Jim’s Journal

As it says above, I am back, and as is seemingly traditional for me, when I have time and access to posting I am in the throes of depression. I promise you folks that I will (eventually) post when I am not in the throes of depression. I just cannot seem to get my act together — I have tons of excuses — I am busy at work, have a toothache, am feeling sick, am playing peacemaker between friends, etc. , and thats just this week. Soooo its not entirely unexpected, but I still need to keep on top of things. Things are slipping and slipping badly, I am just plain not together lately. I am mostly together, and keep on top of most stuff, but I am missing important stuff.

Anyone have any ideas how to take over control of your life?

I am sorry about that, I am somewhat depressed, but all in all this life of mine is going pretty well, its just the parts that I find consuming my thoughts and that I concieve of as being interesting to people are the depressing ones. My house is wonderful, and my son is the best kid in the world, not perfect, but very close. I know bad things are happening, but I at least for now am not going to let them get me down

I am feeling a bit out of sorts of late. Just a chain of unfortunate events that push my emotional index down into the cellar, and corrode my hope for ever getting out of same. The life I live is not the one I have chosen. The people whom I love I either have nothing in common with, cannot see on a regular basis, or have just cause to avoid and/or dislike me. This is not a good situation. I am going to change things, but am still trying to figure out how. Any ideas?

I am at work today, and I am not doing the best job I can. In fact I would honestly rate my quality of work as spotty — mediocre to bad with occasional spikes into good/ acceptable. Why am I doing so poorly? I am (literlaly) sick and tired. I cannot focus, and my ability to reaason stuff through is impared. However, A day off work = about $100 out of my pocket come payday, and at this point in time I need every penny. So I sit here and do my mediocre best, and hope that I don’t get my self fired, and that this sick will go away, and I will find myself able to focus. I hate this.

Quiet day today. Got off to a kind of rocky start, work has been semi crazy of late. Things are, however improving. Tonight I will do something I should have done weeks ago — finish moving. Up til today there was always something more fun going on or I didn’t feel like it or whatever. I realize that I was postponing it, and for no good reason. SO I am putting it to bed for good today.

I have not been doing terribly well lately. I have been seriously undermotivated and overly slothful. I some how have still managed to get things (mostly) done. This has been accomplished mostly by my recognising my unmotivatedness and pushing my self into doing things that I (probably) dont want to do. Big Fun. I am hopeful that this will somehow shift and I will feel motivation return, but I have my doubts. Anyone got an alternative to faking it til you make it?

In other news, I am suffering from a blocked creativity outlet. Anyone for an online or PBEM RPG? If so let me know.

Weirdly enough I get the bloging bug and all the blogs I read regularly are suddenly quiet. Is this some weird conservation of bloging law? Or perhaps my posting is driving others away from the internet? Or perhaps this is just a weird uncorrelated fluke. Oh well. I am planing on seeing Constantine ( the movie — staring his woodenness( Keanu Reves)). I have heard good things. I will let you know how it turns out.

I give it 7/10 stars. ( 9/10 for atmosphere — good cinematography without being overwhelming, 9/10 for casting and acting( exepting Keanu), 9/10 for plot, and 2/10 for main character — Keanu is too fresh faced, insulficiently careworn looking, and his acting was as wooden as usual — with a good actor in the driver’s seat this would be excelent, as it stands it is merely entertaining.)

First off :

Microsoft teaches leet speak

Secondly, a job whose title I would love to have:

Teleport Test Engineer Sought — the required travel is “not specified.”

And lastly, submited for your approval, a miracle of science:
Its got guns, girls and mad science galore

In other news things continue to go on at a normal pace. Life is finally seeming normal. Its weird how weird that seems. Last night I was watching my son sleep all huddled in his blankets and snuggling his stuffed animals, and I realized how universal that experience has to be. Sleeping with your friends held close, and with all the tools at your disposal directed toward protecting yourself from the outside world. If that is not the human condition I am not sure what is.

Valentines day is an evil evil thing. It is one of the most potent ways of making you realize just how alone you are. It is the one day that your romantic life is thrown into harsh and unflattering relief. But … it also is a nice day to be reminded that, while your love life may not be the best there are still folks who love you out there, and that other folks are in the same boat. Its weird — before I met my exwife valentines day was painless — a small family celebration that just wasn’t for me. When I was married it was actually kind of fun. Only now that I have lost does it hurt. I have alot more sympathy for the folks that hate this day with a passion now.

has anyone checked out google maps It is possibly the smoothest and most efficient maping software out there. ( Mind you it is regretably US and its imediate environs only — if they can keep this up on a world stage I think they will dominate the market.

I am back on line again after long absence. Let me see, what has happened since my last post. I have taken a new job, had a wonderful tropical vacation, aquired a new house, aquired new pets( 2 cats, and 1/2 ownership of 3 fishes), moved dwellings, and am generaly doing better all around. Will post more details when I get a spare moment.

Well, my temp service came through, and I am employed again. This makes me feel (mostly) good. I have money coming in, and am continuing to hunt as the temp gig is short term, but food on the table is good. I have been so exhausted lately, not sleeping well, and one weird symptom of this is that I am getting so angry at the world I cannot stand myself sometimes. I am furious with my ex, mostly for stupid stuff , but also for leaving me and what it has done to my poor son, the only one innocent in the mess my lifee has become, not for things she has actually done recently. I amfurious with myself, for my job, for what I could have done, but didn’t to save my marriage, and to save my son pain, I am so angry everytime I see my son cry or yell at me or ask for her and tell me that he doesn’t like me because I am not giving him what he wants when he wants it. I have absolute confidence ( founded or not) that my ex enjoys ripping me to her friends, twisting my words to make me the bad guy and her the poor victim of my incomeptence/insensitivty/ stupidity. Hell, she may even be right. I try so hard to do my best for those around me, and frankly I fail at it more than I succede — maybe luck, but when it goes on for as long as it has one has to suspect otherwise. I no longer feel welcome in the homes of many who once welcomed me — this is likely my own issue, but I feel that many view me in a rather cold light.

Oh well, I am just glad I can get angry again. Its a good sign, I’m not traped under ice anymore. Maybe this will reduce my willingness to allow myself to be used by those who would not pay back my good will. Who knows.

I made a rule for myself recently. I am ( in the absence of competing events) to post an update to my blog daily. I need to have something to structure my day, and you internet browsing folks are a part of it.

So, today is going much better than I would have expected given the way it started. It started with my son waiking up in the middle of the night screaming that he wanted his mom, that we needed to get her right away, and unwilling to accept any substitutes. She had told him earlier that day that he would spend the evening with her, but stuff came up and she had to cancel. So, naturally fallout happened. We got past it, and back to bed, but let me tell you it got me off to a weird start. OTOH the job hunt today is going off in a productive ( in the sense of aplications going out) way, but not in a productive( interviews coming in) way. Oh well, time will tell, right?

Still working with the Byzantine organization called the U of MN in a (probably) vain attempt to get my degree paperwrk uncloged. Got lots done, still feel thwarted though as real progress as yet eludes me.
here is to getting that load off my back.

Has anyone out there other than Kevin seen Hero? If not , work on fixing that deficiency. You will be glad you did.

Well, annother setback in my war on life. I am now unemployed. Such is the rather wonderful nature of temp work, but damn that hurts, and it could not have happened at a worse time or in a less self esteem building way. Oh well, I tell myself such is the nature of temp work, and besides, now you are no longer caught in the “too legit to quit” trap. OTOH, I have spent the past day freaking out in spades — badly enough off that I seriously considered checking myself into a facility. I considered for a bit, and am now trying the positive action thing. It seems to be helping, but life is still rather freaky for me.

I am hopeful life goes on out there, and that my freakout is only temporary. I will post updates as they become available.

I recently realized that I am someone who is very pro-stability in their life. I generally avoid change unless there is good reason, and my depression agrivates this. I need my roots, and right now, weirdly enough, I am rootless( routeless?). Part of why I flail and fight is a lack of a solid grounding in my day to day existence. I float through my life trying not to feel pain, and anything that is good is pain ( in part). Stoping fighting fate has helped me, I feel more in tune with myself, but I as I do that I feel increasingly out of step with everything else. Hopefully one or the other of the axises( axii? axsees?) about which I spin will stop, and I will find ground beneath my feet again.

Here is to hoping.

I am still fighting my life, my fate or karma perhaps. I realized recently that my misery is almost entirely inflicted by my fighting what the univrese seems to want to have happen to me. I am not sure I want to completely submit to my fate, but I am resolving to reduce the amount of fighting fate I do. I am not sure that this will result in positive outcomes, but I need the energy I spend fighting the less important ones to fight the more important ones.

Jack, Libby and I hung out last night. It was great fun. Jack is great to play with, and its nice to see Libby smiling and giggling again. I didn’t feel weird at all( which was a weird feeling in and of itself).

Movies. I have had uncommonly good luck with movies lately( either that or they are making better movies of late). Just saw Shaolin Soccer — good, very odd, but good. Saw Hero, one of the best of the recent crop, and saw Sky Capitan. Liked it — beautiful homage to the genre, but I thought that the main romance could have been tuned a bit better. Rewatched Moulin Rouge and Waking Life. Annother two movies that I would recomend to anyone.

Lifes been weird lately. Very Sissephean, with occasional flashes of joy, and slightly more frequent bursts of insomnia and panic. I think I am settling in to my new life, my new identity — something that is both good and bad. Jack continues to be the best damn thing in my life. He is why I get up in the morning, and why I fight to sleep when my personal demons bedevil me. I cannot wait to see what he becomes — he is already amazing to me, and has a very solid logicall mind — especially as to discussion of reciept of treats, and bed time. He can and will argue for staying up late, and catch every point where he can use it to his advantage. I keep expecting him to start reading, what with his level of interest in bookls and the alphabet. Its gonna be a wild next few years.

As to my ex wife( she demands that I not use her name on this site), things are going well between us., however, it is really weird associating with her — I am neither a friend, nor a spouse, nor a lover, nor anything else I can figure out. In some respects my relationship to her combines elements of all of them, and elements of none of them. It makes social interaction 1-on-1 with her a very odd experience sometimes, as we fall into old behaviors, that of necessity are empty chanels down which no emotion or energy should flow. Its hard to know what to do then, but at least I am figuring it out. I made a promise to love and honor her quite some time ago, and I intend to keep that promise. I will always care for her, and even now consider her one of my best friends, and I will honor her desire for seperation, even though it makes seeing her very, very weird. Seems weird to me that the most powerful root of my definition of proper action in my post divorce life is precisely my marriage vows. I am hopeful that this system will change, that the situation will resolve itself into something less odd, but until then, I will persevere.

As to the world around us, anyone else out there read L. E. Modesit? I keep getting surprised and blown away by his work. He writes novels that are, at surface, remarkably standard fantasy/SF genre novels, but he extrapolates layers and layers deeper than all but a few ( George R. R. Martin comes to mind as a specific example), and loves to run the characters up against the odd corners and bent( at least relative to the “real world”) logic that the universe must impose upon those in it. He seems especially interested and sophisticated in his handling of economics and ecology, two elements that are fundamental to how the world works that are often ignored in genre fiction. Check him out.

I saw this movie a few days ago, and it ruled. Well done martial arts movie, great cinematography, and very cool story( very surprising if you don’t know that particular piece of Chinese folk history).
I, however, knew it, but the movie was so imersive that it surprised me anyway( in a sort of “oh, yeah I am watching THIS story sort of way”).

I have been busy and I have been having a hard time of it. So, I have been in depression land. Its a barren place that does not respond well to anything save irrational exuberance, panic, and the occasional reality shaking event. It is the last that shook me out of my complacency and shattered the safe haven of my life in the grey lands of depression — be it for good or for ill. I went to two weddings this weekend. I used to love weddings. Now they are sources of pain to be endured, and that trigger my depressed and cynical side. I sit there and watch two people say words in a ceremony meant to bind them together in an institution that will last forever. Its an illusion as I well know. But buying into the illusion will at the least improve the chances that illusion will become real. I watch, dreading the (in my mind) nearly inevitable moment when the spiderweb of promises bite and cut like razors and the fearful moment when those involved see through the illusion and let go of the pain and sublime joy of having a partner. It hurts to be so pessimistic as all that, but lost hopes and the experience of many around me make me deeply sceptical of the whole institution.

I see friends get married, and I hurt, and I wish them the luck to avoid the pain that I see looming ahead of them like an iceberg, and I feel a burning anger and disapointment at myself and my ex that engulfs my whole being. I rage, and calm — these reactions serve no purpose beyond disruption — they push the pieces of my disrupted soul into new configurations, and perhaps promote healing, but healing is painful, and often I don’t want to be well. I don’t want to get over this, I don’t want to lose the same illusion that I was bound into something like 5 years ago.

OTOH, weddings are imensely funny and strange things when you view them from enough remove. One wedding I went to this weekend featured, due to the nature of one family, an immensely bizare reception( at least from my narrow point of view). First off there was an embarisingly innebraited speech by a friend of one family that went into embarising(and IMHO inapropriate for a public venue) details of the bride’s childhood explorations of the difference between boys and girls. There was an immensely large amount of poetry read over the reception. Some of it good, but the bulk of it not read in a manner that did the material justice, but read hesitatingly, haltingly, and in such a way so as to obscure the fertile beauty of the original work. and some of the choices were, how to say this best, a bit blue or earthy. I do think, however, that the many children there had ,by the time the earthiest material was read, tuned out the readings and were engaged in games of their own.

Perhaps I am growing conservative in my old age. Perhaps I simply could not reach the headspace of those involved. I look back and laugh. Every wedding is different, and special. There was a great deal of fun had at that wedding and reception as well, but I know what will stick with me, and I laugh and rejoyce at the strangeness of the world arround me.

Saw a really excellent movie last night “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. It was incredible, and the visual design was incredible. Everyone in the movie turned in excellent performances, and all in all it was a wonderful movie.

***** Spoiler Alert ******
However, it was not a good movie for me to see. It has too many resonances with my life and situation. The movie deals with a relationship that is broken and the parties split up and use the movie’s McGuffin to forget about each other. They reunite at the end of the movie. The parallells between the main characters and my ex and myself are fairly significant. The ending is bittersweet with hope ( AKA a “realistic” movie ending)
****Spoiler ALERT ENDS******

It gives me hope for my own shattered relationship and mixed up life. However, in many ways that is not what I need. It just manages to stir up emotional debris better left untouched until the scars heal.

In other news, my son is getting really good a using a phone. He left me a wonderful voice mail last night. ( I was at the theater with my phone off) It is amazing how the wheel of Karma balances us out.

Today started out weird. 2 -3/4 year olds have incredible will power, and can oppose you with immense force. Jack woke up irritable, and not willing to get going today. I spent litterally an hour and a half getting him from in bed to wearing clothes and ready to go. It was an testimony to the power of the human spirit. I can’t help but be impresssed by the little tyke. He stood his ground and did his level best to stop me despite knowing that his opostion was doomed to failure. OTOH I cannot help but be frustrated by his decision that we were going to do this HIS way or else. I realize in retrospect that perhaps direct oposition was not the most productive tactic, but no one is at tehir best first ting in the morning.

I have been thinking much the same about much of my life of late. Many of the problems and trouble I have are a result of my handling/confronting the situation in the wrong way. I waste energy trying to break down doors that will open at the slightest touch, and keep trying locked doors long after I should have given up. All this makes me tired, and angry. Such, I suppose is my lot in life ( at least for a while). I have been doing some careful thinking and planing to attempt to figure out what I am doing wrong, and how to do it right.

I keep throwing a large portion of myself into a probably vain attempt to reconcile with my ex-wife. I know that this will likely be futile. Once angered she is seldom forgiving, and a fair portion of her anger at me is justified. I was in a bad place, and I was a lump, and I didn’t do what was needed to keep the boat afloat. But I am still in love with her, and until I change that I will be dumping a substantial portion of my energies into thoughts and plans for something I know wil never be. I don’t want to give up on this, but I also realize that until I do I am going to be unable to pursue my own life.

Does anyone out there have any good advice on how to let go of love? I certianly don’t.