The Berklee School of Music Singer/Songwriter, part 3

Wow, I am a selfish biatch.

And I'm clearly an addict.

Here's my morning:

I text Jason at 10 am. (It was hard to even wait that long, but I didn't want to seem desperate.) I check my phone every five minutes for two hours. Then I text him again. He texts me back, and I can finally smile. Then more waiting, impatiently, on edge. Feeling worthless. Irritable. Discontent.

Meanwhile, I'm only half-present for my son.

That's pretty much how my whole day went. I half-played with my son, took Melia to the doctor and the pharmacy, took my son to a playground and to the airpark, but never was my attention fully on him, or her. All I could think about, all day was, "When's he gonna text me again? Come on!"

We did text a little throughout the day, but it was sporadic, and it was mostly him saying he was busy...he was as at work (duh), then he was writing music (which he does), then his grandpa was in the hospital, and then he didn't feel well. I called to talk to him, but he didn't answer. It was right after he had texted me, too. Then in a text message I offered for him to come over so he wouldn't be alone, but he didn't want to. He just wanted to go to bed.

But of course, that was me being selfish, under the guise of being of service.

Really, come on, Adora.

Meanwhile, I texted 3 other guys today. Two were in response, one was initiated by me. All 3 platonic, but still...why do I need attention from men in order to feel okay?

I also called 3 women, so I didn't just focus on guys. But with the 3 women I talked to, two of them didn't have time to talk, and the third one just wanted to talk about her own problems, so we did, and I offered her solutions that I pretend work for me.

Even my aunt with whom I live has noticed something's been wrong with me. "Are you okay?" she asked me today. "You've been quiet." It's true; I told her I've been depressed. I've begun to withdraw, more and more. I'm starting to hide from people. I'm glad I'm going to be seeing a therapist twice a week now, but I'm nervous about that, too. At our first meeting she brought up damn meds.

I remember before Margaret committed suicide, she shared with me her desire to get off her anti-depressants because she just didn't like not being able to feel. She hated being numb. A week later, she was dead.

It scares me, the idea of being medicated. Why must it be? Hell, my therapist is even talking about how my son may have ADHD. Fucking a', bitch, he's four.

I'm sorry. I don't know what's happening to me. I did all my spiritual guru prayer meditation shit today, but there's still this part of me that looks at everything in existence as totally meaningless. I'm driving, looking at road signs, and saying to myself, "Fuck that sign. What's the point of that fucking sign? There's no fucking point. Fuck it." Yesterday on the way to pick up my son I fantasized about pulling into a row of palm trees lining the middle of the road.

I'm so glad I have my son. He makes me laugh. He astonishes me with his brilliance, his innocence, his unconditional love. I want to see him grow up. I don't know the future. For some reason I expect every day to be my last day here -- I don't know why I'm just feeling like it's pretty much all over, all ready -- but I'm not suicidal; I have no REAL desire to end my life.

Still, I'm having a hard time enjoying anything besides laying in bed. Writing's okay. Singing's not so bad. But even with writing and singing, I'm like, "What's the point?"

I'm so glad I have things to read. I need to read a hell of a lot more. All this isolation just coops me up with my own ridiculously drab thoughts. I need to go to more recovery meetings, too. I'm at maybe three a week. But even then, I go to meetings and I look down my nose at people. "You pathetic, lying humans," I think to myself. I think everyone's full of shit. How I became Holden Caulfield, I have no idea. That persona is so played.

My therapist thinks I haven't fully allowed myself to grieve my losses. My parents, my siblings, my husband, Margaret, my boyfriends (or at least Evan, the one I was closest to). My son for half the week. My innocence...my identity...my inner child...or some shit.

She also has noticed that I don't have any girl friends. That is weird, I have to admit. I have some female friends in recovery, but they all have the qualification of helping me stay sober and vice versa...like they're not real friends; they just serve a purpose. I don't know what the hell it's like to be someone's friend, really. I've always been a loner. I've always preferred reading and writing over interacting with actual people. I don't like it when people don't like me. I give them too much power, and yet I can't seem to stop doing that. And yet they probably don't even not like me.

I heard myself say today, as I was getting me and my son into the car at 2:00 pm to go get Melia, "That's it - he doesn't like me any more," just because Justin wasn't texting me off the hook. I laughed at myself and thought, "What if someone thought that about me? 'She didn't text me back right away; she doesn't like me any more.'" The idea was completely ridiculous. Just because I don't respond to someone's every text doesn't mean I don't like him/her. Duh.

And so then I circle back around to, "Why the hell am I being so selfish? Why do I need to be liked? Why can't I just love people, and leave it at that? Why do I feel so damn deprived?"

I don't know. I need to widen my circle. Be less judgmental. Stop thinking my shit don't stink. Or stop thinking I stink like shit. Whatever extreme, neither are real. Stuff matters. Life has meaning. There's a reason for all this. I'm not gonna be a broke-ass student working two part-time jobs forever...unless I keep dropping my classes like I did last semester and keep missing work like I've done five times in the past couple weeks.

The Berklee School of Music Singer/Songwriter, part 2

Well, shoot, now that I've started writing again, all of a sudden I have more to say.

After spending all day at Starbucks writing my post yesterday, I drove down to pick up my son from his dad's house. He fell asleep on the way back up to where I was headed for church choir rehearsal. I had over an hour before rehearsal would start, so I went over to my now-boyfriend's house for a quick kiss. I had spent the night there the night before so I'd all ready seen him in the morning, but, I wanted to see him again.

[The interaction between us that morning had both depressed me (as things tend to do lately) but also provided me with a revelation (as things tend to do often).]

That morning I received a call from a bill collector that got me out of my boyfriend's bed. Jason (not his real name, as usual) and I had just woken up, and I had all ready begun to express some dissatisfaction with certain aspects of my life. He shushed me and said, "We've only been awake for what, 20 minutes, and this all ready? Come on."

He doesn't want to hear about such things. I'm not sure if it has to do with him being 25 and living with his parents and being totally spoiled, with people taking care of him hand and foot and therefore him having no concept of what it means to nurture someone else, but, that's what I'm going with.

He complained when I got off the phone with the bill collector - I had answered and calmly set up a payment, which he didn't understand. "You should have asked them, 'What the hell are you doing, calling someone at 8 in the frickin' morning?' Geez!" I started to explain that I had previously scheduled that call, but he wasn't interested in hearing me speak. He interrupts me routinely, implying that he feels that his words have more value than mine. It's a trend I've noticed over the past few days since we became "boyfriend and girlfriend". I'm much quicker to pick up on these sorts of things now that I'm in recovery and am being "restored to sanity" one day at a time (some days are saner than others, for sure).

I meditated in the shower so that I could get my mind off what I perceived as his immaturity and how invalidated I felt. Or, rather, what I mean to say is I meditated to accept his perceived immaturity and to observe my feelings and figure out what to do with them other than what I would have done in the past (scream, kick, yell, punch walls, drink, use drugs, etc).

[Also worth mentioning is the fact that he takes medications for bipolar, anxiety and sleep disorders...so...his demeanor is probably a combination of the aforementioned living-with-his-parents-at-that-age and these latter conditions. But...nature, nurture, tomayto, tomahto...all that is really beside the point.]

If I don't kick and scream when I don't get my way, how do I make myself feel better when I feel "wronged" by someone?

I kill my ego. Doesn't sound like it'd feel good, but actually, it does.

And here's how I do it: First, I meditate, bringing myself wholly "present", taking my mind off the other person and focusing it on me (my body), my feelings (not my thoughts), and what's in front of me (literally: shampoo...soap...hot water...shower curtain...etc), and then, after becoming aware of my self and what is real (tangible corporeality) as opposed to what is not real (thought perceptions)...all that's left is really all there "is".

And then...I enter another realm. Y'all ready? That's right -- I pray.

Okay, this is where the atheist goes, "Aww, man, another crackpot." Or, "That is all so effing kooky, and way too complicated." But my mind is a complicated thing, and it gets me into trouble, time and time again. So what I do here is actually simple. And I need to simplify things so that I don't have to feel insane all the time (because, as of right now, I don't have meds to regulate whatever happens up there...but hell, maybe I don't need 'em, any way. Let's see...).

One prayer I use is called "The Serenity Prayer". It goes like this: "God, grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." One thing I've learned by now, although I have to remind myself every day, is that I can't change anyone else. And that is for damn sure. The only person I can change is me...but I can change me. (Though, still, not without some outside help.)

Then the next one: "God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy Will, always." I was an atheist for the first 28 years of my life, and I have to say, I much prefer spirituality these days. When I let go of everything and just trust it to be part of some Master Plan that I have nothing to do with, I get to experience a sort of simple, effortless peace and freedom...even joy.

Here's another prayer that I recite from memory, after the other two: "My Creator, I am now willing that You should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that You now remove from me every single defect of character that stands in the way of my usefulness to You and to my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go from here, to do Your bidding." I take a look at what "defects of character" are driving me and making me "useless" (sitting in resentment and self-pity makes me "useless"; helping others makes me "useful"). These "defects" usually include selfishness, self-centeredness, dishonesty (most often I'm dishonest with myself), and fear. Doing God's Will, as opposed to mine, for me, means asking God to remove these "defects" and replace them with positive, useful attributes, like love, patience, tolerance, kindness, honesty and selflessness. Because, believe it or not, that makes me feel better than resenting someone for how they're treating me.

For the record, alcoholics like me actually can't afford resentments. Resentment is what leads many a recovering alcoholic to relapse. "Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink," the saying goes. During my interaction with Jason yesterday morning, I actually thought about how nice it would be to just "check out". I thought about smoking weed and how nice it would be to be high. I thought about drinking and how nice it would be to be drunk. After my nearly two years clean and sober, that is a very dangerous place for my mind to go; absolutely, under no circumstances, can I pick up a drug or a drink, or my life will be over.

And, so, here's the final prayer, the Mack Daddy of them all: "Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace! That where there is hatred, I may bring love. That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness. That where there is discord, I may bring harmony. That where there is error, I may bring truth. That where there is doubt, I may bring faith. That where there is despair, I may bring hope. That where there are shadows, I may bring light. That where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted. To understand, than to be understood. To love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life."

Amen!

(I do need help remembering this one, though. HWDEDDS CUL SFD...lemme try that.)

After I meditate and pray, I do, at least temporarily, forget about whatever it is that someone did that bothered me. It's a lot of work, but it's a small price to pay to get out of a living hell.

I came up with another way to help me deal with Jason for when I'm around him, because I can't easily do all that meditating and praying when I'm actually around him - that'll take some practice. So before I left the bathroom and went back to his vicinity, I said to myself, "Okay, Adora: any time you're with Jason, shut your mouth other than to laugh at his jokes, to console him, to kiss him, to sing to him, or to suck his dick."

Fuck, I know. It sounds horrible, doesn't it? And my perception could be entirely wrong. But I'm gonna re-mind myself of the phrase my cousin coined when I left my husband to "be with" a co-worker, 2 1/2 years ago: "Enjoy your boy toy." Right now, maybe that's Jason's place in my world. And I really do feel, based on how he "treats" me, that the above five verbs about sum up the place I have in his. I'm not going to try to "get anything" from him other than what he's willing or able to offer (and my prayers do help me with that.) He's not a stepdad to my son (my son's dad is in his life, and okay, so I'll be doing it on my own when he's in my custody...fine). He's not a financial provider (I'm going to school and trying to finish so I can work full-time with a degree...so...I don't get a man to "take care of me"...fine). He's not a spiritual guru (he's an ego-driven, science-loving atheist...fine, I love science, too; ego, not as much, but whatever). He's a musician, and we have fun making music together. He makes jokes, and we have fun laughing together. He's sexy, and we have fun being physically intimate. And he's leaving for the Berklee School of Music in Boston for two years in July, although he'll be coming home for vacations...so the fun'll be over in six months save for intermittently thereafter...if we're even still involved with each other at that point. 

Boy Toy. Fun. Fine.

So, I went over to his house again before choir rehearsal for a kiss, since my son was asleep, and because I do like affection. I came up with another mantra on the way, where I reminded myself: "Save your crazy." In other words, I'll "save my crazy" for, or only talk about my feelings when I'm talking to sponsors, friends, my therapist, people in recovery meetings, or save them for when I write. But presenting them to Jason may not give me a favorable result; I've all ready found him to be a black hole. "Don't go to an auto mechanic for heart surgery," a saying goes. 

So Jason is, to me: "laughter, affection, and music". When I went back over there, instead of talking to him about my feelings, because experience has taught me that I can get nothing out of that other than frustration, I decided this time to just listen to him, laugh at his jokes while sprinkling in some of my own to make him laugh, show him affection, and nurture him. And it all worked out just fine. I didn't lose one ounce of serenity because of my acceptance and decision to just "give".

[And no, he won't read this. I'm hoping he ends up proving me wrong eventually, really. But we'll see.]

Then, I left, and I drove to the foster care facility where I picked up my 16 year-old sponsee Kassandra. She's recovering from alcohol and drug addiction, and I'm working her through the 12 steps. I also hired her to babysit my four year-old son for me during my choir rehearsal last night. I enjoy spending time with and being of service to her, whenever I can, and she enjoys getting out of the foster care facility any chance she gets (it's not a "home" with a family...it houses a large number of "former delinquents" without a home...and the place more resembles an apartment complex with a big office building in the middle than it does a house). Kassandra's doing a lot better now that she's not living in a motel room with her heroin-adddicted dad and now that she's not ending up in juvie over and over (she's been twice). Now, she's going to an adult school for her GED, she's involved in club volleyball, she volunteers at a mental health facility, and she gives me one more reason to stay sober and knock my own bullshit off. I want to be a positive example for someone.

Choir rehearsal was good. I enjoyed watching my director intently as I led the Soprano section. He's so good at letting us know when to be loud, when to be soft, when to cut off, when to come in, with his hands, arms, and face. I think I want to go on for a Master's Degree in Choral Conducting after I get my Bachelor's Degree in Music. I'll be done with my BA in a few semesters; I'm going half-time. Actually, when I woke up here at 4:53 am and decided I needed to write some more (I love it when my addictive nature latches onto writing as opposed to other things), this idea was the first thing that came to my mind.

I dropped Kassandra back off at "home" and drove my boy and I home, where we commenced to build a castle out of giant legos and had the bad guys tear it down and then the good guys beat up the bad guys for tearing it down. Then he asked to watch Max Steel on Netflix, so I set that up for him while he ate dinner, and I took some time to read don Miguel Ruiz' The Mastery of Love. I hadn't read anything for weeks (I was too busy obsessing about Jason and trying to get him to be my boyfriend), so it was nice to get out of my head some more. I picked it up while thinking about the last prayer that I'd quoted above, otherwise known as the St. Francis Prayer (or the 11th Step Prayer), thinking, "Hmm, maybe this book will teach me how to love." It was a Christmas gift from a girlfriend of mine in recovery, but I hadn't opened it up yet. And I only got through about ten pages before my son needed me again, but I read some things that I really appreciated. I have to open myself up to solutions from outside of myself as much as I possibly can. It's just the only way for me to go on.

Before I got to writing here this morning, I had also begun to read again one of my ol' writing professors' blogs. Whenever I go on a reading spree, I try to make sure his work gets in there somewhere. I'll be forever indebted to him for his inspiration; I always learn something from him, even though it's been, say, nearly ten years since I've taken the two classes I took from him (a literature class focusing on autobiography and a beginning creative writing class). Right now he's having to undergo chemotherapy; he's about done with it, and it's working, so I'm glad about that. But gosh, it's amazing to read his work, not just because as a professor of creative writing, he writes extremely well, but also because when I read his work, I always gain some new perspective on my own life situation.

One of the things he wrote about in his last post is the value he has found in community, as people gather to help one another in a common purpose. We don't have to do this thing alone. And that reminds me why I'm of service to those less fortunate - because nothing that I'm going through is really that bad. Other people have it plenty worse.

I need the death of the self (or ego) that St. Francis (attributedly) talks about. For example, I also help a crippled woman named Melia who's in her fifties and can't go anywhere without someone's help. I give her rides and bring her things and spend time with her, just because it gets me out of myself. She calls me every day, in a lot of pain both physically and emotionally. I can't do anything to alleviate her physical suffering, but it makes me feel good to make her laugh or to help her through her own resentments and self-pity (which are probably more founded than mine, though no more or less detrimental to one's well being).

Today I'm giving Melia a ride to the doctor at 2:30. Before that I'll be taking care of my son and reaching out to some people on the phone, to see how they're doing.

I'm gonna try to just be okay today, whatever it takes.

The Berklee School of Music Singer/Songwriter

So, it's been determined that I am, in fact, insane, but to what extent hasn't yet been decided by my therapist.

While trudging through the Dark Night of the Soul this past month, I finally decided to go ahead and make a damn appointment. I hadn't seen my therapist in over a year. I called every day from this past Tuesday to this past Friday, trying to get the appointment. I was being persistent because I was being told that she (my therapist) would call me back, and each day I was falling deeper and deeper into a sort of depression that I'd forgotten could exist, and she wasn't calling me back. Thankfully, she did, finally, and was even able to have a phone session with me on Saturday. The session consisted of me talking for an hour, catching her up on the past year, and her talking for 15 minutes, suggesting a couple things for me to do, as well as setting up another appointment for Wednesday (yesterday). And yesterday she set up appointments for Mondays and Wednesdays, based on my apparently tragic condition, so she can see me twice a week and try to figure out what the hell is going on that makes me want to do absolutely nothing.

I've heard about people seeing the world in shades of gray. About not wanting to get out of bed in the morning, or do anything, or go anywhere, or talk to anyone. I missed four days of work and my world was the color of feces. I just didn't want to be in it any more. No matter where I was, it just wasn't where I wanted to be. Nothing in the world was good - not even being with my son, which is the thing that's saved me so many times before. I even freaking got baptized. But it only got worse.

Today's finally sort of a little okay. I'm missing work again (my boss is sick, so there isn't anything for me to do there any way since they took all my responsibilities away saying that I'm over-qualified and that now I need to train my boss so he knows how to do his own damn job since I'm going to be graduating from school at some point and will move onto bigger and "better" - not 20 hrs/week $10/hour - things). My work situation has contributed to my depression a lot, for sure. They just made me stop doing all the things I do because I'm so much better at doing them than my boss is, and instead of letting me do them, they want me to show him how to do them, because don'tcha know, I'm a "temporary" employee, and since they can't afford to really actually hire me, they're gonna keep paying me less than this guy who I'm training. Yeah, it's depressing, all right.

Of course, you know that's not the only thing getting me down. Ahh...what we're all here for...relationships. This blog began as a relationship inventory. Relationships just haven't gone too well for me, understatedly -- namely, relationships with my parents and their significant others, relationships with my other family members, work relationships, relationships with "friends", the relationship with my husband, relationships with all the men I've somehow managed not to be successful at not getting involved with...these have all driven me completely insane, apparently (and well, again, the therapist and my doctor are going to decide the level of my insanity).

When I last posted, I had gotten back into a relationship with the boyfriend I'd left my husband for (the boyfriend with whom I'd broken up over and over in order to be with other men who'd wanted to be with me, before going back to him over and over when it didn't work out with those men - for two years - until he took off to Canada in September for three months and I finally had to face these demons without him).

I like to rewind and recap: So this boyfriend's name is Evan (#1) (and not his real name, of course). Those other men I just talked about are #2 through #26 (DAMN). After Evan left to Canada in September, I went and dated and had sex with a guy I'd pined over for like a year, who, afterwards, told me he had herpes (#27). I considered that a good enough rock bottom to want to really be done with men (and what choice did I have, I thought, if I might have contracted an STD?). I told my friend Margaret about it and she started taking me to meetings for sex and love addicts. Margaret's boyfriend was cheating on her, she thought, and he didn't want to be with her any more; she was so torn up that she decided she might be a love addict and thought 12-step programs would help her. They didn't (she didn't really try, IMO). After Margaret committed suicide (I had completed 42 successful days of "no men" and was going for 90), I ran into a guy who'd composed music for a video about suicide. When I talked to him about my experience with Margaret, he asked for my number, asked me out on a date, and we had sex even though I didn't want to. He was #29 (I'm counting Jesus as #28).

So, I went back to "Day 0". I've still been going to meetings, but I just haven't been able to get back to the whole "no men" thing. I haven't been able to put even one day together without some kind of pursuit of them (or at least without responding to them favorably). Margaret's death flipped me completely upside down; she was the one who was helping me with this "guy stuff"...or maybe I should say her death just put me back where I was. It was helping me to write about it...but once she died, I didn't even have the desire to do that any more, and it's been hard to get back to this inventory stuff.

I managed to stop seeing the suicide video/satellite communications engineer guy, but then Evan came back from Canada in December and asked me to the movies. I accepted, because that's what I do. But after a couple weeks I remembered, again, that I don't like him that much, and, more importantly, I don't like how unmanageable my life gets in my "relationship addiction", so, I operated via the standardly oft-repeated modus, and I had sex with the suicide video guy again, just so that I could get out of the relationship with Evan again...because gee, don'tcha know, I can't just be all, "Oh, yeah, sorry, dude, I forgot, I'm too fucked up for all this, and I don't want to be with you - my bad."

That was on January 1, go figure. Way to start the New Year, eh? I totally avoided writing about it, too, until now. But I do feel a bit better, doing so.

Oh, but - there's more.

I had called #23 (refer to the inventory to the right, somewhere) back in November when Margaret died, and we started talking again. His story is, when his wife left him six years ago, he wanted to kill himself, but instead of pulling the trigger of the gun that he was holding to his head on the pier, he checked into a psych ward and then a rehab and got sober. I hadn't talked to him since April, besides a few tens of obsessive emails I'd sent him after I stopped dating him (and I had stopped dating him because I got painful withdrawals from being away from him, and I figured it would be better to just end it and let go completely than to keep enduring those withdrawals...they sucked a lot of ass and hurt really, really badly). When I called him in November I used him like a therapist and spilled my guts, and would do so about every couple weeks, until a couple Thursdays ago, when I asked if I could see him in person, because I was depressed and needed a friend.

When I spent the night with him, I told him that I didn't want to have sex. He actually respected me. I think that's the first time that's ever happened with a male. (That statement belongs in bold.) So, the following week I went and spent the night with him again (this was last Friday, the day before I finally talked to my therapist on the phone, which I did from his apartment). And this time he was sick, so, we didn't even hug. We just talked. He just...totally...cared...about me...both times. It was shocking.

My obsession for him was lifted back in May, so these days he really is more of a friend. And he just showed me what a friend actually looks like. But I have developed a new obsession.

Of course, we'll call this one #30. He's the real reason I got rid of the other two guys (the Pizza Delivery Boyfriend and the Satellite Communications Engineer), in one fell swoop, 22 days ago, by the way. It wasn't just me not liking those other guys, or actually finally trying to change for real now. Nope - along came Jason.

I've "known" him since July, when I started singing at the church he works at as the sound engineer. I added him on facebook on Dec 29, he said hi in a facebook message, we messaged each other for hours, and he suggested we "jam" because he's also a musician (he sings w/piano). The jam invitation, over these past few weeks, turned into daily texting, which turned into sexting, which turned into us hanging out, which turned into us having sex, which turned into him becoming my boyfriend a few days ago (on Jan 19).

Okay, I can't write about this any more for now. I'm glad I've gotten this much out so far, though. I hope to get back into writing again, even though my classes have started - I have three of them. And two jobs. And meetings. And a four year-old. And a boyfriend. And now...therapy that I'm paying for and will probably end up taking some kind of medication because of -- oh, but, well, I guess I shouldn't say that I'll be taking meds because of the therapy, but because of whatever "disorders" my therapist and my doctor decide I have. General anxiety disorder has been mentioned. The depression may be situational, she says, but she's not sure yet, so we're gonna keep meeting twice a week to figure this all out.

But I'm really depressed about it the whole damn thing, if you want to know the truth (sorry, I do love Salinger's Holden).

More About the Pizza Delivery Boyfriend and the Satellite Communications Engineer

The first of the new year is a time, I've noticed, for many writers, myself no exception, to ponder especially deeply about what it is they're writing about, and why they're writing. Ray Rhamey postulates at his writing blog, Flogging the Quill, "The start of the new year is often a time folks resolve to do things, sometimes differently, sometimes new, in the coming year. At the least, it's a time to reflect on where you are now and where you want to go." After my last post, I'd like to say that where I've been and where I'd like to go don't really matter - since the only Time there is is Now - but then I'd have absolutely no reason to write, whatsoever. I know I need to get off the existential soapbox and get back to writing stories. My stories are about relationships, "love", sex, and while not always true with a "capital T", they come from my own experiences and my own perspective. And writing about them is what's happening now, for me. 

I do want to make sure I watch my grammar - I think. At The Huffington Post's "Grammarly" blog, the Grammarly Editor shared 7 Grammar Mistakes we're all probably making, based on the errors found in the 300,000+ novels written this past November during National Novel Writing Month. But, from what I can tell, I don't have an issue with any of these: missing commas, run-on sentences, comma splices, comma misuse, and missing articles. But these, I'm not so sure about: definite vs indefinite article use (meticulous use of "a/an" vs "the") and redundant articles (repeating the article when unnecessary: "I want a car, a plane, a boat, a train"). I do know I use a lot of sentence fragments. Sometimes I just like to write the way I speak. I'd never use a sentence fragment in a formal paper. 

If you'd really like to see someone break the rules, read Goat by Brad Land. An author, "Matt," offers a "ruthless review" of the memoir...but it's on website called "Ruthless Reviews", so there ya go - it's their shtick. I was particularly fond of Goat. I appreciate breaking writing rules - as long as one knows he or she is breaking them. And when I break them, I do know, at least, for the most part - but I'm always worried about whether the reader knows that I know. But Brad Land gave me the permission say 'never mind - fuck you'. And I like that. Or do I? Okay - I still don't know.

However I'm writing, I still struggle a slight bit with what I'm writing about - I know what I'm writing about, and it's cool with me, but, does any body else care, and is any body even reading it? In literary agent Janet Reid's blog about writing, one of her latest posts included a question from a reader: "What the hell am I supposed to blog about?" Her answer summarily was this: Don't blog. Janet recommends facebook or twitter for aspiring writers to get their names out there. Well, I can't really do that. I can't have all my friends reading about my sex life. My friends include professors, bosses, church leaders, family, etc. So, I write under a pseudonym. It limits my audience for me to be writing memoir as it actually happens. I imagine it wouldn't matter if I were writing about childhood, or about my marriage that ended two years ago, but I'm writing about the guy I fucked yesterday (well, not today - maybe in the next post).

And why am I writing? Well, I'm not really trying to get my "name" out there; I just want my "writing" out there. I'm not interested in joining NaNoWriMo. If I were to write a novel, it wouldn't be over the course of just a month - I'm too much of a perfectionist for that. And if I do write a novel, I'll use my real name. I've considered that, actually. I've even thought of turning Adora Fallbrook into a character and writing about her in the third person, or maybe still in the first person and changing things enough so that she isn't too close to "me". I'm already doing that with my "characters", in a sense: when I write about the men I've been with, I'm not focusing so much on "who" they really "are", but on my perspective of them and the events that transpired between us. And that perspective changes all the time, so I might write something about one of them, and then my perspective changes, and so that writing is no longer "true", if it ever was, any way.

For example: I wrote about The Shakespeare Connoisseur under the assumption that he had had ulterior motives. He's an older man with money, so I called him a "sugar daddy" because he took me out to a Shakespeare play and frequently to brunch, and he had wanted to help me out with my poorly-running car. But I told him about what had happened between me and The Propane Truck Driver ("Sterling" and I had had sex and four days later he had told me he had herpes), and The Shakespeare Connoisseur, "Deniro", stopped contacting me. I therefore assumed, despite his assurances, that what he'd wanted from me wasn't just my company or to help me. I was resentful when I wrote the post about him.

But, then, I did hear from him some time later. He asked how I was doing, and I told him that I was short $1043.00 for next semester's tuition, so I was trying to decide whether or not I would continue school. Despite my fears about him, he was something of a mentor to me, and I decided to go ahead and ask him for a loan, and give him the benefit of the doubt - or ignore my prior assumption - and hope for the best. We had lunch together again, and I told him about my blog, and about my "problems" with men. He offered this as a provision for the loan: that I maintain no more than two relationships with men at any given time, and keep him abreast of my situation.

I had, prior to that, joined a group for "sex and love addicts", and it was suggested to me there to go through a "withdrawal" period and not be with any men. So that's what I was attempting to do. But, then, like a little girl from her dad, I got "permission" from Deniro to see not just one man but two. "Who will they be?" I thought. Well, that same day I was entreated by both #1, The Pizza Delivery Boyfriend and #29, The Satellite Communications Engineer/Composer, so there I had my two. I've spent most of my time with #1, with #29 waiting, asking me frequently when we might meet. And I'd planned on meeting with him today - but I have #1 in my house at the moment. And #1 watched my son for me yesterday while I took a friend to see her neurosurgeon, because she walks with a walker and doesn't drive, for 6 hours. So now my conscience is weighing heavily upon me, as it is wont to do.

Also, speaking of conscience - I hadn't the slightest inkling of it when I gave #25 my blog url. Interestingly enough, I've also given it to #1 and #29, in the interest of "honesty". I thought #25 might like to comment on my writing, and see more "in depth" the nature of what I thought to be my problem. Only, my mind somehow completely omitted the fact that I'd written about #25 in not the best light. In a terrible light, rather.

He was terribly offended, naturally. It brought the end of the relationship. I'm to mail him his check for repayment and his Ron Paul book (he was educating me in politics), and that's that.

So...back to the "why" of my writing - I had originally begun writing as a way to analyze my relationships and sex/love life, but chose a blog format so that I could share it with "the world". Of course, I'm writing from my own perspective. Perhaps, as an exercise both in creative writing and in humanitarianism, I should write from one of their perspectives soon.

Now that'll be interesting.

Oh, and PS: I remembered another guy to add to the list. He's The Christian Airplane Mechanic. I just went over to his house a few times and we went shopping at Home Depot together once. It was at another time when I was trying not to date, and so I maintained the relationship at the platonic level. But I definitely need to include him. I can't leave any one out. I just won't give him the url. I don't want to lose any more friends. But oh well. That's being a memoirist in real time for ya.

Happy New Year!