THIS Rhett Butler Will Never Die

I've written about ideas for changes in my life when the beginning of new years roll up for awhile here in this blog. Don't remember if I've done it every year or not.. I remember that some have been very hopeful with the ideas I'd come up with. This should be a hopeful new beginning after the health improvements I experienced this past year, but for some reasons I don't fully comprehend, I don't feel entirely hopeful, or energetic. So I'm just gonna let these ideas roll out here and see what they look like. One thing I need to do is figure out how to make money. Mentally, I feel pretty good about the idea of having a job. The fear that I feel about seeking work, getting work, and keeping a job seems like something I can finally work through. I felt more courageous about doing this a few months ago when I was feeling really strong and energetic in the summer. There was a bit of a failure of my courage when I lost access for a short period of time to my bes...

I made $75 last night driving a car around downtown SF for some computer geeks that needed help testing out some software they're making. And I got really excited because I had also been talking to a local private taxi company (called Sidecar) about becoming a driver for them. Seeing people downtown trying to get rides was making me think of how much money I could make. But now it turns out that I really do not have a car to use to do this kind of job and I'm back in the black hole of negative options for a normal persons future because I'm back to believing I'll never make money or be able to afford to do anything I want to do in this world. I walked here to a cafe to work on my novel tonight and I can't get my head/mind out of the gloom enough to even feel or think creatively. My son's birthday was on Monday this week. I called him every day of the week but he never answers the phone. He talks to his mother though because she sends him gifts and money and I ...

ugh, i came to a cafe tonight that i used to spend a lot of time at writing, over  the past couple of years. i completed nanowrimo here, once or twice. but i'm not enjoying being here tonight. its extremely noisy and very bright. even with headphones on i cannot drown out the ruckus in here from people talking and the music system blaring. i only came here because it's a closer walk from home than the 3 miles it is to my cafe of choice. seeing that it gets dark so early now i don't look forward to walking all that distance in total darkness. a few weeks ago i'd get home at 9pm and it would still be light out. i need my exercise and don't want to give that up to start driving to the cafe. i had a half thought the other day about switching my writing habits to mornings, but i doubt very much i'll be able to pull that off. morning cafe people are extremely noisy too. i wanted to talk a bit about my new idea for nanowrimo, which starts on Saturday! i could actua...

Oh me, oh my... it's that time of year again, when i get so excited and so focused and so productive, and sit in cafes with my head down and my fingers pounding heavily. it's the time when i'm most strongly imbued with the muse of creativity. and i'm always amazed, on a daily basis at what i'm able to conjure up with my inner dialogue. it's an addiction and it is something that i abuse with wreckless abandon... sadly never ending with sitting down the next month to do a once over editing/rewriting what i conjured up... So I had two chances to write more for my story/novel earlier this year when nanowrimo had two other months of writing; April and July. and i did sit down and started writing, but i was unable to stay focused, and gave up before each month ended. the quandary i ran into was that I was freezing up with ideas and inspiration about how to continue with the log jam i had created with my character telling her story. it was creative failure, for sure....

So I want to talk a little bit about what a day in my life is like, what dayyys are like. What kind of different days I have, and how I determine whether a day was "good" or not. Now I'll say that most of my days are indeed "good" days. I rarely end the day mumbling to myself, "damn, that was a baddd day." I usually feel pretty content with the results from my efforts and activities. But that is in part because I've become as accustomed to the ways day generally go for me as I am. If someone else were to slip into my shoes and compare what a generally fine day is to me to what their days are like, there could be a lot to talk about. I don't have a lot of rules, nor do I have outlandish expectations set up for myself to achieve. This is actually admitting a lot of what is missing from my life.. I generally do not complete many things in a day because there is so little structure, or ambition. Okay, so a successful day for me, in general, wou...

One of the most favorite concepts I got from watching LOST. The character John Locke inspired me in a lot of ways, but I think this one concept that drove him to find himself and create the destiny that ached in his bones is what I'm identifying with the most, today at least. I have a really good friend that knows that magic works, but she does not believe in the ultimate power of magic to really be able to happen and make huge things happen and change. And she's worked so hard at expressing her disbelief, to the point of claiming that power that I feel I have access to will never do for me what I want and need it to do. "Oh, that'll never happen..." I try to let it go at that, to say, "You have your belief and I'll have mine", but I feel saddened by not having a compatriot. I want to be able to unite with someone to create things in this world bigger than my own abilities are capable of manifesting. And maybe that is the lesson that I'm suppos...

This has been a very difficult year for me so far, and I don't have any reasons to believe that things are going to improve much. I don't talk very much, to anyone, so I am not in the practice of benefitting from conversation the way people that experience emotional balance do. The thing that has defined me personally over the past 7 years has been the photography project I've worked on. I'm not a professional photographer, by training. I am also not an artist through any type of training either. Why my "work" has received any sort of recognition at all confuses me. Maybe people have only liked my work because they've participated in making it. Or they've been friends of who I've photographed. The reason I became obsessed with the art I made was because I needed to learn something from it. My project began as a tool to help me understand a character I was trying to create for a novel I began to write. I did not feel that I was a photographer when...

Okay, so a few days passed before we returned to Alamo Cemetery to do another Echovox session. She came to my house to pick me up right after she got off work. We got there a little bit earlier, maybe an hour or so so that we could have more time before the heaviness of darkness fell. I had made a visit to the cemetery on last Friday night, one night after our first session. I stopped at Safeway in downtown Alamo and bought 4 votive prayer candles and brought them to the cemetery. It was around 1am. This is an old tradition of mine from the days when I used to literally camp out in this cemetery. There are just 4 graves that I chose to take candles to, the same 4 graves that I've always taken candles to. I'd take more for more people if I could afford to. If I could afford to I'd take a candle to everyone's grave that is buried there. I'd make that my life. To have my mind organized in such a way that I'd know my cemetery so well that I could take candles to eve...

After the relative success of being able to decipher words out of the buzzing darkness in Colma, we were anxious to have another go of it in our favorite local cemetery, Alamo Cemetery near the town of Danville (California). Long time readers of my blog know about this place and my affinity for it.'' We're still learning how to do this, by feeling it out. This time I brought a bag of tricks; incense mainly which I feel are essential to open the doors of perception. A little bit of ritual, nothing fancy or overly ornate. Both to open the doors of insight but also to assure the spirits that we are friends. Happily I've found a place down the street that sells a fair selection of incense from India, cheap. The main incense I love to have a supply of is "dhoop", and they have tons of it. We started at my old friend Grant's gravesite, the place we normally start all of our nights of cemetery investigation when we're here. We were really delighted to fin...

Earlier this week my best friend and I drove over to Colma. We didn't leave Walnut Creek until 6pm and my first thoughts was that it was going to be too dark by the time we got there to take any photographs. So I drove us to Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, first. It was still quite light, and she was wanting to shoot photos on the edge of darkness, if not entirely in darkness. That type of darkness was 45 minutes away. So we decided, "what the hell"-like to just go for it and drive all the way to Colma. By the time we got there, it was dark. Fully, black night, dark. This was very exciting to me. Partly because the whole point of going to Colma with her was to go into the no-trespassing, what I've been calling, "secret crypt". A part of Cypress Lawn cemetery that is virtually impenetrable to normal visitors. I learned how to gain entrance to it a couple of weeks ago, and have been trying to get a model to go there w/me for a photo shoot. My best friend ...

this has been a strange year. surviving my mom's survival of a second round of cancer is proof that the worse tht can be thrown at us is manageable. then i strode forth and made a new discovery of a place on earth that i feel could be a happy place to live the rest of my life, with a person that i thought could help me make it there, who could make the journey there quick, and the living with there, better. cancer didn't destroy my chances, but this person not being able to commit to me has broken me. i'm not giving up on my idea and desire to move to and live in Portland, but i need to find new forces to align with to get me there. i've parted ways with this person before, never quite the way that we are this time. usually i upset her from being too demading of her time and personality. this time she abandoned me, and plans we made too many times, and i've felt my trust and hope in her evaporate... from the position of being someone that i can work with. even if ...

I guess it's about 3 weeks now that I've been ingesting this plant's dried and powdered leaves. My ability to concentrate has definitely been increased. I can sit down to both read and/or write with less distraction and more focus. This was the main benefit I had hoped to achieve, and it has almost singularly been responsible for the positive shift in my moods. But not entirely. The other totally unexpected experience I've been having is this increase in physical energy. It's kind of deeply wound, the structure of this change in my physical behavior. Let me try to explain. Up until 3 weeks ago I had deeply rooted, fear based limitations established in my mind about what I was safely capable of doing physically. The fear was mostly rooted in worry of over-doing exercise routines that would end up injuring me and preventing me from being able to either exercise more, or even just be able to get out of bed the next day. This fear prevented me from doing things as sim...

There are some things that I can do fine in the world, all alone. But for some reasons, other things need at least a small bit of interaction or feedback from another person, or persons. Maybe it's like the effect of having a mirror to look into that gives you a sense of reflection for more deeply examining what the worth is of investing yourself into a project or endeavor. If you are working in, or participating with those of the world, outsider reflection is helpful but is it necessary? Sometimes, when my own perception of myself or my sense of my power/ability/worth is lacking, I do feel like it's necessary to have feedback/reflection/interaction but other times that type of interaction does not seem necessary. For the life of a loner, more and more I find that I don't care what anyone else thinks and if I want to do something I just do it. I guess what brought up this thinking right now is that I just looked over at one of my other blogs, one that I dedicate privately...

I don't even know exactly how many days it's been that I've been using kratom, close to a week, and I must say that I've never had such a revolutionary turn around in how I feel both physically and mood-wise about my health. Not in all the years that I've been using psych meds, that's for sure. Two days ago I took a dose of Green Vein Malay and went for a long walk to the city library. A little over a two mile walk. In all the years I've lived in this city (40), I've never felt strong or healthy enough to make that walk. And not only did I walk there, I walked home from there with 15lbs of books in my backpack. Later that evening I decided to take the local bus to Walnut Creek to meet a friend. Another lengthy foot excursion ensued because it's over a mile from my house to the bus stop. The day prior to that I took a dose of White Vein Malay, and had opposing effects in my mood and physical ability. I was psyched up from the experience I had...

I can't get away from her. And I do not want to get away from her. I've never wanted to get away from her. And I'm sure I won't, ever. That's not a problem. There is no problem now. There were weaknesses I suffered from before that made me feel a need for her, more than what I could experience, or more than she was able to share. But now, she has reached a state of experience in her life where she is no longer in want and it's made my connection with her become more powerful. I know I'm talking in half riddles here. I'm the only one that knows what I'm talking about and I'm only saying these things so that I'll be able to have record and remember. But she is with him  now, the him she has been longing to be with for all the time that I've known her and it's opened up an entire new dynamic in the way she and I get along. The angsty push and pull between us has ceased because I'm no longer needing to help her get what she wants, whi...

on top of everything else that i feel that i cannot do as of late (lost all desire to do photography, cannot write/finish my novel), now i can add to the list that i feel unable to muster up the belief in myself to become mentally powerful enough to overcome the obstacles that prevent me from returning to college to complete my college degree. ugh, i can't even concentrate enough to write this ... more later. things are getting dark all around me...

suicide note/love letter/thank you note to god/the devil/to everyone i’ve ever known/everyone i’ve never met, and mostly to the one woman who made me feel the capability to love the most. i feel like my life is at a pinnacle moment now and that it’s a fine time to step away from the drawing board of trying to think of new reasons of why to stay alive here, to spend more time causing consternation in the minds and lives of those that my tumultuous life affects. i’ve met someone that makes me feel more love and happiness for being alive and for being able to tell the truth about how i feel about things than anyone i’ve ever known before. i’ve never been made so happy from the simple deeds of just being able to tell the truth to someone like this before. there was one woman whose companionship and loyalty through 8 years of life together sufficed as solid friendship, stronger than anyone ever stood by me before - yet, i had no ability to communicate truthfully with her like I can w...

each day that passes, i know, by logic, that i'm closer to my end. what frightens me though is how i find that there is a mixture of how i am orchestrating my end, both by my own actions, thoughts, and deeds, combined with the mechanisms of how the universe around me operates. it's a dance of death, this life. i can't believe i've lasted as long as i have. and more than ever i'm feeling greatly tired of being here. i hate pornography. if i were a mercenary i would hunt it down like a despised politician and assassinate it i hate it so despisedly. It's ruined me as a lover in this lifetime. pure truth. i lie not. it's been a curse upon me since i first discovered copies of dad's playboy magazines that were hidden in the garage when i was a boy. a fascination and fear of women was instilled inside of me that made it forever impossible for me to have natural occurring experiences with women. I once had a naturally occurring experience with a woman, but I ...

i'm migrating south for the winter. moving to Norway. got the itch to go live there when i was in England the first time when i was 19 and saw those fair skinned kin in person for the first time - recognized them right off the bat before i even had any genealogical proof that i was from that land. i remember meeting a few of them that were vacationing while spending afternoons in St. James's Park and talking with them, and feeling as if they were brothers and sisters... we looked so much alike. why are my thoughts drifting here now? because of how out of place i feel in this soul-arid place... because i have no souls i connect with here, no kindred souls, no family, no friends, no friendly people, not even enemies, no one that cares about or hates me... i just create disinterest and fade into nothingness here. it doesn't even make sense what i said about wanting to go to Norway except that I do really have kindred there. i did some genealogy research and there are blood rel...

And he's back on the downswing again. I did good for two weeks, wrote everyday and got about 20k words added to the novel. Then made some weird, unfounded decision to go off my meds and replace them with drinking St. Johns Wort. Except that I lapse on drinking it when I should. I lapse in doing anything when I should. Like eating, or sleeping, our exercising. No system in my life at all right now. Screwing up on being friendly with anyone right now too. No, I'm way of key.

things have changed since i wrote the last entry, already. i really do have the very best friend in my life now, the very best I've ever had and I am deeply in a mysterious swoon of spellbinding connection with her. we had a long talk last night about "things", and she helped soothe my discontent, in ways that I believe only she could have done. i had been in a sliding path of doom, and even though she was still around and hanging out with me, it took the soul-breaking despair that i fell into to be able to confront it. now i feel reawakened and have swung around back into place where my plans of a hopeful future are alive. i have a desire of a plan and by god, i'm gonna do it or die.... later, hahaha

i'm not doing well. this should probably be a private posting, with the feelings i'm having, and the thoughts i'm considering sharing. but i don't care. if i write this privately and no one knows about it but me, how will any energy from the universe come to rescue me... i am so starved for love and affection that it's close to killing me. my thoughts just about an hour ago were, "once i finish writing this novel, i'm done. gone. over with all of this." i will have created my legacy with my photography and i will have completed the one story that i've poured more heart and soul into than anything else i've done in this lifetime. i just don't have any strength or imagination left for what i could go on to do after this is finished. the misery of feeling like a reject from society and of not being loveable enough to attract someone to come close into my life, it just makes this all feel like i'm in solitary confinement in a prison in a ...

i cannot break my addiction to visual art. i need to see it all the time. i don't how to explain it other than to blame it on my ocd-ish type of attachment to being told stories visually. it's why i'm also addicted to watching film stories. does this addiction/attachment/need suit my own artistic endeavors? it does, it can, but the element of enjoyment that i experience from this stimulus goes into the realm of triggering my depression. when i consume art and stories i'm not making my own stories, or art. i know how the pattern of behavior plays out, time after time. when i am unable to do photography, for whatever reason, i obsess over using my Tumblr account. that can happen during a phase when i am fully engaged in my "photography seasons", but have a lapse of creative projects to work on. and it happens during the phase i'm in right now, where i have decided to put the camera away and go back to my writing. several weeks ago i felt it was time to s...

i can't do anything but sit here and write. writing is the only way to get the shit out of my head and heart into a processing machine that will help it all make sense to me. cafes and writing, that's all that there can be for me. there is no other church or therapy group that could serve me like this does. i don't have to talk to anyone, i just have to sit and concentrate. push the buttons and let it all flow out.. i am one day closer to my goal of "Portland or Die". yesterday was one of the worse times i've had the experience of becoming immobilized by the depression. i'm half ready to blame it on the juice fast, but not fully. for the most part, i do not feel hungry during this fast but it still seems to lower my ability to stay fully energetic and cognizant. so last night after i drank my evening juice i retired to my room and sat up on my bed. i did not lay down. but it didn't seem to matter. all that happened for the next 4 hours was me sitting...

i wrote that title some time ago, but never made an entry, so i'm just going to go with it and start to talk about what is going on now. soo very much has happened since December - the time of my last entry. i will continue to say that i have a very good life. i may not be in the ultimate position of joy that i was in when i created that title before, but i am so solid in my friendship with her right now that there is very little possibility of anything ever becoming unworkable again. we figure everything out, just by talking. honesty, frankness, and a willingness to ask for help is all it takes to keep things fresh, nurtured, and growing. we have grown so much closer to each other too. we rode the train together from the bay area to Portland, Oregon (almost) a month ago - 3 weeks i guess it is now! the experience of achieving this trip together was the greatest thing we've ever accomplished. we learned so much about each other and have become entirely comfortable in each oth...