Thoughts.

Well here we are. Rather, here I am, speaking to myself in some weirded-out form of the plural to sound more erudite. I'm a bit of a mess today and would like to journal down some thoughts and feelings. Life is good overall, however I am battling a combination of fatigue, loneliness, and perhaps chemical withdrawal. Good time to write.

My thoughts are running crazy. I find random memories hitting me, evoking an image of icicles sporadically detaching from late-winter thawing gutters at unexpected moments and smashing (some rather significantly, some not so much) to the ground below. Never knowing when or from what cause each stalactite chose to take flight. Some thoughts, in real-time:

1. Trampolines in summertime. Laying on my back, dressed in an aqua-blue ribbed tank top and board shorts of poor taste, feeling/smelling/damn-near-tasting the heat reflecting the hard Nevada sun off the black nylon surface and drilling into/onto my senses. I am somewhere around twelve years old, sporting a flattop with a six-inch rattail in the back and also sporting a sizable gap in my top teeth. I am mastering the front flip, front flip with full twist, back flip, then the back flip with a half twist... then trying the double back and nearly killing myself and deciding to call it good. I can see the linear, sweeping pattern the sprinkler makes, passing back and forth underneath the canvas; and I can see the instantaneous layer of precipitation formed a few inches above this canvas given a hard, quick jump to displace it downward – an immediate layer of atomized water, like catching a rainstorm in freeze frame. I see myself doing this over and over again. I see the emerald green clumps and strands of crested wheat underneath the trampoline, growing tall enough to brush the underside thanks to the partial shade and copious (otherwise unseasonal) amounts of water. I feel them touch my feet when the trampoline displaces downward.

2. I see hunting trips, particularly the last time I hunted with my father and his father; the three of us tracking deer and bunking in a fifth-wheel trailer that, ironically, my father would later call home the final few months of his unraveling marriage with my mother. It had faded letters across the front and sides denoting the model, something along the lines of Golden Eagle. I smell the stale and strangely comforting blend of particle wood, polyurethane foam cushions, and dust-covered packages of dated sandwich cookies; but also the sickening, gravy-thick offense of cigarettes; my bed positioned me about fifteen inches from the ceiling and my father and grandfather chain-smoked without regard to this fact. I remember not wanting to say anything, trying to be one of the dudes and not ruin the moment. This trip was also the first time I had a New York steak; my dad must have made a comment at the store regarding it being a great steak to grill, 'specially for the money; for years I thought (hell I still think, I guess) this to be true. I remember shooting my first deer, actually blowing the right rear leg off as the buck sprinted up and away on the hillside across from us. Rear leg flapping and finally detaching in full three-legged sprint. I remember my dad learning that, for some reason, I had chosen not to wear my contact lenses that day. I remember feeling bad when we tracked, killed, and gutted the deer; staring into his eyes and whispering an apology in my mind. I did not want to say anything out loud about this, either.

3. I remember the first “epic” mountain bike ride I went on, tagging along with cohort Mark Murphy on a six-hour ride through the valley and up into the Ruby Mountain range. We overestimated our abilities and underestimated the distance. We drank from streams for the final three hours of the ride and should have gotten sick, but we didn't. We cut through ranchers' property and in our fatigue ended up with some barbwire lacerations. At the midway point I remember Mark pulled out the lunch he had packed for both of us – sardines, anchovies, some form of crackers, and some jelly beans. We sat on a huge rock overlooking a brook and ate our lunch, noting that everything around us was radically skewed to the right in the wheel of primary colors; all yellow, oranges, reds, no blues or purples. Mark told me about the different tastes of the various flavors of Powerbait (fishing bait), and how the glitter sticks between your teeth. I miss Mark.

4. I see myself squatting in a fort Jason D. and I fashioned from sage brush, oak and aspen limbs, located in a grove of trees between holes One and Eighteen of the Spring Creek Golf Course. I remember feeling so tucked away and unnoticed, comfortable, making plans and dragging provisions there one backpack load at a time in preparation to stay a night or week if so desired. I remember squatting in the 'main room' of this fort and hearing the rain fall, smelling the pungent stab of wet sage, and wondering whether it was time to pedal my Invader BMX bike back to my real home.

Yeah, so... where are all these coming from? If my brain where a laptop, I would ALT+CTRL+DELETE and check out the task manager, killing all of the idling processes that seem to run automatically on system start-up... always running, always running, taking up any slack in processing capabilities. Such slack is nonexistent right now, so these memories feel viral and malignant. I am tired, and also detoxing from anti-depressants. Both facts are interrelated.

I left Santa Rosa at 5:30 a.m. Monday, driving two hours to Fremont, California to begin a four-day training seminar in Abaqus FEA software. In a nutshell, the training is necessary for my job (heck, I even volunteered for it) but four-days away from Lauren and Emma is a substantial challenge. L and I are doing exceptionally well in our relationship, mostly due to a break-through conversation (after several, several frustrating/paralyzing/dead-end marathon conversations) the week prior. Nice change. I feel like we are finally able to enjoy this California experience for what it is... an adventure. So not such a great time to leave, right when L and I are really clicking. On top of that Emma has been out of sorts for nearly two weeks' time; her last round of immunizations coincided not-so-suspiciously with a serious fever and general crankiness... throw in the fact that she's cutting two molars and one incisor and you have a pretty volatile fifteen-month-old girl.

Knowing Emma is a handful right now adds to my personal pressure, being away from home for the full week. Fremont is just far enough away that I opted to rent a hotel room. What a miserable place to have to squat for an extended period.... it is marginally better than San Jose or Santa Clara, but shares the same infinite soulless strings of industrial parks, strip malls, and freeways. On day two, I realized that I'd forgotten my Zoloft back in Santa Rosa.

I started taking 50 mg of Zoloft per day sometime back in December of last year. Things had reached a point where my anxiety and nerves were wrecking my life and marriage. I began seeing a psychiatrist once a week and, for the most part, have maintained this 1x per week routine for the past nine months. The therapy has been incredible, and the uber-low dosage of Zoloft has been enough to take the edge off, helping me slow down auto-destruct anxiety loops that can wreck my days. I have no desire to stop taking it yet, especially not cold-turkey. Even at the low-dosage I felt nauseous and spacey for a few days back in December when I started. Lauren was going to come visit me in Fremont on Wednesday, but considering my class was running from 8:00 to 5:45 each day, Emma's sleep/eat schedule and the soulless nature of the Bay Area, we decided this was not a good idea. Hence Lauren was not able to bring down the meds. Wasn't a big deal for the first few days.

Things have gotten progressively worse. By Thursday morning I was feeling extremely nauseous and floaty, digestion out of wack and in general just a freaking mess. I looked terrible, eyes all sunken in and lids heavy. Friday was worse and now, Saturday, I have come to expect an ever-present feeling of low-blood-sugar. That is the best way I can describe it. Being feint, floating. “But wait”, you ask, “I thought training was only through Thursday!?” Ah, that is correct, but my boss needed me to attend a critical design freeze/review meeting in Minneapolis on Friday. I left training early on Thursday, hopped an evening flight to Minneapolis, cabbed it to my hotel then ate some lobby food and fell into bed around 1:30a.m. Woke up the next day, cabbed it to the office, then attended (and presented part of) a 6-hour meeting. All the while feeling like my face was floating off my skull.

The unfortunate news is that, when I make it back home, I probably get to re-tox from this de-tox and feel poopy for another few days before my head comes back down from the clouds. As I said, I have no desire to stop taking Zoloft yet. I hate feeling dependent on something but it's not about that; it's about quality of life and stopping myself from sabotaging myself. Yesterday and today especially I can feel my brain latching on to anxiety points just like the old days and it scares me. So that's where I stand.

I am on a plane. Actually, it is worth mentioning that I (for the first time in my life) am riding up in first class with the big kids. I can tell you, it's nice but it's not twice-the-price-nice; I just happened to luck out and get bumped up do to frequent flier status and seat availability. If it makes you feel any better, the coffee is still shitty, whether you're in the front or the back of the bus. This very moment we are flying over Yosemite, the canyon sporting El Capitan is extremely discernible from this altitude. That also means we're only a few minutes from beginning the descent so I'll cut this off. To end it, then, here are a few more random sputterings from my junkie brain:

1. I am wearing my Doc Marten boots, the very same pair I bought back in 1996 while on vacation in Texas. Averaging what I calculate as three wearings per week for the last fifteen years, I have officially spent more time in contact with them than any other thing or person in my life. Lauren gives me flack about this, yet she should feel comforted to see me take such ridiculous anal-retentive care of the things I value.

2. Crap, nevermind, descending now... literally and figuratively.

-Calvin