this morning

I wrote the following this morning, before my first session, but I was unable to post it at the time. In the spirit of openness and honesty, I will post it now.

Last night, Digger decided to write everyone and ask what was up, specifically because he was getting requests for TFA to play places and he didn't know what to tell them. It's an understandable query, but one that I wish he had done in person, where it wouldn't have been so easy for Paulito to announce his hiatus, which he just did this morning.

Eileen should have to live with the fact that she broke up the band. I bet she'll kid herself into thinking that it had nothing to do with her. But it had everything to do with her, and it's important to me that she be aware of her role in the dismantling of TFA. I don't know exactly how I'll tell her, as I'm not a big fan of confrontation either, but since we're going down, having a few extra flames in the fire ain't so bad.

TFA has defined me, and I swallowed a lot of pride to stay in it, only to have others be much less flexible. I just can’t correctly handle anything. Now I’m leaving, but I don’t even get to do it on my terms. That is, unless I skip the CROP walk, which is a charity event and would stick it to Paulito, or not bother with WeeM, which would completely ruin MY time at the weekend-long event and really stick it to Digger, the only friend I’ll keep out of this. Again, I’m stuck.

I’m aware that the blog has not been the “math, music and art” board that I originally envisioned it to be. Then, again, I didn’t realize how difficult my life would become.

In about an hour, I’ll be headed to the old hospital to meet for the first time with a therapist. I went to see a “shrink” twice in 1999, when the world seemed very strange and I started to have panic attacks. After five minutes, the first therapist said that she couldn’t see me anymore and referred me to someone else at another time. (You can imagine how upset this made me, since I likely had feelings of rejection at the time and got rejected by my own therapist right away.) The second one took a strange tactic with me and was deliberately nasty to me. I remember telling him off and leaving, and somehow feeling better out of it. Did he know that such a tactic was most beneficial to me? Here’s hoping that no such move will be instituted by the new guy today.

It’s different this time, though. In 1999, I was a few months into a new job at IBM that was hurting my social life, but I was making more money than ever before, working in a big building (something I wanted to do) and in the middle of dating a lot of different women. Until 1998, I only dated one girl a year, the relationship usually starting in late January or so and ending around May Day. Seriously, it was almost like clockwork. But in 1998-1999, I got around a lot. I now like to think of that time as “the quickening,” in reference to the sci-fi sword-wielding cult hit “Highlander,” where a few immortals on this earth start being drawn to each other to fight one other, since only they can kill each other, with there being only one left. (Okay, maybe that part was “the gathering,” but my experiences of those two years seemed to quickly lead me to Margie, whom I met a week before Thanksgiving in 1999.)

This time, apart from my wonderful marriage, nothing’s going right for me. I suppose my health is still okay, but that’s nothing new. No job. Questionable prospects, even IF I pass next month’s exam. 40 years old now. Very few friends, most of them estranged or wrapped up in their own families. My social outlet, the band, is done. And I haven’t even brought up the biggest source of sadness in my life, but it’s too private a matter to discuss here, even though only one other person reads this board and that person is aware of it.

Huh. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, my Internet went down. So I’ve had to write this from a Word file. Not a big deal in the grand scheme, but it’s another unwelcome raindrop hitting me in the eye.

It sounds like the Cubs just nabbed Theo Epstein, the Red Sox’ general manager, for five years. At least some good news in coming to my team. Doesn’t it somehow make perfect sense that my team is the Cubs?

During one Halloween night in college, a bunch of friends went to a local graveyard to goof around and try to scare each other. We were likely tipsy at the time but did nothing illegal on the grounds. However, Angela’s asthma had acted up and she couldn’t run with the rest of the crowd, so I stayed back with her. Margaret poked fun at the two of us with our asthma, not being able to keep up. While I do have asthma, it wasn’t bad and I could’ve easily kept pace. But I chose not to, instead opting to comfort someone in need. No one else saw it that way, though. This little story often feels like my entire life. I could excel, but I stay behind for some reason that is completely unappreciated. Why must I do this? No one asks me to lag, or to fail, or to regress and retard. Yet I keep doing it, and too often, it feels like I don’t know how to change my behavior.

Now everything from Comcast is down: TV, Internet, and phone, since I have VoIP. I can’t contact anyone. Seriously, what is going on in my life? Can I ever make the right decision or get lucky? Ever?