still alive

Okay, so when I said "talk to you all soon", I really meant "talk to you all on July 4th". Who could have known?

I've spent the past week or so working 12-hour shifts and slowly getting accustomed to my new place. I'm renting a room out of another man's mobile home a few minutes from work. It's a very nice home in a nice neighborhood, and I'm happy to be there.

It's a good feeling -- buying my own cleaning supplies, cleaning my own bathroom, budgeting my own expenses and so on. It makes me feel like one of those big ol' grownups. I'm doing pretty well so far and enjoying my newfound freedom (and distance from my often crazy family).

Right now I'm back in the Valley for 4th of July... I head back to the Bay Area tommorrow to put in a few more extra-long days of work.

More later...

updates 'n things

Firstly, mucho apologies for not posting in a while. It's been a busy weekend, as most of you can imagine.

The Situation: Long story short, Mom eventually got sober and found her Xanax in the hotel dresser. She was about to kill somebody over pills that she had misplaced. A bunch of other stuff has happened over the weekend, but I'm not going to go into exhaustive detail as I've pretty much already done that with my close circle of friends.

Speaking of which, major props to all my friends (or are you family?) who have helped me through this ordeal. It's been rough, but I've had a lot of help and I'm eternally grateful for it. Blessings to you all!

Now it looks like I'm moving out and getting my own place in the Bay Area. This is awsome, but it also means that blogging will be light for a while. I have to jet off to work in just a few hours, and then work out the final details on my new room....

Talk to you all soon!

i am my mother's keeper

Mom and dad are at a Hotel on the coast for Mom's birthday.

So I call them at about 10pm to see how they're doing.

======

Me: Hey dad how are things going?

Dad: Not good.

[sounds of my mother crying in the background]

Me: Whats wrong?

Dad: Your mom thinks somebody stole her Xanax.

Me: Can you put mom on the phone?

[sounds of my mother wailing in the background]

Dad: She can't talk right now.

Me: Please, dad, let me talk to mom!

[more crying in the background]

Dad: Okay.

Me: Mom, are you there?

Mom [crying and sounding extremely drunk]: I gonna kill somebody.

Me: Mom, please don't kill anybody!

Mom [crying hysterically and violently drunk]: I gonna kill the fuckers who stole my pills those fuckers gonna die. I don't care if I go to jail. I don't care about nothing anymore I'm just gonna find somebody and kill 'em.

Me: So you don't know who took your pills?

Mom [still crying and still drunk]: Naw, but I gonna kill the first person I see out in the hallway. Nobody steals my pills! I'm just gonna find someone and just beat the shit out of them and kill 'em cuz nobody steals my shit!

Me: Mom, listen....

[20 minutes of me trying to convince my mom not to kill anybody]

Me: ... you have four children who love you very much. A and J look up to you and don't want you to be in jail. Please, mom, think of your kids. Don't hurt them by doing something stupid.

Mom [still extremely drunk]: I know but sometimes you just gotta kick some ass you know sometimes you just gotta go to jail its the best thing to do you know?

Me: Mom, listen, just lay down and sober up and everything will be okay. Please don't hurt anybody.

Mom [still raving drunk]: Okay heres your father.

Dad: She'll be all right in the morning. Gotta go now. Bye.

[he hangs up]


After some phone consultation with my friend Chris (and I'm still sorry I woke you up at that ungodly hour, Chris), he suggested I call the local police department. So I did.

I just got off the phone with the Police and they said that mom had sobered up a bit since I had called them, which is good. According to the police, mom had been spending her day at the pool and had "a few drinks". Afterwards, she went back up to her room to take some pills but they were gone.

Later, I discovered that my dad has been literally holding mom down the whole night. Holding her down on the bed trying to keep her from hurting herself or someone else. This is bad, because my dad is very frail with a delicate heart condition, advanced diabetes and kidney failure. I'm worried that all this stress might harm him.

Anyway, mom did end up hurting herself. She punched the hotel room wall in a fit of rage and broke her hand. It's my understanding that she's at the ER right now getting sewn up.

I also have discovered that my mom has a stash of pills in our house for just such an emergency. Apparently, mom called my sister and asked her to bring a new bottle of Xanax to the hotel room tomorrow -- it turns out that this "fresh bottle" of Xanax was actually my grandma's prescription -- but grandma died nearly a year ago.

After doing a little quick research online, I discovered that adults aren't supposed to take Xanax for more than eight months at a time due to it's addictive nature, but Mom has been taking repeated daily doses for years and has been hoarding my deceased grandma's pills for at least a year.

Obviously mom has a problem. I'm just wondering why our doctor has allowed this to go on?

During the conversation with my sister, my mom also said that she only had "two beers" during the day, and later changed her mind and had "three beers". Well, thats bullshit but she'll never tell the truth. My suspicion is that she had at least five or six drinks, or maybe she did have "three beers" plus a Xanax chaser. It wouldn't surprise me if she polished off the Xanax with some alcohol, threw the bottle away, forgot she threw it away and then thought somebody "stole it".

I was really scared for my mother's life tonight. I really did think she was going to hurt somebody, or maybe hurt herself worse than she already did. Or hurt my dad, even. Or get shot by the Police while in a fist-fight with some random person. I thought I was going to lose my mother tonight.

My dad didn't call the Police. He said it wasn't "needed". I had to call them instead and I had to tell the police not to tell my parents that I made the call, otherwise I would get in trouble. And believe me, I would.

I was supposed to go to work tommorrow, but instead I'm driving to the coast to take care of my parents, especially my mom. It's her birthday and she's going to need some help. She's also going to need someone to keep her out of alcohol and out of trouble. Dad will need help to, as he's very sick and this has probably drained him a lot.

Personally, I'm sick and fucking tired of being the only grownup in this house. This is the worst that I've ever seen mom -- and I've seen her drunk/high/stoned before. This was the absolute worst. And I have to pick up the pieces. I have to take care of my siblings, take care of my dad, take care of my drunk drug-addled mom, take care of the dogs, the house, the cars, the groceries....

I know that I have to be strong for everybody, but deep down I'm still just a little boy on the inside. I'm still the scared little gay boy who likes to read books and play with Legos but now I have to be the grownup for my Mom and Dad and I can't take this shit anymore.

I'm not going to be a martyr for this family. I'm not going to sacrifice my life to save this woman and her crumbling family. Yet, yet, I feel as if I'm the only one who can save her. I feel that she can't make it without me -- that she needs me to get better.

But I don't want to be her Parent. I want to be a regular 23 year-old so badly.


I need a hug.

work

Many apologies for the lack of posting and emailing lately, as my work schedule has been quite insane. I've been doing a 100-mile commute to work about three or four days a week, which equals 200 miles a day or roughly six to eight hundred miles a week of drive-time. Without a radio, I might add.

That can get pretty tiresome. And expensive with gas prices the way they are.

On the upside, however, I'm making more money than I ever have in my life. So thats good.

My job at work, however, is almost as tiresome as the commute. Right now I'm using a drill press to widen the holes in tiny little electronic switches, like this:



What you see above is pretty much what I do all day -- although my ass doesn't look nearly as good in stone-washed jeans.

Bending over the drill like that for hours at a time is killer on my back and neck, and I definitely feel it at the end of the day, and often times before the end of the day. Not only that, but I think I'm coming down with some kind of bug that my uncle may have given me -- I think this is going to be an interesting week. At least I get paid on Tuesday.

In other news, a part of me is seriously wondering if this is something I could get into.

Okay, okay -- I understand it's a bit stereotypical. "Yes I am a gay male massage therapist. No, I'm not an 'escort' and I don't give 'happy endings'.", etc. It does seem like a good way to get to know people -- to interact with people, anyway -- and to make good money in the process. I've been told by others (Jimmy, you heartbreaker!) that my hands are "so soft, almost like velvet" (his words), so maybe I have a natural talent. For massage, I mean.

It's going to be difficult, however, to convince The Family to support that kind of endeavour. You're nobody in my family unless you're an Engineer or a Carpenter or something Manly like that. I've had a difficult enough time convincing them to support my getting a degree in English, for chrissakes, I mean, the frickin Humanities are too gay for them. Massage therapist? They'd laugh me out of the house.

We'll see what happens. In any event, I hope you all had a good weekend!

uhoh

A few days ago, LP mentioned that one of the side effects of Zoloft is “inability to climax”. Well, guess which side effect has decided to make itself known in my life?

Guess.


I'm not too worried about it at the moment. I'm not currently seeing anyone so sexual dysfunction isn't that big of a deal. Although if it went on long enough I would eventually have to change medications. A man can only go so long without getting the gravy out, if you know what I mean. Also, at some point in the future I will be seeing someone, and I'm going to need to be better by then. I intend to keep taking the medication for at least the next few weeks. If the problem doesn't go away by then I'll ask for another prescription.

I wonder what I'm going to do with my next couple climax-free weeks? Take up knitting? Stamp collecting? Violently explode from the sheer, unrelenting pressure? Something like that, I'm sure.

In other news, I've been thinking about my previous post.

You see, the terrible thing about being found by God is that He refuses to leave you alone. It would be nice if I could say “Okay God, here's the deal: I give you Sunday morning in exchange for good health and prosperity. But I get to keep Friday nights and the right to not forgive my enemies. Agreed?”

It doesn't work that way, does it? A part of me doesn't want to find God and Church again because, frankly, I'm not a nice person. Sure, I'm nice to my friends – the people that I like and find interesting – but beyond that I'm no different than any other Gentile, so to speak. The Christ that I encounter in the Eucharistic celebration is the Christ who demands that I love my enemies. That's scary.

He's a Christ that demands I examine my relationships with the people around me and with the World – to see what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong – and to make changes accordingly. That's scary too. It's not something I want to do.

Holiness is more than a feeling of righteousness or divine ecstasy – it's a radical dying unto one's self, a self-emptying sacrifice that refuses to just take the parts that we want it to take. Holiness is a tidal wave: a watery wedge thats only four feet high but ten miles long – and it conquers everything in it's path, whether you want it or not.

I don't know what to think about all this. There are times when I'd like to go back to being a hard-bitten, skeptical atheist. Who knows? Maybe I can be a hard-bitten, skeptical atheist for Christ? I have a feeling he wouldn't mind.

Holy Fratrimony

This last Saturday I attended Chris & C's fratrimonial ceremony, commonly called "marriage". It was a beautiful, moving and very Christian experience. The love and affection between these two men and the people present was palpable. In a certain sense, it was a prefiguring of the love and communion shared in the body and blood of the Eucharist. Which, as I understand it, is also a prefiguring itself of the Heavenly Feast at Eschaton.

I honestly felt that something approaching the Eschaton had been achieved that day, as if the presence of Christ was truly there -- that He really was in the bread and wine, and in our hearts as well. I've never felt that feeling in church before.

It gave me hope. Hope that theres more to life than living and dying. Hope that true love is a real thing. Hope that there are communities out there brought together by love. Hope that somehow, in some way, this Christ person really is real.

Blessings to you, Chris & C. Many long years of love, peace and wonderful memories to you both.

equal time (warning: undies pic!)

I'm feeling better today. It isn't the medication, since that takes at least two weeks to start working, so it must be my attitude.

I feel better knowing that I'm doing something about my anxiety problem, and just the fact that I'm doing something instead of sitting on my hands and worrying about everything makes the day a little more bearable.

In other news, I've been having a conversation with Nate about body image and stuff. It's something thats always interested me and vexed me in different ways. Slowly, over time, I've learned to be attracted to myself (as selfish as it sounds, it really isn't. I swear!), meaning I've learned to see the beauty in my own body and the bodies of other men who look just like me.

Observe:





Ah, I'm jealous. Those piercings! That tattoo! I'm in love!

Well, not really. But I do enjoy the scenery. The funny thing is, even though I basically made peace with my body type, I still can't help but compare myself to others. Look at him again. Notice how he doesn't have much in the way of love handles? I can't help but think that I do have some handles and that would make him "out of my league".

Of course, thats just my Insecurity talking. In all honesty, if he turned out to be smart, funny and kind along with being a sexy cub, I'd take him over Daniel Cudmore (below) in a heartbeat. Who wouldn't want a hot cuddly cub to snuggle up with all the time? Give me that instead of abs any day.

So theres your bear/cub equal time for the week. Enjoy.