When The Lights Go Out

I don't know why I'm feeling this unbelievable urge to write. Maybe its something new to do, or maybe its something deeper. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here, but I need an outlet for my anger. If I don't have one, I will snap and end up in this hellhole longer still. So this little yellow legal pad will have to suffice. Nowadays I only find peace in the darkness, solace in the night. The very few hours between the time that the last asshole in here falls asleep, and when the lights come on in the morning... that is my time. The din of this place is unimaginable, their voices like a thousand nails on a thousand chalkboards. Sanity, it seems is truly relative to the person, and this place is sorely lacking. I find myself being drug into their circles if only to maintain a bit of human contact, but every time I ask myself if its truly worth it. The religious hypocrites in this place... ARGH!!! They assault my every sensibility! Surely they can see their own hypocrisy. I can see it... taste it even, its so thick in the air... I can see it in their greedy, self-serving eyes. These self-proclaimed "brothers of the faith" would turn Judas for far less than forty pieces of silver. The mere promise of freedom would turn these men into slavering psychophants at the drop of a hat. Idolaters worshipping at the alter of self-preservation. No, God is truly dead in this place. Replaced by the pack mentality that only the illusion of God will give them the freedom to vent. How I loathe this place and everyone in it!



In my sadistic heart, I can't help but ask myself what my position in the pecking order around here would be if these musings and rants of mine were read by the general population. As it stands I'm accorded a grudging respect and they only come to me when they want to trade or need a favor. I can live with that. I guess one could find it very self-gratifying that when walking through a crowd, people move out of your way, and new inmates are told, "just don't fuck with that guy." However, I have always found it more gratifying when these things were said about me in reference to my intellectual side. Alas, there's no risk of that happening in this cesspit. The shallow end of the gene pool is quite well represented in this place. I just want to leave... is that such an improbable thing to wish for? I think that I've given my due. This punishment is far from ordinary, its quite extraordinary. My greatest fear is what this will do to Julia and I. I don't doubt that she loves me, and I love her just as much as I always have. But I'm not the same person that came into this place... the man she fell in love with. I have no idea if these changes in personality will outlast my incarceration. And if they do... for how long? Long enough for her to fall out of love with me??? Or will her presence do to me what it always has, and breathe life back into the corpse that is my soul? My mind is atrophied, my soul turned black yet again. My AIM screen name, FortunadoTheFool is truly ironic now. I think I finally know how poor Fortunado felt as Montressor hemmed him into his niche, brick by brick. Alone, confused, scared. Helpless to do anything, yet strangely defiant, as I am. So, acknowledging how helpless I am, I keep the snarl on my face. This situation is big and daunting, but I am MASSIVE. I spit in its eye.

heh... you won't beat me.

Random Thoughts - from my mind tornado

So much has gone on in the last two weeks. If it had happened a few years ago, I probably would have snapped and seriously hurt someone, or tried to go base jumping without a parachute. So many thoughts rolling around in my head its hard to keep them straight... but every once in a while, one will pop out and and I can focus on it for a few mins. I wont focus on my problems in this blog, I'm tired of thinking about my problems. So I'll discuss some things that I know that I will be drug into eventually, involving my family. My little sisters husband told her he didnt want her OR his children anymore a few monthst ago. My father called me right after my sister did, told me to calm down and not do anything stupid, that he would handle everything. They worry about things like this since I beat my other sisters husband with a golf club a few years back. (He hit her and he deserved everything he got.) Anyway, my Dad came down, loaded all her stuff up in a U-Haul and took her and her two kids to live with him and my stepmom. They stipulated that she had to get a job and help keep the house clean, no problem. Fast forward to a few days ago when my grandma calls me and tells me that they are kicking my sister(Heather) out and that she is coming to the beach to live with my grandparents. Apparently the reason that she is getting kicked out is that my stepmother got tired of listening to babies cry and that she had just had surgery on her back and she didnt think that she could handle having the kids there while she recovered. In my opinion she just didnt want them there because the doctors took her off her morphine perscription that she's been on for the past six months. I was on morphine for five days once, and the withdrawals that I had kept me in the hospital an extra four days... so I can only imagine the hell that she is going to endure. But still... it ticks me off really bad, that Heather followed their every instruction, and still gets the boot. Now she has to relocate, find a new job... start all over again. It can be a hassle, I know, I've done it plenty of times... and it is never fun. I feel sorry for her, because I know that my father and stepmother will feel justified in their decision to kick her out, because nothing that any of us kids have ever done has ever been good enough for them... they are tough love parents, but sometimes I think they take it a little too far, and my sisters dont exactly have the amount of self confidence that I do. I know how bad that my sister is hurting right now, and it hurts me that I cant help her. I usually, no... I ALWAYS stay out of family drama because I think its just petty bullshit, and thats the main reason that I rarely talk to my family anymore, I dont feel like fending off their repeated attempts to drag me into their bullshit. But I dont know if I will be able to hold my tongue on this issue, and I know that I will get dragged into. My grandmother has already told me all about it from my sisters side, and I just got done listening to a voicemail from my Dad... this was it, verbatim:

"Son, this is your Dad. I'm sure you've already talked to Granny. Gimme a call, we need to talk."

I'm really wondering wether or not I can hold my tongue, because I know that I'm going to call and he's going to start the conversation by airing his list of grievances with my sister, and I desperately don't want to get in this, but I will say something if he starts in on the topic. On the flipside of all this, my Dad and I get along fairly well, its more of a grudging respect thing than anything else, and if I dont call him, then that puts our truce to an end. I would rather not have that happen, but I feel it may be the lesser of two evils at the moment. It always seems that my family is on the verge of splintering apart, one day I think it will. The shitty thing is that I'll have ringside seats, but I wont get involved. And it will break my heart.

Facts of Life

Fact 1: Anytime spent in jail, no matter HOW brief, sucks harder than a three dollar tiajuana hooker.

Fact 2: Being unable to talk to Julia for more than 24 hours straight is like a blackout to my soul.

Oh well.

I cant do it. I cant bring myself to leave my kids so soon. Thats all for now.

Its Time.

Well, I've made up my mind. I'm getting out of this town. Hopefully in two weeks time, I will be in Tuscaloosa, with Julia. I've decided that this town isnt worth it, and if I stay here, I'll be no good to my daughters anyway. So I'm leaving. I already talked to my boss about transferring to the hotel there. I have a roommate lined there, and Julia is there. Its not quite perfection... but it will most assuredly do for now.

Angry.

I got really mad the other day, to the point that I scared myself. I was online with Julia, and she's probably the only reason that I didn't do something stupid. That day it seems, was a drop in the bucket... I'm so mad right now, I don't know how much I can type my hands are shaking so. What I'm mad at is personal, and frankly none of your business, so don't bother asking. If you know already, then you know... and you were meant too. If not... then I don't know you. I just need something to vent to, and Julia had to leave, so here we are. I don't know how much longer I can stay here, this town is turning me into a person that I don't want to be. I feel trapped here, suffocated almost by somewhere that I truly don't want to be, were it not for my daughters, definately wouldn't be. Am I a bad person for wanting to move away from my daughters? Would I be a responsible parent staying close them, and having my soul get darker and darker, to the point where I wouldn't want to be around them anyway? I'm literally to the point where I want to throw my shit in a bag and start walking... I dont care where anymore, I just want out of here. The only thing keeping me sane right now is my daughters hugs, Julia's smile, and my friends on Comms... who are always there 24/7.

But I have to leave soon... otherwise I'm going to be a changed man, and I was just starting to like the man I had become.

Cross Your Fingers

Well, I talked to Rob today... seems he's been out of town, and didnt get my message about the air conditioner being broke until this morning, we talked this evening and he's bringing over a tank of freon, so I can refill our unit. If he forgets, I will start down the warpath... I'm tired of sweating INSIDE my house, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay out the ass for some liquid. He's a friend, I've done plenty of favors for him, now its time to pony up... today has been wierd... I dont think I've felt this... disembodied, in a long time. Its just like I'm going through the motions of work, and living... but its not really me. I dont know how to explain it really. Thats it for now, I guess.

Fuck This Shit.

Its hot outside, but thats ok... because I'm inside, right? WRONG. Its hotter in here than it is outside at the moment, why is that you may ask? Well... our AC unit is low on Freon, a simple fix really... except that the shit is so expensive and the one person whom I know that has some, hasn't returned my repeated phone calls... so I turn the unit off every four hours, chip the ice off the coolant lines, and wait for the coils to defrost... just to get another eight hours of cool blissfulness. Meanwhile, this house turns into a sauna, almost instantaneously... to top it all off, I went to sleep late, and woke up with a BLINDING headache, which I have nothing to take for. This has been a truly marvelous day... and I say that honestly, because without the truly shitty days, you can never enjoy the good ones.



On reflection.... scratch that, fuck today. (Except this morning, that was cool) Jenn says to blame the south.... I'm inclined to agree.

Decisions... Decisions...

So here I am, its midnight, and my two yr old daughter is asleep next to me in my bed. I am content. For those of you that dont know me or my situation, lets just say its complicated... laughable even. But, to make a long story short, my exwife needed a place to stay, and theres no way I'm going to let my daughters be put out on the street. So here we all are, living together, again.

Aside from the fact that I have a girlfriend who lives four hrs away, and and exwife who lives with me... I am as I said above, content. I forgot how much my daughters mean to me, I think. How much I miss seeing them, and holding them. Dont get me wrong, I'm able to see my daughters whenever I want to, my exwife(Naomi) has always been gracious in that respect, and for that I thank her. But it doesnt hold a candle to having your children in the same house as you.

And here is my dilemma... Naomi has been offered a job in Columbus, about an hour north of here. While that in itself is a good thing for her... it takes my kids farther away from me than they were previously. Naomi had a solution for this, yes we're divorced, but lets get a place together and split the rent. Fantastic! Except.... Julia. I know Julia said that she didnt have a problem with it, me and Naomi moving in together, and this move would actually put me closer to her. But I just cant help but think about how I would feel if she had been previously married, and suddenly wanted to move in with her exhusband.... I trust her implicitly, but what would my mind be thinking day in and day out... would that sour our relationship before it ever got a chance to take off, all these little, tiny nagging doubts? Not much on their own... but when they add up, would they be too much for me? for her? Now... on the flipside, I desperately want to be close to my children, but the company I work for isnt represented in the town that we're discussing here... so I would have to leave the career that I had started and move to another company. So many things going through my head right now... I just needed to see some of them in front of me... I guess.

Julia.

Yes... it is Monday, but this post is about events that have been coming to a head for about a week now.

Ya know what... I just got done writing 5 paragraphs about my exwife and roommate, but I deleted it. I'm going to talk about something really important to me, something that truly deserves my attention, my girlfriend... Julia.

Most people in my life consider me an asshole. For the most part, this title is well-deserved. But this blog isnt about me, its about the one who makes me want to be everything but an asshole. I met her over the Internet, I'll pause to let the laughing die down..... finished? good. Without delving into the whole romance, she has very quickly become the light of my life, and my reason for being. I'm not an angry person. It really takes a whole lot to get me angry to the point of me showing my anger, but when it gets to that point, you should probably walk away quickly. I've had a lot of things happen to me in the last year that have severely strained my coping skills with humanity in general. I found myself getting more and more aggressive. It was getting to the point that... I didnt even want to go out anymore, I was afraid of what might happen. Then I met Julia. Now... Julia is not like any of my other friends (with the exception of one or two online friends). Most people that I hang out with are very sarcastic, they pride themselves on their dry sense of humor, and their razor wit. But not Julia... she's sweet, caring, bashful, beautiful, intelligent... so many words come to mind, and god... how her eyes sparkle. Looking into her eyes is like falling into a dream, I get lost every time.

But, I digress. The more I talked to Julia... the more I wanted to tell her. This was strange for me, and a little bit scary. Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm a VERY private person, rarely do I let on what I'm thinking, and I hardly ever "discuss my feelings". This always came naturally to me, and I had no problem with it. But here I was telling this girl, whom I had just met, things about me that my own family didn't know about me. I felt perfectly fine with it... scary yes, but I always go with my gut... and it wasnt saying anything bad. I went to visit her in June for 6 days... aside from the daughters being born, that was one of greatest moments in my entire life.

I really don't think I can describe in words what Julia means to me, I don't think that my eloquence reaches that far, so I wont try. Nor do I think there is enough "virtual paper" here to hold all that would be necessary to adequately describe how much I love her.

Julia... I wake up everyday with you in my minds eye, and fall asleep wishing for the day that you were falling asleep next to me. In all that you do, and everything that you are.... you make me want to be a better person, for you. I love you with all my heart.

Saturday... again.

Whatever happened to those days where one actually looked forward to Saturday? I remember when Saturday was the ONE day a week where I was guarunteed to not have to do a single thing, where spontaneity ruled the day. But not anymore... today its work, or housework, or outside work, or helping a friend move, or more of the same inane drivel that fills the nice quiet voids in my life... perfect example for today. My roommate and I went out Friday night, we didnt stay out too late, around midnight, didnt get too hammered, and came home and played video games til around 2am or so. I had to work Sat night and I wanted to sleep in late so I wouldnt have any problems staying up all night at the hotel. I'm sleeping very, very soundly at around 9am when my phone goes off, its my exwife, and she has graced me with a text message... yay. Here's the conversation:



Her: "Hey... I have to work today, can you burn me a CD?"

Me: "Yes."

Her: "Did you guys have fun last night?"

Me: "Yes."

Her: "Thats cool, so what are you doing up so early?"

Me: "I'm up because you fucking woke me up."

*turns off phone*



By this time, I'm already too pissed to go back to sleep, so I get up and start the day... wayyyy too early.... so here I am at 2am in the morning, bleary-eyed, and waiting for the coffee to finish perking, and seriously wishing that I had been able to spend my Saturday with Julia, but...

Sometimes your the bug, and sometimes.... your the motherfuckin windshield.