"Another night, it's going to be a long one." (The Eagles). JP just woke up and got a drink of orange juice, he's peeing and going back to bed. I'm up. I am not tired at all. The pills don't help. Maybe the wine didn't help, but it did while I drank it.

We shared some things. We talked about jail, about the cops, about the futility of restraining orders (both of us unjustifiably have them against us). I am so sick of people treating me like I am some raving animal who cannot be reasoned with. My neighbor downstairs called the cops on me for having my stereo too high, at 8:30 on a Saturday night, without ever once coming to talk to me. She's left me notes, complained to the manager, but finally when I met her she just whined that she was too conflict avoidanct to face me. How am I supposed to know? I took the speakers off the floor, and turned off the bass boost,suchh as it is.

But music is the only therapy we have that works now. JP has his metal collection and both us listen to Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC, Metallica, Judas Priest, Nirvana, and love them. it's the only music that begins to touch the pain we feel right now. Nothing else can begin to express this anguish.

I walk around with shards of glass in my heart and so does he. His father abandoned him as a child, and when he did seek him out out of some misplaced Christian need for redemption, abandoned him again for the last time at 18, telling him that if he were starving he could care less. What kind of asshole piece of shit father seeks out his son just to tell him that?
That is the curse he carries with him, that his father abaondoned and then heartlessly rejected him, those kinds of wounds last a lifetime.

Mine is my parent's divorce and the games they played over me as a child, the pawn in their game. The twisted loyalties, that have left me scarred, damaged goods. No wonder I've never been married or had children, I refuse to pass on the damage.

Unless we decide we really will have a child. I'm 46, I'm close to menopause, I only have a couple more years of fertility. I won't have unprotected sex, but Father, thy will, not mine. Thy will be done.

It is so hard to get to sleep. I sleep sporadiczlly. It's been 4 weeks since I got out of Harborvview, and they gave me the Olanzapine, which I've stopped taking, that kept me awake and gave me those horrible restless legs and twisting and turning sleepless nights. I was up all night, on the couch, in the bed, on the floor, trying to get comfortable. and nothing would work.

I've tried alochol, and I have slept every other night. I finally went out and got pot. I had to. I needed to get really, really stoned and have two shots of Wild Turkey to get some sleep.

So, I "self-medicated", so shoot me. It's not the first time, and it's not as bad as the doctors made me think it was, because believe me, the Olanzapine, the Ziprazidone and the Trileptil and alcohol have not killed me yet.

And JP is taking Vicodin and Seroquel, the Vicodin is for the back injury. I am not a pill junkie, thank God, I don't try to get scrips for pills. The irony is that I have tried so hard to stay off pills, and the doctors keep pushing them on me. I have to take them and now the ones I'm taking won't even put me to sleep.

that's okay, I'll let JP sleep. He needs his sleep, after all we've been through.The things we've been through I can't even begin to describe and no one would understand if they hadn't been there. Let him sleep. It's the least I can do for him.

Calculated risk. Why do those words resonate with me? Life is a risk. I never took the easy chances. Why should I start now? Do I like things on the edge? I guess I must, because it seems to work out that way. Life is not easy, no one ever said it was. but it is an adventure, if you do it right. I am here with JP, and I feel fear and anxiety, but I am alive. I feel like I matter to him, to someone. That is what I miss.

How do you prevent someone from wanting to die? I can't stop someone from commmitting suicide if they really want to die, but what can I say to someone who says his life is so horrible he wants to die? JP has very little in his life, only SSDI, only $650 a month, which is not enough to rent anything on, or to live, he can't get back into school, the only thing he loves, all jobs seem meaningless and mundane, and he has no one. What do I say to someone who wants to die?

There are two men in my life, and I don't want to let go of either one of them. I didn't plan or choose this situation, it "just happened'. I've been living with MG for almost 3 years. Over Christmas, we separated, at a great emotional cost to me. I have been very upset about this.

While I was in an in-patient psych ward, of all places, I met someone else. Soneone who does not have anywhere else to go. I've let him stay at my apartment since january 3, and against all advice, of course, it is not what anyhone would recommend. but JP is a unique individual. He's here on my couch, listening to heavy metal. He's introduced me to playhing poker, heavy metal and good cigars. We've shared quite a lot.

I have cried and prayed, and I am to the point where I may have to let MG go. Whatever happens happens. Inshallah as the Muslims say, God's will, not mine.

I made a decision this week to go for graduate school. I've been researching graduate programs in Counseling Psychology in the state of Washington. There are many great private schools in the Seattle area: Pacific Lutheran, Seattle University, Antioch, etc., but Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, the state agency which would pay for my tuition as a disabled person, insists that they will only pay for state schools, which seems fair enough.

I have been looking at outreach programs from state schools around the state, but I finally nailed down the program that I would most want: the University of Washington's Ed. Psych. program, which has both a Masters and PhD. program. I don't currently want to get a doctorate, but that could change as I get more comfortable with being back in school, it's been 25 years since I got my BA, so academia feels strange, and it has many quirks, I don't like, like the Political Correctness crap that gets in the way of my version of truth and reality.

However, I'd have to deal with PC people anyway, since they are so unfortunately numerous. I cannot stand the fact that one must walk on eggshells to avoid giving offense to people whom are not even the persons supposedly offended. The PC police watch over the oppressed, but in reality could not give two shits about the people they are supposedly protecting. I know. I am one of those people, the oppressed and I have been most vigorously oppressed by my supposed protectors who work such short hours as social workers, etc. and in reality could not give a rat's ass if I'm homeless, dead under a bridge, or starving. Fuck them.

I am going back to school to become one of them, and I can kick ass as a social worker or counselor or therapist, because I am one of the disabled they so love to embrace but rarely serve with any alacrity or effectiveness. I can be good.

Bel, I think you know what I'm talking about, and Avant-Garde, I know you do.

I have made a decision about my life: I want to go back to graduate school. I was up late last night, pacing, trying to decide whether I wanted to attempt to go back to work in the legal field as a paralegal, or become a counselor/therapist. I can get the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, the Washington state jobs agency, to pay for a state (public) graduate school. It can't be a private school, of which there are many in Seattle, and it will be a search finding the right program, based in Western Washington (Bellingham), Eastern Washington (Cheney, Washington), or Central Washington (I am not where which city that is based in).

I decided against being a paralegal, although the money is damned good and no need for credentials or schooling, anymore than the experience that I already have the old law firm, but I cannot stand game players, liars and manipulators, and lawyers by defintion are all three. I'd kill the next SOB who tried to play me for a fool or a bimbo, I swear to God, so better to stay away from law.

I've been told that those schools have online/outreach programs where I can do my coursework either online or in classrooms in Seattle, and never have to travel to the home school. I hope that's true, because it would be a hike to get Bellingham or Cheney from Seattle, too many miles. Bellingham is almost to the Canadian border, I spent a weekend in Bellingham once, but that's a long story. I was trying to get to Canada, but the Canadians turned me back at the border for getting belligerent with the customs official for being rude. I ddidn't like her tone and she didn't like mine, so I ended up getting off the bus, before they could haul me in to one of their little rooms for questioning and started walking back to Bellingham, a Statie picked me up and gave me a ride (nice guy).

I stayed the weekend in a Bed & Breakfast.That's all I know of Bellingham, except that with the Vietnam war, some draft resistors ended up there, but no one asks those kinds of questions.

Anyway, back to the school question. I am looking up programs today online, and calling Tracy Wilson, the DVR counselor, who closed my file last March, but told me to reapply when my brain, memory and concentration were more functional, up to the tasks of graduate school, which will be a challenge.

Mania and depression take their toll on my nerves, my ability to be functional, right now after December, I am very fragile, not able to coope with much stress, and not able to focus or read for long periods of time, hopefully that will change by September. I will hope and pray for that.

Here I sit at the C&P, at the Mission Table, listening, observing as usual. I am sharing a table with a woman with a baby in a rocking baby carrier and two dogs. She hasn't looked up or said "Boo" to me. But I'm used to that.

Beside me, are three people, a man and two women. The man and one woman, from what I overhear, appear to be visiting one woman, who has a well-behaved shepherd, who howled when a siren went by.

I had a hard night last night, not sleeping well. I have not been sleeping well at all for a week. I don't think the Olanzepine is working well for me. I told Sharon, my nurse, yesterday about the symptoms and she called the doctor, my psychiatrist, and he said to cut back, but this not sleeping is getting old.

John, my guest, is not sleeping well either, and I'm afraid I'm keeping him awake as well. We are not happy about this. John is staying another two weeks, until his money arrives. We are just kind of in limbo. He is very angry in general, about yuppies, so he would not like this place, he doesn't.

John is 6'4", shaved head, he looks angry, not many men mess with him. Sadly, he doesn't get many women, either, which tends to make him even angrier.

All four people in my vicinity, the visiting couple and their host with a dog, and the woman with two dogs and a baby have left. What a relief, but rather suddenly lonely as well.

There are new faces at the Big Table, the long Mission-style table at the C & P today. Madeleine is Latin American, she plays violin here periodically with her group Correo Aereo, which means "Air Mail" in Spanish. She hosts lively groups of musicisans and dancers here and other restaurants throughout the city.

She played Keep Away with a tennis ball with Addy, Cameron's (the wife and co-owner, with her husband, and the "C" in C & P), Australian Heeler, who is usually very aloof, but she loves Madeleine and greets her with yelps of joy every time she comes in.

I played a little with Addy myself, who also has a passion for gloves, and if you let her, will take them right off your hands, with little nips on the fingers, careful not hurt, but determined to get those gloves and run away with them, teasing just a little to get you to follow her.

I discovered that when George, the barista, told me why she was nipping at my gloved fingers.

So, i bring in my grungiest, oldest pairs of gloves. Once I donated a pair, but they disappeared quickly.

I have to call about the phone bill, it's been keeping me awake nights, but if I have to choose between the phone and food, and apparently i do, then I choose food every time.

John is still staying with me, because he has no place else to go, we need to find him a place. I meant to call about that, but right now the phone is dead, not because of the bill, but the cordless phone itself just died. Oh, well, if it's not one thing, it's six others. Sigh.

I was not the one who broke the discovery of C&P Coffee Company to the local press. The Sunday Seattle Times/Post-Intelligencer ran a piece on conserving historic sites, and they included the CP. However, I still need to put together a piece on them for the Post-Intelligencer editor.
So, here are my rough notes: I go to the CP every day, sometimes I take my laptop, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I journal longhand, but not as often, since I've gotten used to the speed of a keypad.

I join Julian, Charlie, Carl, Eric, and Eric's wife, Daisy and Charlie's wife, Heather. I'm a man's woman. I like guys. I prefer the company of most men to that of most women. Note, I said "most" Bel. Bel, you are an exception to every rule. You are a stud. I mean that affectionately. Same with you, Dave. You are no poofter or pansy yourself.

PatB, as well. I include in that distinguished company. Avant-Garde, in the unlikely event, you are reading, likewise. You are occasionally condescening, but I figure you've earned the right to be. So, here's to my fellow blogiteers. Studs all of us.