six months in and all is about as well as can be expected

Today is the official six month mark for my sobriety. I still dream about drinking and doping when I’m asleep, but when I’m awake the thought of it repulses me.

It has dawned on me, yet again, that I’m not getting any younger and that if I want to take another crack at this life thing, there’s never been a better time. With that in mind I’ve decided to take a leave of abscensce from Cracked Head Blog. I’ve grown weary with it. Additionally I think it makes it easier for me to stay comfortably isolated because of the great comraderie. I’m a natural loner and must resist the daily temptation to exist exclusively in a little world I at least partially control.

I’m not sure how long the break will last. Maybe a week. Maybe 10 years. I imagine I’ll want to update periodically just in case any of you are curious as to how and what I’m doing. As long as I’m doing something, I’ll consider it tremendous progress, and indeed something of a miracle.

Should you want to contact me, you know how. I’m sure I’ll be in touch with some of you, either via email or your comments. With the possible exception of my affiliation with Alcoholics Anonymous, I’ve never known a finer group of folks than you my readers. To borrow a thought from the Big Book, I hope to meet some of you as we trudge the road of happy destiny.

the cycle continues

I slept well and for almost 11 hours last night. This morning I feel much better. No hangover from all the sleep, which tells me I needed it. The depressed mood continues to come in two day sags. There’s no discernible pattern I can pick on. Got to be the neurotransmitters doing their on thing, damn them.

Barring some sort of disaster befalling me, I should be able to practice (playing and singing) all day if I want. I’m coming to realize that my preferred way of learning to do something, which is a sort of brute-force, multitude of practice time approach, isn’t well suited for learning to sing. After a couple hours of practicing singing, my voice is tired. I can work on breathing and phrasing without without having to really push it, but I can’t just sing Wild World, all out, for eight hours straight. So, via the back door, I again have lots of time to devote to practicing the guitar, which lends itself perfectly to brute-force.

At any rate, it looks like I’ve weathered the storm. Can probably look forward to the next installment arriving Monday or Tuesday. By then I’ll be a little closer to my next doctor visit.

10:08

a joyful noise

Apparently nothing quite like singing Allman Brothers songs to make me feel better. That and a shower and I almost felt human by time to take Lilly to the vet. It’s carried over to tonight. I’m tired but I don’t feel so stiff, for lack of a better word.

The local vet thinks big Lilly is on the mend. I tend to agree but Mom is pushing for the dermatologist and I’m afraid to buck her. What if Lilly takes a turn for the worst? Nope, it’s her money and if she wants to spend it on the great hound, I ought to be able to at least go along with it.

My vet and I have put our heads together and are pretty sure there’s a damn good chance my dogs are getting sick at the groomers. I won’t go into the details, because I’d get them wrong, but bottom line, if the groomers aren’t disinfecting their clippers and combs, then that’s probably where they got the bug. And since there’s really nowhere else it could have been, well… It’s a shame. I really like the girls that have been grooming them. Oh well.

Tomorrow’s a free day. I should plan on cutting the back but I think I’ll blow that off at least until Sunday morning. I hate cutting the grass with a passion. Hard to believe I used to be in that business. I was much younger and not nearly as fucked up back then. I thought it was easy money. Hell, it was relatively easy money. Now every other redneck in town is doing it.

July is almost in the books. That’s good and bad. August is even hotter and the hurricanes come calling in our part of the world in August and September. You haven’t lived until you’ve ridden out one of those fuckers, especially if it’s a three or more. Oh yeah. I’m not sure my heart could stand it again. Very, very scary stuff. Then the aftermath. Lord they’re terrible things to have to hovering over you every freaking summer. We pay for our nine nice months big-time with the three terrible ones.

21:12

pushing through

I’m super-duper tired yet again today. I dreamed most of the night. That didn’t help. I took a nap for over an hour this morning but that didn’t help either. Somehow I did manage to get Lilly bathed in preparation for her vet visit this afternoon. Total time for the baths and the cleanup was about an hour and twenty minutes. Whatever I do, it feels like I’m fighting it. Nothing works like it’s supposed to and nothing is natural.

Today is day two of this shit. If the pattern holds, I should feel better tomorrow. The cycle is getting shorter though. It’s gone from Sunday and Monday to Saturday and Sunday to Friday and Saturday to Wednesday and Thursday. So, in reality I’m having considerably more than two bad days a week. I’ve lost track of when I see the doc. I think I’m still over two weeks out from that. Still, I don’t want to be switching meds until any chance of improvement is exhausted. I’m exhausted.

11:44

numb to terrible?

Today has been a pretty shitty day. I’ve been very tired all day. I’ve tried to take a nap at least three different times but to no avail. I fucked my blog up. (See previous post.) I’ve stumbled about like a robot, bumping into shit, knocking things over, etc. Done a lot of cussing in response to said accidents. But I don’t really feel depressed. Go figure. I feel fat. I feel lazy. I feel useless. But I don’t give much of a damn for whatever reason. Tomorrow has the potential to be equally awful, and then some, so I guess I’ll see if I’m adapting to shitty or if today was an aberration.

words to the wise (or “stupid is as stupid does”)

Sometimes if you don’t feel like doing something, don’t do it.

In an attempt to delete my categories so that I can rework them from scratch, I managed to delete an entire page of posts. (Back to 7/16). Fortunately, and for reasons that completely escape me, I’d exported an xml file earlier in the day. It had everything on it, thank god. It also had a bunch of duplicate shit on it, I assume from where I went back and corrected glaring grammar or spelling errors. So, for the last 40 minutes I’ve been deleting duplicate content. (The search engines despise duplicate content.)

At any rate, I got off light. I had to trust that the top duplicate post was in fact the final post on the “Manage Posts” page. No way in hell I was going back and re-read all that shit. Anyway. That’s what happened. I think I’ll wait on the category mission until the wheels turn and I’m a little more alert. Holy hell.

UPDATE: I just noticed that none of the comments in my sidebar link to the actual comment. Joy! Still, I dodged a bullet. If someone would leave me a test comment to this post, just so I can see if it’s an ongoing issue, I’d appreciate it.

up and irritable

I went to bed at a decent hour and slept well, at least for me. Still, when I finally fell out at 7:30, I was still sleepy. I’ve been up almost two hours now and I’m tired and irritable. It’s overcast again and we’re expecting stormy weather for at least the next day or so. Sometimes I think dark is the culprit but don’t have any hard evidence to back that up. Maybe if I can get my categories organized…

I dusted about a third of my room this morning. I don’t think there’s much chance of me fighting the good fight against the dust mites. I’m so cramped in my room. There’s really nothing in here I care to part with either. Well, maybe the computer hutch, but that’s become my musical catch-all. I despise clutter and hate cramped. I’m dealing with a heavy dose of both and probably will be for the foreseeable future. That’s the way it is.

The dogs are holding their own. Today is double bath day for Lilly in preparation for her recheck tomorrow afternoon. If I don’t do a 180, I don’t see the bath happening. It’s such a pain to bathe her. It’s at times like these that I sincerely think that if I ever get out from under the dogs, I’ll be done with dogs. Maybe one little dog?

roller coaster

I perked back up when the sun started to sink. Not way up. I watched almost two hours of television. Beats cussing and tossing and turning. Now that it’s getting on towards bed time I’m feeling good to go for another couple of hours. Oh boy.

Tomorrow the hospice nurse comes to check out Grandmama, who is doing pretty good still. When you’re 93 I don’t think it gets better than pretty good. I’m 46 and it rarely does for me even now. Not really. Sort of. I don’t know.

Do your ever have one of the those moments when, out of the blue, you wonder “what in the fuck do I think I’m doing?” For some reason, as I sat basking in the tube’s warm glow, it just hit me in the head like a ball-peen hammer that I’m 46 and spending most of my waking hours trying to learn to sing. It’s passed off now but for a minute it was almost like I was normal and could see just what a ridiculous little bastard I am. Gotta love those brief moments of clarity.

back sliding

My mood rally was relatively short-lived. I realized how tired I was as I waited for the vet. Just worn out. All I’ve done today is play and sing for a couple of hours. I feel like I just pulled a double at some corporate restuarant.

It’s overcast and has been raining and lightning some. It seems like the last time things got bad it was during a stormy period. Could I be ultra-allergic to gray?

Anyway, between the dogs, the vet, and the grandmother, I’m spent. The good news is it’ll be bedtime in about seven hours.

true to form

The transition to afternoon, partly while I was napping, has again brought me back to life. All I have to do now is take my fightin’ dog to the vet. And have her put to sleep. Just kidding. But if that mother-fucker keeps attacking my other two, she’s not long for this household. It’s just so much trouble to have to worry about what they are doing and where they’re doing it all the damn time.

I’m thinking seriously about deleting my categories and starting over. They are such a mess and there are over 50 of them. I’d like to get it down to a dozen — two at the most. I want to be able to click on “category x” and see exactly how I was feeling and how my mood was. If anybody has any ideas about a better system, now would be a good time.