"Heart of the Matter"

Well it's another day and here I sit at the computer.
I was just listening to Don Henley's "The Heart of the Matter" and found my self moved to tears. It's times like these that I realize that I am unhappy, very unhappy and I just don't know what to do with myself. I am sad and lonely in a room full of people. I feel as if my marriage is non existent and it is my fault. Everything is my fault. I have an anger and resentment problem that I just don't know how to deal with. I know that this just sounds like self pity and rambling but I sometimes feel like I just want to lay down and die. My health is so screwed up lately that I don't feel like I have but a few years left anyway. I don't know this for a fact but that's just how I feel. Haven't smoked a cigarette for nearly a year and my breathing just seems to get worse instead of better. Figure that.

Every so often these feelings come back.
I can't prevent it, I cant block them out, and I can't talk to anyone about them.
Should I feel guilty for it? maybe I should but I don't.
I miss you ya know. Sometimes in my dreams we are together again and everything is right with the world. Then I wake up and realize I am still right where I was yesterday. It's been nearly 30 years and these dreams still come.

"I'm learning to live without you baby,
But I miss you sometimes,
and the more I know, the less I understand,
All the things I thought I'd figured out
I'll have to learn again
I've been trying to get down
to the heart of the matter
but my will gets weak
and my thoughts seem to scatter
but I think it's about
Forgiveness
Even if, You don't love me anymore."

..............................................D Henley

I can think of a thousand things I would like to write about. A thousand things I want to say. Till I sit down at the key board, Then my mind just goes blank. I'd like to be the kind of writer that can just sit down and with "Flying Fingers" write about all the things that go through my mind. Like the other night I was watching a documentary about the space program and how they expect a manned mission to Mars around 2030. This brought to mind the awe and wonder I remember feeling as a kid watching the moon landing. Then I realized that I probably wont be around to see it. Now this is a perfect example of what I was talking about, I knew 1 minute ago what I wanted to say and now my mind has just lost it. Goddamnit, I can remember looking through the bars of my frickin crib and things that happened when I was only 2 years old but I have trouble remembering what I was thinking only a few minutes ago. Maybe the problem is all the distractions around me. Kids playing in the pool, the television is going in the other room, my wife and her brother are talking, Cars are driving by with loud stereos that produce a mindless beat that apparently todays young people consider "Music". To me it just sounds like the same major note over and over and over again. It shakes the walls of the building and and I can feel it deep in my chest. It just drives me totaly insane. Well there ya go, I have started to rant.

Sooner or Later

It's 4:30 AM on a Tuesday,
It doesn't get much worse than this,
In beds, in rooms, in Buildings,
In the middle of these lives which are completely meaningless.
Please help me stay awake I'm falling,
asleep in perfect blue buildings,
beside the green apple sea,
Just wanna get me a little oblivion baby,
and try and keep myself away from
myself and me.
---------------------------------------------A.Duritz
Sooner or later you wake up in the morning and realize that there are more days behind you than in front of you. Sooner or later you realize that the names in the obituaries are the same as the names in your high school year book.
At one point in my life I wanted to be a television repairman. I was always rather good with electronic things and I was always building something or another with spare parts. I remember when I was laid up in a body cast in a hospital bed at home(Fractured By Back in Gym class) I was always having to call some one to come and change the tv channel for me or turn the volume up or down or the set on or off etc. So I devised a remote control device of sorts using the the rotisserie motor from a BBQ grill, this was attached to the tv tuner shaft and the power cord was plugged into a box I built with a toggle switch. To change the channel I simply hit the switch and the motor would slowly rotate and turn the channel. It had no reverse so to get back to another channel you simply went through them all till you got back to where you were. It also had a volume control and an on/off switch for the TV.
As you can tell I had a lot of time on my hands then.

Another little device I remember was something that I built using a kit that my mom brought me from Radio Shack. It was a 100 in 1 spring board electronic kit that came with a large circuit board with springs on it and a supply of diodes, transistors, resistors, volume pots and such. It had schematics that you would follow to build different things. One of the best and actually the most useful was an AM Transmitter that had a variable setting. It came with a microphone and you could set an am radio to an unused frequency and broadcast your voice over the radio. This was supposed to only be used with the 9 volt battery and an antenna not exceeding 18 inches. But after I got out of the cast and was able to do so I promptly upped the voltage to 12 volts an hooked it up to a roof top TV antenna
and instead of the microphone I hooked up the audio out put wires from a record player and VOILA my own am radio station that could be heard as far as my Friends house which was at least 7-8 blocks away as the crow flys on a good clear day and maybe further at night. I think this is what inspired me to take a broadcasting class at school which Resulted in the opportunity to work as a disc Jockey and radio host on our local high school radio show once a week on the local station KVON. It was Called "Cruising" with Ron Savage and Dana Mitchell. This was one of the most memorable and happiest times of my life. In fact I will write about it in another post and go into more detail. It is something I have always been especially proud of.

Not so Purple Haze.

There are over one thousand wild fires burning through out the state of California.
One of the largest has been burning just a few miles from where I live. The air is filled with the acrid smell of smoke and the sky is a gray/orange haze. The air quality is really bad right now. I find it harder to breath outside lately because I have emphysema and the smoke really messes with my lungs. Fortunately to my knowledge no homes have been destroyed. (yet). The fire that is burning near here started Saturday around 3:pm and has burned over 4'000 acres so far. Not much else to report other than I lost my virginity and shopped at "Wal-Mart" for the first time ever yesterday and was pleasantly surprised that I got so much for my money. I swore I would never shop there because of their questionable business practices and their politics but I have to face the fact that our local K-Mart SUCKS!! OUT LOUD!!!
I went into the store with the intention of spending no more than $100. I got 2 pairs of shoes, 2 pair of pants, 5 t-shirts, ten pair of socks and a very nice dress shirt. When I got to the checkout it all came to $99.15 . I was really amazed. Well thats all for now.

Again I ask " How does a Fat Man tie his shoes"?

Awhile back I posted a lyric parody of The Beatles "Black Bird". At the time I was and still am having a problem with my weight. The doctor has told me that I need to lose 60lbs. Well I Have been buying non fat and low fat food and walking and doing all that I can but here is the kicker. I suffer from severe insomnia. For my insomnia I take a pill called Ambien CR. This works well for sleep but there is just one problem. One of the known side effects is sleep eating. I started finding food missing from the fridge and from the cupboards and had no memory of eating it. It was usually something sweet and fattening like strawberry short cake or cheese cake, all of which I have now quit buying. If Debbie and Buck want something like that they will have to hide it or something. Well this morning I got up and checked the fridge and at first glance the only thing I saw missing was a small container of fat free yogurt. Then I Looked to my left into the doorway compartment and to my horror I discovered that also among the missing was A HALF FRICKIN POUND OF PEPPER JACK CHEESE!!!!!!!. OMFG. I had no idea at the time how relevant that lyric parody would become. Here it is again just for the Heck of it.


Fat man eating in the dead of night,
Take these chicken wings and learn to fry,
what a sight, such an appetite,
You are only waiting for your pizza to arrive.

"Free Money" sort of.

There hasn't been much worth writing about over the past month. Let me start off by saying that this month is starting out to be much better than the last , financially anyway. I received my EIC check the other day for $315 and also found out that my stimulus payment for $600 is due to be mailed on June 13. I was afraid that I would have to report it all as income in which case it would affect Debbie's SSI and my County medical subsidy insurance. I later discovered that it is all exempt income and therefore I don't have to report it at all so it is sort of like Free Money. I will finally be able to purchase some much needed shoes as the ones I am wearing now are so worn out that they are ruining my ankles. I will also be able to pay off the Vet bill and hopefully buy a carpet cleaner which is something I have wanted for sometime. Debbie is in need of some new clothes as well. Speaking of medical insurance, I saw a copy of the bill that the hospital sent to my insurance for an ER visit way back in 2006. For a CT scan and a couple of hours in the ER came to a whopping $17,461.89. I just about fainted. No wonder medical insurance is so expensive in this country. The fees that doctors and hospitals charge are out of control. I suppose that is because we live in such a litigious society that Malpractice insurance is way expensive as well. Well thats about it for now. More later

Ferals on the Move

Went to look in on Will, Mike, And Collin this morning and they are gone. Moana must have moved them during the night. I am in hopes that I will relocate them and be able to set a trap for Moana because she really needs to get spayed. I was informed last night by a friend of mine that has lived in the complex a little longer than I that besides the 7 cats that I currently feed that i Know are her offspring and the
3 new ones, she is also the mother of at least 4 more cats that were around the complex at one time. That makes 14 from one breeding female that I know of. If you add in all the litters from other females that the Feral society has scooped up and adopted out over the last three years or so that adds up to one hell of a lot of cats.

I kinda wish I had never started feeding them because now my heart is to deep into it that it has become an obsession with me. I have to make sure that I feed them at just about the same time every day. If I am 30 minutes late they come looking for me at my apt. Well lets just say that they send out scouts. If I am late with the food I can rest assured that "Little Boy" and or "Marshmallow" will be at my patio door to remind me. Its kinda funny because none of the others venture that close to the apt. It almost seems as if those two are the elected delegates sent to get me. In fact just yesterday Debbie and I were sitting on the patio with Salem and Little boy came onto the patio, They seem to get along just fine and even looked as if they were playing. Then out of nowhere Little boy walked right into the apt. Remember this is a totally Feral Cat that has had no human contact except for me at feeding times.(and running from the kids that chase them) Over the past year He has gotten more and more comfortable around me and yesterday he even rubbed up against Debbie but the minute she put out her hand to pet him he backed off. Just a few feet but just out of reach.

Well today is the day that the man that said he will give the abandoned Orange Cat a home is supposed to be back from vacation. I sure hope he keeps his word because this orange cat is so lovable and deserving of a good home and it just breaks my heart to see her living in the black berry bushes any longer. She gets plenty of food and water but she is a people cat and craves love and attention. I spend as much time as I can with her but I can only do so much. Yesterday I sat with her and held her in my arms for about twenty minutes. The moment I picked her up she immediately laid her head on my shoulder and started to purr like a motor boat. Then when I put her down to leave she tried to fallow me home. Broke my heart. I sure hope Bill comes through and takes her.