Brain Scan

Hey, um... has anyone seen my toiletry bag? The one with the pills in it that make me not claw my skin off?

There's just not enough time in the day anymore. Not enough time at all.

Rob has moved!

The Rob you knew is no longer where you thought you left him last--he is instead living in Kalamazoo, Michigan at a halfway houseblam_blazer's secret bunker in the hills. Here I plan to secretly work on all of my diabolical schemes, honing my skills and abilities to their fullest before unleashing them yet again upon the world. Cell coverage is understandably low in said secret bunker, so if you need a land line number at which to contact me (and do not already have it), you may leave a message on my cell and I'll be sure to get it to you when I am once again in service range.

The story, for those still wondering, is as follows.

I wanted to move. I wanted to be financially independent, out and about on my own terms, and back in the city I love, Kalamazoo. The things holding me back were as follows: Relationship, Employment, and obligations to the elderly. My relationship terminated, my employment ended, and my cat (the elderliest thing for which I had direct responsibility) has likewise ceased to be. Around this time (as I was moping), my little muse called me up and told me that there was no reason not to live the life I wanted. I checked my accounts and calculated my debts and saw that Mr. Muse was, indeed, correct, and off I set on an Adventure.

The Adventure was intended to be a job search which would lead to a full transition back into Kalamazoo, but as soon as I arrived I slipped back into the ol' Kalamazoo routine, complete with KVCC (probably), Project(!), and ye ol' Writing Group. As such, I'm considering Kalamazoo my residence from this point forth. For a year, I think. We'll see.

Cutting the long entry in favor of a bullet point.

- I cried at an episode of House.

Do these chickens look close to hatching to you?

Ok, I'm running late, but a post...

Things have gotten crazy hectic. My roommate considerations has blossomed to a grand total of four and I'm sad that I cannot pursue all of them (but it's their own fault for having such terrible timing).

Brandon is, quite abruptly, back in my life. I'm still not sure what to make of it so, as usual, I'm just riding it out. I don't really know how to describe his affect on my life without sounding stupid, cliche, or sappy, so I will not describe him as the sun come at last, for however short a time, to a region that is often dark and clouded--but he definitely represents an otherwise missing element in my life. Like the sun that I am not comparing him to, however, I shall try to limit my exposure until I've built up a good base tan or found some effective sunscreen. You know, emotionally.

Michigan Renaissance festival may be happening this weekend, Sunday-ish.

Hope to see Dennis at some point next weekend--and hope to be good company if he finds the time.

Gotta run--I'm going to be very late for Andrew's and my outing to the Detroit Science Center. And breakfast.

"Glee" is a show that Hulu just introduced me. And it's a little bit great.

"The only life worth living is one you're passionate about."

I am infinitely short on hugs. Marcus broke up with me last week, and... well. We know what I did today. I need a lover today. A commiserating body to my misery.

The world just got so cold :(

It's done. It was peaceful. The hardest part was the absolute trust he exhibited. Euthanasia doesn't feel like the humane thing to do... though it may have been necessary.

I'm (expletive) Othello.

--edit--

Thank you all for your support.

This post should be infinitely longer than it will be. Sebastian, faithful pet for many years, has reached the end of his healthy days with us. He began vomiting Friday and hasn't been able to stop or relax since then. There's a strong chance his kidneys failed him, considering his urine output over these past many weeks. I'm not sure there was anything much I could have done for him if I hadn't ignored the symptom. The failure of the kidneys would result in the body flushing almost all fluids and keeping all of the toxins urine is supposed to remove from the body. The subsequent dehydration... brings us to today. The vet closed at 1pm today, and wouldn't give us an appointment earlier than 12:30. While we all know that Sebastian isn't going to truly come back from this... I asked them to give him medicine to settle his stomach so he could be at peace, and do a subcutaneous water... thing... to combat his dehydration just a little bit longer.

Why did I do this if I'm not expecting him to recover? Why didn't I just have them put him to sleep then and spare him the suffering? Because he and I weren't ready. I've been bracing myself for this for a couple years now--distancing myself emotionally to some extent by focusing on the inconvenience of his existence as he deteriorated. But it didn't work. When people make the argument for euthanasia, they say it's more humane than letting a pet suffer. The argument makes it sound like, if the pet could understand it all, they would thank us for our mercy. But Sebastian has always communicated with me (or tried to), and what he said to me today wasn't "end it", but rather, "Make me better." I couldn't take him to the vet to put him down without... giving him the chance to fight. Yes, due to the fact that the Vet won't open again until Monday and the medication we gave him should wear off... at the latest, tomorrow morning, he will likely be suffering again all too soon--but suffering is part of life. And if his kidneys have indeed failed and his suffering resumes in earnest, I will do the humane thing... but more important than ending his lifespan on the clinic's hours is making sure Sebastian has the chance to have a small reprieve from his suffering--a chance for a miraculous recovery on the off chance our diagnosis is wrong.

As I sat with my parents and the vet in the clinic and tried to explain that, at the very least, I wanted him to have a chance to enjoy a bowl of ice cream before we ended his existence forever... I was in tears. There is something terrible about losing someone or something with whom you've shared your life for so long. I can't wrap my head around the possibility--the reality--that the last time I made him purr, or gave him water, or fed him, or simply curled up next to him peacefully is now 48 hours in the past.

I'm going to miss him so incredibly much.

Today, in part of your daily routine, find something completely mundane that you overlook as part of our routine. Get close. Touch it, smell it, feel it, taste it... or not. Observe it in a new way of your choosing, and take a moment to consider whether or not anyone else would have observed it in the same way. Consider how long it's been since someone may have observed it in this way, where each part of it may have come from and how others my have observed it... and consider the likelihood of someone else observing it in the same way you just have.



Weird, huh?

Whoops. So I've been staying up late in general the past week or so. Extending that to the past six months, really, would not be a bad description of my sleep schedule, though often times I've tried to catch up on the sleep on weekends. Tying that in with some guild drama, the fact that it's the end of the week, some drama with Marcus (both guild and Marcus being resolved), and lastly my news that I've got a week before I run out of employment, the 3.5 hour nap I just took doesn't seem too unreasonable.

And I dreamt. I found myself in a pizzaria/restaurant/mall that was attached to a niche cafe/gift shop with an emphasis on Star Trek memorabilia. It was kinda cool, actually, 'cause the place was totally Trekked out. I saw a lot of characters from the series' I know and/or liked (TNG up), with some art 'n such that looked like a cross between fan art situations (famous captains, cool pairings, etc) and current commercial/promotional quality work done just for the store to give 'em something to put on the walls. It was kinda cool, actually.

The weird part is that, as the dream went on, the Trek Cafe/gift shop got more crowded. I'd keep discovering that new people I'm aware of were there. They were all people I don't hate. My mom's boss was there, overweight, arrogant, but jovial and loud as always. A highlight slide show/whatever that was being shown on one wall was turned off for a live 'Trek related show' which consisted of a... slightly plus sized girl in an "alien" garment who was basically poll dancing. At this point I became aware it was a dream, as she apparently was actually poll dancing, an enlightenment I reached due to the fact that she had some breasts hanging out. It still vaguely fit the Trek/Scifi theme in that she was dancing... slowly? And not really erotically? As though the dance were intended to imply another culture? But the partial nudity was totally there as scifi geek fan service. This is when I noticed my cousin there as he's also a loud, large fella, and my aunt (his mother) who, like myself and my family (who had been there all along) were hanging back quite a ways and tolerating/enjoying the show. Things got more crowded, the dreamscape shifted to more of a cafe type place with a growing crowd and through it I saw Tyler from Kalamazoo, someone I have to assume is Derek Cobbs or Myron or whatever musician who's event Project recently sent me an invitation to, and when I craned to see who else was with them, Brandon. Brandon and I accidentally made eye contact and I distinctly remember turning away quickly. He decided to come over and say "hey. Saw you over here." in the friendly, "we can have a conversation like friends" way. Which would have been nice if it weren't such inconvenient timing, what with so many absolutely random and unrelated people milling about in the same space. I really do choose which face to show based on who I'm with, and I suspect that, along with everything that's been happening in real life lately, I was just feeling utterly blank and drained. I gave him an awkward "hey" that carried the "I'm not interested" overtone you can sometimes tack onto what should otherwise be a friendly greeting, and didn't really feel bad about it either. Dream Brandon has become a recurring entity, for better or worse, and he always represents some sort of lost paradise/opportunity who is virtually begging me to pursue it again, just by reminding me it exists. I've gotten comfortable enough with his presence in my dreams (or at least with the idea of not having him in reality), that I've been able to blow him off with some reliability instead of being the smitten kitten I think is still hiding somewhere deep down. It also helps that he's showed up enough in so many contexts in my dreams that I've realized that, unlike the real Brandon, the odds of him simply disappearing from my life are virtually nil. While I would never mistreat him in my dreams, it's kinda nice to know I can experience him without the feeling that I need to shower him with praise, gifts, and attention to avoid being forgotten.

If you thought it had been too long since my last Brandon related entry, count yourself lucky I didn't post the last dream he was featured in wherein he tried to seduce me and I rebuffed him with full knowledge of it being a dream, and full knowledge that I'd given myself to Marcus and wasn't ready to betray him like that, even in subconscious fantasy. Go me.

I apologize for the rambling nature of the second to most recent paragraph--it, like dreams--flowed unbroken even though it probably should have been. That, and I was also typing it while healing in a WoW dungeon I decided to help out with. The challenge rating was well enough below me that the potentially conflicting engagements didn't hurt the run at all.

Also, I'm gonna brush up my resume. If anyone wants to suggest career options/places to look, feel free to hit me up as long as it doesn't involve California. If I'm going to throw myself in with a bunch of nutty idealists, I want them to also be fiscally viable.

I, apparently, have another week of pay before I'm adding to the 14% unemployment rate. Where did I put that resume?

Mirrors you learn how to look into, day after day.

Photos tear down your walls.

I've become fat again.

Today, this changes.

Does anyone else share my growing loathing of Facebook? I heard they're gunning for Google and it made me sick. I'm envisioning a future where everyone hops on their Macs to log on to AOL and surf the Facebook--which naturally is what people will be calling the Internet in years to come.

Grr, says I!

8. I really miss the adventure and employ of my imagination offered in D&D campaigns.

9. Andrew has a posse of folks who, while gay AND men, are not my gay men posse. I miss being around people with dreams and aspirations, not jaded, snarky and drinkers.

10. I'm going to clean out my room and get rid of a lot of books. Having books is nice, but I don't know if I can really justify holding on to books tat have no meaning for me when my living space is at such a premium. Goodbye, Quran. Goodbye... well, glancing at my bookshelf, I see textbooks I never want to be without. This might be easier said than done.

Bullet points-

1. Marcus and I are fine. No exciting prospects or dangers of moving any closer (physically or emotionally). This disappoints me on some level, but minimizes one anxiety source.

2. I don't know if I'll ever not be sick on some level ever again. My possible bronchitis which took me out of work for a week (a couple days there just because I was still coughing and could afford not to infect other people--my mother disagreed) has faded into an occasional cough and a sore throat. I'm well past the 18 day threshold at this point. Also, if I don't take my antihistamines (suggested by poor Derek who hasn't actually witnessed any of my symptoms), I break out in itchy little bumps which swell up and break open, secreting a clear liquid. Isn't that fun? But it only happens on the parts of my body that come into contact with anything else. With the antihistamines, the bumps and itching are both fewer (the bumps, in my mind, likely because I'm not scratching and bringing the bumps to the surface).

3. My job is coming to an end. I have to say that I'm thankful for this experience because it gives me access some real professionals with pretty friggin' sweet resume clout for my professional references section of my scarce resume (which I need to polish up again--I haven't held to my commitment of finalizing one, let alone reviewing/updating it on the first of every month). Unfortunately, this doesn't really speak to my ability to hold a job for a long period of time AND puts me back on the streets, looking for work. It also gives me a deceptive expectation for what real professionals expect--I may have technically been working in an IT field in this instance, but neither of my bosses really know how to use the medium and I had a personal failure in giving them what they didn't know they needed (a database, for example, of all the statistics I've been accumulating, normalized and accessible through their blackberries). I'm increasingly distanced from KVCC and subsequently all the time and money I put into the stupid computer programming degree that will never happen--and this failure on my part to even crank out an access database speaks to my complete lack of interest in problem solving in this venue. Which is probably a good thing for my company's future IT folks 'cause if something is done simply but poorly it's a lot easier to unravel than something done elaborately and poorly.

4. Did I mention I need a new job and, if I can get over the anxiety of finding the new job, a new place to live (the latter is a personal desire, not a parental imperative)?

5. I need to write again. I also want to study music--every time I try to bare my soul through lyrics ala Disney, it comes out sounding like a bad manufactured song from the... well, hell, there hasn't been an era of music this bad. Something else I miss about Brandon is his musical aptitude. He, more than anyone else, seemed to offer me the chance to collaborate with an artist. I want to bring my soul to the forefront and live large and passionately and confidently. I also want to see that Fame remake.

6. My WoW raiding group was turned back over to its original leader last Wednesday as the bastard still hasn't found a job and if he's not going to , I might as well turn the anxiety over to him and find myself one. The only problem is that he seems to have decided to go in an entirely different direction--and I don't like it. I've got a new character on Nick's server and still have many friends and acquaintances scattered all over the realms of warcraft... and Dennis has been playing less and less reliably since his new roommate. My guild is genuinely a good guild, but I may end up withdrawing from WoW entirely due to Blizzard's lack of realm intermingling. Sorry, Blizz, but being able to create characters on multiple realms is not a solution to having friends on 50 different servers. I can't afford to get 49 alts to 80 and play with all of my friends in turn. Maybe I'll just dig out The Sims 2 and make all my friends do disturbingly uncharacteristic things with the help--that always cheers me up.

7. It occures to me that this was a numbered list and not bullet points. Deal. And be thankful I'm all out of bullets.

So I drove out to the Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek to attend Project(!)'s zoo trip. In spite of intel gleamed from a third party that suggested that Brandon would not be in attendance, he was. In fact, only four people came... so that set the event up to be 25% awkward for me from the outset. The good news is, I didn't break down one bit! Jan, Barry, and Roger were all quite sociable and I managed to not address Brandon directly but once (I had discovered a bunch of eco-friendly socks, each labled. One read 100% soy, another 100% recycled cotton, another 100% recycled bottles, and one that said Giraffe. I had to share it with everyone.)

The antihistamines I'm employing have my incessant itch down to an occasional annoyance instead of an all-out scratch-fest. Part of me thinks that I suffer from heat... itch... or something. It apparently results from being too warm. And sweaty. I was sweaty when this nonsense started back in December--and as I'm always cold, I take heat where I can get it in the winter months. I'm trying to take colder showers and wash my hands in colder water, but the job that I have now requires me to be in uncomfortable office-appropriate clothing 40 hours a week. The shoes that I wear are the most comfortable I've found (they were at a discount store for merchandise that didn't make it to Louisiana due to Katrina)--I don't look forward to the hunt for a similarly comfortable pair that also breathes.

The end.

blam_blazer asked me how I've been doing and I told him I'd answer him tomorrow. Which today is yesterday, you see? Anyhow. Here's my life.

Still working 40 hours a week doing a job that eats my soul for no benefits.

I think I've earned enough money so far to pay for my last two months in Kalamazoo--we'll see once my mother tallies up the bill.

I'm still dating Marcus who is still amazing.

I'm still trying to figure out how to get over Brandon. On most days, his name just passes through my head. I'll see a picture of him amongst all the other memories as my computer slideshows my pictures. It's when the name actually catches and I focus on it, or when I actually look at his face in my photo albums that I get overtaken. It's bizzare to me that It's been so long since I've seen or talked to him in person... and I still feel all twisted up inside. I thought, having parted on decent enough terms, that I'd eventually forget him. When we parted on poor terms, I certainly didn't. *sigh* I told him before that he'd just have to deal with me liking him, whatever that meant to him. Apparently this is me dealing with those same facts. Thoughts and memories of him are often the most moving part of my day, and I feel terrible about that--not because the sensation is terrible... but because those memories still make me feel more than anything since. I like Marcus, and he's everything I could want in a man save for the fact that he isn't Brandon.

Bleh. Why is it that every time I get onto the subject of Brandon, I start using his name every other sentence and ramble on about how much I care about him? I'm well past the point of repeating myself. I guess I just say it because it still holds true--but I could probably get away with saying less and still having my meaning conveyed. For instance:

I was looking at the Project(!) events and came across some photos of their ice skating event. All the pictures of people I knew had me feeling nostalgic--Barry was skating around in a scarf that was the epitome of the ice skating image (the boy watches too many movies). Then there was Brandon. Whoever took the picture, Brandon had looked directly into the camera and smiled. He was doing something else at the time--playing with his phone--so it wasn't one of those "say cheese" smiles. It's the one that made me fall for him in the first place.

See? That wasn't rambling and a rehash of stupid mush feelings--just the facts. I'll try to keep it to that in the future, should the subject be breached.

back to my check list of updates:

I itch. This is not mentioned in passing as one might narrate their lives by saying, "I just yawned, I must be tired!" This itch has been with me since December. I've seen the doctor a couple times about it and between blood work and a visual inspection, he gave me absolutely nothing. We vaguely ruled out fungus or bites and anything to do with the blood... figured it was allergies. Given that we've changed seasons and I still itch, we can eliminate the seasonal form. I've switched all of my soaps one or more times. I've tried creams, ointments, and I've even started trying that... tennactin spray? I'm not sure on the spelling. I don't think it's athlete's foot as it started on my arms... but throughout the day it takes its turn everywhere now. Sometimes it all gangs up on me at once and I'm nothing but... hives and whimpering. It doesn't seem to be one of those things that gets better over time. Without health insurance, I don't know that I can pursue it with any specialists. It wakes me up at night. It drains me even more than my job does--and that's saying something. Basically, if I wanted to focus on my absurdly stagnating career, loveless love life, heart wrenching lost life, and this infernal chronic torment of itching... my life is a living hell. Seriously. I almost feel bipolar I hit such extremes. When I find something I enjoy, I milk it for everything it's worth. Some small triumph at work becomes the world to me. Talking to friends, my memories, and these little victories keep me in good spirits, in spite of the more pragmatic critique of my life. And that's my update.

Now to get flowers for mother's day.