I Get So Emotional Baby

For years I kept my feeling like treasures... buried. Only letting the ones out that I thought would serve my motives. Pout when I wanted attention give love when I wanted it in return but I could flip it on and off like a switch. Now after many a tear dropped in a bucket I have realize that I can no longer hold back my emotions. Every now and then at the most unexpected moment they spill over the top.
Here I am watching a star trek movie and little sad moments burst me into tears. What the fuck is this about.

Well anyway I hope all of you have had a happy Independence Day. I also hope you are celebrating your own form of dependence, whatever your vices may be. I also hope one of them is reading my blog.

You know I’ve written about a lot of the flakes I’ve dated but I haven’t mentioned any of the nice guys the near misses that I have experienced.

What do you do when you meet someone that you have so much in common with and you have so much fun with that the relationship is perfect? What if you even really love the person?

Well in two cases I’d like to discuss I can tell you that one of them a fellow from the rooms I do truly love and I had to make a conscious decision to leave well enough alone and not ruin a healthy relationship. I decided to keep the rooms my safe haven and to not use them as a dating pool. I thought I could get away with dating in another fellowship but I realized to get to know people in other meetings I’d have to go to them regularly and share and here fellow’s shares and then make I’d be really attached to them and therefore not want to date them.

The other guy I met last winter was such a sweet heart we had great dates and tons in common. The problem is that we had too much in common. I care about him but if he were left handed and named Tommy I’d have to kill him. There is such a thing as too much in common. I want to have different outlets in life. If I have too much in common with a person there’s a chance I’d depend too much upon them. I left this relationship flicker out quickly. I enjoyed the connection I felt to this guy especially since he’s not a fellow. It was a learning experience to connect with someone not in the rooms.

So why am I so against dating anyone willing to let me in? I know I’m attracted to the unavailable guys but I’m really working on learning to accept that. I’m even learning to look for a guy that will be available. Why is myself worth (even with all this therapy and little bit of recovery) so low that I don’t all anyone willing to care about me to care about me. I’m working on it and hopefully I will be able to tell you all at some point that I have let someone in. Until then keep reading…

Love on the Rocks

Hello again, hello!

Whether you can admit it or not you know that Neil Diamond has some of the most amazing love songs of all times EVER!
One of my fondest childhood memories is going for a ride in Nana Rose's Buick.  I would  sit on the arm rest in the front seat between Nana Rose, and her mother Nana Mary (my grandmother and great grandmother by marriage).

Nana Rose would ask me to serenade her and got to pop in the 8 track to "Love of the Rocks". I still know the song by heart and I dedicate it to all the men I've loved. The words with Neil's voice are truly haunting.

“Love on the rocks, ain’t no surprise, just pore me a drink and I'll tell you some lies, nothing to lose, so you just sing the blues, all the time

gave you my heart, gave you my soul, you left me alone here with nothing to hold, yesterdays gone, now all I want is a smile

First they say they want you, hear how they really need you, suddenly you find you're out there, walking in a storm

And when they know they have you, then they really have you, nothing you can do or say, you got to leave, just get away

We all know the song, you need what you need, you can say what you want, not much you can do when the feeling is gone, maybe blue skies above, but its cold, when your loves on the rocks...”

Written by: Neil Diamond & Gilbert Becaud

How is this not the anthem to the broken hearts club, and was this foreshadowing my entire love life to come way back in 1981?  I mean I was only 2 years old!  Was the evil eye put on me all those years ago riding in the Buick? Did I curse myself by singing along?

Now I've had a few relationships, on many types of rocks, so by now I’m never shocked when things go south, but I've always given my all in every relationship but as I get older and circumstances change I realize my all is changing as well. I've learned that giving to much of myself has only left me to bare the tundra of solitude. So how do I communicate what my needs are and meet someone else’s without running aground?

The paradox of rescue...

The paradox of rescue...

Hey peeps so sorry to keep you all waiting for my next entry. I would first of all like to thank all of you that have been following me that I know and those of you that are following me that I don’t know. I vow to continue to be the best me that I can be and bring you my thoughtful opinions and perspectives on the world.

I would also like to give a shout out to my friend Yamira that found me on Facebook and reunited me with several old HS friends! (Love you and FB) The best part of finding Yamira is that one we are exactly 6 months apart and have a weird connection I can honestly tell you I’ve scoured FaceBook and MySpace looking for her, but also she has a great memory and can help me fill in some details in regards to Doink (she was there) and she reminded me of his original nickname “Pigeon Giggles”

So let’s begin shall we?

If I save myself before you come to my rescue I'll resent you for making me do all the work. I’ll perceive myself as having done all the work to make myself the better person and I will wear it as a badge to prove to you that I really don’t need you and that I’m doing you a favor by hanging around with you. However if you save me I'll probably be overly grateful at first and over compensate initially in the relationship till I get fed up with it and start withdrawing. Then you’ll become resentful at how ungrateful I’ve become and how I no longer treat you like the hero on the pedestal that you used to be. This slippery slope will cause all sorts of discontent in the relationship finally killing it.

So what is the solution? Well I’ve accepted that the only thing I can accept from a partner is their love and companionship and that it is up to me to rescue myself, but maybe it’s fair game to play a damsel in distress up until you find me then not only will I help you rescue me but I also will know that you are the right guy for being willing to step off the high horse to lend a hand and I will then be able to give you clear and precise instructions on what I need to feel rescued. Then we can go off into the sunset and I can help you slay a dragon!

I’m feeling a little verklempt!

Where do I begin this entry? I’m going to keep it short and to the point.

I got home Thursday afternoon from a wonderful visit with my baby brother and his wonderful mother Toni and eight days is not enough time to spend with him. While gone two friends passed away and I returned home to find out Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett had passed away. Now not that MJ remembers meeting me but he makes 3 people that I’ve met died in one week. I’m not bragging about meeting MJ but the two friends Scott & Giro that passed I am truly mournful over, not that the loss of the two icons aren’t as tragic they just weren’t as close to home.

My little brother asked me some questions about our dad and it’s so hard to answer him in a way that is respectful of the fact that A: my little brother is just ten. B: our father is an addict who suffers from a disease. C: I don’t want to make any complexes he may develop over these issues any worse. D: I don’t want to jade him with my own experiences regarding our father but I also want to protect him from the damage I suffered.

On top of all this I just checked to see if our dad is still alive and I found out he was released from jail a week after my birthday and his mug shot looks horrible. In recovery the one thing I honestly still pray for just like when I was a little kid was that my father would be safe and taken care of. Not that I believe in god but I cast out the thought that I hope he gets better and has the chance to gain what I’ve gained in recovery.

At this point though I really want to withdraw from my program and avoid all the friends I’ve made because people keep dying. It’s getting me down. Maybe I need to take a break but I don’t need to relapse…

I’m feeling a little verklempt!

Where do I begin this entry? I’m going to keep it short and to the point.

I got home Thursday afternoon from a wonderful visit with my baby brother and his wonderful mother Toni and eight days is not enough time to spend with him. While gone two friends passed away and I returned home to find out Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett had passed away. Now not that MJ remembers meeting me but he makes 3 people that I’ve met died in one week. I’m not bragging about meeting MJ but the two friends Scott & Giro that passed I am truly mournful over, not that the loss of the two icons aren’t as tragic they just weren’t as close to home.

My little brother asked me some questions about our dad and it’s so hard to answer him in a way that is respectful of the fact that A: my little brother is just ten. B: our father is an addict who suffers from a disease. C: I don’t want to make any complexes he may develop over these issues any worse. D: I don’t want to jade him with my own experiences regarding our father but I also want to protect him from the damage I suffered.

On top of all this I just checked to see if our dad is still alive and I found out he was released from jail a week after my birthday and his mug shot looks horrible. In recovery the one thing I honestly still pray for just like when I was a little kid was that my father would be safe and taken care of. Not that I believe in god but I cast out the thought that I hope he gets better and has the chance to gain what I’ve gained in recovery.

At this point though I really want to withdraw from my program and avoid all the friends I’ve made because people keep dying. It’s getting me down. Maybe I need to take a break but I don’t need to relapse…

Whining Altitude

I'm about 20,000 ft in the air and my ears just popped so violently that I dropped the book that I'm reading. I'm only 15 pages in and already I've wanted to open the emergency exit hatch and toss it to hopefully land on the authors head to strike him dead. Not for a lack of talent but rather for being able to make me cringe in disgust 7 pages in and cry at least 3 times already and I'm not even in the 3rd chapter!

I have had bad ear canals since I was a child and with smoking for 16 years of my life and being asthmatic and having bad allergies I have done enough damage to my inner sinuses and ear parts that I will be having tubes put in my ear this fall or winter. So as soon as we hit a certain altitude and the lack of pressure I felt my inner ear canals pop open and the worse of the 2 the right started to spray fluid down the back of my sinus cavity and down my throat. I know gross right! I'll tell you what guys I am afraid of the surgery but not so much to stop me from having it. For the past 3 years I've suffered from sinus infections that at their worst caused me to start suffering from tinnitus (ringing in the ears) for 5 months. The ringing never stopped I'd wake up to ringing, go trough my day ringing and try to fall asleep still ringing. At first I thought I wad losing my mind and being upstate with quack doctors I thought it was hopeless. I would break into tears in my office at work the first 2 months because I thought I was really losing my mind and I was told by everyone that I just needed to adjust to it.  Thank god it finally caused me to relapse on new years of '08 and after 2 months of crystal bingeing the dehydrating effect the drug had drained my ears enough to stop the ringing. I then got clean a month later and moved back to NYC where with the help of great doctors and an acupuncturist (hey Peter) I have developed a most complicated regimen to keep the tinitus and sinus infections away. This includes Claritin-d (after trying every drug without pseudoephedrine) to keep my sinuses dry, chinese herbs (magnolia pills) to also fight off colds and such, Nasonex to shrink the shrink the tissue where the ear canal meets the sinus cavity to help proper drainage, a netti-pot to keep my sinuses clean and help rinse mucus and debris that built up in there, and acupuncture to line some chia properly to tell my body to work properly. This sounds like a lot but the alternative is to have my ears swell and mess up my equilibrium to the point where blowing my nose would cause me to completely lose my balance from vertigo and fall. I've almost cracked my head on a few public & private toilets and or sinks. Holding on to a sink for dear life or praying to a toilet bowl to regain balance for sometimes up to 30 minutes is rather debilitating so if surgery will cure all this you're damn skippy I'm going under the knife.

Ok let's get back to the book. Its an author that has made it on Oprah's book club more then once and his first book I read back in the days of Doink and it was a real tear yerker. "She's Come Undone" by Wally Lamb I still remember how it pulled at every emotion I had. Now I'm reading "I Know This Much Is True" by Wally Lamb and already he's managed in 15 pages to strike on an issue too close to home. Losing a loved one to cancer. My grandmother (Nana) died on Jan '02 and I have never been the same. I have mentioned before that her death really sent me off to the races and to this I day I miss her to no end so if I don't make it through this book you all know why!

I can't let you get away... You'll dial 911

I used to always find myself need deep in relationships. I think it’s probably one of my early forms of the 'ism'. I mean for an 11 year span of my life 16-27 I think I spent 9 in a relationship. Doink, James, Doink, Doink, Doink, Romeo, Bryan, Terence, Eddie and Rich. Now Rich and Eddie were each two years back to back and I was engaged to Eddie. Now don’t worry my peeps I’ll get into James Romeo Bryan and Eddie at some point each one is a lovely tale I tell but as always and the reason I started this blog is that I’m the common thread here. All the above named have just been catalysts to my ‘ism’s.

I have been single now for three years next month and yes I’ve dated and even had a second date or two but most of them were not anything that I wanted to jump into, further more I’ve made a conscious decision to start changing my ways so even though I relapsed a lot on drugs in my first two years trying to get clean I did not relapse into a unhealthy relationship. (And yes Terence our relationship was unhealthy because I was in it) So am I lonely yes but am I alone no! I have a ton of friends that I can call anytime I have meeting where I can complain how lonely I am. When I feel like this my favorite song by Jude is “Paper Towel” the lyrics mention not being immune to the loneliness and suggests communicating with the objects in the home and spooning an over sized pillow which I do, and that I can accept the caress of my razor on my cheek to feel not alone. I even took this another level whenever I feel really alone I take clean laundry that’s folded and put it in the bed next to me to really fill up that empty space in my bed. The one thing I have not yet done is take anyone else hostage.

Now I know it takes two to tango but I can look back at each one of these relationships and know that even if I didn’t twist the other ones are into being my boyfriend I sure didn’t pay attention to the signs that they were unhealthy to begin with to step out of the way of the truck. Now I’ve been dating for 2 weeks now and I’ve met some interesting and nice guys, and been shot down by a couple of them and I have shot down a few myself and I’ve met a few that I wanted to lock in my bedroom and not let get away but I chose to act like an adult and sulk in private and then I came up with the nifty idea to start this blog.

I have also started to notice my behaviors since I’ve gotten sober. One of my defense mechanisms is to be a bull in a china shop and just throw every issue I have at any and all suitors looking to get to know me. So I’m still carrying my baggage that is marked fragile and jingles like broken glass but I’m learning when it’s appropriate to put certain issues on the table. I do know that eventually I’d like to find someone that is willing to help me put my crap wrapped in Louis Vuitton in storage so that we can walk to Bergdorf Goodman’s and pick out new china in a less dysfunctional pattern. Until then I’ll be here waiting…