Long Time Gone

Haven't even done that much thinking of this blog in quite some time.  Largely it is just a phase of my life that has probably passed semi-permanently.  Got an email today about the last chance to change it over to the latest Google whatever account.  I accessed this through the Google account it was already attached to, so hopefully that means it is ok.  I have toyed around with copying all of the posts to text form to hold onto should I ever choose to go back and view them, but that sounds an awful lot like work.

So hopefully the hoops I jumped through leave this sitting here for a little while longer for when I might want to go looking back again.

Use of Old Tool

This is the easiest way for me to post this pic elsewhere.

Title Goes Here

I feel like my soul is slowly being chipped away. That it has been while I wasn't looking. There was a day that I knew me. That day wasn't recent. I am not worrying about the greater questions of the meaning of life or the desire of the Goddess. No. I looked in a mirror just now and began to realize, I am not sure I know who that man is, or what he is about.

I am lost, in this life, or something close to it.

Been A While

So some time has passed since my last post. In point of fact, I haven't logged back into blogger since I made that post six months ago.

Today I was waiting for the bus to come home, and had just sent a text to Lisanocerous, when my blackberry roared at me to tell me I had a message. It wasn't a response from her yet, it was an e-mail notification. The e-mail came from this blog. Something I hadn't thought of for a while. It let me know that Cindy had made a comment.

So I came here to see what she said, starting with reading the post she was responding to. It was the last post I put out here. What I found was interesting. I was reminded that six months ago I had been feeling much the way I have been feeling this week. Thinking a lot of the same things as I had been thinking at the time.

It felt very much like I had gone full circle. For many reasons. Not only did I find myself in a series of scenarios earlier in the week that led me to feel lost in some ways as I tried to communicate before, but the blackberry I got the message on is new. Not new as in top of the line. I don't know if they even make this model any more. It was given to me by Godzilla. Because the phone that Vader gave me six months ago went into the lake a couple of weeks ago. I had handed it to my sister to take a picture of this big fish I caught, and she dropped it.

So once again I upgraded by fire, when I could not find a way to do so under my own merits. So I have some personal things going on, and unlike my nature in the past, I am not going to even hint at them here. But life has thrown some things at me again, and I am dealing with them as best I can. And amongst that, I get a message out of the blue, from someone who just simply said, "Hey."

You gave me a lot to think about with that one word, and I am somewhat glad you did. Just more ruminations on life, or something close to it.

A Letter To Jamesomeone

I have been thinking of you. Many times over the past two years, but continuously the last twenty four hours. This is the time of year where you come more to mind. I have begun campaigning again for the MS fundraiser I was at two years ago when you died. Last night just brought you to the forefront again.

In a moment of sheer fury I lost control. My phone demonstrated that as a projectile it loses against a door. I was furious about being used. About being there for people who couldn't care less about me when they no longer had a use for me. About being walked on when it suited people, and left struggling to hold on to a thread that was all that I had for a lifeline when that use expired.

In poetic fashion, I demonstrated my own helplessness in that action. Not only in the lack of control to prevent such destruction, but the lack of ability to rectify it.

I no longer wear your boots. I can't. There is too much damage to them. I now wear boots given to me by MC because I couldn't replace them. When you were here you gave me so much when I couldn't give it to myself. Then one day, in a moment's destructive force, you removed yourself from our lives.

In a moment's destructive force I did something similar, though not as permanent. I heard the train whistle behind my house as I stared at the pieces of my phone. My link to the outside world. The only place that contained the numbers of some important people in my life.

Lisanocerous for one. I don't know if any of my friends have her new number. I don't know if she will eventually reach out to me if I don't find it. MC is another but I know he will seek me out sooner or later. Your sister, as well, was in that phone, but I am certain she won't come looking for me.

Contact information that I may or may not be able to replace was gone in a moment's rage. As well as some pictures, music, etc... All of this isn't why you came so strongly to mind though. I have a temporary phone that doesn't really work right, but serves for me to be able to answer if work calls. Tomorrow, I will have a new phone. New to me. No, I can't afford to replace my phone, I will be getting it from Vader. An old phone he no longer uses.

Just downstairs is a bag that I will be looking through in the morning. A potential positive, depending on what I find. It is my clothes for the year. What I can use out of it anyway. Clothes with no tags on them. Clothes that are new only to me, but discarded by others.

I can't remember when I last had a pair of pants that I purchased. When I last had a friend I wasn't using in some fashion to get by in a manner I couldn't without them. More importantly, when the last time was I was able to offer anything in return.

I thought of the train last night, because for a moment I once again understood the exit strategy. I understood that there is no winning scenario in this game. I understood that just turning it off had its merit and its appeal. That sleeping as much as possible to avoid dealing with the waking hours had a more permanent form.

Then I talked to Vader, and I went to bed. Again now I will do the same. To be rested to deal with my daughter and help her enjoy this portion of her life when she doesn't understand yet that life is just a pointless battle for most of us. That she wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and as such her life will suck until it is over.

I go to bed to escape. To take my own temporary version of your route, because I am not ready to get away from life, or something close to it.

My Boots Are Dying

I have another post planned that was going to appear here. It is written in a notebook, after the one I posted and before the other one in the notebook. Those two will have to wait. Why? The easy answer is, because it is my blog. The slightly deeper answer is that it is because my boots are dying.

To be completely accurate, I should address the fact that some of you might immediately react to the above statement with the obvious. My boots are inanimate objects, thus have never been alive, thus cannot be dying. You couldn't be further from the truth.

These boots were not purchased by me. In fact, in my lifetime, I have only purchased one pair of external footware. A pair of boots I still own, that must be in storage somewhere. I put them aside the day I bought them, in favor of these boots I now where.

Why the lack of footware purchase? Simple formula. I had my parents buying my clothes and shoes and etc... all through school. This continued right into high school and the immediate following period. Fairly shortly out of high school, I went into the service. Three sets of footwear bought for me by your tax dollars. (Come to think of it, I bought a pair of boots then too, so two total. Those boots were rendered unserviceable years ago.) My combat boots stayed as my mainstay from the point my jump boots lost their soles (the other pair I bought) a couple of years out of the service, until four or five years ago. While at work I tore open the sole of one of them and had to replace them in the middle of the work day. I bought a pair of cheap boots, which I hated, that day. That evening, MC and Jamesomeone came to visit with me and when I told them what happened, and how much I hated those boots, Jamesomeone gave me a pair he had from when he was a volunteer fireman. He said he had no use for them.

I have worn those boots ever since. They used to have zippers on the side, but both broke, leaving me having to tie and untie them like a normal boot. But now, one of the boots is separating on the back. There already exists about a four inch separation from the sole. They are unserviceable and promising to get worse in a hurry.

Why so huge? Well, for those of you who are new to the blog, or don't remember the connection, I lost Jamesomeon over a year ago. These boots I wear daily are my last direct connection with him. I mean, I have a pair of dress shoes that were also his, but how often does one wear those? This daily connection is gone, and nothing I will can restore this. This is bad enough on its own, if not presented with the additional problem. The same problem that existed at the time. Decent boots are expensive. I haven't got the money to replace them. Just like then. Not just the cost to replace them exactly, but even comparably. Payless doesn't believe in boots that reach above an inch or so beyond a high top sneaker.

On top of the comfort level I have known for over a decade, is the connection. I don't know how to handle boots that just serve a purpose. Even the boots I wore in the service held a purpose in the service. My combat boots spoke of something. These boots a friend gave spoke of that friendship. With his loss, they spoke of the only connection I had left with him.

Now I will have no boots. I will have no connection. I will undoubtedly begin wearing a pair of shoes, gotten from a donation from a church via my mother-in-law, much as I get most of my clothes. They will not be what I need. They will serve no purpose, and have no connection to anything important to me, other than not being barefoot. They will be nothing.

I assume to all of you this means nothing. But I have lost my boots. To me, that is life, or something close to it.

Thoughts During My Sabbatical

I took some time off and reflected on the most recent arguments I got into on this blog. On why I became angry about the issue. I came to the realization (not without the help of my friends) that this ties directly to another issue that has been known to arouse such anger in me in the past. An issue that on the surface appears to be completely different.

I have to force myself to reign in my temper at work sometimes when I am trying to go above and beyond to help somebody out, and they are fighting me and thus preventing the assistance I am trying to provide. Or when people call in screaming and yelling because they expect to get a hassle from you, and when they don't, they feel the need to keep going until their arsenal is exhausted any way. In both of these cases, people form opinions about what is going on in the conversation, and where it will go, and they act according to these opinions rather than to the results of the conversation.

This does tie in with what happened here, and has happened here in the past. I originally assumed insult with the scenario, because I did not consider the fact that this was a decision being made by a group of individuals, not a single entity. The fault in this lies with me, and I have already admitted that.

The response, however, is where the anger seeded and matured. Those who responded all took a common approach. They assumed they knew me, and my motives for reacting as I did. They then crafted their responses based on this assumption.

Those familiar with the scientific method know that you can't form a conclusion first and then make the test results fit this conclusion. Detectives know you can't make the facts fit the case, but must, rather, do it the other way around.

At the core of this is the reason for why I became so angry. Angrier than seemed warranted, even to me. It is a primal issue, and the inherent cause for virtually all of the ills of the world. The formation of reasoning based on belief, rather than belief based on reason.

The fact that people chose to form beliefs about me, and then deduce my motivations based on this connected to this more primal issue at the core of numerous other problems that are more serious in the world today. Rather than take the time to try to determine why I was offended, people decided that they knew, and that I was wrong. The former was false, even if the latter was not.

This issue, anonymous, is why you got such a hostile response from me in that earlier conversation. I requested to specifically avoid this scenario in that conversation and was ignored.

So while some of you hover over the keyboard with the response I expect at least one of you to respond with anyway, I will try to clarify once more. I am aware of the fact that I made some assumptions about the motives of others in the synchroblog thing. I have already apologized for this, having realized my error. (An error that I only realized because I continued to try to understand the motives of others, rather than rest on the initial assumption.) So I know at least one of you will point out this error of mine and I will simply copy this paragraph and point out additionally that I asked all along for the error in my way of thinking to be pointed out to me, and wasn't taken up on it. Well, since that is now part of this paragraph, I can just copy it.

Just some explanations of some of the emotional issues re: life, or something close to it.