Discussting

Discussting
Where I reveal myself to you in terrible ways

Saturday, January 09, 2010

What I Learned From My Parents

What I learned from my mother was that love conquers all; that love is the most important thing in the world, that love and forgiveness are the best things in life and we need to keep trying for those things and giving other people a chance.

But then she died, so I stopped learning that lesson. Apparently Life didn't think that was the lesson I needed to learn.

My father taught me that he was exemplary of the Real World and I didn't fit into it. The first time my father gave me real, actionable advice that applied directly to my life was when I was a senior in college. By that time I had already spent 6 or 7 years believing that I wasn't compatible with The Real World, that I wasn't going to fit in, that I wasn't going to make it. So I just rejected his advice out of hand, figuring it was too late for me. Looking back now, I see I could have done so much with his advice. But I was already convinced I was "wrong."

There are three pieces of advice my father gave me that I really can remember. The first was in sixth grade, I think, when some kid was hassling me. My father said "if some kid is bothering you, you haul off and smack him - you have my permission to do so."

The second time was in during the summer of either sixth or maybe seventh grade. My friend Erik was away at summer camp or vacation and I had no other friends. He was my connection to everyone else. I wanted to do something but no one talked to me - Erik was connected and he was connected to me. I told my father I was bored but no one called me or was doing anything. He told me to call them - that I should be the instigator and organizer.

I don't remember my exact reaction - or at least what I said to him. I remember thinking: Why would anyone listen to me? I was convinced that I was a laughable, insignificant person that no one would be interested in hanging out with. I didn't feel I had any personal power, so if I called people (Tim, Josh, Donny) to hang out or go play soccer at the Y, they would be confused ("Why is he calling me?") or worse, laugh at me. I can see now that he was right - if it's not happening, be a leader and make it happen - but at the time, I didn't feel like I could be a leader. I thought leaders had to have some kind of special qualities - be handsome or funny or confident, like the guys at school.

The third piece of advice my father gave me was when I was graduating from college - or a couple of months before. I had made my sister a tape of a couple of bands I liked and tried to write some liner notes, like a magazine article touting the band. "Why don't you do that?" my father asked. In my brain, I probably snorted - what?? I explained that there were people who had been working on those kinds of things for years, people who really wanted those jobs and had prepared for them (I was thinking of college journalists who were hoping to get jobs writing for Spin magazine or the like). I had no preparation; I had no background, no examples of what I could do - np nothing. How was I going to get such a job up against someone who had been working for it for four to six years??

I know now that it wouldn't have hurt to try to get something in the field - anything at all. At the time I was just lost as to what to do - the Real World was now here - jobs, life, careers and all that business - and I wasn't supposed to make it this far, because I was incompatible. Now I was here and I had to deal with it: how was I going to get a job? I didn't know how to do anything. How was I going to make money? I was incompetent. How was I going to live? I was "built wrong," I was essentially a reject product.

I have spent the last 15 years thinking that. I had ideas of doing things that seemed more like me but I let them go by because I was stupid, so they were stupid. I didn't expect to get better jobs or make more money because I couldn't handle responsibility and I was going to screw everything up and when that happened I would be found out for the fraud I was and destroyed. I spend a lot of my life expecting to be exposed as a fraud, or "bad." There are times when I expect God (or someone) to show up and "revoke" my life because I fucked up - or I am fucked up, either way.

During those 15 years I have met off beat people and seen people who were "weird" make things happen in their lives, even though they were not like others. I saw that you could live outside the system and make it work somehow. I saw that often when you worked outside the system - as long as you worked - you could be happy and maybe acheive something with your life. I learned that the best thing is to focus on your work and be true to yourself and then good things happen. But I still ignored my own things because I didn't like myself, because it was too late, I was too old, it was past my time.

I'm starting to think - I'm trying to start thinking that it doesn't matter, that I just need to focus on my work and my ideas and not my age and how I look and who I am or what I did or didn't do before. I just need to try to work my ideas and try to make them real and that's all I need to do. I need to make something of myself real. Once I do that, I'll be happier. Once I admit who I am, I'll be happier. Once I let go of my fear and open myself to be humiliated (or praised), I'll be happier.

So I'm working on that, for now. I'm working on trying to believe in myself enough to do something that I expect to be humiliating but that is the only real thing that I believe in, that I have come up with. I'm working on making myself real.

posted by Michael | 11:49 PM

Friday, January 08, 2010

I was thinking about my mother tonight (this morning). I was thinking about her because I can't go to sleep because I'm thinking about some crazy projects I came up with that I'm thinking about really trying this year and I thought: she'd help me out on these crazy projects. She'd sit in public and look (possibly) stupid with me. She'd love these ideas. And love me for having them.

She always loved me. I was filled with love tonight for my projects and wanted her to be here to hear me tell her about them and to help me make them real and to share my joy in their reality. I wanted her to be a part of me becoming whole, doing something I love, taking a risk and being crazy and having it work out. What I miss most about her is the unconditional support she always gave. I thought about her the other night, about how in my first year of college I pretty much cut all ties with home and only went home when school was shut down. She was taking classes at my college and she would leave letters for me at the school post office from "One Lonely Mother/4 Quilt Lane" saying she missed me and wanted to have lunch with me. I ignored them and had a good time at school.

Then that summer she died; a week after we had come back from a vacation to Ireland. I didn't know it was coming. I don't think I really acknowledged her condition at all, except in a conversation I had with my brother earlier that year in the spring, when my father called to say she was in the hospital and we might have to come home. I called my older brother and said "Is he saying what I think he's saying?" and he said "Yeah, I think he is." But she came out of the hospital and nothing more was said about it and I spent the summer working and living on campus and brought two of my co-workers/classmates home for my birthday and we went to Ireland as a family and then we came home and she died.

I often feel like my life unraveled from that point on; that I no longer had a center or understood what to do. I don't know who I really ever talked to in my life - maybe I didn't even talk to her - but this made me more isolated. I never felt like my father understood me (or cared to). I didn't really talk to my siblings. I didn't have any really close friends. And now my mother was dead. The one person I could always turn to, without fail, who knew and shared my sense of humor, who read the same mystery books I did, who was smart about math and words and liked logic puzzles and was in A.A. and had all these interesting and odd friends from there and always sent me to educational type stuff and wanted me to be in gifted programs and classes.

I never stopped be 19 years old. I'm still there; still that kid who was just out of his freshman year in college and working there for the summer cutting grass; who never had a girlfriend or any understanding of girls; who didn't understand his place in the world and looked to others to tell him what to do because no one worked with him on his own mind and how to find it and work it.

In some ways, it's good: the world is still open like a book; I feel like I have forever to do anything and everything. I feel like I could learn to skateboard tomorrow and I'm convinced I could do some serious tricks on a snow halfpipe if I got in shape.

On the downside, I'm not very mature or organized and don't understand how relationships work and how to see others and not just myself. I don't really trust anyone and I trust everyone more than myself, feeling guilty for making judgements even if I know in my gut they're right.

I wish my mother had lived to help me sort through myself and find something there. I don't know when I would have finally come across that resource or used it wisely (my younger brother had the revelation about our father when he was 28 or 30) but it would have been helpful to have someone like myself to talk to, to guide me.

posted by Michael | 4:08 AM

Sunday, December 27, 2009

My pulse is pounding. Not fast, just steady - throb, throb - in my chest and in my temples. I can feel it against the pillow I have leaning against my head to block out the streetlight coming through the window.

I'm thinking about the trip. I didn't go on the trip. I should have gone on the trip, but I couldn't. I couldn't go on the trip. I couldn't accept the circumstances.

I bailed at the last minute. I left my brother's house last night after telling myself I just wouldn't go. It relieved me greatly when I made the decision. I was wound up tight inside and it was making me dark and sick. I couldn't go. I took my bags out to the car and I softly said I was going home and I left. I texted one brother and said I wasn't going. I texted another and said I would watch his dogs while he was gone.

His wife almost got me to reconsider. She was im-ing me over the phone, trying to work with me. But I kept picturing tense situations from years past and I couldn't feel good about going.

She texted in the morning "any change of heart?" and for a moment, I had. I felt lighter than the night before; freer. Then I thought about being the car with him; being stuck in the house with him and I said no again. When she said "sorry," that's what hurt the most. Because she was sympathetic. Because part of me did want to go. Because I wanted to find a way but I couldn't.

I should have tried harder. Receiving their texts today and thinking about some of the good things that happen there, I wished I would have gone. I thought of other solutions I could have tried, had I thought about them. But things were tied together: if I drove myself, I would be up there. If I were up there, then I could say yes to my friend who wanted me to watch his dogs for him. But then I couldn't drive home in time, which meant no to him, even though I was there and had said I was strongly considering it (and I would have half preferred it). It seemed like it would be a slap in the face. I couldn't do it.

Today I thought of other cars I might have taken. My friend Matt's. There's no guarantee he would have said yes - in fact, he might need it this week for work (he went to his parents but I don't know for how long). And what about renting a car? What if I rented it for only three days? Or four days? How much would that be? $300? Could I cover that? I know I could pay it back to someone.

But I needed to be free. I needed not to be beholden. Because if I made someone mad or they made me mad, I wanted to be able to leave - at any time, by my own volition. I didn't want to be trapped in anyone else's system where they could make me feel bad and I would be stuck there. I wanted to be able to leave. And I couldn't do that.

Now I've made another trap for myself. I accepted the task of taking care of my brother's dogs. The problem with that is it ties me to a location. I had been thinking that maybe I would go up to PA to stay with my brother again. I just came home after staying with him for a month and I had an ok time. He has three kids and kids are my thing. There was always someone around to talk to or interact with. I was part of something for a little while. Here, I'm part of nothing.

For some reason I have an odd relationship with choice. I couldn't go to New England with my family because I didn't have enough choice. On the other hand, I like TV because I can pick from pre-arranged choices. Here at my brother's house, there is no TV, only the computer. So everything is choice - you choose what videos to watch, either online or on DVD. Everything is a bit sterile.

On the other hand, there's plenty of choice - he's got bunches of DVDs, tons of books and magazines, newspapers and much more. I could read for days. But for some reason I feel blocked in this house. I feel trapped here. There is room and luxury and I can't stand it when I'm alone here. I feel sick and used up.

The person I talk to and share most with in the world is out of the country. My sister, who is perhaps second, is in New England and I can't share with her because I don't want her to think about me, I want her to enjoy herself. This makes me realize how small my group of friends is. I don't really have anyone else to call and no one I would really talk to. I came down here to write this because I thought of my friend in California, the one I share blog access with. I thought about calling her - or the number I have that was once hers; I thought about writing on our shared blog; then I decided to write here.

I feel like I have to tell my brother; that the only way this will be resolved is for me to tell him and be angry with him. Only I don't want to do that. I just want to cut him out of my life and go somewhere else and be part of some other family. I want to move away and never have to talk to him again. If I could build something on my own, I would. I would move far away and build something new of my own that didn't involve anyone here. But I can't do that. I'm a piece of shit. I can't make anything real. Which is why I am where I am.

I don't want to be positive right now but here it is: I need to make a strategy for this week. I have to try to survive it and perhaps even thrive. I need to find people to meet with and be around a talk to in order to not completely collapse in on myself. I thought of David, of Kevin and his wife, of Angela, my sister's friend, of Christina, my friend, of Matt's family (provided they're back from NY). That's five days. My sister has another friend (that I talk to). I have another friend I haven't talked to in a year or so. I have relatives - aunts and a cousin with two kids who like to beat on me. I could try. I could make a list and try. That's the best I can do.

posted by Michael | 1:03 AM

Saturday, November 14, 2009

I think it's that she lets me touch her. That's the problem.

I don't touch people much. I like touch but it's too sexual for me - or rather, I have an oversexualized reaction to touch. Everything about touch could be sexual and I see that angle all the time, so it makes it difficult for me to touch people. Even with kids, while I'm not sexually interested in them, I'm too aware of the sexual overtones of innocent positions of them on my lap or hiding their face in my lap. It's uncomfortable.

I don't know that many people touch others that they are not in relationships with - their lovers, their wives/husbands, their children. I have no relationships, so I have no reason to touch anyone.

She is my friend. My best friend. So she feels ok with me touching her. She made it clear years ago she doesn't feel anything more than friendship for me and I have accepted that, so we can touch each other with affection that isn't sexual.

Recently, though, I had a strong reaction to touching her that disturbed me and made me recoil from her. She had hosted a party and last four of us were sitting around: me, her, her wife (oh, did I not mention she's a lesbian - and married?) and another guy friend of theirs. I rubbed her back briefly. But I was suddenly hit by this overwhelming desire to rub her tits and have sex with her. It was like an ache and it lasted long after I went home. It was uncomfortable and I decided I didn't want to be around her while I felt that way. I thought if I was around her again, I would want to touch her - and for sexual reasons - and that wasn't our relationship. I have accepted that it's part of our relationship and I know that nothing would ever happen between us - mostly because she will never be interested. But I don't want to be interested because it throws off the dynamic and it makes me uncomfortable. And I'm hiding something from her, which I don't like.

Now here's the complication: I have fantasized about her for years, more so in recent months. We took a trip together and for some reason I had these strong fantasies before the trip of her accepting my seduction and having willing sex with me. (The biggest part of these fantasies is that she's even interested.) But I have rationalized these as something separate from our relationship - generally I am satisfied with what we have and I am happy to have her as a friend. But in the week after touching her, I wanted her to be mine - my girlfriend, my lover, my companion, the person who came home to me at the end of the night.

It has become such a big deal for me that I find myself trying to cut myself off from her - not talk to her, not see her, not be around her. Which is terrible because we are best friends and - while I'd like to deny it - she really values my friendship and counts on being able to talk to me about things. Because she has many other friends and I have none (that I talk to in a real way), I find it hard to believe she could need me as much as I need her. But part of me can't deny that fact and when I saw her the other day, she said that lately she had been holding her emotions curled up in a ball and I knew I should ask her about it and try to get her to talk about it and maybe release some of that emotion because she feels safe with me. But I don't feel like she's safe with me because of this latent desire, so I've been closed off, which is really dickish of me and I'm hating myself for. I had an urge to call her today to ask her about it, to see if she wanted to talk about it but I couldn't make myself do it. I'm hugely inappropriate - I want sex in return for emotional safety; it's horrible and unfair and I hate myself for it which is why I feel I should cut myself off from her - but that's horrible to do as a friend. It's deserting her in her time of need, which is the biggest betrayal of friendship. [self edit: I'm going overboard on the self-loathing language, which I don't feel emotionally (although I do intellectually).]

What I'm going to need to do is supress this desire again so that I can be open for her and give her the space she needs to express her fears confidentially. I just won't like it.

posted by Michael | 1:02 AM

Thursday, November 12, 2009

One day on the street, a kid (could have been 15, could have been 20) passed me shouting "I need a job!" He turned to me as he passed and said "Can you get me a job?" I instinctively said "no" because I didn't think I could get him a job where I worked but now I regret it deeply.

If there is one thing I like doing, it's looking up jobs for other people. A couple of days ago I was looking through the USAJobs website and one of the ones I came across was a simple labor job down on Capitol Hill. I don't know if the kid I passed could have gotten the job or would have considered the money any good but I think of that job and the young men in my neighborhood (that I see hanging out on the street) and I wonder if any of them need a job and whether they know where to look or how to look or how to apply for it. I would like to try to help them but I don't know where to start or who to use as a bridge between those jobs that are available and the people who need jobs. There's a rather large church near my house and I wonder if they have any programs or outreach to people for jobs and whether I could help them out. Or maybe Catholic Charities. I had been thinking of giving them a call.

posted by Michael | 7:07 AM

Watching the show, I am surprised to see the main stories are the same ones from four months ago when I stopped paying attention to the news: health care, Afghanistan (and the economy, I guess, although that's more like a steady parade of downward numbers and attacks on the President. There doesn't seem to be anything in the way of news - by which I mean "action" or "legislation").

I was in an airport on Monday and a guy next to me was reading the Wall Street Journal editorial page and I saw the book review and thought: "How many good book reviews have a missed? How many enticing op-eds?" Before I left my job, I spent a weekend going through four months of papers cutting out stories I had noted to myself day after day while doing my job. (They're all downstairs in a box, untouched. I have a complicated relationship with the things I want.) I think I want to to be one of those news bloggers, constantly posting stories with bits of my opinion or "yeah!"s to back up whatever the topic is.

My problem has always been information overload - there is SO MUCH to read, it's just impossible. Books, articles, now blog posts, plus I want to watch The Daily Show and talk to people sometimes (and I should exercise now and again). A friend sent me a blog entry by Roger Ebert on health care, noting that some of the comments were informative as well. Now I'm trying to read the comments, but there's about a thousand of them and meanwhile there are links within them for other blog posts, other articles, other op-eds (I clicked on five links) and now I've got MORE to read and when the fuck am I going to read all this stuff??

I have two text documents with web addresses from times when my computer has frozen or something like that and I've saved all the addresses of the things I wasn't reading then. It happens again and again. I have emails I've sent to myself with web addresses of stories I had clicked on but not gotten to. I just can't read it all.

But that's my fault, too. I don't know how to filter and how to build my life in a comprehensive way so that I don't screen out what's unnecessary (or just "can be skipped") so that I can do more active things in my life instead of always being trapped under a mountain of reading. (Or I'm not doing the active things [read: physical things, like exercise] that would relieve part of my mental stress and allow me to relax and read these things.)

posted by Michael | 6:55 AM

Watching Morning Joe. Probably a mistake.

1. Joe attacks Obama for deliberating about Afghanistan "in public" - leaking the debate mechanics. Except Joe would attack him for not being forthright if it were the other way around.

2. This same thing applies to Joe saying the President should say "We're staying for 2 years and then leaving" - if Obama ever said that, Joe would jump all over him, as would the entire Republican/conservative establishment/machine.

3. Joe disdains the fact that - as guest says - Obama left the health care bill to Congress to get 'a bill that will pass.' How many bills did GWB get passed by being brash and telling Congress what they were going to do?

4. Regarding 1 & 2, Joe can change his opinion daily with no repercussions.

[I just (inadvertently) erased the paragraph I wrote. I fucking hate computers.]

posted by Michael | 6:42 AM

Friday, October 16, 2009

I watched a new Current Vanguard program about Florida's role in the Oxycodone epidemic and I had some thoughts while watching it.

My reactions are often extreme, so I will present my original thoughts - which are visceral, emotional reactions - and then discuss some less extreme options.

1. First, there's the clinics that are doling out all of these pills. My first reaction is: bomb the clinics. Destroy them. But that's absurd. So what other actions could I take to try to ruin their business in a way that is non-violent and legal?

One option I liked was to have a police officer park in their parking lot and watch the door. Just having the officer there would scare off a lot of people and he wouldn't even have to do anything. Perhaps he could park across the street and watch the place. The idea is to give paranoid people the jitters so they won't go there. They could rotate parking lots randomly.

A second, quasi-legal idea was to have any random person sit in a police-seeming car (preferably with a light on the dash) in front of various clinics. [Ooo! Flash of brilliance! Do a FLASHMOB project to bring people out front of the clinics!] That way you could have more coverage and it wouldn't tax the police resources. The downside would be that if they were challenged or discovered, the ruse would be up.

The third option was a play on people's fears. Have someone stop by the clinic and set off a string of firecrackers to make people think that people are shooting outside. They will associate the location with danger and avoid it.

2. The second idea I had comes from something that happened in the show. While they were filming one of the clinics, some huge guys came out to ask the crew what they were doing and then followed them until they called the cops. I would try to stir up those same guys and then create a situation to turn the tables on them - stop at a gas station (the reporter said the guys would get out of their cars each time they stopped) and get out and when the guys came to intimidate or do whatever they came to do, greet them with guns. (Not shooting, just holding them on them.)

Guns, of course, are dangerous and doing something like this might be questionable. Of course, we're talking about vigilante justice here, so maybe anything you do would be semi-questionable. Another idea would be to pull over at a an arranged spot and have a crowd there waiting, all with cameras to step out and start questioning the guys and filming their cars. (I would love to have someone step out from behind and steal their cars while they were coming to intimidate.) Perhaps you could hire a masochist to play the "target" (in case there is violence) and then have the cops on hand to arrest them for intimidation or assault.

I would like it most, of course, if we could taser them, dump them in a ditch and sell their cars to chop shops. That would be a better justice for them.

3. The third idea was about drug detox. Drug detox is about choice - the addict has to want to give it up - but it's hard to be the person watching. What I would rather do is (and I'm thinking a guy on the show who was addicted) handcuff and manacle them and then chain them to a radiator and leave them there to detox. Part of me always wants to make them experience pain so that they see what real pain is and realize that regular life doesn't involve pain, it's actually kind of peaceful. But I don't think that would work. I think it would put them in a PTSD situation and create a worse addiction instead. I would like to train them like rats, though. Put the pills in front of them and shock them (taser, preferrably) each time they go for the drugs. Make them associate drugs with physical pain.

Of course, I don't think that would work at all. I believe it is about choice and once the person is freed from whatever program you have made for them, you can't stop them from choosing wrong and once you take away the negative reinforcement, they'll go back to their old patterns. But still, I'd like to try my mean-extreme way once.

posted by Michael | 7:15 PM

How does DirecTV work? Why is it not a complete ripoff when the dish they put on my house can no longer find their satellites? THEY installed it. THEY are selling me a satellite service. Why do I have to pay $50 for them to fix it? THEY supposedly are selling me a service that THEY are now FAILING to provide. That's not my fault. How is it MY fault their satellites are no longer in range? Do I control the fucking EARTH all of a sudden? What kind of BULLSHIT is THAT? (Never mind the fact that all the rumors are true - any small storm will interrupt your signal. Now suddenly I'm going to lose all my channels unless someone fixes my dish - which they're going to charge me for?? Fuck THAT. It is THEIR responsibility to provide the service they said they were going to provide! How is this MY fault?? I'm hoping that someone has taken a class action lawsuit against them but someone I know that they've already protected themselves in their contracts somehow.)
==
Update: The reason I'm so doubtful about all this is the randomness of the channels that remain. At this point, I've got F/X , IFC and Current TV - channels 248, 550 and 358 respectively. Nowhere near each other and why should those three get through and the other 400 or so not? I really feel like this is a shakedown by the company and I doubt I'll ever get over that feeling.

posted by Michael | 7:09 PM

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

I need to be needed. When I'm not needed, I slip into sloth. I don't need myself. I don't even like myself. So what am I supposed to do if no one else needs me?

I wrote on FB that life is extra long if you suck at it and my brother wrote back "how can you suck at life?" Of course, he's the brother that will talk to anyone and has plenty of friends, a wife and three-point-nine kids. He doesn't seem to understand that if you're bad at making connections and see yourself as a burden on others, life becomes this miserable waste of time - wasted on you.

I have one good friend and when she doesn't need me I get jealous of her abundance of friends and connections. It doesn't occur to me to make new friends because how do you do that? Why would I trust anyone new? I've known her since I was 15 or so and outside of my family, she's one of the few people I feel like I can talk to about most things. (I don't even talk to my family about most things.)

I wish I could make more friends - but again, if you don't like yourself, it's hard to connect to people. They want you to succeed and when you resist, you become tiresome and depressing. I know, I've met other people like me.

I wish I had a best friend or a group of friends. I would like to have a "team" of friends that did things like the groups I see on TV. But I don't and I don't know how to trust people and I feel like I'm too old to be making friends now. Making friends is for young people, people full of hope, people on the upslope of life. Depressing as it is, I feel like I'm on the downslope - because of my age, because of how I look, because of what society says I am, regardless of how I feel.

See? Fucking depressing. Shut up, self.

posted by Michael | 12:44 AM