never alone

someone i know is facing the possibility of a great loss. for a handful of reasons she feels she cannot count on me to be there for her, and in the relatively recent past when i was in a serious situation facing great loss, and she did not rush to my side. i have no way to convey how much i worry about her, how much i want to be there for her, and how much i think of her as a person in spite of all the flaws everyone has.

some would think that due to our recent past i would think less of her, that she doesn't matter, or that i couldn't be bothered to hold genuine concern. well, i do. and its keeping me from sleeping.

bah, i guess its not important in the long run. you can care about someone else all you want, but if they are unable to see it, or refuse to allow themselves to see it, i guess it won't make a difference. it's a shame.

i'm a lover

i'm not open minded enough to see other people's potential view if i disagree. in most cases people are open enough to tell me... of course, this assumes they are secure enough with themselves, and me, to take the time to explain.

my problem is that i care.

and i'm not smart enough to realize that most people are primarily concerned about themselves.

i had a rough day, someone i care about deeply has a secret that if exposed will cause a significant change in the future they consider themselves lucky to have. the solution: glaze it over, and walk away from the secret hoping to put enough time between them and it so that if it is ever exposed, its well in the past.

its really not a bad solution, avoid facing the music by giving a very basic explanation which leaves out all the key details, so that in the future we can all claim that we've all been honest. i don't think its honest, but that's the plan which causes the least amount of risk and it keeps the wedding plans in tact. oh yeah, did i mention there's a wedding planned? yeah, i can't imagine being engaged to someone i can't tell everything to in exact detail, but maybe my standards are to high.

i was confronted about this opinion of openness and my friendship done away with today. i was accused of not actually caring about the persons involved. i see it as quite the opposite, silly me thinking honesty and openness between two people is paramount. in hindsight, this person always had issues with openness.

and so, i explained to this friend of mine that i loved them and hoped for the best, this friend stated their love was lost, it expired. i guess some people require agreement for love.

most of my friends are the greatest people on the planet because they are the first to tell me when i'm wrong, and for that i love them. they irritate me daily with their habits and ways and explained absences from my life, but they care enough to explain it to me and when we disagree it doesn't change the love.

and so, i turned to my friends.

i called my ex who recently came back into my life after 10 years, and told her that i needed a distraction. i asked her to dress in a fashion that made it look like she was less than respectable, and come get me in her flashy BMW, she agreed. good god she's hot, i took pics of my night which i'll add to the thousands on my Picasa feed if anyone cares to see her. then again, the only person who ever claimed to read this blog seems to have decided to never read it again today, so i guess there's no rush.

i told another friend who was married what happened via text without much detail... and she was in the middle of spending all day at Six Flags with her children and their classmates. this would leave me a wreck, but without missing a beat she told me she could be home by 5pm and to meet her at her place. another friend called randomly and could tell i was down, i didn't give a lot of details, and without asking he told me he would meet us there after he put his kids to bed.

my ex arrived, and i told her, "listen, my day has been shitty because on some level people leave little but important details out which may or may not be important to others, so you need to know why i asked you to escort me around tonight...". i just explained that i was down because of the loss i felt enough to guarantee she was informed enough to know what was going on.

after all, honesty is important, the key details were there, and the details of the disagreement i kept to myself. ha, of course i'm talking about this in a public forum now, but still not in a way to embarrass anyone.

and so we went, arrived at my married friend's house where i was welcome without her husband there. shockingly, she is allowed to have single male friends, including ex-boyfriends. she loves me.

then my friend chris called, he was bored, and i told him where i was so he just showed up. his wife had no idea where he was or that he was in the home of a married woman who's husband was not home. oddly this did not matter and really, he just wanted to hang out with his friends. he loves me too.

the night went on, outside just talking trying to distract me, and support me, all of them knowing generally why i was unhappy but none knowing the details which could expose the friend who has done away with me, and not one saying anything negative about me or the friend who had just cast me into the class of people you know just enough to identify in a lineup, but not see in person ever.

i ended up inside getting a drink and my married friend was there with me and asked how i was doing. i told her, and the key statement which hurt me the most that day. she replied, "real love never goes away, i still love my ex boyfriend from college, even though for years i wanted to kill him." i asked if her husband knew, and she said "of course!" and looked at me like the question was crazy.

dan showed up, 12 pack of Corona under his arm, dropping one off in front of me on his way to the garage fridge. two kids and a wife at home, he reached out to me today as he does many days and could tell i needed some friend time so he made that time. he loves me as well.

i live in a messed up world, there's so little formality and so much is inappropriate. a lot of the people in my life drink and smoke and such, and they'll be the first to say something direct and rude and forward... and honest.

the night came to and end, my ex wanted to leave and and my married friend's husband was home. chris and dan were still sitting there with them as we walked to the car. i shook some hands and my ex took my arm hoping to speed up the process as my married friend babbled at dan. after getting 15feet away i sarcastically spewed out one last loud goodbye to her since she hadn't given me a reply.

and right there in front of her husband she said, "bye baby! love you!"

my emollercoaster

I've really only been involved with 4 women in the last decade of my life, and all 4 came back during the last week in one way or another. It's been interesting.

The least damage, well drama, was done by CJR... her only involvement was simply to have suddenly disappeared off my 'friends' list on Facebook, while keeping 2 friends of mine. So be it, I'm not sure what caused her anger, and I'll probably wait a few weeks and re-add her without a problem. After she and I split she got knocked up fairly fast by some boyfriend she didnt keep around long, which confirmed what many speculated: she wanted sperm, not me. After that it wasn't long until she moved 5 hours away, and with the toddler and move, she was quickly out of my life.

Next was AEB, who was with me 10 years ago and clipped me the day after Valentines Day because to her it was obvious I wasn't taking our relationship seriously. She called me out of the blue last Friday and invited me over for a drink. We talked for hours, and in those hours I got to know her ten times better than I did in the months we were together. She's somewhat unhappy now that she's the only gal in her world who's single and childless (and really because its left her bored as the others sit at home), but she also seems to think the idea of settling or going with the willing guy who fits best isn't acceptable. Her biggest point about life when comparing now to then, she really had no idea who she was back then - when she was making all these big decisions she felt she needed to make. Truly ironic... she's now going to help me with a Master Cleanse. She is still completely gorgeous, woah.

And then there was ANI, who lived in St. Louis only briefly and regards it as the worst years of her life. Married and two babies now, she had gone and finished med school, married a doctor, and is now a stay-at-home mom with a growing blog about life and being a mommy. Brilliant - she found her calling and the inner peace she needed, and I'm so proud of her. When we had been together in the past she was in her early 20s and she wanted our relationship to progress fast. She got mad at me once when I scoffed at her ideas for a great wedding pointing out that she was only telling me because she pictured me on the altar with her. It didn't make sense to me, a 22 year old, intelligent, educated women all focused on marriage. In hindsight, there was obviously a hole in her heart she needed filled and like many she felt marriage would fix it. A decade ago she was so eager to fill that empty place in her soul that she made some bad decisions which permanently damaged our romantic relationship, but life moved on. It seems she finally filled it herself and then was able to bring that complete person into a new life. I am so very proud of her, and sadly I bet it will be a long time before she really feels that. But at least via the efforts of a bored friend and Facebook, we have reconnected.

Lastly is my freshest wound, KLV, who just months ago claimed she couldn't go but days without me, that she loved me, and so on... but then repressed it all. She probably caused me the largest heartbreak of my life, but at the same time has been one of my closest friends and my greatest fan (really, I'm hers too). She too has an empty spot in her it seems, but is trying to let others fill it for her. The whole event has left me at a loss, watching this glorious being go through motions and thinking about her words from the past which told me that it wasn't going to make her the happiest she could be. She and I have a friendship which I originally caused her to keep as a secret from her friends and family due to my unwillingness to interact with them... and now must be kept a secret because we are so close that it could threaten her relationship with them. Maybe I caused the problem, and then she perpetuated it for 3 years. But she can't move on to the next stage of her life without coming clean to all the parties involved... if she doesn't, it's just dishonest and a problem waiting to happen. It's all very childish (of both of us), but the results could be childish no matter what. She's a good person who did a simple but threatening thing, and not correcting it now risks her future, and makes our friendship as she describes as 'intense' at times. I refuse to believe a woman that smart can't know how very much I care for her, maybe she doesn't care back as she's told me many times, but maybe she doesn't care enough for the others to come clean to them... I can't tell anymore. All I can do is wait, and hope for a change, hope she does the right thing by all of us so we can all get along as open free adults. Good god, I sound like an Obama commercial.

I have a female friend who will giggle at me and call me names like 'dirty bird' and 'man whore'... but then she quickly corrects herself and tells me that she can't help but love me anyway because no matter what interaction I have with women, I'm honest with them. She finds it surprising at times how blunt and honest I can be, and still have so many in my life. Really, the four examples above are all stories about why honesty hasn't helped, they all moved on, and not all to better places. But if you read the end results, the truth did set them free. It's ironic that women generally look at me as immature fun, but that in the end, it was finding the truth in themselves which gave them what they most needed.

Why do we all do the things we do anyway? All its led me to do is be the fun guy no one respects... no one thinks of me as someone they can come to for advice, everyone is smarter than me in their own eyes. I don't know if its me or them... and in the end, no one reads this blog anyway, ha. But for those of you out there who may have found this by accident, learn from the examples above: find what you need to stand alone, fill any emptiness as best you can, and always be true to everyone you come across. The truth will set you free.

is your life bad?

it's 10am...

I'm in an airport hotel small conference room, with a woman who's a mess, and we're all looking at her. I'm even recording her every move.

wait.

first let's talk about getting here:

I woke up a little after 7am, I felt tired, but I had a job today. It's a freelance gig, given the economy and my location I'll take whatever work I can get. I showered and brushed my teeth, weighed myself (because my life is so horrible that I'm fed too much). Then I loaded my car with the equipment I'd need and headed out.

I had a tire that was almost flat, 7lbs of pressure, I've been refilling it every day. Ugh, I really need 4 new tires, one estimate was $700. There was a time when I'd blow $700 in a night on shots for friends and barely notice it.

Now, I'm one of those people who was so poor when the economy went bad in 2008 that I didn't even notice, my girlfriend was buying most of our meals, my car has problems I don't get checked out... hell, I almost lost it to repossession at one point. Then in 2009 I got one job - ONE - and it was a modeling gig for license free photos... no residuals. With all that came the usual depressing things in life; family problems, friend problems, and relationship issues that bordered on Springer outtakes at times.

So there I was, pulling down my street to get to Manchester Road, then on to Lindbergh which should take me north to this meeting. I knew on Lindbergh would be a gas station which would have a free air to fill the tire. I made the turn from the busy Manchester and on to Lindbergh which is like a small highway in my part of town.

I looked ahead and on the other side of the road was a black SUV, a large one, a nice one. I was in Huntleigh, an expensive part of town just a mile from my home where corporate leaders and other wealthy live, and this car fit... but why was this woman pulled over? Why was she out of her car and walking along the shoulder?

Fractions of a second later I was closer, I still couldn't tell what was wrong with her car, but she was going to have to walk past what looked like a large possum dead on the shoulder... then, she feel to her knee.

In that second I realized it wasn't a possum, it was a dog. Must have been her dog, which I assume got loose, and made its way to the busy road, was injured and died alone after making it to the edge, and found by its owner in the middle of rush hour. As I sped past, I could still see her emotion and misery.

Dogs get out, they get loose, it happens.... and you look for them, usually they return. This one did not. And, as someone who's lost - and found - a dog, and later had to put it down from old age, I understand the loss. But to have the sudden loss after what I'm sure was a time of hope while looking, there on the side of the road.

For the next few miles, I could only stare into the traffic lost in what I had just witnessed. Sure, it was just a dog, but any decent person who's loved a family pet can understand the shock in what I'd been a part of.

I made it to the gas station and filled the tire, and got to the hotel for my job. A woman had been injured in some kind of accident, and a set of medical and psychological tests needed to be administered by an expert for he purpose of display in court. It was my job to video tape this for public record.

It wasn't as bad as I thought, the medical exam was not invasive, and the setting is fairly docile. But the woman is 29, married 5 years, 2 children and from a small town.

My ex-girlfriend is her age, the ex who's done nothing but complain to me about our great friendship now being too invasive because she has a new boyfriend, and while she's kept our friendship a secret from him and her entire family, now she's got a problem with it.... this is the one who wasn't getting what she wanted from us and was nearly in tears over it some time ago. Her clock was ticking, and her job had become overbearing, and blah blah blah.

The woman on my camera had the husband and kids... and then poof. Now she's in a re-inforced wheelchair, her left hand is now in a permanent state of contorted paralysis, her husband is unable to hold down a job because he must be home to take care of their children and now his wife.

I'm so poor... I'm a man with a master's degree, and I have no money. I have friends who complain about the great bothers in life, overbearing parents and missed opportunities, and issues of ego and aesthetics. Boohoo - you're fat, or you're childless, or your friends don't want to do things, or your career and dreams aren't working out.

Is your dog alive? Can you go for a walk? Can you go for a walk with a furry friend and have a great conversation with a good friend, just one, who really knows you even if all they know includes all your embarrassing shortcomings? Are you free to live your life? What if that ex never has kids, what if i never get rich, what if things don't work out the way you'd like - really, is life that bad?

Yeah, life is annoying when you don't have what the others have, when you don't feel like daddy loves you enough or people don't understand your decisions. But today I'm reminded that while it's good to hope and work for the things you want, we all need to remember how lucky we are.

immediate fail - day 2

well, i made it nearly one day - kind of...

yesterday went as planned, starvation, etc... and i went to the gym today, starved myself all day, made it all the way to around 7pm when i was informed by a guy i know what we aren't really friends in reality if we aren't friends on Facebook. this is the same guy who told me we couldn't be friends on Facebook unless I made sure not to be friends with people he didn't approve of.

he then wanted to go to dinner, i thought i'd find a time to talk to him about it, but the conversation was basically all about our friend who's obsessing with the bf... so...

yeah, ugh, time to lock down my Facebook account - and to think, there was a time when i didn't think i'd ever really have a problem with stalkers.

ok, so tomorrow is friday, i'm hoping to get up early and starve to sunday...

ash wednesday - day 1 - lent 2010

i got up early (for me) and got to 8am mass, got the ashes, and didn't eat all day. i swung by the parent's house to check on them, then came back to the Skanktuary to go through the 2months of mail left here from living with the them while mom recovered.

i owe a higher power for pulling my mom through it all - a quadruple bypass, with valve replacement - and then, oops, an emergency aortic resectioning on the table when they found hers to be calcified (that required them to freeze her into hibernation). i ended up living with the 'rents for the whole thing, cooking, cleaning, laundry, driving, etc. totally worth it, though it nearly fried my mind, but i need to get back to chicago and back to acting.

40 days of lent, 1 day down. i'm going to fast for lent as my sacrifice, and because i need to lose weight anyway. yesterday was a gratuitous orgy of consumption for me, starting in an office that had their own soda tap (not to mention a full bar), then McD's for lunch, and a gluttonous amount of homecookin, beer, and more soda for dinner at Muzzy's house. her husband is a lucky man, that gal can cook!

so - first and foremost, no soda - then, no booze - then no crappy food - then... assuming i live through all that, i'm going to hit the gym daily, do the workout set i have on DVD every day but sunday (not because its lent, but because that's the 'rest day')... and because my photographer will want it, i'll tan too, m-w-f. it will start off slow, this week will be focused on me, monitor the parents and their needs from afar (because their house is a carb farm), getting back into a schedule with the gym, and cleaning around the house. MONDAY will be when i get the DVDs and the tanning into things as well. basically, i'm getting back into my 'pre-shoot' routine... which sucks until you get into the swing of it all. worst of it all is that it can completely alienate me from the people in my world as they'll want to drink and eat and drink more... but, i'll just take it 'one day at a time', and do what i do in the past, get it running, then get out and behave when i'm in the swing... it will take a few days.

i was good today, the only thing that went in my mouth was water... it was ash wednesday, so i went for the full starve. it wasn't too hard, but i've done it for many days in the past. i have a wicked headache, i'm assuming its the withdraw from the caffeine that i sucked in happily with all the soda - mmmmm - so good. i havent been hungry though, and i know from the past that if i keep myself flush with water there's almost no hunger at all. thus, the game starts. if i'm alone its fairly easy, but when i did this last the bigger issue was my friends wanting to hit the bars and booze it up. i think i can avoid that since i egged a few key players to do something similar for lent, we'll see how that goes, at least they're giving it a try, or claiming they will try, eventually most of them will want to get out and be loud and difficult to handle when you're not/barely eating and not drinking... and finding alternatives can be rather difficult.

i do have one friend that was a healthy alternative until she got a boyfriend 2 months ago and has stopped hanging out with me, sure there are extra reasons relating to insecurity... but after mom's surgery, my requests for her help, having to wait 3 weeks for her to offer a night to do so, then having her skip it to hang with the bf, then go ice skating with him the next night, then bake for and go to a party the night after that, then wait 3 more days to actually follow through... i'm fairly sure she actually is one of those people who puts the validation of a relationship in front of friends. however, with all her denials and propaganda was yet another offer to hang out this sunday... and i'd asked her to think of me on sundays since it seems that's the day least likely for her to come up with 'other plans'. SO - as i joked with her before today that i'd be restricting my eating to only the days when she's got time away from the bf the marrieds who magically got her the bf who fit in perfectly with them (as i predicted) - maybe that'll be my plan... i'll eat again on sundays, assuming she's there.

she used to read my blog, i'm thinkin she doesn't have time for such things anymore, so i'm going to post this now so i can't point it out when we get to Easter and i have the fun of pointing out that nearly another 2 months went by - awesome. she'll probably respond with something about me not understanding how a relationship works - and thank god i dont, nor do any of my happily married friends who can oddly find time away from their significant others all the time. either way, its an awesome excuse, nothing motivates me more than making a point.

actually, i'll be surprised if anyone reads this blog - i never understood these thing really, i think i do it on some level to journal for myself - BUT - if i'm able to get myself back in shape, or just flat out go manorexic, i can point to this and tell people that i warned them

mobile blogging

soon I will lose my MobileMe account and go all Google... let's see how me iPhone handles the blog posts...



and, this is a pic of Chris on Larrys love lounge...





this is my view right now... ok, all tests complete

-- I posted from my iPhone