A dilemma fills my mind. I had a mild panic attack two days ago. I makes me wonder if I can yet handle jobs again that have stress involved. If not, we may be in big trouble. I desperately don't want to move yet, and if we do, it may break my heart.

I had four summers and three winters at Spofford, then I was just gone for 7 years. I cut all ties. It was not intentional. It just happened. The only person from years I still communicate with is Korrinne. She's over on my prestigious blog roll.

Last year, Heather and I went to Boston and New Hamshire for our honeymoon, and we visited Spofford on Memorial Day weekend. So many people from my years are STILL THERE! (Mostly the "adult" department heads). It was great to see the camp again. . . but, after seeing everyone, I felt like I had betrayed them all. Fred (no longer Camp Director, as he was in my day, but still living there [Rookie is the Director now]) and Paul both behaved oddly, as if I had hurt them and they didn't want to see me (everyone else who could remember me was VERY happy). I visited my old church, too. And ultimately, it depressed me. I wish I could go back and be a part of it again. But, life gets in the way.

We are cursed by the fall to work the land, to break our backs in order to survive. Life PREVENTS hopes and dreams. At least, it does to 99% of us. Hopes and dreams separate us from animals, and yet they are a curse. This is how we know we are cursed.

My family is in Chicago. And I live down here in the one of the armpits of the U.S. But, I desparately don't want to leave Arkansas yet, because I don't want what happened with Spofford to happen with all of my friends here. I need to have a job SOON. But I feel that there are necessary parameters for whatever job I get, however I don't truly know if they ARE necessary. And I am so afraid to leave. It will put a hole, a knot, a clench in my chest. And it will stay for a long time, as the friendships, built on years of trust and truth, lives that create a part of who I AM, fade away. . . . I know it will have to happen eventually, but I need it to happen on OUR terms, by the course of our plans and intentions. However, now Heather and I will be FORCED to move if finances don't improve.

And I don't know if it will be because of my brokeness, my sick brain, the curse inside me. Or if it was because I am just weak, afraid, and have made bad choices.

It is the not knowing that kills me. And the more life pushes and I stumble back, the more numb I will become, the more dreams will become meaningless.

. . . Dear God this blog is depressing!

Go check out Whisper the Muse. Heather has been posting again. And so has Rob over at Harry Balsagna.

Oh, and ENORMOUS thanks and fuzzies go to Dave King for his e-mail encouragement. It meant A LOT. He taught Heather and I how to blog, btw. Three years ago (when blogging was still young) at a Cornerstone seminar. His blog is Ideajoy.

Blogger's HTML was buggy on my old template. So I got a new one.

I'm not sure I could be any more apathetic about life right now. And this is the worst possible time for such a swing. I would ask someone to light a fire under my ass if I thought it would effect the chemicals in my brain. I'm going to start self-medicating. It's time to double the anti-depressants and the ADD meds. I'm not going to let my brain fuck up my life again without trying to fight it!

test test

"So it goes."
- Kurt Vonnegut

That's how I feel. ...I'll get there.

First: Cornerstone Fest was great; amazing in some ways, highly memorable in all. I have stories to tell, concerts to rate. I'll get to it soon. I'm sorry I didn't post as soon as we got back on Monday (like anyone was worried), but I needed the dulling, sweet, comfort of this house (my parent's house) to cushion the post-Cornerstone depression, which was rather strong this year.

Moving on.
Heather is very sick with a cold.

Tomorrow we drive back to Arkansas, where I have to perform, representing Fayetteville, in a team Slam against the other Arkansas teams, at 8:00 pm. God help me.

And, Heather and my dad sat down to work out finances and establish a budget. They came to me with the bottom line. And we are really, really, REALLY screwed. We will probably be living in my parent's basement by December.

If I cannot find a job at $7.5o/hour and 25 Hrs/Week minimum, by mid-August, then this will happen.
The type of job cannot matter. It is my misery that fuels our survival.
The odds of finding such a job in my region (with my wife and I forced to rely on one car, and my meager skill level and poor job history) are not good.
Yet, this is my task.
(You know, my Father, Mother, Wife, and Sister all have "job fields" and corresponding "callings." I have niether. So this is starting to get more and more difficult to take.)

("Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans."
-Thomas La Mance)


Did I earn this? Is this God's will? . . . What does it fucking matter? So God takes my friends from me. So I have to live encumbered and surrounded, for who knows how many months, by those I have most greatly failed. So fucking what! As if anything can stop the tide of my own life, which I have dragged Heather into, inevitably crashing down on the shore and breaking into nothingness. My will and my strength spread thin until it recedes into obscurity. My desires and dreams meaningless in the face of this chemical monolith. And my writing is shit, too.

Aside from "our daily bread" and the forgiveness of our sins, Christ's only request, as far as I know, in regard to his own desires, in prayer to his Father, was . . ."take this cup from my hands."

And God said, "No."



I have to get up in four hours and drive.

So it goes.