Recovery Weekend

Ryen was in the hospital friday and saturday. I got a call friday night from Renell that he was going to be in for observation at Kapiolani so I spent friday night and saturday there until they release him saturday night. Which means I spent most of today languishing in between sleep and knowing that I had other stuff (like lanudry) to do. Some of it got done, most of it didn't.

I was also supposed to go to a birthday/graduation thing which I didn't make it to, but at least sent a card. It's been a crazy couple of days. More when I have the energy because right now I don't, and even though I do have things I want to jot down. It's goddamn hot, goddamn humid and I'm goddamn tired. Work tomorrow. whee!

Tuesday feels like a monday

On the work front things are going well. I found devices that work the way I need them to and I found the proper configuration to get some of the devices we thought wouldn’t work to actually do the right thing. Granted it took three days of phone tag with tech support, but it works. So I’m happy. It also means that the product release is coming quickly and between that and the demos I’m working like crazy to get things into a complete state and update some of the changes in hardware that we’ve got going. So yeah, absolutely insane schedule but at least its progress. It’s nice to see something I’ve devoted this much time and energy into come to fruition

On the personal level things are okay. I’ve got a nice person to converse with during the daily bouts of insomnia and that’s a great thing. Had dinner with the ex and the kid tonight. He’s not too thrilled with the possibilities that have been presented to me in the way of different options and where they may take me, but hey, Ryen’s not really thrilled with either the changes to my life or to his mother’s. They’ve apparently set a date, albeit quite a ways out, for a wedding. Oddly, and perhaps it’s the exhaustion, I’m actually okay with it. I figured I’d be more disturbed but no, it’s alright.

Cut back some on the drinking which is good. Picked up a smoking habit which is bad. I’d like to think I have the willpower to quit but at this point there’s too much random stress to make me want to. Ah the value of chemical dependency. I’ve been totally delinquent with the writing for the podcast. I have tons of ideas and things started, but between the upcoming product rollouts and the energy devoted to that, I just can’t get myself back into the writing mode again. Hopefully when the beta’s really start to roll I’ll get back into it.

It’s been an interesting week. I’ve had a number of people I know lose people close to them in the past week. To various things. Cancer, car accidents, old age. And I found out recently that my own grandmother is sick. Not sure what to make of that. I guess at this point, I’m still kind of in day to day mode, but there’s so much other stuff to do that I don’t think I have the energy or the time to dwell on it. At some point I know it’ll hit the wall and I’m not sure how well I’ll handle that but when it does come to pass, I’ll deal with it then.

I think I’m burning out though. I feel it. I’ve still got some time and energy left. The reserve is still there, it’s just dropping little by little. I’ve wanted to write something for a while but haven’t had the energy to do so. This is the first night that I have because I cleared the evening to have dinner with Ryen.

Songs I’ve been listening to lately:
The Gambler, One Mile Down the Road, Soulless, Rewind, Life is a Highway, Slidin’ Home, The Price I Pay, Wild Horses. Why I’m writing this part I don’t really know but I think it might be interesting to track what I listen to by mood.

Alrighty, off to skim through my Adtran manual again. Whee!

what day is it?

Work is progressing though it’s been really busy lately. I put in crazy hours and I like to hope there’s an end in sight. It’s going to be getting more difficult for a little while moving forward though as I’m losing the Project Manager for our main upcoming deployment though.

Not much new on the Ryen/Renell front I guess it’s something that the whole mess has kind of stabilized, but really, I don’t feel any better about it. I’ve been listening lately to a bunch of public lectures put to audio and podcast by WGBH (the PBS Boston people that do a lot of work with things like This Old House, Antique’s Roadshow, etc.) There was one I was just listening to called On Apology done by a guy named Aaron Lazare that was pretty good. At the moment it’s shaping the way I look at the whole crap pile.

In the mean time, the kam speech people leave for nationals tomorrow morning. Or later today depending on how you look at it. Best of luck to them. Hopefully they do okay. There’s apparently some pretty big dust up going on between kam and HSL, I don’t have all the details. I’ll hold off judgment until I get a chance to talk to Walter I suppose. I’ve heard bits and pieces but I’m not sure of real impact just yet.

Sleep is, of course, evasive as always. I guess I have too many things on my head to fully let myself rest. That and it’s really fucking hot. I mean damn, I’m baking right now and I’m only in a t-shirt and boxers. It’s just too damn hot. And the noise from the AC keeps me up too. Go figure. The interesting part that I guess I knew before and have come to realize again is that when I get tired I have significantly less inhibition. I’m usually pretty reserved, but lately I’m just too tired to care about a lot of shit. Interesting really.

sometimes a dream is only a dream

I just had the oddest of dreams that actually woke me up with shortness of breath. So not only was I asleep but I was actually awakened.

In it I was crazy. Doing crazy stuff. Directed around by blue around by blue and red lights. Blue what where I should have been going. Red was where I shouldn’t have been going but where I was madly headed. Red is where she was. She was painted all in black. Like she had dyed her skin midnight black. Like a fucking ninja or something. And I kept trying to have a conversation with her, but she just wouldn’t. There two, sometimes three other people in the room sitting with her talking. They were effectively ignoring me but recognized my presence because they gave me stares that let me know I was mad. She would give me the brush off as normal.

Let’s back up. A little earlier in the dream, I had confronted her in what seemed like either a small apartment or maybe a dorm room. That ended poorly. I was trying to plead with her and getting shut out. I started getting frustrated, getting outwardly destructive. I was breaking things. I left to get something, I don’t remember what. Not a weapon, nothing like that. Something like a gift that I wanted to give to her. I don’t remember what it was, I left to get it. When I came back, she was in a different room, sitting with other people a single line of light blue, almost like a laser guiding me to a different direction, guiding me to where I should have gone. Instead I followed the line of red, guiding me to where I should not be, towards her.

As I pleaded with the woman, dyed black, I pleaded and was ignored. In the dream I felt myself getting crazy. I felt my mind ready to explode. I could feel my heart quickening, my breathing getting short. As I grew madder and madder I was shut out more and more and reacted in such a way as to go more desperate, more crazy. At the end, I neared the point where blood rage had set in, I was going to hurt someone, maybe all of them, even myself.

I know I have rage, I know I keep it hidden usually, controlled in real life. But even the dream scares me. Enough to have woken me up from the first real period of sleep I’ve had in a while. Even now, my chest is tight, I have to force deep breaths, I have to focus on slowing my heart.

Sometimes a dream is only a dream I suppose. But I rarely have them, even less so about her, and when I do dream of her, it’s usually a fantasy, a positive dream, reinforcing the hopes I once had. This though is the second times in as many months where the dreams have turned to nightmares. And pary that the dream is only that.

I’d also better be able to get back to sleep now dammit.

on apology

I listened to an interesting lecture recently that was about the power of apology. It made me realize that’s what I’ve been missing. That’s the closure I’ve been waiting for, for what is probably the last five or six years.

I’ve got a bunch of anger built up that, though I can control it, still eats away at my soul. The thing I’ve been missing is an apology. Not just an acknowledgement that there is, was a problem, but the recognition of harm. Not the acceptance that nothing can be done. Because that’s untrue. You can goddamn apologize, acknowledge the pain that you caused.

And I am by no means faultless here. I’m just as guilty of causing pain and of wanting to avoid the apology. I still am. I don’t know how to broach the subject. I don’t know how to apologize. And maybe it’s the same with her. Who knows? But I recognize now, that’s the missing piece that doesn’t let me walk away sane. That’s the part that’s keeping me from moving beyond the stage where all I do is harbor the guilt and anger. I would love to be able to dismiss it as she appears to have done. Whether or not she has, I don’t know in full honesty. It appears as though she has, but in truth, I don’t know.

I need to apologize, for harboring the pain and anger, for not pushing hard enough to get answers, for being to passive, for not showing the appreciation that I felt, when I did feel it. And at the same time, I need an apology. For the pain, for the waste of time, for the lack of caring, trying and communicating. Yet neither of us seems willing ot able to apologize. Or maybe she just feels as though she shouldn’t. or maybe she feels as though I should first. Then we would find ourselves in the same stalemate of waiting for the other person to make the first move.

It’s stupid that I’m up at 4:30 trying to think through this instead of sleeping.