The New Stone Age

 

It’s been said that if you dream about someone it means that that person has been thinking about you.  What exactly does that mean or how it could possibly be quantified?  It’s a nice notion, isn’t it?  Even after so many years Robert still thought of her often and she occasionally starred in his dreams.  He’d always hoped that she thought of him, because the notion made him feel important.

There she was.  She sat towards the far end of the bench with her legs angled so that her heels were touching the creaky hardwood floor with her toes pointed upward.  She was mostly a silhouette from Robert’s angle.  She was backlit by the bright white sky lighting the room from the big window on the opposite side of her.  The light made him think 1980s music video: "Turn around Bright Eyes."  She was looking up at him without fully turning her head. Despite the backlighting, he could clearly see her face.  Robert had always wondered if he ever ran into her in person, would he recognize her.  It had been over thirty years and he hadn’t actually formally met her back then, yet he had never forgotten her.

 

“Did you find her?” She asked him.  Her voice both startled and comforted him.  Her eyes connecting with his was almost more than he could handle.  He could feel his body jolt just with electricity before a rush of heat blasted through it.

“I thought that search ended years ago,” Robert turned his head to see his longtime friend Brian to his right respond for him.  “Can you help him find her?” Brian re-directed, turning his forearms like a hoops referee calling travelling urging this sequence to move along.

 

Robert had found her and she was directly in front of him.  He studied her face.  She was as stunning as he remembered.  He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and even more so in his temples and down both sides of his neck.  He could not stop looking at her like he was trying to identify her as a suspect in a police lineup.  His jaw dangled as if held in place by a Slinky.  He was worried that he might pass out. 

 

“I have found her,” he blurted emphasizing his point. 

Considering the momentous amount of time that he had dreamt and imagined being close to her – at least a part of her life - he had never really known or figured out what he might say if it actually happened.  He knew long ago that it would never happen, so apparently he decided that he didn’t need a contingency plan.  There was that one time he thought he had seen her a couple of years after the brief time they had been at the same school, but that was so long ago that he finally stopped thinking that he might ever run across her in a public place. 

It was that one time when he was driving home over on the east side of town.  It was soon after sunrise.  A baked out late summer dawn.  He swore he had seen her jogging the opposite way on the sidewalk adjacent to the park fence.  She was jogging the opposite direction, so Robert slammed on the brake and cranked the steering wheel sharply and executed a 70s cop show spinout.  Actually, that’s how he’d imagined it.  Instead he drove carefully to the next block, turned his car around safely and drove back toward the park.  No one was in sight.  He had been awake for several days straight and had just spent the previous night at a 24 hour bowling alley with some friends – bowling and drinking, or drinking and bowling.  He was fully aware of the creepiness of the scenario, and chose to drive away, and ponder if he had actually seen her, or if she had been a figment of his imagination.  She was never far from his thoughts.  

When they shared a campus, he had wanted to say something – anything – but he did not.  That was the problem.  Robert never said anything to her and that seemed to be his decision, which is why he knew he wouldn’t be a part of her life.  They shared the same campus for a few months and he would see her around every so often.  He had never been drawn to anyone like that before.  Yes, he thought she was incredibly pretty, but it was more than that.  For some reason, he felt like she understood him in a way that he had he never felt before.  He did not know what it was.  Her friendly disposition made her seem like an accepting and understanding person, but he didn’t know anything about her. 

Robert didn’t take care of himself, or particularly like himself.  Yet he wanted to be there for her in any way possible.  He felt it in every fiber of his being.  This was all new to him and he didn’t know how to reconcile his thoughts and feelings.  For the first time in his life, he had the desire to allow his guardrails to lower, or so he kept telling himself this.  It couldn’t have been true, because he did none of these things.  He couldn’t even muster a passing “hello.”  His inaction being that much more frustrating because he realized that he wasn’t a draw due of his good looks or magnetic personality.  Robert needed good timing and a lot of luck.

Aside from occasionally falling into lonely teen angst stretches, he had always wanted to spend most of his time alone.  He didn’t think he could ever relate to anyone, so he knew that, though this exciting and surprising new presence was in his periphery, he would likely not try to meet her – a decision Robert had always regretted.

This was the crux of why she had haunted him for so many years after their first encounter.  He had made no effort.  Here she was, a dream he didn’t know he had had come true, and yet he was content to be thrilled by a distant passing sighting of her once every couple of days.  He did not make an effort to try to actually get to know her.  What could’ve been the reason?  Looking back, his inaction feels an insane decision.  Sure he was terrified of being cruelly rejected and having that image he had of her burst like an overfilled water balloon, along with his strangely erratic pride.  He was also terrified of making a tragic fool of himself in all the worst possible ways – a creepy, overbearing, neurotic, desperate way, which all were incredibly accurate – except he never thought of himself as creepy, but that’s not for him to judge.

Robert had once been told that he might be afraid of success.  This had been a revelation for him.  Was he afraid of success?  Despite not being very happy with his lot in life, he was indeed afraid to take risks and threaten the protective isolative shield he had worked so many years to build.  In retrospect, he had noticed patterns, where almost any chances he had ever had of possibly accomplishing things he had worked to achieve, he would sabotage, or turn against them. 

The more he thought about it, the more he began to realize his history of avoidance and obstruction.  Robert remembered when he was offered a great job as an assistant manager for the campus station, but turned it down, because they didn’t hire his friend and dorm mate along with him.  He remembered missing the final interview for a scholarship to that engineering trade school he was about to attend and was very expensive.  After learning he was only competing with one other, he felt excited, but still assured that he would miss the final interview.   There was also that sound engineer apprenticeship he skirted at the Bad Animals recording studio in Seattle.  There was even that time in school when a very pretty girl he didn’t recognize who pulled him aside one day and asked him out and he scurried away like the frightened cat from those weird French skunk cartoons (Pepé Le Pew).  There were several more examples that raced through his thoughts like projectiles from a missile battery firework.  What the hell was he doing?  He had always been filled with regrets - not from his failures, but from the things he gave up on, or when he didn’t try.

 

The problem was, he did not know why he so often had chosen to turn away from opportunity.  There was that internship he had taken about fifteen years prior, where he was given most of each week’s new music releases all in exchange for a simple paragraph write up about each one.  It seemed like a long time dream come true, yet he remembered how quickly he began to hate music and writing – his two main passions.  Instead he chose to stick with his normal job, full of frustrating personalities, insane tasks with even more absurd deadlines.  Yet he clung to that job with an unbreakable grip, despite having little interest.

“Are you going to ask me?” Her brown eyes focused intently on Robert’s.  He dropped his head.  Feeling overwhelmed.

Robert had never spoken to her.  He had had his chances all those years ago.  She had spoken to him a couple of times with a passing greeting in her sing-song voice, but he could never quite form the words and now, over thirty years later she is still haunting his dreams.  He is not so full of himself to believe that he could’ve won her heart back then and in reality he is pretty certain that he wouldn’t have, nor had he been ready, or would ever be ready to do so.

Aside from the most extreme examples, he felt that he was living a normal life.  When opportunities had risen, he would find a way to at least try for them.  In his work life he generally found himself able to raise his stock enough to earn and accept promotions.  In addition, he had found himself actively dating and continuing his search for a long term loving romantic relationship.  However, he was not passionate about these things.  He did them because he felt like he was supposed to do them.  He felt no intense interest with his career, so none of the responsibilities he accumulated felt important.  His biggest goal with work was to not have to bring it home.  His attempts at relationships went similarly.  He often felt uncomfortable and wasn’t sure if he wanted a relationship.  He was not fully present with them, because he wasn’t with her, or his invented image of her.  It was no secret why none of his relationship efforts lasted long. 

All he wanted to know now is how to fix this.  What is it that is often said: knowing is half the battle?  It’s true that recognizing his tendencies as a problem could help him avoid these issues in the dwindling future.  It was clear that this problem of sabotaging potential success was deep-seeded. 

“My life sucks!  Boohoo!  I’m Bobby and I’m great at everything and don’t try to be!” Brian shouted as he pretended to rub his eyes with his fists. 

“That’s not what I me-,” Robert stopped himself.  “I do not assume any of those things were destined to work out, but why was I hell bent on taking myself out of or never entering the running?”

“Blah Blah Blah!”  Brian continued unmoved by Robert’s clarification.

Ignoring Brian, Robert focused his eyes on her sitting on that worn church-style pew directly in front of him.  The dusty old stained wood stench overwhelmed his senses once he took in a rapid deep breath.  She returned his stare with a slight smirk on her lips.  A flash of heat rose from his gut straight up into his face.  He began to feel unsteady and placed his hand on the back of the bench for balance. 

“What’s wrong with you?!” Brian shouted at him with what sounded like legitimate rage.  He turned his head to see a fading silhouette of Brian lurking in the shadows of the room.

“It’s more than that isn’t it?” her voice recaptured all of his attention.  “It’s not so much that you’ve been afraid of success,” she paused keeping this important wisdom from him for at least a few more seconds.  “Why didn’t you at least try to get to know me?  Are you afraid of the responsibility that success might bring?”  She closed her eyes and bowed her head, as if she were praying.  “It’s easier for you to always have me as a ‘what could’ve been,’ instead of ‘someone you blew it with.’  As it is now, I will always be perfect in your head,” she grinned and closed her eyes as she let him absorb these words.

“This dumpy chick is right, you know?” Brian interjected.

“Why are you here?!”

“You love beating yourself up.”

She looked back up at him and added, “You don’t want the responsibility that might bring success, or that success might bring.  However you define success.”

He wasn’t sure if he knew how he defined success, but he was pretty sure that it had negative connotations to him.

Next thing he knew, he could feel his pulse pounding in his temples.  He was lying on his back gasping for air.  She had taken over his dreams yet again.

“Do other people have dreams like this,” Robert wondered in a quiet mumble

He also wondered if these dreams had continued to recur every few months for years, because he had a masochistic need to continuously poke his most painful emotional bruises so that they would never heal.  Or maybe it’s a realization that he has avoided achieving all of the biggest goals he had ever set for himself and now it’s too late.  Unlike the previous dreams of him encountering her in the present time that he had experienced, this one was not full of embarrassment.  This felt different.  He did not wake up feeling defeated.

Don't Give Up

As a kid, curvy roadways used to make me violently ill.  There’s something about the constant turning, causing the stomach to shift from side to side.  It seems like every time my family took out on a winding road trip, it would be either burning hot outside, or damp outside, so the car interior was always warm and muggy, so the nausea of the rocking back and forth - sliding a little along the vinyl back seat – unsecured by a seat belt, came along with uncomfortable sweats.  Recently, I drove through Newberg, a small town about 25 miles southwest of Portland.  I will always associate Newberg with car sickness.  When my family moved from Portland to the Oregon coast, we passed through and I asked if we could stop, because I thought that I was going to throw up.  The deep breathing my mom suggested was not working.  We stopped off at a donut shop.  It was a rainy and humid mid-morning.  A common rainy Oregon day: wet and gloomy and strangely warm and humid.  The kind where you need a jacket to keep your clothes dry, but you don’t really want to wear more layers.  The four of us sat inside the donut shop with a few plain round cake treats in the center of the table.  My dad seemed to have a thing about ordering the plainest donuts in the world.  If I think back on it, his decision was likely partially based on the fact that they were the cheapest option, but it’s just as likely that his decision was to not offend anyone’s tastes, which always had the opposite effect.  My brother and I each had a half pint carton of milk and my parents had styrofoam cups of coffee.  My stomach was mildly better, but my head was still spinning and I felt like I was burning from the inside, which I remember because my dad was getting impatient and wanted to get back on the road.  I chewed the same bite of that donut for what seemed like hours, until it became a viscous goo that wadded up in the crevices of my gums with no intention of going anywhere near my throat.  I felt like I would feel years later when I experienced my first tragic hangover and every one after that.  I stared at the milk.  I hate milk.  I always hated milk.  I was always being given milk and I could not figure out why.  My mom had opened it for me, so I was afraid I would get lectured about waste, but luckily my bother chugged it down with his strangely amplified swallowing noises.  Glug Glug Glug.  Welcome to Newberg.

Why was I passing through Newberg?  I’m not really sure.  I have made reasons that take me to or through Yamhill County four weekends in a row.  This most recent trip, I took a route I haven’t used in years, after having driven back and forth through there countless times as part of that two hour trek from Lincoln City to Portland and back.  Not far from where I remember that now long gone donut shop, I turned right onto a highway I don’t think I’ve ever noticed before.  It was a narrow two lane road that immediately began drifting back and forth needlessly.  Though I no longer seem to get car sick, I still don’t appreciate these types of roads.  I don’t have a particular affinity for driving, beyond the convenience it provides, so it all feels like too much work.  Yet, here I’ve been spending parts of my weekends driving through the countryside.  I suppose it’s a way to get out of the house responsibly during the Covid lockdown.  It’s also been a place I’ve imagined as an escape over the last several years.  I explained this a couple of years ago in the post Jennifer She Said.  The rustic Yamhill County has become a wine connoisseur hotspot since those days of plain donuts and car sickness, yet it has retained its quiet rural time capsule aesthetic.  It is still sprinkled with tiny towns with broken streets often slowed down by commuting tractors creeping past small local markets, dive bars, tiny schoolhouses, and now the occasional fancy tasting room for a nearby vineyard.  The escape daydreams started popping into my head with the image of living alone in some small house, working evenings at a small local pizza shop pouring pitchers of beer for parents after a local high school game, sharing odd philosophical notions or inventing on gossip to the locals.  I’d imagine I’d spend my days writing – believing that I actually had the talent and the will, and possibly hosting a local radio trade show, trying to sell or trade off Orville’s rusty back hoe or Thelma’s old claw foot bathtub that’s been sitting out back for the past 20 years and maybe spinning Shoegaze records for the farmers to enjoy.  Of course, these ideas hinge on some alternate reality where towns of less than a thousand people would have a radio station, the pizza place was still in business, and that I could survive on minimal wages, no healthcare coverage, or a nearby massive medical staff of specialists to manage my wonderful genetic syndrome.  The alternate vision?  That one involves going out to some random field at the edge of a forest to die in that peaceful setting.  I suppose it could be considered alarming that I keep finding myself returning there every week, but I have no plan.  No plan at all.

The day before, I was at the work office when a full on panic attack struck me.  I suddenly could not catch my breath, I became light-headed, and an overwhelming feeling of alarm surged through me like a lightning strike.  I do not blame my job directly, though I’m pretty sure it was triggered by a flash flood of the usual insane vague emails I so often receive, full of demands that I rarely have not been provided the proper tools to address.  These messages tapped into the incredible weight of anxiety that is already in place and has become intolerable.  A lot of us are dealing with anxiety, uncertainty, and isolation during these past few months of pandemic lockdown, and I have not been immune.  I honestly thought when this all began to disrupt our lives, that I would manage fairly well, since I have spent most of my life in a kind of self-imposed lockdown.  I could not have been more incorrect.  I have been battling depression for the past several years, made more acute after my 2015 Halloween hemorrhagic stroke, and these past few months have absolutely exacerbated all of my greatest fears.  I have been mostly cut off from my small group of loved ones who I rely on for support and therefore am spending way too much time dwelling on the emptiness that I feel.  Consciously and logically, I know that I can make decisions to choose to see the positive, but my brain will not allow these things.  Instead, I am left terrified, hopeless, and listless – powerless to affect change.  When any additional challenge passes my way, like the work emails, the bottom drops out and I feel like I’m free falling.  The only option that is to surrender and allow the inevitable crash to happen.  

About six miles in to my journey along this recently discovered highway I turned onto, I had my window down, and I was trying to feel relaxed by the breeze whipping into my face.  The music of Russian trio акульи слёзы (Shark’s Tears:  https://sharkstears.bandcamp.com/music ) was loudly enveloping me like a mournful blanket of melancholy.  As I approached an actual fork in the road, I veered to the right and up a slope into a forested stretch – away from the open fields of the previous couple of miles.  It was there, along the roadside, at the end of a tiny gravel driveway, I spotted a plain white campaign style yard sign with block letters reading “Don’t Give Up.”  I began gasping for breath again.  Would I begin to hyperventilate like I had the day before?  I could feel blood rush into my sinuses pressing in like a punch to the nose.  The sign brought to mind memories of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood “Frankie Says” slogans that they so brilliantly used to promote their music back when I was first beginning to spend all of my money on records.  I’m not sure if this flashback was the cause of the sudden emotional reaction, or because the sign was so unexpected, like a cosmic message placed there along my unplanned path to put my mind at ease.  I began to think about the Peter Gabriel / Kate Bush "Don't Give Up" duet.  It was a song that I adored when So was first released.  It tugged at the heartstrings and shone like a beacon of hope.  As close as I possibly could, I identified as a young teen with the Peter Gabriel character of the song, and longed for the soothing, comforting voice of the Kate Bush character to guide me back from the proverbial ledge.  The older and more jaded I became, the less effective the song.  It was too contrived, almost to the point of pure cheese - but that bass-line is impeccable.  Sort of like Depeche Mode’s “Blasphemous Rumours,” which is so heavy handed that when the life support machine sound effects come in like Darth Vader having an asthmatic attack, I can’t help but laugh, despite concurring with the song’s message that there is no such thing as fair and that there is no spiritual grand plan.  There is no plan at all. 

Soon I was back onto a bigger and straighter highway heading back to where I live.  Knowing that I was going back, pushed my thoughts far from the hopeful encouragement of the "Don't Give Up" sign, or is it an unrealistic command?  The realization that nothing is changing for the better only began to fuel my urgent desperation for escape and the inability to know how.  I began to feel completely exhausted.  The lids of my eyes began to linger against each other when I blinked.  The image of driving off the road into the strange swampy field adjacent to the road passed through my thoughts, but instead I pulled onto the shoulder, got out and leaned against the car, and was again overcome by uncontrolled panic.  Erratic breathing, nausea and pressure built up from within so quickly that I thought I might burst.  This was a new kind of car sickness.  I stayed there for a long time, as I began to calm down.  I fought off the urge to lie down on the blacktop next to the fog line and drift off to sleep.  Instead I checked my phone.  No messages.  

Why has this time now been so difficult to deal with?  I have been through a lot of challenging times, I have always found a way to battle through.  When my life has been in the balance with a myriad of emergency health struggles, I have been a fighter.  I have refused to give in.  I have never worked harder, than I do when I have had to recover from devastating surgeries and debilitating medications.  During my three years of dialysis, I was defiant and challenged myself to continue to live life as if I was healthy and wasn’t spending 4-5 hours every other day being tortured.  I was not going to give up.  Perhaps, during those times, the struggle was tangible.  I had something in front of me to deal with directly.  I had timelines and goals.  Relearning what once were simple tasks, allowed me to take heart in seeing progress.  I feel none of that promise anymore and I do not know what to do.  This is like trying to fight my own shadow.  How do people turn this around?  It does not seem possible?

I want to thank the few folks out there who know that I am in a dark place and have reached out to offer support (I hope you know who you are).  It means more to me than I can ever express.  I also want to apologize for being a burden.  I would not have made it this far without you.  I do not wish to push my problems onto anyone and would rather be a positive part of your lives.  I’m just unsure of how to get there.  

This Wreckage

Recently, I finished reading Mark Baumgarten’s 2012 profile of Olympia, Washington’s venerable K Records Love Rock Revolution: K Records and the Rise of Independent Music (Sasquatch) and Mike White’s 2015 book about Bristol England’s Popkiss: The Life and Afterlife of Sarah Records (Bloomsbury) and they got me to thinking.  Not only did they both bring back a lot of memories of my nascent explorations and discoveries of the so-called indie music scenes around the US and UK in the late 80s.  I was still young and exploring my tastes in music, books, movies, and culture in general, but what encountering these two labels, learning about the early punk and post-punk histories of the burgeoning “college rock” bands I already loved by then, as well as San Francisco punk labels and mail-order services such as Shredder, Tupelo, Communion, Allied and Blacklist did for me is teach me about independence and the spirit of doing things for one’s own.  Sure, this idea is old-hat now.  There’s even a TV channel named D.I.Y. that’s been around forever, but it’s not the D.I.Y. part that intrigues me as much anymore, because these days it’s all so much easier.  As Calvin Johnson, founder of K Records and that guy from Beat Happening with the deep voice, is quoted as saying in Baumgarten’s book: “(People) don’t need the record store or a record label.  They can just do their song on their laptop or their ukulele, and then it’s available instantly, all around the world.  It’s really the most basic form of punk rock revolution.”  It is really more the sense of community and connection that these labels (and others), bands, and zines created.  There was a true feeling of involvement by being engaged as a fan – one that feels oddly absent now that worldwide connection is just a device tap away with the omnipresence of social media.  And I’m not exactly sure what it is that’s missing.

 

When I first started ordering records from small labels and distributors directly via mail in the late 80s and early 90s, I began to not only receive the great music, but personal notes and correspondence.  Usually, it would be a “Thanks for the order” note on the back of a release schedule inserted into the record sleeve, but sometimes it would be more in depth and personal, like the now famous letters from Sarah Records founders Matt Haynes and Claire Wadd.  I remember directly ordering the very first SpinART Records 1992 compilation release “…one last kiss” and soon after even started to get occasional postcards in the mail from Lancaster, PA band Suddenly, Tammy! who had the second song on that compilation (indie version of sharing mailing lists?).  Or there’s the time I ordered PoPuP’s CD combining Magnetic Fields’ first two albums and received the disc along with a letter from Claudia Gonson wondering how I learned about the band.  Who would’ve ever thought I’d be carrying on casual correspondence with the artists from all over that had become my personal tastemakers.  I guess what I’m saying is that these direct contacts with bands and labels and zines tore down walls that went far beyond what I had ever understood before.  These people were doing stuff that was cool and that I admired, but they were clearly and tangibly real people.

As long as I can remember, I’ve always been the type of person, good or bad, who gets so fired up about the stuff that excites me – the stuff that gets me going – that I’ve always searched for ways to share those things with anyone and everyone.  Of course, with me, it’s pretty much always been music.  I was that guy who made mix tapes for friends (still do an annual summer mix!), wore concert shirts, left random lyrics on my school locker, created a fake radio station with its own music charts, did music for a handful of school dances, and finally a zine and this thing.  I’ve shared this before, but my friend Wil and I were inspired to start a zine named This Wreckage.  Like so many of them before, we wanted to revolutionize, if not the world, our little town.  We wanted to create an open forum for people to make something that is normally done by professional writers and visual artists.  It was meant to be freeform, and then, of course, at the end I would add a few poorly worded music reviews.  What we found is that most people don’t care.  Most people don’t read.  Most people couldn’t be bothered to actually take part, because they have their own lives and interests.  However, when people did decide to engage, we found it could be really powerful.  We received cool music from new bands that I still love to this day (and new music almost always spawns more discoveries), we had a few fun adventures, and believe it or not, met some really great people – one of which is a dear friend to this day.  Though we were small and misunderstood and really didn’t put forth a massive effort, and didn’t last very long, we still managed to reach a few people out there who tripped over the scrap paper littering the ground that were moved enough to say hello. 

I’m not 100% sure where I am going with this, but even though we now have unlimited access to pretty much all things we think are cool at any time we want, maybe it’s just me, but that personal engagement doesn’t feel as strong.  Even though it goes against so much what I have always believed about how everyone should have a forum to express themselves, perhaps things were better when there were more curators sifting through everything in order to present us with the cream of the crop.  Maybe it’s because I’m old, but for me, it’s too much.  It’s all too much.  Everyone’s social media account is like a mini zine based on their likes.  In a random five minute perusal of my Facebook feed I am presented with vacation and food photos (lots and lots of photos), news of a friend’s recent misfortune, two new bands I should check out, an old music video, some political statement followed by a lot of agreements and a few dissenters with little actual reasoned debate.  What I often get is overwhelmed and frustrated and I’ve become one of those people mentioned above: no longer engaged with anything beyond the tip of my nose.  I don’t want to be like that!  I don’t want to be the one who tells people to not freely express themselves in any way to see fit.  If I get involved with social media I want to feel connected and interested and inspired, but instead I simply feel exhausted.

It brings me to this position, where I feel like I either need to re-engage and try to connect again and push for a This Wreckage-type revival, in order to regain that feeling of community, in addition to the amazing music, that once was such a lifeline, or to simply withdraw like I’ve done the past year and not continue to muddy the waters with yet another voice (this blog) that no one needs to read, really wants to read, or frankly won’t spend the few moments to read anyway.  That’s when I remember the frustration and feeling of futility that Wil and I felt when trying to find an audience for This Wreckage twenty plus years ago, which was a big reason we gave it up.  We lost the fun.  That’s what I miss most: the fun.  This all feels like the complete life re-assessment and makeover that I’ve been mumbling about for several years now, but never seem to make happen.  It has to happen before I completely lose myself in the dreaded “life on repeat” – working a miserable job just to stay alive (only to hold onto health insurance), something I addressed here, sadly, over three years ago.  In that piece, Apathy and Exhaustion, I concluded that “This (turning around the downward spiral) feels an insurmountable task.”  It still does.

This Wreckage art by Arlon Gilliland

Apathy and Exhaustion

I’d like to think that it all went wrong on one dramatic day late last summer.  It would be nice to blame all of my troubles on that dreaded day, but the reality is that things began to slip long before that and it’s become a free-fall ever since.  What happened last summer?  Nothing special really.  I spent a nice morning with a woman who I had grown very fond of over a couple of months and after taking her to lunch as a thank you for helping me with some work; I made my big move and asked her out on a date.  The general response to the few times I have built up the nerve to ask such an outward and potentially life changing question of someone has always been some kind of awkward silence followed by a polite dismissal.  I am used to this and pretty much expect it.  This day was no different, and even though I should be used to being turned down, it is still disappointing and discouraging.  So, I found myself back in my office at work a few minutes later trying to figure out what I did wrong, when I received a phone call from my doctor.  She was contacting me to inform that my latest labs (blood tests) showed that my transplanted kidney was being rejected.  It was a ten minute stretch that I didn’t need.  It’s strange to think that day had held such promise.

The funny thing is that those two rejections no longer particularly bother me.  The kidney issue was resolved through a few changes in medication and a lot of labs and expense.  This process wasn’t easy, but things are back in control and have been for some time.  The other rejection?  Well, that one stings, as most of them do, but that pain mostly fades with time, despite the acute loneliness that such rejection leads to.

So I keep asking myself why I still feel so damn terrible all of the time.  I didn’t realize it then, but I think something turned inside of me a few months before the double rejection day.  The hope of winning the heart of a lovely, intelligent and driven woman was only a distraction that gave me temporary motivation.  Maybe it started when I decided I wanted to move from my apartment in the ‘burbs back into the city where I feel I belong - nearer my dwindling social life.  So, as my lease drew closer to expiring, I started to shop around.  In the meantime, I began the process of getting rid of things.  I discarded, recycled, or donated boxes and boxes worth of stuff that I had unwittingly collected over the years.  I made those tough decisions about several items that I’ve generally held onto over the years for sentimental reasons.  This time, most of those things were discarded.  It was time to change and simplify my life – to move forward.  This felt positive.  Along the way though, I seemed to have discarded many of my things and a big part of myself.  Many of my interests and hobbies – the things that have kept me distracted, entertained and inspired all of these years seem to have gone missing.  It’s like I’ve lost interest with everything I’ve always enjoyed.  Some of my extended family and co-workers call me “the golf guy,” yet I have only played one work-related round of golf in nearly two years, and I do not have any inclination or desire to play anytime in the future.  At the end of the 2013 season, I gave up my Portland Timbers tickets after 12 years of rabid fandom and have barely paid any attention to the team since.  I use to mainly write short stories and fiction when the urge struck, and enjoyed the feeling of creating and always felt a sense of accomplishment upon completion – well done or not.  Nowadays, my writing has been almost solely focused on promoting the music I love, which feels increasingly hollow and pointless (it’s not as though I command any kind of audience to spread the word anyhow).  This process lacks the creative spirit of the artists that I admire and that I so used to crave to emulate.  I’ve even found my lifelong passion for music on the wane.  It’s as though I’ve heard too much.  I’ve begun to question whether or not I am stuck in a rut as I listen to long-time favorites, or newer bands who remind me of music of days past, but very little seems truly new anymore.  Am I really seeking out new directions and branching out, or am I rehashing my teens and twenties over and over again?  Am I simply stuck on repeat?

I feel silly providing these examples of my current listlessness.  They are all unimportant, mundane and simple individually.  However, I’ve begun to notice that they are emblematic of a problem that I do not fully understand.  None of these things have progressed consciously.  It’s as if a trap door has opened beneath me.  It’s as though during my effort to simplify and improve my life by tossing away extraneous bits and pieces, I’ve thrown myself away.  I’ve blown out my pilot light.  I’ve lost my fire.  I’ve lost my ability to live.  I’ve become what I’ve always fought against.  I’ve become an automaton.  For example, I’m allowing my job – something I’ve always tried to keep from defining my person – to frustrate and confound me.  Every day feels like an impossible, frustrating and endlessly stressful trudge uphill with no hope of ever accomplishing anything.  It’s become a trap - a steeper hill to climb each day.  I’m stuck in a perpetual cycle of living paycheck to paycheck with a carrot dangling in my face promising something better on the horizon.  Only that something never materializes, no matter how hard I try to reach it.  Yet, I keep trying until my batteries run out.

I’ve been through a lot of difficult times in my life.  Everyone has, and as with anyone, I’ve faced life’s challenges and muddled my way through one way or another, but for some reason, this time, I do not know what to do.  I am at a loss.  Maybe, I’m simply exhausted.  For much of my life I’ve focused my energy to do battle against an ugly genetic disorder (VHL) and the multiple surgeries that I’ve endured.  Now that I’ve been fairly stable for the better part of ten years, the tiniest little thing these days can come along and knock me out – blown over like a feather.  The lingering effects of those battle scars have taken their toll.  I struggle with the concept that I’ll never feel truly physically well again.  And I don’t mean in the ‘I’m getting older’ kind of way, though that is very real.  I am in real physical pain all of the time, which leads to sleepless nights and way too much time to dwell on my shortcomings and the people that I miss and who I’ve lost.  I don’t want to lose anyone anymore.  I don’t know if I can deal with it again.

It’s time to find a direction to re-ignite that pilot light, but I do not have a clue what it would be, or what it could entail.  I’m not struggling to decide which fork in the road to take, because I’m no longer on a road of any kind.  This must be my so-called mid-life crisis.  I don’t really know what that means.  Maybe it’s the side effect of spending years and a lot of effort trying to achieve those dreams of youth and never quite doing so.  Maybe it’s the realization that those dreams were doomed to fail from the get go and there is no plan B lying in wait.  I’m tired of facing these challenges on my own.

As of now, I am trying to schedule small short-term activities each week that I can look forward to.  These are proverbial baby steps.  The hope is that one day I will once again find my stride and start moving towards positive goals that fuel and instill me with a reason to live and breathe and to feel like I’m worth something.  This feels an insurmountable task.

Fear of the Weather

It was late last August that I wrote a piece detailing my summer vacation, which can be read here. This was a vacation that included my new tradition of attending the LPGA’s annual visit to Portland (or North Plains – which is not very close to Portland, really) for the Safeway Classic. This event has inspired and excited me to no end since my first experience in 2010 and I wanted to share in some small way my enthusiasm and try and spread the word about these amazing golfers. Somehow this eventually turned into an invite from the LPGA itself encouraging me to write about the 2012 edition for their website’s “fan diary” section. When I first read that suggestion via email early in the morning so many months ago, I could be seen skipping through the streets like a cartoon Easter Bunny. “Why, of course, I’d love to write about the tournament,” I calmly stated back through email after waiting a few days as to not seem too freaky and come across as a sane individual (I believe I have presented a differing view if someone actually reads ‘Summerside’). Once the actual mania started to fade, two alternating beliefs have been most prevalent in my mind. The first being that I do not actually believe that this will happen, and secondly, if it were to happen – me being responsible for writing a daily log of the tournament from my perspective on a real website - that I will be completely blocked and only be able to write, at best, the most inane boring factoids about the event. Though the tournament officially kicks off this Friday (August 17th), there are already activities, practice rounds and Pro-Am’s happening out there, I am still lost between both of these worlds. For the last couple of months, my ability and ambition to write has been at a frustratingly low level, as evidenced by the old/recycled writing I’ve posted on this site during that time. And as I type these words right now, I’m not sure I actually believe that when I email whatever junk I conjure up in a few days that I will then see the material appear at LPGA.com. Despite receiving full week tournament passes for the event in an envelope marked with the LPGA logo, none of this feels possible or real.


If one were to actually read the piece I presented on August 23, 2011, they would find that I was pretty excited. I left out little fan-boy squealing details about how the pretty golfing star Paula Creamer lightly touched my shoulder as she approached a slightly wayward drive through the large gallery following her round on the 17th hole at Pumpkin Ridge’s Ghost Creek course. Life was good. I was lucky enough to fly off to Boise the prior weekend for an amazing birthday celebration for Ann and to visit with old friends, I was able to take time off from work, and I was doing what I wanted to do. In fact, the high from that weekend was contagious. I managed to carry it well into the first half of this year. It was that week where I semi-consciously decided that I had to start saying “yes” to life again. It sounds easy, but I had lost sight of that ability and had found myself floundering and living a life that mostly involved only going to work, catching up with too many television shows and rarely venturing anywhere outside of my work space and my meager apartment. I even started (semi) joking with my friends about my desire to become a shut-in. Regaining a desire to engage again filled me with energy. I found myself reconnecting with old friends and family, going out and experiencing things again, re-engaging with my passion for live music (I have seen more live music in 2012 then probably the prior three years combined!) and going to see anyone I want to despite having to work the next morning at 5 am. I have traveled more during this last year, started a regular exercise routine that had me in the best physical condition I’ve been in since the horrific run of surgeries began in 2000, and this summer I even joined a bowling league. Oh, and how can I forget the ongoing love affair with the Portland Timbers in my 11th year as a season ticket holder?  It has been a mini revival for me - an awakening from a slumber of complacency that crept in after the high of receiving a kidney transplant started to wear off a couple of years after the occurrence (and after, maybe not so coincidentally, my steroid regimen had been tapered down to a minimum). Leading up to my planned vacation for this summer, serendipitously other great activities started to line-up like last year. Two weeks ago, the Dum Dum Girls played a one off fundraiser show in Seattle and the weekend leading into my time off from work found another Seattle show featuring two great northwest bands (the Purrs, and Black Nite Crash) and especially, the Nebraska duo Drakes Hotel. These trips would offer me the chance to visit my old friend Wil and his family, and my niece and nephew. This was the type of adventure I was looking forward to.

Unfortunately, shortly after a great run of shows that ended with an amazing Dum Dum Girls set during Memorial Day weekend (story can be found here), I started to notice exhaustion setting in. At first I thought, maybe I was pushing myself too far. This was likely, so I allowed myself to slow down for a few weeks. Besides, there was a break in great shows for a month, so I wouldn’t be able to chide myself for not sticking with my big plans. It was around the 4th of July holiday, when a big gathering of great childhood friends were all to gather down at our old coastal stomping grounds to golf and shoot the shit that I realized that something else was going on. I was still feeling exhausted and fatigued. My limbs felt heavy and my body sore, as if I had recently been in a vicious car wreck. I was finding every day to day simple activity difficult and instead of getting better with extra rest, the symptoms were getting worse. It was time for my regular check-up with my excellent nephrologist, so I brought up my developing condition. She took this very seriously and immediately began running a series of labs and tests that have lasted for several weeks. This scenario has led to an irritating cycle of calling my doctor’s office for her to call me with test results (and the side effect of me developing a massive crush on her new receptionist), which have so far resulted in no diagnosis and no explanation for my decreasing energy level and increased fatigue and frustration.

photo by William Campbell

This is where I stand (or sit uncomfortably) now. Last weekend, my trip to Seattle started off promising, but due to my condition, uneventful. Wil, Carrie, the kids and I lounged around and chatted and had some laughs. Then Wil and I exited for the big show with the three bands. Upon arrival and small surge of genuine energy began to work its way through me. The anticipation for inspiring music and a new venue was growing. I was also hoping that my brother’s kids would show up. Low and behold, Chris Y from Drakes Hotel spotted us outside and came to say ‘hello’ and let us know that we were on the guest list (we met a few times when they were based in Portland a few years ago)! This was quite a surprise and an honor! The Drakes are a husband and wife duo who modestly makes amazing music. I’ve always thought that if I was a musician (and I am most definitely not), I would likely be found in a similarly small home recorded style set up. I appreciate what they’re trying to do and they do it very well. Their three albums dating back to 2007’s Tell Me Everything (there is a long lost older debut that is a greatly kept secret that I am not privy to other than via innuendo) are solid efforts that have routinely landed in my annual top albums list. Their newest offering, Logic Adopts Senses, will most likely fit this bill by year’s end. Their straightforward programmed beats and low end has always been a back drop to tasteful layers of tuneful guitar lines and Amy Drakes’ otherworldly and mysterious vocals. Normally, I would suggest that their style as two-piece would not translate well in a live setting, but they manage to exceed those expectations. As each song began a few more people approached the stage to take in the unique spectacle. Their quiet intensity grew with each song and Amy dazzled as she bounced down to her knees and back up lost in the moment and taking the few of us there with them. It’s a shame that they, as an opener only had the time to play such a short set. There were so many songs that I wanted to hear, especially after the rousing rendition of Tell Me Everything’s tension building “Wreck,” whose chorus offers a release that is oh so satisfying, and the rousing “Kids R Chrome,” which was not an early favorite when listening to the new album. It sure is now. Wow! This is where my dwindling energy took over. I had to stay in the back for most of Black Nite Crash’s set. I had to sit down. They sounded great, especially on their earliest material, but I’m not so sold on the newer material which I’m not familiar with (too derivative of the Doors for my taste). But disconcertingly, I could not hold out for the Purrs and we had to make an early exit.

Now, I am about to face the reality of going into the big golf event – the deal I’ve been building up in my head for a year – knowing that I may not be able to get through it. The week has not started out precipitously either. When I returned home from Seattle on Sunday, I found out that my work place would be extremely short-handed, so I agreed to work during my vacation Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Then, we find out that Portland is about to enter a real 100 degree style heat wave during the tournament. All I can envision is heat stroke and an ambulance ride from the ninth hole to a hospital 20 miles away in Portland, after trying to caddy for one of the golfers during this Thursday’s Pro-Am (yes, I volunteered to caddy!!). What do I do? Do I admit defeat, as my resolve has taken a massive hit, as my fatigue has grown, or do I try my best and hope to get through the adventure? As Thursday nears, and now that I have secured a pair of my official caddy khaki shorts, I am realizing that my growing despondence over my health situation cannot and will not keep me from doing what I want to do. If I do pass out from exhaustion and heat stroke this Thursday on a fairway trailing behind someone like Morgan Pressel, then I would rather pass out there than at home alone in front of the TV watching golf. If I take a tumble off a side slope while following around Leta Lindley’s final round as a professional in Portland and make an embarrassing scene like my huge thudding crash land at bowling league on Monday night, then I will be crash landing doing what I want to do.

One more day of work and then it all begins….

Keep an eye out here for links to the fan diary that I may or may not be writing from the emergency room, which may or may not be posted at LPGA.com.

A Hand Inside My Mouth

For the past week or so I have been completely without energy.  My body has felt sluggish.  My limbs have felt heavy and difficult to drag around.  I do not know why, and considering my history, I should probably contact my doctor.  The feeling has reminded me of my days as a dialysis patient.  For three years, like many, I struggled mightily through this method of staying alive.  I wanted to remind myself what it was really like, because I shouldn't throw around such bold statements about my current condition now so far removed from what was the worst period of my life.  After the first day I found out from my nephrologist that I may one day get a transplant, I started to write down occasional thoughts of my experience (and I mean occasional).  Over the next couple of weeks, I plan to be incredibly self-indulgent and post these writings.  To share more of my neurotic inner dialog and to remember how much happier and healthier I am now.  Thinking back now, I realize that even though I am not feeling that well physically at the moment, it was and can be so much worse.

Here is the first entry:

Friday, January 10, 2003.
I’ve been cleared for a transplant! Great. What now? What does this mean?

The last 14 months have been completely dictated by my dialysis schedule. Three days a week – close to five hours each session. It’s all I know now.

They tell me that my body is 100% clear of cancer cells. That it’s been well over a year since the tumors have been removed and that they now believe that they got all of it – that the cancer must’ve been contained inside the kidneys they removed. They tell me that a living donor is the best option, because a cadaver kidney generally only lasts half as long as a living donor one.

How the hell does one go about finding a living donor? I don’t remember seeing any ads in the paper for people needing kidneys, nor ones for people offering their organs for usage. Sure, I’ve had several good friends tell me that they would be willing to give me one of their kidneys when the time came. Well, that time is supposedly here. The time is now. I am so fucking sick of dialysis that I can barely take it anymore. I am so sick of being sick, but how does one collect on such lofty and generous offerings?

“Hey, uh, dude! Hey man, what’s going on? How are you feeling? You feeling pretty healthy these days? Good. Good. So glad to hear it. Uh, do you think you could take six weeks or so off from work? Um, you feel like having a kidney removed? I can tell you from personal experience that the surgery is pretty damn painful. It shuts down your body. But hey, you’ll get to experience the joys of catheter usage and you’ve been talking about how much you’d like to get away and get some rest. Well, I cannot guarantee a lot of actual productive sleep, but you’ll have to lie around a lot.”

How does one come to someone that you care dearly for and ask them to go through that? I don’t think I could ever ask for such a favor. Yet, at the same time, I am dead set on getting a transplant now! I am so ready to stop dialysis - to stop the constant itching and total discomfort. I so want to be free of the sore muscles, constant fatigue and heavy limbs. And the diet and fluid restrictions! Don’t get me started on those. Eating food, especially food with any sign of nutrients and/or flavor, is strictly prohibited because it acts like poison in the body when you are without kidneys. The same goes with drinking any beverage.

Dialysis keeps me alive and for that I am thankful. However, there is the sense that living is all I am doing. Many of my fellow patients sit in their chairs during dialysis sessions completely immobile, staring blankly ahead. There may as well be a stuffed animal sitting in the chair instead. This disturbs me, because I too often find myself devoid of thought and focused on nothing. This lack of productivity weighs heavily on me. Do I offer anything to anyone anymore? Did I ever? Besides being a constant hassle to my giving friends and family by requesting rides to and from dialysis, because I am too frail and weak to handle the trip on my own, I don’t provide much else. I still consume shit, but I don’t really do that the way I want, how I want, or when I want. The cost of my care alone is astronomical. Am I worth it? Am I worth it, if I provide nothing to anyone or anything? Plus I am constantly whining about my situation! Who wants to hear it anymore? I know I don’t, but it’s all I have. My complaints are a sign of the only fight I have left. This is why a transplant is necessary. I need to regain some semblance of my life as it was. Certainly, I will never take a clean bill of health for granted again.

What the hell to do?

Now, the next adventure begins. I have a small lease on life again, because I have been cleared for a transplant. There may be a light at the end of the long tunnel. I may once again taste the freedom that life can offer one day - when or how or if this will happen seems abstract to me though.