Category Archives: Feeling it

Something different – Happy Thanksgiving

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I started a new med for depression and anxiety and my world has really changed. I am feeing much more balanced and much like my old self. If you only knew me well enough to see what that change was like, but I was not in a good place for a long while. I think many of my posts over recent years has really shown that. 

This week was something special for me too. Last week my partner (aka Waffles) went to L.A. for a few days and a good friend of mine stayed here and we spent a lot of time together. I got to decompress in ways I did not know I needed. Having Matt here was refreshing and made me feel appreciated. I also got some time to reflect on myself and realize some things about myself and about Waffles. 

There have been some things that have been rising to the surface and seeing them through Matt’s eyes was a bit of an eye opener. In some ways the break, and having someone else around, was a revelation. There are things about my Waffles that I thought I saw, but was not sure of. And being aware, I feel safer and better for it. 

I might be less crazy than I thought. I might have less shame about myself than I thought. I care more, but I am more empathetic to the world around me. If this sounds like riddles, then so be it. But, my world had brightened and I am very grateful for it. 

Nice who what?

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As I was writing this post I took this picture. This t-shirt says a lot… yikes.

Today a lady at the Safeway looked me in the face and told me I had beautiful eyes. We both smiled, I said thank you, and we moved in opposite directions. I saw another lady and we smiled at each other too. It was a very sweet and nice encounter.

Little do any of them know I that when I was driving to the market, my skin was crawling with anxiety and I could feel myself almost reeling. I was certain something horrible was going to happen. At least, probably caused by me. Maybe me acting like a jerk even if I did not mean it. But, I was aware of the creeping feeling and kept it reigned in. 

I asked myself, why did I have to try so hard to be cool on the outside even when I was running around like chicken-little on the inside. Why was that energy expended on staying in control. Today I might not know the answer. But glad I kept my shit together. 

Time of change

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I am thinking it is time for some changes and I am not sure how far they need to go. I have, in the past, gone too far without knowing where to stop. I am working with what is in front of me. So I have to figure out how to do what I am planning on doing. Try this…

I need to weed out the people who are doing nothing in my life. – me

So, I am thinking it’s time to purge Facebook and time to trim down on my social networks. I mean, I know a lot of people but I literally barely have any friends. And, almost NO ONE to hang out with. Thankfully I have been able to hang with Scooter and Chris and things are good in that area. But, no one to go out and do stupid things I like to do. 

Not that any of that will necessarily change with the purging, but it is time to focus on the things that are good and healthy for me. And a big part of the last 20 years has been a series of decisions that have not been all that healthy. 

So, here is to working out what those things will be and see what I do about it by writing it here. 

This thing… it’s awful (trigger warning)

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the man in the mirrorLet me start off with a trigger warning on this one, because I am talking about suicide and death. This subject has been on my mind and if you have not been able to tell from my recent posts about Burning Man this year, then you have not really been paying attention. 

Last week I found out someone I knew was killed when he was hit by a car. I hear he was killed instantly and did not suffer. The loss of someone who shined that bright in the world really bummed me out. We were not friends in my definition of friends, but we were comfortable with each other to be very friendly. He was, in my opinion, a bright light in the world. 

Flashback to the beginning of the year when another soul I saw a a tremendous and brilliant light in my universe was taken away because of a heart attack brought on by drug use. His college age daughter came into my work a couple weeks ago and gave me an amazing hug. When the person in the previous paragraph news hit me I think I was transported back when I found out when person B was lost. 

Add that there are a lot of people around me suffering because of recent suicides that were planned out. I feel the heart-ache from these friends and see the pain of losing those people. 

Add to that these cheesy messages crudely attempting to reach out to people who are thinking about suicide:

If you or someone you know has talked about contemplating suicide,
call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at:
1-800-273-825

Maybe these appeal to people who are triggered and not sure of they want to end it all. Recently, people in my universe seem to be planning it out and that is not the customer who is calling these numbers above. 

I would never call one of those numbers. I think calling Walmart Customer Service would be more enticing. That!.. would surely kill me. 

I can tell you how close I was to being one of them. But the thing that keeps me from doing it is the faces of the loved ones who around me. To think about hurting any of them is more than I could endure in life or death. I firmly believe in leaving this world better than when you arrive and I strive to do that everyday. I fail at it tremendously sometimes. But… I get back up and push on. 

I wanted to get this off my chest. I firmly believe no one will read this. Nor is anyone really paying attention to my blog. All these years of waaaah and whine hardly appeal to people today. And it should be noted while I blog more when in a funk I am often in a lovely place! Thank you for… well nothing. No one reads me. 

Getting back to the flow… or a new flow

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Last night’s post was very liberating for me because there was a sense of catharsis. Also, people coming out of Burning Man have been messaging me about the exodus. It was six hours for most people. Gratefully, I drove straight out with nothing in the way. I think there were 2 cars on the road when I left. Thank goodness.

Still putting things away from my week at Burning Man. But, most of it is away. The deep and dark feelings have been getting some attention and hopefully not pity. It was hard to open up on those things and I am still feeling a bit raw about it. I feel changed to my core, but hopefully changed in a good way. There is still enough broken glass in here that I am managing. 

My days home have gone to good use. Working on feeling better and healing. My feet are much better. My knee is a cunt. My back is … a pain. Achy, distant, stressed and worried about going back to work tomorrow. My brain is still a rotten cabbage. 

So I also decided to dive into a sewing project. This is a kilt (overkilt) I have been planning on for a while. Stay tuned updates.

This week on Scott.2.0

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Pride weekend just happened. I made an effort to break a habit of locking myself in at home. I wanted badly to volunteer and help the Comfort & Joy folks with setup with their big party for pride, which of course would get me access to the event. I was happy to help. In fact, seeing the people and being engaged was 50% of the best part. The other 50% was just being there. 

Pride Weekend for me

I had to go through an internal dialog about being open. I needed to find a space to open up myself to experiences and people and it was harder than I expected. With that, meant being present and not fucked up. With that, meant meeting old friends and new ones. It also meant not letting the inner-saboteur take over. I had a great time and got to have quality time in a lot of different ways. 

Post Pride

Sunday I did lock myself in at home and stayed in in spite of my desire to be out. Sounds like I made a better decision given the chaos happening in San Francisco. I might have missed out on something in Oakland, but choices. I cooked. I did some errands… life is good.

Monday

I got to see my old roommate from Las Vegas who appeared out of nowhere. She happened to be in town and we grabbed some wine and nibbles at the Blush Wine Bar in the Castro. We talked a lot and shared some old memories. 

Tuesday

A dear dear friend of mine from Las Vegas wandered into my workplace. I was absolutely blown away! He is someone who was very special to me back there and we drifted apart for some reason. Because I moved away? Because I had an issue with his partner at the time? None the less, he has someone new and fantastic in his life. 

Today (Wednesday)

I am hosting a Diversity, Inclusion and Equity event for my non-profit online. One of the people on that call is another dear friend from Las Vegas. I am feeling a theme happening this week… right? It is a good thing on Eventbrite and Zoom we are doing tonight. 

Lots of updates to the website here

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I have been updating this site with my galleries and other things. Not sure exactly why, but maybe I see it as some kind of legacy? I have a lot of plans to fix all the categories and tags and make it a little cleaner, Because, frankly, everything on here is a assembly of 3 sites to one that talked about different aspects of my life. 

I do not quite understand why many of my older galleries are showing duplicates of different pictures. But I will say this new Nexcellent Gallery systems is the bomb. It is a huge leap from what it used to be. I may buy into it this time to be able to do more. 

Analytics: I see there are more people happening into this site. I wish I knew who it was… but interesting that traffic is starting to develop. 

Say hi if you are reading stuff. 

Sunday again… a holiday weekend

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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?
  • will I become my mother? I mean, I am scared.

Hey Blog

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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 did a thing last month! I hosted a web broadcast and it was pretty cool the way it turned out. I am the founder and chair of Queerburners, a non-profit for LGBTQAI Burning Man participants. It went really well and I have three more planned and possibly two more as well. Check our www.queerburners.org for more details.
  • 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.

Rants completed.

New Therapy

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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.