Daylight Revisited

I’ve been avoiding practically everything save bathing and eating for quite some time now. It was actually working out pretty good for me. I’d go to bed at about 1pm and wake at about seven, ignore the phone, and communicate with family only out of necessity. My dad and brother get back from work at about 5 and usually retire to their respective quarters before I even wake which gives me all night to myself.

During this solitude I was mostly watching movies as I find everything else to be rather unfulfilling. Abusing Blockbuster’s unlimited rental program I have plenty to keep my mind busy and distracted. Well what they don’t tell you is that most of these movies are terrible. I think I burned through all the quality new releases in about four days. Add on televised movies to that mix and there are all sorts of garbage to fill my mind. It’s great.

Well, actually, no it’s not. Most of these movies are predictable and try to pull at emotions with no real substance. Here’s the kicker. As of recently I’ve been getting sucked into the whole mess, which is actually round 2 for this scenario. Maybe about 5 years ago I went through this period where I was physically unable to cry. Not that I was too big a “man” to shed a tear, but rather they just would not come out. It was crazy. So then, as if from nowhere, I flipped. Every little thing would open the floodgates, and even stuff not meant to draw a tear. It could have been a promo for a football game and blamo!

Well it seems I may have stumbled my way back to that place. And good heavens what drew it out? Crappy movies. Sure a good story can make me reflect on my life and blah blah blah… but I’m getting emotional over some really pathetic things which in turn makes me feel pathetic myself. But at the same time, it’s as if the process is cleansing. The whole thing is confusing and I don’t know if I should pursue or withdraw from these emotions. I wish I would have kept track of events the last time this happened.

Now having temporarily righted my sleep schedule I find myself suffering from constant dizziness and headaches. It’s as if my body is rejecting this timetable and trying to get me back on the night shift. I now awake at about 6am fully refreshed only to fall groggy in a few hours. If I nap I know I would sleep long enough to re-establish a nocturnal state so I have to stave off sleep as long as possible. How long can this keep up? Certainly I should have been acclimated by now.

Being awake at night is also easier to cope with. Burning the nighttime hours seems much less wasteful than burning the daytime hours. Daylight makes me want to be productive and I don’t like the sound of that one bit.

All in all, this post is most likely done out of guilt for having not posted in a while. The only change is my recently acquired incapability to filter my emotions. They were sporadic before but now it’s falling into the lunacy category. I seem to like post in bunches so maybe you’ll get a double dip.

No Sleep Til…

Sleep is my nemesis. It owns me unconditionally. My biological timer has absolutely no clue as to what is happening. If by some miracle I am able to right my sleeping schedule so that I rest at night and wake in the morning, then it fails not to have it displaced again in a matter of days.

Being tired has nothing to do with anything. I do some of my best thinking when tired, which almost turns into a vicious cycle. The way I see it, my brain has multiple speeds and I change gears a bit throughout the day. Say I max out like a normal 5-speed manual. I rarely ever need to hit 5th gear and probably only even hit 4th once in a while. I maintain mostly a revved up 3rd gear. The problem lies in trying to turn the engine off for the night. Downshifting is simple enough, but it’s almost as if my brain has a separate consciousness and senses it own shut down is imminent thus auto shifting me back to a higher gear. So now I struggle to keep the gear level down and the more I thrash about mentally the higher we go. I could be seconds away from rest just to get dropped back into 2nd gear and back on my way.

Needless to say this gets old quick so I make a little deal with my brain to just idle along for a while. I’ll sit there in park slowly wasting away my fuel until there is just nothing left in the tank and the system has no choice but to shut down. Problem is that this won’t happen until about sunrise of the next day if not later. Sure I can try to ride out the next day on fumes, but I find myself in that position too often and my engine is getting worked over hard. For those of you not following at home this translates to complete drain of body, mind and soul.

Which leads me to this…

I’ve been getting this self-image recently that my body is a dried out husk. I’m the same shape, but my skin looks as if it were roasted and my insides are vacuous save for the remnants of whatever parasite was using me as a vessel. The only things left inside are the slightly tacky and hardened membranes that once connected this creature to me. This leaves me feeling completely worthless and obviously hollow.

There’s little point in eating healthy. What are all the nutrients actually going to do? There’s little point in sleeping. What’s left to recharge? And there is little point in being physically active for I would surely crumble to dust. I can only hope for my parasite to return so that I yet again have meaning.

I am at a loss as to how to interpret this one. First, I am not convinced that the parasite was malevolent. If it were then am I really better off without its presence? As I stand now I am just a husk waiting for life to find me again. At least with my parasite I was functional.

On the other had, what if the creature was actually benevolent? How long have I been like this? How long have I been pumping food and sleep and exercise into a shell? Will it ever come back? Will I recognize it if it does? Will an evil creature find me instead and what happens to me with that one?

Pulling it back around…

This is the process I go through over a simple 3-second mental image. I entertain countless thoughts over and over again. When it comes time to shut down for the day the best I can do is just idle along with these thoughts, hoping my brain doesn’t perk up a few gears via some random epiphany. No sleep on those nights for sure.

So I sit here in this rather uncomfortable chair, feeling uncomfortable in my clothes and uncomfortably tired with no real way to remedy any of it. Any position in which I rest causes me to stir. Any clothes are all too present on my body and I can feel the fabric engulf me. And no amount of fatigue can lead to rest. My actions yet again prove to be futile as I wait out another night on fumes.

Week 5 With A Bullet

The updates on Fantasy Football are getting chopped. The only league I care about is a tremendous failure and writing about the disaster is fruitless. Only notes of merit will surface here and those are looking to be few and far between. I know you’re all bummed, but I will have to ignore the public outcry on this one. It’s for the best.

Boiling Point of Soul

I had recently purchased some games from EB. They were mostly a bunch of oldies like Devil May Cry that I never got around to playing upon release. But I also picked up an eccentric niche title called Culdcept, which is mostly a cross between Magic: The Gathering and Monopoly. I hardly touched most of the others until Culdcept found its way into my PS2 and it was a very well spent 10 bucks.

That is until I figured out that this game cheats like hell…

Say you’re playing Monopoly and every time you roll you hit your enemy’s juiced properties and every time he rolls he skates by yours. You’re going to get pissed. The game isn’t even playable in those circumstances. You can’t win if he won’t land on you and especially if you keep getting funneled into his Boardwalk. Add some of the luckiest card pulls of all time and my ruling is that this game is fixed beyond belief.

Story mode was challenging and I was having fun but there’s a whole other element to the game where you can acquire medals for performing various tasks in game. Hell if they let you do so. I was so enraged during the last set of matches that I thought I was going to toss my chair into the TV. That doesn’t say much for me or the game now does it?

The game is actually enjoyable, but for what price? I’m going out of my mind here because of some stupid piece of plastic. I think my sense of Justice is so high that any deviation in it sets me off. I have to consider just laying the game down, but I want to beat every last detail of it as if some way proving I can win over fate. It’s just too much and when there’s nothing I can do to stop what’s going to happen I resort to anger. The anger fuels me until I realize what a joke I am then I walk away from the situation.

I’m still not thinking very clearly. I got very dizzy after my tirade and wasn’t certain what exactly was going on. I haven’t had an outburst like this in years and actually thought I had tamed that part of me. This recent surfacing is just as bad as it ever was and that has me very disillusioned.

Ok, let’s open this up. It’s not the game. It’s how the game mirrors life. There is no Justice in life. Ask anyone who has so much as lost a dog and they will tell you the same. So when you get funneled onto the “Boardwalk of life” time and time again you have to walk away from the game (of course, after the requisite diatribe). There’s no way to win.

Another odd little bit is that his game has no quit option anywhere. You have to manually reset the system if you want to start over. How fitting. You will lose and there isn’t even a way out. I wish I could manually reset this world. The pattern will keep repeating forever. Impossible situation is presented. Situation cannot be resolved. Unbridled anger. Self-loathing. Complete resignation. How can I break this loop? The only ticket out of here doesn’t really solve anything and would mostly likely open a whole new can of worms.

Do you hear mocking laughter too? It’s just off in the distance behind you… wait. There it is again. Run.

Gong Show Goalie

Here’s a quick soccer post for the night.

Came out to see my friends play again this Tuesday. I missed the last few so it was good to watch again. Our keeper was a no-show so we had to sub in the most willing/most athletic guy. I think his name was Chico and he looked to be good field player so I know he was biting his lip in agreeing to play goalie to begin with.

Well we come out firing and take an early 2-0 lead. Then the opposition scores on a play that I describe as “Christmas comes early.” That’s what you use when some one has such good fortune they must have just got an early Christmas gift. This joke of a shot dribbles off the back wall and bounces around about 4 bodies before it finds its way to the back of the net. Not a few moments later, riding the momentum swing, they pop another one to tie it up.

It was a bogus turn and they were quick to capitalize as they made our defense look like swiss cheese on way to a 6-4 half time lead. I really have never seen our group play so poorly. They were giving up yards of space on their marks, letting oafs dribble penetrate, and playing off on shots that should be blocked.

That’s where I come in. A handful of people decided that I should take over in net. Oddly enough I feel like the soccer ban has been lifted (click here for details) and decide to gear up… I mean take off my jeans and put on some spare warm ups. I didn’t have my shoes or a uniform or shin guards or even friggun gloves, but it’s Go Time. I take a few minutes to warm up and then the ball is in play again.

Now I’m a field player myself, and let me tell you, it’s a helluva task to ask a guy who has trained for years and years to never use his hands to then jump ship and switch to keeper. Well, I wasn’t flawless, giving up 3 in my half of play, but I think I sparked our team with some tighter D. My bro hit home a bunch more goals in the second half (8 total) and we take the thing down 12-9.

I let in a few softies, but I was aggressive as ever and it felt really good to be on the field again. I’m hopefully going to join up with an outdoor team that a few cousins are on. They are holding preliminary practices now and the timing actually feels right. It’s very little to hold on to but it feels so good to do what you do well - and not be held back. Let’s see how far I can ride this wave. You may see me in an English Premiere League yet.