After Burn

Been on set & on location since 9:30 AM. Probably going to finding up tonight between 2 & 3 AM. Still have lots of prep work to do at home tonight or early tomorrow. But I also have to go home tonight and scan my tax return info from 2014 & 2015, so I can email it to my “I am still not sure if she is my technically ex” wife to pass onto the CPA that is taking care of our joint return before the October extension deadline. My sinuses & allergies are still terrible. But I’m so physically and mentally exhausted at this point that delirium has set in. I actually wish I could feel this way more often; all floaty and disconnected. If I get at least four hours of sleep at some point before having to be back on location and on set again tomorrow that would be marvelous. The next 48 hours are going be an onslaught. I’m working way too hard - physically, emotionally, and mentally - for not nearly enough pay. Although the money is desperately needed. So I just hope there is ...

Today was my day off after first week working on the movie. I was completely unproductive. Feels kind of like a waste. Won’t get another day off until next Sunday & Monday. Gonna be a long and busy week ahead. Yesterday I was struggling mentally & emotionally. Teetered on the edge of the breakdown. Hope I can make it through this week. Hope I can get a little bit of sleep tonight. Hope I can finally start getting my life back on track soon.

Have actually done a decent job of getting to bed early, sleeping enough, and waking up on time the last few days since starting my job working on the film. Tomorrow is the first day of filming. It is going to be a light day for my department, but I still have a lot of work to do and things I could be doing to put myself ahead of schedule, and yet I am wide awake when I should already been asleep. And my mind is stuck on something that happened on Tuesday that perfectly illustrates why I feel I am right about something my wife argued about with me while we were in marriage counseling. She would suggest some small nugget of unhappiness or frustration or anxiety I had about our relationship and then if I confirmed it, which I did because I thought therapy was a safe place where we were supposed to be able to be open about those things, she would proceed to exaggerate it as being something that was completely unsolvable and would be a permanent source of pain forever. And there was no ...

First day working on the movie went pretty well. Was a light day, as shooting doesn’t start until Thursday but still exhausting. Good exhausting. I think. Learning a lot of this on the fly. Just hoping not to disappoint. Country music star Deana Carter is in the cast and will be performing in the film. There is also a former contestant on American Idol and a young woman that was featured on a TV series called Dance Moms. I have no clue about either of those. Haven’t met any of the cast, but the rest of the crew and producers all seem very nice and professional. I got a copy of the script and need to read it ASAP so I can make notes before the next production meeting tomorrow. The budget is tight, so I am making due with begging & borrowing (but not stealing, gosh what kind of person do you think I am?) as much as I can.

I got hired to be a props master and art department assistant for a religious indie film shooting in my neck of the woods. Start tomorrow morning. Gig runs through 9/10. Should be a crazy hectic schedule, as I am also just starting rehearsals for a stage production of “Harvey” which opens on 9/16. Thankfully I have a small role and already have most of my lines down. Will just have to squeeze some rehearsals whenever I can. This is all good news, for sure. But of course I’m a bit nervous. Haven’t worked on a proper film set in a professional (AKA paid) capacity in well over a decade. The producer I met tonight when I signed my contract seemed really down to earth. I’ll be working closely with someone I know well, but who is much younger than me and is taking on a lot of responsibility for this film, which is his first. I hope I can be an asset to him and we can grind this out with flying colors. I fear that all the other shit I’ve got going on in my life and in my head might get me tri...

Very bad dreams again last night and spotty sleep. Body just feels wore down. Spirit feels even more worn down. Have a rough day ahead of me. Going to a birthday lunch for my godfather. Will be seeing him and my godmother for the first time since my divorce. Don’t know what to say when I’m asked how I’m doing, but don’t want to lie. This evening there is a memorial placement for my cousin Natalie, which is also going to be very draining but I can’t not go. Of course I keep thinking to myself “This would be so much easier with her by my side, supporting me.” But she doesn’t want to be by my side or with me at all. Why can’t I just accept that? 

Got very little sleep last night. Hard to get comfortable in an unfamiliar place. I'm house and pet sitting for the weekend. My family friends have lived here for over twenty years but I haven’t spent much time here in a while and certainly haven’t stayed over the night since I was probably high school aged. The puppy didn’t make a peep overnight, but whimpering early so we’ve gone out to potty and played some and ate breakfast before going back into the kennel. I spent the rest of the morning exhausted but knowing I shouldn't go back to sleep, just vegging on the couch fighting back the tears because even during my short slumber I had disturbing dreams magnifying my biggest fears, pains, and anxieties. I have been a life long sufferer of insomnia and nightmares, but I have never felt this heartsick and hopeless before. I can’t cling onto any other feelings for more than a fleeting moment. Afternoon brought me some possibly good news, as it looks like I have secured tempor...

Tired of being tired. Tired of being sick. Tired of lonely. Tired of being heartbroken. Tired of trying to be strong. Tired of a restless mind. Tired of nightmares. Tired of arguing with myself. Tired of letting days waste away. Tired of waiting. Tired of hoping. Tired of thinking. Tired of crying. Tired of making bad decisions. Tired of being a disappointment. Tired of not knowing what to do. Tired of platitudes. Tired of being dismissed. Tired of feeling like an afterthought. Tired of feeling less than. Tired of being less than. Tired of it all.

That awkward moment when you can’t tell if you are just being oversensitive because of all you are going through or if your loved ones are actually just being shitty. Also why does autocorrect think “at” and “err” are the only options for when you accidentally type “ar” instead of “are”? But back to my first point it doesn’t even matter because it’s all shitty.

Super depressing to be going through all of your stuff again to find things to sell or purge. This is probably the third or fourth time I’ve done it since separating back in early May and moving back in with my parents. It’s depressing for several reasons. You wish you didn’t have to get rid of stuff just because it reminds you of her. You get angry that all you have left is stuff, when you don’t even care about stuff that much. You get angry because she has a house full of wedding gifts that complete her happy little home. You get angry because it’s not your home anymore. You know you aren’t going to make much money from selling stuff, at least not enough money to make it feel like it’s worth the trouble. But you need every penny that you can scrounge up because bills & taxes & debts are still there and living cost money. You get upset with yourself at having already given away lots of nice clothing that you might have been able to sell. You get upset over and over again at th...

A JOB - Been out of work since the beginning of March. Lots of chaos in my personal life since then has made it even more difficult than normal to find new employment. I'm at breaking point. Everything else on this list would be made more attainable after securing a job and the income & purpose it provides. MENTAL HEALTH ACCESS - I can't afford meds or counseling right now and have not had any success in finding aid through local community resources. A BREAK FROM MY OWN MIND - Not a fun place to be living in these days. Again work and mental health treatment would each provide some relief. Can't get out of my head long enough to enjoy music, movies, tv shows, sports, reading.  A LONG AND HARD (AND RAW) IN PERSON TALK WITH MY SOON TO BE EX-WIFE - It would go a long way to helping with whatever eventual closure I might be able to reach. Right now we are not talking or communicating at all. I don't even know when she plans on going to court to finalize the...

not mine, credit to Connie Winchester

I am not an insomniac. I am just preparing to watch the Perseid Meteor shower. It's not a lie. The optics of being a depressed, sleep-deprived, and unemployed are not good so I am simply pivoting my skill set to a more suitable social function. That of a stargazer. Can I put "optimization of modern buzzword terminology" on my resume? Do you need a telescope to see the meteor shower? Does following NASA on Instagram count?

I’ll probably doze off at about 9am once the rest of the world is up and going. But I know my body won’t let me sleep past noon. I’ll be groggy and cranky the rest of the day. Probably take a nap at 7pm for half an hour or so then be up again for most of the night. It’s a vicious cycle that seems inevitable no matter what I try to do. That leaves me scrambling on Friday to do something that makes the week feel like it wasn’t wasted. Make another promise to myself that next week I’ll do something. Next week I’ll make a change. Take a step forward...it’s just right around the corner.

I wonder if when she told me that she was unhappy, as she did on several occasions starting about a year ago this time, if she was as unhappy then as I am now. Some days are terrible. And those are the good days. They are not without their moments of levity, but in the end still plain terrible. The bad days distinguish themselves with more anxiety than numbness, more hopelessness than helplessness. The worst days can't even be encapsulated with words. I truly don't knew how many more of those I have left in me.

I got out of the house today. Didn’t go anywhere in particular or see anyone or do anything of note. Just drove around Austin. Occasionally stopped and walked around. People watched. Tried to get out of my head. Didn’t work much. At least I was away from my parents and the suffocating sameness of being back home with them. They have 9.5 acres of land but the house is not very big and between my dad being semi-retired, my mom working from home, and me not having anywhere to go and anything do right now it gets very claustrophobic and overwhelming. They fight like an old married couple and not in a cute way. I have no space. No privacy. No quiet. Didn’t take but a few minutes after I got back home for them to start getting on my nerves. I need to find a job. I need to find a place to live that I can afford. I need to find a therapist that I can afford. I need to find new friends and renew my relationship with existing friends, if there is anything to be salvaged. I probably need to do al...

One reason why death doesn’t even feel like it would change anything is because you know if you died tomorrow there would be people who would show up at your funeral that couldn’t be bothered to show up while you were still alive.

The way my dreams torment me. Even when I am at my most angry and raw, but catharsis is not reached because I retreat into just wanting to be happy and whole again with her. As if a magic wand could wave over me and put everything back into place. I never believed in magic. I believed in us. I believed in the hard work and patience and time that were to be required of us. I believed it was and would continue to be worth it. I believed that our good times would always outweigh the bad. I believed that I was becoming the best version of myself, even if it were a work in progress. Even if it look so far away at times. I saw believed in the past tense, which is not true. I still believe. Present tense. And that is perhaps my biggest problem.

Sometimes a manic episode of insomnia means you spend hours calculating and counting up things in your life. Such as I now know that I have since the age of 18 (2000 - present) seen on average 18.2 films in theaters a year, counting only films released during that calendar year and were among the top 200 grossing films of said year per BoxOfficeMojo.com* and not counting repeat viewings of the same film. My peak movie going years were between 2004 & 2008. Reaching a high of 40 films in 2005. My least attended film going year was 2010. That year I only saw the dreadful “A Nightmare on Elm Street” remake in theaters. I went to see it around the time of my birthday in early April, but paid for my admission with a gift card I had received the previous Christmas. I had suddenly and without much thought quit my job of 7 years only a few weeks prior and was already being frugal. I didn’t see another film in the theater until May 2011 when I saw both “Thor” and “Bridesmaids” on the same ...

I found what I love And I let it destroy me What now, Bukowski?