Panthers

This was back in 2002, before I met my soon to be wife who subsequently became my soon to be ex-wife.

My roommates, Tom and Nate, and I along with my Indian friend Rahul (which we all constantly mispronounced as Raul) went to the bars after much cajoling on mine and Rahul's part. Seems my roommates were getting pretty tired of going out for what were supposed to be group fun nights that always ended the same, that is with me leaving early with some girl, and they basically made me promise to spend the night hanging with them. Of course this was always my plan. Something I can honestly say is that I seldom, if ever, have a definitive plan for evenings at the bars.

We walked down to Lasalle's, a pretty big place (especially for Chico) that had an even bigger outdoor area in the back and always had a good gathering of chicks who were single, or otherwise didn't give a shit if they were actually dating someone at the time. We walked into a very packed night, the music was bumping, girls were dancing everywhere, and instantly we knew this was going to be a great night. I told Tom and Nate that Rahul and I would meet them on the back patio, and he and I proceeded to the bar so that he could help me get the first round of drinks (one good thing was that the four of us all drank whisky-cokes).

Rahul and I stepped up to the bar, and only after I stopped talking to him did I notice that this insanely hot dark-haired chick was standing next to me. Something about the night, my slight buzz from the whisky-cokes we had consumed at the house, and the atmosphere at the club had triggered a near instantaneous BPD surge in me, and I was electrified with energy and confidence. Without blinking I instantly smiled at her, pointed at her forearm, and said "Nice pussy".

Oh, right I forgot to mention that on the inside of her left forearm she had a full on tattoo of a black panther that went from wrist to elbow. Her immediate response to this very stupid introduction? "It moves." To which she licked the entire tattoo and rotated her hand so that, indeed, the panther looked like it was moving. Within 12 seconds I had just learned that a) she was hot, b) she apparently liked me enough to respond to my lame-ass pickup line, and c) she was Irish. That's right folks. Full-on Irish accent. I was now in overdrive.

Theresa, it was made clear to me, was in the States for school at Chico State for Social Work (bonus! She's a freak.) And was newly single (proof that even hot chicks can be dumped.) She was also ready to leave the bar, and was about to sign her credit card receipt. What to do....

"Rahul, take this $20 and buy the drinks for you guys, I am out of here." And the Irish lass and I left the club while Rahul blankly stared at me with a look of shock.

My roommates stopped going out with me, and instead I would have to meet up with them when I could find them out at the bars. Of course, it turned out later that the non-gay roommate became accomodating to the gay roommate when he consumed enough whisky, so perhaps their nights out together was for more than just ire at my frequent bailing on them?

Pangs

"Falling, yes I am falling, and she keeps calling me back again."

It started last Friday night, and has not let go. I have no more meds, and the BPD/ADHD is firing on all 27 thousand cylinders. It's a strange feeling, emanating from what feels like my spine, radiating outward and around to my sides. Akin to goosebumps, and yet noticeably different.

My hands tremble slightly when I hold them out. My mind is racing with things I want to do. Play guitar, go for a drive (Arizona is close by and new adventure never tasted so great!), type, read, read what? History. Wikipedia. Google the news, and enter random words. All these things last a period of a few minutes at most, then they cycle. I want to play pool, guitar. I want to drive. I want to go for a run (damned meniscus tear!), I want to see the beach!!!

I'm out of control. Sure, it doesn't look like it, but I'm a loaded gun with a well-oiled hammer ready to slip and fire at the slightest jarring. I know that I should find a room with a lock, snip my battery cable so that I cannot drive, and buckle down for the inevitable crash. But it gets unbearable. How do you wrestle your own conscience? How do you tell yourself that you cannot have that candy? That you cannot drink a nice glass of cold water, when you feel soooo thirsty?

What I saw as me being responsible, being sane and safe (to the point that everyone around me has been saying I am a "white sock" - trust me it doesn't matter what it means so long as you believe that they are wrong. Dead wrong.). I even convinced myself these past days that I was cured. Who needs meds when I can be sensible and responsible. Quiet, safe, and caring? Surely not me...right?

Wrong.

It feels like the goosebump feeling right before the goosebumps actually appear. I remember the doctor describing it once. She called it "euphoria". There is a reason it is so friggin awesome, its addictive. Your own brain betrays you, sells you out for a hit of its own drug. And what happens to me tomorrow? The day after I go Tyler Durden and throw myself at the wall of fate? What happens when I lose myself and have to pick up the pieces?

I have no job. I have no future. I managed to convince myself things were going to be okay in my life, and that illusion has finally been exposed as a watercolor painting on a plate glass window. The obvious thing here is that I was suffering my depression and masking it with what looked like calm composure. I lied to myself. I did well. I have managed not to drink for 7 days and act like I would act if cured. But I am not cured. I will never be cured. I will always be this failure, this mistake of biology and circumstance.

And so I go. My knees are shaking now. Its building in me, and I can just feel it. I feel like a kid who is right outside the entrance of an amusement park. Like a teenager who is right outside the front door of his first date. I feel like I just got that great job, and am driving in my convertible sports-car, stereo blaring a favorite song and singing at the top of my lungs. I feel like I could do anything right now. Anything.

More proof

A bunch of people did coke last night.

I was not one of them.

The Disappearing Man

I am writing this during the magical daylight saving time change, so in a way it does not exist since it occurs during a time that did not happen.
The last couple of weeks have been filled with confliction. Those who know me know that I am something of a crazy man when it gets to being out in bars, drinking heavily, or when the elements that bring out the worst/best in me come together in an as-yet unexplainable series of steps to produce what have become my embarrassing yet highly appreciated nights of debauchery and/or danger. That has all changed in these last 11 days.
I finally broke out of my desert solitude to find a place where locals in this wasteland would go to have fun, also known as a bar. The Red Barn in Palm Desert is like every other dive bar I have been in and I love it for that. It comes complete with the usual suspects, and I would be lying if I did not say that I feel I fit right in with them, so much so that I have already been accepted as a local. Being on a first name basis with the staff and the crew of drunks that frequent on a nightly basis has always been an easy thing for me to accomplish, but I would have to say that this was the quickest that I have found myself to be sleeping on the couch of a bartender after drinking well into the dawn.
Add to this the fact that I have already been inducted into a group that treats me as their own, lets me crash at their house, and eat their food, and you can understand why I have begun to feel like I might be getting too familiar with all of this. Then there is the girl. She is everything that is wrong for me, yet I find myself in the familiar role of being a “fixer”. A fixer is one who is attracted in some weird way to those that are clearly heading down the wrong road. We see so much of ourselves in them, or we feel superior by “coming to the rescue”, that we devote ourselves to being the sole reason for their salvation. It is a dangerous tactic for self-esteem. We become addicted to fixing this other person, when in reality we just want to feel needed, necessary, and the real danger here isn’t that we may fail (because the failure is always the other person’s fault for not listening to us), but rather that we succeed. Because once the artificial element that we are necessary, important and needed, that we are the sole reason for this other person’s happiness, once that is gone we have nothing to base our worth on and the relationship (if it ever was a true relationship) ends. Badly.
Mind you, I have not been a fixer too many times in my life. It stems from the upbringing with my mother: Drunk, abusive, being abused by drunk and abusive men. I watched this happen to her, and I lived it happening to me. You grow up thinking that if you could just do something, anything, because obviously she cannot, that you could solve this. It becomes a driving force. You start to develop crushes on girls in school that clearly have problems at home, and you feel you can fix them. Nevertheless, the reality is that you are not in a relationship. The crush is not real. When a person develops a crush, it is based on the personality, the things about that other person that make you like them. A “fixer” however, has developed a crush on things that he/she seeks to eradicate. If, and when, the fixer is successful the attraction is no longer there. This shows that “fixers” really have no interpersonal relationship skills. They grow up developing a false sense of empathy. In reality, they cannot relate to a real person at all, and only relate to the perceived person.
My theory, and I am not proven on this, is that most fixers are likely the same kind of people that become sociopaths, or the people that fall in love with others overnight, only to fall out of love just as quickly for any reason, and at times for no reason at all. Kind of like borderline personality disorder.
I was a fixer with my early school crushes up into the girlfriend I had in the Marine Corps, and right up to the mother of my children. She was an alcoholic with serious issues of her own. Without going into all of that (there will be plenty of time for that) I was not a fixer after that relationship ended (permanently and not during the myriad breakups). Unfortunately, I was not able to develop the ability to relate to people on a real level though. I still struggle with that. Crying is still the number one way to freak me out and trigger a BPD swing. Hurt children, hurt animals, those two things will trigger responses that have scared people, even me at times.
So here I am, spending my time around a girl whom I know I should not be around. I recognize that I am once again in the “fixer” mode and briefly, I thought about cutting her from my life cold turkey. However, it got me to thinking. In these past 11 days, while being around her and her friends and their antics, antics that I know too well, I myself have been relatively tame. Almost vanilla. I find myself devoted to ensuring that she is not going to go to jail, and somehow that devotion of my energy has made me not get out of control. Looking back, this was the exact same situation with the mother of my children. Perhaps “fixing” these women, with such obviously similar problems as my own, has allowed me a sort of cathartic release in a way that keeps me from getting in trouble myself?
Did my younger self know something back then? Does the “fixer” in me make the BPD guy, the one that everyone laughs about and shakes their heads in worry, disappear?

Desert life

So far, being in the desert has been a mixed bag. Yes, it is tough living so far from what I have become accustomed to, and I was reminded of this at 4am when the girl I recently met began talking about eating fresh crab on the penninsula (Balboa).
I miss the ocean and everything that comes with it. I discovered that a lot of the younger crowd out here in the drylands actually spend a remarkable amount of time in OC and San Diego. One even lives there for 4 days out of the week, working at a bar there as well as the Red Barn here.
Ah yes, the Red Barn...my oasis in the desert of culture and modern living. Punk chicks, bro's and the ubuquitous drunk girl and her mom fighting nearly each night. Reminds me of OC more and more.
So, am I finding myself? Losing myself? I know I am heading down a terrible path. The girl is about to begin house arrest for her second DUI. I have isolation, and yet I am doing whatever I can to avoid it.

Oh, whoever gave me strep throat, I hope you fucking die.

This is all your fault.

Sooo after reading some political sites about Cali's state of shit, it became apparent that the Progressives and Democrats are freely and confidently blaming everything on Schwarzenegger. Of course, we all must recall that just before the Governator threw his hat into the RECALL ELECTION against then-current Gov. Gray Davis, the state was in just as bad a shit-hole and it was only a recognition of that fact that caused Davis to make certain decisions (like tripling the vehicle registration fee) that caused a state-wide ire and resulted in his recall.

But hey, I guess when you need a scapegoat its always best to blame the governor. Not the frikkin system that the state of California is sitting in and has been sitting in for nearly 40 fucking years. The writing was on the wall long ago folks. But hey, keep submitting those voter initiatives that the state HAS to adhere to twice a fucking year!

The door was open

Going to check out this place called "Red Barn" here in the California desert. I hear its my kind of place. We'll see.

After several months of being 'good' I think its time to let a little off, and see where the night takes me. Besides, feeling a bit reckless.

And what the fuck is a 'jobless recovery'? I mean, the whole idea sounds fucking stupid. The only reason the country went to hell in a handbasket was because motherfuckers couldn't pay their bills. They couldn't pay their bills because they lost their fucking jobs. How in the fuck is there a recovery if the same motherfuckers still don't have a job?

I hear Meg Whitman, or Witman or whateve-I don't give a shit's name is, thinks she can fix the state because she ran ebay. Sweet. Last time I checked, companies didn't stay profitable for the shareholder's by hiring people. They cut. Deeply. Great for shareholder's and corporations. Not so great for the workers, which are listed as OVERHEAD on ALL corporations. So, are the citizens of California overhead Ms. Meg?

And Jerry "I'm coming back...maybe" Brown is going to do better...well, that's what everyone else is saying since he hasn't actually said ANYTHING. Must suck to be running, and losing, against a guy who isn't actually officially running!