at times like this I get close.

Money doesn’t do it for me. Sometimes I wish that it did. I’m not paying rent and I’m still broke. I’m uncomfortable. Laura pays when we go out and it’s been a year since I was generous. I’ve been hoping for two years that woodworking will pull me out of the weeds. I’ve been hoping for magic that hasn’t happened yet.

I want to keep doing what I’m doing but I don’t want the pressure. I don’t want to feel like I’m failing. I want this to feel natural and I want to know that it’s okay for progress to be slow. I want to be reassured that my strange looking progress is my process. I want to make $16,000 a year and not break down crying when I’m not sad. I do not wish for average typical brain functioning but at times like this I get close.

I want that to be the whole thing.

I’m still doing that thing where your human body is violin strings. Besides that I’m getting better at wood working. I’m in my shop that’s two out of three bays in my mom’s garage in Kennett. I’m listening to the Sandhills EP by Toro y Moi and it isn’t anything like I expected. I love this.

I made a table for Kyler. He asked for something that would fit his drink. I made it and I am proud of how it turned out.

I got back from the Appalachian Trail with Jonas on Monday. Seven days and fifty miles or something like that.

I want to be warm and make stuff and have that be ok. I want that to be the whole thing.

Alcohol Use Disorder and my experience with Disulfiram after three weeks.

I like the term "alcohol use disorder." It sounds vague and impersonal. Unlike the term "alcoholic" it doesn't seem to imply guilt or require a disclaimer about what amount of shame should or shouldn't be felt. It's abbreviated AUD. Clean and clinical. You can read about it in the DSM-5.

I've been calling myself an alcoholic for decades, the same way I've been labeling myself as having ADHD, all while knowing that neither one of these labels paints a precise picture. Both terms are just common shorthand for a complex personal situation. I could go on about this for hours.

I asked my doctor to prescribe to me the drug which makes a person violently ill if they drink alcohol. It used to be marketed under the name Antabuse, but the name of the drug is Disulfiram. I'm taking it.

The most slippery aspect of quitting has always been impulsivity. Whether you want to celebrate or mourn or you simply feel tickled by an inkling, it all goes better with booze. I am a person who cannot be told what to do. I will not fall in line easily. I mutter or exclaim the phrase "fuck everybody, fuck every thing" constantly like a mantra. Even when it's me giving the orders to myself, and those orders are given with good intentions about preserving my health and wellness, I rebel. Nobody, including myself, can keep a beer out of my fucking hand if I want a beer in my fucking hand right now. 

If there is one thing I hate more than being told what to do, it is feeling sick. I become a big baby if I feel so much as a sniffle. Disulfiram makes you sick if you consume even a small amount of alcohol. Proper boozing could be dangerous or fatal. Disulfiram has the capacity to cause a possible reaction for up to two or three weeks after you stop taking it. I take it every morning. 

This is the easiest time I have ever had after a quit, because the insidious insistence of impulsivity is absent. Consuming alcohol today would be approximately as logical as smashing my toes with a hammer.

From what I've read on the matter, there seems to be unanimous consensus that while treating AUD with medication has shown overwhelmingly positive results, the treatment should always be accompanied by counseling and support. I have as yet sought no such support, because I am busy and I'm sick of people telling me what to do.

66 and die

When you ask a person for specifics, you are asking for closeness. You have indicated that you heard them. You can divert your eyes ; demure. 

They are touching your arm ;  

You kiss them. 

You live until 66 and die

before i find peace.

I’ve let myself get bashed apart over and over. I stood back and watched like it was an experiment. The ocean dulls the sharp edges of glass, and similarly I hope my curiosity and compassion don’t break me to pieces before I find peace.

belong to one another.

My hand is a wide flat toad resting on the wheel. Look at your hand on the wheel. If you see a wide flat toad let me know. Our hands might belong to one another.

shields are up.

 I try to put ethics first. And logic. I’ve always kept that close to my heart. 

I’m happy with what I’ve seen and who I’ve shared time and energy with. I’ve done well on that. 

Through all of that though, my idealism has taken a hit. Shields are up. 

Outerspaceplace

It’s unlikely I’ll return to the same reality where we first met.  If we haven’t yet met, it feels entirely possible we will meet some day in outerspace. 

fully electric

I haven't talked for real here in a long time. I tell myself it's for ethical reasons. Part of me is convinced I can't do justice to what I've seen. I want to quit being shut up and shut down. Sunsets and joy and pain are what I've seen. 

In the time since I quit talking, I've been with women. I had a wife and some other weird shit. Sex with a good man one time, and I sincerely wish that had gone better. There is nowhere to begin but here. 

A story. How do I pick one.

Electricity between humans. Here is a story I can tell. Electricity and space and skin. It isn't electricity exactly, but there isn't a word for the energy which exists. There are people among us who feel energy. There are people who pump it out like a firehose, and they don't even know it exists. I was a bystander until I pulled the thread and took a $10 24hr long Mega Bus trip on a whim. 

I felt the energy and she knew I felt it. Only for a second. I wasn't trying to feel it, but I am open as wide as a book with a broken spine. I felt it for one second flat. It isn't worth anything, but I was there when it happened. Fully electric.

 Bicycle is the only thing. Please only keep remembering bicycle 

Van advice

When you aren’t sleeping in a van your life is less pure. Every day can be crisp and real ; stethoscope to the beating heart of earth. If you try a tent the cops might fuck it up.

start a business

Prone and alone. Lime green in a mean mist. 

I’m an emotional short circuit ; bent, ruined, almost ok

The plot is in the title. No preferred frequency shakes me. My feet will flatten 55 gallon drums. 

I finished my first table.

I need a new way to make money. I decided to double down on woodworking last year. Now I'm prying open my Roth IRA to pay off my credit cards, so the money had better start flowing in soon. I've put what amounts to a herculean effort (for me) into acquiring the skills and equipment that I thought would be necessary to start a new woodworking/table-making business. I've been dabbling in wood for years, but took it full steam ahead last August. I've been working steadily, and I have almost nothing to show for it. Except for this one table.

It didn't take me since August to make one measly table - I've been working on dozens of them. I get the table tops to a mostly finished stage, and then I put them in one of several stacks of mostly-finished table tops. Dozens. Some of them have an issue which needs to be corrected, but mostly I put them aside because of a spontaneous visceral need to start a new and different one.

The plan seemed so simple: build and sell tables. People do that. I can learn how to be one of those people. The goal still seems logical and achievable, but I have yet to gain any traction. What I do have are dozens of artistically rendered table tops; projects which can be re-kindled and completed. This is only the first one.