Garbage "#1 Crush" Lorely Festival 1998

I would die for you
I would die for you
I've been dying just to feel you by my side
To know that you're mine

I will cry for you
I will cry for you
I will wash away your pain with all my tears
And drown your fear

I will pray for you
I will pray for you
I will sell my soul for something pure and true
Someone like you

See your face every place that I walk in
Hear your voice every time I am talking
You will believe in me
And I will never be ignored

I will burn for you
Feel pain for you
I will twist the knife and bleed my aching heart
And tear it apart

I will lie for you
Beg and steal for you
I will crawl on hands and knees until you see
You're just like me

Violate all The love that I'm missing
Throw away all the pain that I'm living
You will believe in me
And I can never be ignored

I would die for you
I would kill for you
I will steal for you
I'd do time for you
I would wait for you
I'd make room for you
I'd sail ships for you
To be close to you
To be a part of you
'Cause I believe in you
I believe in you
I would die for you.

No title

I really was going to try to get away from this stupid blog.  I was going to try to wean myself off it.  It serves no good purpose.  I didn't even make it 24 hours.  I'll start over after this post and try to be stronger.

I had a long lunch today with a dear friend from high school.  She's been here almost as many years as I have.  The big difference is, her entire extended family (A very large, tight knit, Catholic family which defines the mold of the salt-of-the-earth people I grew up with at home.) has remained back home and she has lengthy visits home numerous times each year.  Here again, I underestimated how I would feel seeing her again.  While we had several items of business to discuss, the majority of the talk was about home and "would we go back?" and friends back home, etc.  Like I said, I underestimated.  I really had to work hard to A, hold in my emotions and, B, not talk too much about my overwhelming desire to go/move home or any of the circumstances surrounding that desire.  It was very, very hard.  I felt emotionally suffocated the entire time and still feel that way several hours later.  I just wish there was one other person in the world that knew what I'm going through.  One other person that would understand, that I could talk to.  But there is no one.

I had a couple meetings today, so I got dressed up.  I wore my favorite solid blue dress shirt, a cool purple tie and a charcoal, pin striped suit.  As I was leaving, I happened by a mirror and it struck me, "I look pretty damn good.".  I never look at myself and it sounds stupid to say that, but I liked the way I looked.  And all I could think about was, "Why can't she see me today??????".  I stayed away from mirrors and car window reflections the rest of the day just so I wouldn't sadly dwell on us not being together.

I was not going to dwell on yesterday, but now I think I feel compelled to talk a little about it.  It was very hard.  I smoked a ton of cigarettes yesterday.  To want someone so bad and to want to be with them on their special day, yet, to feel light years away and so on the outside was excrutiating.  She was physically and emotionally surrounded by her friends and family....................yet I could not be counted in that circle.  I know that is selfish.  I felt/feel like some 16 year old.  Her friends and family could shower well wishes on her and some were actually to spend time with her.  I could do nothing.  I felt so impotent and forgotten.  You see this large circle of family and friends.  Then you realize, you're all alone on the outside.

As I drove early this morning in the dark rain, enjoying it so much, one thought seemed to calm me down a little.  I thought, I have "known" the most incredible girl in the world.  I have been "close" to her.  Something about the certainty of the knowledge that I have known the most incredible and desirable girl in the world seemed to calm me temporarily.  I can't explain it.  IMHSGDM.

Muse - Starlight

For once, I understimated.

I knew tomorrow would be difficult.  I just didn't think it would be this bad.  And I didn't foresee it starting tonight.  While I knew tomorrow would be a day of immense significance and heaviness, I have to admit, I didn't think it would be so bad.  I should have known better.  Now that it's already begun and I have some knowledge of events, it's hitting me like the weight of the world.  I just had to go outside and smoke two cigarettes to try to calm myself down.  The feelings of aloneness and being forgotten and being so on the outside are overwhelming and crushing.  Maybe it's for the best. Maybe getting kicked in the gut is the quickest way to transition. My mind is wild with thoughts and fears.  I haven't asked God to grant my wish for several nights, but I will resume tonight.

Lucky for viewers

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/sports/stories/2010/10/23/1023-ohio-state-purdue-panorama.html?sid=101

This is a high def, panoramic photo of the crowd at the Ohio State - Purdue game on Saturday.  It allows one to pan around the stadium and zoom in on the faces of fans in the crowd. I sat on the end of a row.  I zoomed right in on myself....................well, what little of me can be seen behind a guy who walked up the aisle between me and the camera at the exact second the photo was taken.  My shoulder and the back of my head look real good.  Probably just as well.

Rainy day

I woke up in the dark this morning to hear the welcome sound of rain.  After another night of bad nightmares, it was good to hear.  It's been ages since I've heard the rain.  The ensuing thunder and lightning was even nice.  It was 62 out and I just wanted to go out in the carport, smoke a cigarette and soak in the sound and smell of the rain.  Even more so, though, I wanted to be in SB doing this.  I remember her telling me, on numerous occasions, about early morning rain and storms.  Every time, I so wanted to be there...........at home............with her, sipping coffee and listening to the rain in the early morning darkness.  And that's exactly where my mind went this morning, especially after yesterday's activities.

During my "layover" in Columbus, I had plenty of time to surf the web.  I spent a large amount of time looking at photos from SB and reading blogs and such on SB.  I wanted to cry numerous times because I wanted to be there so bad.  I am so drawn home.  I want to be there so bad and I want to be with her so bad.  I want to walk the streets all day and walk down to the waterfront and wander into a local pub for pizza at lunch and just sit at a local bar in the evening, watching a Sabres game with her.  I want to taste it and feel it with her.  How can longing this consuming be wrong?

One for a playful dance on the Front Porch..........or down at the waterfront.

I'm crying.

Back in my element............for only a few hours.

Yesterday was a very difficult day, as they all have been………………..and all will be.  I love Columbus.  I love going down to OSU and driving the neighborhoods and being in the environment on campus around the games.  I think a lot of it is because I’m back in the north and so close to home.  I’m in my element and around people who are like me, people I feel comfortable around.  I feel at home here.  The cool fall weather and colored trees and breeze only add to my homesickness.  There’s no place I’d rather be than on campus on gameday in the fall.  It always gives me a special (good) chill.  I love walking around or sitting in my favorite gameday bar, the Out ‘R Inn, just watching people and soaking it all in for hours. 

Even with all the games I’ve been to and all the gamedays I’ve spent here and elsewhere following OSU, it is still an immense thrill and I still consider it an unbelievable privilege to be able to do it.  I never could’ve envisioned my wonderful opportunities over the last 15 years, when I was a young kid in WNY watching the Buckeyes on TV and going to the Marilla General Store every Sunday morning to get the BEN so that I could digest the previous day’s OSU and college football coverage and cut out the OSU article for my OSU scrapbook.  It has been an incredible privilege to do the things I’ve done the last fifteen years.  And still, there’s no place I’d rather be than in Columbus and on the OSU campus on a fall gameday.  I still tear up many times when I walk out into the stadium to my seat before each game.  It’s a special privilege I will never take for granted, though I don’t know how many more times I will be able to do it.

But yesterday, I was alone.  My cousin wasn’t even there to hang with.  Though I frequently am alone, still, yesterday, I was really alone and especially painful.  From the second I left my Dad’s driveway, every thought for the rest of the day surrounded her……………and how overwhelmed I’d be to have her by my side………….and how I’d feel so cool driving down to campus and showing her around and hanging with her and taking it all in with her.  It was an entire day of dreaming………………………..and hurting.

Several months ago, I had ordered a new, black, Nike OSU polo.  I had not worn it and had been saving it for today.  I’m weird (stupid) like that.  I’m so into “moments” and special occasions of significance.  I’m an idiot.  I buy so few things for myself, so everything I do buy is carefully screened.  I only buy things that really strike me and that I really love.  Since there are so few, they all are special to me.  But, I was so unhappy and so depressed today (and every day), that I almost did not wear it.  I just wanted to say, “F it!  I don’t give a damn.  I have to put who I am/was behind me.”, in a further attempt to put my prior life behind me.  In the end, I wore it, but it meant very little to me.

It was a perfect, gray day with a sky full of gray clouds, in the 50’s.  Just the kind of day I absolutely love, the perfect day for spending with that perfect other half.  I could’ve just walked around among the tens of thousands tailgating and on the streets for hours.  Then I received the email.  And I went down to the path on Olentangy River shoreline below the Lane Avenue bridge to read it and ponder it and watch the geese and smoke a cigarette………………or three.  I needed to cry so bad.  I needed to lie down on the ground and just ball my eyes out.  I needed to be held.  Then, as a further cruel twist of fate, a band at one of the big, nearby, outdoor pre-game parties began playing one of the songs on The List.  I could not believe that, here I am already about to cry and feeling faint, they could stick the knife in by playing one of the songs.  And it’s not even a song that you would ever expect at one of these outdoor parties.  At that point I had to leave to get away.

I then walked around enjoying all the typical sausage and gyro street vendors and grills, watching all the people, listening to the bands……………………………..and just wishing and dreaming.  I feel so weak and so immature and so evil.

I did not drink one drop of alcohol the entire day.  In the near 200 college football games I’ve been to, I’m not sure that has ever happened, certainly not in the last 15 or 20 years.  But I did not feel like it.  And I think I also wanted to say, again, “F it!  That will only remind me of my former life and further accentuate the pain.”.  I drink when I’m happy.  I am/was not happy.  I have been drinking only in social situations the last few weeks, when I have to because everyone else is drinking.  Otherwise, though, I’ve virtually quit.  Again, like virtually everything else, I associate drinking with happiness……………and her, cuz we would’ve had so much fun yesterday sipping Jack n’Cokes walking around on the street or parking ourselves at the bar at the Out R’Inn.  It will probably help me lose weight, not that I have anyone to try to impress by losing it now.  I really don’t care what happens to me now.  Who gives a shit what I look like.

Of course, I stop at a convenience store after the game.  I go to look for a drink and, of course, my eyes fall on Vitamin Water, another painful remembrance.  As I walk out, I happen to look at the gas pumps and notice the Mobil logo, the horse with the wings.  I just sink inside, because, in a split second, it took me back to the former Mobil station at Bullis and Bowen in Elma.  God, I can’t get away from remembrances anywhere I go.  They are everywhere, hiding in the smallest and inconspicuous of things.  Hell, just being in central Ohio, so near to Cedarville and, thus, so near to Springfield and her school, was a heavy weight all weekend.  I envisioned her there for four years, laughing and having fun and entertaining her friends in the yellow house and driving guys crazy and just being the coolest girl every on the face of the earth…………………………..and it just kills me.  Her laugh just so melts me and makes me want to scream.  And I remember the first photo of her that she ever emailed to me.  It is permanently imprinted on my mind.  She was so stunningly beautiful in the photo and her expression was so her.  Every photo of her, but especially my memory of that photo, so reminds me of her locked gaze, how her beautiful, brown eyes seemed to never leave mine during the hour or so that we were together one year ago.  I don’t ever remember in life any girl who was so concentrated in maintaining eye contact, let alone, on that day, a total stranger.  I remember how much she impressed me that day.  What a deep, mature, thoughtful, insightful woman.  Why so late in life was I exposed to her, when I can do nothing about it?  How can there be someone so perfect in the world and why did I have to meet her?????  And how can someone so perfect be so humble and disbelieving of her perfection, when there are so many millions who think they are perfect and can’t hold a candle to her????  No one approaches her.  Certainly not me.  She is so much higher than me, I’m not sure, if given the chance, I could even denigrate her by attempting to be a part of her life.  She deserves much better than me.  Much better.  Why has God done this to me??????

And then I had to spend a second straigtht evening with my feeble, fundamentalist family, the family that so contributed to the weak, pathetic, worthless person I am at 48.  My teeth were gritting the entire time.  I wanted to scream.  So much talk of home.  I wanted to strangle them and tell them to shut up about how often you get to return to Buffalo and spend time there.  Do you know how painful it is to love your home so much, yet know that you are now banished from ever returning, to have to be around feeble people who get to go there all the time and don't appreciate it like you do?????  I was coming out of my skin.

So now I sit, waiting to fly back to a place I do not want to be, a place that has never been “home” to me, a place so far away from where I want to be, where I am surrounded by people who are not like me and who love that place and think it is so great.  I feel so at home just sitting here.  I don’t want to go.  I’m so tempted to say, “I can’t do it anymore!  I’m not going back.  I’ll live on the street if I have to, but I’m not going back.”.  But I can’t.  I cannot be without my wonderful dog.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/sports/stories/2010/10/23/1023-ohio-state-purdue-panorama.html?sid=101

Muse - Map of the Problematique

Loneliness be over.  When will this loneliness be over?

Fear
And panic in the air
I want to be free
From desolation and despair
And I feel
Like everything I saw
Is being swept away
When I refuse to let you go

I can't get it right
Get it right
Since I met you

Loneliness be over
When will this loneliness be over?

Life
Will flash before my eyes
So scattered and lost
I want to touch the other side
And no one
Thinks they are to blame
Why can't we see
That when we bleed we bleed the same?

I can't get it right
Get it right
Since I met you

Loneliness be over
When will this Loneliness be over?

Loneliness be over
When will this Loneliness be over?

Sick

What a rotten day.  God I'm so tired of everything and everyone.  I'm sick of everything.  Now I'm not only hurting, I'm angry and so want to wake up tomorrow with no memory of my previous life.  I can't wait to leave town this weekend and be away from this crappy place and everything I have on me.  Maybe I can go away and forget everyone and everything.  I am so tired and so worn down.  I'm quickly getting to the place where I just don't give a shit anymore.  My life was not supposed to be like this.

The daylight hours are quickly diminishing.  As I drove home from the pool this morning, the eastern sky was just getting orange.  I loved it.  I thought of all thoses times I've travelled and left several hours before dawn over the years and how I loved the peace of driving while the rest of the world was still sleeping.  I always hated it when the sun finally came up, because that meant the rest of the world would be getting up and I would no longer be alone.  I miss it so much and long for a road trip.  I remember twice during the past few years driving from Wichita, Kansas, to Manhattan, Kansas, in the cold, October, pre-dawn hours, through the boring Kansas landscape with nothing but occasional headlights from trucks, seeing the dew everywhere.  It was so peaceful.  How much better it would be in my pickup truck with that special other half next to you, sleeping on your shoulder, or munching on coffee and donuts with you, listening to some late night talk show on the radio.  It would be heaven.  Not that I would know.  But I can fantasize and feel all warm and fuzzy thinking about it.  I hope I can atleast do it again by myself someday.

Rush Losing It

A very difficult day.

Why do I keep doing this, writing to no one but myself?  It's been such a hard day..................not that every previous one hasn't been extremely difficult.  I'm so tired.  And I'm tired of being sick.  I feel so alone and so, so extremely far away and forgotten.  And there is no one that can understand.  I feel the separation growing by the minute................if it's not already too big to ever mend.  I feel so alone and forgotten.  How quickly my dreams and fantasies have become things in the past and painful memories.  I don't even dream anymore.  And the fantasies, unfortunately, they are now more real and painful.  The images of who I need are killing me.  And they won't stop.  Every fantasy of true love is immediately filled in with images of her.  It's like I'm being tortured, forced to think about them and I cannot turn off my racing mind. 

I have to quit writing this shit to myself.  I have to quit being weak.

All alone.

I got away tonight and came up to the lake.  I needed to get away.  I used to love coming up here alone. But now I'm really alone.  I don't even have my dog to keep me company.  And for the first time, I'm really alone.  I'm hoping the cool night and sleep will bring some comfort.  Ha!  Right.  I walked up the driveway to the "street" and sat in the driveway looking up at all the stars, the stars and open sky you can't see in the city.  I was somewhat annoyed at the half moon which was providing too much light.  Still, I was able to see so many stars and the occasional plane crossing so far above. With such an open sky, it doesn't matter how far you are from civilization, there's a plane above you somewhere.  But I was so alone.  I heard an occasional deer or coyote passing close by in the dark as I sat in the dark and smoked.  And I realized I'd probably always be alone.  I wondered where I'd be in five years.  I'm sure it won't be pretty.  There's a good chance I will be truly alone in every way.  I wish five years were here.  Get all the shit that is coming my way behind me and just get it over with.  I don't see myself here or anywhere near here.  And I won't be surprised if I'm all alone.  If I am, I won't be here and I probably won't have many friends or family, a mess that will be of my own making.  I guess with time, I'll get used to it.  I know I don't want to be alone, I know I don't want true love and peace to alude me, but there's not much I may be able to do about it.  Maybe I was destined to be alone.  I'm hoping for sleep tonight.  I will be listening, as always, to talk radio to slow down my miserable and fearful racing mind.  Doesn't seem fair that things have been this way.  I wonder if, five years from now, I'll be all alone in Kansas, looking up at the big sky and stars, hearing the silence and laying alone in bed with only talk radio to keep me company at night. I'd say there's a very good chance.  Not what I envisioned for myself.  It will take some getting used to.  Off to bed, truly alone.

Nothing.

It is truly an amazing thing to meet someone so wonderful, so steady, so mature and so perfect that you can't put them into words.  She is beyond description and has truly left me speechless.  It has also been emotionally and physically debilitating, because I cannot have her and experience real life with her.  Even in this darkest of times, she has only shown what a mature and resilient and patient and truly incredible human being she is. Which only makes me yearn more................and hurt more.  My life is empty.  I can't flip a switch.  I can't control what feelings generate inside me.  So how do I erase from my memory and heart what I know is out there?  How do I go on without my best friend?

It's dark and I'm so low.

I miss her so much.

So little to say.

I'm trying to refrain from constantly writing depressing and painful whinings.  Not much else to write, though.  Soooooooo, I really don't have much to share with the world.  I've made such a mess of my life. It's funny how, I want so much, yet I want so little.  It's just that the few things I want in life happen to be really, really important to me.  Is inner peace, the ability to relax, true love and the company of one special person too much to ask for? Evidently so.  Seeing all the mess that this has made in my life, I would kill just to be in the 99 out of 100 people on this earth who have passion for nothing and wander blindly through life, never really missing anything.

I can't help but continue to dream of a little house in rural Kansas and the perfect love in a pickup truck and warm summer evenings spent on the front porch listening to classic rock, thinking and talking about home and drinking beer from a can.  And laying in bed with the perfect love at night, with the windows open and the moonlight providing the only light.  I might never fall asleep.  Why couldn't I have known at 22, what I know now?  God, life is so unfair.

I don't live in a bubble.

Causing myself pain and suffering is one thing. Causing someone else that you love to go through it is quite a different thing.  I feel the pain that is being felt by her 24/7...............and at this moment.  It is not fair.  It's not right.  If I could take it all back, I would.  I'm not sure I've ever felt bad regarding someone else's pain in life.  I do now.  Now is different.  Now the pain is being felt by the most awesome person in the world.  And it was caused by me.  You'd think that, by age 48, you be mature enough to have long since stopped making mistakes and hurting others.  I pray to God for her to find some peace today.  I pray to God for Him to help me lose my selfishness and bring her happiness without me.

Clutching The Short Straw

Wow!  What a difficult morning, Day #4.  So terrible that all this would happen at the beginning of my favorite time of the year, when I can walk out in the morning and feel the temperature in the 40's or 50's and feel the cool breeze and watch all the trees in the wind.  I always long for home more in the fall.  The feel of the cool air on my skin always makes me yearn for home.  I really need to stop calling it "home".  Then the leaves begin to fall and the air smells wonderful.  I decided to torture myself with Marillion's "Clutching At Straws" this morning.  Not sure if I can make it through it.  It's such a beautiful, yet painful and sad, album. I remember when I first got it as a cassette in 1987 and was immediately mesmerized by it.  It's always been on my list of Top Ten Albums To Take To Exile on a Deserted Island.  I don't know if I can make it through it.

I wonder what that means.

I wonder what that means.  I wish I was a mind reader.  I used to be.  Not so now.  So sad and pitiful to be 48 years old and looking, hoping for little signs, like I'm some immature, broken hearted teenager.

Actually, now that I think about it more, I'm sure it meant nothing.  Just wishful thinking on my part.  I just have to come to grips with the fact that I have no hope.

Minute by minute.

I make it through a minute, then I look at my Blackberry, then determine I must make it through the next minute.  Then I make it an hour. And determine I must start over because there's another hour in front of me.  Then I realize it's not working.

Today, my life ended.

The final, flickering candle finally was blown out inside me.  I have killed the person who was my mirror, my love and my best friend........................my one final hope for sanity and happiness,..........................for overcoming fear.......................and for finding peace. 

I am not empty, because I am full of pain.  I am not numb, because I feel HER pain.  I am not lifeless......................because I am overcome with the terror of what lies in my future for the rest of my life.  I am living the nightmare that will never end.  There is no way out for me.  I have ruined lives and broken hearts, including my own.  Please my Love, I ask for your forgiveness.  GN.  Bye.