Bipolar Vulnerability.

Editor's Note: The following is unreasonable whinging. Treat it as such. These are not the musings of a person who has been misused, they're the idle tantrums of a child maturing.

My heart is a pendulum.

Open.

[swing]

Guarded.

[swing].

Honest

[swing]

Devious.

[swing]

Bold.

[swing]

Terrified.

Do me a favour, humanity: If you're going to keep trying to coax me from my shell, you might want to stop celebrating every inch of advancement by YANKING MY CHAIN.

I care deeply. . .but I forgot that event was this weekend--sorry you can't make it!

Well, I'm looking forward to spending time with you. . . oh, I'm scheduled to spend more than half of the two quiet days with other people, is that alright?

I love you. . . but I don't make sacrifices. They're uncomfortable.

Here's a hint, boys and (especially) girls: if you want Patrick to become the man he used to be, or better yet the one you dream of him becoming, stop saying you're different than him and then quietly doing what he would have done openly and honestly.

I may have been emotionally unavailable, irresponsible and unreliable, but at least I wasn't a gorram hypocrite.

I am very, very near the moment where I say this whole experiment has been a waste and go back to the life I was living, because I'm starting to realize I was the most honest person I knew.

You said it Clive. . .

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

- Clive Staples Lewis, The Four Loves. 1960.

Looking back through these archives, and seeing what I have written and attempted and in many ways prevailed upon so thoroughly that even I am moved by my success, I must apologize for a record of a journey that I hope few need take and all escape.

Welcome to hell.

If you follow the paths I tread, to emerge unscathed is to lose all, and to be wounded deeply and still find a pulsing, throbbing, bleeding bundle of hope at the bottom of a pile of wrongs is to win the greatest victory of your life.

I suddenly desire a victory of my own.

If you pray dear reader, I would beg of you--pray for me now.

The hardest part of the road lies yet ahead; for who among us has voluntarily exited hell?

In the words of Grandmaster Flash.

Don't push me 'cuz I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to lose my head.

That is all.

Welcome to year zero.

People will know when they see this show
The kind of a guy I am
They'll recognize just what I stand for and what I just can't stand
They'll perceive what I believe in
And what I know is true
And they'll recognize I'm a one man guy
Always was through and through

I have decided that I like going running directly after the peach (ball/balloons/whatever) drops. The sense of disconnectedness is like a palpable distillation of my normal day.

"Happy New Years!"
[breath in, thump thump thump]
"Happy new year."
[breath out, thump thump thump]

People meditate
Hey that's just great
Trying to find the inner you
People depend on family and friends
And other folks to pull them through

I've never done it before tonight. But a half an hour ago after the television was turned off and the obligatory phone calls had been made, I pulled on hand-me-down running pants, laced up the sketchers worn nearly smooth from tennis and hit the brick in front of my apartment.

I started running the second (longer) portion of my normal run, but diverted up Bond street once the revelers were clear.

"Hey baby stop and have some champagne!"
[breath in, thump thump thump]
"No thanks."
[breath out, thump thump thump]

I don't know why I'm a one man guy
Or why I'm a one man show
But these three cubic feet of bone and blood and meat are all I love and know

'Cause I'm a one man guy in the morning
Same in the afternoon
One man guy when the sun goes down
I whistle me a one man tune

My bible is 1855 pages from beginning to end, excluding appendices. Just five and one-tenths pages a day and I'll have it read cover-to-cover by the end of 2007. It's an embarrasment to myself and my faith that I haven't done that yet.

One man guy a one man guy
Only kind of guy to be
I'm a one man guy
I'm a one man guy
I'm a one man guy is me

I stood at the top of Bond street, on a column of concrete and stared out over the frazzled city of Macon, not quite a metropolis, not quite a burg. Macon is like me. It has a lot of charm, but no direction. It has a lot of heart, but no fire.

It is a place where the age of things, the innevitability of them, seems to sink into your skin and muscle and bone. It's the same age and weight I can feel them around the edges of my senses, when I let down my guard and stop pressing forward.

I'm gonna bathe and shave
And dress myself and eat solo every night
Unplug the phone, sleep alone
Stay way out of sight
Sure it's kind of lonely
Yeah it's sort of sick
Being your own one and only
Is a dirty selfish trick

I am no one's saviour. I've spent years whoring before the altar of mediocrity and yet friends and family seem to see me as successful.

When I got back to my place, I felt unfinished, so I ran to St. Joe's and back.

"Starting those new year's resolutions early?"
[breath in, thump thump thump]
" ."
[breath out, thump thump thump]

I like St. Joseph's. But you know what I've always found captivating? The steps in front of it. It's a beautiful cathedral with spires and rose windows and brick and marble and presence.

But whenever I stop just to look at it, my eye alights on the steps out front. Because they are level, but they connect to a street that is not. And rather than modify the street so that it is level where the steps meet--a project that the builders of St. Joe's certainly had the resources, power, and wherewithall to complete--the builders chose to let the steps dissolve into the hillside, one by one--conforming to the shape of Macon. The steps are married to the city with a willingness and a demure nature that belies the power and granduer of the building that tops them.

There is a lesson hidden there, for a man like me.

'Cause I'm a one man guy in the morning
Same in the afternoon
One man guy when the sun goes down
I whistle me a one man tune
One man guy a one man guy
Only kind of guy to be
I'm a one man guy
I'm a one man guy
I'm a one man guy is me

This city will be my launching pad. This year will be my beginning.

This feeling--of a seperation from my surroundings so real I might as well be in my own personal terrarium--is a sensation I do not want to forget.

Lyrics: Rufus Wainwright - One Man Guy