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600 Days Ago…

Exactly 600 days ago was the last time I tried to kill myself.

Depression is a real thing. Anxiety, stress, self-harm, self-medication, self-doubt… are all very real things.

I grew up thinking that you don’t cry, you don’t express your feelings, and you certainly don’t ask for help. So, when I got scared, overwhelmed, anxious, sad, angry… I found a way to cope. Over the years, overeating was quickly replaced with alcohol.

Attempting to poison myself to death was a difficult task to complete.

After my third trip to the hospital in a two-month period, after many failed attempts before those, it was time to finally start unraveling my wiring. For me, asking for help was the first step. I learned very quickly that I was not special. I wasn’t unique. I was like everyone else. Stress, fear, anxiety, anger, regret, worry… it was how people dealt with them that was unique.

I could talk about all the awful things that I’ve done to my body… swapping stories of my heaviest drinking with other people like some alcoholic’s badge of honor. Or I could talk about how I refused to address my inner conflicts, how I ignored them… how my denial led to a failed marriage and loss of friends, jobs, opportunities, and almost my life. If asked, I will talk about as many moments as I can (or care to) remember.

People count the number of days they’ve been sober. I count the number of days I decide to stay alive. I also count the number of times that I confront those things in my life that scare the ever-living shit out of me. And do my best to do the HELL out of those things.

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30.

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. 30. Birthdays are surprisingly punctual. Same time every year. This year was just fine. All the birthday staples were available- cake, gifts… etc. I am getting closer and closer to the age that doesn’t look at a birthday and say,”Another year older! Joy!”

No, I am starting to think,”Another year older? Oh damn.”

But, every year I get a little wiser. Every year it gets harder for me to stay up late. Every year I look at younger people more and worry about the state of this country. Every year I wish a little more that the music would be turned down just a bit more. Every year, I wonder more about a 401k, and why I need to diversify a stock portfolio. I don’t go out near as much as I once did. I can’t stay up for 24 hours straight, go to work, come home and stay up till 4am. It’s not in my body to accomplish such a feat. A feat unheard of in the 30’s crowd (so I’d imagine).

I am turning more and more into a responsible adult. Something I told myself (at the mature age of 17) that I would never become. “I’m going to never change!” I would exclaim.

Things change. Growing old is inevitable. I am growing more comfortable with the process. When I turn 40, I am sure I will have things to say about getting even older. I will talk about aches and pains… hair in places that should not have hair… and the like.

Maybe what I should be saying is,”Another year older? Bring it.”

J.

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blog poetry

My First Attempt At The Biography Section.

So I have started reading Charles Bukowski. I have also started reading Pablo Neruda. I knew that they were influential writers of the 20th century, but did not know who they really were until I started reading. As dissimilar as they first appear to be, their emotions parallel. So, if I got any of this wrong, would someone tell me? I’m new to the whole “biography of poets I hardly know” thing.

Bukowski (Heinrich Karl Bukowski/Henry Charles Bukowski) was born in Germany to a reportedly abusive father. He went to college out of high school for two years. At 24 he was published, and then again two years later. He stopped writing for almost a decade, disenchanted with the publishing process. When he DID write, he wrote about Los Angeles. He said, “You live in a town all your life, and you get to know every street-corner. You’ve got the layout of the whole land. You have a picture of where you are. … Since I was raised in L.A., I’ve always had the geographical and spiritual feeling of being here. I’ve had time to learn this city. I can’t see any other place than L.A.”

From what I’ve read so far, there’s some recurring themes… roses, beer, bums, women, sex, death… he seemed very attached to the life. He seemed very depressed and unhappy.

Neruda (Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto) was born in Chile. His father didn’t approve of his writing, but received encouragement from others. By the time he was 16, he adopted his pseudonym. Neruda took his pen name from Czech writer and poet Jan Neruda. He later changed it to his legal name in 1946. He was a writer and communist politician.

Neruda writes mostly in a romantic, high emotional way. However, like most poets, he also has his dark moments. He was often forced to leave his family, friends, and home because of his beliefs. That sadness was also reflected in his works.

His poems range from amazing love poems, political views, historic poems, to odes to common objects. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th century.

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I want to be a Systems Analyst when I grow up…

I’m told that life is full of sacrifice. The small bit of optimism in me wonders why it must be that way. Why do we give up our dreams… why do we put the wishes of our youth away? We grow up and we do what needs to be done. We lose those dreams for staunch resolution. Compromise and negotiation. Why are we conditioned to do what’s “needed” instead of what we want?

When we are children we have all of this wonderment. Naivety. Innocence. We want to be firefighters, astronauts, doctors, and cowboys. It’s so very easy to say. As kids, we just want it to happen. We don’t think of the training involved. We don’t consider what the starting salary would be, or how the profit sharing plan works. Children just want to wear the outfit and play the part.

My easy answer to life is to let people have the careers that make them happy. We’d all be cowboys, rock stars, and famous athletes instead of construction workers, grocery store managers, and bus drivers. We’d all sleep in as late as we wanted, ate what we wanted, and went to work when we were damn good and ready. But I know this is all too simple. We need people to build our homes, stock the shelves, and drive us downtown.

I’ve always wished that I could have a career that I loved. That I could come home and say,”What a great day! I finished my book and started another painting!”

But this is life. No matter how we try to have that perfect job, sometimes you do what is needed. Sometimes you tell yourself,”I’ll start this job, and I can write my book on the weekend… and I will be noticed and published and famous.”

I for one am not going to give up on my dreams. I have always been a daydreamer. I have always been a famous actor, artist, musician, writer, speaker, and problem solver. I deserve to be one of the few that when asked what I do for a living, I can straighten my neck, toss my shoulders back, and say,”What I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid.”

J-

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Snow. In April. In Texas.

I woke up this morning to snow. Well… fluffy ice. You’d think that we as Texans would be used to the most unusual weather. 80 degree days in December. Thunderstorms in August. Snow in April. But of course we still point and take video of it as if it’s Bigfoot. It didn’t stick, and it stopped and started all day. If it had been December, we’d have a glossy sheet of white all over the lawn. Being April, it just melted as soon as it hit the patio.

Snow is great. Snow is great in Texas. It’s like the aunt that comes to visit, gives you $50, and leaves. Nice to see- a fun surprise, and then you forget it ever happened. Good ol’ Texas.

That’s about all I did today. Oh, and I’m forever working on a drawing. More to come probably.

j-

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Look at how young you look…


My mom has been cataloging all of the family photos recently. I looked through the photos that she had piled into white plastic boxes. I came to the pile of photos in the box marked “Jeremy.” Flipping through each one- none of them were the same size. A school photo here, a Polaroid of a Superman cake there. I dismissed the rest of my family’s memories to reflect on mine. My brain is such an odd duck. It remembers such random things… I didn’t remember what I did a week ago, but I remembered my first “Fisher Price Magic Show.”

I was so young once… unsure and naive. Birthdays, baby pictures of me posing in a diaper… me dressed in the most ridiculous clothes. I saw my mom when I was nothing but a drooling infant. Young and unsure. Being in charge of another human life. Having the best of hopes for her son. That she’d raise him right. That he’d be an upright citizen. All sorts of hope in her eyes. We were all young once.

I look at myself now, and I wonder what happened to me. The youth is fading out of my eyes. My hair is starting to gray. I don’t get up at 7 on Saturday morning to watch cartoons. Candy doesn’t taste like it once did. I find myself complaining about the youth of today, and how things were “better when I was a kid.” I AM becoming that thing that we all said we wouldn’t become: old.

But every so often, I walk down the toy aisle. I buy candy. I watch cartoons on Saturday morning. I search for those things that made me a kid. I seek out that inner bliss of uncertainty and naivety. Age is creeping up on all of us. I’d like to remember the days behind me as I trudge forward to meet the days ahead.

J.

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Bluetooth. New Page.

I was one of those that would profess to never purchase a Bluetooth for my phone. “I don’t want to be THAT guy that walks around with a tiny thing attached his ear- talking to himself in thin air and ignoring everyone around me.” Yet, here I am at the computer with a dark blue, shiny, blue LED flashing piece of splendid gadgetry glued to my ear. It’s convenient and small. It works with my media player. I can voice dial by pressing one button. I am sure that later, when I am used to it, I will walk out the door without my phone. My brain will register that I can do all of this from my Bluetooth, so why the hell do I need my phone?
 
I am always one to embrace technology, gadgets, the newest, latest, greatest of almost any field of consumer toys. But, I do wait for a certain time until the bugs have been worked out, the updates have been shipped in the next release, and I can get this new hotness for a reasonable price. But Bluetooth… I was an old man in a rocking chair. “It’ll never catch on… just like rock & roll and penicillin. When I was a kid, we had to dial phones by pushing buttons! We used a remote control to surf through the 500 channels on OUR 37″ plasma monitors!”
 
Again, here I am with this thing in my ear. Enjoying the freedom of no wires. I would spend ample time shredding wires, 2.5″ and 3.5″ connections to make a phone call with my headset. It has made me embrace the Bluetooth. (Bluetooth… named after a king, Harald Bluetooth King of Denmark and Norway.) I soon realized that I could use it for many things. For the PC, for my iPod… all sorts of patiently acquired electronics. So why not have a device that is multipurpose? It was a solid decision based on facts and much furrowing of the brow.
 
All in all, a wise decision.
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This might turn into a habit.

My daily Wikipedia browsing took me to the ‘Comics’ portal. I read ‘Blankets’ a long while back, and noticed it listed among the graphic novels. I read that Craig Thompson had written it to put on paper the feeling of laying next to someone for the first time. I would agree with others in saying that he succeeded.

I thought of the first time I was in love… laying with someone. Hearing her heartbeat, feeling her chest rise and fall under my arm… contentment. I’d never even had sex with her. I put my head in her lap. She sang to me, ran her fingers through my hair, and just loved me. Then we laid there wrapped in each other’s arms. In the dark… whispering and sighing. We would lay like that a lot, and just talk about what we wanted out of life. Like Craig and Raina, we didn’t end up together. But I’ll never forget that first time we touched each other. I didn’t even know her last name, but she wanted to sing to me and run her fingers through my hair.

Of course, I’m sure it wasn’t as intimate and amazing as I’d like to remember. We were kids, and kids in love SWEAR that no one has ever loved like THEY have loved. No one understands their love, no one will ever write or sing or know the love they share. Their love is the alpha and the omega. But for the few months we were together it was the most intense- the apex of my romantic life. All I had to reference it to at that point was… well not much.

But I suppose that’s what teenage romance is all about.

j-
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dot net.

grungyparadigm.net was easy to buy from godaddy.com. doing the whole dns setup and all that mess was easy too. although, i’d like to have a real honest site that i coded myself. but, i’m an unmotivated cheap sob who doesn’t want to pay to have a site hosted. so until i decide to crunch some code and do all that, here it is. the unofficial grungyparadigm.net. not that anyone ever looks here. bah. i have it on good authority that .net is cooler than .com… it’s dotnettastic.
grungy-
In a dirty, rundown, or inferior condition: grungy old jeans.

paradigm-
1. One that serves as a pattern or model.
2. A set or list of all the inflectional forms of a word or of one of its grammatical categories: the paradigm of an irregular verb.
3. A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.

i drew a picture about 3 years ago that had a guy in a t-shirt that said “grungyparadigm” and it just stuck with me. i still don’t know where the hell it came from. it’s different and all that, so why not… right?


more poetry to come soon. maybe even some artwork for the nest… i sure have been promising to do that for a damn year.

i was also thinking about what i want to do with my site… if it should be a showcase of art/poetry/writing/rants but i don’t know for sure. those sure would be my bullet links though:

  • art
  • poetry
  • writing
  • rants
  • bah.
  • meh.
  • contact me!

j-