The new "relationship" was over almost as quick as it began. But, rather than focus on losses I am concentrating on what I have learned in the process. This is a good thing and one of those, slap-yourself-on-the-forehead type, "I coulda had a V-8," sorta things where you learn some useful tools. So, life goes on and I'm happy and content once again.

Seems people actually read my stuff. Thanks to Dominique for her helpful comments and salutations. The fact that people are actually reading my stuff is both inspiring and terrifying at the same time. I've got some good ideas but unfortunately my employment and school assignments are getting in the way. -Jeeem-

I have lived a rather "colorful" life in my forty-six years on this earth. Most people I meet around here don't really believe me when I mention some of the things I have done, experienced or seen. I used to be quite the risk taker but have naturally slowed down in my middle age. Many challenges have presented themselves to me over the years.

Most recently I have met a new challenge. Two of them actually. Both are female, one being thirteen and the other eleven. They hate me. Actually, I don't think they actually hate me as much as they just don't want me around their mother. Recently the mother and I went out to dinner at a local Friendly's. We took the youngest. At first she was a sweet, cute little eleven year old . . . . . then, well have you ever seen the exorcist with Linda Blair?

Suddenly this little girl child became a she devil in disguise, vomiting blackish-greeish bile and spouting slanderous quips as her head revolved on it's axis. I managed to get through it, but I'm not a kid person and I find it difficult to see a little girl whom I thought had a connection with me, turn into a hateful and repulsive shedemon from the lower depths of hell.

I've done and seen a lot of things but I'm finding this very, very difficult. The mother tells me it is a natural occurance and that the two she-devils are really just little girls protecting their mother. I'm thinking of opting out. For the first time in my life I feel I may surrender and retreat in cowardice. Wave the white flag and silently go into a flaming dive, crashing into the mountains. This is tough. Why hadn't I ever read about this phenomenon before? Surely a book exists somewhere. Instructions for the foreign male intruder who ventures across the threshold of feminine territory.

Maybe if I just light some more of these candles and say a couple more chants, they will go away. -Jeeem-

Oh man . . . .I'm fulluv piss and vinegar today!

Who comes up with those hygiene product names? Seriously! I was thinking of it after strolling through the local Rite Aid the other day. Casually, I'm coursing through the long array of feminine products, amazed that a whole isle can be devoted to maxi, super maxi, thin, extra thin, extra-thin super absorbent, extra-thin super absorbent with wings, super maxi thins with wings, and the list goes on. Shelves and shelves of this stuff. Then I came to the feminine hygiene products.

VAGISIL. God help us.

Can you imagine a bunch of men sitting around a huge table in a New York marketing firm, high atop the city, in three-piece business suits, saying, "What are we going to call it?"

Then some young preppy type scribbling on a yellow notepad looks up with a sly grin on his face and says, "I've got it! Let's call it VAGISIL."

Pan to the other sly grins popping up around the table . . . . and suddenly it is unanimous.

Jesus. Imagine . . . "PRICE CHECK ON VAGISIL ISLE SIX!" There couldn't have been a woman on that board. No way.

Summers Eve? Now that was a decision made by women. Men NEVER would have come up with that.

What about CRUEX? A panel of women in business suits, most newly divorced and currently involved in child custody suits. You think? Gotta be. -Jeeem-

I have to come up with a research proposal. Suddenly, my busy mind is bare blank. Funny phenomenon that is. Perhaps I should pretend I don't have to do a damn thing and I will come up with something. I have thought about doing a research project on the efficacy of road crossing in the squirrel population.

The other day I was coming home and saw something in the road. Slowing down as I approached the object, I realized it was a grey squirrel. There he (or she) was, flat out on his back, bushy tail splayed out and his little paws up in the air. He was in the middle of the road. The thought crossed my mind, "What an insult to wildlife," here is this beautiful little animal, lying in the middle of the road, awaiting the final insult of a huge snow tire to squish any remaining life out of him and spread him out over the tarmac.

I began to ponder human existence. What is our final insult? To be riddled with bullets while out of our environment in a foreign country fighting a war that shouldn't be happening? Lying on a hospital bed eaten up with disease? Wandering from room to room, out of our minds with Alzheimers? Dragging our cardboard box from alley to alley in search of safety and solace in our homeless predicament? Lying in a snowbank, clutching our chest with a snow shovel by our side?

I wanna go out in style. I like the squirrel idea for a research project. How does one interview a squirrel? -Jeeem-

Oh..... the serving cart? You were wondering about it weren't you? Common sense would tell you that I ended up dropping it off at the carnival on the way, pushing it at a carny who looked hungry. Everything has a purpose. -Jeeem-

What a difference a few days can make. More snow in the forecast. I'm beginning to think I have seasonal affective disorder. I have the blahs. Do you remember my post about clipping strings? Well, once again, my procrastination has caused those damn strings to get out of control. I'm getting overwhelmed. The snow doesn't help.

I missed my first class on social research and I'm paying the price. Good grief. I just want the damn degree thank you. What do you mean I have to put some work into this? My research proposal appears to escape me at present. Perhaps if I look for it, I'll find it. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind. Somewhere in those convoluted folds and deep crevices, there has to be a research project idea laying there, waiting to be found.

My energy level is low. I awoke this morning from a terrifying dream. My whole body was into it. I was struggling for my life. A dream friend and I had made a plan to meet back at the hotel (The Plaza - a good name for a hotel) and I took the wrong elevator. I got out of the elevator and walked into a cafe, took a serving cart loaded down with flat cakes and fruit (it seemed the thing to do) and pushed it right out of the cafe/restaurant. Suddenly I realized that I did not know where I was. I asked directions to the Plaza Hotel and a man pointed in the direction of a bridge. One of those bridges that part in the middle to allow boats to pass. I made my way to the bridge and finally could see the hotel, which was a mere mile away. How the hell did that happen? How did I get so damn far from that hotel that should have been in the same building I was in when I got into the elevator.

The guys at the bridge terminal had to have been screwing with me. I watched the bridge lower and cars pass over, heading in the direction of the hotel. I put my thumb out. Most of them were business people. Some looked French. One woman looked like the hairy creature on the Adams family with hair down over her face, cascading down to her waist. None of them stopped. I saw the opportunity and decided to run for it, only to discover that I was moving like I was immersed in a viscous jelly. I reached the end of the bridge only to feel it begin to move.

There I was, dangling on the end of this massive iron structure and screaming at the top of my lungs. I began whistling loudly to try and get the attention of the bridge workers. I never saw their faces but somehow knew they were getting a kick out of this. I awoke in a sweat, sitting bolt upright, breathing like I had been immersed in water for way too long. It sucks waking up like that.

Wonder what Freud would have made of that one? Probably would have suggested some sexual deviance deeply seated in my brain. Somewhere in those convolutions where my research project is hiding. -Jeeem-

A heavy snow has created a winter wonderland here. It is beautiful and for once, I am able to enjoy it as I don't have an issue with driving in it due to my new purchase of a truck. I also hired a contractor to plow and sand my driveway, so even that is not an issue. I actually love this time of year and it is one of the reasons I came to the East coast in the first place.

I used to see the postcards of New England on the racks in stores, while living in the desert southwest and would get this surreal feeling when looking at them. They seemed to me to out of reach . . . unachievable. Now I see scenes like those on the postcards, as a daily occurance. I'm in a good mood just being around the beauty of it today.

The cultural thing raised it's ugly head again yesterday for me. A client I am working with making excuses for his repulsive behavior by writing it off as a cultural thing. We had a connection of sorts due to my latino background and got into a good discussion about using your culture as an excuse for your lousy and unacceptable behavior. Funny that this issue should pop up again so soon for me as I struggle with it greatly.

There is a large difference in this society between being "macho" and the latino counterpart called "machismo," that I will agree. It is a state of mind but a stubborn one at that and not as accepted as it once was.

When I was in the Philippines, I became aware that once in the Filipino culture, it was widely accepted for a man to have a mistress in addition to his wife. Now, times have changed and this practice is not so widely accepted. Basically, I think there are rights and wrongs in this world and too much is swept under the rug of "culture" as a license to hurt or affect others. -Jeeem-

I once read a book about wasting time. It was geared at looking at some of the different things we do (or don't do) in a given day and how we end up wasting valuable time. I think about this subject more and more as I grow older. Last night was an example. I spend the better part of four hours working on a Windows XP glitch that was bugging the hell out of me. Everytime I tried to type in a new URL or fill in an on-line form, my laptop began to become possessed, whole sentences appearing in the URL window or the fill in boxes as if I was receiving chat messages from the abyss.

I eventually solved the problem after countless hours on a Windows support system, finding that others, it seems, were having the same trouble. A simple maneuver of removing the speech recognition system, which was picking up outside sound and converting it into text. Four hours. Now what could I have accomplished in four hours? Seems ridiculous to me, but I am glad I solved the problem.

I bought some new brain wave coffee for the task of writing in this blog. The stuff tastes like shit but it sure does get the old neurons firing at a rapid rate. I'm not sure how I began thinking about compartmentalization, but I know that I was thinking about a book I once read (I suck at remembering titles and authors) about this guy who had this wicked, organized life. It caught my interest because I'm like that, to a degree. A person once said to me, of my tendency towards organization that at the time was bordering on obsessive / compulsive, "The only order in a disordered life." I have never been the same since I heard that statement. It bothered me at first.

My home is organized to a degree, but to a more involved extent, my mind is rather compartmentalized. I often think in pictures and metaphors and have trouble verbalizing my thoughts, whereas I seem to be better at putting them down on paper or "screen" in the written word. I catagorize things. Problems in my life get placed in to catagorical "boxes" labeled various ways like, "Top Priority," "Put It Off," "Medium Problematic," etcetera. I often envision a handful of "strings" hanging, all of various lengths representing the extent of the problem or issue, and my goal is to clip them off.

You can't clip all of them at once. You have to select which one to approach first. Sometimes I approach a problem in the wrong order. The more I am on top of clipping the strings, the more relaxed and at peace I am. Sometimes I get lazy and procrastinate on the clipping process. Lately this has been true.

I should know better than to bite off more than I can chew, but I do it all the time. Often, I think I need a change and I jump into something, thinking it is going to be the solution to all my problems (strings). The strings never go away. One string may represent the dishes in the sink. One may take on the value of a bill unpaid. It requires constant prioritization.

Jesus, I hope this doesn't sound nutty. Oh well, so what if it does . . . . right? How do you like that denial? Ha. This morning I was thinking of a governor. No, not the political type, the little things used to hold things back. I remember being on a go-cart track once and knowing that they place governors on the carburetors so crazy idiots like myself wouldn't end up killing himself or others. I turned around in my seat and fiddled with the thing, bending it back and in minutes was screaming down the track and passing other drivers like Mario Andretti. I got flagged aside and thrown out. It was worth it though.

My brain seems to have this governor built into it. When I was shooting dope in the past, I had quickly found that Heroin and other opiates made that governor disappear. Temporarily, naturally, but ZAP! it was gone. I just didn't have a care in the world and the world was great and you were my friend and everybody was my friend and I felt good and nothing mattered except I felt good and I loved everything and everyone and life was just fucking awesome!

No, I'm not romancing the stone here. I just remember that feeling so vividly, even now. That's what made getting clean and sober so difficult. I had to deal with that damn governor. I couldn't mess with it or I'd get thrown out of . . . . . . . society? You can't cheat. In reality, life is in TECHNICOLOR. I never cared for technicolor. Life on life's terms.

I'm still trying to think of a way to mess with that little governor. Somehow turn around in my seat when nobody is looking and bend it back. Problem is, society is a big governor. Can't do this . . . . can't do that . . . .should, would, could, better not, don't, won't, stop, halt, no swimming, no loitering, no talking, no shoes, no shirt, no service.

There are those of us who comply in life and there are those of us who are always trying to break the rules. Rules are to be broken . . . . . right? What exactly is the RULE BOOK? The laws? The Bible? Morals? Who makes the rules? What if we didn't have a governor? Is that governor our conscience? Anyway, l once found a way around the governor, except I got myself into a whole lot of trouble in doing so. Trouble was dope was not legal. Must be wrong because it was destroying me in so many ways. Maybe you just can't cheat the governor. My governor is a pretty flimsy one. I know others who have a titanium reinforced one. Bummer.

Well, I am wired to the hilt now. Angie would be proud of me. She's back on-line after a record year in the U.K., selling booze. Peter is got me back on the marquee again so I'll make him a proud man. Gotta go, more strings to clip! -Jeeem-

A new year, a new relationship. Relationship? Whoops! Wasn't supposed to call it that. Dating, we are dating . . . .hummm. Funny thing about words, they can take on all sorts of different meanings depending on what you want. I wasn't in a relationship and had no commitment, but had to break-up to see another person. Build up, break down, build up, break down. Sad actually. Sad and difficult.

I remember watching a movie or reading a book long ago and the statement was, "A man and a woman can never be just friends." Well, I am sure many would contest that, but I would have to add that if there is an attraction, the above statement could be true.

I'm seeing someone else. The same old feelings are there. I guess I felt my feelings would change over the years and I would become jaded and bitter. Love would not be the same. Well, it hasn't changed. I am happy to say that I am just as giddy, just as lovestruck as when I was a teenager. My old experiences seem to want to crowd out some of those feelings and convince me of some sort of nasty reality that I don't want to take a look at.

I recently read, "Reality bites." Well, that is true, but thank God I am not as reality based as I would like to think I am. I am a risk taker and risk takers experience life to it's fullest. Thank God. -Jeeem-

Okay, it's the new year. The big 2002. Time for some changes. I gotta lose some of this flab that I have acquired and blame on the cold weather and my good cooking. It certainly isn't my fault. I am making some New Year's resolutions. Never really did that before as I always thought it stupid and corny. So, I'm getting stupid and corny in my old age . . . so what?

I am adjusting to my laptop. It was confusing at first . . . the PC, the laptop, the PC, the laptop . . . decisions, decisions. Actually, I feel very grateful that I should have to make such decisions. I need to simplify though. Did I NEED the laptop? Well, no. I don't particularly like admitting that but I have resolved myself to TOTAL, BRUTAL honesty this year. At least when writing in this blog.

I was already a pretty honest sort, so I thought, until I discovered my propensity to convince myself of things that certainly were not true. I vow from this point forward to "attempt" to be totally and brutally honest with myself.

Now, one might immediately contemplate that this idea is commendable, righteous even. Hummmm. An interesting thought. What a claim. Here lies a man who was totally and brutally honest with himself and others. He died without friends. Ha.

Does one need to always be honest to himself or others? This brings to mind the 9th step of Alcoholics Anonymous . . . . "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others." Sounds like one hell of a loophole for a person like me, so capable of rationalization. "Nope. Gonna skip this guy cause it would SURELY injure him!" Ah, so one would think that our existence in life could not be had without a little rationalization and justification.

To be totally honest both to self and others, would certainly make things interesting wouldn't it? I certainly would NOT be where I am right now if I had been totally honest in life. Would you? How the hell did I get on this subject? Oh, my New Years resolution. Well, to hell with it. I'm human you know.

It's been a while since I wrote words down. It feels funny at first but it really gets rolling after awhile. Coffee helps immensely. My friend Peter (Naked Blog) in Leith, Scotland (to the right of Edinburgh) says he likes my stuff. I guess I really needed to hear somebody likes it. It gave me the extra "UMMPH!" I needed to get started again. Peter writes brilliantly and is published. I love reading his stuff and recently told him that his words remind me of how much I don't know, which brings me to yet another thought . . .

I have a fear of dying dumb. Well, not "dumb" actually, but educationally challenged. That is the politically correct phrase I guess. So, that brings me to the REAL subject of this blog. My TRUE New Year's resolution (see, you thought I was being honest before). I am going to attempt to read more, write more and submit more. I know I've got it in me.

One of my first hero's in the writing field was a woman named Claire Robson. She is a published writer from England who taught a little informal amateur writer's course a few years back at the Poet's Cafe in Plymouth, New Hampshire. I learned a lot from that small course and I also began to develop my first feeling that I could actually write stuff that people would read.

One night Claire said, "You can't publish anything if you don't submit anything." Duh. Sounds pretty simple right? Not so. My brain, I've learned, has a gigantic editor in it that I need to avoid. So, I will write. Some of it I will write here, some on paper. Some of it will suck. Some of it will shine. If nothing else I will be able to say I've written. Nothing gained, nothing lost.

Happy New Year. -Jeeem-