Memory Flash

Cyber life appeals to some part of me, but is in conflict with others.
Wah.. Wah.. WAH!

I just had a flash memory of the night in February watching Paul Van Dyk spin. Actually...it was a flash of afterwards being in the parking lot across the street from The Mayan with Jennifer, Chris and all of their friends. A VW Car with three guys pulled up and joined us. They didn't know anyone there. I had some leftover beer in the trunk of my car from something and I passed it around. We went dancing at The Orion building and the strangers ended up paying my way into the place since I had no cash left on me. We thought they were gay but they said they weren't. It was hard to deny when one of the guys had a yellow t-shirt on with a picture of a bannana, peeled and a smiley face. I was charged up that night.

Conjure One - Center Of The Sun (29 Palms Remix)

Love Bite - Take Your Time

The wheels on the bus go round & round

I'm on my way home from Kaiser. What an adventure. I left the house at 10am so that I could make it to Orange/Garden Grove by 1pm. NOw I'm on one of the return bus transfers so I can be home in the maid-clean house. This bus culture is interesting and amazing to me. The population is noticeably Latin. English is only heard over the PA system as street names are broadcast.

Now I can hear two guys from Mater Dei speaking English. The highlight is hearing that their friend who is annoying them is "so gay." Anong the other words of wisdom are "Shutup your faggoty ass."

You can't get this kind of entertainment but in a moving bus in this, The OC.

A boy came into the waiting room while I was ---WAITING. When he entered I saw his eyes briefly and I became prfoundly sad. Earlier, while transitioning between bus stops, some very young children were walking by and smiling. I smiled back and they alughed. The spinal tingles shot all over me and I smiled bigger.

Oh so clear

Sitting in chat rooms, watching words of sex be thrown around right and left, it just hits me. Ryan logs into the OC room and someone else in the room makes a comment on how cute he is and I realize the importance of being in the right place at the right time and seizing opportunities.

I also realized that I didn't really want sex.... that I want myself back.

Free-Flow...Non-Stop:

I turn on Annie Lennox's "Love Song for a Vampire" and want to lay back and cry but I think that's just wallowing so instead I'm writing. I watched "ELEPHANT" by Gus Van Sant earlier tonight with Mark and wanted to cry during the movie at parts when I realized that gay childeren do some terrible things to themselves and others because they can't be accepted by the mass populous. I was fortunate... I just surpressed it until I was at an age where I felt I could do something to control my surroundings. I found outlets... but lest I forget that I live in Southern California and am in a state that has some very prominent Gay Ghettos. I'm online and I see Randy has a screen name on Gay.com entitled "XHumbee" and a rage comes over me--yet I don't flash heat. How careless and tacky is it to use the pet name that I called him as a call sign to the gay community of perverts? If that doesn't just nail into me the complete and utter depth of his insensitivity and naivitae then what will? How many pains to I have to feel before I unscrew myself from the track and move out of the way of the next train? And another train is coming into town. Laney. I love him. I love Chuck. I love Randy. I miss Jared. I'm so so sad about losing D.R. as a friend. But I look to the positive things in my life...the current friends that are amazing. They fill me with warmth. Their love is bright and shining. I have my health..while all the others around me are getting this cough cough cough sickness I've remained resilient. I have my mind and my creativity and I feel the need to start expressing that more and more. I have myself somewhere in here and now that the anti-depressants are clearing out of my system I feel like I'm making some decisions and caring about things more than I ever have in the last 10 months. I bought books from amazon.com that arrived and I've begun reading Kurt Vaonnegut's "Cat's Cradle." I like it because the "chapters" are broken up in to very small, easy reads. I have a DVD collection that is mounting and yet I haven't bought a DVD player. I will.. but probably not until next year. Next year... I have set-up my medical spending account for $3k because I plan on having the lasik procedure done and kiss these glasses I'm wearing goodbye as well as those boxes of contacts and solution. Wouldn't that grand? I've worn glasses since I was 5 years old. I still haven't talked to my mother on the phone. Probably over 2 weeks now. We've communicated via e-mail and text message. A part of me fears that this will be the bulk of our "light" conversation for the rest of our lives and I'm tryinig to become okay with that inside. I'm realizing that my initial black and white roots are re-surfacing because they have to....while the gray hairs creep in here and there, so will expections to every rule until such time the rule is bent or broken----the plucking of a gray that cannot be anymore. All the while striving not to be artificial or using a hair dye product to coat over what is original and good still. No, no need for that. I've been talking to Chuck's ex, Eddie on-line. I know he thinks that I have some ulterior motive. Do I? I feel brotherly toward him in the same way that I feel for Javier. I sense something inside that needs to be freed from the terrible bondage of being hurt... but they have to take the steps to do the work otherwise they are just blind to the choices that continue to be made in haste and lead to their own demise. So stop worrying about other people Jeremy!!! wow... snap me back to place. Where am I? Where am I?

I still want to find a piano to pound on.

Under the Blue Diamond Moon

1:25am I laughed so much tonight and it really felt warm; full of kinship. The timing of things was a bit odd, but the overall night turned out to be just as I had hoped.

It was fun to spend some time with Matt away from Matt...and away from Tuesday Nights. I have to remember the conversation about having to go through a log of coal in order to find that perfect diamond. =)

During the car ride, Art, Matt & I talked about Starbuck's Coffee and I remarked that they are the devil company. Jokingly. It is ridiculous that they're everywhere.

What's scary about allowing myself to feel the feelings that I have inside is that I have to face the possibility that the feelings are not returned. There's also the danger that the feelings I have are not healthy ones. For instance, feelings toward Lanny and Chuck as opposed to those toward Randy. With Lanny & Chuck I have had time to process friendships with them, but does that mean that the underlying reasons that we did not work out are no longer there? With Randy, it's worse...because I feel such intensity but absolutely know that I cannot have what we had--nor intellectually do I want to. I really want to be comforted right now. I want that comfort from someone else and I'm trying to get it from my friends. A soak in the jacuzzi at home would be nice right about now. I think I still have to wait until my tattoo is completely healed before doing that though.

My fingernails look very nice today. Just the right length...haha...

Gay marriage in Massachusetts. I think about it and then think about this very issue being at the core of why I stopped communicating with the girls from high school last year at this same time. I've missed them at times, but that part of me that knows what is right from wrong clearly stepped up to the plate and moved on after being disrespected. I've often been able to do that in friendships. So now this marriage business is moving forward and the next step will be to challenge DOMA (Defense Of Marriage Act) on the federal level.

Finances have me in a rut again. I don't think this is something that I care to ever learn about. I certain don't manage money well. Grrrr

In me taking time for me I haven't called Douglas all week. :-( Instincts have kicked in but they are those instincts that do not have any facts to support them. Someone might tell me that it's "fear" that I feel...but it's not.

I would like to play the piano sometime before my birthday.

The absence of Tangibles

Today--right now--4:04am, is the first time since not having a car that I feel like I would really like to have one again. I think it's because of my hunger. I would have liked to have gone on my lunch and gotten something really fattening to eat. Hehe.

Instead, I was in the break room and online talking to my roommate, Art, and Lanny. Lanny was talking about how good it was going to feel to come out and see me and I share the same sentiment. I have this movie in my head about picking him up at the airport and grabbing him as he walks through the security area and just kiss him and hold him and be lost in that moment. When I pause right now I can picture visiting Destin, FL and being in a restaurant there with Lanny and his two friends as we drank and ate. There was such life to the place. I remember it was red, or that's the color that sticks out. I remember running on the beach at full speed and it making my soles raw because the beach had little pebbles everywhere.

I think that sometimes I'm in love with the idea of being in love.

There's a dinner tonight. I hope I didn't blow it out of proportion by inviting more people. Originally Sebastian called to invite me along with his friend, Jon and Jon's friend. I invited Mark, Chuck, Art and Matt. (oops, & bobby & joey) Hmm... In any case, I plan on having a good time.

A time for...

I started taking notes down today during an online conversation with Matt so that I can put together a one-man show script for him. The idea is exciting to me. It fills me with life.

I ended a phone call with Chuck abuptly today because of his "joking." It wasn't even a joke about me (directly) but I just found myself with the intense feeling of not wanting to listen to negativity. It sucks, because I really enjoy him as my friend most of the time.

Still have heard nothing from Mark. My logical mind says that he's busy with work, singing and boys. Chuck said something online the other day about him needing to make new friends. Maybe I do too.

I was talking to Sebastian and made plans to have dinner in Laguna with he and his friend Jon. Happy.

I can't wait for my birthday weekend. Two weeks from today. I'm looking forward to being around people that I love.

I got very sad and teary-eyed thinking of Randy again today. I think that's something for my next meeting with Kathryn. It's a similar feeling that I feel when I think of Grandma, but with her it's manageable because she's not here.

I feel Pretty... and witty... and...

I forced myself to sleep even after I woke up the first time. I woke up to an empty house at 5pm. It was dark outside.

I managed not to talk to anyone on the phone. That might sound bad and isolationistic, but I just really wanted some "me time." Chuck, Douglas, Nathan and Dave called. I returned a call to Chuck to get his voice mail. I watched TV and filled out the California SDI paperwork. I thought I was done with paperwork, but I'm realizing that I still have that last leg of the run to make.

I removed AOL from my computer. I'm in the process of transferring files to www.xdrive.com so that I can easily access them wherever I happen to be.

"Elephant" by Gus Van Sant is a movie I think I'd like to see.

My tattoo is really starting to itch. Chuck says that it will scab over then peel off and fade a bit. If the skin is an organ, the trauma to it must shift the energies of the body for some time while it heals.

I'm treating my job as if it was how I looked at school when I excelled at it. My stats are important to me, being that *perfect* star student. Here, like school, I think I'm finding myself in that position by circumstance rather than by impetus. I won't fret...it's only until the end of the year.

I feel... a sense of worry because I haven't talked to Mark all week. Not sure what that feeling is about exactly. Probably insecurity. I need to call Nathan back, something I'll probably do on my walk home this morning. I worry about him too, but I must do so with a caution to my own self. I still have thoughts of Randy (B)...thoughts of spending Thanksgiving without him or his family--as stiff as it was, it was something that touched my heart. I wrote Randy (A) a response e-mail finally. In it I mentioned how deeply my break-up with Randy (B) has cut me. The incision so deep that it has unleashed so many of my pushed down demons. Instead of trying to keep the feelings suppressed, I'm trying to let them out in a controlled way... like the other day telling chuck that it hurts my feelings sometimes when innocent jokes are taken too far. There are other things that I am working to find words or actions for with other people and in time I'm sure I will.

First Day Back

I come back to work at a wireless phone company and leave my wireless phone at home.

Sebastian and I had dinner at Outback Steakhouse last night. For the first time I ordered fish there instead of steak. It was a conscious choice. I think to make up for 5 refills of regular coke that I drank. We had to have some reason to have Felipe return to our table again, and again and again. Wow... both Sebastian and I were taken by him.

I put down some goals for next month. Reviewing them right now it seems like I'm putting a lot on my plate, but I think that's normal for me just coming out of the gates. I feel re-charged. Items:

-Read a book a month
-Write a letter a week to someone
-Read magazines
-Scan all pictures
-Phase out caffeine
-"me time" 15-20min a day
-Walk for 45-60min on days that I don't bike
-Dance
-Journal daily

I finished up the bulk of cleaning my room yesterday. You can see the carpet again. I've made a small, cozy area to play The Cube. While cleaning, I came across the picture packaging for some underwear that I bought. Douglas has somewhat of a fetish so I clipped the pictures and mailed them to him. It's probably a mixed message knowing that I'm resolving still that I shouldn't be dating. It's this conflict in me that must be resolved. I look around and see that I am not the only one and I think it's just part of our nature to be like this.

I told Chuck today that it hurts my feelings when he takes some jokes too far. It was hard for me to fess up to that and it shouldn't have been. I've spent a lifetime of creating an illusion of certain strengths while never truly exercising all of my real ones. It ends now.

Day Treatment 11

I bought the soundtrack to KILL BILL earlier this week. I've been listening to it and reliving the moments of each scene. I've been getting the emotion tingles through my body. I've actually been feeling that a lot more: Feeling the tingle in moments. The tears are more easily flowing, but not always on sad thoughts. It feels good to be able to cry. I say that because it's a feeling that I was allowed to have and a way that I always coped growing up. I can cry at joyous things as well; babies and the frolic of children always have me in or near that state.

I'm buying a lot of CD's and DVD's lately. Shopping therapy, but more than that, muisc and movies are forms of expression--art--that I have a passion for. Always have. As Ali would acknowledge, I have an ear/eye for them.

Day Treatment 10

I identified today that the depression preceeded any usage or addiction. The therapist in Sacramento through EAP suggested meds. Francisco in '97 suggested the same thing. The drugs and drinking didn't start until way after that. It's always been the pain inside that I've never wanted to deal with; never known how.

Day Treatment 9

I had a late last night. I was unsure if it was something I should have done at this point and time while focusing on myself. I 'm glad I went. Something--instinct--told me to go despite feeling tired and plodding through traffic. More on this later.

Kaiser is showing a video on HIV/AIDS with a production date ofo 1994. I shake my head at how old this is compared to what we know now. Yesterday I crystalized a thought while being berraged by the rest of the group about my lack of spirituality or belief in a "higher power." I believe in the higher power of the self. Someone remarked that no matter where you go, there you are. Simply, no matter what environmental factors you change, you have to deal with yourself & what's in your own head. Ultimately, it is the addict who makes the decision to goto a meeting, to continue to go, to pick themselves up and go back after relapse. ((Even if intervention is performed, or court order, the self has the ultimately decision to continue treatment or not to do so.)) I believe in the energy cycling inside of each of us that is recycled from matter through time. The energy particles are connected to things in other people--links of the past and present that are eternal. No matter how strong the bonds of people are, it's you that makes the final decision on the type of life to lead.

Can people influence you? Sure.

Treatment Day 8

Have I put off going to the gym because it perpetuates a depression that I can point to or struggle with? If I know what I can look like and how good it is... do I keep this from myself because I feel I don't deserve it?

Treatment Day 7

I feel myself automatically not wanting to feel again. I feel like I have made progress in opening up and starting to share, but a sense of danger is associated with this and without even trying to close up I'm doing it.

Yesterday, I stopped my journal entry after starting to express something bad I was feeling. Uncomfortable. I never did return to the thought or try to work it through. Maybe I'm not ready, but that shouldn't throw me back to square one. Square one is safe, predictable. There are set boundaries...equal on all sides. But, true to a square, it's a false sense of security because feelings--like a wise enemy--learn that there are ways over and around boundaries. It's not cube one, it's square one, so the walls that are so strong to repel the armies of one's self are no match for the cunning of emotions that are simply piled higher and higher and eventually spilling over the wall that cannot be built as fast as the emotions come.

I woke up to my phone ringing. It was Chuck. After our conversation ended, I saw that I had two voice mail messages that I slept through. When I don't hear my phone ring I know that I'm in a deep sleep that I really need or else the sound would wake me. One of the messages was from Mark (sure, I could say Mark W, but why?) and the other was from my Mother. What do I want and/or need to say to her?

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A first pass at the answer:
I keep you at a distance until I feel it's safe enough to approach you without being hurt. When I'm around you and I feel that hurt coming back I withdraw, retreat back to some place that I feel safe again. Sometimes I'm able to look at you as a person and not a mother and in that light I can say that no one person is perfect. No one person is without flaws, and that being the case, you're human like me; you make mistakes and that's okay. Unfortunately, that is not how I'm able to see you most of the time.

Most of the time.........and just typing right now my fingers halted with such pain. And I'm breaking down.

And I can't stop crying. (long pause)

I take a deep breath, through my mouth as my nose is stuffed from crying. I wipe away the streams of tears from my cheeks, chin & the small resevoirs where one's bags are stored. My breathing becomes more regulated again and I wonder what just happened to me. What hit me so hard that everything folded in and took away my spirit? Even right now as I try to slow my head down and analyze, that powerful feeling comes over me again and I get glossy eyes. It's a child in me that is weeping all the time. It's a part of Jeremy that was never allowed to grow up or be himself so now in adulthood he's lost because how do you develop a part of you that was stunted before the skills to develop were nurtured? All these years later I am still so angry and hurt that I was left to endure the pain of abuse---YES ABUSE---without acknowledgement or acceptance or responsibility from you as a parent. Too many times I have heard, "He was a good provider. He was there when your father wasn't. He made sure you were fed and clothed. It only happened a couple of times." These excuses mean nothing to a child. If Ruben were to have run me over with a car would it have been okay to say, "Well...he only did it one time." Were the abuse to have been sexual in nature and I were to have been raped just ONE TIME, would it be acceptable to say, "He was a good provider?" What I don't think you have ever understood in all of my pain is that I have been so hurt & lost that I have never been able to explain these feelings------I'm afraid to. Sharing feelings was never allowed in our family. I was made to cry when I tried to share my feelings a child. I didn't always have the words to express exactly what I was feeling so I was made silent because saying nothing was better than being spanked or hit for saying something honest.

These days, when I try to share I see how you change the subject or don't want to talk about it or EVEN WORSE... how you push back on me as if I just need to "grow up" and get over it. HOW DO YOU GET OVER SOMETHING THAT CRIPPLED YOU BEFORE YOU WERE OLD ENOUGH TO LEARN HOW TO DEAL WITH THE REAL ISSUES OF LIFE? To this day I can't have normal relationships with other males/men. I don't date people that are older than me, bigger than me, stronger than me. Of course, I never realized that right away... but the pattern became evident over time.

I love you. I realize that you're the only mother I'm ever going to have. I've tried very hard to keep our relationship moving forward because that's important to me, but it's exceptionally difficult when I carry this around with me. And often--and I know you feel it or sense it--I am unable to reconcile the two feelings in me and so I don't call, or withdraw, or will visit and then leave. I'm sure there is much more that is going on in side of me, but I need to go back to cleaning because I don't want to wallow in this feeling any more right now. I feel weak and I need to feel strong again.

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Gee... who knew that was in me? As much as it hurt to type it, it felt good to get out. But what now? Back to cleaning the room. Maybe when it looks nice again I'll be surrounded by a comfort to feel secure and explore more later.

Two people "graduated" from group today. When I'm honest with myself I see the sensitive side of me surface with words of love and encouragement and I love that part of me. I can see how when I share myself--that part of me--how their eyes change. I've always had that miraculous relationship with my close friends. It's so warm and I glimpse the kind of person I want to be without fear, without walls up, without a primitive self-preservation instinct that was over-stimulated as a child and never told that it could be turned off. This group experience overall is great. I can take what I need from the time and leave behind what works well for the rest.

Treatment Day 6

I need to write Randy Avery and apologize. It's been in my head for a while---a long time; ever since I made the last entry here about spending the night with him months ago.

Treatment Day 5

Dinner with Byron went well. I can see this man that he has become and it doesn't match the memory of the little brother that I have. That person will only be a memory now. He was 15 when he smoked pot for the 1st time. The Navy exposed him to a slew of other drugs.

Jose and I hung out. Lot's of fun. Tigerheat...80's dancing... FUBAR....strip contest to the music "Fucking on the Dancefloor"...WeHo strip.... IHOP...hot chocolate, Banana Pankcakes... people in the booth next to us, Jose driving home, spent the night on the couch...wake up to Alarm---->$100.

I think my next "cut-out" will be caffeine. Hello headaches.

He looks like Tony Almeda (sp?) this guy in the class. Strangely attracted to him. Num num. With the Zoloft a week out of my system, I think my sex drive is coming back. We shall see when it's completely gone over the next week.

Treatment Day 4

Byron called me yesterday and left a message to have dinner with me tonight. I don't know if it's because he wants the phone or because my mother talked to him because I wasn't responding well t her. Whatever the case, a part of me is happy to have the meeting. A part of me feels lost---not knowing what to talk about. We are strangers.

Last night I went to "The Boom" with Art, Mark & Chuck. As we got in line to go in, Eddy & James were right in front of us. Ha ha, a good chuckle. Steve Tanny was there. I visited with Ali for a while. Jonathan said hello. There was plenty to look at, but I was disinterested. I think I will be for a while as I'm finding more ways to remove my armor so that I can expose myself to myself. Hmm...where to go to dinner with Byron?

Treatment Day 3

Saw the 1st showing of The Matrix: Revolutions at The Block. I cried at the opening because of references to love and what it means. I don't know that anything could have been a fitting end to the movie trilogy because the original was such a phenomenon really.

Sitting here the past few days I remember feeling the pieces of me being stripped away by Ruben. I remember never being able to express--in words--how I felt inside or that even if I had them. (feelings) I see this picture of myself staring in his eyes while my eyes would well up with tears and he would taunt me about crying. I was always trying to exert my own personality, but anytime I would show that person, it would be crushed. Looking back now I'm not sure that I ever really liked school, but it was an easy way to get some amount of approval from Ruben. It also was a safe place where he couldn't hurt me. Sadly, he is the only father-figure I will ever have. The person who has blacked out years of my memory. I'm angry and each time I try and let go of that I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to talk to my mother. I don't always have respect for her... and then, there is LOVE.

Smiley faces have been in my life as a way of keeping a reminder of who I want to be. And how it just makes me cry when the two worlds collide.

A couple of times today I've pictured holding & hugging Chuck.

The internet is a way of avoiding.. It's like anything that takes me away.

Treatment Day 2

They want me to chronicle in a journal. They don't know how often I write. The second mourning of group was focused on two people mainly. Sitting and listening, I realize how lucky I am or have been. On paper, I feel like a loser by my own standards. The whole idea behind this program is that you have to admit that you have no control over usage---that your poison of choice is more powerful than you. Hog wash. But I can see how some of the people here need to believe that for themselves. Mark W. and I are probably on the same page here. Now it's time for a Hepatitis C video. New fact: Hepatitis simply means an inflammation of the liver.

Yo! Ga! I almost fell asleep. At one moment of the guided meditation, the yoga person said something--->Think of love, breath it in---> and I started to cry.

Emotionally stunted at 16 or 17 because of Ruben. So I know this and it effects all of my interactions so why can't I move past it?

Tears in my eyes again---- when people who aren't that bright use eloquent words to describe their feelings, the realness of it touches me.

Treatment Day 1

What am I doing here? I've tuned out of this video because it's heavily ingrained in "god" - blah blah blah. I've surrounded myself by good people. I've always done that. Mom remarked yesterday how she has never met a friend of mine that she didn't like.

When I ask friends if they think I have a problem with drinking, they say no. If I ask the same question about drug usage--they say yes. I think this is simply because they will drink themselves, but they do not do drugs.

I don't know what is going on with work and that bothers me. STRESS... do I have a job still?

I feel like I'm in Mr. McCoy's science class in 8th grade. Brandi Carrick and I sat together; lab partners. That class & P.E. Class.

People go through years of schooling to spew these words out and I see now why there is such an industry for this.

!!! The 40 year old Chuck is my class !!! OMG---TOTALLY!!!

These counselors have a way of "dragging" their words.