Y2 D198

Forget the wheel, the hell with fire - man's greatest achievement? Advil. Advil is a wonderful thing. My head is a thumping this morning and only through the saving grace of Advil will I get through this morning. Why the head thumping? Damn cast. Man I love these people. They are probably going to be my salvation and my death at the same time. Went to work yesterday, and thanks to the long day I put in on Wednesday, I had little to do yesterday. I ended up only doing 7 hours. Trade off central, right?

After work I went over to our director's house. I was early because for once there was no traffic. It surprised me since it was raining and I expected to be late. Anyway, first one there, but it was ok. We were there to build things and the time was really kind of arbitrary. It just meant I started drinking earlier than I planned. Got there around 6:30, left at 11. Drank an entire bottle of wine followed by three Campari and sodas. Then I drove home. In the rain. Over a winding hill. Yep. I is smart. S-M-R-T!

Obviously I made it home safe because I doubt they have Internet in Hell. Although it would explain a lot.

I am snarky today. I really did have a good time last night. Today is a few hours of work, then an eye appointment. From there, the list starts:

- clean house
- get wrapping paper
- get a couple more presents for kid
- laundry
- bills
- groceries
- pet cleaning
- sundries at target

I think that's it for tonight. Tomorrow will be thrift store, followed by some more errand things then my date at 7. It's going to be a long yet wonderful weekend...

Y2 D197

Is this week over yet? I am so tired. I will totally sleep in this weekend. No shows, no plans, no nothing. Except for a dinner date on Saturday, house cleaning, a trip to the thrift store, grocery shopping, bill paying, eye doctor, ok, I have a ton of shit to do this weekend. Didn't think I had that much to do until I started thinking about it. But fine, I will go to bed early! Yeah, right.

Yesterday during work was a little frustrating. I got in normal time and there was an email from the PM on the project with the next set of changes on the reports. They were all what she considered 'minor' changes. No, they were all pixel by pixel alignment issues that no one is ever going to really care about. BUT I wasn't going to argue because it keeps me billable. In her email she wanted to have everything done by EOD yesterday. I told her that shouldn't be a problem and dove in to the changes. Yeah. 10.5 hours later I had them all done. I stayed until all the changes were finished to be the good little consultant. I sent her the final package near 5:30 and what do I get? An out of office reply saying she is gone until Monday. Nice. So I could have worked a normal day, not stressed, and finished them today because it didn't matter anyway. Ugh. This is why business people drive me nuts sometimes. They make everything seem so urgent and important when in reality it isn't.

After work, I hit Target to pick something up for tonight's thing. I am headed over to my director's house to build kits for upcoming shows. It's going to be a PJ party (using party loosely), and I needed a pair of PJs. I got a super cheap pair that are fun, functional, and cozy. I will be wearing these suckers more than once. Had a burger at a local place which I have been craving, came home, did a couple of things, chatted with a friend via video chat (which is a weird thing unto itself). Watched 2 more episodes of Always Sunny, went to bed. Still exhausted though. Some day, and this day may never come, I will sleep like a normal person. One can dream...

Y2 D196

Did nothing yesterday of any note. Went to work, came home. Started watching Always Sunny. Made it through the first season and 3 episodes into season two. I should be able to finish the second season tonight. Other that than that? Nothing. Nada. Nil. Boring. Alone. Nobody even called me or texted me to see what I was doing last night. Kind of sad. Didn't even chat with anyone online. I have $37 in the bank to last me the next 48 hours. I have no food in the house to make a real meal with, nothing but water to drink, and I am almost out of smokes. This is going to be a very stressful 48 hours if I have nothing. Some clients have subsidized soda, juice, etc. Not this one. Full on full price vending machines only. I have some teabags left, but I am saving those for the kid when she is here. I did get a generic invite to the second memorial for my brother from his wife. I say generic because it went out to everyone in her contact list. She even admitted it in her email. Would have been nice to receive a personal call since I am family. I don't know if I will go or not. Mostly because I can't afford to make the trip, but also because I don't like to go where I am not wanted. If I did go, I would fly up the Friday before, visit friends, then head to the memorial on Saturday and fly back Saturday night so I could make a show. But I am also supposed to pick the kid up on Saturday morning. My brother won't be at the memorial. He is already in the ground and I won't know any of the people there. It seems like an awful lot of time and money and disappointment to the kid just for me to go up for 36 hours. Not really worth it. BUT it would also piss off my sister in law to no end if I did show up and I would have a chance to visit some friends including N. She lives near there now and it would be nice to see her. I don't know. I have a few days to make a decision. I will figure it out. L7 the new one I went out with Sunday wants to go out Saturday. Have to think about that one.

Y2 D195

I wish I could say I was doing okay but I am not. I am very troubled right now. I am very unhappy. I am unhappy with work, my love life (or lack thereof), my body, my financial situation, my everything. I am just not fucking happy right now. Sometimes I wish I could have faked it better. Then I would still be married. Then I would still be 'living the life'. At least on the surface things would have been fine. I had too many moments yesterday where I was thinking about X2 and everything I have lost. I think it's due in part to Christmas. I haven't been this worried about Christmas in 20 years. And that's what gets me. It's one thing to be stressed out and worried when you are in your 20s. When you are my age you're not supposed to be this stressed about things. I'm not going to lie, of course I wonder how she is doing. Is she going through even a fraction of the same issues or does she have some magical way of suppressing and hiding that I have yet to learn? Or is it that she got to walk away clean and start over fresh while I have so much from the past attached to me like toilet paper on the shoe? Can I ever let go? This is why I think of moving away. Not like last time where I just went back to where I started but move away for good. Where no one knows me. Where I can have a clean slate. Is that possible? I can't do it yet though. While I applaud the kid's decision on school I do wish in some ways she was going off to a normal college thousands of miles away. Then I could be free sooner. Yes, that's a horrible thing to say, but it's true. Doesn't make me a bad person either. I want MY chance to be free. I watch both my ex-wives get to abandon everybody and everything to make themselves happy and yet I have to keep going. I have to be the strong one when inside I am falling apart. Erase me.

Y2 D194

Yesterday I was lamenting the loss of my old life. But then I remembered, I wasn't happy then either. Have I ever been happy? Have I ever truly been at peace?

Don't look so frightened this is just a passing phase one of my bad days...

Yeah, I am in one of those kind of moods again. Not sure why. Stress of the holidays? Well not stress, the loneliness of the season maybe? I don't know. Too much time spent inside my own head last night?

Went out yesterday for a little while. Dropped off a cupcake for a friend for their birthday then headed out to meet my date. At least I think it was a date? That was part of the problem. We met online and while there was no immediate physical lust, we started to get to know each other via email and found we had a lot in common and we could really talk. The only reason I went yesterday was to see if I could overcome the lack of physical connection because I am also desperately seeking an emotional connection with another human being. We ended up talking for 2 hours at a coffee shop, But I still left there feeling empty. I might have found a new friend or someone I can chat with on occasion but that's about it. I think that's why I came home and crawled back inside my head.

Am I normal? Do other people spend this much time alone? If Hollywood were my example for these things then I am nothing but a freak. A lonely pathetic freak. I don't like this. I once again am trying so hard to find the connection without wanting to settle. Hell at this point I would take some bit of settling if it just gave me the connection. I am tired of all this. Say goodbye to all of this and say hello to oblivion. 

I just want something I can never have....

Y2 D193

Ok, day two of sleeping until 11. My body is trying to tell me something. Maybe I need to stop running around until 4am?? Nah...

Daytime was uneventful. Cleaned the house as planned. Made cupcakes. The only really interesting thing was a text from LO. She graduates in two weeks. She wants me to come to the party. I thought that was pretty cool. Until she says 'so I showed your picture to my mom. she thinks you are really cute'. After a bit of back and forth it comes out she is trying to fix me up with her mother. Odd much? Oh you know I will go and meet her mom just for the weirdness factor. But other than that, I would never pursue it. It would just weird me out. I would be looking at things going 'huh, I know that looked better 20 years ago...'. Yeah ok that was bad, sue me...

The show was insane last night. Turns out a homeless guy rifled through our props stored on the side of the theater. He stole a bunch of our prop covers, someone broke one of the chairs, and things were just fucked up. We were doing last minute fixes, trying to find replacement items, etc. We still pulled off a good show, but it was some serious stressing the whole night. I think overall we did ok, but man, don't want a repeat of that any time soon.

Today I am supposed to go ice skating and then meet this woman I met online for coffee. Let's see how both of those things go....

Y2 D192

Holy crap, it's 11??? I slept until 11?? Granted I didn't get home until 2, but wow. I slept. I actually slept!

Amazing. I guess my body decided it was time to give up and rest. I woke up expecting maybe 7 or 8 not 11. Cool. Good thing I have nothing to do today except a show tonight. I think. Better check the calendar....

Nope. Calendar is clean. Nice.

So yesterday, I didn't do much during the day. Went to work. Got some nice news. I heard from our VP of sales asking how I thought everything was going at the client. I hate that because it's always such an open question and sometimes I can't read clients as well as I would like. In this case I erred on the side of caution. I was like, well I think it's going ok... He responded with 'the client is ecstatic with you'. Whew. That's good to know. I have been asked to do more work. I should be at this same location through January now. Another almost two months I don't have to worry about. Need to make sure I don't do anything to screw up at the client. Can't get cocky.

After work I went home and prepped a dessert to bring over to a friend's house. Him and his wife invited me over for dinner. I think they were feeling a little bad for me given my brother issue and at the same time, just wanted to socialize. I am cool with that. They are a young freshly married couple. I remember being like them 10 years ago. First real apartment with joint stuff, thinking about kids, all the trappings of domestic life. Thank goodness they are cast people. That should keep them from slipping into the Pottery Barn normal people zone. She is learning how to make latex dresses and he likes to crossdress. I don't think they are in any danger of becoming normal any time soon. My kind of people.

She made a wonderful lasagna, roasted garlic cloves, and steamed veggies. I made a stacked cookie and orange cream dessert. We had a nice bottle of Syrah I brought with me and then her and I went through a bottle of vodka having lemon martinis while he went through a 1/4 jug of rum with rum and coke. Oh yeah, we had fun. We just sat around talking about everything and nothing. It was good to feel like I was in my 20s having one of those poor people stay at home Friday night. Because frankly I am poor people these days and shouldn't be out running around. Left their place around 1 even though they offered to let me crash on their floor. That was nice. They wanted to pull out the air mattress. Thought that was cute. But I left. I was mostly sober at that point and headed home. They don't live that far away and the weather was okay. Made it home in one piece.

Today I clean the house and have call time in 11 hours. Maybe tonight I will find a stray....

Y2 D191

Running on about 2.5 hours of sleep today again. This time it was because I did not want to go home. I thought the other day was about my brother, but in reality it was an excuse to go out and drink with a free pass. Last night was about my brother.

Work was uneventful during the day. Did my stuff and headed home. On the way home, my boss called me. He wanted to make sure I wasn't going to try and get out of going to the holiday dinner. Damn. I told him I wasn't sure because I just wasn't in a party mode. He then hit me from all angles; first it was how I shouldn't be home alone and could probably use a night out (true), then he hit me with I could ride up with his wife so I didn't have to worry about gas or parking (another concern), and finally he hit me with everyone is going to be there (and there was about 90% employee attendance). Fine. I caved. I drove over to his house around 5:30. He was already in the city because of a meeting which is why I went with his wife. It took us an hour to get up there and from minute one we were talking about my brother. That started  the night off for me. Had me in an interesting mood before we even got to the restaurant. We get there and pretty much the whole night, everyone is asking me about my brother. One of my co-worker's his wife worked in the same unit as my brother and believes she may have evaluated him for his transplant. How freaky was that. I was so messed up in the head, I didn't even eat. I passed on every appetizer, didn't touch the salad course, took two bites of the halibut I ordered, and skipped dessert completely. I just didn't feel like eating. Around 9, I knew I wasn't ready to go home. I was supposed to ride home with my boss but I texted a friend that I know is a DJ at a club nearby. I asked if he would give me a ride home when he got off work. Little did I know off work even on a Thursday meant 2:30am. I also had no idea what kind of club he worked at.

He texted me back telling me no problem, I am on the guest list, just walk right up. Which I did. There was a line but I walked right up and said I am so and so, I am on the DJs list. Voila. In the door, no cover, drink ticket. Done and done.

I found my friend and after talking with him for a while started checking out the club. I was in a gay 18+ dance club. Holy hell. These were kids. I mean serious kids. The best parts of the night? Watching single  20 year old girls dance and act insane when they think there are no straight guys watching them. That was the best part by far. Next were the two lesbians grinding and simulating two feet in front of me for 1/2 hour because they assumed I was gay. It was like skinemax for free. I mean there was tongue and boob and woof. The sucky part was every girl thinking I was gay. I did meet a couple of 22 year old college girls outside at one point who were blown away I was straight in that club. When I explained the DJ was a friend and I was waiting for a ride home, they were like showing me off to their friends like they found some rare diamond in the rough. I did get felt up by a couple of different guys which was odd since they were so young and in comparison to the room, I was ancient. Bizarre fucking night. I will say I was amused to know I knew three of the songs played last night. I didn't know whether to be proud or sad.

We left around 2:30 and by the time I got home it was 3:15. Passed out on the couch for two and half hours and here I am at work again.

Having dinner and drinks at a friend's house tonight. This should be fun. They are friends from cast and this will be the first time we have hung out socially. I am looking forward to it as they are a sweet couple.

Y2 D190

Went back to work yesterday. Not very exciting. The client was surprised I was back already. I told him honestly I can't keep sitting around the house at this point. He understood. It was true -- not much left to do here. I don't want to clean house until Saturday mainly to keep myself busy this weekend, and I don't have any money left in the bank until the 10th. Might as well go to work to fill 10 hours of my day.

Ordered the kid's presents last night. Had $205 in gift cards, spent $211. For $6 she is getting nine gifts including 2 necklaces, a CD, and some books she wanted. I ordered myself one gift but it's for the house and she can share it with me. I also had enough points on another site where I got a $25 bookstore gift card. I will wrap that up and give it to her too.

Little stressed about money right now. I am tight until the 10th and I have no one to blame but myself. I shouldn't have gone out Monday night. I knew better but I wanted so badly to go out and try to drown my sorrows over my brother. I needed a night of what I felt was normalcy. But now I am on the wire for a week. Need to be very careful.

Along those lines, tonight is the company holiday dinner. I don't know if I can go because I am not sure I can afford the gas money. Plain and simple. Plus parking. Plus an hour plus of driving since it is in the city at 6:30 which means I need to leave here by 5. I told our admin I am tentative. I also don't know if I want to be around people who don't know. I am going to play it by ear.

Y2 D189

I realized yesterday I am jealous of my dead brother. How pathetic is that? Not because he's dead, I am not getting melancholy or depressed, it's because of what I saw and heard at the funeral. I realized my brother had the normal life I never had. He never dealt with a mother dying, a step-father abusing him, drug use, living on his own as a teenager, struggling to make sense of things. He had a true Norman Rockwell life, that was granted, ended too short. I was listening to everyone talk about him on Monday - his high school days of football and cars and drinking beer. His college days of being part of a fraternity. His life with his wife and kids. He was so fucking normal. Why did our mother not give me up for adoption and give me to a rich doctor? He had friends and family that loved him. He was never alone like this.

So I envy my dead brother and the life he left behind.

I took yesterday off. I needed one day to myself. Just a day to sit around the house and do nothing. I am back to work today. Back to acting like I care about things I don't care about. I did hear yesterday from the journalist who interviewed me recently. The article on food will be coming out on the 8th or the 15th. I am looking forward to reading it and seeing my name in print for a positive reason.

So cold here. Lit a fire yesterday to try and keep warm but no matter what I did, I will constantly shivering. One downside to losing weight is I don't have that extra layer of fat to keep me warm any more. Chilled to the bone is no longer just an expression for me. Talked with the kid last night. She is counting the hours until she is back for Christmas break. She will have presents under the tree. I have managed to secure almost $200 in Amazon gift cards through all the survey sites I participate on to use for her for presents. At least one of us will have stuff under the tree. I don't really care of I have anything under there to be honest. I am getting used to not having anything.

Off to work.