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About this blog

I have found blogging to be useful to me in the past. I get to write what I would write in a journal; anonymous people get to read and comment; everyone is happy.

Entries in this blog

Dichoto-Me

Well, something tells me I haven't updated this thing lately. Specifically it's me that tells me. I think it's because I feel increasingly as if I'm two different people. Now, I've often said that I feel as if there were different components inside me at the same time: a censor, who tries to keep me out of trouble, probably unnecessarily; a childish part, who would like to have fun if he knew what that was; and "the real me", who unfortunately seems to function mostly as an observer. These
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Thankfulness 1

Today, it crosses my mind just how grateful I am that I have friends. Many of them are here. They may not know it, but they give me a reason to care, a reason to keep going, even a reason to think about someone's problems other than mine, which is maybe the most valuable of all. There are times when you have to turn inward, but often, that can lead to isolation, anxiety, and hurtful thoughts that you can't verify. It can lead to anger, rage even, because it's harder to see the other side when
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Bloggage relieves Blockage

Okay, it's way past time that I update this sucker. Spent some time negotiating with my wife over the weekend about how we might settle the financial issues between us. The idea we came up with was for her to take the house, assume the mortgage, and take the risks and benefits of whether she can make a profit by selling it. She had done some preliminary research that made her think that she could assume the mortgage given some limited financial support from me. She wrote to me just now, saying
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Compensation

Well, I was going to call this "Back in Hell", but in all fairness and an attempt to set an example of looking on the bright side, I do get paid for sitting here, so it's not all bad. There's a topic that has come up several times with different people, today: the attempt to live by the first part of the Hippocratic Oath: "first, do no harm". Unfortunately, it's not possible. Sure, maybe "minimum harm"; no one wants to hurt people deliberately. But the fact is, there's no way to negotiate
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Some Time Off

Well, work has asked us to take some "voluntary" vacation time in May, and next week is my allotted week. I will still try to come to the site occasionally, but possibly less often than I have been, lately. I find that it's a lot more rewarding to be here than at work, frankly. At least here, people need help, and even thank me for my contributions sometimes. Work just pays me! :-) It's possible that I need to think about a change of career some day.
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Less Dangerous?

Well, the preliminary protective order expired today, assuming she let it, the way she promised (in writing) to do. Supposedly, that means it will disappear from my record as if it never happened. I guess this means I'm not a danger to society any more. Will anything change for me as a result? Probably not. She's still occupying the house, which is okay with me because that means there's someone to maintain it. She has already changed the locks, so unless I change them again, I'm at her mer
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A Word from our Sponsor

Okay, I've been plumbing the depths enough lately. (Interesting word, in this context, "plumbing".) I think I'll take a bit of a break for an extended bout of moodiness. WHINE! There. Now I feel better. Kinda.
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Merge to Emerge

I seem to be circling some kind of breakthrough, this past week or so. I've often felt divided internally. Not dissociated into separate personalities, really. Just that I have parts that are specialized for different things. The most obvious part, to the outside world, is the censor, who's responsible for my writing emerging in full sentences the way it does. There's also quite a bit of contained anger, and a childlike being that's just silly (the censor allows him to express himself in pu
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Positive Feedback

To an engineer, positive feedback is dangerous: there's no limit to how big a value you can get, if there is only positive feedback. Everyone knows that squealing noise you get when you talk into a microphone that's too close to its loudspeaker; that's due to unlimited positive feedback. I also grew up thinking positive feedback was dangerous. I was worried about unlimited growth of my ego; that if I didn't focus on keeping my ego in check, "natural pride" or something would just keep infla
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Where Am I Going?

So, okay, having established that balance is a good thing, you might be tempted to ask, well, how are you doing in achieving it? Not that well. I've always been known as a better preacher than practitioner. I've been finding it particularly difficult to establish a direction for my life, since I'm at a place where I have the opportunity to make a new choice. What I don't seem to be able to do is to identify what I want. I mean, I had my life set up a certain way when I was single. I lived al
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Equilibrium

Equilibrium, another word for "balance" according to the thesaurus (literally, "word dinosaur". No, really.) An example of equilibrium comes from chemistry, where most chemical reactions are believed to go both ways. For instance, if substance A and substance B react to form substance C, then it is also true that C breaks down into A and B. If you let the reaction proceed to equilibrium, then take away some of the C, then more A and B will combine to restore the balance. Many of my posts rec
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Pinky and Bluey

Well, I messed with the colors on my YinYang. Just for silliness. I think I was getting a bit tired of straight black-and-white. While I strongly believe the idea that every person is a mixture of masculine and feminine traits, seeing them as black and white has always bugged me. First, I don't really see masculine and feminine as such polar opposites. Second, those forces mix inside us; they don't stay separate. I could have used shades of gray, but I thought using the pink and blue of W
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My Hospital Stay - The Inside

I once threatened to do an entry about my hospital stay, and someone asked me about it, so I thought I would finally do it. The first thing I want to say is that my experience will be in no way typical. I went in for a specific problem that is probably different from anyone else's, I went to a specific hospital whose treatment program is probably different from anywhere else's, and I encountered a group of fellow patients who are probably different from anywhere else, and who came and went at r
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Family

It's interesting the way a site like this can become like a family. Identifying with each other's problems, trying to figure out what to do when fights break out, watching each other make up, new arrivals and people drifting away. A mirror for us to see how we handle such things in this small world, before we try them out there.
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Get on with it

I think IamLove said it best, "Who am I and why am I here?" I speak up on here, maybe out of turn, maybe to deaf ears, partly to answer that question. I find myself asking it a lot, lately, and not finding much else in the way of answers. Perhaps I should quit listening for some voice (would it make me more sane if I heard one?) with an answer and get on with it. An unexamined life may not be worth living, but I bet there's such a thing as an overexamined life, too. Balance in all things.
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Get along, little dogies?

Sometimes, I wish I were an Oscar Meyer weiner. Somehow I doubt that they have very serious problems. Of course, I may be wrong. Could everybody please just be nice to each other? I think we each have problems enough by ourselves without making more between us. I know, they laughed at Rodney King's plea, too, so I don't hold much hope, but I guess it's worth a try.
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Some Days

Some days, I can joke, but it doesn't touch me. I get tired of making forlorn posts about myself; they don't help that much anyway. And I feel like I "should know better", and shouldn't need to, should know how to move on to the next step of starting to cope with it. Some days, I don't know better. I feel like going home and hiding, but on the other hand, I feel like going out and eating a ton just to feel better. Doesn't matter that I know neither one will help. Maybe I should try somethin
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What a place

So much pain, so many ways for it to come out! So little we can really do. Yet, when someone needs, who wouldn't answer? And afterwards, at least briefly, there seems to be some point to all this. Thank you all.
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What doesn't kill me still hurts

After posting about what I learned yesterday, I had a chance to speak to my brother on the phone this afternoon and describe it to him. He seemed to understand my concern about not sharing his religious views. So already, one test verifies that not everyone is like my wife was. I need to keep testing, keep treating people as individuals rather than potential pain sources. In fact, if I can keep that awareness, I might end up better off than I started, because that's how I often treated peopl
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Desensitization

If you tap on the sensitive eyestalks of a snail, it will withdraw them reflexively to protect itself from pain. But if you keep doing it long enough, it gradually stops withdrawing. Now, one way to look at this is that the snail has become accustomed to being treated abusively; in other words, to see it as a maladaptation to cruelty. On the other hand, you can look at it as the snail deciding that even if life hurts, you can't hide; better to see it coming. I need to make sure that I keep
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Full Court Press

Ignore the basketball reference; I'm short, and never developed an interest in the game, so don't ask me about March Madness. Unless you only see and hear things one-twelfth of the year. The morning court appearance, as expected, mostly resulted in new questions, but that too is a form of progress. I'm still under the preliminary protective order, which we continued for another month. But at the end of that time, it will be dropped, as if it never happened. That's because ... she's moving ou
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Short

Really, not much to say. Just waiting for the postponed hearing on the protective order, which is Thursday. Not that I expect many final answers; in fact, probably more questions. At least then, I'll know what they are. Time to "seize the stick", as I read somewhere on here (a post by kaudio) today. Trick is, not to use it to bludgeon myself with, just to keep the other person from doing it.
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Reassurance

Another one of my preparing-for-the-weekend entries ... Maybe I should call them don't-worry-guys-I'll-be-back-Monday entries? :-) I will.
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Off the wagon

Not blogging for this many days is a bit like falling off the wagon. And the reason is similar. Motivation for progress is pretty much gone; I'm just maintaining at the moment. My Dad went to the hospital for dizziness on Friday. After several days, they sent him home without finding anything. Now he's spending a few days in the medical ward at the retirement home he lives in, trying to find out whether he's at risk of falling before he goes back to living alone. I've visited each day from S
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Weekend Plans

Well, I arranged to go see one of my brothers each day, this weekend. That should keep me busy. I'll be seeing my younger brother's two children for the first time; that tells you how long it's been. I have to remember to look up where his new house is, exactly, too. I've never been to my older (half-)brother's house, either. It'll be like a family reunion, one member at a time. Plus, it'll keep me busy and out of my empty apartment.
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