Yesterday, as I was editing the previous post, I went there - to that place.  You know the place I go - the bad place.  I went, as I always do, just to have a peek.  Something different happened this time and I think God came in on this one.  This has actually happened before.  What happened was that I felt an incredible sense of repulsion about what I was doing.  So I left. I went back to editing the post but then the compulsion returned and I went back to that bad place.

I went back but could not do it.  The repulsive feeling displaced the pleasure I normally get out of such an activity. Okay God, I guess that's what I'm talking about when I am asking for you to remove the obsession.  I mean we aren't talking rocket science here!

Okay, Okayo kayo kay, I'm sorry,  I am sure there is probably more to it than I can see.  I guess when the obsession is lifted or when the pleasure I get out of it is removed - then what?  I imagine I am left with the underlying feelings which I do not want to or can not deal with.

Life carries on in the people I meet.

in everyone that's out on the street

in all the dogs and cats

in the flies and rats

in rod and rust

in the ashes and the dust 

It's hard to move on - still loving what's gone.

Flim, Avril 14th, Alberto Balsam, and On were right before Wendy.  I was living in Kachina at the time.  I forget the guy's name.  It was Owain,  he turned me on to Aphex Twin.

She (Ronda) stepped through the portal before me.  She was in the process of stepping through or rather it looked like she was in the process stepping through, when I jumped.  I jumped on November 22, 2005.  To be honest, I don't know if she ever jumped.  In actuality, I only saw her preparing to step through; I never actually saw her take that step.

Unwittingly I had jumped over the edge,  stepped off the cliff, walked through the portal, whatever you want to call it.  I say unwittingly because I didn't know I was doing it at the time.  I think from the view point of an "on looker" it looked like a man going crazy, having a  nervous breakdown, or loosing touch with reality.  As I look back on it now, I was having one massive temper tantrum.  When a two year old has a temper tantrum, it is usually in a crib or high chair.  There is a lot of noise, food may be thrown, dishes flung across the kitchen and most likely the dishes are plastic and the cup is of the "sippy" variety.  When a 41 going on 42 year old man throws a temper tantrum it's an entirely different animal altogether.  Lots of people can end up dead.  We read about it in the papers, see it on the evening news; it happens frequently.  Certainly my temper tantrum endangered me and without thinking it endangered the lives of my three children.  As result, I spent almost 48 hours in a psychiatric hospital.  I went in throwing the most massive temper tantrum of my life; I left with a determination I had not experienced since my first days in college when I was afraid of failing out.

Over and over, the first four minutes of side one of Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield and the words Constancy of Purpose.  I would set out every morning to go to work and set the disk back to the beginning of track one.  Every four minutes.  When it got to four minutes without even looking or thinking my finger would automatically go to the CD player and press the back arrow button.  Constancy of purpose!  I've got to get this.  I've got to get this down.  Come on Andy.  Lets get this down! .  .  . Now!

All the way into work.  Constancy of purpose and every four minutes, back arrow button on the CD player.  You have got to change!  You have got to change!  Go to the fucking meetings.  Just go to the Goddamn meetings!  Anything not to think about how fucking,.  .  . how absolutely fucking alone I was!

Work was nothing more than a place to go to occupy my mind for eight or so miserable fucking hours.  Anything to take my mind off the pain of being so fucking all alone!  Just look straight ahead and keep moving.  Find every resource you can.

At work I had detailing to do.  That is I had to make the working drawings for the machined parts for the piece of equipment I was designing at the time.  I remember listening to the song "I Grieve" by Peter Gabriel during this time.  Once again, repetitively, but not from the beginning.  I would listen to it once all the way through and then when the song was just about to end I would listen to it from 4 minutes and 45 seconds to the end.

Life carries on

in the people i meet

in everyone that's out on the street

in all the dogs and cats

in the flies and rats

in the rot and the rust

in the ashes and the dust

life carries on and on and on and on

life carries on and on and on

it’s just the car that we ride in

the home we reside in

the face that we hide in

the way we are tied in

life carries on and on and on and on

life carries on and on and on

did i dream this belief?

or did i believe this dream?

now i can find relief

i grieve

I did grieve.

I did detail drawings for about four weeks from November 28th right on through Christmas.  This was fairly mindless work.  Compared to design work it did not require a whole lot of thought so I could bury myself in music while working.  As long as the music was on and I was detailing nothing could get into my mind yet at the same time the music allowed me to feel what was going on.  The music, "I Grieve" expressed the incredible loss I was going through at the time.

All is well for the most part.  My blood pressure has been creeping up over the years and it is probably getting time to do something about it.  I have been riding my bike into work (about a 10 mile ride one way). This does not seem to be helping though.  I think I am going to have to start taking a pill for it. My mom had a problem with high blood pressure so I am kind of sensitive to it.

I had a cornea transplant in 2005 and for some reason it is starting to reject.  Actually, I know the reason.  I was supposed to be putting a drop of anti-rejection stuff (Pred Forte) in my eye once every other week. I kinda forgot for about 3 years.  So I am putting the drops back in and some other stuff and it appears to be on the mend.  I just can't use a contact in that eye for a while. Doing something as trite as putting one eyedrop in once everyother week takes more discipline than one would think.

The kids are doing great.  Alex is a skateboard fanatic and is becoming a guitar fanatic as well.  He is playing songs I wished I could play at his age.  He is not bashful about singing either which I think is really cool.  Adam, is collecting scrap metal and selling it to the scrap metal dealer down in Denver.  All the kids kind of follow what Alex does so Adam went out and bought an electric guitar and amp.  He told me, "Yeah, I had some extra money I did not know what to do with so I bought a guitar and amplifier this weekend."  Rodney is in third grade and is doing well.  He follows what his brothers do so I don't really have any interesting stories here but he is very concerned that I live near "volcanoes" and wants me to vacate the area as soon as I can.  Flagstaff is located in what was a highly volcanic area about a thousand years ago.  I told him the volcanoes were not active.  This piece of information did not have any impact.