From The Ashes ...

I'm having connectivity issues.

With myself. Getting fired has highlighted a serious problem for me. Short term, I knew what I didn't want to do. Work there anymore. In general, I know what I don't really want to do. Work in a bar/restaurant. It's been seventeen years. Enough. I can't deal with the drinking and the drug problems and the back stabbing. Quite frankly, I'm getting too old. 3 years at God's Waiting Room has left me feeling dead inside. If I didn't have this chronicle as a creative outlet I would have surely descended into madness by now.

I've spent the last week puttering around Manhattan, busying myself tanning, renewing my contac lens prescription (remind me to talk about that), shopping, having my ass waxed. I've been trying to stay in shape by at least getting a half hour of cardio every day. Add in at least four trips up and down, well, down and up five flights of stairs to walk Colby (for this effort he rewards me by pissing or shitting in the apartment at least once every day, no matter how I try to outsmart him) which I'm counting as exercise, food shopping, laundry. I've been cleaning the bathtub with a new cleaner I found, trying to get the porcelain back to a pure white. I still haven't gotten around to the big kitchen clean-up I've been trying to take care of.

The whole time, I've been in conversation with my inner voice. My inner voice talks to me a lot. Mostly it asks me repeatedly "how do you feel?" My inner voice monitors my body and my feelings all day every day. Sort of my privilege as a gay man. Since I have no kids. Since my family is in another city. Since I don't have my own pet (sorry Colby). Since I don't have a boyfriend. It's me. Me, me, me. How do I feel? I'm hot, do I have a fever? My blood sugar feels low. Should I eat now? Why is my back sore? I'm horny. I'm horny a lot. Are my anxiety meds working? Am I anxious? What does anxious feel like, really?

But lately my conversation with my inner voice has been on repeat. And it keeps repeating "What do you want to do?". And so far, my only real true answer has been, I have no idea. I know very clearly and confidently what I don't want. But what the hell do I want? And how do I figure it out? And then how do I get it?