Cancer sucks

So, we just recently found out a friend of ours, she’s 3 years younger than me, has breast cancer. In both breasts. And they are different types of cancer, although I don’t really know exactly what that means.

She is going to have a double mastectomy.

She seems to be handling it pretty well, or at least externally she is. I don’t even know how she is dealing with that without absolutely freaking out.

She is a paramedic and has worked in health care for her entire career, so I guess she’s seen people deal with this before and knows it can be fought and a recovery is possible. But damn. I just feel like we are too young to be dealing with this kind of shit, but I guess not. I mean cancer happens to old people right? I don’t feel old, but I guess we are getting to the point where the invincibility is starting to wear off.

Cancer sucks.

my father

Oh, I could tell you some stories about my father, but you’d never believe me. Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction. I really do wonder how I’m not even more fucked up in the head than I actually am.

Anyway, it’s Father’s Day so I’m reflecting on some of this. He wasn’t a horrible father, mostly absent during my young life, drunk and abusive enough to leave an impact, a product of his environment and enough of an influence to make me want to be a better father. I hope I have been.

Maybe someday I’ll write a book about my parent’s and growing up and all the things I experienced and lived through. People will think I’m lying though. “You’re so normal” they’ll say. HA! It was normal for me though.

TBH

totally honest…

I am having a very hard time fighting the urge to just go. I’m not mad, I’m not sad, I’m just so bored that I want to GO! I don’t really even care where, just max out the cards and get a job when I run out of money. My family would probably miss me, but they would likely get over it. The urge is so strong tonight.

I wish I would just give in and go. But I won’t.

3 am ramblings

it’s nights like these that I wish I could sleep like a normal person. My mind is racing and I can’t even keep up with the thoughts that are flying by. I want to do a million things all at once, but I’m sitting here immobilized because I can’t decide which thing I want to do. So I do nothing. I ramble.

I’m feeling self destructive and taking it out on myself, I don’t understand why I can’t be more constructive when I’m like this, I should be doing situps or pushups or presses, well I did do some of those, instead of…well, instead of other things.

I want someone I can run away with, that’s the thought that always scares me the most. If someone actually took me up on theses crazy ideas. Would I go? Sometimes I feel like I could. Just leave it all behind and max out the credit cards and just GO! Where? I have no idea. I just want a compass and a willing accomplice. I could find some work somewhere doing something. Is that even a normal thought? To just leave the family and go far away and forget they exist. No, I could never forget. I’m sure when I came out of the manic phase I’d be full of regret and crawl back home looking for forgiveness. Would I get it again?

The fantasy is almost always the same. I just want someone who is as crazy and ready to run away as I am. Preferably an reasonably attractive woman, just to go crazy for a couple of weeks, no attachments, no regrets, no apologies. Not even in a sexual way, just someone who wants to hang out with me and explore life for a while, lose the inhibitions and just be.

But then there is the reality. I’m old. I’m overweight. I’m bipolar. I’m not terribly attractive. I’m mediocre at almost everything I do. Who would even want to run away with me?

I’m jealous of my ‘friends’. Can I even call them that? Sometimes it seems like I am just trying to hold on to something that has passed me by. All of them are younger than me, they have so much in front of them. I wish I could be like Ali, who could just delete all her social media and not look back. I can’t. It’s one of the only ways I feel connected and living life vicariously. Or Jon, Geof or Steve, who have the ability to still move where they want and do what they want. To not be tied to a family and a ‘career’.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my family. Some days I just think they’d be better off without me and I want a break.

I should just stop. I should give up. I should suck it up like I always do and get back to doing what I have to do. I should sleep. I wish I could. I wish I could take a couple of Ambien and make my mind stop, but I have work tomorrow and I would never get up in time if I take them now.

Sometimes I wonder why I stopped drinking, and then I remember. I was a raging asshole who carried a hip flask to work everyday so I could keep a buzz going. Healthy. I self medicated for years, am I better now? Now I have prescriptions for drugs that ‘normal’ people use to get high. I use Xanax to get through the day. I’m still nothing but an addict, it’s just legal for me because a doctor says it’s okay.

I have to pee. I’m sorry if you read all of this. Wall of text crits you for over 9000.

Animal Underworld

I spent the last couple of hours watching the 3 episodes of Nat Geo Wild’s ‘Animal Underworld’ hosted by Henry Rollins. I will watch of listen to pretty much anything Henry does. I have a great respect for him as a person and as a worker in the film and television and music industries. Not to say I always like or agree with everything he has to say, but I generally do.

This series deals with some of the out of the ordinary ways we, as humans interact with animals. Some positive, some negative, some disturbing. The topics range from alligator wrestling, people who keep dangerous/venomous pets, worship of animals, eating of animals that aren’t considered normal, and the use of animals as medicine.

I enjoyed the series, although I was a little disturbed by a few of the segments and I have heard of others that are unhappy with Rollins for taking part in a wild hog hunt and some of the other things he did on the show. I tend to defend Henry and say that he is always looking to learn more about the world we live and the people that inhabit it and as he says ‘knowledge without mileage is bullshit’.

These things do happen in our world and just because it doesn’t fit with your lifestyle or world view doesn’t necessarily mean if doesn’t have some value in trying to figure it out or understand it better and sometimes the way to do that is to experience it.

Give the series a look if it sounds like something you might like, I found it On Demand on Comcast.