do it. The ride down to the bar takes maybe a minute and a half and the whole way there I was fighting with myself to stay on course, don’t start thinking of the millions of excuses I’ve used over the years to avoid the possibility of enjoying myself.

It’s like the golf outing I wrote about a couple months ago. I knew that I would undoubtedly enjoy myself but I get so freaked about the whole idea of socializing that it makes me feel like I’m having a heart attack. It’s really strange because I know I’ll be able to “flip the switch” and seem like the most social person in the world once I’m there. It’s the getting there thing that wears me out.

Since that night I’ve met them a couple other times and I’m hoping it gets easier as I go more often but so far it’s still a stress filled day once I know I’ve committed to showing up. The people I have met on these nights are much younger than I, late 20’s, but it’s still an attempt.

The worst part about it is the fact that I know what’s happening to my head the whole time. This is one of those times that I wish I were a complete moron (no comments from the peanut gallery) and had no idea what was happening to me. I wish I could just stop thinking so much.

A number of months ago I wrote something about mental illness. I said then that the toughest thing about being mentally ill is if you are still intact enough to know that you are ill. It’s sort of like the same thing I’m talking about now. In the previous post I asked the question, “Do the ill know they’re ill”? In this case I know the answer. I know the problem and I’m trying to work on it. I really am. Yeah, it’s a slow process, 46 years, but I’m trying.