Monday, December 6, 2010

Clarification Post

AIRING OUT THE MINDHOUSE

Looking over my previous entry and all the errors that it contains in every dimension of literacy is rather embarrassing. You would think that I would read it over before hitting the publish button, and I do... only sometimes. But I have found that the more personal the emotions I am writing about and the closer they are to me personally, the tougher it is for me not only write but to proofread. So her I will try again to clean up some of the mess that I feel I left behind.


Part of what is making this particular subject tough to write about is the reach it spans across. I like to think that I don’t get too involved with the details of the people and our interactions but I wonder if things are getting too close for Nebraska, now that I am here and it would not be too hard to figure out who I am either talking about or is the principal player in any 'we' activities I take part in.  So most likely I am going to be finished talking about her in these pages, save for the vaugest of ways... 'we went to a movie' or 'She took her girls out and invited me to tag along.  So when I am finished with writing out what is going from 'concept' to 'final testing', I don't think I will be mentioning her anymore.  It makes her feel uncomfortable that part of her life is being read and talked about and I though I don't agree with her, I do understand and will comply.  However if things between us as a couple or in our friendship (because right now they are still mutually exclusive) rises to a catastrophic level, all bets are off.  That is where I would want for a *disclaimer* like the one Mrs. Miss Alaineus has on her journal...  perhaps itt will make me a lot sharper a writer, I think, much like Annie Wilkes’ broken typewriter made Paul Sheldon a better writer. That constraint along with my own sense of fairness and personal beliefs should make that a very doable thing. Besides, it will be a challenge for me to deal with more face to face and to keep track of what is what some other kind of way. And it isn’t that difficult a thing for me to do. As it is, I am scoring our relationship on a pass/fail scale. And there ain’t no air in that, not much at all, is there?


WHY PONDER LIFE’S COMPLEXITIES?

'If you think you are reading about yourself in here…’, starts a line in her disclaimer that sums up the purpose of it. Now THAT is a big part of how I deal with people. Sure, yeah… my family and I don’t see our relationships the same way and my ex-wife and Mookie Dee had their own ‘get overs’ when it came to our couplings. BUT THEY PROVE THE RULE. Pete Holmes in a bit I never get tired of drops a line where he indicates the difference between himself as a powerless child as opposed to the full grown adult he is now and dealing with people who agitate him. “You,” he says, “I’ll KILL YOU” (and I like the line where he says, “No one is talking to me that way. You talk to me that way, I punch you in the heart!” near the end of his clip, cause I do have limits my limits and there are tolls to be paid when they are stretched). As it is with most of the ‘really real’ people in the world, I am not the one to be f*cked with. The cat I use for my Facebook profile is called ‘The Destroyer’ and he is a character in the Marvel Comics mythos of ‘The Mighty Thor’. His story is that he was created by Thor’s father, Odin, for an unfathomable reason. The only thing known about him is that he is an lifeless statue and once he is ‘animated’ (he needs a weak soul {Glen Beck}) to come within arms’ length so he can draw their life force so that he can ‘live’ and be alive. Reading about him (Thor was my first favorite hero; maturing had me learn to appreciate the sublime and tragic Adam Warlock and his story line a little more) as a child, along with the still-life motion cartoons that once ran on WXON, made me wish and want to be as tough and as single minded as he was. “Built by Lord Odin and equipped with the aramament to face any foe… and DESTROY him”, is one of the lines I remember from a ‘Destroyer’ story. He wasn’t ‘fancy’ when it came to what he did, only save for Thor; you were always left with the impression that he could get it done! He looked the part and you can see he had the presence that makes the sobriquet ‘The Dread Destroyer’ appropriate. The first personalized boxing robe that I had made has that name emblazoned across the back of it, because that was what I was in the ring to do… to destroy whoever was in front of me (and I had the skill set to do it too..!)


Not there weren't exceptions... my ex-wife and Mookie both were (like Steve McCroskey and his bad habits, picked a bad time to not explain this trait of mine) for different reasons, for the most part I have been able to exhibit the part of me that willingly surrenders their soul to the shell of armor, which would bring the Destroyer in me to life. Even the name of the comic in which Thor’s stories first appeared, ‘Journey Into Mystery’ has its place in the formative ideals of my life. I would ‘journey into mystery’ with the attitude that I was capable of doing what needed to be done to make my life happen.

But like the Destroyer, I have my weaknesses and vulnerabilities. If all one had to do was move ‘the shell’ of the person’s body whose life force was in the Destroyer within arms reach and for them to ‘will’ that energy back to their body to stop him, then all you had to do was bring someone who was supposedly ‘in love with’ or claim they had a love for me into my life do knock me off my stride. I have to believe that otherwise what is the use of my thinking that the people who were closest to me failed to provide support for me at very crucial times? Unfortunately, this isn’t a theory borne out of bitterness but out of examples. I have talked those scenes before and there is no need to rehash them here.

I would say that I was promised a friendship and that I was completely at ease with that. Is it possible that there could be more between us..? That is something that is left up to chance… which is not an option for me. If it were, then I would have stayed in Detroit.  Near the end of my run there, I liked the way the winds were blowing for me there.  But I wanted to be here, and it has been a good start for the most part,  with money struggles and no COLA increase, that means I am going to have to find a job! (but with low unemployment here, I don't think I will have that much trouble once I get after it)


Part of what made this move such a good thing for me is that while there are a lot of those ‘unknowns that I don’t know I don’t know’ lying around, it is not because I am inviting them into my life.  I have prepared as well as I could have and now it time to do and develop what I came here to do.


I will try to pick up from where I left off… there IS a point to all this and I want to get it out as linear as I can.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

You know, you have destroyed several stereotypical images I have always had in my mind of 'fighters'. My images were formed, mostly, through my association with Tony Zale when I was a kid. That, and the boxing lessons I took at the Roosevelt Road YMCA - from him and others, helped me form an image of pugilists as people who are, at the very least, something less than articulate.

That said - you think too much.

There has to be a certain "Go with the flow" to life and living. I can understand caution and a certain willingness to protect oneself from the hurt that can arise from affairs of the heart. But you, more than anyone I know, should know the truth of what my Gramps used to say to me: "Success is getting up once oftener than you get knocked down."

Which says to me, you have to be willing to get knocked down in order to be successful.

betty said...

I think it is good, Mark, that you are being sensitive to Nebraska's thoughts and feelings about what you write here in your journal about your friendship, etc. I know you write generally and keep her name private, but I think it is also good if someone is hesitant about what you might share, to "tone it down a bit" and write about something different.

betty

Toon said...

I agree with LceeL -- don't overthink stuff. It will prematurily age you!

Anonymous said...

Looking over my previous entry and all the errors that it contains in every dimension of literacy is rather embarrassing.

No. No. No. I LOVE that you just TYPE IT.
Nothing embarrassing about it to me. Some people rework & rework their blog entries like they think the New Yorker is going to ask them to be their next editor. That bores me quickly. It comes off sterile. You are NOT sterile.
~Mary

Ken Riches said...

I think respecting her wishes is honorable, but of course, I would expect nothing less of you :o)

Sarcastic Bastard said...

I think it's great that you are taking Nebraska's wishes and needs to heart.

I hope all is well.

Love,

SB