I officially hate swimming. I hate going alone, walking back alone, swimming alone, seeing all that eye candy that will never be mine, and seeing bodies the like of which I will never even remotely achieve. I hate being alone, in general...I hate not having the touch and comfort of someone intimate with me. I'm starving and dying slowly from lack of something to humanize me. My nerves are so frayed the thought of someone touching my face or holding me makes me cry. I'm an emotional train wreck. Really guys, it's only a matter of time before I realize it's not worth it and cash it in. No one can reasonably expected to live like this.

I'm thinking about closing the blog. Not thinking, planning on it. It's not about faith and homosexuality any more, and that's the reason I started it and maintained it. Mostly I feel like I bitch at all of you and you all try to console me. I appreciate the love, but it's not fair to you to be treated like that.

On the Topic of Swimming

Since I have nothing else to post about, and need to kill time before section, I'll update everyone on the swimming.

While I've worked my way up to 1000m a day, 6 days a week, I haven't stopped there. I was doing 1 breaststroke lap, 2 freestyle laps, etc. up to 20. The freestyle included a floater for my legs, so it wasn't even full on freestyle. Lately, I've altered the ratio of breaststroke to freestyle to 1:3, with one of the freestyle laps a full-on with-legs lap. Yesterday and today, I widened the ratio to 1:4, with 2 of the freestyle laps using legs.

Tomorrow I'm cutting out the breaststroke altogether, I'm going to use the kickboard to do the bottom half of the butterfly for a lap in place of the breastroke. I think when I have a ratio of 1:3 kick:freestyle for a while I'm going to try to introduce the first part of the butterfly as well. I know it won't go over well, I tried doing it yesterday and failed miserably. But I'm focusing on making it harder and harder on myself. I'm mostly just trying to distract myself from all the mostly nude guys.

...or Swim

As I've mentioned here, I swim (when I get the chance). I really like to swim, it's a low impact exercise and I can't tell I'm sweating when I'm doing it (I HATE sweating). It wasn't always the case that I like swimming however.

When I was two, I apparently fell into a pool and almost drowned. When I was older, about 7 or so, my mom entered me in swim lessons every summer until I was about 12. Every summer, as lessons commenced, I'd have the most terrible fear of getting into the water. It was as if a massive invisible hand had gripped my insides and was squeezing the life from me. Right as I stood on the brink of the pool deck I'd stare into the water with utter terror. Then I'd jump in, I had to!, and everything would be fine. I had a good time learning to swim; I had a great time!

I never got good at diving, or at holding my breath for long, but that's never really deterred me from simply having a blast in the water. I love to have a good dunking in cold water on a hot day, on a rainy day I love to go beneath the water and see the drops hit the surface, and I love swimming on a cold day or at night when the pool lights set off a soft glow underwater, and the water steams from my body after exiting the pool.

It's funny, too, how many people I know don't know how to swim, or at least can't swim well enough to get from one side of the pool to the other. People born on relatively small islands I know that can't swim, lol. I feel like life is a lot like swimming for me at times. Some of the hardest things to do have been the best things or the most rewarding, and I had to swallow a lot of fear to do them. I would stand on that brink, too embarrassed to go back, too fearful to move forward. And then some resolve would solidify inside me and push me over that edge into the unknown. But for someone who does so well in the real water, the metaphorical is proving much harder.

Mundane

I'm going home at the end of the week, so I may have reduced office (IM) hours for those of you I enjoy talking to. It's going to be nice to be home; I really miss my family, and I miss seeing my nephew grow up.

I saw the psychiatrist today. She had a couple thoughts. First, she thought hearing the thoughts I did a while back was a good sign. She thought it was a sign of my disassociating myself from the dark thoughts and feelings. She perceived it as a way for me to isolate and identify the disturbing feelings from reality. I don't know how much of it I buy, but there we have it.

I've been really angry lately, mostly since I've started swimming, so I blame it on that. Seriously, I want to get in a fight with someone, maybe several someones. I want the chance to crack some skulls. The psych thought this was a good sign, however, a fighting spirit being preferable to a defeatist one. I don't know that I'm necessarily willing to fight to live, I really just want to pummel something, but again, there we have it. Who am I to refute the doc?

In other news, I went to the library to confirm my ABD status. Now I can rent books for a year! Booya. I'm also keeping up with the swimming...mostly it's torture seeing all those hot guys, but I try to ignore it and focus on the task at hand. And it's day 26 without tobacco, of any kind.

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And a shoutout to my two new followers, gracjc and Dave. Nice to have you on board!

How Is It Possible

So I've been very busy lately, hence the lag between posts. I'm sorry I haven't kept up with everyone as much as I would like, but remember that just because I don't leave a comment doesn't mean I'm not reading. Much of the time I can't think of something intelligent, so I just don't leave anything.

But yeah, I've been busy. I'm plowing along writing my prospectus, and I expect to defend it late November or early December. This will allow me to start writing immediately following the approval by my committee. I will be teaching (not TA-ing) a class this spring, so I have to start preparing for as well.

I've been swimming every day except Sunday the past couple weeks. I've worked my way up to 1000m a day, now, which is back where I was a year or so ago when I was exercising a lot. On a related note, I haven't had a cigarette in 22 days.

Amid those things I'm still managing to do a few things with my house and the people that live there. They are awesome people and some days the only thing I have to look forward to at the end of the day.

Given all that I'm doing and occupied with, one would think I'm feeling better. I feel worse. I still have to be drugged to sleep at night and I still deal with intense feelings of loneliness and despair. I'm cutting and going deeper...I guess that's bad but it gives me control over the pain and it lets it out. On a bright note, I've discovered that my feelings of shittiness and loneliness go away when I'm drunk. I pound a couple shots of vodka and my worries are gone. Don't worry though, I won't become an alcoholic, I can't afford it.

So I wish I had good news to report to you. I guess some of the news, especially about academics, is really good. But for all that there's so much bad.

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Tangent - I have a new housemate this year who is simply fucking adorable. He's Japanese, has a cute face, a fine ass (more on that in a sec), and a nice, athletic body. He also has to shop in the kid's section for clothes, but height on a guy has never really mattered to me (everyone's shorter than me, lol).

Obviously I'm interested in him, but under the assumption that he's straight, I've just been trying to be a good friend. He asked to go swimming with me last weekend, and that was a treat 1) because I wasn't alone and 2) I got to see him naked in the locker room. Yeah, I'm a perve, I know, but you know you would have been staring, too. :P

So being with him is somewhat depressing (since I'm with him but not "with" him), but he's a factor in my life that matters right now, and might come up again. In the meantime I may have someone to swim with on the weekends.

Nights

I'm up late yet again unable to sleep. Two sleeping pills and they still aren't working. I hope the second one kicks in more, then I can slip into wonderful forgetfulness.

I hate nights; it's when the hurtful thoughts come to me. They were here tonight before I got back out of bed. Not as strong as last time, where it seemed like someone else was there with me, but almost that bad. I was thinking how miserable I was, how lonely I am, how I'm never a high-priority on anyone's list, etc. Some of it was true, some of it probably not. Honestly, though, I'm starting to have a hard time telling reality from fantasy where self-worth is concerned. Mostly all those hurtful thoughts overwhelm me and I'm just left sobbing wishing the night would end. I can't tell if they're true or false much of the time, and then much of the time it really doesn't matter. I don't usually get to the point of defending myself.

This and other things in life, they make me feel helpless, and they make me hurt emotionally and physically. I really want to cut to get the pain out. I want to cut because it means then that I control when and how the pain happens. I've trying not to do it lately (because apparently it's not "good"), but I've not been terribly successful. My left arm looks like it had an unfavorable encounter with a salad shooter.

Well, i think the second med finally just kicked in. i'm starttign to fall asleeep here. Likr thinking through mmud. Luckily I've had a good friend here the last few minutes, and he's been talking to me and trying to help me think positive. I love him more than any other person on earth, I hope he knows. g'night all

Vox

Two nights ago was a bad night. Not like any of them lately have been good; most nights I need drugs to get to sleep. My mind races and races, but at the same time focuses painfully on how alone I am, it refuses to get lost in the labyrinth of thought that inevitably results in sleep.

So the night was particularly bad. I tossed this way, I turned that way. I couldn't find sleep...I couldn't even find rest. And then the most terrible thoughts came into my head. The blackest poison meant for one purpose: to destroy me. The words were spiteful, mean, and hateful. Half-truths and outright accusatory lies meant to take me down. I broke down and cried, I tried countering the vicious attack, but was not very successful. It was as if someone else were whispering in my ear; it was almost as if the voice and thoughts were not my own.

I was heart-broken, I was somewhat frightened, but mostly I was surprised. These thoughts were not vague wanderings or depressive meanderings. They were poignant and clear, as if I had had a live conversation with a physical enemy. I don't know what to make of it. I know how the faithful person would interpret this (fighting with evil forces), and I know how the atheist would interpret it (early onset of schizophrenia). Perhaps I'm just learning to read myself better. I just hope it never happens again.