2 Hours This Week

I worked a billable total of 2 hours this week.  I spent the rest of the time in my room wishing the world would stop making so many sounds.  Sounds trigger flits of anxiety in me when I’m playing hooky from work and the world.

I repaired these black shorts with duct tape (don’t worry, it’s on the inside).  These have been made my shorts, but I think they were abandoned by Stephanie’s son, Derick, or something.

Not working is like quicksand.  I feel bad, so I don’t work, and not working causes me to feel worse, so I don’t work some more.  It’s been this way my whole life.  I rarely wanted to go to school — I pretended I was sick (a lot, in my opinion).

Mother’s Day week is hard for me, I guess.

I have more people depending on me not falling apart then ever before in my life and that makes the slope even steeper.

If I don’t take the trash out, no one does.  So, I bought a trash can with a lid.  It makes sense.  You don’t care about the details.

Julie’s three kids, according to their counselor and teachers, are doing better than they were doing before.

The 3.75 year old boy, Daniel, has been acting out at school (Head Start).  He displayed his anger by throwing a trashcan, yelling, things like that.  His counselor said it’s probably because he never felt safe enough to express himself when he was littler and things were unsafe for him to do so.

The 7 year old, Darrin, is behaving better at home.  Swift and certain consequential punishment helps.  🙂  He’s been starved of attention, I think.  For the first time in my life, I’ve been exposed on a day to day basis to an ADHD kid.  His medication does make a huge difference.  There’s no reason in what he does when he’s not on his medication.  It’s like he intentionally causes problems — he can’t help it.

Frankly, it sounds like me… I cause problems for myself.  I know not working causes problems.  I know I won’t like it.  I know working will help me feel better.  But, my work isn’t like other work, I don’t know.  It seems unfair to charge money for distracted work.  Perhaps that’s an excuse.  Anyway, two hours this week isn’t enough.  I should be working right now, on Saturday, and all day tomorrow.

I’ve resolved to give medical science another shot at my brain and stop self-medicating the way I do.  I want to see an actual, thoughtful, doctor instead of going through a community-services pill dispensary like I did in Tulsa.  Medical care and medication is incredibly expensive, though.

I got hassled this week by a drunk guy I’d just helped out with a dollar… so he could buy another beer.

I got hassled about having some money,

“How much money do you have?”

wearing a purple shirt,

“Lakers!!”

being in the wrong place,

“Where are you from?  What are you doing in the Liar’s Club?”

and he kept asking

“Do you know what everyone said about you?”

and then

“Do you like girls?”

I didn’t even realize he was saying he thought I was gay until later when I was telling the story.  I was all pissed that a guy who asked me for 50 cents, whom I gave a dollar, would give me shit for having some money to give him.

And then he’s talking about my purple shirt, and I thought he was saying it was too nice.. It’s a t-shirt I bought from Walmart with a chimpanzee on the front in a speed-o and wording: “I work out!”

I didn’t understand why he was talking to me about the Lakers because I didn’t remember the Laker’s colors.

So, apparently, my mannerisms, my brown shoes, my purple shirt, and not watching basketball add up to probably being gay.  🙂

I knew a guy in Tulsa who had a gay roommate at OU.  His roommate was on the OU football team.  Yes, a gay football player.  OH MY GOD.

“What are you doing in here?”

One other time in there I was told I seem, “corporate.”

I visited the Liar’s Club the first chance I had after moving out of the homeless shelter in Shawnee.  Everyone who lodges there is required to attend a Friday night meeting of their 12-Step program, “Recovery in Christ.”  It was okay.

The 12-Step program was mentored by two guys and they traded off every week.  One guy kept using the example of “going down to the Liar’s Club,” or “wasting your life down at the Liar’s Club.” And I thought the name “liar’s club” was some sort of dramatic device… NO!  There’s really a place here named that.

Anyway… I hate the idea that people need to separate from other people.

This guy didn’t have the $1.25 he needed to buy another beer.  I know the feeling.  I know what it’s like to not be able to buy a pack of gum.

Anyway.

The gay thing doesn’t bother me.   I don’t fit the mold here in Shawnee.  I was told by a 12-year old girl that only rich people put napkins on their laps.  She said it like being rich was a bad thing, like those people are different somehow.

The only time the gay question bothered me was when my mother was hinting around about it.  That pissed me off.  I yelled in a bar, “I am not gay!” and it was like everyone stopped talking.. haha

I was all hung up on Kristi after high school.  I couldn’t stop wanting her.  It was like I’d imprinted her as what love was and sex or whatever… she was my first… so perhaps that addiction is natural.

And, I was a control freak — control over myself.  I was terrified of being embarrassed or getting into an uncomfortable situation where I would look bad or lose face or get hurt… so I didn’t risk meeting women.  And, around a woman I was attracted to, it was like my brain went south.  And, I had sexual performance anxiety out the wazoo for various reasons…

But, I did have sex a few times.   Yes, with women.   🙂

I’m smiling about those right now.

But, I didn’t have a girlfriend, really, between the time Kristi and I broke up in high school and the time Kristi moved in with me in 2002.

I really liked P, but I was always waiting for Kristi.

I decided to take a chance with P because Kristi suggested I get a girlfriend (we’d been talking on the phone for a number of years before she moved back to town and in with me).

P was NOT HAPPY, and I don’t blame her, that we didn’t become an actual couple…

Anyway, it wasn’t until I got with #2 that I realized I was actually good at sex. haha

I’m still married to #2.  I haven’t seen her in the last 5 years and 4 months or so.  I can’t get into contact with her.

I miss my babies.

I miss my mother.

I’m angry with myself for not doing enough with my talents.  I’ve got the golden ticket, but I won’t do anything with it.  I’m more than angry…  I’m disappointed.  I’m shameful about it.  It’s a core hurt.  I’m a loser.  I act out being the loser.  I make sure I don’t win, I think.

I’m lazy.

But I’m really not. When I do something, I do it 110%.  My work is excellent.  I don’t half-ass anything… Frankly, not being able to half-ass things holds me back. haha

I haven’t started a book because I don’t want to abandon that project yet.

So, I’m going to talk to a doctor.  And, yes, I’ll actually give a complete history.

And I think I’ll bring up ADD.