More K Stuff & K's Stuff

I mentioned yesterday that my Parents-in-Law were going to shoot Carter as he went from Day Care to Kindergarten. Perhaps 'shoot' isn't the best word choice here. TO PHOTOGRAPH. Of course that's what I meant.

Here are some shots from that fateful day, oh so long ago. I mean yesterday.











What is interesting is that you can see the boy had fun, but you would NOT know that from talking to him upon his return to Lilly Manor. He was, well, I gotta be honest here, being VERY bratty for a while. Probably tired out. No nap. He was SO in a bad mood. Stomping, challenging and taking a lot of his feelings out on Bennett.

Have you ever heard the expression 'SHIT ROLLS DOWNHILL'? It's true. If I punish Carter or 'nudge him verbally' (YELL), he finds some way to take it out on his baby brutha. What's that leave Bennett with? I guess I gotta get a dog or something. (I just hate to do that to the poor DOG though. Maybe a snake...I hate snakes.)

And just because, in the midst of all this fun, family-oriented fare, here's a picture of Kat Dennings and her ampleness.


Why?

Because Luke Milton's blog today just made me laugh a lot, as it always does. If I ever need a boost in life? I read something of Luke's. The man is, and always has been, a fuggin' genius. Artist. Writer. Photographer. X-Box Ass-Kicker. Boobologist.

And he's an Aussie, which makes his voice super cool and able to charm even the most chilly American woman.

OUT.

Oh wait...PS I guess. You have just experienced Blogzilly post number 299. The next one will be 300. What in the world am I gonna do to celebrate? I have got to give this one some thought...

OK, this time for real...

OUT.

First Day of K

Today marks a huge turning point in the life of our first born kiddo, Carter Maximus Lilly. It is his very first day of Kindergarten. Yup, the boy is on his way into the public school system.

I don't know whether to jump for joy or cower in fear. :)

I think I'll jump for joy now and just make sure to check ALL his curriculum when he is going through each grade...who knows what versions of history are now being taught in our public schools.

Carter is 6 years old now, we held off starting him since his birthday fell on the cusp, in July. We had the option of either having him start Kindergarten kinda youngish compared to the other kids or let him age a bit, like a fine wine, and then go in with a slight advantage in age/height/weight.

I was an even later baby than Carter, born in September, and I went in to Kindergarten at age 5, so I was always one of the younger boys, and I always felt a little intimidated. We opted for choice #2. And I think it was a good call. Time will tell.

Here are a few pics of Carter and Bennett from this morning, after I got them both breakfasted up and we were waiting for Mom to finish her beautification rituals and come down to take them both to their respective educational destinations.










I was not able to go to the Day Care that Carter will be going to and watch him get on the bus for his PM Kindergarten. Had too much to get done before my long-awaited Head-Shrinking appointment this afternoon. Jen's parents were there, and I hope to get some pics from them soon. Of course it isn't a REAL bus...in the sense of it being big and yellow and driven by some underpaid dude or dudette.

In our county, because of budget cuts, the elementary school will no longer be sending an actual school bus to the local Day Care facilities to pick up kids, which they used to do. (Of course, after seeing THIS HORRIFIC ARTICLE on a friend's Facebook page today, maybe this is a good thing.) And even though the elementary school offers before and after care, you can imagine that filled up SUPER FAST on the day they made the busing announcement, leaving many people scrambling. To me, this was really screwing not just the kids but all the owner/operators of the local Day Care facilities.

But really, who is NOT getting screwed in the current economy? Politicians maybe, but I can't think of anyone else who hasn't felt the burden of how crap things are for all of us capitalist pigs.


Luckily, the owner of the Day Care Carter used to go to went out and acquired a couple of small buses. There wasn't any doubt we'd take Carter back there. On a bit of a 'Get Used to It All Again' day last Friday, I took Carter there for the day, and she and I were talking about me maybe painting one of the buses.

She asked if I could actually do something like that...my answer? I probably can, I haven't before, but I certainly wouldn't mind giving it a shot. It would actually be super cool, come to think of it.

We'll see...I think the fact that I've never done it kind of made her hesitate. I certainly would if I were in her shoes. Besides...I would probably end up doing something that looked like THIS...


...and then I might be in some trouble.

OUT.

New Videos of the Non-Porn Variety

Why do we still call them videos when there is no video at all as far as tape and stuff? What should we call them now? I'm open to suggestions.

Thought I might link you up to a few newer videos of Bennett. See how he's growing. He's a BIG kid, super tall for his age. He and Carter both. My hope is that they take after my uncles (my Mother's brothers). They're all tall drinks o' water, and I'm hoping my boys are too.

Here's a shorty...makes a basket and then slams his head in the floor in celebration. Um...easy there fella. (The woman in the background is his Nurse's Aide).



This one is at the dinner table, eating some chicken nuggets and fries. Why no plates/napkin/anything for him to eat it on? Cause whatever we put down he picks up and flings across the room or spins. (We clean the table really well prior to serving, trust me.)



Here's one of him just playing around. Eventually he always finds something to spin. That's a part of the Autism thing.



I'll tell you this...the guy who figures out why Autistic kids sometimes spin stuff to the point of obsession? That guy gonna be gettin' PAPER.

OUT.

Anniversary and Bullets

Today marks the one year anniversary of the surgery Bennett had to remove his Type II Oligoastrocytoma, a brain tumor causing his intractable epilepsy last year.

One year. Wow.

Time flies and yet it doesn't. It was also eleven years ago today that I first met Jennifer in the parking lot of a local Meijer store for our first date. We'd met online, had exchanged some e-mails, and spoken on the phone some, but this was the first day we actually met each other face to face. We went to a local restaurant called Bravo's, an Italian place. Had coffee afterward. Talked for hours. Took her back to her car and hugged her goodnight, said I'd like to do this again sometime.


That is, essentially, how she looked the day I met her. She's the one in front holding her niece. The redhead in the back is our cousin Angie, pregnant at the time so be sure you make a mental note of that as, if she actually reads this I am going to catch hell for not showing her at her 'best', (But hey, to me, this is one of her best...women look great pregnant in my opinion.)

Anyway...

Now, you'd think I would have a very gloomy, very frustrated post today, filled with observations about the past and the unpredictability of his future. But anybody who knows me fairly well knows that I have been going through something else this week that I haven't blogged about that has been very intense and very scary but it has had a positive outcome, and so today, despite the anniversary, I feel like this.


And it feels DAMN good.

So I ain't spoiling it.

Besides, truthfully? A year out the kid is not doing badly at all. I'm proud of him and I love him and he's happy and he's learning at his own pace and that, in the end, is all that really matters. And how can I, even in my usually negative state, not be as happy as a pig in slop that he isn't having anymore seizures?

Poor little guy is sick today though, home here with me. I don't mind, I am thrilled to be spending the extra time with him right now.




OUT.

Worth Maybe a Hundred Words at Best

This is TOTAL filler. Not gonna lie to you. I've had it in my Drafts a while, but not published it. I am a bit...pre-occupied with some personal stuff that I am not comfortable blogging about, BUT I also know how it works. I don't put something up I lose people.

I hate losing people.

Someone e-mailed me recently about some junk. Out of the blue, they mentioned that they had been reading my blog. I was surprised, as I usually am, because the person was not someone I expected as a reader.

Truthfully, I guess you never can tell who will and will not have any interest in whatever it is you have to say. That's as true in the 'real world' as it is on the Internet. Makes sense to me.

One question at the end made me chuckle a little. It was 'What the hell are all of the pictures of at the top and how come you crop stuff in so tight up there? Wouldn't you rather just pick one image and just show it rather than be all montagey?'.

Not sure 'montagey' is a word, but I will not hold that against the e-mail's writer.

Lemme break the questions down into its parts.

Why do I crop stuff so tight?
Well, on some of them there is downright inappropriate stuff that I don't want people to see. For example, on some of the pictures of Ze Wimmens I don't want to show any kind of R-rated type material. The crop saves me from having to deal with showing stuff you can't see on regular television.

Why the 'montagey' route?
I like variety. I am one of the few a-holes who LOVES variety shows. Like the old Carol Burnett show. I like that kind of thing. Skit shows, maybe a song or two tossed in and the like. When SNL was good, it was GREAT. That was long ago. Chappelle's Show? Awesome.(Personally, I think that's an ADD thing...I like the movement from one short topic to the next).

In fact, the whole concept of the blog, ORIGINALLY, was to be a 'slice of life' type of a thing. It was by sheer circumstance that shortly after I started this latest blog that Bennett got sick and the primary focus of the blog shifted to him, my family and special needs stuff.

What the hell are all of the pictures?
I change them from time to time. So this answer to this question is only valid for the header image as it appears on August 8, 2010. (Since the blog continues while the headers do not, here's a snapshot on some OFF chance somebody is reading this long after today's date.)


I have the stuff separated by 'loose subject', as I call it, and I'll use the categories to explain what each photo is and why I chose it while I was creating the latest incarnation of the image.


Family
This is a photo of Carter, not Bennett, when Carter was probably a year old or so. I was so tickled to get that Ravens jersey for him. Bennett might still wear it this year if it still fits. If not, I'll get them both another. I picked it this time around because I thought Carter deserved some time in that slot and football season is almost here.


Friends
This is my friend Mark and his son, Dakota. Mark is one of my oldest and most cherished friends. High school buddy who still is heavily involved in my life. That's always nice.

This is an OLD photo, when Dakota was maybe 2 or 3 I'm guessing. What really makes me feel old is (and I tell Dakota this from time to time to make him laugh) the fact that I wiped this kid's butt and now I play Red Dead Redemption with him on X-Box Live and treat him like anyone in the group. The age difference is irrelevant in there.

I chose the image because of that RDR connection between Dakota and me.


Video Games
From Red Dead Redemption, a cool image of one of the women you encounter in the saloons. Yes, you could pay her for some nookie, but they don't allow that in RDR like they do in Grand Theft Auto, which I am actually glad about. RDR is way more kid-friendly. There are still violence and curse word issues, but at least RDR is not NEARLY as sexually explicit as GTA.

I reversed the image as you can tell for the blog header. Worked better for me turned, can't really explain why. I chose the image because RDR is what I have spent most of my X-Box time playing. I've even immersed myself in Multi-Player, something no other game has been able to get me to do.


Art & Artists
Chris Bachalo drew this cover to an issue of The Uncanny X-Men. It's the character Rogue, mutated for some reason I cannot recall at all. I just love the image and I love his art. He and inker Tim Townsend can be mentioned in the same paragraph as Byrne/Austin, Lee/Williams and many, many other great comic artist duos.

I chose the image because I wanted something green and dark. Simple as that.


Movies & TV
Clint Eastwood from the Sergio Leone masterpiece The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. One of the single greatest westerns ever made, and you know what? It is not immune to being re-made. It is a great western, and a classic, but I would actually support a remake of it. The story is solid and the characters are rich enough. Some might call that blasphemy. I call it speculation.

Obviously the picture was chosen because of the Western theme. RDR again. It's contagious. That and I recently re-watched the film (a new cut) and it was on my mind.


Collectibles
Mystique, another character from the X-Men universe. This is the Sideshow Premium Format statue. I love the thing. If I were in better financial straights I would buy it. It is an awesome version of the character and how can blue skin and black leather EVER be a bad thing?

Chosen simply because I saw the photos of the statue right around the time of this version of the blog header and it was heavily on my mind. Besides...BLUE is good.


Random Stuff
A back shot of a model named Joy Behrman. Playboy model I believe. It's an old photo, from one of the desktops I used to have back when I was a single man. (Now I don't have these types of desktop pics. It's the kids, the wife or something that isn't risque). I chose the image because...well LOOK AT IT DAMMIT! If you are a dude you know why I chose it...it's HOT. What can I say? I may not act like a man at times but I am still a man.

And that's that. Hope you enjoyed. Now I want to go change the header.

Dammit.

OUT.

Because I Happily Pimp My Peeps

Whether they want it or not.

Meet Robert, one of my compatriots from my time spent in the lovely but horrifically hot and bug-infested city of Savannah, Georgia, while studying for my Masters in Sequential Art at the Savannah College of Art & Design, back in the day when you had to GO to Savannah to actually attend the Savannah College of Art & Design. I took that photo above myself, in class, cause I'm funny like that. I like taking pictures of people.

He's one of the few people from that era in my life I still communicate with, though the power of the Internet has also reconnected me a bit with a few of the other guys from my class and the girl I lived with, not to mention one of my favorite professors of all time. This man changed my life, and not because of art...he gave me a second chance in a situation where I believe no other person would have, and I have never, EVER, forgotten the Life Lesson I learned because of it.

My professor did that, not Robert. Let's get back to him. I tend to Tangentize way too much don't I?

Anyway, Robert is not a father of a Special Needs child, he is just a gifted artist and compassionate human being who also writes a blog that I link to at right in my Typical World blog section.

Great 'Idea Guy', that Rob.

Met only one other guy on Earth who churned out so many ideas for comic books, movies, TV shows, etc. More ideas than any one man could ever completely explore in a lifetime. I've often been tempted to steal one and just call it my own. But I don't...I prefer to stay FRIENDS with my friends.


I even recall sketching one of his characters he created just cause I loved the concept of it so much. I wonder if he remembers it? He has so many ideas, I would not be surprised if he forgot that guy. (See...Rob is to good ideas as Endo in Lethal Weapon was to torture. Gary Busey (LONG before his Celebrity Rehab days) told us as much. Endo here has forgotten more about dispensing pain than you and I will ever know...)


Rob's blog has usually been about the book he is working on, or his art, but when I put on my flippers and went Blog Diving this morning with my cup of Java (which I am proud to say is ALMOST entirely black now...just a wee bit of Stevia and I hope that turns into a pinch and then nothing...FUCK ASPARTAME) I was surprised to discover a very interesting post by him about our President, our country, Religion and a very rational perspective of a Christian regarding the building of a Mosque two blocks from Ground Zero.

That name...Ground Zero, is just God-awful. I REALLY wish they would change it...it's so damn gloomy. I mean c'mon...all those marketing people in NY and all we can come up with is 'Ground Zero'? Why do you think all the ZERO Soda Pop does so poorly? Because ZERO is generally perceived as a negative term.


Another tangent? Dammit...I try, I really do.

I always knew Rob was a Christian, he often sends along his prayers for Bennett and my family as many of you have and still do, even though he knows and respects my current...let's call it a 'dilemma', with me and my spirituality.

I actually dig that so many people DO that, send along their prayers and junk, even though I am often a surly, unappreciative prick about it. Because it's like a sky full of Love Missiles headed to the center of my Mental Nation...one of them is going to get past my Defense Net and make me feel good for at least a little while.


So go forth, my Brethren and Sistren, and check out Rob's blog. You'll be glad you did. And if you're not, don't come crying to me...you KNOW I am in no position to be listened to these days for advice or suggestions. :P

Oh and ladies...he is sexy, keeps in great shape and I believe is currently single. Go GET him...

OUT.

Black & White

SPECIAL NOTE:
I was not originally going to publish this. After I had finished it, I thought that it was, I don't know...too much. Too much of WHAT exactly I can't say simply because I don't really know, but I made the decision to put it back as a Draft with the dozens of other un-published blogs I have written over the last two years.

But then I started reading some blogs of my Brethren and Sistren...and I changed my mind. Call it fate. Call it luck. Call it Karma...but it seemed to me that each step I took through Blogville today made me second guess the decision. Especially you, Ellen, if you happen to read this...you aren't usually so...vulnerable. It reached me in a way I hadn't expected.

It also made me think that maybe...just maybe, hitting PUBLISH was the first step I need to take to get where I need to be.


I think anyone knows what I mean when I say that we, as a species, are very good at reducing our own perception of the severity of things in our own heads. By that I mean that when we think about some aspect of our lives that isn't going like we hoped, we can rationalize and theorize and compartmentalize and minimize. Hell we can also do what I do most of the time.

Avoid.

It's easy AND you can have hours of fun doing it. Until you see something in black and white that makes anyone flying around in a self-induced softened version of reality fall right back down to Earth.

This happens, I believe, much more often in the life of a parent of a child who is in any kind of distress. I say that in that particular way because your child doesn't have to have 'special needs' in order to be in distress. Could be anything. But no matter what it is, while you watch your child suffer you do as much as you can to make the very best of the situation in your own mind or you avoid the truth.

To hope, to be hopeful, to be positive. It's only natural to WANT to be this way, for your kids sake as much as for yours. Not everyone can. It requires work. Hard, hard work.


Unfortunately you will always, without fail, without exception, without warning in most cases, get doses of reality that make being hopeful and being positive that much harder. Might not happen to you often. Maybe it happens to you all the time? Who knows. But sooner or later, it's gonna get to you, no matter how positive you try to be.

Maybe it's a party and you see your child unable to get involved in what the other kids are doing.

Alone.

Isolated.

Uninvolved.

Maybe it's a sibling that is actually younger than your disabled child performing tasks and achieving things that your older child still cannot do.

Communicating.

Figuring things out.

Watching TV.

Maybe it's a digital video you start watching of your life B.C. (Before Crisis), and you see your child who is now disabled behaving just as you expected or dreamed they always would. That child is gone now though, you know this, but you can sometimes still wonder if it's YOU who has done the most changing, not the other way around. Maybe your child still acts very similarly, but YOU see things with such a negative slant that no matter what you are not going to be able to REALLY see it. See?

For most of us SNP's? It's the EVALUATIONS that often kick us in the ass. (By the way, SNP's are what I am gonna call us all now collectively...Special Needs Parents.)


And it never ends. This is but one EVALUATION I got this month. A second from another source was done, not to mention Bennett's one year follow up appointments that were last week. I did not attend those, but there are reports. Huh? YOU DIDN'T GO TO YOUR SON'S ONE YEAR FOLLOW UP? I know...I have much to talk about, but the blog's been dark for a week for a LOT Of reasons, none of 'em good.

I present to you today one such evaluation of Bennett. Because it can update you just as well as I can on where he is today. I'm X-ing out anything I consider to be too personal to share or names of people who might prefer to remain anonymous.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Child: Bennett Lilly
DOB: XX-XX-07
Parents: Ken and Jennifer Lilly
Assessment: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Date of Assessment: XXXXXXXXX
Chronological Age: 32 Months
Adjusted Age: Undeterminable
Informants: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bennett enrolled in XXXXXXXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXXXXXXXX in April of 2009 due to the medically qualifying diagnoses of Infantile Spasms, Hypsarrhythmia, and Cortical Dysplasia. He participated in occupational, physical, and speech therapy from May of 2009 through January of 2010. Since February of 2010 he has continued with physical and occupational therapy at XXXXXXXXXXX in addition to receiving ABA therapy at XXXXXXXXXXXX. In August of 2009 a Temporal Lobectomy was performed to remove the tissue affected by the Cortical Dysplasia and at that time a tumor was removed. Since the surgery no seizures have been evident. Waiver services began in August of 2009.

Cognitive/Problem Solving
Skills observed/reported:
Bennett was able to put a circle, square and triangle shape into a form board and mom reports he is completing 8 piece puzzles in occupational therapy with some ability to match pictures and do pre-placement skills; he will manipulate a pop-up toy both by pushing open the doors manually and by using the buttons and knobs. Bennett is following simple directions given with gestures; he has recently been going to the toy box and choosing something to play with, but he needs adult interaction and direction to play with toys in a functional way. Without that adult guidance he tends to perseverate [To repeat something insistently or redundantly. I had to look it up myself, don't be embarrassed - Me.], particularly by spinning items on a hard surface.

Suggestions:
Bennett is working on increasing the length of time he can focus on a task as well as functional play skills. To encourage him to focus longer, try to minimize the other distractions in the room and keep your body at his eye level, touch his arm to get his attention that way too. Model and even physically guide Bennett in the ways to play with toys functionally.

Language
Skills observed/reported:
Bennett is occasionally using some signs to communicate as well as beginning to learn to use the PEC system at school and at home. He is a great imitator of sounds. He uses “ba-ba-ba” to tell others bye-bye when prompted. He uses sounds and gestures to let others know when he is done with a task or doesn’t like something.

Suggestions:
Bennett is working on expanding his sounds into more complicated sound patterns and simple words. He is also learning how to use a picture communication system. When giving him picture choices label each item for him. It’s OK to simplify a word into simple sounds (like turning “remote” into “me-mo”) and then as he learns the simple sounds transition into using the full word.

Gross Motor Skills
Skills observed/reported:
Bennett moves with a great deal of agility. He runs well and jumps with two feet off the ground and in various directions. He was able to walk across a 6 inch board putting one foot in front of the other with two hands held. He is throwing a ball and kicking a ball and beginning to be able to catch a ball from a short distance on his own.

Suggestions: Bennett is working on building his coordination in movement and his perceptual skills to be able to throw and catch accurately and complete motor tasks like stairs and ride on toys successfully. Safety is a concern in this area. Build a tower of soft blocks in front of Bennett when he is working on riding his scooter and encourage him to push himself forward to knock them down.

Fine Motor:
Skills observed/reported:
Bennett was able to stack two large blocks and attempted to stack a third. He attempted to place plastic pegs into a plastic pegboard but had difficulty in manipulating and placing them. He was using his index finger to push buttons and manipulate levers on a pop-up toy.

Suggestions: Bennett is working on building his skills in perception and coordination. Keep practicing with puzzles, pegs and other toys that involve an in and out function. This builds both functional play and hand eye coordination as well as Bennett’s ability to manipulate objects.

Social/Emotional
Skills observed/reported:
Bennett greeted us at the door, making eye contact and clapping his hands. He is playing ball cooperatively with mom and dad and enjoys rough and tumble play with dad and his big brother. He doesn’t initiate play with others and requires initiation and guidance from an adult.

Suggestions: Bennett is working on building his interactions and bonding with others as well as functional play experiences. Be “Bennett plus one” in your one-on-one times with him. Imitate what he is doing, showing him that his actions and sounds are important, and gradually add another step or sound to what he’s doing.

Self-Help:
Skills observed/reported:
Bennett can pull his pants down and then back up again. [SORT of. He can't pull them up over his diaper and doesn't understand why his pants won't come all the way up- Me.] He is able to hold a spoon and drink from a sippy cup, he usually chooses to take only one bite or drink on his own. He finger feeds himself. He does not like to have his diaper changed after a bowel movement but is OK otherwise. Bennett is also figuring out how to open doors by turning the knob or handle.

Suggestions:
Bennett is working on doing some simple dressing tasks on his own and also on continuously feeding himself throughout an entire meal. Try to catch Bennett as he goes to throw the spoon or cup down and guide his hand to the table, then praise him for putting the cup/spoon/toy down.

SUMMARY
Bennett is currently showing delays in cognitive, motor, self-help/adaptive, social, and most notably language skills. He continues to work on developing new skills daily with therapists and at home with his family.

And that's that. Simple really when you get right down to it, isn't it? He's extremely, dramatically behind when it comes to being where other kids his age usually are. Will he catch up? Will he still be like this in a year? Two? I don't know. I wish I did know, but I don't. I wish I could stop caring about that, but I can't. It really shouldn't matter, but it does.

Why did I share this? Because when you read the document take note of the tone of it. Clearly it is written by someone who is able to think objectively but also to act and re-act positively and pro-actively, something I struggle with every single day.

I wanted to share the document because my attitude, my disconnect, my negativity is THE thing that is destroying me from the inside out and in the process I'm getting dangerously close to destroying my family with it too.


What is perplexing is that I am a (fairly) smart person.

I have some intelligence and understanding of human nature. Hell, there have been times, if you can actually believe it, that others have come to ME for Life Advice. ME. For advice on how to manage some aspect of their life? Absolutely true I tell you. I wasn't always the mess I am today.

Because of my intelligence I see, I know, I recognize on a logical and cognitive level that:

THINGS ARE NOT AS BAD AS I BELIEVE THEY ARE.

THINGS SEEM SO BAD ONLY BECAUSE OF HOW I AM PERCEIVING THE INPUT.

THERE ARE PARENTS READING THIS WHO WOULD KILL TO BE IN MY SHOES.

WE HAVE A LOT TO BE THANKFUL FOR.

I HAVE VALUE EVEN THOUGH I REFUSE TO RECOGNIZE IT.

And yet...knowing those things, and I promise you I do know them on an intellectual level, I can't figure out how to NOT dwell on the future or fixate on what he CANNOT do rather than LIVE for today, be THANKFUL, appreciative and supportive and concentrate on the things that he CAN do. I can't accept someone saying I am a 'Good Father' and must remind them of what I shitty father I actually am. And a worse husband.

By being this way, by being so FUCKING lost, so unwaveringly negative, so unable to cope I am becoming the worst enemy that my wife and two kids could ever hope to have. Hell, I'm causing them more problems than the ACTUAL TANGIBLE DIAGNOSES that Bennett gets labeled with. I am holding them ALL back, I am making their lives much harder, not better. I am, to be blunt, becoming a liability.

Intellectually? I know this and recognize the issues that I have.


Logically?? I could probably draw you a very complete and very interesting diagram about how all the shit in my life before today is connected to everything else today and into tomorrow and where and why all these different things are experienced by me in whichever way I experience them because of how A and B relate to X and Y and so on and so forth.

Spiritually? Would it surprise you to know that I WANT to be the fucking BEACON OF HOPE for people rather than pissing in their cornflakes? Would it surprise you even more if I admitted that I never lost my Faith as I have so often said in the past? I believe in God...I ended our relationship out of anger. The irony here is that I ended my relationship with God years ago because I felt that he was no help whatsoever in my daily life. How could I not expect someone in MY life not to end our relationship for the exact same reason? (See...told ya I wasn't no dummy...)

Emotionally? I feel the distance growing wider and wider between me and, well, let's face it...not just my wife and my immediate family, but everybody else.

I know all these things, am fully aware of all these things, see the daily results of all these things and yet I AM NOT DOING ANYTHING TO CHANGE IT AND I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME FIGURE OUT WHY.

It makes no sense to me. No sense at all. But the answer has got to be there, somewhere. And I need to find it, and right soon, because if I can't figure it out, if I can't make the connection between where I need to be and where I am right now in my head, I am going to lose everything.


And that'll suck.

OUT.