Oy

Hope you're doing well- hell, if I were chain-smoking and shooting down shots and snorting powder right now, I probably wouldn't feel that much different..

Well, maybe so- but it's been so long.....

It's spiritual awakening time: he not busy being born is busy dying. I'm changing clothes, shedding skins. I just hope I survive the week at work. I would love to not just quit- but retire now. Put on a little hat, bend over and pretend to walk with a limp- no workee for me, no!

I feel like I'm working for Bush and I'm the only one there who's not Cheney. I'm the only general who wants to get out of Iraq- so therefore, he better find another general.

Long story short- I need a break, a change, a vacation, a sabbatical, a trip..

I gotta get out of this place (my head- or, the job would be a nice place to start). I gotta get the job out of my head, my place- the people, the boss.. gotta get the news, the Rosie- Trump towers, Britney and Paris and all the rest- outta there. I had to turn off the TV. For once- I embrace silence. And sleep. And dreams- even the bad ones- better than going to work! Oh- it's the same thing! It's all the same fuckin' dream!- as Janis Joplin once said. Or did she say "day?"....

Flashback- Mike Chen at the Kubert School, saying "you're in a creative hell and you've got to get out." My father had said- don't quit your day job. Who's gonna hire you?

That's where I came in. I'm now in physical therapy for calcium deposits in my arm, I get transfusions monthly now to calm my colitis, and yet more drugs- but thankfully no prednisone yet...

As Madelleine Khan said in Blazing Saddles- I'm tired, I'm tired, I'm tired.

My parents pop up in my dreams in cryptic situations with different voices- always separately. My father wished my brother a happy birthday- but I wasn't in the dream. Then again- it wasn't my birthday.

My band keeps playing sets 1 through 3, same or different drummers. Last night by myself I was playing songs I wrote in the mid-70's: who was that guy?

Lotta emotion in those old songs- a lot of life. I can sing and write better now, but I didn't try to disguise anything back then- at least in the music. Now, even my dreams are dress rehearsals, or nightmares. Work. Meaningless stuff like that.

I personally don't think there's a drug or therapist alive that is appropriate for the situation.

Seriously, simply, I guess it's the old pick your battles- and the serenity prayer. Situations have to change. I do.

8 years on the job- not bad. But there's another fork in the road- sorry, Yogi: "Take what?".......

The preceding has been the gradual altering of conscioiusness brought on by our trusty friend, Mr. Ambien CR. I aint sleepy, but I'd better.. not stay up.

If I survive the week at work- the meetings, the politics, the toxic waste- I should be much more coherent next time.

Oh, God- the clock must be wrong....