My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

So, a friend of mine works for the American Cancer Society and they have various fundraisers throughout the year. Right now, it’s Relay For Life time, and my friend needs your help. Her team needs to raise $1000 to beat last year’s record of $625. It’s an excellent cause, cancer sucks, and we really don’t want my friend to be a loser. There’s no need to live in Florida, or even stand up, just click here and donate.

I’ve liked the idea of Atheism for awhile, Atheists totally intrigue me. I mean, it seems so beautiful not to worry about God, or Heaven, or Hell. They’re so absolutely sure that there is no God and right now is it. I’d love to be that certain about things, but I can’t.

I’m not always faithful in God, but at the same time, I can’t be faithful in the absence of God. I can’t have absolute faith in either belief. Of course, if the Hell that I worry about does exist, my doubt in God will probably send me there just as surely as if I were a completely faithful Atheist. 

I’m afraid that God exists and He hates me, just as I’m afraid that there is no God and thus no one to ask for forgiveness or salvation. I guess I’m only truly faithful in the fact that nothing is certain.

I feel personally responsible for electing Barack Obama because I rocked the vote.

As far as writing goes, I’m rather happy with Suicide Party. It’s really dark, edgy, has good flashes of imagery. It was inspired by my own astonishing depression and the exquisite prose of Catherynne M. Valente. Reading her has made me a better writer.

Honestly, in the last almost three years since I nearly permanently died, five writers have shaped the way I write about this completely strange and dark period in my life; Catherynne M. Valente, Jeff VanderMeer, K.J. Bishop, Michael Cisco and Chuck Palahniuk. They’ve all made my writing into something I’m proud to share. Yes, I’ve been depressed, even passively suicidal, but I’ve been able to put it to words, which I think is really important.

I’ve been so depressed because I’ve desperately wanted something that fell apart. I’ve been completely entangled in fixing it. The thing is, one person can’t fix or build a relationship. To me, when people are in love and want a life together, they’re a team. Neither person is perfect, sometimes one might fuck up really badly, but at the end of the day they try to work things out, because ultimately they feel like life is just better together. That’s how I feel, and I’ve seen it work. I’ve also seen it fail.

I’ve been a son in two divorces. My best friend’s wife left him after almost twenty years. Sometimes things go really wrong. I lost my love, the same brilliant woman, twice in almost four years. It pretty much broke me this time. For me, the hardest part was chasing the fix, the idea that we could be right again. Truth be told, I love her so astonishingly much, I’d take a zombie bite for her. It’s just that we have pieces that don’t fit. I can’t be what she needs. We see relationships very differently. I honestly realized all of this tonight.

No matter how beautiful, I can’t keep chasing a ghost. I can’t leave half myself with someone who can’t keep it. I’ve been absolutely destroying myself. So, it stops right now. I’m finally awake.

I love John McCain’s political ads…

Barack Obama, sadist, polyamorist, kitten eater. If you vote for him, you may as well just kill yourself.

I’m John McCain and I approved this message.

So, let’s say God is real and suicide is definitely a one way trip to Hell. I wonder if falling asleep and not wanting to wake up counts as being suicidal.

I wonder if drug overdoses, or over-indulging in brandy is enough to end up swimming in the Lake of Fire. I wonder how much intent matters to God. I mean, consciously we know that overdoses are very possible, but I don’t know that most people expect to enjoy their vice and die.

I wonder if not wanting to live is the same as actively taking steps to die. I wonder if suicide can be passive.

So, this Halloween was interesting. As far as costumes go, I really outdid myself. As I’ve written, I’m fairly, okay, really addicted to a Nirvana video of them performing Dive. So, I was inspired to dress as zombie Kurt Cobain in drag. It was kind of a re-imagining, because I couldn’t match his look exactly, but I think I was faithful to the essence of the video. I think I have more piercings and tattoos.

If I decide to do something, I get rather into it. I do it with everything, really. Happiness, depression, love, drugs, sex, tattoos, zombie costumes, whatever, I take it all the way downtown. It’s probably the best and worst thing about me. 

The party was fun and depressing all at once. I know lots of people I don’t particularly want to know. It’s not that they’re not nice people, I just don’t fit, but I pretend to fit. It’s that “alone in a crowd” feeling, I feel it almost everywhere, all the time. Then again, there are people who do fit me, people I hung out with tonight, and time with them is too short. That contrast is really difficult, pretending to fit and actually fitting. It’s depressing, I get lost, I forget that there are places that feel good.

I went so many years bored and lonely, completely apathetic to do anything about it. I’ve just only started making my own way in the last three years, meeting people who really feel right to me. I hired assistants, started doing things that really suit me, trying to make connections that don’t feel empty. I met Sara, fell in love, brilliantly choked on some juice. I died for a bit, came back with a tube in my throat. I lost Sara, I got better acquainted with not talking. I found Sara again, I got used to feeling “at home.” Sara had to move to Boston, I handled that spectacularly badly, lost Sara again. The last three years in Reader’s Digest form.

Now, here I am, zombie Kurt Cobain in drag. Trying to feel like the right me again. Trying to fit when I sometimes feel broken.

Well, last year, my Halloween costume was rather simple. I wore vampire fangs and Sara wore the bite marks. We went to a party with her co-workers, so she wanted me to tone down my usual theatrics. Still, it was fun, I liked being her vampire, she my familiar.

This year, however, I’m alone. No co-workers, no familiar. My costume is totally theatrical and amusingly fucked up. There’s a party at my place, but it’ll be different.

It’s stupid how much can change in a year.

I wonder if I’m broken beyond repair, faking normal like May. It’s possible, but I don’t yet have a cat in my freezer, let alone a creepy doll for my best friend.

I don’t know. I know I’m not the right me. I see him sometimes, but he visits less and less.

I got high on the ferris wheel, didn’t like how it made me feel so alone…

…is a line from Aimee Mann’s Looking For Nothing. It’s astonishingly sad, especially the way she sings it. It came up in my shuffle a bit ago, and I started thinking about how lonely I feel lately, but never when I’m high.

In the last couple of years I’ve been high on various narcotics for pain after trache procedures, and loneliness is never part of the experience. Being high is the polar opposite of feeling alone. If Hell is the absence of God, Demerol is the absence of Loneliness. It’s warm and safe. It’s someone you love holding you close, whispering everything will be just fine. It’s the part of sex that has nothing to do with thought and everything to do with feeling. For an hour, the entire world is perfect.

Of course, it’s a fake perfection. It’s fake, and deep down you know it. It’s a place you want to visit, and the visiting’s fine, but staying will definitely destroy you. I don’t stay, but sometimes, I think it would be nice not to leave, which is why I always do.

Give the song a listen.