txt-dependant

It would seem that I have developed something of a text message dependancy.  6 months ago I almost never used the txt messaging option of my phone. Hell, I hardly ever used my phone. The only person I ever really talked to on it was my wife, Colleen. In fact, that was the reason I got a cell phone in the first place, when Colleen was pregnant with our daughter, so she could contact me anywhere when she went into labor. As it turned out, it wasn’t necessary — Colleen was induced after she’d gone past her due date. But I kept the phone. I’m not sure I’ve heard of anyone giving up their cell once they’d gotten one, even those who swore they never would, like myself.

Back to my original point: I txt a lot now. So much so that we changed our phone plane. Yes, though separated, Colleen and I are still on the same phone plan. Is that strange or unusual? Got me.  It is what it is. I probably txt my cousin in Iowa the most, but the majority of our txts are of the juvenile variety, ie ham jokes. It’s too complicate, and a bit twisted, to explain. Just accept it. Colleen is the person I txt most after that. In fact, we txt more now than we ever did before, but then we were living in the same house, and yet we seemed to communicated far less than we do now.  In many ways, although not all, our relationship is better than it was before the separation. Often it doesn’t seem like we’re not a couple anymore, that we’re not a family anymore. It’s almost as if we’ve somehow entered our bizzarro relationship. I don’t know. It’s late and I spent three hours in the dentist chair getting fitted for two — count ’em — two crowns. I’m still slighty out of it.

I find txting to be helpful in a way, although it is difficult to describe how exactly. A friend on facebook gave me her number and told me to call her if I ever wanted to talk. We’d been chatting. I told her I appreciated it, although I’d be more likely to txt than chat. She said she understood, that sometimes you want to talk but not really. That made sense to me.

Anyhoo…my txting fetish doesn’t seem like it will end anytime soon. If anything it is going to become even more prominent. I’m looking into getting a new phone, one that makes it easier to tap out messages.

Hey, I’d be a booze hound if I could. But instead I’m just a movie junkie

A friend from college, who is going through his own trying times right now, although they are of a different sort than my own, his being of the lost job variety — Yikes! — were talking recently, and he said that he was glad that he didn’t have a taste for alcohol (beyond the occasional glass of wine at a social function, I’d imagine) otherwise he might be in big trouble, easily turning into a booze hound. I shared this sentiment. There have been times in my life, including my current state or disillusionment, that have made me seriously consider just the romantic, albeit destructive notion of simply drinking myself into oblivion. Problem is I just don’t have it in me to drink like that. Never did. I had friends in high school who certainly did, and at least two of them are recovering alcoholics now. It wasn’t just that I was (am) a super light weight,  able catch a buzz on less than two beer, likely to get wrecked on little more than a six pack. I’m not sure I had to stomach capacity. Hell, I can’t even finish a glass of Coke when I go out to eat.

No. Instead of booze, my friend and I both seek solace and refuge in movies. He keeps as many 10 different movies on hand at any given time so that if he is so inclined he’ll just start watching, one flick after another, and not stop until he passes out, i.e. falls asleep. My habit, on the other hands, is slightly different. I tend to latch onto certain movies and/or TV shows now that they’re on DVD and watch the same one over and over again. I’ve done this in the past too. And I can never predict which movies/TV shows I’ll latch onto. For example, this holiday season I watched the Elf and A Christmas Story, over and over again, every day. Well, I didn’t exactly watch them. I’d listen to them online while I worked. I have that kind of job, in which I sit at a computer for the better part of 8 hours each day. Although I’ve begun to think that the nature of job may have something to do with my blues these days, and in the recent past. Looking back, I’m certain that I was depressed for the better part of year, perhaps longer. And, at least in part, that lead to estrangement from my wife. [sigh]

Anyhoo…these days I seem to have developed an attachment for the movie Good Will Hunting. I’ve always liked this movie. As my friend from college described it, Good Will Hunting is an example of solid, straight forward storytelling without and self-consciously obvious tricks or cleverness. Personally, I think that has much to do with the director, Gus Van Sant. Anyway, I keep watching it over and over again. In fact, it is playing right now as I tap out this post.

A TV show that I’ve been watching a lot: SCRUBS. I’ve always found this show to be appealing. I suppose because it seems to drip with GenX ethos. But also it is refreshing and quirky, utilizing a single-camera technique, not film on a sound stage with a studio audience, and the fantsy sequences are brilliantly done. Also, whereas in most cases, a voiceover usually ruins a TV show or movie, this one seems to work somehow. For whatever reason, it works, at least for me.

Still, I worry that I watch TV too much, that I use it to anesthetize myself. I believe that is what I did for the past year or more before my separation, because I was depressed. I think a lot of people do this, to one degree or another. I believe that I saw my father do this most of his life — the man watched a lot of TV, and I believe there was something profoundly unhappy about him. But then he was from The Silent Generation, and it was characteristic for the members of this cohort to simply not talk about their problems. That was my dad all over.

My point is, I  don’t want to rot in front of the TV. And it seems that I’ve taken a step in that direction, by getting on some meds, specifically Wellburtin, which was recommended to me by a Dr, mainly because it has rather opposite effects compared to Zoloft, which I ‘ve taken before. Where the Zoloft can act as kind of a sedative, often making your sleepy, Wellbutrin acts as more of stimulant. Seems I’ve alreayd expereince said effects this weekend, after only taking the med for two days. Perhaps it is just psychological but I felt much more energetic, and I did not have but one small sample cup of coffe this weekend. Usually, it’s the first thing I do in the morning, and then again in the afternoon sometimes, and often at night too. But that was not the case this weekend. And it was a good weekend too.

Your feature match is….fate or just coincidence.

Okay. So one of the things C and I agreed upon as part of our separation was to “date other people,” something that, trust me, is much easier to deal with in theory then in reality. But I’m not going to get into that.

Anyhoo…in the internet age, the most effective way to meet people is of course via interent dating. You select a service, post a profile with some basic info and perhaps a photograph or two and wait for the offers to roll on in. Well, attractive women like C wait for them to roll on in. Guys have to do the rolling, I’ve discovered, and most rolls end up gutters, which is, oh, so much fun, and by fun I mean demoralizing.

Turned out that both C and I put up profiles on Yahoo Personals. And one day C calls me to share something…curioius, and perhaps a little amusing. She got an email, offering 15 matches. And guess who was the feature match? You got it — Me! Just to prove she wasn’t yanking my chain (something I always enjoy,  wink wink, nudge nudge) she showed me the email.

So here’s the thing. Does one take that as some kind of sign of fate? Or is it merely a quirky coincidence?

I suppose it depends on the person, right. In event, we’re still separated. I mean, really, who is going to trust their major life decisions to the algorithms of Yahoo?

But just for the heck of it, let’s take a little poll, shall we?

Late night bowl of Lucky Charms

When I moved to Kalamazoo to attend grad school at Western Michigan, I moved into my first real apartment. Sure, it was a university apartment but it was removed from campus, a complex of units not at all like a dormitory, so you know, it qualifies. Anyhoo…one of the first things I did was go shopping and buy me some Lucky Charms cereal. We never really had it as kids. The closest we ever got to Lucky Charms, the Holy Grail of cereals as far as I was concerned as a kid anyway, was maybe Frosted Flakes, which are Greeeeat! Don’t get me wrong. But no marshmellows, so they can be only so great.

Now that I’m back in my own apartment, it seemed appropriate to indulge myself and buy a box of Lucky Charms cereal. And, like when I was living in Kalamazoo, a strange city, unable to sleep late at night, I’m having a bowl right now.  They’ve added a few new marshmellows since my early grad school days but it still tastes the same.

As of today, I’ve been in my solo pad apartment for one month. Funny, seems longer somehow, and yet the place doesn’t even come close to feeling like home. Not that it’s bad really. But I can’t escape the feeling of existing in a kind of limbo. Perhaps that has more to do with me then the place itself.

Who knows….

I keep thinking but nothing happens

I intend to write posts for this blog. I want to. But then I just don’t. Often, I don’t know what to write about. Or just as often there is too much to write about. I don’t know where to begin. Plus, much of what is rattling around in my head and my heart are things I simply don’t want to air in a public forum. It just seems pathetic, not to meantion petty and juvenile.

And so here I am, feeling stuck.

I’m tired, and sad. Any joy or relief is temporary, very temoporary, which in some ways is worse, because as soon as I realize that I feel okay I clench up with fear, wondering when it will drain away again.

ugh — this sucks!

Mission Impossible

I’m beginning to thank that perhaps I can’t blog about this whole separating thing. Maybe it’s too new still, to raw. After all it’s only been about 3 months. Ugh!

Maybe it’s too new, I’m too raw. I don’t want to lament and complain, whine and bitch, but too often it seems as if that is all I have in me.

I’m too tired. And despite being exhausted I can barely manage to sleep 4-5 hrs a night, if I’m lucky.

And whoa to the poor soul that gets me talking about it, because once I get going I simply cannot shut up. I try, but I can’t. Was up yakking until 2am  last night on the phone with someone, and I could have gone on longer, much longer.

No matter how much I talk, no matter what “conclusions” I come to it doesn’t really help. In the end, that tight, knot of angst is there in my chest, like a fucking clencheed fist.

It’s this feeling of abandoment that’s the worst. Like a free-fall through my emotions.

You know what makes me think of? When I was kid, shopping in K-Mart with my mom. I’d wander away in the toy section,  pull some toy off the shelf and sit down and start playing only to look up after who knows how long to realize that Mom is gone. Where is she? Where’d she go? I fill with dread, as if someone was pouring into me from the top of my peeled open head. I get up to look for but can’t find her. Panic and sweat. I begin running moving through the store. ….

Of course, I found my mom. She wasn’t that far off, it didn’t take me long to find her but it felt like an enternity. And from then I’d suffer nightmares and even sudden waking dreams of finding myself suddenly and utterly alone.

What do you make of the Sigmund?

Ugh!