Cold Water

I'm trying out a new blog as a way of shaking off some dust and holding myself accountable for my own thoughts and plans and shortcomings. I think I need a kind of living document to play around with, both as an outlet and a way to provide myself with some structure and focus and a way to get out of my own head and create a dialogue with myself. Strangely, it seems like a good idea to do this in a semi-public way. I think that will force me to take the whole idea more seriously and as a consequence my thinking will end up being less precious, less self-conscious and hopefully more constructive and useful. But who the fuck knows. I'll probably end up abandoning the whole thing after a few posts, but that's ok too. On the Internet, no one can hear you give up. For the immediate future, at least, I vow to update this blog at least once a day, and I'm going to limit my subject matter to...me. My only goal is tap out something every day that honestly reflects my state of mind at the time. No theorizing, no grandstanding, hopefully a minimum of bullshit. Which probably means it will be boring as hell to anyone but me, so you might want to just go ahead and close that browser window now. Thanks for stopping by.

I feel a little numb today, bloated and slow. It's a far too familiar feeling for me, a recurring rhythm (shit I had to write that word four times before I got it right. R-H-Y-T-H-M. I've never been able to spell that fucking word. I'll choose not to speculate on what that may mean) that I can't seem to shake. PASSIVITY, my old enemy, my crutch, is rearing it's head again.

I want to shake it off. I want to splash a little cold water on my face, get my ass moving. As a first step, I submit a kind of state-of-the-nation status report from Republic of Tom, as of June 2, 2009:

--I can't get my eating under control. I'm a 35 year old husband and father who is grossly overweight and does not take responsibility for his own health, and whatever else may be true about me I don't want that failure to end up being my legacy. It's a complicated and silly lifelong saga, but the current crux of it is that I can't seem to find the will and discipline to focus and give my own physical (and by extension, emotional and spiritual) well-being the attention it deserves. So, yeah, I should probably keep working on that one.

--On the other hand I'm feeling relatively healthy creatively, intellectually and, as a byproduct, professionally. My wheels are turning in a lot of the right ways, and it's leading me down some surprising paths. The key is to find the strength to follow those paths, but I'm not trying to rush that. My goal right now is just to keep re-working the muscles that I had let atrophy for a good 15 years, and that's a process, not a flip of a switch. So far so good, for the most part.

--I love my family. I worry about my family. I worry about my ability to be who I need to be for my family. I miss my children, still, every day, when I'm not with them. I obsess about how the choices I'm making now are affecting them, in both practical and emotional ways, in both the long-term and the short-term. I worry that I am not the best husband that I could be, I worry that I am not giving my wife the kind of foundation and support she deserves, I worry that I am taking my incredible fortune and good luck for granted. I breathe in the essence of my family with every breath. My instinct is to define myself completely and totally and only by them, to shut out the rest of the world, to cocoon ourselves with each other forever. And I know that's not healthy. And so I don't. And yes, I'm on medication. It kind of helps.

--I don't care about sports anymore. I just don't.

--I miss reading novels. I'm reading like 10 fucking scripts a week but I haven't read a novel in the last 4 months, and it's hurting my brain.

--I want a drink. Right now. My name is Tom, and, in addition to lots of other things, I think I'm probably a high-functioning alcoholic. So there's that.

Well that should do it for today. That kind of felt good, I think.