Well, here goes.  I’m finally getting around to it:  my 200th post.  (I’ll wait while the fanfare dies down)

Because of self-imposed pressure to make it a “great one,” I’ve avoided writing it all together.  Well, that’s part of the reason.  The real reason is that I’ve been extremely depressed for the last several months.  Sure, part of it is because of the shitty winter giving way to the rainiest spring on record around here, and part of it is because I just got a major demotion and reduction in hours at work, and Lorelei’s been depressed, and her car’s fucked up so she’s driving mine for the job she hates, and yada yada yada…

Fuck, I don’t even know where I’m going with this, and that statement seems to apply to life in general.  Last night, the topic of what one would do if money were not a worry came up in conversation, and I honestly have no idea.  I’ve never known.  I’ve had ideas of what I could or should do, but never what I want to do.  Part of that stems from more of that self-imposed pressure to make everything great.  What if I make the wrong decision?  Who the fuck cares one way or the other?

Maybe that’s the problem:  I don’t care.  I just don’t.  In the midst of a rather heated argument with Lorelei recently, she told me I was brilliant, and I screamed “I don’t WANT to be brilliant anymore!”  And I don’t.  It’s too much work.  The expectations are too high, and the payoff is never enough.  I guess everything comes back to me being a performer.  That’s what I do.  The cooking, the music, the jokes, the art, the writing - these are all just parts I play.  And like any performer, I live off of feedback.  The interaction with my audience, the give and take, is my manna from heaven.

For years as a musician, starting with the old blues bands, and even into my years touring with the Johnny Cash tribute band, I lived or died by the response from the crowd.  I dreaded nights knowing it would be a small or, worse, unappreciative crowd, because I only know one way to perform - 100% all-on, all the time.  I would pour myself out, and get nothing in return.  I was empty.  Spent.  Broken.

Conversely, when you’d get a good crowd, digging what you’re doing, everyone on the same vibe, I’d get all that passion and fire back, in greater measure, which I would then return in kind.  It was a beautifully symbiotic relationship.

When it worked.

Lately, my life, or rather, the multiple performances I string together into what I call “life,” has begun to feel a lot like those days when the crowd just didn’t care, and I’m just not getting back what I need.  It’s disconcerting, because it’s starting to hurt Lorelei.  I don’t have what I need, and she can’t give it right now, because she has her own issues to work through.  So we fumble along, hoping one or both of us gets better at some point.  She just needs a new scrip for her meds.

I haven’t found anything that works, aside from maybe the occasional 5,000+ crowd hanging on my every note, but I can’t exactly go to my local pharmacy to get that one refilled.

As if this all wasn’t bad enough, it’s (as you might imagine) hurt our sex life, as well.  I find myself falling back into old mental/emotional patterns I learned so well with The X, during the two years or so that she wouldn’t touch me, and cringed anytime I wanted to touch her.  I know Lorelei is tired and stressed and depressed, and so I don’t push it.  Maybe I should.  I remember her saying one time that she needs someone to grab her, bend her over, and fuck her, whether she knows she wants it or not.  That’s all fun and games until I cross the line which must be there somewhere.  Maybe I just don’t have the confidence I need to be that guy anymore.

Maybe I forgot the script for that part.

Through all of this, I find myself becoming increasingly jealous of her past, and those in it.  It’s stupid, and it’s silly, and it’s irrational, but there it is.  I love anal sex, and it’s been about 4 years since I’ve been able to indulge myself.  I find myself thinking things like, “You let beer can guy you don’t give a shit about ass fuck you, but me, who you say you love, and my ‘less than average’ cock can’t?” I pretty quickly get disgusted with myself for thinking things like that, then I get even further disgusted with myself for even wanting to do it in the first place.  It’s a part I’m good at playing.

Then my mind goes to dark, angry, hurt places I don’t want to describe, because I don’t want to think about them.  That’s a part I don’t like playing.

So, here I sit, in my “Man Belfry” (finished attic with my work bench, guitars, and a couch in it), with the windows blacked out (keeps the heat out, too, you know), lamenting to no one about my big nothing.  200 posts in 477 days.  I’ve learned a lot about myself, and a few people that cared to read have learned about me, too.

I think I might have been better off not knowing.  I was happier then, or should I say, blissfully ignorant.