The holidays went very well for the most part, though I never get what is on my list. All I ever ask for is a double -knit cashmere turtleneck in black, leather pants, and the ability to see through walls. Christmas was tolerable and I got through it although I did miss my mother terribly.
I made several resolutions for 2010, and so far I’m managing to keep them. One of them, the most important one in my humble opinion, is the completion of one of the books I’ve been working on. So far, I have been keeping up with the modest goal of 1000 words a day, writing in the morning and the evening mainly. I think I’m actually starting to relax and halfway enjoy writing the one dealing with Edmund Wilson. I know- I’m obsessed. Hell, many men are obsessed with other men of distinction, I suppose I could choose someone far worse than Wilson to worship. Actor Ed Harris is obsessed with Jackson Pollack, Stephen Fry is obsessed with Oscar Wilde. Is there anything intrinsically damaging about these obsessions? The only difference may be the lack of physical similarity to Wilson, contrasted with Harris’s resemblance to Pollack and Fry’s to Wilde. If you went strictly by physicality, I suppose that I should be obsessed with Beckett or Scott Fitzgerald, as I think that I look like kind of a hybrid of the two. I like them and respect their work, but Wilson eclipses them both. In any case, my thousand words a day regimen seems to be working, I’m accumulating very good-quality writing and it’s great to watch it pile up. I even downloaded a word counter for the Textedit program on my Mac, as it doesn’t come with one. Word counters are really priceless; I don’t know how I ever lived without one.
My second resolution was to gain weight, which I have already done- three whole pounds. I now weigh a whopping 156 lbs, which at 5 feet 11 inches is still lanky, but I like the fact that my pants don’t feel like they’re ready to slip off my body at any moment. I was starting to look like an Auschwitz prisoner there for a while, so much so that I had stopped undressing anywhere near a mirror, and would train myself not to look at myself in the vanity after a shower. Now I feel positively bulky. It must have been all that cake and chocolate during the holidays. Continue Reading »
A bit of a rainy weekend, excepting Sunday, which was glorious. The rain seems to have left the trees, in their full glory when the rains began, denuded and the sidewalks covered in leaves. I liked walks in the rain when I was married/dating but now they just seem this side of depressing. I really cannot wait for Christmas. I need the sparkle and the twinkle of the brightly lighted streets and all the beautiful colors. I’ve already made my mental Christmas lists for everyone and cannot wait to commence with my shopping excursions. I’m in a very generous mood lately. I think I’m starting to feel the mania the season usually brings with it. I’m really feeling fairly on edge lately about the upcoming season and my nerves are sort of raw. I have made peace with my ex wife and am doing helpful things for her. 
This fall has been really something where it comes to my mental health. (It has really taken a bruising!) I’m feeling the severe stress of school, where I’m always behind because of the damned photography course. (When is it EVER going to END?) I’m feeling the stress of taking my little man Ben out to new and interesting places and keeping him entertained. I’m worried about the stories I sent off to The Paris Review- are they going to accept them? I haven’t heard anything since the initial letter saying they’re retaining them for review. I’ve also lately been having some car issues that are causing me to worry. To top it all off I should probably let my loyal readers in on the rescue call I got from my severely paranoid ex-wife. My ex-wife had a problem and of course who does she call but me, knowing that I’ll actually come and rescue her, pay the bill or do whatever is needed to restore her little world to that state that passes for normalcy. She called this past Saturday from a soccer party that I thankfully had avoided being invited to. She had lost her set of keys and was locked out of her big police cruiser-sized car . (It’s a hideous-looking car.) I went to the house as she asked me to do and looked in vain for the keys. She showed up about five minutes later and helped to look for the keys which were apparently not there. (They turned out to be in her purse-locked in the car all the time.) 
For some odd reason I’m feeling decidedly unapologetic about nearly everything lately. I seem to be walking around with a chip upon my shoulder, daring providence to touch it. Maybe it’s just the unauthorized med change but lately I feel the sort of fearlessness that I used to feel in youth. I had an inkling then, even back then, after reading Brideshead Revisited at school, that I’d somehow end up like the Charles Ryder character. How does he describe himself at the end? -homeless, childless, middle-aged and loveless (?). It went something like that anyway- I misplaced the book years ago. Like him in the end, I’ve been feeling somewhat at peace with the world lately and I can’t really attribute it to any single life event. I don’t mind things I suppose, and maybe that’s the secret; stay calm-in the end it just doesn’t matter anyway. 
I had an unusual auditory hallucination today. I thought I heard my mother, several states away, calling my name. It took me aback because I had been doing so well with keeping touch with reality, or at least my little version of it. I’m beginning to wonder just what percentage of life is “real” and just what is imaginary. I suppose I’ll find out in the fulness of time. 
Spent a great Sunday with my little guy today. It seems to have made up for a lot of the bad feelings I’ve been having toward his mother. We spent most of the day at a bookstore, reading him all of the new Halloween offerings. He loves to be read to. I think we spent several hours in all. He’s a real treasure and I am in awe of how much I am learning about the power of love and it’s role in a healthy life. I worry very little about very much other than how my mental health and it’s attendant troubles impact him. I feel like I need to focus upon both recovery and cleaning up my perceptions of my ex, which need it badly. I really don’t know just who I am without the little man. 
This fall is just getting more and more confusing and unsettled. I am beginning to realize just how foolishly blind I have been to the ways of the world. This mainly is because of my apparent myopia to the treachery of my ex wife. Just what the hell was I thinking buying her flowers and giving her money? I just recently learned that early last year, just days before I was admitted to the hospital for bipolar psychosis, she had tried to have me charged with domestic abuse ! This was at a time when I was so depressed that I could barely move or even communicate. The complaint was dismissed thankfully , with the notation that there was “no reasonable cause to believe that abuse had occurred”. -But the very idea!-ME!- A sensitive writer and artist who has never struck anyone in anger ever! Absolutely amazing! (I never even raise my voice to anyone.) But the idea that she actually had the audacity to lie in order to try to get me removed from my home! It’s become crystal clear that she’s a complete liar and a schemer and I don’t know just how naive I could have been to think that she was anything but. I’m like Saul on the road to Damascus; I’m finally understanding things for what they are and it’s really heartbreaking. I really wish I hadn’t found out and remained ignorant of just how dark the heart of evil can be. I wish that I could be at peace with the world again, or at least the part of it that she occupies. I am going to do my very best to try to be civil and not let on that I have learned about this. I think it’s the best way, really. I’d like to forgive and hopefully forget. Enough about that; it makes my head hurt just to think about it. 
