dir/old_school/rant: C l e a n i n g    h o u s e

 For years before we found out the staggering numbers of people who actually do suffer from various forms of depression and imbalance, people just went with it, doing alcohol or drugs, keeping to themselves, to minimize contact.  Sometimes we just don’t cope with it and we just pack our bags and go to that place in our head that seems much more pleasant then the real thing. 

 From a societal stand point help came in the form of psychology and electro-therapy and intensely doping drugs like thorazine and other sundry chemicals meant originally with animals in mind, anything to keep the guests calm.  Recently Pharmaceutical companies have created an industry of tweaking the chemicals in our body that contribute to depression and dysfunction. The AMA and Doctors have jumped on the bandwagon, prescribing pills for every imaginable social dysfunction. 

“Depressed? Take this…”

“Hyper and scatterbrained? Take two of these, don’t mix them with liquor though.”

“Try therapy, but here is something to get you by in the meanwhile…”

Which is cool, it’s always nice to see companies that make legal drugs for us to take, whether or not we are being over prescribed or misdiagnosed, the pharmacies are full of little make you feel goods. 
 I’ve always had an aversion to chemical altering drugs in the sense of things, which you are supposed to take, which help you balance you out.  Honestly I relate with them and think they’re way cool, sometimes at night I think “Maybe I just have a minor chemical imbalance”  I think how easy it would be to get a legal medical sanctioned solution to my problems. 

 Usually though I just drink and write and stay alone if I’m out of sycnh, it’s my own therapy.  The whole thing about zoning out or even the pills is like having a little breathing room so that you can just stop and not feel so panicked by everything.  Of course there are a class of people, whether they are bi-polar or they just have biological hiccups where medication is needed to maintain a sense of balance.  I’m excluding this group. 

 For the rest of us I just think it’s good to not touch the drugs, struggle and deal with out lows and ride out our highs with a big fat grin on our faces. So there are times when all I’ll do is stay home and watch movies and cruise the net.  There are times when I’m sure I pick up a bottle just to kinda help the zoning out along, get me into the melody and yes melancholy, where I just say fuck it and don’t worry about shit.  Music is the same way for me though and my motorcycle, when I do not fear for my life is a great joy.
 Recently I just picked up my favorite passion with a relish though, hanging out and talking with people.  Whatever it takes you have to find a balance. That place in the middle where you are not tripping the circuit breakers and your mind and spirit don’t feel so crushed by it all.  That’s cool, spend all your time alone in your little cave, with your wine and pills, music and dope, but work it out and don’t forget to come out for air.  Hell 

Hang out with your friends, even when you don’t want to.  You usually enjoy it once you go out.  I don’t believe I was put here everyday to be happy.  Some days I just work and do my thing, pay the bills and go home to relax and hang out. 

2…
I used to post regularly to a newsgroup called Alt.Support.Loneliness, but the story doesn’t begin with ASL it starts with Alt.Romance.  When I originally found Dejanews.  DejaNews is a web based newsgroup reader which allow you to sort through listserves and newsgroups pretty quickly, through a hiearchial system.  It had been years since I’d posted to a newsgroup and It was a hot summer in Atlanta.  I had chosen an odd living arrangement. Cramped into a one-bedroom apartment in one of the rougher parts of Atlanta’s Midtown zone. I hunkered down with my friend Andy and our living arrangement was interesting, me living in the sun room, him in the bedroom.  We shared one small bathroom and a kitchen that never seemed to be any cooler then eighty degrees, a small window air conditioner to keep us cool. 
 At night, when the air-conditioning of my shitty Chevy Blazer would just be kicking in, we’d come to the door of the blast furnace we called home.  We would move slowly, turning on the airconditioner, sitting still and doing some serious drinking or as Andy likes to call it “Getting on the serious Alcoholism”
 Hiding out with Andy was fun, no phone, no visitors, just two strange angry, lonely guys, cramped, submarine style and drinking and watching X-Files and Homicide, Life on the Streets a lot.  Eventually the Atlanta summer-a true scorcher that year, got so bad that I didn’t ride my bike.  I didn’t hang out at my cool coffee shop.  So we got a phone.  Previously we’d both vowed to not have any outside communication with the world, except by those few people that had our mobile numbers.  Of course I caught the Internet bug and I hummed away on my power Mac, hanging out online.  Eventually I found Dejanews and found it an interesting way to do newsgroup reading as opposed to the way I did it in my previous life, with a mail box that got about six hundred messages a day. 

 I first hung out on Alt.Romance, just curious, of course, not so much looking for romance, but definitely trying to find the pulse, pick up on the rhythm of how people might attempt romance on the internet.  Personally I thought it was kinda sad and pathetic, mind you my personal love life was not flowing like the Nile, but we sometimes seek out those who are worse off then ourselves, to at least find some comfort in our station in life. 

 Interestingly enough I found myself always doling out advice to the most down and out people.  I eventually bored of Alt.Romance and stumbled across Alt. Support Loneliness, through a cross post that had hit Alt.Romance.  The people of ASL did seem much more interesting and I could feed on my feel good efforts of giving advice for days. And in all honesty the nurturing, “I feel your pain support” and sublime lurching confessions of the posters drew me in.  In some respects I came in arrogant and full of chi chi.  I thought I’d bring something new to the group, like productive and practical advice. I lurked the first few months on ASL, just to get a feel for the people and the post’s they wrote. I thought there was a significant lack of anything practical in the support structure, everyone had a hug and favorite kind poem to send.  No one had much to say that would really give people points for changing their life.   Except for maybe one gal, who occasional gave words of wisdom.   She always struck me as a listener, who really gave thought and energy to her replies and helped a lot of people out.  I don’t mean to knock anyone else or anyone’s established style. I fully admit that there were many times when the same style of support, which I scoffed at, I secretly and desperately want for myself. 

Eventually Andy and I both jumped back into society, somewhat kicking and screaming, I continued to kinda hang on a spiral, going both up and down, depressed and enthusiastic about the whole ordeal of being single and alone.  To further complicate matters I’d started dating again and while I was happy to interact with women again, I wasn’t finding what I needed in my relationships. 

There is emptiness, much of which I have skirted around in my life since the shitty death of my friend and closely followed death of my father, but to be honest I’m not sure that emptiness can be filled.  I’m incomplete and for many reasons I don’t think I can be complete without someone who I can find safety in.  Interesting when you rebuild yourself from rubble and ruins and come back this tough as nails, asskicking, name taking, assertive person.  Inside though…. Inside, for all the balance you feel, loneliness still cuts into you.  Cause for all the world I want to drop my strength and courage. I want to give up my gregarious personality and drop into the lap and arms of a woman who I trust implicitly. A woman who not only looks past my Leo roar and my cawing ways and but is the person I can lean on…. Someone, who I know will protect me from everything, put me first and be my guardian. I can’t fight every battle this alone. 

So every couple of months I peek back at ASL and proclaim my return, like the triumphant highschool quarter back, but that’s bullshit.  I am not triumphant.  I have many stories to tell, I have learned much, I learned from the advice that I created in Alt.Romance and ASL.  I learned I was not alone in how I felt from many people who ached and spoke of being alone.  I learned that other people felt like me and that was comforting, to know I was not alone. I have yet to find my grail.  I have yet to succeed towards filling the emptiness completely with a relationship or by myself.  But I’m working on it and I have a very clean apartment….usually….

 In the end, when we get tackled by those downer feelings we usually don’t want to deal with anyone, be a burden, bother them, seem weak, whatever.  I do dig just being alone sometimes, I think better by myself-my denial and I’m sticking with it.  I’ve also found it’s important to share in those down times.  When I’m lonely or just down, it’s smart to get with my friends even in those little support circles around the internet where you can meet people, who don’t know you and get it all off your chest and just blurt out how you feel. Without worrying about what the other person will say or think, cause you know they probably do relate with you.  That’s a cool thing about the internet.  No matter where you go, online or in the real world, there are people who are here for you, when we close up inside they are none the wiser to our pain. 

3.
I do consider KungFu to be a interactive site.   A lot of times I write to open up the floor about things, I neither consider myself a professional or even anyone who should talk about shit like this.  In two thousand words, I take a serious topic, which plagues many of us and turn it into a sound bite.   and for many of these pieces I know I don’t really do any justice in writing about them.  We touch at the tip of icebergs to dislodge splinters for our drinks and feel good in the warm cool contrast of denial and half assed beliefs.  So I originally wanted to do links on loneliness and depression, but my links and personal pointers would point you to good booze  , the occasional flash of skin  and odd little places that I go to hang out and just zone out and lcruise online.  If you have things which you have found as a help, whether they are support groups or just little quirky places that you slide into, drop me a line. Show me, show everybody. I never said I was your portal of links…and the interactive experience has to be something more then me giving you shit to click on…
 
read the next piece: I fuck up, I have torn people apart, with words, I have hurt people with actions.  I am not an innocent