Creeping Nostalgia and The Sunburn Diaries

Flash Updates: downloads from the brain, to allow me to move on. The brain, it is so teensy, I must dump things from it to maintain it's semi-functionality.

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Sunburn Journal, Day Four

The scathing pain has stopped and I can wear clothing again. Though I'm still exothermic, my back and shoulders are beginning to numb. I'm glad, even though I know it's really bad news--it's the beginning of the inevitable decomposition and shedding of that part of my body. Is there a medical term for a reverse hunchback?

On the plus side, my face burn has subsided, and I now just look like a salty sailor.

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Life events have conspired, and Eddie Vedder is all around me these days. Oh PUH JAM, how I still love thee!

And listening to PJ in the town I had the best two years of high school, well, what a recipe for nostalgia. Tink correctly and hilariously tagged Pearl Jam as Sad Bastard music. It's also Mad Bastard music. And I think it's disturbing that I still relate to it so profoundly at this point in time. Should I have grown past this, emotionally and mentally?

But then again, maybe I don't want to. I stopped buying their albums after No Code. My pal Neese says the new LP is worth a listen. . .

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Speaking of reeling in the years, last nights send off of JDog turned into a reunion of sorts. And the wine flowed. A bit too much flowed down me gullet, and bit too much b.s. flowed out me mouth. But the past was all around me, I was ready to laugh away my moody turns, eager to be entertained, and unconcerned about other's motives.  I know some funny, witty folks. And some cute boys.

In a moment of EPIC WIN FOR LIFE my buddy Neese proved again that One Joke Rules Them All. He brought the Universe full circle by saying "Don't feel like a bastard to me," to me in conversation. I kissed him and made him call Bef right then and there. It was freaking beautiful. I can't even come up with a proper analogy right now.

New superpower discovered: ability to make grown men jump and leave table/room/house. Probably not a flattering comment on my personality.

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Partial download complete. Back to salt mines.

I Don't Wanna Waste Your Time With Music You Don't Need

Thanks to my recent commenters, and please pardon my lack of direct responses.

Just HF here with Tink the Effin' Bear, kickin' it for a few moments before getting the day started. I have a few hours to put in at the salt mines then a relatively free weekend, highlighted by the arrival of the always rambunctious and high spirited JDog.

Why do we say highlighted and not highlit? I've wondered for many years. It seems so awkward.

I sit here on the worlds tiniest futon, which is juuuuuust big enough to accommodate me. I can't imagine a person of normal stature trying to sleep on this thing. I'm trying to, in the words of Will (of coco con leche fame) to "calm up" for the day. I couldn't ask for a better place to do it. Tink and Panda's domicile's, wherever they may be located, have become sort of havens for me in the last year or so. Maybe it's their predilection for open airy spaces. Maybe it's their use of the ecru as a decorative motif. Maybe it's our weird community brain which often finds me yelling, "Get out of my head, Panda!"

Whatever the case, I can chill here. And take time to bang out these little missives that I fling into the ethers of the interwebz. And try to reflect, without wallowing, on the series of events that make up the tragicomedy that is my life: a thing I used to believe I steered and am now ashamed to admit I mostly have left rudderless, wheel lashed, while I either go below or frig around in the rigging.

But to address the inquiries here and elsewhere: I have no plans to move back to the Gulf Coast at this time. The only way they're getting me back here on a permanent basis is in an urn. For all the smiles and warmth I've encountered, this world has moved on without me. And it is still filled with a great deal of poisonous thorns. As the saying goes, I'm rather half the man I used to be. My forbearance and equanimity are in tatters. My empathy is shot. Being here would not only be bad for me, but I think it would prove a quite unpleasant surprise and unwelcome change for others.

So I think I'll ride this SoCal thing out a while longer and see if I can't make it work. I'm not much on luck, but something's gotta give, right?

Hope the weather turns so J and I can get that pontoon boat and bake in the sun this weekend. That sounds amazing and lazy and wonderful.

Perforated, Proposing, Jeeping, Not Sleeping, But Working

Well, the subject line kinda says it all. Have picked up a small contract job. Though the way these things go, I'll be lucky if I break even by the time all is said and done.

I'm back in the sub tropic environs of the Gulf Coast, but it's spring here, so I can't complain. Though my hair has increased in volume by twofold. This is not an exaggeration. As it slowly approaches critical mass nearing the size and possible density of Asia, I fear for the safety of the world. For now it simply waits, and watches.

This contract work has lots of side benefits, since I'm doing it in familiar surroundings. Lots of social engagements, free place to stay, family to visit. Lovely friend loaned me her Jeep to use while in town. The gas mileage is destroying me, but it's the first rear wheel drive car I've had the opportunity to pilot. Interesting. Simultaneously good and a shame that it doesn't have more pickup, because I'd love to sling that sucker through a few curves and see what a difference being pushed versus being pulled makes.

Later today I get to try and blackmail convince a local doctor to give me these immunotherapy shots. Have I mentioned that I'm over doctors, medical crap, everything? I am so sick of talking about it, thinking about it, feeling about it. Everything. In under five years time (two intense years) I've gone from a person who never got a cold to someone who has to coordinate prescription refills across the country if I travel for more than two weeks.

This is no way to live.

I recently read some online news that my future ex boyfriend, Gerry Butler, did 3 weeks at Betty Ford for coke and pills. And that he slept with the wife of this couple he befriended, then dumped her and now she has a sad because she's all divorcey time and he no call her back.

Standard disclaimer: doesn't it suck to have all your shit just out there? I mean, to have to release a statement about drying out because you know they are gonna find out anyways?

Now to be a hypocrite: I think you can kick a physical addiction in three weeks, you can dry out. But can you really kick a habit? I don't know. Especially if you are jumping straight back into L.A. But GButz has some experience in these matters. Wish him luck. You know, the NSAIDs in the pain killers will build in your system and do your body more harm faster than the opiates will. But the opiates will be what hook you.

Disturbing trends (that are no one's fault so please all 3.2 people who read this don't freak out about it): I come back here and instantly people start unloading. Confessing. Crying on my shoulder, both metaphorically and quite literally. People that know me. People that know I am familiar with their situations. But also people that I've known for 4 hours.

At work. With friends. With family. I'm ascribed magical properties. I suddenly have vast knowledge of people's temperaments, or certain processes. Or I'm just a good judge, because of my long absence.

And here I am, having fucked my life up flatter than hammered shit. Wandering around semi functional most days, and still not being listened to when I do speak. Yet being applied to in strange circumstances. I've an internal joke with myself for many years now, but maybe it's not much of a joke anymore. Maybe I am the wailing wall.

Did I mention I bought a laptop? Oh, the debt you'll accrue. . . . (little known Suess book)