anyway..

what i really want to talk about is how i'm bouncing back. the plans and projects i got. the lifestyle i'm thinking about. my life as an adult. not a big teen or child, there's always that, i can always do that and i always will. but i mean what i'm really going to to do with my time and freedom that i am SO LUCKY AND GRATEFUL to have.

PROJECTS:

1. Timeline:
an exhaustive effort to obtain and arrange all the significant events of my life. i'm using all the info i can grab. medical records, criminal records, drug treatment records, start and end dates of jobs, school, emails, "created and modified" dates of files, of course my blog starting with the myspace one and then moving to the one here, which the bigger part of is down, but stored and matchable by date. all intact. along with that solid, static sort of info to drop on the timeline as scaffolding or skeleton or what-have-you, i have been collecting anecdotes. stories that i have to tell. things that happened. funny, crazy, scary. badass, cool, weird, mystical, whatever. significant things. for now i am just texting a few words to myself when i think of them, that i later transfer to a file on my pc called "history. just enough words to make me re-remember when i glance at it. i want to make a book/program of it all. categorize the stories by era, topic, person, place, etc. have it all really sortable and easy to navigate. have indicators that tell you if you have read a certain storiy yet and also a percentage indicator to tell you how close you are to having read them all. then lots of options like "click for more from this era/person/topic/etc" or "click for random story" drugs, crimes, fights, madness, overdoses on psych-meds. just crazy extreme stories of my generation. the ones who did not give no fuck. we had no cause. we just didn't care or believe in anything anymore we caught the adults in lies and hypocrisy and that was enough of justification for us that we didn't have to abide by shit. only avoid consequences.

Beyond this book/program timeline, i think i want to actually make it live. taggable and commentable. and a wiki aspect where people can offer supporting stories and details that others can debate about. i think this is the main way i will be able to avoid getting beaten up or sued. get everyone in on it. it's something a lot of people have wanted to do for a long time. write the story of the extended fond du lac crew. our stories. madness. delinquents. God's forgotten children. "freedom fighters". but also love and honor and friendship and bonds of bromance and the respect (and ass kissing) of wonderful females. I have the time and I am doing it. it's working. i think once i get enough of the right people in on it, it will start to grow out of my control. the more data you have, the more it facilitates remembering things and correlating the times and places of things. it can only snowball.

the point? well.. because it can be done. and for love. for identity and memory and insight. to be able to look back and gain insight. untie knots. truth. more and more truth.

2. Softwares
i'm making softwares to help me make healthy choices throughout the day. reminders to take pills and eat and brush my teeth and stuff. yeah. sad. loser. blah blah. when you alone as long as me, that shit matters less and less. but i HAVE been making steady progress over time as far as improving my health. from here, with the help of programs, which are really just external add-ons to my own brain, i can fine tune it more. the software will tell me when to do things and have a count down timer till it starts to annoyingly remind me. but it will also ask me questions where it captures answers. "when did you wake up?" "what did you eat?" etc. for now i will have a parallel spreadsheet to put the data in, but i will have it grow more and more easy to use as it goes. it will populate the fields automatically for calories etc, when i enter in a food. and i can then SEE! like with the timeline. SEE the patterns. study myself. be my doctor. why? because the better i am, the better i feel, the more nimble my body and mind are, the better i will be at the other projects.

3. Album
i have resolved to make a new album. and i intend to raise the bar. i'm doing things that have not been done before as far as timing and stuff. the other bar i want to raise is what is being said. it has to be levels of honesty that will embarrass me and anyone listening. humble them. break their hearts maybe. i have ideas.

4. Arduino
an Arduino is a microcontroller. a programmable circuit board with inputs and outputs. you plug it in USB and you can write code for it and then flash the code onto it and it will then run the code independently. it can be powered by the USB port itself, a 9 volt battery, an ac adaptor or, like i like, my solar charger. the possibilities of what can be done with arduino are really endless. the catch phrase is "scratch you own itch". you make your own gadgets. and it's open source. i've got tons of ideas of what i want to do with mine. they are super cheap too and upgradable. i have a book on it i got with my kit. I'll be posting as I make progress. I want to do experiments to. psychological ones. unorthodox ones. I have tons in mind!

so. that is what is up. that is what is keeping me from being sad about girl. THAT is my self acceptance. liking and loving who i can be. enjoying the stuff i enjoy and doing it freely. taking pride in it and basing my value on MY OWN ideas of what is valuable, NOT someone else. especially not some fickle, emotional cripple tease!

girls. for fucks sake. if i'm just not [whatever] enough. not tall enough or something stupid like that, just leave me alone. go find someone better. my interest in you is love and affection. companionship. partnership. the real thing. sex. a girlfriend or even a wife. if you are jaded or chicken or whatever, or if you find me not to be "man material", just go. if you had ANY idea how much a slight brush with one of you disrupts my well-being. how badly it hurts and how long it can last. you don't want me to be sad. you aren't malicious, right?. don't you see? i'm decades deprived of that kind of love so i go nuts over it. a hug. a kiss. i don't need advice. I don't need to hear anyone say some cute, facebook witty, oversimplified adage-ism intended to point out something i supposedly don't get. i don't need to play stupid games to try to trick someone into giving me a chance. you aren't retarded or an animal are you? so use your brain. consider me as a mate, and if you don't think i make the cut LEAVE ME ALONE! sadly no girls are reading this, but you just never know.

This wish is mine. And it didn't come true. So I'm taking it BACK. My Love is taking them ALL back!

be my woman. be the one to finally give me the chance the rest wouldn't. be the one that gets me and gets it. with you. with that strength and happiness and confidence we will raise that bar. together. apart we remain in apathy and atrophy. we've been hurt. bad. our spirits oppressed. love heals that too. but you must come to know as i do that the one true source of all love and animation is the love of and the knowledge of God. we are the people of baha! the new race. and you've got to trust me. i believe in you. i heard it. i saw it. with my eyes and ears and heart and with my powerful mind. i believe in you. trust me. pray with me. let me in your life a bit. come to my studio and let's record an album that will be worthy of our great destiny we had such faith in counting on. we've got time. big progress can be made in a day's work. i believe in us. courage for love. courage for love.

update from last blog. those were the wrong drugs... experiment complete. no need to go into tons of details, but i lost myself quite a bit there and it took a couple months to straighten out. however, in the process i did learn a lot. and it kick started a few good things. one is an official intention of making a new album. the other is picking up the work of piecing all my and that of the crew's history together. i'm off to a good start. getting other's involved. it looks like everyone is wanting to reunite. i intend to encourage and facilitate it.

so anxiety kind of comes and goes in waves from this adderal, but i'm hopeful about trying these new meds. i can always change them. i can always step off them all if i want too. i've got a fine mind. a fine mind. i've only been on a couple mild psych meds for a few years and never an antipsychotic. my mom has been on tons of crazy things throughout her life and she's over 60 and she is very sentient and intelligent and spiritual. it's fine.

i'm going to try to choose to just not get mad about stuff. like dumb stuff that other people think and post on facebook or slutty stuff that chicks do or ugly tattoos people get or myopic political opinions of people. life's short. if i am at all great i should use this time to try to do something with the time and blessing i have. its just this fear. i have this huge fear in me. its weird because i don't really have anything to be afraid of. i don't know if its just anxiety from the adderal or what. maybe afraid of failing. i am i guess. or of people being better than me. i hated performing. the thought of it more than doing it. the thought of doing it in front of girls. girls i liked. competing in front of girls i liked where there would be other guys better looking than me more competitive than me. or not even if the girls were there at all, just guys being better than me at something competing with me. or not even competing with me just expecting me to perform. just sitting there like "c'mon what've you got? aren't you any good?" or playing their music and expecting me to be able to play along to it like "here's the song, play this:" i guess rehearsing the fear makes it not as bad. weird social fears. at any rate though i'm inevitably going to change here and its scary. i feel really dumb right now. sitting here talking about myself. thinking about myself. talking about what's wrong with me and what i have to do. that's what's wrong with me. that i'm too far in my head. noted. but for now this is the experiment. 4 oclock i'm still really fucked up. its crazy. i'll get all scared and worried and sad or something. like i'll not even want to post anything on facebook. i dont want to be funny. i dont want to watch a show or play a video game. and then the fact that i dont want to will make me feel even worse. it compounds but then lets up. i will be like "i should play piano" then the thought of my hands touching the keys and it feeling uninspiring and not new or fresh makes me feel sad, so the thought of playing piano equated to a sad feeling. but piano is what i do. i am a musician. fuck. and then the fact that the fact that the thought of playing the piano makes me feel sad makes me feel sad. i know. i know. even if it doesn't feel new to me i still get better and better at it. i specialize at a certain style. i'm self taught. i don't get to be mr. super duper beethoven etc. i don't read music. but i get to be me and i get to be good at the piano. that's what it is. ok. noted. record it for other people to hear for now. i got myself into and out of the slump of obesity and i can get myself out of the slump of boredem and uninspiration. this is only day2 of these new meds. i'm feeling that weird hearbreaky anxiety amphetamine feeling, i've felt it before.

anyway. i was bummed and my identity was hurting. the conclusion i had came to was that i must accept that i am extraordinary. that is how i can feel good about myself. i have to live with that i have to work with that. but not even in an egotistical way. just in a plain old self acceptance way. i just have to take it easy and do what i do. do what i like to do, avoid what i don't like. see who i like and avoid who i don't like. stop freaking out about what i MUST do, or what i am SUPPOSED to do or HAVE TO do. or what anyone thinks. i know that's all cliche's, but i guess it's another full circle. or its the drugs, or its just another survival mechanism.

well i've definitely been in the chair for a long time. focusing. if i had something i was working on i could work at it longer, i just don't have a project right now. i still feel sad. sad about not having a project and not having anyone to listen to a project. or not anyone to do a project about. or about no wife or something. i need to explore this stuff. i was thinking about this. making lists. lists of what i'm happy and sad about and possible solutions. sad thoughts. happy thoughts. i guess i do that all the time in my head, but maybe i can organize it more is i look at it too. one of my shrinks had me do that once but i didn't like her or trust her.

this is an experiment on writing off the top of my head for attention span so i'm just sort of writing. i'm pretty high right now. the ssri/ndri are similar to ecstasy and coke together adn the adderal is basically amphetamine. so bits of anxiety kind of comes in and out in waves. i get real calm too though. i do have ADHD. i tested for it 2 different times in my life, as a kid and now. i was honest in the tests. i did always have trouble paying attention and fidgeting etc. i'm definitely able to stay in my seat and sit more still for this blog. this is nice. it's important that i don't get hooky with this drug and start doing more than prescribed. the point is attention span. like when i first went on an ssri i felt like i was rolling on e the first few days because the serotonin levels, but that wears off. so i think with this adderal it will too. then its just increased attention span from taking it and no buzz. i don't care about buzzes. i do have one right now though. i actually don't even want to get out of this chair and wreck this moment. i feel deeply calm. it comes in waves. they also said i will lose weight. i'm hopeful about this. oh maybe there can be more peace in my life. maybe i can make music again. spend enough time again in this chair to necessitate the C2K unit! be an inventor again! i should have times when i sat down. thanks for participating.

so where do i stand now? i'm recovering from another really damaging and disappointing heartbreak. a senseless frustrating one with no self-respecting way to look back on it. no dignity. no valid thing i can say to defend my sanity or justify my feelings as a man worth his salt. a fucking mark. because of that i don't like myself and, subsequently, others. i'm bitter and i'm getting more trollish on facebook and people are noticing it. i want to be alone, which i am most of the time, but i also need love and respect. i need to be heard! i have fresh things to say.

where do i want to stand? with the Baha'is. following those teachings and rules. that's always been the happiest and sanest and most meaningful life has been for me. to live for something greater than me and all the things i mentioned earlier. it's the only place TO stand. with God. it's the thing i don't really talk about with anyone outside of it in order to protect it from The Nothing. not that God isn't greater. i'm just so fragile in the head and the heart these days, The Nothing could penetrate me and wipe my memory.

oh and just in case you think i didn't think of "what about living for you?" that is the stench of a douchebag. no honor in it. i'd rather die than be someone like that.

i don't know how to crochet. i think i learned briefly a few times as a kid, but it really doesn't interest me or seem appealing. things like that hurt my hands. my hands are for button mashing and keyboard slamming. knuckle cracking. not little things like that. both my thumbs are double jointed and to grasp something precisely like that, like use a pencil or pen for too long, strains muscle that ought to have, uhhh, more whatever. fuck crochet, okay?

i REALLY miss blogging. i'm glad to be writing right now. that feeling that someone out there, maybe many someone's, potentially billions, depending on how my story, the stories of my loved ones and the big stories of us as a people, species, phenomenon or whatever play out. to express myself. with unlimited edits and time. permanent. public. potentially viewable by anyone really. there's something to be said about that. there was nothing like this before when i was young. not for just anyone. writers were lucky like astronauts and micheal jordan. lucky, we liked to say, because it made us feel like it could have been any one of us even though we weren't "good" enough.

now see? long ago, being able to read and write was one of them "lucky" things. to be proud of and looked up for. it put you in a whole other league that those lower can only speculate about. motherfuckers has to work. as more people got to learn to read, then there were those who had the time and the "luck" to do higher education and then research. research is something you have no time to do unless that is your career and that is crazy lucky, like make you famous for centuries lucky. was anyway. to be published. point is, we do research. quickly and we publish quickly onto a universal medium accessible to basically everyone else on the planet. there was nothing like that when I was a kid dreaming of being a scientist. knowing that of all i may or may not accomplish or achieve in my life, or "get to do" or whatever, the most important that i hoped i would do more than anything else was to figure out something important that no one ever figured out before. something big. right here, right now, i am very very lucky and in the sense i was saying earlier, lucky like you just are lucky enough to be erik and write his blog even if you're a mediocre writer.

my pills are kicking in. lorazepam and lunesta. they dope me, but those long sleepless nights and all the sweats and then all the dodging the day sleeping in and waking up missing business hours abd all that. really that is no different than doing drugs. the health and sanity consequences. missing calls from family. rotting further in your head. living with and loving the shadows and ghosts of the marvelous one-of-a-kind girls that i had unique romantic sexless tumultuous long term relationships with, which they like to refer to as friendships, and these days i refer to basically as codependent and emotional abusive relationships..the point is that that lifestyle isn't sobriety (something i take pride in, having quit drugs and alcohol after so many years of use). a reference to a sober mind doesn't mean only one that is not high or drunk, it means one that is under control of itself. efficient functional. serious. ready to get shit done. i'm learning that there is always better. being off drugs is better than being on them. but being able to sleep regularly or to not be obsessed with someone is also good in the steps toward the kind of peace and stability and sobriety in one's life that can allow for them to do proper research if they was trying to, you know, figure out something important that no one had ever figured out before. and eat right. and work out. and meditate and do yoga and read lots of books and watch lots of lectures as i did for a long time in appleton pt1 and a lot of appleton pt2. anyway that point is clear.

so the title. crochet. i was thinking about a bigger pattern in my life, particularly with an individual who stirs my heart so quickly and intensely that it leaves my peace and self acceptance i had gained over the few years between our "episodes" in shambles. or when i dumbly decide to get drunk since i have a good excuse and it had been a long time or something. i was thinking about it in terms of hooks grabbing the thread of my life and pulling it back to entwine it with another thread or threads only to pull it back forward again, knots behind it, knots ahead i guess. so maybe a quilt or tapestry is being made. people orbiting around each other by their emotional gravities or simply the pull of ol' Maggie. everyone's strings behind them all weaving. like how the solar system has all its orbiting planets and then the orbiting moons, but the solar system itself isn't just sitting still in space. it has a great path its moving too. so if you could look from far away and if each planet and moon left a trail of thread or ink behind marking the path they took, it would look like an ongoing woven up braid. and if you backed up all the way out to the galaxy and could see every thread of all the solar systems and stars being drawn, i think it would look like a great mandala or a dream catcher or a God's eye as they call them. orbits and orbits, influences and influences. fate and destiny. chance. luck. we got it. we got luck.