I received my third rejection notice today on the book of poetry that I compiled last winter. (My friends have enjoyed reading my poetry and have encouraged me to try to get them published. (Did they say that just because they are my friends, or is there really hope?)-(Regardless, I will keep writing. (Tis a pleasant and cheap hobby.)))
Oh well, onwards into the darkness.
Currently I am reading "Naked lunch" by Burroughs. (I enjoy smoke and beer (And a touch of whisky, now and then.), but I fail to see what others see in chemicals and needles.)
Another aspect of my troubles is poverty. I am slightly over a hundred grand in debt, and feel very lucky if I can contribute $200 a month to my play fund. (As such, I am constrained as to what types of things I can do socially.)
The trick, I suppose, is to find value within myself. (But how?) (Especially since I seem to work so hard at proving just the opposite.)
Another aspect of my celibacy is that I am pretty damned confused about what is "right" when it comes to sexuality. (e.g., the fellows in the bars, who do manage to find an active sex life, are often labeled by women as assholes and jerks. (To use a couple of the kinder terms.))-(I love the companionship and friendship the women in my life provide, and I don’t want to give that up to have a sex life.) (And how about some of these diseases that are floating around out there?) (And what is it one says and does to pick up a woman in the bar?) (Or, is all that just excuses for avoiding the real problem?)-(Leading an active sex life must have something to do with selling oneself as desirable, and that would require liking myself.)
If poverty is a deterrent to relationships, do I on some level keep myself poor in order to keep women away?
For now my primary pastimes are music, books, and movies. (They fit my budget.) (They are all also forms of escape.)
From July 1982 when my divorce was finalized until November 1983 I spent almost every nite in the bars. (I seldom drank to drunk, as that wasn’t a viable alternative on five to ten dollars a nite.) (I met a lot of good people and a few bad one’s along the way, danced a bunch, and shot more than a few games of pool. (And collected a lot of nice memories.))
I suppose all the good Freudian's out there are getting impatient to get the low down on my childhood, so I will take a quick stroll down that part of memory lane. I was born of middle class parents in the Middle West in the middle of the twentieth century. My dad is an accountant and was gone a lot of the time working and trying for a piece of the American dream. My mom was a sweetheart, but checked out on living (the official label was catatonic schizophrenia.) when I was fourteen, and died when I was twenty-one. (Three week after I lost my virginity. (Maybe that is another aspect of my current celibacy?))
I spent most of my teen years avoiding being home by burying myself in sports and studies. (Which is probably where I got my current tendency to withdraw rather than deal with problems.)
I dated a few times in high school, but not again until I was a senior in college.