I took this picture last night. I needed it for something.
Today I stayed home all day and though I kept myself busy with stupid things, I sulked again. I let my monkey brain wander through a forest of bad feelings and focus how lonely I feel a lot of the time. I focused on all the things I was missing out on, though I did nothing to resolve that situation. And why not go here or there…? Who wants to hang around me?
I have become this sad old fat man who does not feel good about himself on any level. I see myself as someone who is miserable, so if I hang with other people in this dark form, I will make them miserable.
There are antidots for that feeling, none of which I am willing to take on right now. Fake ways to make myself tolerable and forget the things that are making me worry so much. But, I have no desire to bury those things in booze or other things to cover the other feelings up.
Exercise could be a good solution, if only I could manage to make that happen. It is simply a matter of doing and overcoming the things in my way. The act of doing requires the first step and I have lost my footing and my path.
Sigh.
I have no voice. I have no tribe around me anymore and it feels very lonely.
I have several worries today
are some of the medications I am taking fucking my head up and sending me down a road of early dementia?
am I holding my partner back from a better life or is he propping me up for mine?
I promised myself I would write here more. The trick is not to let this become a place of non-stop complaining. There was a long period where I think that, that was all that was coming out of me. So, I think I am going to riff a little while and see where this goes.
The editor I hired to look over my book that I spent a few years working on has completely dropped the ball and admitted he was never going to get it done. There was the suggestion of a refund, but I am not convinced. The book does need more work, but I am finishing up a sequel to it now. Which is really helpful because I can further assess out some of the longer term plot points and characters I was using. Book 1 is about 400 pages, Book 2 is starting to get close to 600.
The universe is yelling at me to make some changes, and I keep holding back. It will kick my ass if I do not heed the clear messages I am getting. I have never been afraid to make leaps of faith. The truth is it has generally worked in my favor to jump. The biggest things holding me back are my age and the fact I do not want to stress out my CMonster.
I have been trying to lose weight. I have been dieting and watching what I eat. I have been drinking a lot more water, less coffee, reduced sugar. In the scope of things, animal proteins down 90% and eliminating wheat as much as possible.
eliminating wheat has reduced inflammation in my joints and reduced my pain significantly
same with meat, taking out all poultry, almost all pork, almost all beef made me feel much better….
but, in the last couple weeks I noticed sugar and meat were sneaking back in and it is time to slap that down again
Our apartment is lovely. We are so blessed. We are talking about moving far way. It is looking pretty serious now. Might be time to leave the bay area.
I have been blessed with some social things this week and feeling a bit more connected to the world. It has been a long time and I was really feeling very alone once again. Like, no one wanted to hang out. It’s been weird, but I think a lot of people felt that way.
Last Thursday hanging out at Ocean Beach for a Sunset burn and celebrating an early birthday with Bern
Breakfast with my friend and fellow weirdo Craig at Orphan Andy’s in Castro
Last night in the Laurel with Scoot and Propeller sitting around a lovely fire
Eager to hang out socially at Power House or the SF Eagle. But, seriously hung up on my weight and health right now. I am genuinely worried that if I do not get a hold on it that I am as good as dead.
You know when people are close to you pass on, I have a theory that it is death getting closer and closer until death finds you or someone else close by to take. So close sometimes. I have got to get my health back.
I started with a new therapist 2 weeks ago. The intake conversation left me in a very bad place. I was stunned how much she threw me off my center. The missing part of the equation, I did not know that was the kind of appointment we were going to have. I had no idea I had been assigned a psychologist.
It really took me more than a week to get hold of myself and I went into today’s appointment stating my needs. If you are going to open pandoras box, please close it when you are done. In the end, we left today in a good place. There was nothing earth shattering or new that came out of it.
I have had a lot of problems with a majority of the mental health people I had to work with at the V.A..
the first time I did this in San Francisco I met a shrink that was weird, in the course of the evaluation I felt really weird when it was done. She assigned me to a psychologist.
the psychologist was a full blown nut-bag. That put me off of Ft. Miley altogether on the subject.
the next person was a social worker who took me through something called CBTs, but there was a weird thing with him that we got along really well and it got in the way – big time. It really put me in a bad place.
moving on to a new facility, when I was finally diagnosed with PTSD. It was a diagnosis that FINALLY put me in a good place, but the journey was super hard. This time, the weight was on me. I really had a hard time and the guy that walked me through the CPTs was amazing, professional and a great guy. And now the journey is just continuing.
After that, when I got that diagnosis, broke my world a little. That was in 2019 (as I recall). I found people around me that took advantage of that distress. There are 2 people from my job that saw that weakness and did things that broken me was not able to deal with very well.
My PTSD comes from a couple different sources. There is a lot of childhood trauma sexual abuse. Then in 2016 here in San Francisco I was sexually assaulted again. A lifetime of struggling with my baggage and bad decisions and somehow I managed to survive to this day.
I can see my shortfalls but sometimes I cannot help but drive into the wall.
An interesting, if not maddening, decision resulted in the importing of my previous posts over the last 20 years of blogs being migrated this new one, but the images did not follow it. A shit ton of images that I for some reason did not manage to migrate over before deleting the old site. I will see if I can fix that, but not very hope-filled with that result.
The new editing format is also a huge challenge, although WordPress is telling me I have more control over the content. I am not seeing that to be 100% true. I do like the layout of this site a little more. It does feel constraining and is not really as friendly as it suggests.
None the less I find myself getting mired down while I have a hundred other things I want to be doing today. Not the least of them is getting out of the apartment and enjoying this day. I promised myself more. And the other new web site I made www.teabagcult.com is also in need of a lot of love.
So, I took the blogging entries from my other site UrielsJournal.Com and imported them into this one. It will make letting those old sites go a lot easier and trying to decide what the future is for this one. My old art site exploded years ago and it is going away, too.
I am writing my first post in my new blog. Having an online blog is something I have had for very many years. My previous version was at www.UrielsJournel.com. That web site is going to go away this year and I am going to start a new journey moving forward. The thing is… I am not exactly sure how that is going to become.
The place I am in now, at this moment, is new. It is the same for many of us who went through the last 2 years. I would say that in 2018 I broke… like full on broke and for about 2 years I was living in a weird hell full of privilege and anxiety. When my mom and step dad started having serious medical issues was in that year. I had no one but my partner to talk to about what it was that I was going through. It was lonely, frustrating and sad at the same time.
Then in 2019 we found a new home in Oakland and it is really lovely. It is also really far from things that can get me in trouble, far from places I would hang out at (also trouble), and yet near to some newer people I have started to really care for.
So, lets see where this goes. UrielsJournal started to turn into a place to complain and I do not want this to go in the same direction.
Today is Tuesday, which is my Monday at my job. It’s really no different than most days, other than I know I will likely be busy-ish for the first part of the day and then the second half I have to sit at the door. I have to greet people, tell them thank you for shopping at Cliffs, and make sure they are wearing the right kinds of masks. Also, make sure nothing is leaving unpaid. Pretty basic. I am being paid a wage that fits the job… I think. All good, right?
The weight of depression and anxiety is really debilitating and feels like a huge weight on my chest. Looking out from within I keep looking for a ledge to grasp on to to keep myself moving forward. Some constants like showing up to work is the firmest foundation I have. Making sure I meet my partners needs at home (food, general house care, etc) is another.
BUT, looking out there is a monster inside that looks at that second paragraph and keeps pointing out the flaws and what it thinks I need to do. That broken Id, is a crotchety, angry old fart who keeps saying they know better. It wants me to quit this job full stop. It wants me to just take a break. Like a big break. It tells me I can survive without the illusion that I HAVE TO KEEP this job.
But that voice has been right and wrong. That voice is not a healthy thing right now. There is a lot of weight on my neck with mourning, remorse, regrets and a growing fear of social situations that is literally killing me.
Most recently I found out someone I really care about has cancer.
The fallout with my mom is still really upsetting and I cannot feel safe backing up into that lane again.
I still keep wondering if there was a way to be in a better place with my biological family, even though that is and was – unlikely.
Is my partner and I really good for each other? This January will be 10 years long.
I feel like a glob of solid lard. I have been unable to get out and get exercise. I have been unable to go to the gym, and I am paying a gym membership, but I am just stuck in a mode like my feet are sinking in mud. I do think about what it would be like to not have those worries any more.
There was a turn of events that began somewhere around 2016 or 2017 that started changing how and the ways I was interacting and engaging the Burning Man community. I slowly was becoming more and more of an outsider. I have questioned myself if it was my own doing or was I reacting to something else. I got involved in community leadership too fast and took on more responsibility and ownership than I ever needed or should have. That’s on me.
My last posts were around 2015. At least here and not so much on my personal blog.
What I would like to do is fall in love with Burning Man as an event again. Because, right now, the idea of wading into the community at something I did not create gives me such a sense of anxiety it is paralyzing. Covid may have added to that manifest, but it was there before.
What I need to do is feel trust within the Burning Man Organization. So much has happened over the last 14 years. As much as I have tried to be a force for good, some people have put me in a different bucket or just do not see me at all. I have tried to do the good fight with standing up for people who were not being heard, and have not lived up to my own standards; which might have been skewed anyway. I have seen and heard terrible things from them. And I need to learn to let it go and move forward.
I have missed the last 2 years at Black Rock City. I needed a break in 2020 which was planned. But that turned into 2021. And if you saw the things that happened in 2021, then you have to know it looked amazing. Now I am waiting for the aftermath.
Covid infections?
LEO blowback
MOOP recovery… who is cleaning up after this?
But, I just stared at the live cams that were there and was in awe. I nearly backed up the car last week and just left.
My future in this community is still some very soft clay. I am sitting at the wheel waiting to see what life I can make with it. Thank you for reading this if you did…
I have been thinking about an entry like this for a long time. Truth be told, I have been stuck in a place that has recently been making it harder to move forward with. They say, if you are looking back at your regrets you can’t be looking ahead to your future. And at my age my future is not the longest road left to travel.
But there are some points in the road that are places that I wish with all my heart I could go back and make a different decision. The truth is also, I might not be the same person I am now had I gone a different way. The person I am today is basically good and loving of other people.
My Military Service
The best single decision I made in my life was joining the Air Force when I was 17 years old on Nov 17th, 1982. I woke up one day, having never considered it before, and enlisted. By the following summer I was off to basic training. I loved my life there, even if it was hard, because I was a gay guy. But the regret comes when I decided to leave and took an early out in 1989 after 6 years. I should have stayed. I should have buckled down and been focused on my future, but I was too stupid to know what an amazing and good thing I had.
Bad choices were an ongoing theme of following my feelings and not what was really best for me. From a kid who grew up not really dealing with his feelings well at all. I had a lot of unhealthy life choices throughout my life and that was a big one.
That time for me was monumental. It was also my first time dealing with mental health issues. I was in a place where I was alone and felt so untethered as a young queer guy in Germany. It was the era of Ronald Reagan and the slow burn toward the end of the cold war. AIDS was in full bloom but I was miles away from it.
I knew the rules. They had to prove it. I lived my life. No harm. No foul. I left thinking the world was my oyster.
(Note: I wrote the above portion a month ago and it made me so wound up I had to step away. Anytime I take a dive into my own brain I really end up feeling very shaken in the end. It has also left me questioning a lot of personal choices and doubting my own feelings.)
My Relationship with my Sister (Lynn)
In spite of the very many things I wrote about in the past. In spite of the few short-sighted attempts to make some kind of reconciliation with my biological sister, I wish I had done a lot of things better with her growing up. We started off really really bad when I accidentally hurt her when we were super young.
Quick Story: I was around the age of 5 and she had to be around 2(?) when we were in the front yard of our house in the San Fernando Valley. Me, my sister, my mom and dad, were in the front yard. Someone tossed a ball and I had a bat to swing. When I did swing… I can still hear the words in my head… “I got it.” I swung the bat and Lynn ran for the ball behind me and the bat hit her right in the mouth.
I can still feel that story today. BUT, that is one of many things that happened between her and I over the years. One of my asshole friends whipped out his dick in front of her because he thought it was funny. I told him I did not want him too, but he goaded me into it. Major peer pressure from him and one of my other friends. I felt like a real asshole about that.
So, there were a lot of bad decision moments. She has every right to hate me forever. I have, about once every 5 years I bet, thought maybe we could reconcile and talk over coffee. I think when hell freezes over that could happen.
I was further deluded when my bio-dad and his sister somehow started a relationship again that was a good sign for us as well. The reasons to NOT reconcile have mounted over the years even if we have not talked. She seems to think a falling out with my dad had to do with money. And a falling out with my mom was on the same platform. When the truth was money was only the impetus that there was a problem and I had to step out of the way. Ugh.
(I have no images of me and my family at all. Is that weird? I have the pieces. And not one with the four of us.)
My Parents
If you spent any time I this blog you know there is already a lot there on this subject. I will say that with my mother’s decline of her health starting in 2019 that a lot of things have changed for me. I thought my dad was the blame for a lot of this fucked up dialog in my head. I learned that my mom had a lot to do with it too. Now I regret the place I was at with both of them. But, I do not regret that I had to get away from that toxicity. Check out: Jack, Category: Family Drama, Catergory: NFM (Not For Mom).
Not BEACUSE of my parents. Maybe because I had no structure growing up and any healthy role models. Maybe because I was a Queer kid in a world that did not understand or embrace queer kids? I was a tough ass kid to have as your kid. I was a pain in the ass.
I grew up around an environment always charged with sexuality and phonography. My dad made porn movies as a hobby, had a porn collection that was always accessible. My own life as a kid, I was surrounded by kids AS A KID willing to experiment. It was the 70’s baby. It can make for a fucked up adult.
My parents never had the time to be parents. Whether it was putting food on the table, like for my mom. Or, it was hiding in a safe space with his creative work on top of a full time job, like my dad. He took great care of himself and was able to retire at age 55.
I will be lucky to ever retire. So, in some ways this nut (me) fell off the tree and down the hill into a pile of dung. Wah-wah. That one, is on me. The relationship we are left with today is up to me as well.
Other things
When I was a kid, in the 6th grade, I was hanging out with some wild kids who lived in a creepy house ON Quartz Hill in Quartz Hill, California where I would one day go to High School. We killed a rabbit with a rock. I was about 10/11 at the time. The kid I was with was actually named: Leroy Brown – yes for real. He had some crazy brothers and they were a wild bunch of kids
When I broke up with Adolfo, I thought it was the right time and reasons. I loved him so much. I would have gladly spent the rest of my life with him. We started making some bad decisions and those started mounting with sex and finances and I thought it was the right thing to do. I wished he would have fought to keep us together, because I thought at that moment he was also done with me. We were both wrong.
When I left Las Vegas for California I was trusted by a friend in Vegas with money and I fell on some real tough times and I never paid him back. He said it was just money and forgave me, but I still have not forgiven myself. It was someone whom I really looked up to and was a real amazing paternal figure for me. I can’t redeem myself in my eyes and therefore I cannot redeem myself in his eyes.
4. I was a bad friend to a woman I knew really well in Las Vegas. I let three women from the community get into my head and took on their drama that was not mine. It made me look at people I cared about in a way I did not want to see them. Melissa was a woman of tremendous presence and while she could be a tough-cookie she did not deserve what ultimately ended up happening. Our friendship was lost. I missed her terribly and I said some super shitty things. She is, rightfully so, done with me.
5. I pulled back the curtain on Burning Man. I got involved too quickly and my sense of self-importance grew out of proportion to the facts. It has poisoned my belief in the culture handed down from the governing body of leadership, but it has also not dampened my core belief that there is a vital message at its heart that is very important. You can learn more about my Burning Man Life on the back section of this blog. (As of today: very out of date.)
I tried to short note some of the baggage in my head above. The things that I am hoping I can pull out of my head and let go of. Or I can find a way to restore and repair if at all possible.
Money has been a factor that has popped up in my life a lot as a catalyst for change or growth. I only started actually managing my money in the last ten or fifteen years with care. I still make barely enough to survive. And, in spite of my household income being what it is, I have to live off of what I bring in. I am paid okay but I am still having a hard time making ends meet. And this is nuts!
The title of my biography will be: “Never Good Enough”
I have been accused of being self centered and making some things about me. There have been suggestions that my ego was the controlling force in my decisions. There were times it was true. Honestly, if there were things I wanted to explore and experience there were a lot of times I just created it. Instead of waiting for someone else I just did it. And if someone wanted to go on the same ride, then I was hopefully doing it right.
I great up with my dad telling me I was worthless and had not value in life. He said those exact words more times that I can count. I was never good enough and never doing the right thing. I was crashing through life with a man who wanted me to smile even if I was dying inside.
I was a fat kid once I got into my later teen years and heard about that a lot. I had a 38″ waist when I was sixteen. The summer between my junior and senior year of high school I lost weight and got into a much better look just like all those high school hottie films.
His words followed me into my adulthood. His words haunted everything I tried to do. When I did fail I was proving him right every time. Each time there was a tiny hint at failure, he was right.
In recent years I discovered that my mom’s voice was part of that too. While helping to manage her and my step-dad for the last 2 years, I discovered she was using a lot of the same language too. Her words, even though they were fueled by fear and loneliness, were tearing apart something inside of me. Nothing I did for her was good enough, and then I began seeing her differently.
I had me mom on a pedestal, one she never deserved to be on. She was a working mom. She survived 3 shitty… I mean shitty… husbands. Like really shitty. She was a survivor and in the end all the wear and tear from the men in her life turned her into someone I realized I did not like very much.
She and I, if we were ever really close, I cannot tell you when. She kicked me out of her house when I was like 13 or something like that. I had to go live with my dad. And from the previous paragraphs you can see how well that went.
I am such a damaged human being. But. I am more aware of who I am, who I want to be, more than ever. I feel helpless in my life for the first time ever at my age, with few job prospects, but with a lot of demons.
I have a shopping list of life regrets I need to deal with. I will. I will. But, I have been on a very special road for being a better me over the last 2 years. I need to keep going.
more as well. Check our www.queerburners.org for more details.
