I'm stumped.  Decided yesterday to take a look at the website for Safari Club International, wherein my friend is a life member, and discovered that I'd missed--by one day--the deadline for applications by new entrants.  That means that my first opportunity to show there will be January 2010, which is way too far for me.  Oh, well.  And the cars... now I'm filled with doubt.  The distances are too great if I insist on UAE as my entry-level.  So I'm back to the Goddamn Indians, and I have little if any interest in going further with that.

I looked into the possibility of teaching at the area Community College.  They seem to have no interest in the Fine arts whatsoever.

Further, I've found, not at all to my surprise, that I'm lonely as hell here.  Being away from Mary is good.  But I need another person in my life to at least have the illusion that I'm doing something worthwhile.  Oh, I always did most of the business things myself when Mary was working too, but it was for US, not just for me.  And I am too much "damaged goods" to foist myself off on anyone else, now.

So I've taken to sleeping as much as possible just so I won't feel lonely.  Some people I know will automatically blame me for not trying to find new friends, but that is not true.  I have tried, but seem to come off as a creative oddity, so I introduce myself, talk about meaningless things for an while, and that's that.

So I don't know what's next.  Living with Mary hurts badly and will surely worsen.  Living alone hurts, too, and leads me to philosophical ruminations that do not help.  I see that I am becoming a burden to those I love, and that was never the plan; Mary and I were going to be self-sufficient until the end.  So right now, now that my new will is in place, the best solution I can conceive is to disappear and die.  Going to happen sometime before long, anyway, and I'd much rather choose the how and the where and the when than find myself hampered by a stroke or some such and be unable to die with dignity.  If Rebecca nor anyone else knows where I am they may worry but will be unable to intervene, and I'll have ID on me so they can deal with all the after-death stuff easily enough.

I think that I'd been depressed for so long that I forgot, if I ever knew, how to have fun.  There is not an ounce of joy in my life now, and only darkening clouds overhead.

Oh, Piss on it.  PLEASE!  THIS IS NOT A CRY FOR HELP.  I'll do whatever I do, and I may have less courage than I'd hoped. I certainly have dimmer prospects than I'd planned, and I'm oh so tired of it all.  I always thought that I'd "win" in the end.  But I've used all my intelligence and creativity and money to no avail, and that's what pisses me off.  This one, last, simple task of living alone and liking it is a land too far for me, and whether the blame is mine or not, that is the simple truth.

Maybe my niche marketing should have been directed toward someone akin to the patrons of old:  Mr Pope or Mr. Medici.  Har!  My best client turned out to be a crook and was killed by a bomb on his 40th birthday; suspects, but no arrests.  And that was years ago.

Drove into town and bought more peanuts for my friend's pampered squirrels, got something at Taco Bell, went to the Post Office, and then came back here to seep.  Sleep is my only escape.  Just ignore all this if you want.  Just me thinking. When I sleep, I don't think.

Perhaps I'm just depressed again. I don't really now. I do know that I'm tired of living. I'm tired of living alone. I'm tired of trying to make these crazy ideas work. I've truly reached a point at which I am worth more dead than alive. And don't think that I haven't tried to right my course. Just today I drove into town to talk to some fellows about anything except my past, present and future. That worked well enough until I left; back here is the same old me. Met a guy who said he got rid of his past a couple of years ago. Just threw it away, he said. So what is he now, I wonder. He is his past, whether he thinks so or not.

I can't throw away my past any more than he could. And my present is taking on a horrible tinge of hopelessness. I try. I try. And yeah, yeah, yeah, one more good old college try may just do the trick. So I should keep on trying, eh? Keep on until I'm broke and broken? I don't think so. I've already been more of a burden to those about whom I care than I ever thought possible, and that can not continue. My plan for suicide by neglect isn't working, so a stronger, more directed plan must be conceived. I've had a good life and don't want it to end badly. I just want it to end soon.

More than anything, right now, just at this very moment, what I want most is to cry. I've taken the anti-anxiety pills. But the lump in my throat won't go away. So I'll cry. Been there before. Too many times. Maybe that will help for a while. Maybe I'll go to sleep. The sad part is that I'll probably wake up again, and nothing will have changed. In the long view, it won't matter in the least. None of it.

I just finished an apparently "true" movie called "into The Wild" about a college grad that decides to live off the land in Alaska. His final revelation, just before he dies, is something I learned many, many years ago: happiness is only real if it is shared. So he died and someone wrote his story and they made a movie, and the actors and producers will make money, and maybe some of them will be happy.

I, on the other hand, who have known this truth all along continue to live and look for happiness.

Given the conditions which now prevail, I fear that happiness is not mine to be had.
some of you might want to argue the point and suggest that my loneliness is my own creation. So go ahead. I know better. Or I already know that, too. The issue remains, however, that I am miserably lonely for good companionship, and though I do try and will likely continue to try to improve my lot and chance to find happiness, I don't presently see the way to get from here to there.

So tell me to find Jesus or God or Work or Volunteering or Teaching or whatever. But I am what I am, whether you or I like it or not, and there is no magic mushroom that will change me. When you have walked down the path that I have, then you will have a right to make comment that I am bound to listen to. Until then, say what you want. Maybe I'll listen; maybe I won't. I'm nothing special. None of us are. Our selves are the merest of perturbations in the web of space-time, and all is illusion. I hurt, but it is of no matter. People die and kill and save and do whatever people do, but it is meaningless in the end. Think 4 billion years. Nothing matters. And that is the hardest lesson of all.