June 2004 Archives

Well, Friday my sister and her fiancee were married, and I helped. I performed the ceremony, and we had a great time. They really are in love, and it's readily apparent. It helped me reflect on my own marriage, and how much I love Julie. We went away this weekend, and spent time just hanging out, making love, eating yummy food together, and geeking out about creative writing. We had adventures up the coast, hiking trails, and even went to see the Art Deco exhibit together. She really is my favorite adventuring partner, and I really miss her sometimes when we both get caught up in the day-to-day of our lives. Thank god for the ability to take a little breather every once and a while and getting a perspective.

Before I left to my conference, my ATARI 2600 came in the mail -- I thought I was getting a six-switch, because that's what the picture showed, but it ended up being a four-switch, with a busted reset switch, some booty joysticks, a broken set of paddles, and a crappy RF switch. I'm negotiating with the seller on how to make ammends on this one. Hopefully he's sending me out a new RF, a new joystick and a new set of paddles. At the end of the day, I'll have the cool party activity, but right now I'm less than satisifed.

I've spent today in sessions at the conference, and then spent a good couple hours twisting my mind around a hard conceptual problem, and though I came up with a good solution (with really excellent help), my brain is in pain. I need a drink.

I am having a moment of love for my honey -- today is our 9 year anniversary, and sadly I can't share it with her since I'm in Vancouver. But here is my shout-out to my lifelong companion and the best woman I know. Thank you for being my friend, my support, my inspiration, and my playmate. I can't wait to see you again tomorrow night.

I can't read blogs, or sites, or anything. Fuck.

I'm up in Vancouver, BC and it's a beautiful and balmy mid-seventies. The sun sets at around 10:30pm and is up by 4am. I didn't sleep well last night, but I still enjoyed waking up to the sun. I'm here on business, at a conference for New Media -- whatever that means :). It's very thought-provoking and I'm meeting all sorts of interesting folks. I am currently in the middle of a 'reading deprivation' assignment for my Artist's Way class, and it's proving to be very difficult, since I'm surrounded by reading materials. Do emails count?

I've decided to postpone talking to my dad or writing the letter to him until AFTER Brandi's wedding -- I need to focus on finishing (read: starting) her wedding ceremony, and I need to channel happy good thoughts, not bad angsty thoughts. I miss Julie and Eli, but am managing. My head is full of all sorts of things, and I don't have the time or capacity to write them all down. In about 20 minutes is a big 'GALA' dinner, whatever that means. Crap, that means I have to get ready and go.

I had a personal ephiphany this weekend that when we deal with our issues in life, the objective is not to solve them and put them behind us, because that isn't possible in many cases. We are bound to our life issues throughout our life, and they often will come back to visit us. Rather, our objective is to learn to acknowledge, understand and integrate our issues so that we have control over them and their affect on us, instead of the reverse. We must accept our shortcomings and issues and turn them into assets. Realizing this is very liberating, at least for me. I am no longer guilty for falling into the same old patterns and problems that I thought I solved in my past -- these are just part of who I am. I can now recognize them, and deal with them appropriately. It's kind of like having a chronic illness for which you take regular medication. You never get rid of your asthma -- you just manage it.

It's amazing what just being in the presence of your honey can do to your mood. I know I still have issues that need working out, but just spending the day with her has been totally awesome.

By the way -- Harry Potter 3 rocks. It's the best so far, and a very good film. Good direction. Amazing direction.

I've had a pretty rough emotional ride this week, and Julie finally gets back tonight (albeit around 2am). I'm really really happy that she's coming home. I've needed her presence, and I've felt pretty lonesome and overwhelmed.

I feel like my life is in an emotional tailspin right now, and I'm having a hard time finding the controls. I honestly feel like I've lost a lot of self control, and I may need some rescuing from this place that I'm at. I'm considering starting up my therapy sessions again, especially in light of all the crap that's been happening with my dad. Ugh. It's soooo expensive, but I'm walking around with a lot of crap just bottled up and no one to really tell the whole story to, without worry of judgement or reprisal. I need a professional's help, I think. Time to pull out the ol' pocketbook again.

Sigh.

So, last night my good buddy Jason had a party out in the woods, and I think -- no, I know I took it a step too far. I got hit by several greeters, and set yes to about six shots plus other things in a span of 20 minutes. I knew I had done myself in, and there was really nothing else to do but to ride it out. I blacked out after a while, so I don't really remember much past almost falling in the lake out of the boat. I vaguely remember puking. I heard people had to take care of me, and I apologize for anyone for which I was a buzz kill. I hope at least I was amusing to watch. However, I am happy to report that I don't feel all that bad today. Thanks for helping me, and for putting up with my antics.

I've decided that this whole incident in my relationship with my father has inspired me to finally tell him all the things that I've been holding up inside for my entire life, and I'll write him a letter detailing everything. All my issues with him, all of my disappointments, all of my gripes, all of my regrets. I have been holding back and protecting him for all of my life from the harder elements of my own life. Bad things have happened to me, but I wanted to save his feelings and his world. You know what -- screw that. He should have been protecting me, and he failed. So I am going to tell him how he failed. I don't care if he hears me or not -- it will feel good to finally get it out. I just hope he reads the letter, instead of throwing it out.

Okay, so it's really horrifying when you figure out that your parents are crazy, and there's nothing you can do about it. I mean, at least it was for me. Recently my mother broke both of her feet (that is an entirely different story), but the point being -- she is laid up in a wheel chair. I went to visit her at my parents' house with my son, Eli, about 3 weeks ago, and walked into what was the trailer trash nightmare from hell. I mean, my parents have never had a clean house, as hard as my mother has tried to clean up after the maelstrom which is my father, but this place was so bad, I was looking for immediate reasons to go home, and I did not want to have my son there. He told me he had to go to the bathroom, and when I took a look at the state of theirs, I hesitated. Let's just say, I couldn't tell if it was a toilet or a botanical experment. So, I freaked out, left, and fretted for several weeks, until I decided to go clean up my parents house (with the help of my amazing wife -- she rocks the free world). This last weekend, we spent 2 of the 3 memorial days trying to create some sort of normalcy in the Archer hovel. We cleaned, we stacked, we boxed and we threw away. I say we put out an amazing effort, and when we left, the place was almost just dirty. Of course, the car parts out in front and on the porch and everywhere else was not helping the illusion, but that's for another time. The first day my dad was in shock I think, but by the second day, he was angry. Angry at me for throwing his shit away, and when I say 'shit', I don't mean 'stuff' -- I really mean shit. Shit like broken ceramics, a stereo that I broke when I was five, clothes that will never fit him, and who knows whatever phantom crazy shit he thought up. The point being -- instead of being grateful, my father now won't speak with me. My dad also drug my mom into the mix, and turned her around from being thankful, to being pissed at me and paranoid I threw away all of her things. So my parents are both lunatics. My dad needs therapy, basically, and has a retentive personality that I swear is born from his own childhood, being the son of man who moved his family all across the 48 continental united states every six months, so permanence is something that he had to acquire for himself. I guess I understand -- cleanliness is something I had to acquire for myself -- as well a sanity. so, I'm trying to not let this affect me too much, and talking to my other relatives helps. The sad thing is, as much as I would like to help them get to a normal place, they will never get there. We cleaned their house, and within a month it will go back to looking the way it did before. And now, I am sure I am cut off from being able to help them. They are crazy.