Blush Tells a Story About Meeting A Yeti

To: Professor I--

From: Blush

Regarding: The Treasure of the Himalayas

To my friend Professor I--,

You have on several occasions enquired as to the details of my second, more dangerous adventure in the Himalayas, the incident involving a certain high mountain monastery and some rather nasty characters whom I had identified to you as raiders or robbers. I have penned -- or more properly, typed -- this letter to elaborate and offer to you the narrative of this harrowing adventure as best I might remember it.

You will recall that my time in the Himalayan Mountains was nearly twenty years ago, when I was but sixteen years old. I summered there in the local vicinity of Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world, with my good friend and future benefactor the young Baron Strudelweiss. He was a charming, blonde German, educated in America. We had met at school and become fast friends due to our shared interest in exploring the wild and unconquered corners of the globe. It was this same kindred delight for adventures in the unknown that led us to embark for Tibet, to climb Mount Everest.

While Strudel, as I called him, managed to meet the summit in triumph, for myself it was not meant to be. As I have related to you, my attempt at the conquest of earth’s crown was brought to ruin by natural disaster, followed fast by unnatural intervention!

On that adventure I was accompanied by the bravest and most capable of Sherpa guides, Nawang and Pasang. These were men of uncommon stamina, capable of uncanny endurance. As is their custom, we raced up the early ascent, took a day of rest, and then in the higher climb, where the atmosphere grew thin and the air does not nourish the lungs we made much slower and steadier progress, climbing for periods of one minute followed by a half-minute of rest. While my adventurous spirit chafed at this, my better wisdom kept me from complaint.

In any event, what hurry was there? Pasang and Nawang were excellent company, and behind me was Strudel, who chose to make his expedition in the height of luxury, lugging his entire entourage, carriage, and five-star kit up the mountain with no less than a hundred Sherpas! Every stage of his journey was caviar and omelette chefs, exotic juices and fine linens. I doubt that he had the grand campfire chats that Pasang, Nawang and I enjoyed! I have always found more joy in the heartfelt company of a few, even in simple, rugged circumstance, than in the banquets and gala balls of the Baronet Strudel’s society.

So, my two guides and I were alone on the grand slopes of Everest. Every day was an arduous test of will and physical limitations, and every night was a jovial brotherhood between Pasang, Nawang, and I. We drank strong yak-milk tea mixed with fat or butter and chewed dried lamp, sharing stories. Along with informative cautionary tales about other climbers they had accompanied or heard of, the two Sherpas had a wealth of Tibetan folk tales at their disposal, tales of the Bald Man, the Crafty Juggler, Yugpacan the Brahman, and many more. Most frightening of these tales, however, were of the mysterious Yeti, the ghosts of the mountain slopes: huge, hairy, and fierce, but also said to hold much wisdom and magic, but also to herald calamity and ill-luck.

Upon the slopes of the world’s highest mountain the nights are long and cold, and the stars seem more distant there, for all that the sky is clear and we might be just a mile or two closer to them. In the longest of those nights, men might hear the wailing cry of some unknown animal -- a howling snow leopard, or perhaps one of the rare white bears that roam the Himalayas. Even around the bright warmth of the fire, a feeling of safety is shattered by these wilderness cries. It was on such a long and frigid night that I heard the cry of the Yeti, and just as the legend had said, that mournful, inhuman howl brought disaster upon us.

The fire was dying, and the moon had set behind the hazy Himalayan peaks that ringed round us. Pasang and Nawang had seemed uneasy all night. Hoping to lift their spirits, I asked them jokingly if their reticence was out of fear of rousing the Yeti. Rather than a jocular laugh the two exchanged furtive, worried glances, and soon turned in for a restless sleep. Their disquietude distracted me to sleeplessness, and besides, something in their eyes at the mention of the Yeti held fast in my mind, and despite myself I could not dispel a kind of superstitious dread creeping like a fog along those snowy, lightless slopes.

I watched the embers burn down slowly, thinking my own dire thoughts, when the frozen air was rent by a scream. Such a sound! I had never heard it’s like before nor since! Like the roar of a lion, the bellow of a gorilla, but more than this was an almost human quality, a loneliness and a rage, and it rang so it seemed to be coming from the mountains themselves. My mind, affected still by the anxieties of my sleeping comrades, immediately conjured a picture of the Yeti, a fearsome half-human primate coated in dingy white fur, fanged and red-eyed, gigantic clawed hands all too man-like at the end of huge apeish arms; in my deranged fancy I even smelt just a whiff of an abominable stench upon the air.

Yet, there were only moments to spare for such immaterial dangers, for hard upon that horrendous scream came a sound more terrifying and all too recognizable -- the earthquake rumbling and tidal-wave rush of an avalanche!

Like a wall of whiteness it crashed over our small camp, and for a time I knew no more. I could not say how long I lay insensate upon the snow, but when I woke, it was into a nightmare that all mountain climbers -- most especially those of the Himalayas -- fear more than anything.

Of our camp there was nothing. I could see that we had been carried some distance down the mountain, but I only saw a broken tent pole poking through the snow. I called hoarsely for Pasang and Nawang, desperate to find them. I knew that in such a catastrophe it was imperative to reach survivors under the snow as quickly as possible, before they succumbed to cold, or worse, suffocation!

My calls were of no avail, but soon my vision soon cleared, adjusting to the dazzling snows, and I saw that, like me, Pasang had been only lightly buried in the tumult. I dug him out and fed him some brandy from my hip flask to revive him. I told him in my poor Tibetan dialect that I could not find Nawang, and to my great excitement Pasang gestured weakly toward the same area where I had found him, saying, “There… Near…” in the best English he could muster.

Like a wild thing I dove into the snow, flailing, sending handfuls and armloads of snow into the air. Each second was desperation, and I gave no thought to my own exertion, my breaths coming in great clouds from my mouth and nostrils, my lungs burning, and sweat beading on my brow despite the cold.

My efforts were rewarded when my shoveling uncovered the thick woolen coat of Nawang. A gusty laugh, half-mad with relief, tumbled from my throat as I pulled him free. He was barely breathing and his leg was broken, but he was alive! I gave him a sip of brandy and he returned painfully to awareness. The survival of these two men was yet another testament to the indomitable constitution of the Sherpas.

The three of us celebrated our survival as we might, with relieved laughter and prayers of thanks, but the desperate nature of our predicament was not lost on us. We quickly devised a plan.

It was clear that Nawang must find help, so it was decided that Pasang, by all measures a better mountaineer than I, should carry our comrade to safety. Without me to look after, they could make base camp before the next sunrise. Meanwhile, I would salvage what supplies I could, and dependent upon the stores I could gather, would stay and wait or attempt descent, as was prudent. It seems mad now, but I was reluctant to give up my attempt at the peak, very top of the world, and my friends now knew that my determination would stop at nothing short of certain death. They were men of action and courage, and did not argue nor hesitate. A hasty litter was rigged from scavenged wood and canvas, and soon my two guides were away back down the mountain, leaving me to sift through the wreckage of our camp.

It was a long day of digging and disappointment in the snow, but by sunset I had managed to uncover our supplies. Thanks be to God, the bulk of them were laid out in a near straight line, and though the tents were destroyed, I found a bedroll, a small supply of coals, and food enough to sustain me for a few days.

So, I pitched a shoddy camp and did what I could for my spirits. The brandy helped with the cold, and I sang songs such as I knew to pass the time. After the avalanche, my mind was in a much sharpened state, but my body was exhausted, and so by a gleaming little mound of coals I fell into a fitful sleep, prepared to make the decision in the morning to retreat down the mountain in all possible haste. My thoughts had become practical in my lonesome place, and I knew that even with these few supplies, another avalanche could destroy me.

As you know, Professor, I never got the chance!

I gained no rest from that sleep; I dreamed more of the Yeti, and woke many times. At last, seeing that sleep was impossible, I rose in the new-moon darkness and was just setting to rekindling the coals when there came, again, that monstrous howl which had preceded the avalanche, with the singular difference that the sound was now much, much nearer, and the abominable stench was no mere fancy!

In the night, the snows were a featureless sloping plain. I had no weapons, and my eyes could discern nothing. Some animal instinct, however, inspired me to track the scent that assaulted me. The overwhelming musky stink was wafting from the higher slopes, growing stronger. I could soon hear a regular crunch and smash of something huge and heavy bounding through the snow.

Well did the Sherpas name this monster the Ghost of the Mountains, for before my eyes could glean its shape from the snowy blankness it was upon me! My first glimpse of the creature was of a massive clawed hand, like a human’s, but coated all over the back with coarse, thick white hair, the naked palm as large as my chest. With a grip like iron the impossible thing took me, and before I had even the sense to scream the incredible stench of the thing overtook me. I lost consciousness.

I think it was the stench that woke me.

I saw straight off that I was in a cave, but the stench was so powerful that I could hardly see for my eyes watering. The night, lit only by the distant stars and reflecting snow, was as dark as ever seen on that mountain, but the cave was yet darker. The impenetrable gloom was permeated by the smell, and some radiating warmth warned me that the thing was near. Carefully, I tried to rise, to gaze about and find my bearings, but no sooner had I made the attempt than I was arrested, shoved back down and curled tightly into the crook of a mighty, hairy white arm!

I was being snuggled!

Like a child with a teddy bear, the Abominable Snow Man had me cuddled tightly against its side. It grumbled a sleepy displeasure at my motion, and so I became still. I felt its stony ribs, like the structure of a galleon, expanding with even snow breaths next to me.

My God! The smell of it! I will never forget, much as I might wish to!

Still, as the night wore on, I was lulled, partially the exhaustion of a body several times shocked and pushed to nervous collapse, and the sheer warmth of the beast. I slipped off into sleep.

I dreamed again, this time of the Yeti and I sharing a pleasant life together, the best of friends! We cleaned the cave, we sledded down the slopes of Everest, knitted scarves from his fur, and laughed together, just as my Sherpa guides and I had. I taught the Yeti how to make fire, and he taught me how to move soundlessly over the snows. In this dream he taught me much of the ghost world of the Himalayas, of the secret hollows and caves where warmth came from deep with the earth, and of the hidden monasteries where his kind received gifts and offerings of food, silk, and cord from silent monks. After a timeless age of happiness together, the Yeti showed me, at the last, the secret way to Shangri-La, the mystical land within the Inner Earth, where the Enlightened live forever and milk and honey flow.

It was the kind of dream a man remembers for all his days. Indeed, even now, as I write this, I need only close my eyes to live it all again.
I awoke precisely where the thing had taken me, upon the slopes of the mountain. I cannot say how long I slept, only that it was dawn when I woke, and the slanting rays of daylight showed me Pasang, leading a rescue party. I was much relieved, and we were soon celebrating our reunion, even as I wondered how to explain what I could only call an extraordinarily vivid dream of the Yeti.
Our good spirit was destined to be all too brief, but for that night, all was well again, and I feared no more the quiet, snowy slopes or the high, starlit crags...

2014 and I still can't sleep.

I would like to believe that my thoughts have value. To some degree I have to believe this.
I cannot sleep because I am thinking about someone who died recently, a good man who was probably ready to go. He was that kind of guy. I can't think of any time that he was not prepared.
A kind, competent man.
Not sure how his widow is taking it. We don't talk much even when we have the chance to do so, or I guess I might say we don't say much even when we do talk. For my own part, I'm not good with death. I never know what to say.
This one time, a friend of mine posted to facebook that his mother had passed away. I waited so long to say something, even just like 'Hey, condolences on your mother's passing' or something stupid, anything I guess, that it became awkward and then I ended up never saying anything about it.
In that case I can safely say that the FB was not really the appropriate venue. Nothing profound or meaningful is ever uttered on facebook; profound and meaningful utterances go there to be remanded to the dust from whence they came.
This time I sent tentative text messages, but even then... I dunno.
I am bad with these types of losses because not only do I not know what to say, I don't even really know what to think or believe about what just happened. I try to restrict myself to the world, what they did here, what they meant to the people still in it, what we are like now that they are not part of it anymore. Practicalities. In that sense the only real practicality is time -- every instance of loss must remind us of the practicality of time. It ends for some, goes on for others, but on the next level up (or down, it might be) the truth about time, simple though it is, is very heavy indeed. It's almost too big to fit inside a human.
Certainly bodies can't take it; they give out, break down, squirt tears, feel pain somewhere in the middle when the loss is heavy enough. When I felt it, or feel it, for surely it will happen again, it was like a tiny black hole inside. Not in like, the emo sense, in the science sense, like I'd eaten a piece of super-dense matter, something so heavy that it was collapsing upon itself and taking me with it. Broken in two from the inside and annihilated.
But of course, we make it fit. Our nature is altered to allow for something so much heavier than ourselves to be contained within us. The very fact that your body can feel something that isn't there is profound. It's the first clue.
What happens is that you turn out to be more than just this fleshy tube that takes food in at one end. I might say become more, but I think it was always thus. It's more realization than evolution. There's the second clue.
It was always been there. You haven't learned to deal with it, or live with it, or process it; you remembered that it is a part of life, a part of everything, a part of you.
So, in the end, nothing was altered but your awareness, and awareness, if you think about it for a second, can only change in one way. It only expands. You can't un-remember a thing, and you can only pretend to no longer be aware of something of which you have become conscious.
Typically, there is expressed in these situations the notion that a person lives on, in some sense, in our hearts. The effect they have had on us and our lives makes their existence meaningful, our memory of them makes them alive, or at least as alive as we are, or I suppose as alive as the part of them that is us, and the part of us that is them, continues. This is my third clue.
Those words about living on within those still living are more than just comfort. There's a great truth there, even larger than death or time or even awareness, and certainly larger than my ability to express it. It's simple to say that we are all one and the same, one thing, one thingness, one doing, the singular happening, but what the fuck, that doesn't really mean shit. Especially when there's an emptiness inside of you that feels larger than your whole being.
And yet, the truth is that nothing is larger than your whole being. Nothing is truly separate from your whole being. A religious man might say that we suffer on earth because of rebellion against god, that our pain is merely separation from the eternal. Death, then, is an invitation to cease this separation.
That's not explaining it very well either, though all I'm trying to get at here is that death is not the end. It's the beginning of something new, or maybe there's another clue, and its less something new starting than it is a kind of remembering. A return that the many little deaths we endure in life are preparing us for.

I'm glad I wrote all this here, instead of trying to legitimately explain this to someone in pain. Tell someone burdened with grief that its okay that person died, that they're part of something greater now, that they are not limited anymore, that they are free of the vessel that held their awareness in check, that they were prepared for this by the life and the body that they had, even if it came to them in the penultimate moment or even the very last breath. Tell them to their face that this is fine and all part of the plan, that an infinite intelligent consciousness of which you and I are only forgetful fragments, destined to reunite, has called a wandering soul home. See how comforted they are.
It is neither the time nor the goddam place, but this is what I think about when people die.
Somehow in my shitty brain, death itself is the proof of immortality.

It's a little bit backward, now that I see my line of thinking all laid out.

More trivia

Ten followers now?
Seriously, who is reading this?

Well, whoever you are, I hope you're enjoying it, for what it's worth.
Just about three months ago I started talking about my new job.
It's going pretty well. Very interesting puzzle, my new job, its like bistro math, a mix of all kinds of math, language, technique, motives, personalities, human nature, psychology, spiritism, bushido, nerves, nerve, ulcer medicine, cold medicine, perhaps once or twice an unwarranted use of pharmaceutical aid, public speaking, mentalism, the physics of luck, socialism, a little bit of pedagogy, international relations, and I could go on and on acting like the entire universe is boiled into my three hours of work a night.
Truthfully, though, I have put a lot into it, and there's no guarantee yet how well it will pay off. I have tried to pass on some important information about the world along with grammar, reading comprehension, and tips for writing essays on demand, a skill which will only come up in standardized tests.
When was the last time anyone asked you to write a goddam essay about a random quote from Emerson in 45 mintues?
Fucking never, was the last time in your adult life that you were forced, for no apparent reason, to write an essay in a limited time.
Not to downplay it. No one anywhere likes reading memos, but maybe if they were written better, with a good intro and maybe a joke or insightful quote, with a structure and organization that made them easy to digest and pleasant to read, perhaps even some human relatability, whole days could be made more pleasant.
Then again, what do I know about memos? I doubt that shit even happens anymore. WTF even goes on in an office? Hardly anyone I know has an office job. Not here in the fuckin wild west anyway. Back home, yeah, sure, offices all around. My office job friends are now far, far away.
Ah, no time for that now. See how my mind wanders?
At any rate, the new job is going pretty well. I have lots of job drama to talk about, and when people talk about their work, I can too! and I'm not driving a cab! or a janitor!

I really feel like I should like, I dunno, smoke some weed or take a shot or something. I have the day to myself, and there's some chores to do, laundry and shit, but its all the type of stuff that takes more time to think about and procrastinate over than to actually do. It'll take all of six minutes to put filthy clothes in a hamper, carry them to the basement, throw them in the machine, push the buttons, hear the chimes, and walk away. Then what? I'll probably think of something to do that will take an hour.
Video games can take an hour. It will probably be that. But, really, I'm sick of all my games. I had a moment and fired up my old Steam account and it turns out I have like, a hundred goddam games on there. So I started playing them. The thrills they offer are short lived.
Although, a special mark for Bioshock and its sequel. I'm on Bioshock 2 now, and man is it a good game. I just can't sit and play it for more than an hour or so. Man is it good, though. Goddam underwater city. Wish I'd thought of that...
Then again, I guess they didn't even think of that.

I don't have anything to say in particular, I am just clearing cobwebs. As I have often said, I do this on this particular forum because it is low pressure but I'm not just whistling in the dark. Someone is listening. or reading. That makes all the difference.
I had someone very nice and very special explain to me that all I needed was a subject. I think that is right.
The fact that I can go on for so long and with such care over nonsense is a sure sign that I'm just dying for something proper to talk about. A proper subject.
I don't have anything good tho.
I guess I should start with something shitty and hope it just like, morphs into something proper over time.
Shit, all of this is boring. I should just delete it.
Nope, nope, not now, no time. I'm going to leave this boring drivel up for whoever cares. Someone does... more people than before, against all odds... so strange...
Seriously, who the fuck is reading this shit?
No, no, don't answer.

I was just telling Kate today that I haven't taken my writing seriously in years and years. I have made stuttering attempts but I haven't really invested myself into it, not like I used to. I told her that back then it was like, this huge effort to get some validation for my existence. Now I don't really feel like I need that all the time. I'm sort of a worthy human being just doing anything at all, but now I'm actually doing something slightly positive, there is even less drive.
Still, void creeps on me. Something sucks away all sense of accomplishment or meaning and leaves me drained and helpless and sad and what is that all about? Where does the sudden nothingness come from?
Something, clearly, is still missing.
Something important.
Could it be the elusive subject?

God, even that feels trivial.
And I know trivial, brother. Just now, I had to stand up for a minute because my foot was asleep. As I stood, I reached for the coffee I bought this morning at the Whole Foods (where my girlfriend suggested we go to get coffee as I was taking her home... she wanted orange juice, and feels like it is better there, but I wanted coffee and she liked that idea and we killed all the birds with the one stone) but the shits was empty, which was disappointing, and combined with my numb foot that was now tingling elicited a small vocalization of this disappointment ('ehrm' is sort of the sound I make to express such small disappointments) and then, my cat jumped to the window. It was closed then (as it is now) because it's cold and heaven forfend I endure such a discomfort as inclement temperature. So I let the cat in, which let the cold in, but I conceded this perturbance on account of the cat, who is a magnificent beast just edging into the primacy of his adulthood while retaining his kittenish charm. His turbulent teenage years have passed and we have settled into a comfortable routine, he and I, where our mutual affection for one another is expressed by my lifting him up. Like a goddam baby.
And there, as I was holding my cat (Cat Man, I call him) and telling him how special he was (which is just a kind of projection, see, its just what I want someone to say to me) I realized that all of this woe is me bullshit is just that. Look at me, so crucially disappointed with the minutia of my comforts thwarted by time and space; coffee cups are not truly bottomless, winter must follow summer, and here is poor Blush with his creative frustrations and a hole in his life that is so goddam comfortable he can walk around with forty extra pounds and make such critical life choices with his pretty girlfriend as where to find the freshest organic orange juice and also get a cup of coffee at the same time.
Goddam nonsense.

You know, the question is always about happiness, but maybe someone should ask about unhappiness. Like wtf is unhappiness anyway?
Why is all of this so dissatisfying?
I am content with my life, but not myself, and why is that? Genes? Is that nature? Or did we build that around ourselves for some reason? Does that wanting and feeling of lack serve a purpose?
Now I'm conspiratorially minded, like someone has arranged this cage of desires to trap us, a cage for the heart, a prison of the mind to keep the soul from selecting freedom among all these choices of coffee, orange juice, and subjects about which to write.
Who could do such a thing?
Is it me?
You?

I bet it was you. Seems like something YOU would do...
Whoever you are.

-blush

Today I overslept.
My alarm was set for a reasonable time and I told it to fuck itself three times.
The first time, it was clearly pointless to be awake at 7am; I leave this alarm in place because I want that to be my habitual wake up time. Just not today.
7am because it leaves five hours til noon, and typically anything worth doing is about a four hour endeavor and I need an hour to get my shit together when I wake up. Also, 7 is a lucky number.
Not today, though.
Today, 7am was round one. Round two was 8. By 8, I had entered a consistent hypnogogia and was not ready to exit.
This is my consistent problem.
Entering the hypnogogic state prior to sleep is less exciting to me, and I've had some trouble doing it of late. Yesterday I spent most of the day in a chair and my back was sore and I had some twinges, so very early, like 10pm, I hit up a muscle relaxer, took a bunch of vitamins and hit the hay early... which ended up being 12:20. Still, this is early enough to wake up comfortably at 7am. So I put on some self-hypnosis audio from the interwebs and went to bed. I only woke up once, around 2am, before the 7am target. I considered this a win.
The drugs, however, made my trip through the lovely place between awake and sleep a short one.
So, in the morning, when I was back there, only going the other way, from sleep to awake, I lingered. I do this a lot. It's a bad habit. I do it especially when there's something pressing on my mind, typically school work or the constant thrum of all that interesting stuff I never write. I hang out between dream and consciousness for hours, drifting in and out of sleep, grasping at the messages coming through. Sometimes it works, I can snatch a piece of brilliance, a mote of insight that makes the day worthwhile and gives me something good to think about.
Today it kind of didn't. Little was gained by my malingering.
Finally after 9 I sort of gave up, dragged myself out of bed around 10:30, feeling like a failure right out of the gate. Oh well. There's too much to do today to stay in that headspace.
So, why blog about it? Dunno. Procrastinating I guess. Had to type. Last week was long, busy, and bore its fruits on the weekend, which was excellent but only about 1/3 as productive as I needed it to be. I blame WoW.
Still, I ticked almost everything off of the list of shit to do: homework, groceries, call mother, get Cliff's RV to where it lives near Stead, sort out the oil pressure problem in my car, and repair relationship with Kate.
That last was sort of a high priority. High priority items go last on my list, because I like to give them full concentration, and nothing confirms a high priority item quite like bumping shit off your to-do list so you have time for the last, most important thing. (vacuuming, laundry, replace air filter, sort camping gear, clean bathroom, renew insurance, find doctor, and find my kindle all got bumped for relationship repair... just have to squeeze them in some time this week I guess)
Right now, I'm at lesson plans, which haunt the realm of half-finished assignments. Never quite sure and usually end up winging it. I have to fill eight goddam hours, and while I'm planning it always feels like too much, then when I'm actually doing it, it never seems like enough.
I think I decided to type because I read something really nice about Burning Man, and my intention was to write down something awesome that I said to someone while I was there, and the incredible response to it, but now, now I feel like I don't want to.

For a minute there I was about to butcher a parable, but I'll just say it.
What happened to me out there was incredible, quiet incredible, secret incredible, but a very credible sort of incredible. A very realistic sort of incredible. Grounded incredible, ordinary everyday incredible. Incredible that matters to me right now, and in every situation.
It was a lot of things that added up to a lot of other things and have a lot to contribute to the one big thing, and if you read what I just wrote, you understand now that I still can't quite talk about it.
I have been trying in fits and starts to get it out, express it, but I'm just not there yet.
Maybe next year...

Okay, now I really need to get to work. This wasn't quite enough to warrant the effort, but I checked on the old online diary and saw that someone had read, or at least looked, at the last post, and I didn't want to leave them hanging.
So, whoever you are, if you read the last one it was, admittedly, a bit fatalistic, but everything worked out fine. Well, let me restate that. It didn't just work out. I worked it out. I fixed the problem.
Which has made room for so many new issues.
Anyhow, I hope you're having a good day, and that you had more luck with your alarm than I did.

Your pal,
Blush

So I've got a new job.
I am teaching.
I'm not sure I'm any good at it, but who's good at their job after two weeks?
Almost no one, I hope.
Back in school too. Two steps forward, one step back.
My girlfriend is still with me. I feel compelled to write because I just got a text from her about how if I don't give up the D she will have to go elsewhere.
She went by herself to a Jane's Addiction concert. I don't think it's a good band, so I didn't go, but when I found out she was going alone I felt bad. Apparently, it was a super rad show, and now she's really horny and where am I?
I am tired, at home, after a night of failing to reach a bunch of underachievers at the Jr. College with my HP Lovecraft assignment; I have a paper to write and a class in the morning, both of which are more work than they really ought to be.
I am not complaining.
Maybe a little.
But the thing is, this is a thing that we need to work out. The sex life we have is, well, if I'm going to be honest (and by all means, let us be honest with one another) not that great. She has little interest unless it is to say that her needs are not being met. She's a tough nut to crack, by which I mean it is hard to make her come, but aside from that, she's very blunt about the whole business. There isn't much in the way of romance, and this is not always to my taste.
I enjoy things like foreplay, a slow buildup, some goddam romance. She seems to be able to take it or leave it, until such a time as she decides that I am not performing my manly duties often enough.
I really don't know how to play it. I have a hard time interpreting her lack of interest and 'lets just get this over with' attitude towards the act of lovemaking with her need for it that rears up in these moments where she's drunk and raging for dick.
So the text I get tonight is about how I've shown little interest and if that doesn't change she's going to go elsewhere. Well, then. Six hours ago we were talking about moving in together. Now we need to see other people.
So... so so so....
I don't have time to deal with it. I guess I have been pretty busy. I have a lot to worry over at present. Been home from the desert for what seems like just a few days, tho it's been a week, and I will admit there is a slightly harder than normal adjustment this time. Much happened in the desert that I must process still, and really I haven't had a lot of time to myself. A little time for myself is all I really want, and well, I guess we should be careful what we wish for.
I have a harder time trying to face the possibility of life without her. This relationship means a lot to me, she means even more to me. I would sacrifice the relationship to make her happy, sure I would. But I also know that there is no one else for me. No one else.
Maybe that's dramatic. Yet, really, who else? Who else is right for me? Maybe, like so many others, I have served the purpose in her life that I was meant to and she must move on.
Maybe it isn't about you, Blush. Maybe it never is.
Remember that time, Blush, when you saw everything, when you were one with everything, when it was so clear to you? Do you? Really?
Kind of. I remember it being very simple, a simple feeling. Like floating, like there was no resistance between me and the earth or the air, no distance between me and the sky, no difference between myself or anything else. It was brief, but that's hard to say, because there was no time.
So maybe you really do live to serve. Maybe you really are that still, and this, this that you think you are, this that thinks of his personal development, and how important the relationship he's in has been for his growth as a person, how much of his life is predicated by the presence of this woman, maybe this, this, this is the mask, this is a farce, this is a put on, a bright yellow safety jacket so everyone can see and find you.
Maybe what you really are is far from this and lending you a persona to make your part more convincing.
So here you are again, half past midnight, nowhere near an answer, shit to do tonight and places to be in the morning, and the best you can do is not hold anyone back.
Maybe she's better now, and doesn't need you anymore. You aren't enough anymore (again).
But I love her. I love her so much. I've had tears over how much I love her. I've never laughed so much with any single human being. Never been so happy. Who gives a shit about sex?
I guess everyone.
Us, I guess.
Shit.

Dear Diary,

Dear Diary,
I have to make this quick because I have some things on my plate today.
I must begin preparing myself to assist a group of people in improving their writing, and the more I think about it, the more I find myself cowardly quailing at the thought.
(Quailing, now, there's a funny word. I think that's all about fluttering away in a flitter on account of your fear, like quails do when they're spotted. You hear them flapping to safety more than you see them doing it; more properly, however, the verb implies a kind of shrinking back with fear, cowering from something, whereas quail, in my admittedly limited experience, flap away at great speed, though I don't think I've ever seen one fly... do quail fly?......Yes, they can fly. TY Google.)
See, the more I think about it the less of I can really identify myself with the craft. I don't feel like a writer. I haven't written anything in such a while, and honestly the last long essay test I took I scored a B. Not exactly a shining endorsement.
Mind you, it's not like I'm trying to train even adequate writers to perfect their craft. I need to get people who really struggle to put together coherent, readable, passable essays. Still, I have a hard time explaining grammar to myself, even these few short lines are full of errors, like technical errors.
It's the same story as ever, I guess. Blush has doubts. I tend to bury my anxieties under mundane hobbies and time-killing activities, but whenever expectations of me arise I get sleepless nights and indigestion and I worry, insanely, not about the act itself but about myself. It's like an incredibly negative, self-hating sort of navel gazing, just growling at my bellybutton lint and grumbling about what a fat bastard I am.
What must I do to prove to myself that I am capable?
I suppose the only way is to do. Do whatever it is that has me so scared, that seems so difficult.
I haven't finished anything in so long. That's the trouble here. Little things, sure, but no one liked them, or didn't like them enough. I have to pick a piece of garbage and just run with it until its done.
I think I've had this talk with myself before. Probably here.

Speaking of here... views peaked at 17 last month, which is unusual, because I haven't written anything here since January. I guess someone enjoys my crippling bouts of self-doubt and feeble attempts to talk myself into doing something worth a damn.
Well, good on them I suppose.
The last entry was pretty boring. I don't know, I don't like to read them again.
I got an email from my old, old, old Delphiforums account. Apparently they do friending now, and someone wanted to be my friend after reading the profile I wrote in 1999. My, but was something. How very clever I was. I may have to pop my head in from time to time, check on my old forums.
That's where I used to do all my online roleplaying. RP for the ages in that old joint. We destroyed planets, killed gods, works of wonder and majesty typically through outlandish battles and twenty page forum posts. Insanity. A lot of it reads like the diary of a madman, or like the work of Henry Darger. There is romance, danger, craziness, deep melodrama, huge battles. It's actually kind of epic.
It's also kind of silly, but it was crazy fun to write, and I think that comes through to some degree.

See, here's another thing. We watched the season finale of Game of Thrones and I'm sort of getting sick of it while everyone else is getting more and more into it. They are starting to gush and my complaints grow keener. The guy who read the books told me like, the whole story, and its a little bit better than what ends up on the tv show, obviously, but if I may say so, killing off characters that you've become invested in is a good gimmick but ultimately kind of a waste I think. It almost feels lazy. Like if Tolstoy had just killed off Pierre or Andrei halfway through. With like, diarrhea or something. So instead of Andrei's dramatic end, he just dies shitting himself because of his poor decision a thousand pages ago to eat an old sandwich. It's not the best example but I'm sticking to it. I felt less like, shock and sadness than I did just disappointment.
I guess GoT just ain't my favorite tone of fantasy. Or maybe its just sour grapes, who knows...
Probably sour grapes if I'm being honest, but I say my reproach stands.

In the Tale of Genji, people you get to like die unexpectedly, despicable people abound, the main character does wicked things that make you a little sick, but still, these things don't come across gimmicky, to wake you up after a thousand pages of characters who all blend together, overlong descriptions of corporeal violence, monologues spiced with foul language, naked bewbage and descriptions of people's clothes. Nope, old Genji is on a journey. It's the journey of a womanizing prince in feudal Japan, so like, it's not exactly the same vein, but still.

Of course, the EPIC is not really my cup of tea anyhow, so maybe I just don't get it. When I finished Wheel of Time I was satisfied, but more relieved. There were a lot of problems with that series too, and I think that is inevitable when you are making a book 20,000 pages long. You are bound to screw something up, long stretches of it are going to suck, and some climaxes are going to be not so climactic.
I like my fantasy a little more manageable. I've been reading Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. Been through four books of Fafhrd and Mouser stories and they rarely get old. Two archetypal characters on splendid and varied adventures and I can get what I need out of it in fifty pages, rather than two hundred. I guess that's more my speed.
But I don't make any money writing anything so what do I know?

This has gone one for way too long, and I haven't contributed anything valuable to the world. I need to do something now.
Bye Diary.

Reaction

I was awoken just a little bit too early this morning by an uncomfortable sensation in my... well my everywhere. My epidermis. All of it.
Everything itched. In particular my hands were writhing and tingling with the sort of itch that you can't ignore.
After sleep scratching for a long time I finally saw that the sun was way up and I was awake enough to be curious what the hell was wrong with my hands.
Hives. Lots and lots of them.
I stumbled, staring at my hands, towards the bathroom to perform some morning ablutions and I'll be damned if I am not covered in hives head to foot.
I am a mass of allergic reaction to something.
A roving itch has blotted out all other sensations, and my does it roam, to the most uncomfortable and disagreeable of places. It itches-- inside.
This may be the end.

This is pretty damned horrible. On the third day of the year, I started one of these body cleansing routines. It's a good way to start the year off, but of course this comes with a certain amount of discomfort. I won't go into it, but its bad and worse now. What could be causing such a reaction? I'm eating too many goddam pills to really solve that mystery. I ate some antihistamine, but then, I ate some antihistamine before I went to sleep last night and I woke up covered in goddam hives.

Waking up covered in hives is akin to like, finding out you're a werewolf or that you're turning into a half human, half insect hybrid, like Goldblum in the 80's remake of The Fly. It starts small, just your eyebrows, then your lashes, then fingernails and shit start to fall off, next thing you know you're peeling off eyelids and losing teeth wondering what the fuck happened to your life.
This is how I feel about these hives. I was fine a few days ago, then I saw one, two little bumps, then what seemed a weird rash on my belly, now goddam hives all over my hands, arms, elbows, face, chest, well goddammit they are everywhere.
It's a disaster.
So, as is the case in any disaster, I have turned to the vast metaphysical overbrain of the internet to help me. Whenever I am frustrated by or afraid of something, I do research. I learn about it. I will either discover how to overcome it, or the problem's underlying cause (also leading to a solution) or I will discover that my dilemma or discomfort is truly unsolvable, an act of God, a law of nature unbreachable and it can be left there at that.
In this instance the internet tells me little. Hives are caused by histamine releasing plasma from blood vessels which then swells in little itchy motherfuckers all over the skin.
Apparently there is a thing called Aquagenic urticaria. In short, and allergy to water. You break out into hives whenever you expose yourself to water, particularly hot water.
Well, perhaps. I have been indulging in longer showers while visiting here in the south. Back home, we only get about ten minutes of hot water, because my landlord is a goddam sadist and has like a twenty gallon hot water tank. Here, the hot water lasts for much longer. I can luxuriate in a dreamlike state for nearly forty minutes if I'm not in a hurry. But I tend not to stick around that long unless I'm trying to masturbate or space out for some span of time.
However, I think if I was allergic to water, that condition would have been apparent a long time ago now.
Also possible this is an autoimmune response to exposure to cold or flu. Night before last I had dinner with three people and a baby, and all the adults were complaining of colds and also complaining on the baby's behalf.
Also, apparently, tomatoes can cause hives. Raw tomatoes. Who knew? I have been eating raw tomatoes lately. Trying to keep my diet simple as possible on this cleanse. Last thing you need while trying to rooter out the inworks is some complicated input. So, like, raw vegetables are ideal. But if the tradeoff is hives? You can keep it, jack.

Oh well. I am left with a painful, itchy mystery. Just because I am going to blame my disease ridden friends and their infectious child.
I'm only writing this down in case I go into shock and shit swells up and my throat closes and I die, here, in this room full of boxes of my old stuff. Burn me with all of it.
-blush