Author: jae

i lost my best friend of 2+ years, and that’s what stings the most. now i have nobody. my hours are incompatible with my 2 other friends, so i really don’t get to see anybody ever. not having a computer or internet hurts, too, since i have no way to keep from stagnating there in my crappy little apartment. i need desperately to reach out and get a little help, but there’s nothing but space and time. some days i’m despondent, some days i’m angry with myself for pushing her away and thereby ruining my life, some days i’m okay but a little tired and sad.

last weekend, Lisa and i talked it all out, and it’s a permanent thing that it’s over, and i guess it’s for the best. i could never really understand a lot about her, and i’m just some thoughtless, classless hoodlum she accidentally hooked up with. that’s me saying that. we’re just two too-different people. so we talked and we cried and we made passionate love and then we slipped into the sad sweet mystery of sleep, former lovers in each others arms. and the next day we went to the mall and got booth photos. and then we said goodbye. it was the most bittersweet day of my life. i still cry. i miss her. but the shrine that grew so quickly is slowly shrinking back, and one day there will be nothing but a vague longing for a girl i never really knew but loved. when the enchantment that she’s gripped me with finally dissipates, that’ll be that. and i hope she fares well. better than well.

the long hug goodbye is over, and now i have to learn to move on again.

it came down to this: for her, i think it got stale and boring. for me, it got stressful. it snowballed, and my chronic nervous insomnia just exacerbated it.

i really did have a lot of great plans. you ever have a bad trip, but you emerge out the other side triumphant and victorious? i was very, very close to emerging.

i’m still squeezing my way through to the other side. i quit smoking last week. i’m on the patch, and i am actually smoking those Quest nic-free cigarettes. i’m training myself to not get any chemical reward from them. so far, i’ve only slipped once. i think i’ll be okay.

well… i gotta go. see ya later maybe.

i’m doing ok. broke as fuck, can’t pay my bills or get my car fixed. but i’m all right. and i’ll be alright.

working on new music again!

i’m never looking back from now on.

only forward.

i’m on the market now, and i feel pretty good about that. i’m getting ready to jump back into the water. if it’s too cold, i can always come back later. so if you know of a cool chick who’s hip and intelligent, has a good sense of humor, is skeptical about dumb shit, is liberal, NOT POLYAMOROUS, somewhat fairly attractive without being weird and vain and all into makeup and fashion and that stuff, is creative, doesn’t have any particular religion (agnostic a PLUS), and who pretty much has her shit together (i.e., grown-ups only), hook me up. i’m not looking for sex exactly, in fact, i don’t want a “rebound” thing. i want to meet someone who i can truly hang with.

oh, and my number is on a previous post, if anyone wants to hang out or anything. i’m keeping busy, but i do need friends.

so my EX-girlfriend has been having “explosive” sex with some guy for the last two weeks. “explosive.” i did commend her for her bravery and honesty. i appreciated that. still, it makes me fucking sick to my stomache. i’m alternating between numb, sick, angry, hurt, shocked, depressed, and relieved.

too much drama for me lately. i’d tell you all about everything ELSE that’s been happening, but i am just plain too weak and i don’t have time right now.

this will probably be my last post for quite a while. Lisa is moving out this weekend, and my PC is down for the count.

so. so long, and thanks for all the words!

*waves*

it was DEFINITELY a glomus tumor. no more worries there. i am so glad. something so basically simple, y’know?

got my bandage off today. ever have a bandage stick to the crusted blood on a new wound and then it pulls your skin apart when you take it off? man, that’s painful. anyway, it looks fucking ugly. it’s all black with stitches and

DOES IT HURT TO GET STITCHES OUT??!

the skin looks all pink and kinda cottage cheesey, i guess because it’s sinking back in after being a bit stretched out. it’s a bit sore, but i took some Vicodin, so it’s all good now.

i get my guitar books from Amazon tomorrow. i can’t wait to start digging into that Kramer. i sure hope i don’t fuck up yet another perfectly decent guitar. i still need some more gear, but i can do for now. i have the very basic stuff, except for a compressor, but i have an onboard one on the VS-880EX (a Roland digital multitrack machine).

my work accidentally forgot to code in 8 hours, from saturday i believe, so now i have to pay my rent, utilities, plus car insurance on one measly paycheck. OUCH.

my hair is really long now, a little longer maybe than in my mood icon. but a lot bushier. i am growing a beard from being lazy and one-handed. and i bet i am getting really smelly from being afraid of the shower (bandage-wise, and because i’m one-handed so it’s practically worthless). Lisa says i don’t smell but i bet i stink ripely.

i just watched the Linklater films Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. loved them. sad, though. i think of Paola, and Ria, and the green-haired Canadian girl who i met on the bus in Berlin who left without saying goodbye and whose name escapes me just now. and how i wish i could see them all, and the others i met in Europe (especially Emily, and Sebastian) once again. Eurobus sucks! :D

Lisa is moving out. she can start moving into her new apartment this friday. i wish her the best. this sounds more like death than it is. still, i have the terrifying feeling that we are inevitably going to drift far, far apart. and this makes me sad.

i will miss the smell of her clothes when i am missing her and she’s at work. i will miss many things about her. i will miss her gentle hands and her charming smile and her silly humor and talking late at night about nothing. i will miss her deep dark eyes. all of these things i can still be around, but it will be in her apartment from now on. they will no longer be so constant in my life. i feel sad at this, too.

grown-up life is never at all like you think it will be when you’re in kindergarten.

i drove a car today. very little pain. very little drugs. i picked up the paperwork from the Dr’s office. i’m out until ~6/13.

i am itching like hell to rewire my Kramer and install the Tremsetter. and play the hell outta that thing. and record it.

i have 3 3-way on/on/on switches, and 3 pickups: 2 single-coils, and 1 humbucker. i want to wire it so that the hunbucker splits to a single coil or full-on humbucker, and the singles are in or out of phase. the third position for each switch would be off for each pickup. i have to think this out a little, because it’s been years since i did any soldering or any kind of electronics work. it should be easy, though. when i was around 10 or so i split wires and made my little monophonic suitcase phonograph “simulate” stereo sound by adding resistance to one lead. i’m good enough, i’m smart enough, and doggone it, electrons like me. unfortunately, my solder joints are always oxidized, no matter how steady i hold my hand. it’s a curse.

still have a hard time using my left hand, and it still sometimes feels like a throb that’s held at the top of the waveform. but no searing burning pain today. i can’t wait until my bandages are off.

ok, now it hurts. now it feels like i had it split open. now i understand the need for vicodin. now i’m really typing 1-handed.

throb.

it is done.

(wow, typing is a bitch, my finger is all wrapped up like a super-D finger-mummy or something!)

i was not lucid, but fairly coherent the whole time, though my memory is blurry. i am not sure why i started talking about UFOs during the operation, which lasted a scant 15 minutes or so. but it turns out that The Good Doctor has himself been to Area 51 and threatened with bulletholes. he claimed he wasn’t kidding. freaky.

i was nervous as hell, but man that sedative sure did the trick. i felt wonderful about being there just a few seconds after the drip hit my vein! even now, there’s not a bit of pain so far. it’s not even sore (yet?). i’m hardly taking any Vicodin at all.

the only sensation i recall was a sort of pricking feeling along the inner edge of the end segment of my left 4th digit (the offending site). kind of like having an X-acto knife perforating the skin at just a millimeter depth, only with the volume turned down to a hair less than 1, if that more or less makes sense. i asked, just out of curiosity, what he was doing at that moment. he (like you can’t see this one coming) replied, deadpanning and matter-of-factly, that he was just taking it out.

“IT?! You mean-??!”

“the thing, yes.”

“what… nooooo, you gotta be kidding! really?”

“yeah. it’s out.”

“what’s it look like?”

he says it looks like an alien implant.

when they uncovered me (i didn’t get to see the actual procedure), i asked if i could see it.

i saw it.

tomorrow, at around noonish, i will be cut into and my flesh will be torn assunder and i’ll have a sharp stainless steel surgical implement wielded by a nearly perfect stranger scrape the hell from my rotted bone, and be made nearly whole again.

it’s all the bone and muscle and sinew bits that frighten me. i can take the blood. but i promise all you nasty, sick-ass sadists that i will sneak a peak during the most violent part, against my better judgment and against my iron stomach’s weak will.

i’ll also probably find out how much of it is just plain old arthritis, too, i’ll bet.

things are going to seem a whole lot weirder from now on, without all the weird pain.

it’s been real, y’all.

p.s., Star Wars III fucking rocked hardcore. perfect movie. one of the best films ever. THE best sci-fi film ever. go. see. it. NOW.

saw Hitchhiker’s friday. mostly harmless great, except for most of the ending bit.

had a blowout with L over the weekend.

again.

so now she’s moving out. i’m glad. we’re just not good for each other anymore. i’m not faultless, not by a longshot. but i certainly didn’t deserve some of what she was brewin up. and can you believe that after a year and a half together, she still vehemently insists that she does not love me?

and, in the end, i just don’t trust her like i thought i did. i mean, ultimately, i DO trust her, but she wasn’t as open with me about some things (a few recent locked journal posts have me raising an eyebrow, plus mythical “non-public” photos from RHPS a couple weeks ago, when she didn’t come home until a full day later) as i could have hoped. i’m all for privacy; i need more myself. but i’m as open as a book about as much as i can possibly be. personal space is a great thing, but i can’t help wanting to know what’s going on. i’m certain that it’s nothing but hurtful words and some *vaguely* compromising pics. but i value openness just as much as privacy. it’s not hard to fit these things together.

so there’s that. i’m ok. bah, i’m being stoic. it’s working pretty good.

my car’s in the garage. i’ll get it back soon. SOOOOOON. drool.

and my finger’s gonna be fixed in a coupla weeks. i’m feeling renewed.

saw the surgeon the other day. fun, likeable guy. Dr. Kim.

i own copies of some X-rays (not as good as the previous ones i had done) and a few of the MRIs. it’s a very vindicating feeling, to have these things. to be able to show them and say, “see? it’s NOT psychosomatic, and it HASN’T been. so fuck off.” curiously, i can’t think of anyone who i honestly feel hasn’t believed me about it. but i bet they’ve been out there.

the date is May 20. i had the chance to pick 5/13 (a friday), but had to turn it down, since i’m supposed to be the best man at my dad’s wedding. there is a small chance that, if the tumor is malignant, amputation may result. a very small chance, as i see it. i’m definitely not counting on it. but if it happens, then goodbye.

every thought i have had in the last few days has been about this upcoming Date with Destiny. it’s completely unreal, and yet scarier than a sonofabitch. i will finally be (more or less) whole again. i will get a very large part of my life back. it’s amazing the loss i’ve had, not just with the guitarness, but the sheer amount of pain… the things that exacerbate or set off a bout of agony have been so seemingly limitless. the things i will be able to do again will be nearly boundless.

boundless. that’s a word i like, just now.

and yet i will, in a very surreal, absurd way, sort of miss it. the constant vigilance against pain will be tough to shake off. if there’s one thing that has been a constant thing in my life, it’s been the dreadful physical suffering i’ve always been able to look forward to.

and debilitating pain can be a hella excuse when you don’t want to do something anyway. i’ve lied about things to get out of doing them, but when my finger goes off, then i sometimes actually have to lie in the opposite direction, just to make it believable.

sometimes, it would be a tremendous release to, say, get sucked through a jet engine in comparison.

if there’s anything in this world that makes me feel almost superior to others, it’s that. i have withstood pain that has on many extremely dire occasions had me contemplating incredibly dreadful and irreversible acts, for the sake of relief. the only reason i haven’t cut the fucker off myself is that i just know that with my dumb luck, i’d have phantom pain. that would suck even worse.

and now that it will be gone from me forever (more or less), who will i be? i will lose a large, if synthetic, part of my identity. the jeremy of the past 15 years will be no more. i could be free to be anybody, but it will have to be somebody else from now on.

the other thing is this: it’s all just too god damned good to be true. something really hilarious and tragic is about to happen. i can just barely feel it brimming over the surface, like a boiling lake of fire. disaster is my companion. (some say he is my sister; others tell that she is my son.)

Lisa and i made up. though i’m not sure where it’s actually going, because she’s moody and i’m thoughtless and incapable of so much as imitating a proper boyfriend. we’re looking for apartments or houses, with the idea that we’ll either move into a far bigger space, or physically separate.

today i will:

• clean out car & take it to get it fixed (finally! i’ve been driving my grandpa’s Alero for several months now).
• see Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. with towel.
• worry about the surgery.
• see aforementioned grandpa, who took some walker-assisted steps the other day, and is even taking a few bites of solid food here and there!
• listen to The Cocker Spaniels’ rockingly wunnerful Withstand the Whatnot at extreme decibel levels all day long.

wow, i picked up my MRIs nad X-rays today. amazing. vindicating. REAL.

now i have PROOF!

it’s a lot larger than even i thought (about the size of a pea)… and my bone is even visibly eroded! sweet!

so… should i keep it, after it’s cut out?

glomus tumor!

i’d never have known that if it hadn’t been for Lisa.

thank you, once again.

to each of you, for the comments the other day. and especially to Lisa.

it’s all washed away… all the hostility and anger and inner-rage. gone like us.

i tried to be so hardlined and stoic about it, and it was working; i felt fine about it ending. tomorrow, as they say, is another day. and last night, i couldn’t help it. i broke.

so we cried and we held each other tenderly like we hadn’t in so long. (i do love that girl to pieces, even if she can be wickedly temperamental at times.) and i forgave her deep down for being an emotional lunatic rollercoaster girl. i’m not so great myself. trust that.

and i thought (so many times last night) about asking her back, but i didn’t. i know that it’s over. she knows. she’s big enough to let it go. i hope i am, too. it needed to die to live.

so it goes.

this is going to be a lot harder for me than i thought. i’m not so tough. i’ll be okay, though.

aside from the occasional Jekyll/Hyde impression, she really is a wonderful and unique and charming girl. just so ya know. and she wouldn’t have complaints if they didn’t have a basis in reality. the reality is that i’m a cheapskate loser of a boyfriend. i never took her out ever. never bought her presents ever. i didn’t even give her a proper bed. i was very frequently inattentive (to say the least). a year and a half of that would make anyone crazy. i’m thankful that she, ever the trooper, carried on with me for so long, despite my many and various shortcomings.

my hat comes off and my heart goes out to her, who is brave and honest and far more sweet than sour. thank you for a wonderful time with you, Lisa. all the best. don’t look back, honey.

to explain my last post:

Lisa and i are breaking up. this time, i stand absolutely firm. nothing will make me take her back. she is an immature, mean, coldhearted, selfish tyrant. i loved her, but i don’t think i’ll ever like her again.

don’t worry about me; i’ll be much better once she’s gone. it’s actually a terrible relief. and i’ll finally get a little timespace to myself. listen:

a guy goes through a rough patch. he lives in fear for that Phone Call Re: Grandfather, day in, day out, for 6 months. his nerves are shot, and his heart is breaking, like an excruciating slow-motion car crash.

and she hurls blame and insults.

sometimes, shrieking hysterically at me like some spoiled 6 year old.

fuck that.

grow up.

and get OUT.

will be even more offline than ever, for a while.

1. Tony’s dad did a marvellous job on my bass. just incredible. what a wonderful family!
2. my grandfather is still in GMH. he seems to be cursed. we’re going to finally get him home as soon as he can be discharged. we figure he’s got a better chance at recovery without the interventions of that accursed place.
3. we got DSL
4. my website hosting and my livejournal expired. i’m too broke to fix either. so there goes that.
5. taxes.
6. i need time to myself to get some music together finally. where am i going to get it? i need time, and space, and i’m just not gonna be able to get either, between work and this cramped little apartment and my grandfather being in and out and in and out of this place and that.
7. i still need to get my PC fixed. anyone got any feasible get-rich-quick schemes???
8. also need to do laundry, but not enough quarters at the moment. i can probably scrape together enough for a load, though.
9. poor The Vat. i hope it’s still kicking. i wish i had more time to be able to help out. i feel horrible about it, but i’m always on the go, it seems.
10. i guess i’m non-alcoholic these days. the last two times i drank (last night, and a few weeks ago), i only had 2 beers, and had a terrible headache the next day.
11. just got back from my grandfather’s place, tearing down my grandmother’s bed so we can get a hospital bed in there, in the event that we can get my randfather home soonishly.
12. also visited the graves of my old friend Mike Mettler, R.I.P. (dishdogs 4 LIFE), and my grandmother, R.I.P.
13. running dangerously low on Orudis KT, and it’s getting nigh impossible to find these days.
14. had my MRI the other day. boooooooring. i did enjoy the jarring, irritating noises, though. i wonder what the doctor will make of it? what is my terrible curse made of? and what does the future hold for me & my agonizing existence?
15. enough about me & my drama & my supposed misery. how have you been? please tell me. i do miss you.
16. if everyone lived like me, we would need 3.9 planets.

after 7 months of this shit, you’d think i’d have emergency numbers, hospitals and all that crap on my phone by now.

today:
call grandpa. he says he needs to puke and puts down the phone.

choking noise.

get number, call the facility.

later on that day…

at work. on break. pull out cell phone. there’s a phone call. christ. it’s my dad, and grandpa was shaking violently. he had a 104° temperature. Felicia (his health aid) called the squad. my dad (para.): “take him to Kettering or Miami Valley, just not to Greene Memorial [down the street].”

later on, next break. voice message (para.): “This is Felicia; your dad’s at Miami Valley, but they took him to Greene Memorial.”

i swear to fuck, if he should happen to die in the hands of any facility with the word “Greene” in it, i will personally dismantle the fucking place with my fucking bare hands.

WITH MY FUCKING BARE HANDS.

don’t you dare think for a second that i will not try.

to top it all off, it turns out that my leukemic grandfather hasn’t seen his oncologist in well nigh a fortnight or more. paging Doctor Taylor, yer wanted for a pulpin’.

i am actually making a card tonight to put into my wallet that says “if found injured or dying, please deliver to nearest hospital that is not Greene Memorial”.

this time, unlike in 1991/2, the X-rays came back with something. i have an MRI next week.

the doctor said that it’s probably a growth of some kind, perhaps a hard cyst, on or next to the bone. probably an orthopaedic surgeon will slice open my finger and cut it out. it’s likely, though, that i’ll be on a local anaesthetic. i told her that i can’t even begin to imagine that… the pain in my finger is so profound and intense that it is easily capable of toppling buildings. nerve-blocking agents offer little hope against the maddening pain, which is sure to be unthinkably amplified by the scraping of a knife against the bony mass.

however… in a few months, my years of excruciating agony may be finally over. i may wind up being able to play the guitar with all four fingers again! the thought, the mere idea, is unsettling and absurd to me now. the unimaginable joy of being whole again fills me with the polar opposite of dread. i have longed for a cure for half of my lifetime now.

soon enough, it will all be over.

coming up on seven months now…

last week, we checked my grandfather out of the hospital. Greene Memorial Hospital is the worst, most fucked up hospital on Earth. and it’s creepy, too.

there might be legal action. the very least, however, will be nasty, threatening letters.

here’s what happened: my grandfather’s doctor and/or his staff was keeping him from getting treatment he needed. every 6 months or so, he has his throat dilated. it occured to us that HEY maybe dilating his throat might help him swallow and potentially get him off the feeding tube (he currently weighs about 115 lbs, he’s just skin & bone). but the doctor who does this was actually turned away on at least 2 occasions, plus appointments have been mysteriously canceled, and had to be rescheduled numerous times.

all, apparently, because it is strictly an outpatient procedure. and we, the family, had to find out through sheer chance. my dad, apparently, had a bit of a flip-out on the staff. i believe he threatened to bust some lips open. good.

so this Insidious Doctor Taylor says that he’ll only release him to Greene Oaks, the place where my grandfather was found on the floor at least twice, where he fractured his ankle, and where a recent outbreak of pneumonia killed his roommate and sent him back to hospital.

er… no, doctor. that’s a negatory.

I.D.T. says that if we place him somewhere outside of the Greene system, he’ll refuse to be his doctor.

er, um… BALEETED!!

of course, that does leave us somewhat in the fairly untenable position of drifting through space.