"Don't you want to be loved?"

When I was having this conversation a few days ago about sleeping in the dining room, my friend asked me, "Don't you want to be loved? Don't you want to be cared about?"

There was a time in my life when that was all I wanted. I was alone at the time, and I felt like my life was pointless because at that time, literally no one cared if I lived or died.

So then I got into some of the 'We're all worthy of love stuff' that people encourage adult children of alcoholics to embrace. That was a good thing for me at the time.

But today? Today, I don't think of a concept of being 'worthy' or 'not worthy' of love. It's like debating whether one is 'worthy' or 'not worthy' of having blonde hair or big feet. There's no 'worthiness' attached to it. You may be loved, or you may not be. Either way, it's no reflection on you as a person.

I have loved and have been loved — not always at the same time, which would have been preferable, but I've had the experiences. They had their pluses and minuses.

All of what we would generally call 'me' is here right now. All of me lives in a messy house. All of me sleeps in the dining room. All of me has a cat in his lap as he writes this. All of me comes and goes as he pleases. All of me takes a nap after lunch. There is not some chunk of me missing because I don't have a love in my life. I am who I am, and all of me is here.

During this time of illness/seclusion/whatever, I've received phone calls and emails from concerned friends. It's wonderful to have people around who care about you. It's a much greater blessing than having a lover.

(Incidentally, if you've called and I haven't called back, don't take it personally. I'm having a hard time with direct personal communication right now. My therapist once told me that I am basically a pretty solitary person and that I needed what he called 'turtle time' occasionally to decompress. I guess that's part of what I'm doing now.)

What day is this?

Wednesday already. I went to Jimmy's Egg to get something to eat and there was the Gazette already. I thought I had slipped into a parallel dimension or something, but no, time just got away from me.

Don't let my jaunty online demeanor deceive you — I'm still depressed.

I've got four more of these antibiotic pills to take.

In the meantime, back to bed.

3:40 AM

I've taken my antibiotic and I'm in that window where I can't go back to bed for thirty minutes. So I've been surfing the news and tech sites, and tell you what: people are just fucked up and my level of interest and compassion is at a very low level.

Everywhere I look I see people suffering with shit of their own making, or sometimes shit someone else made. But it's 99 percent manmade shit. No one caused yesterday's LA earthquake (I don't suppose) but everything else seems to be the result of someone somewhere not being able to resist the temptation to stir up shit.

Depressed

I guess I'm depressed — I don't know.

I'm not depressed about anything, any more than one gets a cold 'about' something.

I'm still on the antibiotic for a couple of more days, and while the tick bite inflammation is looking better, it's far from gone.

I felt a little better Tuesday evening, in terms of energy and appetite. But I'm still not my old perky, cheery self.

I love my futon. And as Nurse Kathryn pointed out, if I'm sleeping in the dining room, it's not really the dining room, is it?

Someone else brings me food!

Thank you, Nurse Kathryn, for delivering the fish and chips and Gatorade. I feel like a new person.

(I took a picture of the blessed event, but it didn't come out.)

If you'd like to bring me food, just leave a note in the comments below. I still have plenty of times and dates open.

Why leave the house?

Everything I need is right here: cats, a computer and shredded wheat.

Tuesday AM

It is Tuesday, isn't it? Still a little groggy.

There's a big bag of cold french fries on the table beside me. A storm is flashing lightning outside. I shuffled out and rolled up the car windows before it rained. It's raining pretty steadily right now, in fact. Ought to be a real steam bath after sunup.

Back to bed.

Monday PM

I don't feel physically ill — no fever, runny nose, body aches or anything like that — but it just exhausts me to get up and walk across the house.

RJ suggests it might be the antibiotic itself doing this, and I suppose that's possible.

It's Lyme disease, isn't it?

Don't you think?

I'm still cooped up in the house. Look for me when you see me coming.

The most beautiful sight on earth

...is a woman walking toward you, carrying food.

Thank you, Ms. Landscape Person.

Goo goo eyes

It's about time to go back to bed. I just checked my myspace mail. There was another in those endless fake voyeuristic videos of young women making goo goo eyes at their computer monitors.

Nina or someone, fill me in... when you log on to myspace, do you get videos of hot young dudes ogling their computer screens, or is it just women for everyone?

A dream

I have to stay up a while longer because I just took my tick bite antibiotic, so I'll tell you about a dream I had last night.

First, I dreamt that I was watching someone remodel an apartment in an old inner-city eightplex, ie, one of those buildings where the entrances to the apartments are off a central corridor, four on the ground floor and four upstairs. There wasn't much to that dream.

But later, I dreamt I went back to that same apartment, only I was some sort of mystery man in a slouch hat and cape or coat, sort of like The Shadow or The Spirit. I had a female partner. We were on our way to one of the apartments to carry out a secret mission by dark of night.

We got out of the car and on the way to the apartment, I reached up and felt my face to make sure I had my mystery man mask on. But I couldn't feel it on my face. Did I forget it? Too late, I decided — I would just have to go without it.

We stealthily let ourselves into the apartment. My mystery woman partner was going to search for the McGuffin while I served as lookout.

Almost immediately, a dog and a cat came trotting toward us. They were friendly, though, and went right past us out into the corridor. There was a large ornamental basket of dried flowers in the corridor, and the dog stopped and peed on it as he left.

My mystery woman partner was searching the apartment while I had a quick look around. There were three people asleep in the bedroom. Two were in the bed and the third on the floor. We had already awakened them and they were trying to focus their eyes and look at me.

What was I supposed to do? I pointed my index finger at one of them, drew a small circle clockwise in the air, then jabbed my finger at him. His eyes closed and he fell back asleep.

Well, good! I had some sort of superpower or something. I drew another circle and jabbed my finger at the woman in bed next to him, and she fell back asleep. Once more for the woman on the floor beside them, and all three were once again unconscious.

I had a further look around. I strolled out of the apartment back into the central corridor. I looked through the open front door of a neighboring apartment and saw two scotsmen, dressed in kilts, asleep on the sofa.

I was beginning to get bored and restless. 'If this was a movie script,' I thought to myself, 'this scene would have already gone on too long by half.'

And then I woke up.

Monday early AM

I spent almost all of Sunday in bed. I got up to eat a couple of times, came into the den to surf, then went back to bed. I saw my landscaper through the window; she was in the backyard, cutting and assembling wood into a form for the concrete that will be the base of my backyard water feature. I guess there isn't anything she doesn't know how to do. She should have her own cable show.

I didn't go out to say 'hi,' though. I just went back to bed.

About 6:30 pm, Nurse Kathryn called and asked if I was interested in dinner. I dragged myself out and we went to Zorba's. I felt sort of groggy the whole way over and I became mildly nauseated on the way, but it didn't last long. I had a chicken shish kebab. Then I took NK back to her place, went home and back to bed.

I couldn't sleep for a long time, though. I felt physically tired, but I was wide awake and my mind was zipping around in all directions. I felt bloated and as if I had overeaten, although I didn't have all that much.

I eventually fell asleep, then woke up again about a half hour ago, again mildly nauseated.

I think Monday will be another day in.

Incommunicado

That's me. I'm hiding out.

My favorite place

So, I'm being lectured by another friend about my bohemian lifestyle.

"And you sleep on that... that whatever it is... in your dining room!"

I posted something last November about having moved my sleeping space into the dining room:

I've been sleeping on a futon in the dining room for more than a year now. I have a bedroom with a very nice queen-size bed, but it began to feel alien and unwelcoming to me. I didn't like being in there.

I still love my dining room futon. It's my favorite place in the house. I can lie down there and feel the weight removed from my legs and back. I can stretch my legs out as far as they'll go and feel the muscles move and extend. I let my Japanese flute music and Indian ragas play in the living room, sounding as if they're coming from some other dimension.

I can read a book, talk to a cat or drift off to a place where I'm half-awake, half-asleep, where dreams seem like reality and reality seems like a dream. I can be in a fuzzy, floating place of muted colors and gentle music where others will leave me in peace because they can't bear to separate themselves from their world of Drama! Passion! Action! Sound! Color! Excitement!

I can't imagine a beach in the most beautiful tropical paradise or the suite of a luxury hotel being any more pleasant to me than my futon in the dining room. Eventually, I hope, I'll be able to blog telepathically so I can stay there all the time.

Happy Birthday

...to The Red Cup, celebrating thirteen years.

Thank god for cats

...because I am never gonna understand human beings.

The silliest ad I've seen lately

During my recent trip to Arkansas, I had some time to watch TV. I saw a commercial for the American Express® Card which amused me because it was so over-the-top goofy.

The scenario is a business power lunch. The guy hoping to close the deal pulls out his credit card to pay the tab, and the card has a comic book character or something similar on it. His prospective clients are so offended by his unofficious-looking credit card, they get up and leave the table, presumably canceling the impending deal.

Then, after the prospects have left the table, the poor schmuck's humiliated partner pulls out her credit card to pay the tab, because after all, she can't have her lunch linked to a non-professional looking credit card, either.

How often do you suppose this scenario plays itself out in real life?

The return of sweat

This landscaping project has introduced a concept long missing from my life: perspiration.

And bear in mind that I have had only the smallest amount of physical input into this. The lion's share of the work has been done by the landscaper and her sons.

Nonetheless, the landscaping has altered my daily life. I'm wearing bandanas wrapped around my head a large percentage of the time. My collection of Hawaiian and resort-style shirts has been largely put aside for daily wear of white, moisture-wicking, spun polyester golf shirts and T-shirts. I go through two or three of those daily, plus old cotton shorts.

I think I mentioned previously I am on a powerful antibiotic for this tick bite. The antibiotic increases my sensitivity to sunlight, so I'm also wearing sunblock most of the time — the first sunblock I've used in probably ten years.

I wish I had the energy my landscaper has. She's close to my age, so that's not the issue. She isn't overweight like I am, and that certainly has something to do with it.

But even when I was a teenager and thin as a rail, I had a tough time dealing with heat and humidity. I got tired easily, and I was always the first in my school class or among my friends to become exhausted during activities. I also got bored quickly, and even now, it's difficult for me to stick to MNRT's (mind-numbing repetitive tasks) for more than a few minutes at a time.

I was a big kid — not fat but just physically large — so my family hoped I would aspire to the highest level of American achievement, that of the ath-uh-lete. Instead, I hated sports. I didn't enjoy participating, and watching bored the hell out of me. My classmates made fun of me; my folks, especially my father, were somewhat shamed and disappointed.

It didn't occur to me until a couple of years ago that there might have been some physical or medical reason why I tired so easily. But it's water under the bridge now.

But all this weed-pulling and edging and hoeing and rock-moving? I can't stay with it. I'm good for maybe twenty minutes, then I have to go do something else. The landscaper, meanwhile, has been out in the heat working on this for hours almost every morning for about three weeks now.

My friend Soartstar did a similar project in her backyard all by herself. I would never have been able to do this myself.

The back yard

A little bit of (cell phone) camera shake, but you get the idea. We added mulch yesterday evening.

Yes, that's J.P. guarding the chairs.