That Song by David Gray, or, Defying Love

My brother is agonistic. This probably makes him stronger than I am.

This ain't no love that's guiding me.

*****

It's been one of those weeks where I wondered where my head was at the end of March when I signed off at the last employer. You have to have a strong stomach to do this, I thought all week. Probably a stronger one than I have. It's not just a financial aspect. It's proving yourself to what you did last. If you are alone and have no coworkers, do you make a noise when you fall in the woods?

This ain't no love that's guiding me.

I went to bed last night completely sad. Not just "Titanic" weepy (although it probably didn't help that I watched that movie just before bed), but downright alone. My mind tends to tangle up in knots way too easily these days. About the only moment of clarity I've had over the past week was a friend stopping by while I wrote at a cafe (God bless FourSquare) and this morning staring into the irises of paintings at the deYoung. Worse, all this shades of sad and alone were very boxed in. I couldn't get away from them, save for that brief respite of bending someone's ear over coffee yesterday. He's a computer whiz. He showed me a page he created on the web that allows him to follow his friends without signing into all of the popularity contest of Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever. He showed me how he could see me.

I was shocked to find that I wasn't invisible. And I knew that should something happen to me, someone would know. Someone would see a pattern.

I do leave footprints. I'll be damned. Or am.

When you are alone, and don't punch a time clock, that is very, very difficult to prove.

This ain't no love that's guiding me.

*****

This coming week's agenda looks like this:

• Apply at all of the staffing agencies
• Lead writing groups on Monday and Tuesday nights (I am taking a break from the Wednesday group)
• Write a marathon of words on Friday
• Fly out of Northern California this coming weekend and go be with my family in Carlsbad

Oh, good, says the reader...she's off to where someone can shower her with love again for a little while, show her attention, make her happy. God knows we can't do it.

But my mother was here. Nothing is permanent, but occasionally she was here. She stopped in a couple of times this past week, and I believe she wouldn't have shown up if I would have been showered with love. Or showered with "like." Or acknowledgment.

This ain't no love that's guiding me.

Damn, right there. Her footprint. While I led a group in moving their pens, or sat in the library with the immigrants and homeless, while someone somewhere crowed about what is only followed on Facebook--through all of that turning of the Earth, my mother was present and whispered something I either couldn't hear or couldn't understand.

And then I wrote down a controlled burn of the forest I stood in and was immediately shown my footprint.

Ain't no love...that's...guiding me.

Skipped stones splash, happily defying love of gravity.

P.S. - This song is where today's title of Life for Rent comes from. Guide me.

That Song by Amy Winehouse, or, Nyjer Morgan, or, Badass

This is the third morning in a row I've been awakened by a nightmare I was in the middle of. I hope I'm not screaming when this happens. I could just be a man about it and say, "Oh, it's your hormones."

Sigh.

When I worked at my last "traditional" job, I used to have nightmares that I was operating the counter all by myself and my employees were standing behind me laughing at me. Then I had to do it (without the jokesters, but still), and I was able to say to myself, "Well, at least we know you can do it." Which is roughly on par with saying, "Well, at least we know you can fire a gun at someone to go into war." Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

The nightmares the last three days have been the larger social circle walking away and laughing at me living. I'm not sure where this renewed ridicule cycle comes from, except I do know this--it's probably been going on for a long time in Facebook circles (sorry, didn't mean to mix my Facebook and Google+ metaphors there) and I've just chose to ignore it. That's wise. I have a little less than ninety friends on Facebook and of those friends there's probably a very small number that read me or read at all, so my goal is to write for someone like me. If nothing else, I'm entertained when I go back to the page.

My high school reunion is coming up. I was asked recently if I was going. Probably not--I don't have a family or spouse of my own, and I can't imagine shucking out nearly a grand for an airline ticket to go and be psycho-analyzed for why I don't have those things. "You do what? Lead writing groups? How does that work?" Ten minutes, tops. I can answer those questions on Facebook. In fact, probably the only thing that would be assessed is how I move and how much weight I've gained since high school. I am thicker, but not by much. I wasn't thin in high school to begin with.

It all comes back to the passion. Those years in high school weren't my favorite--not because of the people but because I was trapped in a world that didn't get me. The one I'm in right now doesn't get me entirely either, but it's closer to me. And I've said it before and I'll say it again--I'm more interested in making friends from a passion than having friends from the same prison experience. Sharing the passion tends to keep the friendship longer, and make it stronger.

*****

Speaking of passions...I have a confession to make: prior to Saturday, I had no idea who Amy Winehouse was. I tend to tune out news of celebrities who party that hard, like Winehouse, or Lohan, or even the overexposed Lady Gaga. Gossip, whether in my circle or in Hollywood's, tends to bore the crap out of me. As to the Grammys and Winehouse--I usually don't watch the Grammys. When her last album was released I was unemployed at that time, too, with a lot less money and healing from a crappy relationship--hence, pretty closed up.

So Saturday, in a grumpy mood and feeling stupid, I admitted that I didn't know that "British singer" on Twitter--I called her that because if you use the person's name people worldwide can see your comment just by a person search and read you a riot act for not knowing her (I got a little bit, just a teensy one, of a chastisement for not knowing her anyway). I know this name trick because the night before I made the mistake of getting on Twitter when I was livid about Nyjer Morgan, an aging outfielder from San Francisco who now plays for the Brewers but got all "no you didn't" in the face of center field fans on Friday night. Nyjer is a fantastic fielder and has a batting average of .327, and he knows it. He has an alter-ego called T. or Tony Plush, which is what he tells the media his "gentleman's" name is, and it's interesting to hear him give a "gentleman's" name when Plush/Morgan is not what you would call a gentleman. He has a temper, yo. And a record of utilizing that temper on the field, both at fans and with opposing team members. On Friday he surprised all of us by interacting with the center field fans during a game, something the Giants fans have very little practice with. We get to see clowning for our benefit in batting practice, but other than that, the men play their game and we watch. When Nyjer starting engaging the fans, though, it snapped something in me. If for no other reason than kids look up to ball players and he was a ball player in the stands.

Keep in mind that for the last two games I have had the rotten luck of being surrounded on at least two sides by the opposing team's fans. Nyjer did help me out in that aspect on Friday--they all left when he started behaving erratically. In fact, the Giants' fan next to me with his grandson took that little boy up to the slide when Nyjer started acting like that--so he offended people. I was angry about his behavior and came home and tweeted about it--forgetting the cardinal rule of Twitter and using names. I got read the riot act. No wonder the nightmares. It appears that I'm a "Giants' crybaby" for thinking what I do. I could understand that if all the Brewers' fans around me hadn't left when Nyjer started in.

Brian Wilson = badass

Nyjer Morgan = just plain awful

But, despite NOT using Winehouse's name, I still got referenced. I had to give myself a break--waking up with nightmares, getting lambasted by Morgan fans, I just shut Twitter off, read a book, and listened to Winehouse. I thoroughly enjoyed her music, yes. I celebrated that. I didn't want to focus on the failure of her death. She reminded me of something a chef had mentioned earlier in the week on Twitter: "Why is it that people hype up failure instead of success?"

Well, according to Winehouse, Plush, my high school classmates, and me...I guess that depends your definition of success.

Onward, dear reader.

P.S. - This is where today's title of Life For Rent comes from. I cheated myself, like I knew I would...