Happy Birthday (observed) to me!

Today’s the day I am officially celebrating my birthday. Tonight, we will go to one of our favorite eateries, dinner and dessert will be had, Julian and I (his birthday is the day after mine) will get gifts, and there will be much rejoicing.

And I am trying really hard to build up some appropriate enthusiasm, but so far, it’s rough going.

Traditionally, birthdays are a time for people to take stock of their lives, which is usually something I passionately avoid. I generally assume that the result can only depress me and fill me with despair, so I figure I am better off not going there.

But fuck that kind of weakness. I am slowly learning to do exactly the opposite of what my instincts tell me to do, like George Costanza, and so today, I will do my best to take stock.

And then I will figure out what to do with the other 800 words. Ha ha ha.

We will start with health. That is a tricky one. I have a lot of medical issues, and most of them are untreated. My diabetes is at best half treated. I take my pills and 60 units of insulin at night, but I never test my blood sugars so I have no idea if I am doing enough.

I somehow doubt it, though, given my extremely sedimentary sedentary lifestyle and weakness for junk food. So who knows how much extra blood sugar I am rocking and what damage it is doing to my body.

Then there’s the sleep apnea. Totally untreated. The closest thing to sleep apnea treatment I have is my sleeping pills. They at least keep me asleep long enough to get some deep sleep and recover at least a quorum of brain function going.

But otherwise, I am presumably forgetting to breathe in my sleep a lot, and hence, getting oxygen starved on a routine basis when I am asleep and can’t do anything about it. And what am I doing about that?

Not a damned thing.

Then there’s the depression. On that, at least, I can say I am doing all I can to combat it. I take my meds, I write in this blog, I go to therapy once a week. I might strain against the bars of my cage a tad more, but at least I have a regular thing where I go to White Spot on Wednesdays now.

It’s not much, but it’s something.

Then there’s the damage to the cartilage of my knee. That’s not a huge issue at the moment. I have learned how to walk on it (inasmuch as I walk at all) and I think the muscles around the injury have gotten stronger, so it mostly just makes me walk with a slight limp.

But I worry that some day, I will over-strain it somehow, and it will become a far worse injury.

And then there’s the fact that I have two inch-long holes in my abdominal wall through which my guts dangle.

All of these problems are pretty bad. And yet, for the most part, I feel well. Somehow, I have adapted to all of this, and I can get through the day.

It helps to have been sick so long, you’ve forgotten what healthy feels like.

And then there’s wealth. Not much to talk about there. My computer, antique as it is, counts as an asset. Tablets too. Plus my ancient and well-loved king sized bed is worth something or other.

But like most things in my life, most of my wealth is entirely in my head. I have a lot of assets there.

Talent, creativity, wit, intelligence, charm, and a whole lot more. On paper, at least, I have a lot going for me, and there’s a lot of people who would envy and covet my many mental assets.

Kind of hard to translate them into liquid assets, though. Maybe I should rent them out.

And how about my social assets? Well, I have three very good friends, and that’s all I need on that score, as far as I can tell. I am not someone who needs to have tons of friends in order to feel good about themselves. I just need a few reliable, stable friends with whom I can have high level intellectual conversations and/or just goof around.

These days, though, you also have to take your social support network into account. By that, they mean who you can go to in times of trouble, and I definitely have people in my life who could help me out of a jam.

The problem there is, I have a lot of trouble asking people for help. It was rather strongly discouraged in my childhood. I was the kid who wasn’t supposed to be there and as such, my “job” was to take care of myself and not bother anyone.

In other words, I was supposed to disappear so they could forget they had me.

So the social network is there, but I find it hard to access, so in a sense, it doesn’t count. Not the fault of anyone in my social world, just the product of a terrible childhood I have yet to overcome.

I have a hell of a lot of growing up to do. And it’s taking forever.

Last stop : the future. What does it hold?

Comedy classes. Excited/nervous about those. Not sure how I will take to heavy duty workshopping. We will see.

And of course, Kwantlen in the fall. Back to school. Looking forward to that, big time. I am insanely good at school. So good that I didn’t even realize how good I was until many years after I had left college.

After that, the main goal : Vancouver Film School, Writing for Television and Film program. That is still my ultimate goal and I will only change that if something better comes along before I get there.

Who knows, I might stumble into a comedy writing gig via standup.

So that’s my life in review. Now, I need a nap.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Quicker than the human eye

First, yesterday’s stupid video.

This five minute limit shit has got to go. Yeah, I know, I should be learning to be less voluble and more succinct. Felicity says the videos should be less than four minutes long, and she is probably right.

But a deep part of me resists attempts to cut down the amount of noise in my signal because it does not trust that it can be done without loss of signal. And I treasure my signal, as many writers do.

We shouldn’t. Murder your darlings and all that. But we do.

And I am a person with a lot to say. I may ramble through the brambles when I am trying to say it, but still. I have billions of words inside me and they all want out. It’s very hard for me to pick and choose among them.

There’s that option paralysis again.

Still, in my own way, I strive towards focus. I have always wanted to be the kind of author who can produce tight, polished prose that uses the minimum amount of words to get the story across so that you forget you are reading a story and become completely immersed in it. The best writing can do that and it makes that writing so much more powerful.

And as a writer, I want to really reach people. I want to touch their hearts, not just their minds. I want to write things that cut through the background noise of everyday reality and give people the sense that there is more to life than the everyday business of living.

In fact, I want to write prose so good, it makes people feel like they’ve been in contact with something greater than themselves.

When it comes to art, my ambition is limitless. Martin Luther changed the world with words. So can I.

And obviously, I am not going to get there if I continue to do things in the sloppy slap-dash way I have been doing them. And yet, the resistance to taking my time and then cleaning up after is very strong. So I definitely will not be able to transform myself into a monster prose machine overnight.

I keep talking about the same damn things, don’t I? Fuck. I don’t edit my work. Option paralysis. I should really start sending things out. Water imagery. Yadda yadda ya.

I’m getting as bad as Garth.

And what I find frustrating is that it makes me feel like I never really make progress. I’m just the same old dog on the same old leash, walking in circles around his tiny little yard and pretending like I am getting somewhere.

But I can’t afford to think like that. I know I am not the same person who sat at this computer a year ago. I know that I am growing in strength and losing mental dead weight all the time. This very blog is part of that process.

It’s just that the growth is so slow and steady that it’s like trying to watch a tree grow. (Note : not water imagery!)

On a staggeringly unrelated topic, today I found out that Oliver Sack is gay.

Or at least, I think I did. I feel like maybe I learned it before then forgot it. But either way, I was floored.

And saddened. Because of the era he grew up in, his love life was very sad. There was a guy he fell in love with in college. A real alpha ideal kind of guy. Smart, athletic, handsome, the whole package.

And they were good friends, and Sacks would give the guy backrubs (!!), and then one day Sacks went just a little too far, and the guy said “I like you but I’m not that way.”

And for a little while, they were still friends, but after this Alpha Ideal dude came to Sacks because he was worried about a problem with his groin (!!!), and Sacks quickly found that there was something very wrong that was probably really serious, Sacks never saw Alpha Ideal again.

Years later, he meets another guy, a sailor, who also liked bodybuilding and such (fun fact : Sacks was once a champion weightlifter), and they moved in together. And they had a lot of fun and were best friends and all was well and good until Sacks once more went over the line, and then the guy got up, showered, then told Sacks that he couldn’t live with him any more, and left forever.

So Sacks, the brilliant and sensitive doctor, gave up on having people in his life.

Holy fuck that’s harsh.

Luckily, the story has a happy ending. He met someone, they grew closer over time, and then one day this other fellow confesses his love for Sacks in like, the most British way possible : “I have conceived a great affection for you. ”

Isn’t that adorable? Nerd love rules.

What else… feeling super lazy today. Don’t really feel like doing a video after this. But if you want to establish a habit, then the most important time to do it is when you least want to do it.

So I will make a vid of some sort tonight. And I will try to put a little extra ambition into it. But no guarantees.

I had a pretty good groove going earlier today, listening to podcasts while playing a logic game on my tablet. Not the most productive pair of activities, but it kept this overgrown brain of mine busy enough for me to relax, and those times are precious to me.

My whole life, I have had more brain than I knew what to do with. I think that’s part of why I can be very quick to create limitations or compulsions in my life. Their real purpose is to limit my horizons and thus keep me from realizing how goddamned bored I am.

The cows were quiet and pliable until they got a whiff of all the fresh grass outside their pen. After that, some of them were angry and wanted to leave.

But other were angry at the breeze that brought them the news of the wonders of the outside world.

They had been happy before. Or if not happy, content. They liked being content. Or at least…. they were content with it.

But that stupid breeze had to come along and ruin everything by reminding them of how little they had.

They named that breeze Satan.

I will talk to you people again tomorrow.