I never died before!!!

So yeah, I really do suck at this blogging thing. I keep saying "Yeah I'll get to it, I'll get to it..." But, alas, I am fucking lazy.

With that said, I AM SORRY!!! Not like I think anyone has really minded - I have had no complaints about my lack of blogging. No, "Hey man, I wanna feel better about my life, so post one of your more drab and depressing episodes"... Which, in the end, I guess is a good thing!

But now I feel like I need to post because I haven't.

So what to say....hmmm...

What can I blog about that wouldn't be boring to the point of tears? What is it that I could discuss - albeit one-sidedly - that would capture the attention of anyone who has the unfortunate occasion to read my drivel?

I GOT IT! ONIONS!!!

Now I have the theme, but do I go back to my song lyric fueled verbal montage?

Hmmm... a song... what song?

I GOT IT!!!!

"I never died before....
Can't live what happened yesterday...
I never Stoned the Crow."

What to make of this? Nothing really...except that all that is true. I never died before. Not many have and lived to tell about it! I also can't live what happened yesterday, though I try to in one way or another, and I have just realized this...

I just got back from New Orleans from a great session of 'steam release' (a.k.a. drinking and eating so much it would have killed those of a lesser consistency) and ever since then I have been questioning myself and my motives for doing what I do - in work, at home, in life, socially.

Problem is, there are no 'do overs'...you don't get a mulligan in life. Nothing erases what's been done - things just get covered by another layer of life's onion. Eventually, when you pull back those layers, there they are... You can call it experience, you can call it a learning curve, you can call it a series of fuck ups. Whatever makes you sleep better at night - in any case, there they are...buried under layers and layers of stuff that makes you cry.

For me, my onion is weird. I have many, many layers all intertwined. I have made many, MANY decisions that I KNOW were wrong but I did it anyway (gambling, choosing wrong woman, choosing wrong pair of pants, etc), but WHY??? This is the internal struggle I deal with daily. Coupled with bad luck, this onion has 4 billion layers and I feel like I can't find a way to get out from between them, sometimes.

"A bout of deep depression
Can't seem to move it forward
My lying eyes lie awake
Not sure what I am after"

Here is a really good example...

Recently, I was talking to an old 'crush'... we went to HS together, though she was older than I. We hung out at the same places after school...but she had no idea I existed.

Fast forward about 8 years, and we wind up working for the same company...really odd and random. We become fast friends and actually went on a nice date. Almost immediately after she quits and we lose touch...

Fast forward another, oh, 15 years, and I happen to find her online - and she remembers me! Pretty cool, I think...AND she's still really good looking! WOO!

Fast forward to recent times, and we chat on the phone and had what I felt was a fantastic conversation. She told me how charming she thought I was then, and that she has thought about me a lot over the years - wondering what had ever happened to me - and was thrilled that I had found her online.

All this is great stuff... But she now has seemingly disappeared again and I have no way to contact her. This happened immediately after we talked...I feel like a black cloud has ME on GPS.

Am I all tore up, no, but it's a repeated theme - stuff like this has happened before...maybe not carbon copy, note-for-note, but similar in nature and result. It gets frustrating.

Things like this make me question what it is that I truly am after...and if I even CAN move forward. At the same time, I need to be true to myself and never give up. I question what I believe in, but I do feel this is healthy, I think...

"Flip through endless stories
A life of Handwritten pain
No one can share this hurt that is mine, mine, mine..."

Each layer of life's onion is another set of stories that are permanently etched in our memories, our personalities, our conscious and subconscious thought processes - this we have established. And while this is my personal version of 'handwritten pain' that Mr. Anselmo speaks about here, I DO think that people can share my hurt. I just don't think that I would want them to. Frankly, I don't know anyone WILLING to... I can just hear this happening:

"Yo, Mike! Come on over and spill your tales of woe! I have a bunch of aspirin and 3 bottles of vodka that are doing nothing right now!"

Or

"Mike, you are so beautifully sad...I want to sink to your level...can we be together forever?"

This is when I would run the other way. Fast. Over tacks. With no shoes and/or socks. In the snow. Uphill. Both ways. Etc, etc etc...feel free to add on to this sentence!

The point is, when Phil says that no one can share his pain, I think it's more that he doesn't want to share it. I do, and I don't. I'll be the first to admit, I would to it to get some attention. We ALL do. And if you say you don't, you are in denial. Everyone wants to feel important, or have attention paid to them. Peel back the layers of your own personal onion and tell me I am wrong, I dare you. No one is completely selfless.

In the end, this is the WRONG way to garner attention...I think I have better qualities than bad luck (that I create) and self-destruction that I can garner attention for.

"No matter what I try,
No matter what I say
I'm blamed
I'm shamed
I'm judged unfairly"


Now, I'm not saying I need to be the center of attention. Not at all... Those that have been privy to my "Irish Goodbye's" at gatherings should know this. Sometimes I like being covert and slightly invisible...but on my own terms! :-)

I think we all feel that we are right with our feelings - again, we all want to feel important - but sometimes it's to our detriment. When you close yourself off from other opinions and do, in fact, feel like you are being judged unfairly, you are doing yourself a great disservice. However, if you don't want to get to that point in the first place, stop sharing your pain!!! Add another layer to the onion over it. The pain will always be there if you ever want to revisit it. Just peel the layer back. However, if you do, (and I know I have done this...so learn from me) don't play the victim. You peeled back the layers...you exposed it. It's your doing.

For me, this IS my catharsis...this is the way I pull myself out from between the layers...I put it out there. Yeah, seems hypocritical, but I am not 'sharing' it. I'm not looking to bring you, the reader, down with me, but rather have you take what I have learned and use it for yourself.

However, I will say that I have no idea what I am saying...so take it for what it is. I'm thirsty.

- Mike


Lyrics used as inspiration
stolen from
"Stone The Crow" by DOWN
off their 1995 release "NOLA"