"i'd like to check you for ticks." ???

lyrics to a song i just heard on the radio.



endearing i suppose, but not really the pick-up line i'm dying to hear.



please refrain from suggesting this when you see me.



k? thanks.

the worst kind of alone

just like everything that's in my head and my heart right now, i put myself here. into the complete aloneness. i have to be here right now, i have to figure out what to do next and how to fix what's broken, what's wrong. for the first time in my entire life, i'm choosing not to repeatedly discuss over and over with each and every one of you what i'm dealing with. instead, i'm closing you all off, shutting down until i can figure out what i should do, what i should say.

i'm fine. i'll be fine. because i have to be fine. i don't allow myself another choice. i'll make something work that will fix this and maybe i'll tell you about it one day but i probably won't.

for the record, my health is fine (knock on wood), no one has died and i still have my job.

i've been out and about, but only with people who don't know me well enough to ask questions. when you ask me how i am, i tear up and tell you i won't talk about it - they don't ask, they don't know to ask. i prefer it that way.

i'm perfecting the art of blending in, of being silent. when alone in my car (where i was a lot the past few days) i've even learned to sing quietly. i used to sing at the top of my lungs.

this weekend i had the opportunity to forget for a moment, but when i closed my eyes to sleep it all came back to me.

the only one i can count on is myself. i got myself in and i'll get myself out.

can i please come home?

or better yet...can i please stay home?

barely a week back from my last trip to LV and this week brought me down to LA. overall, a successful trip to la la, but some unfinished work has me so antsy i can hardly stand it.

found out late last week, i'll need to take a major trip in june after all - one i had hoped to get out of. i was out of it, until an unexpected turn of events put me back in. it's all the work that needs to go into the prep for that trip, combined with some personal issues, that has me in a funk and so anxious i'm worthless. i'm sitting in the la airport now jiggling my foot as if i were taking some lucky child on the best horsey ride ever. no such luck.

speaking of luck, i guess it's my good fortune to not only get to travel in june, but also in july. so far it's looking like the only month i won't travel this year is september, but c'mon it's a bit early to try to make those kinds of committments, no?

when i'm away from portland, i'm always really anxious about having to go back. i always think i don't belong there and get hungry for something else. and then i come back and sometimes there are people and friends and co-workers and whatnot who are glad to see me and they make me think maybe i'll be okay. but then i have to remember to remind them i'm there...

ugh! can i come home?

an owen meany moment...

i think i know how i'm going to die. i can't tell you the number of times the scenario has played itself out in my mind over the last few weeks. every saturday and sunday i run many miles on the city streets of portland. and, every week at one point or another i envision my run in with a car. when it happened again yesterday, i actually thought it through and considered that perhaps this is why i am at the junction that i am at in my life.

either that or i've been watching waaayyyy too much Six Feet Under, it's hard to say really.


ps - if you haven't read it, please do.