Tired and Frustrated

No images to show, no way to take pics of them even if I did.  Still dealing with other things.  Jesseca wants to start sending some of my stuff back soon.  With luck I will be in a position to draw again soon.   

(Several days ago) Feeling despondent.  Thurisaz still rules.  The way my life hits an upheaval every few weeks now has left me feeling there is noiwhere I belong. 

No dreams of Dana, though my sleep is erratic and often interrupted so dreams don't stay with me anyway.  What I recall of them is filled with losing my way, of people unfriendly or indifferent.

Babygirl, poor thing, climbed onto me this morning as I lay on my back, she lowered her face to mine, sneezed in it, then turned and left.  Her idea of a wake-up call I guess.  Abby is still wary, as is Charlie (Abby is hanging out with me right now).  Chance took a chance and sat in my lap yesterday.  If I didn't mention it before, these are all formerly abused cats.  They don't give their trust easily.

I finally have the drawing for Scott in my hands again, a workplace set up, the reference pics, and the pencils.  oiw if I can keep the cats out so they don't leap up on the tablet, I can get to it.   Unhappy surprise, the nearly-finished drawing of Sharon Mitchell got a crease in it - I have to start over if I want it (I do, it was really good).


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A day or so after my previous post I had a hypnagogic flash, an image of text that read "I can't".   No explanation but a clue: the text was a puffy, thick white like clouds or wool.   Okay, so it didn't feel psychic, just made up in my head, but... "I can't" is explicitly an answer to a request, and there was a clue who it pointed toward. 'White smoke' and 'white sweater' allude to the previous post.  White sweater is the image of Mina, the message is an answer to a request, as I asked of Dana.

So, what can't she do?  Specifically talk of the rift between us or why it happened, or just talk to me at all?  Dana doesn't have to tell me what happened, she doesn't have to speak of it at all to talk with me to be a friend again.

Just talk?   Yes you can.  Dana, yes you can.  <3  You already did nine months ago.  You can do it again.  If it's a block, I'll get that.  Try to let me know somehow, have someone tell me.  I've been there, the three years after Franklin I couldn't write to you.  I felt so bad about it that it made the block worse.  I didn't understand it and didn't know how to explain it, so I didn't know how to apologize.  It took understanding about depression and forgiving myself for it to undo the block.  Only when I felt I could face the possibility of you not forgiving me could I write to you.

Those were a good three months while they lasted.  I was happy, and I think you were too.

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I'm being pressed to give up even more of my stuff.  The house payment is going to be delayed yet further, it's turned into a fiasco.  We got the way-wrong estate agent. If I had a hundred a month I could get one of the garages here to store things in.  A hundred a month, I should be able to do at least that much easily with my drawings,  How  do I market my services?  Fuck me, I need a life manager.

I'm going to talk to someone at PCC about getting  money for classes.  I have a skill that I enjoy and am good at and I damn well want to to make my living from it.  I do NOT want to be stocking shelves to just get by.  I'm fucking sick of just getting by, of not having anything stable. 

Mina Pose

Poor Bailey.  In human years he's 80, has a bad back, and stomach problems.  He likes me, I've been giving him comfort.  Never had a cat groom my scalp before.

Charlie sat on the couch with me awhile, until today he was terrified of the new person staying here (not McMinnville, Beaverton - must be one of my nieces in McMinnville) and remained out of sight.  Babygirl is under my table as I type, she has chronic nasal problems and allergies,  She's not doing well tonight either.
. Chance was more distant today than yesterday.  

Taken with my other computer, because my camera isn't here.  That's the pose  want for Mina. I haven't checked it against actual photos of Dana, ad I won't  - it means intruding on her FB page.  I'll have to go with the same hair color I used for the image of her eye  and the ladybug, I searched for redheads and chose a few to copy that matched the impression left when I did look in 9 months ago.  Jesus, Dana, 9 months. : (   I'm sure her hair doesn't fall like that but it doesn't matter, she changes it now and then anyway.  I'm likely to have it hang down before her shoulders as sketched just so that there's more of it in the final painting,  Haven't fully decided yet.  I'll do some image searches on long hair.  Undecided on a necklace - I'd want a pendant, and I'd want it to hold some meaning.  Oh, I was thinking of pearls before, wasn't I?  Not because they hold any personal symbolic value but for the color.  Hmm.  Okay, I'll give that some thought.  I'm thinking the moon would be over her right shoulder but it doesn't have to be.

See, that sketch hews close to my usual more realistic style.  No danger of copying Chagall on that count.  OTOH, I still would like to move in a less realistic direction.  It's difficult to break an ingrained thought process.  I can try that in sketches but I'm not yet confident to try it in a finished work.

Click to enlarge that.

Oh, while I was sitting outside on nightwatch duty at the compound (coyotes singing), I was watching the glow surrounding the moon.  It changed size depending how full the sky was around it...but small or wide, it ended in  a dull orange or red circle.  So I'm going to want to do a sketch like that for Mina and the Moon.  It  would echo her hair color without duplicating, and it might tie the elements together better. If it works.  We'll see, but I like the idea.


Oh!  I was watching local news tonight and saw a young police officer by the name of Chris Burley!  Not Kris, as in Kristina, but as in Christopher.  I wonder if it's a coincidence or if he's related to Kris.

Dana; Wrong Turn; Smoke Signals

Dana, I forgive you.   If that's what you need, I forgive you.  I don't know what it is I'm forgiving you for except for hurting me, because I don't know your story.  What little I think I know never needed forgiving, though I doubt you feel that way.  For all I know maybe you think it's me who needs forgiving.  In which case, Dana, I'm sorry.

Whatever it is you're afraid of me learning, I've already imagined it or seen it in dreams.   ANd Isympathized, because it was part of me too.

I believe you still care for me as a friend and want to be at peace with me.  Letting you go is never going to mean putting you out of my heart.  You'll still be here every minute.  I will never turn you away if you choose to reach out.  Turn my way, see that my arms are always open to you.  I'm your friend, and fiercely loyal.

Please be looking.  I have not sensed your presence is such a long time.


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May 23rd.  I have had no internet access for a week and will have none for another week and a half.  I have taken a major wrong turn and landed in a place that was not designed to be exited.  I have no choice now but to return home to Oregon.  I feel I have let down Jesseca and Brian and all their efforts to make New York work.  I've heard that Jesseca feels bad too - I've not been in touch with her except through Scott and my niece Lore.  Phone service here is spotty.

I have nothing in my account with which to use my debit card on the trip home, so I hope I won't have to.  I'll have a little cash, as long as cash is accepted.  No meals on the plane then!  Maybe something at the airport?  Hope so.  Then I'll have to find money for Jesseca to send my stuff back, there's more than I can take on the plane.  I hope I get a  chance to grab some of what's at her house.  I shall have to leave to Pope Francis image behind lest it become damaged in my bags.  Damn, have to figure out my art supplies, probably leave that masonite in NY and I still never even got it gessoed.


My first night here was despondent.  This is a place for men who have resigned themselves to having nowhere else to go.  No, maybe that's presumptuous, I haven't spoken to many of them, and some do leave...but i don't know how.  The plan was for me to stay here until DSS came through and I got a job, after which HUD would help me pay for a place to stay. I needed to check this place out first but they had an opening right away and I had to take it.  Well, you can't get DSS if you're here.  If you get a job you keep half your income - [you have to be out within thirty days, without having had the chance to build up any money to move out on.  You can't apply for jobs online and we're located well away from anywhere (there is a bus but it's a journey).  Essentially, you can't get a job if you're here and you can't leave if you don't have a job.  Catch 22.  The only thing I could do was reach out to my niece Lore.  I have a plane ticket home on Saturday June 2nd.  So I've wasted my own money, what little I had (gone), wasted Jesseca and Brian's money, wasted two months, and canceled my OHP and SNAP.  If anything good   did come out of this, I am blind as to what it might have been.

Ralph, my dorm-mate, has pointed me in the direction of a rather profound book, 'The Spirituality of Imperfection' by  Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham, centered on the guiding principles of Alcoholics Anonymous.  As I've mentioned before, I'm an atheist - I just don't have a sense that there's someone there.  It doesn't add up with what I've seen in life.  I'm open to possibilities, my life is still moving forward.  I'd never been interested in AA enough to consider them, having put off by their well-known insistence on reliance on a higher power.  What I've found is that (a) you don't need to hold a particular faith to find value in their precepts, and (b) you don't have to be an alcoholic either to find their approach to life a fundamentally healthy and helpful one.  It's basically a primer on being human. The book sets forth an approach to life that I find is akin to the way have always tried to approach life - er, mostly, anyway, and in some cases unsuccessfully.  It's that lack of success the book addresses...accepting that none of us are perfect, that life isn't something one masters but encounters on an ever unfolding basis.  It is how we deal with those encounters that matter.  It's not a test we pass or fail.  It is ongoing.  Spirituality (if you will) comes day by day.  There is always something new.  I know that Dana is interested in the bible.  For me, for this point in m y life, that's way too specific for me.  I don't want to get hung up on a faith whose central points are in conflict with my own beliefs (particularly on matters sexual and gender).  For now I am content to see myself as spiritual.  Given what I've seen of life, I can't say I particularly want to believe in a God.  Many of His followers struggle with Him, and right now I can't see the comfort in that belief.

Naturally, I couldn't read the book without seeing myself reflected in it at points.  My faults, the things that block me from moving forward (which seem unrelated to my grief over the loss of Dana's friendship).  My addiction would be complacency and comfort.  Maybe TV and movies, except that I'd love to utilize that somehow to make money - reviews, could I do that?  Letting go of Dana doesn't seem to mean an end to feeling heartbroken, which a first surface reading of this book seems to confirm.  I'll have to buy a copy for myself to re-read before the finer points sink in.

One of the fundamentals is telling one's stories, and listening.  Ralph and I have been doing that.  I've told the story of Dana before, just never to anyone who knows her.  I never realized until now, I've also never told that story in person before, by mouth.  I couldn't do it without crying.

Of Ralph, I'll only say that he's a good and decent man who endures.  The rest is of course confidential.

You may recall that I drew the thorn rune at Easter (drawn on an Easter egg - color the egg to reveal the rune randomly drawn).  Keep my head down, I am under the sign of chaos.  Well, that hasn't ended yet.  I had been wanting to ask Jesseca for a Tarot reading when I felt the time was right, and I was watching for that egg to leave her refrigerator.  It never did.  I wasn't going to eat it for superstitious reasons (also the only way I like eggs is scrambled, but I hate to see food go to waste).  Turns out jesseca felt the same way.  So when she deviled her and Brian's eggs, she wasn't about to internalize chaos.  She handed it to me the day I came here and suggested I fling it as far from me as I could.  I did, but the chaos has merely intensified.  I won't be able to get my Tarot reading.  The last (which was also my first) foretold my future as 'life in suspension', which it has been ever since. That was fresh out of high school.

I had hoped to discover more artistically with Jesseca, like helping her build a kiln we could both use.  I also wanted to make my cashew butter pie for her heathen gathering.   There's not going to be any kiln in Portland (or Hillsboro, which is where I'll be for the foreseeable future).

My life scares me.  I genuinely wish it was over.  But as I'm not going to kill myself, There's no way I'm sitting out my days where I am as i type this.  That wasn't the plan, it's not what Jesseca brought me here for, and my very being rails against agreeing to give up in this particular fashion.  It's get out of give up.  New York didn't feel like home even if I might have made a better inroad with my art here.  Hope I can find an audience on Etsy.  Dammit, I wanted to produce enough drawings to try the gallery in Oswego.

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June 3rd.  I am home - sort of - in McMinnville Oregon as of early this morning.  Still unpacking, still unwinding and settling in.  Too tired to review and revise anything 've written above.  Some of my stuff, including the Francis drawing and some art supplies/tablets are still in NY.

We have a white smoke sighting.  Bob Walsh at the place I just left scanned the drawing for me and adjusted it in PhotoShop.

Funny, I've been surrounded by cats everywhere I go since I lost the house.  They all take a liking to me, though, which is gratifying.  I'm back now with Abby, Babygirl, Bailey, Chance, and Charlie They were all wary of me before but for Bailey.  I've never had a cat groom my scalp before,  Abby used to be afraid of me but is hanging around a lot and is starting to let me pet her.  Only Charllie keeps his distance now.

Oh - my camera is in NY.  The laptop I have with me doesn't take shots ads far as I've been able to figure out.  Oh, well, anyway, I've worked out the pose for Mina.  She will be walking forward, head up, engaging the viewer.  Hand held forward.  All that is important per attitude, exactly what Iwanted.  I'd intended her raised hand to be more to the side, but it needs to at least somewhat follow her gaze...I want her engaging with thew fireflies, but with the audience as well.  So.  Still need to do a search on women in turtleneck sweaters.

Funny, I'd wanted to do a larger masonite  board but out of impatience settled for the smaller one - and never even got it gessoed.  Now it's back in NY untouched.  Like, I got swatted down for rushing it?  I've been wanting to do this for over half a year now!!  Very little money left, will need it for food and clothing.  No knowing how soon I can buy a board, gesso, and maybe some higher-quality artists crayons.  Must ask Jesseca which kind she used on a couple of really vibrant pieces if her own I saw.  For that matter, I have no paints to use either.  I still want enamels  rather than acrylics, though it will be more expensive and without the variety the image needs.

Kathy has a small print of Van Gogh irises which i put on the wall for inspiration.  I've got a fitting Chagall image as my desktop image.

Eyes are going shut.  I'm still on NY time, and it's nearly midnight there.

First Mother's Day Since

Oh.  damn.  That was appropriate.  Jesseca and Brian went for a walk along the trails out back and brought back a couple of young trees to transplant.  One is a nice Oak.  I didn't do much but did get out there in time to help a little, first tree planted.   I was sending it vibes and visualizations of roots reaching out, the vast resource of the Earth beneath it, reaching up, seeing it  cycle through the branches and leaves, a cycle the tree will be a part of, strong and thriving, nurturing.  Does it help?  Does it work?  Hell if I know, but trees do have psychic links all their own.  Don't scoff, it's been studied.  Look it up.  I did that with two trees and a bush at home (unhappy sigh) that were dying, and they flourished.  I had to leave them behind, of course.

Mom had been concerned about them and was happy they lived.  I was trying not to think too much about that as we were replanting this tree.

I just realized it's Mother's Day.  The first since.  I think this Oak will make it.  If it  doesn't I don't wanna know.  If the new owners back home rip out all the trees and bushes, I don't want to know that either. 

Dana said this can be got through.  She spoke from personal experience.  I wish I could talk with her, bot for my sake and for hers.  Not about us, just...about getting by.  Just as friends.  I wish she trusted me with her story.  She knows I'd listen, and she knows I'd hear it. 

Hopefully I'll work on Pope Francis today but if I do it will be because I force myself.  Which I damn well should, I know it.   It's necessary, it's money.  For art's sake I'm not feeling it, which can't play a factor on this.  I have to put that away.  If I were established then maybe I could take a day or so aside.  So close.  Just a day or so.  Pellgrino will be easy and must be done in the brightest light for the delicacy of the shading.  Hand should be teased out the way I did the face and forehead (which also isn't finished yet).

gaze

April 20th, 10:40 AM.  As of a couple of days ago  Doug is now awake, off the ventilator, doing well, they moved him to another room.

Trying to psych myself up for working on the drawing of Pope Francis.  Could start with his face, his raised hand, or his cross pendant.  I found four other images of him I'd like to do, one or two in ink and maybe one - maybe - in watercolor pencils.  Or maybe not, his attire has such a delicate cream color it would be  so easy to screw up.  The main thing is that he's got his positivity shining in each one.  Got a closeup of his crucifix pendant to get the details right, and another with the necklace links details.  I'm using an 8" x 10" tablet.  Medium texture so I don't think I'll be able to go as subtle or smooth as I'd hope to on shading.

I like this Pope.  A lot.   Never thought I'd be able to say that of a Pope.

Pen and ink...wondering if I should spend the money to get some good nibs and ink, or one of the pen sets I saw at the store, or stick with ballpoint.  Ballpoint I can control how softly it goes on, unless other kinds of ink pens....then again I want something that looks a little more professional for sales.
The Korsakov Sundae has been laid out.  I've mapped out and transferred most of the details on a joke image.  I won't say what it is except it would make a nice t-shirt or poster.  I have to make some alterations in the details.  One major element, though small, is confusing in black and white, so i may make a substitution - one rose image for another, and shorten the stem as it hides a face I also need to change.

I'm looking at Pinterest as a way of keeping images to work from or be inspired by, or simply remind me of things to get to someday.  I'm downloading tons of images and I'd rather not keep them cluttering up my computer.  Someone  also suggested Instagram as a way of selling my work once I have something to sell.

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I've finished the watercolor pencil painting but still can't find the chord for the camera!

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Been listening to the band Múm a lot since I got here, their  'Finally We Are No One' has become one of my favorite albums, especially the final and first three tracks.  I've also just found Eric Woolfson's 'Freudiana' on YT - finally!  It had a limited release as an Alan Parson's Project album but I didn't know and missed my chance to have it.  Have yet to listen, and looking forward to it.

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2.5 x 3.5", watercolor pencils.  Not bad for still being relatively new to this medium.

Ladybugs are a bit of personal symbolism for me for reasons I'll keep private.  I've decided to think of them as redemptive or vindicative.  Something like that.  More widely ladybugs are seen as a sign of good luck and abundance.  I have at least three in my room this very moment.  They are also called ladybirds (though not by anyone I've ever heard speak), which is apt for this painting.

Sketch

I'll need to download GIMP again and figure out how to use it so that I can edit photos.  I have one that was taken in poor lighting and - well, let's see how it comes out without lightening it up.

This was a small set of sketches for the color scheme I want.  I still haven't settled on a pose.  I'll also have to struggle with my training for realism when I want something less so - should be interesting to see what I come up with, whether a personal voice or signature will emerge.  Colorwise I'm inspired by Chagall for this image and would like something of the sort, though I don]t want to mimic him for style.  

As of late yesterday I want a pair of images.  I want Mina in midair, a little more surreal.  This is because I have never seen Dana dance. I'm spending the morning looking at  search results for images, and few of them really communicate dancing to me.  They all look more like acrobatics.  I  want something that really does look like something in motion.  I may have to watch YT vids and freeze them at appropriate moments.

Needle in the Groove

Sunday March 4th.  8:30 PM

In low spirits, to understate the matter.  It feels as if nothing is changing.  I'm till tied to it all.  Feeling harried by the same loss of time, the same pressures.  John's little rant has sat with me now, and it stings worse.  That was a very personal moment, leaving my home, a sacred moment and my brother felt licensed to shit all over it.  I don't get a do-over.  The moment came and went.

Dana I just feel sad about.  I wish to god I could hate her but it's never been in me.  I'm certain she sees past her own demons now, which she couldn't before...but she must have made a promise to herself years ago that she would never speak to me, and that promise is more important to her than our friendship.  All I have asked of her is to speak with me as a friend.  She won't even acknowledge that she means something to me.  That is a coldness I cannot thaw.

I have been staving off suicidal fantasies.  I refuse to go there - and to that end it's good to have had the experience so that I know what to watch out for.  If one allows those, it increases the chemical imbalance causing the depression.  As I've said before. 

The album of my life is skipping.

(Sigh.  Fuck.  Fucking hell.)

I've added some Milliput Green to the figure, though a little of it was not well mixed, didn't cure, and had to be scraped off again.  I've added to the torso, built the collar bone, and begun the shoulders.    Now, here's the beginner's temptation: pushing too far and getting discouraged.  I told myself going in that I would settle for something simpler in order to just get the shapes right.  It would not have to be realistic, I wouldn't worry about musculature.  Now here I am doing just that, I couldn't resist.  I think I've got the collarbone too low, or the sternum too high.  But that's still okay as I'm copying an exaggerated comic book aesthetic anyway.  Not sure how far I'll get on the head or whether to attempt it separately and then attach it.  See, the attitude of the head will determine the neck muscles.  Will I have her facing forward, to the side, head cocked at an angle?  Haven't decided.  I'll keep the arms straight out and do her palms open and up in a defiant stance, "Look at me, I'm here and I'm not going away."   Wonder how well I'll be able to do her face, or what her features will be like.  I can do a little more before I pack her for the trip, but not much.  I've some sandpaper to smooth her out, no modelling putty (Testors or Squadron) to fill in gaps, no tools.  Wire for fingers but - owing to shortsightedness - no wirecutters.  I do have an artist's  blending tool, a pencil-shaped thing made of paper, which has been perfect for smoothing the Sculpey I used initially. Epoxy putty has a different texture though.  Pretty sure the putty should not be baked, so there will be no more clay on this one. 
I  have some of those 'artist's trading cards', wondering if that's still a thing or if the fad passed.  Little 2.5" x 3.5" cards.  I started two of them with shots of Sharon Mitchell I snapped off a screen once, from old blurry tapes, no clear detail.  Nothing sexually explicit, one profile and one with a hint of nudity as she lies in bed.  The profile I think I want to do in watercolor pencils.  Not sure I have a brush still unpacked, though...

I've got 'Cloudbusting' stuck in  my head, from Kate Bush.  Lore took me to her house and we played some of the records I gave her.  Might have been a kind of 'saying goodbye' afternoon for her. 
We listened to Stevie Nicks, as she'd never before heard the album 'Trouble in Shangri-La', one of my favorites.  (well, I say that, but I have four or five Nicks favorites...)  I had to listen to Fall From Grace.  That one follows what I feel in my heart for Dana - the angry part of it - even if the lyrics don't follow my head.  Read the lyrics, but listen to the song: it's in the way Stevie sings it, the pissed-off anguish and caring.  Listen to her voice.  That's exactly what my heart fucking feels, always.

"Maybe I am calmer now, maybe things are fine
Maybe I made the whole thing up, maybe it isn't a lie
Maybe the reason I say these things is to bring you back alive
Maybe I fought this long and this hard just to make sure you survive"

Fall From Grace

The only part that's off is that I believe Dana is a survivor.  A hardened one, maybe, but I know she can get by without me.  I don't really fear that...but damn her for not even wanting me there.

Actually, I did dream that she was suicidal one night in...late 90s?  Early 00s?  I felt called to her side...I was a disembodied spirit and I realized what was about to happen..she was alone in her house in the hills late in the night, all the lights on, in her living room.  She was  writing a goodbye letter to me, and although she didn't realize I was there I was able to make her hand stop moving.  Prevented from saying goodbye to me, she couldn't go through with the rest.  The dream had the distinct feel and intensity of being "one of those", but I'll never know if it was just a dream or if it was psychic - if I really was there and it happened.

Pthalo Blue Birthday

Friday, January 19th.
It's my birthday today.  right now it's a little after eight in the morning.  Yesterday was a good day, today I didn't want to get out of bed.  I slept all night, unusual, had dreams that were unremarkable.   Woke up knowing the reconciliation with Dana won't happen.  It's the only thing I was living for, I've waited thirty years for it, and she's walked away again.  There will be no winning her attention for another try, this was it.  I want to go back to bed and sleep until the day is over.  Actually, I don't want to wake up.  I would like to die in my sleep.  I just get up day after day.   There's no sense to it.

John wanted me moved into mom's room by now but Karla needs the room as she had to come into town for eye surgery.  Obviously she can't leave until she can see to drive safely again.  I'm going as fast as I can boxing my stuff, but now I am supposed to 409 the kitchen as well.  Last time it was the bathroom.  Before that it was 'move it somewhere else 'cuz it can't be where it is' after which the reasoning for it would fall through.  I fully expect to get yelled at and lectured again by somebody.  Some of my stuff can't be packed up yet, I still use it day to day.

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Jesseca has a posse of friends in New York, though she says she doesn't see them often outside of pagan functions.  Figure I'll meet them, and I wonder if a romantic spark will emerge anywhere.  I hope so only because I'm so tired of being alone.  Problem is, my feelings for Dana always got in the way before and they still aren't changing now...well, I'm not entering a post-Dana era, I've already been in it all these years.  It just didn't function that way.  I couldn't see past the promise of visions or my misplaced faith in her as a friend.  And my love for her refuses to leave me be.

Caridad (met online) wasn't wanting a romantic connection, and she pulled away when I started to talk seriously with her.  I think she mistook me needing someone to confide in as me falling for her.  I could have, though.  At first she hooked up with me because she thought I was gay and that turned her on.  I liked her, every now and then I wonder how she's doing, what's up with her.  I hope everything's good for her.

There's the post title, btw.  One of Cari's old screen names incorporated pthalo blue. 

Huh.  I think Cari lived in New York.  No, I'm not jonesing for Caridad.  I'm wondering who might be out there, and whether I can get past Dana enough to give anyone a fair chance this time.  It's not like I haven't been in love with two women at the same time before.  Never been a practicing poly, though, hadn't been introduced to the concept.

***********

One of my nieces may be able to get me a computer with a disc drive.  With that I could get screencaps again and thus resume reviewing movies.  There are movies I am hesitating over because I don't want Dana thinking I chose them to send her pointed messages.  They're just movies I wanna review.  So when I start again I might pick something safe and innoccuous.  Hope not, it's timid...and she's gone (note to self, fucking reminder, she's gone).

Oof.  I had some started and lost them when the last computer died.   Lost images I was working with too.  Have to find out what might have been saved to flash drive.

***********

Six-thirty in the morning, Saturday 20th, hoping to fall asleep again.  I fully believe Dana has turned her back and gone.   I have to stop making excuses for her, stop finding reasons to give her the benefit of the doubt.

She sent me something in the mid-Nineties...at least, I think that was her.  It was in response to a letter I'd sent.   I'd accidentally stumbled across her again and had an address to reach her through so  I sent a trial balloon.  Would she talk to me?  I think it was Dana who replied, her handwriting was on the envelope.  What came back was...interpretable, I guess, but it looked to me like the biggest 'go fuck yourself' I've ever had.  In essence the message was that I was less than nothing to her, that she would treat me like any other total stranger.  I was devastated and sent her back the pictures she'd given me years earlier and wrote out how hurt I was on the back of one of the programs for 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' at Franklin. 

The time it would take for that to reach her passed, and then I had a dream of her backstage at Franklin after a play.  She was sobbing, inconsolable - just like I was - the look on her face as she gazed at me broke my heart and made me feel so ashamed.

So, first of all, was that just a dream - was it even her I had tried to correspond with?  Will I ever know?  Only she knows.  If it was her, and if that dream was psychic (it had felt immediate like the ones that turned out psychic, "one of those") then did I misunderstand her intention?  Had she meant it as a tentative step toward talking to me, and didn't guess how I would see it?  It didn't look like a step forward, it looked like an insult - but was I wrong, was she trying?  It haunts me.  I still want so much to say I'm sorry (I did say it then) if that's what really happened.  So tired of all the guessing and the dreams, torn up by not knowing.  If it's all in my head she should tell me.  Hell, if it's all in my head what reason could she have not to?  Her silence re-enforces that I must have been right about all along.

If that was her, then yes, I do know a number of other things that she needs to hear are okay.  But I'd have to be talking with her privately to do that.  See, she blocks me from her life = she "protects" herself from the very things that would heal this wound for her, so I too am blocked from ever healing. 

This is not thirty years ago.  Things have changed for her, and I've finally managed to change how she understands me now.  Her reasons back then are not whatever her reasons are now.  She sees more clearly, she must.  But it hasn't changed her mind and I'm still damned.

***********

Nice.  Just got told by my brother's wife that I have done nothing to help.  Like hell I haven't.  And if everyone had stopped giving me conflicting instructions every half a week my stuff would be done by now instead of me having had to move it around for no damn reason when I could have been sorting it.

Fights breaking out again about who's taking what, I'm trying to stay out of it.   I hope no one was expecting me to lie if someone asks me where a piece went, I'll tell 'em without their commentary - not my battle.  That's where tensions are now, people turning hostile and being unnecessarily rude and unreasonable to each other.  Would help if more people were doing the work, or if we had more money to cover it.

***********

I got my Bailey's Irish Cream!  Looking forward to trying to relax this evening.  It was mom's favorite drink and one of mine.  Once I get to New York, then I'll get some Kahlua. 

Experimenting, trying out a generic bread pudding recipe.  I always told mom to try it with a flavored bread like pumpkin but she wasn't sold on the idea.  So I'm trying it now with banana nut bread.  Aroma from the oven is nice.  (...)  Came out maybe too dry at the edges but has a good flavor.  Really do need to try it with pumpkin bread someday.

Costly Baggage

I have my ticket to New York, as of this past Wednesday.  Overnight, leaving March 13th.  Arriving Syracuse Wednesday morning.  Will be in this house until the end of February.

One of those long-ago dreams of Dana and I reconciling had us on the road:  all my stuff packed into the back of a moving van, she and I in the cab headed from Portland to her home in California.  Her father was driving.  We had a younger boy with us, in the dream he was a younger brother to Dana.  I don't know if she has children in real life.   We had just gotten married hours earlier.  I wanted that with everything I am. 

But I'm going to New York. 

In the last post here, I mentioned having recently had two dreams of Dana showing me the past*.  They were virtually the same dream - the very same events yet very different in tone.  One was a matter of fulfillment and the other very businesslike.  I think I get it, but not that I could explain here.  I really want to address those dreams, but I don't see any way that I can.  Both were about something I know she feels self-conscious about and I think it's a subject she still feels upset over, at least when it comes to approaching me and trusting me with her story.  I think it's a block for her, something she wants out of the way but can't bring herself to broach.  It's of such a personal nature that I can as yet see no way to allay her concerns in any way that is oblique enough to do publicly.  I am sure I had those dreams (UCA) because she is afraid of...ummm...whether or not I can perceive the truth behind them.  I don't know how to tell her not to worry.  I could if I could still message her privately.  Damn, I don't know if even she would grasp what I'm referring to if she were reading this!  It's very specific, something she alluded to in a letter once.

Dana has one thing to be ashamed of, and only one: the hateful way she's treated me. And if it's a block, then she doesn't even have that to apologize for.   Nothing else ever needed explaining or forgiving.  How many ways are there left for me to say that?   If this is a choice Dana is making, no excuse or reason will ever be forgivable.  I think I deserve to know so that I can get on with my life and start hating her.  I have a right to know if she really is the soulless bitch who would make that choice.



***********

It's a leap of faith, Dana, yours to make.  What's it worth to you?  To not be afraid of facing me anymore, to have me as a friend, to know I understand you, accepting everything, and always backing you?  Peace between us?  Does it hold any worth to you at all?  You keep telling me 'no' with your silence,  should I believe that?

You're a mystery.  You were afraid our friendship would end so you threw it away.  Now you're afraid to tell me things you know I already know.   

I'm not a godamn Boy Scout, Dana.  I can deal with more than you know, empathize with far more than you think - if I'm given the chance. I know a little more than I have been able to say here.  Your life has not been so alien to me as you insist.  Would I have fought this hard for you all this time to quail now??   I swear, sometimes it's as if you're afraid I'll actually get it and be sympathetic, like that's what scares you most.

I love you, Dana.  I respect you, and I admire you.  I cherish you.  You move me to be visible, seen where it would be easier to fade away unremembered by the rest of the world.  I'm emboldened by you, baffled by you, broken by you.  I've stories to tell about you - the first time I saw you smoking a cigarette and feeling jealous at an offhand comment by Sebastian, auditioning with you or the first time I saw you in a play.  I remember you rejecting the part of Kitty and wanting to play Mary L., it cost you a part in that one...I've wondered about that, and admired your resolve.  I remember you chasing Riga Farzana who grabbed a sketch and ran,  and the year-long war between my group of friends and yours in Collins' homeroom at Kellogg (I remember you standing before me, mad as hell and frustrated that no one would take you seriously)...but I've told all  these stories multiple times and grown weary of repeating them.  Then there are years of dreams and shadows, hints, hopes that died, wishing I could talk with you about all of it and what it meant to you.   Give me a new chapter to explore.  I long to know the rest.  I miss you badly.  And above all, past the longing and the hurt, the anger, the nostalgia and the desire to share your present...simply and finally, I love you.

***********

*That's an assumption not based on much, that the dream scenes were from past occasions.  If they're from the present, that's perfectly okay.  I'm asking Dana to have more faith in me than she could have in '88.  I've done my best to earn it.  She knows who I am now and what my values are, if she's read my movie reviews and so on.  

Achtui, Baby! (A New Year, "A New Dimension")

Again, no personal offense but all family members are requested to fuck off right now.   Stop spying on me.  It's none of your business.












A new year.
Can't say I've noticed.  Not yet.  Anything new, that is. Something will change, but not right away.  Can't guess what.

I was right about needing space to be able to revive my art.  I tried before for several years and was unable.  Having some space the past month, I was able to begin and complete a painting.  If I can get the house cleared and get some more time before I leave, I should be able to repeat that.  I wonder what kind of time I might find in New York.  I'll have to work at paying for my stay there.

New Year's Eve was uneventful except that I landed another damn cold.  I've just about lost my voice - how apropos is that??  Oy. 

On the morning of the 31st I saw Dana in a dream, but (I think) it was of the past and not current.  She was happy in it, though, enjoying herself.  That seemed hopeful, also the fact that I've never had a dream remotely like it before regarding her - could signal that something has changed somehow, maybe a breakthrough.  Also a quick succession of hypnopompic dreamlets that were all upbeat but didn't make a lot of sense.  Suggests maybe last post made a difference  If so and in what way remains to be seen.  I heard a string of 'thank you's that did not especially seem directed my way, might have been or maybe were said to God, like "thank you, he's giving up". One was a vision of a blog page that looked like mine with a post titled "A New Dimension" and Dana saying "you changed things", meaning either I have affected the way she sees things...or that she thinks I've misrepresented things. And I heard her say the strange phrase "I'm a winner and it's a picture."  Eh?  Okay, well, never mind the picture, the first part could be the self-affirmation I was hoping for or it could be her gloating that she beat me.  I can only wait and see if I hear from her, then I'll know.  Did I finally break through the wall between us or is she jubilant over my defeat? 

Did I say something that opened the cage?  Oh, let it be true!

Which picture, and what did that mean?  Or is all of it from my imagination alone?  Certainly over %99 of my dreams are just dreams, it's just...which few are more than that?  Which ones do I ignore?  'All of them', you're saying, I know, but it's impossible to dismiss the ones that give me hope.  The best I can do is to remain open to the possibilities.  But, see, that's what drives me crazy, being of two minds at the same time.  I've tried not to be but can't.

Practice and history have conditioned me to expect frost and silence from Dana.  As always.  On that score she has never let me down.   So why the kindness from her just that one time in October?   That was a complete surprise.   And why can't she do it again?  Or, why won't she?

I might not be making it to the library this week at all, depending how long this cold goes.  Bad enough I have to keep going out to the garage, it's freezing cold out there, aggravates my cough and prolongs illness.   I gave Dana my street address in October, I wish she'd use it and write an actual letter.  I've asked Scott to send Jesseca a message to let her know she might not hear from me this week.

Had another brief dream of Dana this morning (January 1st) but like the last one it was also set in the past.  Nothing of her in the present nor of her reacting to me.

It's difficult to reach sleep, this cold has had me at that juncture where you're desperate for sleep but your throat/cough/sinuses won't allow it.  Took til past three or four to get any last night.  Slept a little more today.   No sleep means no dreams.

***********

Was just thinking...it's something I feel quite often but have almost never put into words...Dana makes me feel as if...I think she's ashamed of having me as a friend,  embarrassed to have her friends learn she even knows me.  I've felt that from the start, from late '88 on, but never acknowledged it.  Now that I've put words to it, it has the ring of truth to it.  

***********

One of the stupidest wastes about this is entirely on me for never having been able to get over her.  It's my prophetic dreams of a future with her.  Only one ever gave me a glimpse beyond reconciliation,  and it was emotionally ambiguous (or worse, neutral).  In none of them did I ever even see us particularly happy together after reconciliation - or unhappy for that matter.  I saw us (over and over) happy to be reunited, joyous and relieved, and eager for each other's comfort*.  We embrace in every last one.  I saw and felt love.  Each was heavily tinged with sadness, presumably for the damage we'd already done to each other or for the time needlessly lost in finding each other again.   I never saw anything of where it would lead - joy and fulfillment,  or more mistrust, miscommunication, and heartbreak.  I saw us in Africa, of all things, on vacation together.  The mood was impossible to read.

I wonder...if she were to change her mind, would trust come back easily?  I mean, what would it take for me to trust her?

A good number of the people I know who are spiritual believe that whatever happens is meant to happen.  It strikes me as curious that they should feel this way as they never had psychic dreams filled with absolute promises of a particular future, yet the atheist (waves hand) did and struggles so much with what to do.  If I go to New York I don't see how I can join Dana's life in California...but if I'm in New York I will be in physical proximity of Jesseca, so I'll be right there when she crashes and with Brian can finally be of real help.  Maybe I'm supposed to go to New York just as I (believe that I) am meant to have a reconciliation with Dana as well.  They could both happen...maybe?  Yet they seem to me opposed.  One of those two things can happen by my choice, the other is in someone else's hands.  Dana's, primarily, or those of her God.  In theory, both could come to pass.  But I can't see how.  Reconciliation was a promise made by whatever force - by a god, by life itself, maybe some event loop I tapped into.  It's a promise that has never been kept.  It wasn't made by Dana, who had no part in devising it and has no reason to fulfill it.  I'm not angry at her for that but for her complete betrayal of me as a friend, which is far far worse if I was wrong to begin with.

***********

Wednesday 3rd, still sick, sinuses stuffy now too.  Thought about retitling the post 'Great Expectorations'.  How about 'Sick Bastard'?  No, wait, I've got it...(amends title).  Had my first sleep in days - not long, not deep, no Dana in my dreams.  Not getting enough work done on my stuff, the constant coughing and need for sleep.  Sent Karla several messages via Lore and John that I can't finish the bathroom without more 409 and rags.  Trying to avoid going out in the cold but I need to check the mail and hit the garage occasionally, do the garbage and recycling, etc.  Laundry.  Doesn't help, cough kicks in automatically every time, gets worse again.  Oh, repeating myself.  Ugh.  Hate preparing meals like this, too, not even hungry, need more zappable food.  Soft for my ripped-up throat.

'New dimension'.  Yeah, I hope Dana's seeing it and thinks so, but fuck -  been trying to tell her for three decades.  It ain't that new.  Message has most certainly been out there for her to see.  She wouldn't.  Probably still refuses to even now, damn her.

I have part of an image in mind but it needs developing.  There's a spot in the bathroom where I took off a guardrail, the circle it left behind and the screwholes created what looked a charming 'Man in the Moon' face.  I would like to put that in a blue sky, and Dana under it with her copper hair.  Copper, blue, and for the moon a bright-pale green/yellow/white.  I'm liking the colors.  Most vibrant should be her hair. I don't have a pose or a setting, or any idea what she should be wearing.  Hoping for inspiration.  Don't want realism, with that moon.  I could do this large with crayons or use paint on the smaller masonite...eh, the masonite is too small for what I want, but that's the approach I'd prefer for the sake of more vibrant color.  Well, the image is as yet incomplete in my head anyway.  I need a third element to bring it together.  Not looking for a concept or a message, the colors are what I want to be driven by.   Before I saw that moon  I had considered her in a halo of snow because I thought it would lend itself to a pleasing color and texture scheme, but "frozen Dana" is a little too on-the-nose.

I could do her as an angel but that doesn't feel right either for a couple of reasons.   This is not a diss... Dana is no angel.  She is a vibrant and very much alive human being with the inherent weaknesses and strengths of an individual.  For all that I cherish her I've never idealized her or put her on a pedestal.  In the past couple of months I've come to think of her lovingly as  'brazen angel', and unless she asks me otherwise that's how I'm always going to think of her.   I once read where her looks had been compared to an angel which I'm sure was meant as an endearment yet I got an impression somehow (a dream, I think)  that she never liked that much.

Friday, still sick but symptoms letting up some.  Have to cancel stepping out Saturday evening. Maybe make it to library on Monday?

Monday 8th 11:30 AM, 409 fumes and having to go out in the cold prevent my symptoms fully clearing.  Hoping to make it to the library today or tomorrow.  If there's no message from Dana then I guess I'll know.

# # # # #
Library, quarter past 5 PM.  I thnk the reason Dana posted to me in October was probably so Tammy wouldn't think badly of her.  No messages from Dana or anyone else.

*Remember, I had these dreams long before there was ever any rift between us.

Did it Matter?

First:  every single person in my family knows full well that I do not want them anywhere near my FB page, that it is my business and is off limits to them.  It takes no brain at all to realize that this extends to this blog.  Most of them respect that.  If you are family, stop spying on me.  Leave.  Fuck off.  I m dealing with personal shit and I do not need interference.



****************



****************



****************

(written last night.  I'm at the library right now.  I crashed hard yesterday.  Trying to pull out of it.  I'll get there but it will take a long time.)


I feel as if I'm - no, I AM mourning the loss of both my parents and Dana as well.  Dana is out there somewhere and I've lost hope of ever reaching her.  It's Thursday evening, December 28th, and I'm typing at the dining room table crying. Yeah, seriously, go fuck yourself if you're the kind of asshole that would think less of me for it, I'm crying.  I have a right to this.  It's goddamn New Year's Eve 1987 all over again with Lori Hamilton.  First time I ever cried as an adult, cried until I started laughing, and then cried again, started  after the fireworks started going off.  I'd tried to sleep through the fucking turn of the year but couldn't. 

What a joke.  I put my name on the Franklin dedication plaque that's supposed to be up, the Bric-a-Brac Buy-a-Brick campaign.  I had Dana's and Lori's names put on the plaque too.  I'd wanted it to be a happy gesture, celebratory.  I'd meant it to be a nice surprise for them someday if they ever saw it.  The joke is me, I'm the joke.  I'm a fucking joke.  My life is a joke.

I am desperate for a reason why I shouldn't be angry with Dana, any reason at all.  I'd latch onto that fucker and cling to it.  Dana, stand up for yourself, tell me I don't get it.  Tell me you're depressed, tell me anything.  Or have someone tell me, as long as I know it's from you.  Is there any reason at all why I shouldn't feel betrayed?  It's okay to not know what to say or how to say it, it's okay to not know what to do.  Just...I need some sign of humanity from you.  Dammit, Dana, I care about you.  Does that hold no value for you?  You used to be  a friend.  My great sin was wanting you to stay alive.  That was my offense.  You still won't forgive me for it. 

I wish ESP worked both ways so she could feel some of this.  "I wish i could just make you turn around, turn around and see me cry.  There's so much I need to say to you."  She liked that movie.  Copper hair, a "coppertop", dream symbolism for psychism, sending and receiving: copper is conductive.  Ironic choice.  Looks beautiful on her.

Oh, god, Dana.  Please help me.  Just as the friend you once were, please help. Please hear me.  I don't even have Facebook anymore, I can't reach out there.   It's this or nothing.  You were a friend, and I don't have the slightest idea how that went wrong, what made you turn away.  I honestly don't.  What did I do??

I acted out of fear fro your life, and that gets me banned from it.  Please explain this to me.

Please reach out to someone who will help us through this.  There's nothing more I can do.  I'm barely keeping it together for myself


***************


(written earlier)

So.  Dana has what she wants now.

Speechless.  You cause devastation to the heart of someone you claim to care about and then you just... walk away, stop looking, put it out of your head and call it over.  Because it's not your problem, right?  The people who care about you, they don't matter.

Dana could have at least given me a sign that it mattered to her...that maybe she at least felt a little bad about it.  'I Bet My Life'.  No, Dana, you bet mine.  And I lost. 

And here's  a radical thought for you, Dana, I respect you so much more if I was right than if I was wrong.  If I was wrong and THIS is your response to it??  If I was right...then you were, you ARE worth fighting for.  Dana, I wanted to marry you and I still do.  I love you and I always will.

What kind of person do you want to be, Dana?  What does compassion mean to you? 

I kept hoping someone would step in and help sort things out between us.  A couple people volunteered years ago, asked if I wanted them to approach her for me.  I didn't want to put them in the middle.  I'd have accepted this time, I'm desperate to heal, but it wouldn't have mattered.  Any approach from me, even indirect via third party,  would have been rebuffed.  She has to be the one who reaches out from now on.  And, y'know, SHE could have asked someone to do that for her if it had fucking meant something to her.  She didn't.  Anything would have helped.  "She doesn't want to lose your friendship but is having trouble knowing what to say."  "She's sorry this is hurting both of you, and she is asking for time."  "She's depressed, she is having trouble dealing with it, she didn't mean to hurt you."  (I very much don't want her to be depressed, it's  living hell.)  Anything.  It STILL would help, she could still save this situation.  It's not too late.  It's in her hands. 

I have to wonder, is there anyone she has talked about this with?  Does she confide in someone?  Does she even feel a need to?  Any heartache AT ALL over this?

Seriously, please, if one of you FBers has been in touch with her or is willing to do do, would you ask her if she at least feels bad about this?  I need to know.  It would help.

If there's any healing this, it has to come from Dana.  It can't be me.  I've tried.  She has what she wants and to hell with the people who were stupid enough to give a damn about her.  Compassion is nothing more to her than a pretty picture on her skin.

Moving to New York is not going to set me free.  I will never be free of this. 

**********
I do have another masonite board, 14x18.  If I have time, once my stuff is really ready to be moved, I'll try to use it.  There's a major drawing to finish, that must come first.  Need to see what material I have.  I want to be looser like the last, more experimental.  Masonite is perfect for the used fabric softener sheets, so that's possible.  I still have some Mod Podge to bind them to the surface.  Or I could stick with paint (possibly with crayon again).  I don't have an image in mind but then I can't start yet anyway.  

No, not the dryer sheets.  The point with those is to color them, then layer them as if they were paint.  Will take too long and I may not have enough.  (Note to self, check to see if the things are even sold anymore.)

I wonder if Dana ever saw 'Comforter'.  I hope so.  Wish I knew what she thought of it.  I meant what I said, her work gave me the courage to do that piece.  She should be proud of herself for that even if she didn't think much of my painting.  I want to talk about art with her.  I remember she said she prefers color to b&w (it wasn't a snub).

I've meant every goddamn thing I've ever said to her, the loving and the anger from hurt alike.  My heart will always be irreparably broken without at least closure from her.  I will always be of two souls, the cherishing and the hurt, coexisting but at war with each other.   I could never fall out of love with her the way things are.  If only she cared enough to give me peace I could go my way easier.  Isn't that what she wants?  Can she really care so little about the damage she leaves in her wake, the people she hurts?  Especially when the people she hurts are the ones who love her most, loyal fierce friends?  I'd have given my life for her.

And she was worried what I thought of her in '88.  Right, because trying to save someone's life means you think they're terrible.  What the fuck is she punishing me for, what did I do to her?  Can she not even tell me that?

God, Dana, what's wrong with you? 

Will anyone help??  If not me, then help her.  Help her bring this to a close she can walk away from feeling good about.

**********


I found an experiment in crayon from some years ago, her portrait.  Didn't work, all beginner's craft,  but it could be a springboard for layering with more crayon or maybe paint.  Or something.  I'll pack it to go.  I tried rubbing alcohol and the work improved some but the wax isn't fresh enough.  Plus I'm almost out and it's not worth it to buy more just now.  Maybe the dollar store will have some.  Mmph, I remember now, there's a spot where I got the dimensions wrong and overcompensated trying to fix it.  Not sure how I'll handle that.  Not gonna point it out either.

If anyone who has been talking with her is reading this, speak up. 

Goodbye, Dana

I'm at the library today for the net access and was hoping there would have been a message from you.  There can be no doubt this time that your silence is a wish and a choice you've made.  It isn't a block.   All of this, these posts, efforts to reach you, to move you have been for nothing.   You knew the one thing that would hurt me most - your silence leaving me in the dark - and nothing deterred you from it.

Like you, Scott is a believer.  He tries to console me with words about how life isn't over yet, how I may hear from you someday though it may take a lifetime.  He means well but has no idea how horrible that is - for you to come looking for me to make things right only at the ends of our lives when there s nothing left of them to share.  How I would hate you for that. I don't know what your reasons are.  It doesn't matter, it comes to the same thing: I'm damned.   I believe that if there is a God then God is a sick fucking monster who hates his creation and is only happy when we suffer. 

Goodbye, Dana.  I will not forget your unkindness to me. How many times I've wished over the years that I could finally learn how to hate you, and be done with this pain.  Maybe this time if I'm lucky.

Grace Notes (or: The Nut Before Christmas)

9 PM, Saturday December 23rd.  Just finished watching D.O.A. (1988)  Luminous poison has been absorbed into Dex Cornell's system and he has less than forty-eight hours to discover who killed him and why.  What he learns is how to feel alive again.  I saw this movie at the cinema when it came out in early '88.  I had recently come close to suicide.  I walked home from this movie in a gentle nighttime rain, feeling much the same as Dex: alive.  I've got Chaz Jankel's vibrant score in my head and in my heart.

I have no idea what the future holds for me.  I have no idea if Dana will be in it, whether I can change her mind.  It looks unlikely.

Whoever is reading this blog must be wondering what's going on in my head despite my constantly spilling it onto the screen.  (er - possibly a bad choice of imagery there...)  The simplest explanation is that I'm just goddamn venting in order to stay sane.  The secondary explanation and obvious primary motive is that it's a desperate attempt to get through to Dana.  Communication is important to me.  Ever see Close Encounters?  Communication and faith are the major themes of that movie.  Roy Neary has experienced a mystery and must know the answers.  He tries desperately to communicate this primal need but the people around him cannot understand, some of them consciously refusing to hear him.  This was something I could relate to from childhood, the inability to get anyone to take me seriously when it most mattered to me on a personal level.  In adulthood, Dana Cooper has become my Devil's Tower.  I may never make it there.

There is a third reason for this blog.  It's the reason I started the other two, and the reason I registered with Facebook to begin with.  It's the most basic thing in the world, and the truest of all of these.  I want Dana to know me as I am.  All the weaknesses, all the strengths.  I don't know that she ever has, really.  I think her view of me n the past was something else entirely.  I may not have her in my life again.  Well, then, I want to know that she left me finally knowing who it was she let go.  It's there, in my reviews, in my art, in my faults, in my passions.  For that matter, I'm okay with anyone else seeing me as I am as well.  For the moment at least, that's what this blog is.  That's all.  One simple goal.

*     *     *     *     *

December 24th, Christmas Eve, 6:30 PM.  Saw Darkest Hour with Scott a few hours ago.  I've a few movies picked out to choose from tonight but I'm listening to music instead.  Tori Amos 'Midwinter Graces', Kate Bush '50 Words for Snow',  Wyndham Hill "A Winter's Solstice III'.  'Toys' soundtrack.  It snowed today, the first of the season. 

Though my heart is full of longing, it is also at peace tonight (well, right now anyway).   I am indulging in what is probably a lie.  One of my prophecy dreams of reconciliation had Dana coming back to me at the first snow (presumably not literal).  While she won't be showing up at my door tonight, maybe in her heart she is finding tonight the inner peace she needs to turn to me as a friend once more.  While it lasts I am taking comfort in...this...this hope, this delusion, this daydream.  On the dining room table is a candle burning, scented pine berry, I am beginning to warm an oil called 'Home From a Walk in the Woods', and  a wand of frankincense is burning.   I am sitting at the front picture window with most of the house lights off or dimmed, enjoying the beauty of the snow.  Let it snow, let the world be gentled by this soft quietude.  I do love the world, the people in it.  Let me have faith in her for this one evening.

*     *     *     *     *

Christmas Day.  Nearing 10 PM.  Day was nice enough, uneventful.  Listened to The Nutcracker, watched Willy Wonka.  De-packaged a great many DVDs and slipped them into paper envelopes in hopes of saving my collection.  Sky is clearing, snow and ice are melting.  I hope for more snow soon but if it disappears it means I will get back to the library in a few days.  Dinner turned out well with a crisp green salad, stuffing, and some Euro styled bacon.  If I am awake later I'll have a piece of pumpkin pecan pie.  Falling asleep quickly now, though.  Was hoping to see another movie.

Took four melatonin pills last night to help sleep.  No dreams worth recalling - not just no appearance by Dana but none that were even interesting in their own right.  One hypnagogic flash, an icon at the bottom of my computer screen: an envelope with a pink or red heart over it, and I think there  was a white numeral '1' in its center.  One email, sent with love.  Probably just a dream, we'll see when I can get online again. 

Hypnagogia.  I love that word, very exotic.  If you look up the terms hypnagogic or hypnopompic you're going to find them defined as hallucinations.  Really, they're just the dream state breaking into the waking state when you're bordering both. 

Yesterday's state of grace won't last but it got me through the day.  I've had days like that before.  They were always self-induced hope that didn't pan out.  Dana has not appeared in my dreams or dreamlets for weeks.  I cannot sense her presence at all.  She's right there on FB but she is as unreachable as if we were in separate dimensions. 

*     *     *     *     *

December 27th, quarter after 10AM.  Looks like a snow sky again, and one of my nieces heard it was supposed to drop some freezing rain soon.  I've called her a couple of times this morning to see if she's heard the weather.  The last ice hasn't melted yet but if I don't go now it might be another week before I can get to the library.  I'm having one of those reverse-Midas days too, where everything I touch turns to shit. 

Please let there be a message waiting for me from Dana.

Losing

(edit)  I don't think Dana wants to be unkind...but it doesn't stop her from being knowingly unkind, willfully unkind.  And there must be a reason why she chooses this, but she keeps it to herself.  The worst part of it might -  no, no, every part of it is the worst part.  But not knowing why she treats me this way makes it so much worse.  Oh...and there's the question of whether or not she feels the least bit bad about hurting me.  Does she?  She's given me zero reason to think she does, and my faith on that score is depleted.  Given that we were friends once, that hurts a helluva lot.

For that matter, she may not be aware she's hurt me at all.  I've no means of reaching her, and I doubt she followed up finding out.

I was hurt and angry when I wrote the post below.  The anger has gone but the hurt remains.  There's a backstory I can't go into.   Despite everything, I'm very protective toward Dana.  Wildfires just broke out again in Southern California, and I worry she has loved ones there who might be in danger.  Is she still in San Mateo?

___________

It's 10:40 PM, Wednesday.  I've been unable to sleep since maybe 5 or 6 AM Tuesday.  That was when Dana let me know that she is not my friend and never will be.  I want to rail at her, yell at her to go to hell, but she is as beyond reach as she is beyond caring.

I don't understand.  She's not a cold person.  I don't believe that.  Yet she knows the way to hurt me more than anything is to keep me in the dark.  She will not tell me why she will not speak to me.   Jesseca tells  me she has a tattoo of Guanyin.  This can't be right.  Guanyin is a figure of compassion. Dana refuses to practice that compassion.

I listened to an album Dana likes, and one of the songs on it echoes our story - or so it seems to me.  If that's so, the lyrics indicate that she never did intend to speak to me - and she's known for two months that I was hoping she would.  So, she's been cruelly stringing me along?  I asked her.  I sent her a PM and asked her.  I wasn't rude, or strident,  and I was far from angry.  That was on Friday morning, the 25th. 

I had the following dream on the 25th:  Dana in what looks like a park or playground, seen from across the grounds.  She has her hair long, straight, and copper, wears a baggy black sweatshirt, and tan pants.  She has two or three female friends with her, dressed the same. They are trying to restrain her as she is in hysterics, crying and raging, seems like she wants to hit or destroy something but there's nothing to destroy. Don't know if this was psychic or imagination.

On Tuesday morning I discovered that Dana had been on her FB on the 25th and blocked me from sending her messages.  The only reason I was ever on FB to begin with was the hope of reconnecting with her.  She knows what this means to me.

She chooses to do this now, at the lowest point of my life.  My parents have died, I have no money and no job, and will be losing a roof over my head within the next month or so.  Dana knew this was cruel, and she did it anyway.

Jesus, my hands are shaking.

Everyone wants me to survive this.  I have friends who will help.  Dana is not one of them.  I want the fucking pain to end, and Dana knows full well she is adding to it.  I don't understand this betrayal.  I don't understand her cruelty and coldness.

Earlier I found a cache of old photos from childhood.  There was a shot of mom in there.  That was a painful shock I hadn't been expecting. 

When mom died,, it was only the hope Dana had just extended of reconciling with her that got me through it.  Dana maybe saved my life.  Now she has withdrawn that hope with no explanation.  She kept me alive only to force me to spend it in misery.  THAT's cruel.  It's fucking hateful.

I had wanted someday to ask her to marry me.  What I had just asked of her was compassion.  She spat in my face for it.

(3 in the morning, soon be 48 hours, still can't sleep.)

The Two Times I Overcame a Block

The  following is a post I had written elsewhere.  It's 5:30 in the morning.  I've been laying in bed since 8 last night, wide awake, nowhere near sleep.  Can't shut off my mind.  I've been hurt and am at one of my lowest points, but I'm still going.  I'm surrounded by people who insist on believing I want to survive.  There are just one or two I wouldn't hurt for the world.  And I'm not the only one hurting.  If this can help someone, even me, I offer it.

****************

The second time I overcame a block was pretty undramatic, just flexing muscle memory.  I had a photo of Jesseca that I wanted to draw...funny, all this time later, I know longer recall how I was going to render it except that it specifically was not going to be pencil.  Probably pen and ink, simple lines and  blocks.  The point was specifically not pencil because - ugh - too long away, too daunting.  But I got to the folds of the jacket she was wearing and...juuuuuuuuust couldn't help getting drawn in by them, really, really wanted to dive in and explore them.  So I ended up with the first finished pencil drawing since probably Franklin.  Let's see, that was (I think) 2009.   That's a hell of a block.  25 years.  But I did it.

The first time, though...that's another story.  I warn you right now that it's very uncomfortable, very private and personal.  Intimate.  I offer it to the depressed, the hurt,  the lonely, the blocked, to any who may be helped by it...but above all I offer this to Dana Cooper, an enigma and beloved friend, cherished and badly missed. I write this as a spell from my soul and set it free unto to the world, may it heal where it needs to heal.  May it find Dana's heart.

As high school came to a close, I didn't know that I had depression.  Neither did anyone else, so I got yelled at  a lot for the piles of homework I didn't do.  No one could say I wasn't paying attention in class, because I aced the tests and knew the material, but when it came to transforming a blank page with the info in my mind it always worked the other way around. (Tryin' to keep this short and give you the basics, but I do need to set the stage.)

By the end of '84, Dana had left for L.A. via a holiday in Europe.  She sent a few postcards, and I discovered that when I tried to write her the same thing happened as with the homework.  I  couldn't make it happen.  It was about this time I fully admitted to myself that I was head-over-heels in love with her, and wondered how I'd managed to keep that squelched.  In love?  I wanted to marry her!

I did a handful of plays, including an independent sci-fi bit in which I met and fell in love with Lori Hamilton, who by strange coincidence I had never know at Franklin.  She was class of '83.  By the end of that year, 1985, Lori also was gone - just packed up and vanished, no word to anyone, no way to reach her.

I was still attempting to draw, less and less, and never finishing anything.  I did a small painting, and several pen and ink works - posters for plays, print ads for White's Collectibles.

In 1986 I had an unusual dream.  I dreamt of an acquaintance from school.  She was a ta a mall (in the dream), we met and said hello.  This was someone I had never seen anywhere save one class in one year of school, and never expect to see her again.  The very next day I went to a different mall from than the one in the dream.  She was there, we met, said, hello, and that was that.

My friend Jesseca would say that was a testing of the signal to see if I was tuned in and paying attention.  A number of minor incidents of the same sort followed, inconsequential but fun.  Skeptics of ESP like to argue that believers who've experienced it have a prior bias: they want to believe it because it's fun.  The barrage of dreams that lasted throughout 1986 were neither wanted nor fun, and I desperately tried to believe that ESP was not real.

I will not detail these dreams (that's you knocked over with a feather, right?) except to say that they all took place in L.A.  Some were about Dana, and gave me no real information at all except that she was miserable and apparently isolated.  The rest were about Lori, and those were rich in details.  There was also an evolving and consistent narrative concerning the nature of the scene she was immersed in and the company she was keeping. 

These were not normal dreams.  They had an intensity like few I'd  ever had before.  I'd awaken fully from them, convinced that they were actually taking place.  The dreams were not strictly literal - that is, they still had bits of dream-embroidery about them - but the meat of them was overwhelmingly real.  A mutual friend of Lori's, Robert, began to appear in the dreams.  He would try to persuade her to save herself from the situation, and she'd laugh him off.

My friends, these two women I was madly in love with, were in trouble and I had no way to help them.  I made more attempts to write to Dana but the block was firmly in place.  Lori, I had no one to contact to find her.  I began trying distance myself from the dreams.  I mean...they're just dreams.  Be real.   Lori could be anywhere in the world, why would she pick L.A.?  And then another dream would hit.  It was irrational how guilty I felt.  Dreams, really.

A pattern began early that year.  I began to lose sleep.  Those hated dreams, I tried to stay awake days at a time to avoid having dreams.  I would raid a local video rental outlet for movies of all sorts to binge-watch.  I could make it awake for the better part of a week.

But still the dreams would come.  All year for a year. 1986.   Then I stopped having them.
1987 was uneventful until nearing the end, Winter, when I had a surprise phone call from Robert.  I asked if he'd heard any news of Lori, and he said "Man, you better sit down..."  When Lori had left Portland at end of '85 she'd gone to Los Angeles.  From there Robert proceeded to lay out her story, what he knew of it.  The details were the same as from my dreams, with a few variations.  Lori had been in trouble, willfully, self-destructively, and when Robert arrived on the scene and tried to persuade her to help herself, she laughed and ignored him.  Eventually, though, she did come to a sense of herself and extracted herself from all of it.  That was around the time my nightmares had stopped coming.

I could not have known any of this...but I had.  It all came to me in my sleep.
(So...the dreams of Dana?  They were real too?  But they had told me nothing, I didn't know what had troubled her so!  And were they too resolved, if no more bad dreams called to me?)

Lori had returned to Portland.  She was having trouble meeting with most of her old friends for personal reasons, but she was doing  well.  I asked where I met leave a letter for her and was told she often came to her father's house.  I wrote her a letter - in itself a huge breakthrough but not the one I'm building toward.  My art was long gone by then, no longer even trying. 

I didn't hear back from Lori.  Which is...about as far as I care to delineate that memory.  It triggered the depression that had been growing in me.  It was perfectly reasonable for her part, I must have been an association to a past she wasn't ready to engage with yet.  But for my psyche it was too much.  I'd spent a year terrified for her and she couldn't even say 'hello'.  I crashed. 

I began having fantasies about my death, about how she might feel when she learned. These became suicide fantasies.

Now...it's one thing to read or hear about depression clinically, or even anecdotally, as I had many time before.  It's another thing to be inside it.  It wasn't something I recognized.  Part of me kept thinking there must be something wrong with me, but I kept that brutally crushed.  There are people out there with REAL problems!  How dare I claim to have a problem?  How privileged!  Besides, I'm just...fantasizing.  I'm just indulging in a little fantasy, the way someone might do putting on a sad movie when they're down.  (No.  People, no.  Readers...no.)  Or the way you can't leave a loose tooth alone but keep nagging it with your tongue.

This is how the brain-chemistry imbalance feeds itself, pushing the balance even further out of alignment until it reaches a critical point.  Listen, please, if you reading this recognize yourself in what I've written, if you're there now - whatever you do, you must stop those thoughts.  Do whatever you can to distract your brain.  And tell someone.  Your thoughts will kill you. Literally.  Stop feeding the imbalance.  Right the boat.  They're not just fantasies, and you do have the absolute right to claim this problem for yourself.  You're not alone.  Plenty of us have been there. 
I'm reaching the nadir.

I had heard of a phenomenon called the "suicidal urge".  It's not a general leaning but an explicit impulse.  Talk is that if you've never felt it, you cant know just how primal it is.   That's the kind of things that sounds like hyperbole to everyone else.  One night in February 1988 I found out for myself. 

I had taken to sitting in my room for hours at a time, inanimate, overwhelmed with longing and rejection and pain and a loss for answers.  My mind wandered.  My mind was numbed.  My mind was battered.  Then, suddenly, for a moment, my mind was sharp, clear - get up.  go to the kitchen, get a knife, bring it back, put it to my wrists.  It wasn't how I wanted to go, but...I could do it.  Easily.  Right now.  Middle of the night, no one will see and ask questions.  What is this clarity, is this what they call the "suicidal urge"?  It's like my brain has produced a batch of chemical imperative and flooded my system with it, an "off-switch" message stored in the lizard brain and invoked when things pass  a critical point of no return.  Before it had been speculative, fantasy, but I could.  Right now.  But it would have to be right now because I've heard that the urge is fleeting, that it only lasts a moment and then is gone.  That's probably right, the chemical "shut down" command would break  down quickly, dissipate, so if I'm going to it needs to be right now.  I don't want to be walking back to my room with a knife in my hand and then not be able to use it, that would be humiliating.   I want this, this relief, finally, I don't have to go through this anymore.  I can actually feel my right arm plunging itself toward my left forearm and elbow!  This is fascinating, my body is locked and won't move but I can feel the tension of my right arm struggling to be free and use a knife I never went and got.  I can't make myself stand up.  None of my muscles will move.

And then it was over.  As intense as it had been, I was in a dense fog again.  I remember thinking absolutely nothing, just getting out of the chair and walking to my bed, laying down and falling into a dreamless sleep.

I don't know how many days it was after that that I ran across a lecture on PBS about depression.  I put it on as background noise while I did something else.  It's a marvel how the mind works...sometimes it will do something that's brilliant in a Homer Simpson kinda way.  As I listened, I recognized myself as the subject.  Hey!  This thing I've been telling myself isn't a real problem?  It's got a name!  It's a diagnosis!  I'm not imagining it after all!  Here's the 'D'oh!' part of it: it was such a relief that a great lot of the depression lifted!

Part of what had kept me from writing to Dana all those years was the fear of having to explain to her why I had remained silent for so long.  Simply, I couldn't.  I didn't have the understanding of it.  Learning that I had depression solved a lot of that.  It unlocked something.

There was a night when I was walking one of my nieces home in the dark, and we talked about things...I spoke about Lori and about Dana...and as I was talking I became aware that in the back of my mind I had already made the decision to write to her.  More, that I was fully capable of it.  The letter wouldn't be perfect and didn't have to be.  She might reject my explanation and my apology, but that would be okay.  If she didn't get it, I did and would have made the effort.  When I got home, I wrote to Dana that very night.  It came back undeliverable a week and a half later, but I took it to her former address here and tried again.  Her father Ralph met me at the door and said he'd pass it along to her.  By that point I had already written a  second letter, and put them both in the same envelope.  It was a review of the D.O.A. remake that had just been released.  Dennis Quaid finds out he's been poisoned and has days to live.

She wrote me back, happy to hear from me.  I didn't tell her that I was on love with her.  Or that I'd been suicidal, or about Lori, or about the ESP.  Dana keep asking me if...how did she put it?  I have the letters but it hurts to look at them...she kept thinking I was holding something back and urged me to open up.  When I finally did it was too late.  I think in hindsight, when she sensed me hiding something she was  thinking of something else  entirely.  But I wouldn't know about that for a few months yet.


*******
For Dana Marie Cooper, with deepest love and admiration
12:34 AM
11/26/2017