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07.05.04 - 9:48 p.m.
Do-overs. Let's start with a re-cap of the camping weekend. So, it was about a 5 hour trip to the campsite; probably could've been less than that, but I was doing creative navigation. Scenic route, and stuff. The drive was a pretty typical midwestern drive with many farms and the sweet smell of cow shit in the air. You get used to it. Actually, you don't...we, in the midwest, just like to say that. Once into middle of wisconsin the hills started, and it became more interesting visually. Pretty, actually, but still smelled like sweet shit. We, D and I, arrived at the office for Buckhorn National Park and D. got out to go inside and get our little ticket thing. As I was sitting in the passenger seat, looking out the window at this crazy Canadian family, I noticed there were a few mosquitos making their way for the inside of the car. A few turned into many, and then thinking I was trapped in some bad B movie, I rolled the windows up, and watched as the mosquitos flew against the windows trying to get to the source of that intoxicating CO2. Once we got to the campsite it was amazing how many mosquitos swarmed us when we got out of the car. There was literally a cloud around every person. The other folks who were camping with us had already set up and they met us at the car with a can of 40% Deet. It helped a little. To sum up: The mosquitos were out of control. Never in my life have I seen so many. It was hilarious...in the beginning. So, the first night ended up to be not so bad. Everyone just sat around the fire, inside the holy circle of Citronella and got to know each other better, as some of us had just met. There was some beer drinking, and storytelling, a pretty typical camp outing, except for the Mechasqitos. I thought it might be just the weekend I needed to get my mind off of work. HA! The next morning D., and two of his friends from Minnesota went with me to the House on the Rock, one of the most bizarre places you will ever go...if you go there, that is. There is something very magical about that place...I always thought that was partially what compelled Alex Jordan to build there in the first place...if there happened to be a group of Druids who walked by that site, I am sure they would have constructed a temple or circle of stones. Before we actually went into the house, J.C., called and told me Vondameer had died (see previous entry.) Since I was with people I didn't know very well, I acted as if I was fine, and I wasn't going to cry. I really have perfected denial at this point in my life. When we got back from the House on The Rock it had already been raining for about 2 hours and didn't show any sign of stopping. I told D., I was going to run to the tent and put on some jeans, but once I got inside, sat down on the ground, and began listening to the sound of the rain hitting the top of the tent, I couldn't go. I didn't want to put up with wetness, the mosquito swarms, and the laughing people. That's not where I was. I wanted to mourn the loss of a friend...a bird, yes, but he was my little buddy, my responsibility, and I feel like I let him down. He trusted that I would see that he was taken care of...it was deal, and I went camping. What started off as just thinking about how great Vondameer was...turned out to be a major analyses of my life and all the many mistakes I had made. yeah, that is always a good time. I realized that I had begun pieceing together a story to explain why such bad things happened to me. And so this is that story: I think of it as making a quilt of self-destruction where I periodically add a square. Square 1: When I was born I had a problem with one of the valves in my stomach. Pyloric Stinosis. Essentially, I threw up everything that I ate, and became very malnourished. My parents didn't really realize there was something wrong until I was very sick and had to be rushed to a specialty hospital so they could repair my stomach and save my life. In my twisted mind when I'm in my "dark place," I think that I wasn't really supposed to live. That I was damaged goods to begin with, and it was only due to intervention of man that I was able to stay alive, because of this I was given no plan in life...no purpose, because I wasn't supposed to live in the first place. Square 2 Damaged Goods - My grandfather, on an animal level, knew that I was weak and so took advantage of me. My sexual abuse was something you would see in the animal kingdom...like a dominant lion abusing the weakest lion cub. Square 3 I have innate skills such as a pretty good eye for art, and the ability to draw better than the average person, and I also have a pretty good grasp of the English language, or language in general. Things I inhereted from my Mom and Dad. I can express genetic gifts, things I have inhereted within my genetic code, but since I was 'damaged goods' and not really supposed to live, I was never given the 'divine spark' to bring any of these talents to fruit. I would always not quite good enough. Later on, D. came in to check on me. After awhile I told him about how I create this story about myself whenever I am really depressed. After telling him the story he just said, "Well, that's a creative way of looking at things." "And very egoic," I replied, "Don't think I'm not aware of these delusions of grandeur, that I'm not aware of how self-deprecating and self-centered I can be at the same time." That's the thing with me. I am so good at analyzing myself, and knowing when I'm just talking bullshit, but the problem is I can't seem to get the great ball that is my life, to roll in a different direction. I can identify crazy thought patterns, but I can't seem to start new ones. We drove home on Sunday, and I was glad to leave. I felt like I had done a lot of needed thinking about things, and I came to the conclusion something has got to change. This "I'm trapped," mentality is what is trapping me...so, now what? Exactly. Today, when I got home I felt more empty than usual. It's true. I heard so many people complaining about things, and everyone feels trapped. Everyone feels trapped. I needed to get rid of Vondameer's cage, I couldn't stand the fact it was just sitting there, on the floor, empty. So, I began to take the perches out, and the toys, and kept thinking about him, and how he would actually laugh at sitcoms...mimicing the laugh tracks, of course. Or how when I got his blanket to cover his cage he would say, "ni-night, ni-night," or how whenever I got home from work he would yell, "Helllooooo Baby!" When I took his cage down to the basement I began to cry. I sat on the floor of my dirty, musty basement and I sobbed, because I let him down, and I always let myself down. When I got upstairs I just sat on the edge of the "big comfy chair," and cried some more. I cried because I would miss my bird, and because I was tired of how things have been up till this point. Everything came down on me in one second...the heaviness of such pains in life, and I want to make them into something...emerge a different person...get the ball moving in a different direction. I don't want to feel like a man walking without a soul or a purpose. It only takes one step, right? One step in a different direction.
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I came home today from work feeling a bit emptier than usual. Actually, that's bullshit...just a way to start a paragraph. "Emptier than usual?" 
Pics from the House...
