Personal Journal

Thursday, so they tell me

About 10 minutes after I get to work these days, my vicodin kicks in. Not sure what’s up with my back, really. Is this muscle atrophy or overcompensation pain? Dunno. I know I like vicodin. I generally keep myself to two a day, sometimes on weekends I go to 3, because I typically get up way early on Saturday and Sunday to play Dark Age of Camelot. That’s the highlight of my relaxation exercise – just to log into the game and do some mindless playing. I’m going to miss that game when I’m gone.

This stuff with Rush Limbaugh has me thinking back to my own painkiller dependence. Am I addicted? I dunno. Two weeks ago, when I resolved to get back into the gym, I overdid it, and I’ve needed the painkillers ever since.
No one has been able to answer this question I have about addiction t these painkillers: Can my body perpetuate its own addiction to the painkillers by falsely making my brain think there are pain signals coming from my back? A sort of hallucination with a purpose? My Nurse Practitioner – I don’t remember her answer, but she said she believes me.

I don’t want to go into the whole subject of whether or not I may be that guy who has back pain for the rest of his life. No time to deal with that right now. I want out of pain, certainly. I’m happy that the vicodin provides that relief. It should also be noted that the vicodin buzz is generally pretty good. Over time, it loses its luster, but the first one of the day is pretty damn fun.

Maybe its time I research some on the internet for this stuff. I’m wondering whether I’m dependent. I’d give it all up to be able to ride my bike pain free. One of the key differences between Rush Limbaugh and me – well, there are a ton of differences, really, you know. But Rush is a guy with lower back pain and 2 herniated discs in his neck, and he’s out there playing 72 holes of golf with great regularity. Me, I don’t even think of getting on my bike.

I had a dream that my bike got stolen last night. In a way it has been. It makes me so sad to think of those mountain trails that I’m not riding. The effort that I was putting into my riding, improving, enjoying, communing with god. Now I’m back in league with the devil on chemicals. I remember my weed addiction, which was psychological.

There was a combination of pain and painkillers back last September (when my vicodin dose was about 3 times what it is now) when my emotional pendulum could swing wildly. I remember, now writing this, that the future of continuing on this drug may lead back to a place where emotional volatility is a regular guest.

Despite having a lot of good things in my life, I gotta tell you. This is a bad place to be. In the middle ages, this is what led men or women to drink so heavily that they were violent. Omnipresent pain is a hellish path to walk, and my pain is definitely mild. But even mild pain, when it just won’t ever go away, brings out the brashness, the outcries of the man frustrated beyond endurance.

The pain is mostly hot. Just hot. Hot in my lower back. But it also feels like something is being crushed therein. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m not herniated again, albeit more mildly this time. Starting to wonder if my machismo interfered with the recovery. Things like having to lift 40 pound boxes of cat litter to bring home.

I leave Sunday… I haven’t done much to prepare yet, but I think preparing too early leads one to forget more than preparing a little closer to the trip. Today I have to iron stuff. That’ll be a good project during tonight’s hockey game.

Jean and I didn’t really reconcile. She said she wasn’t mad, but was humiliated. And she didn’t want to talk about it. She never wants to talk about it. She’s the male stereotype in this relationship.

Why would you care that I know the number associated with your weight if I’ve already made it clear that I find every voluptuous curve on your body sultry and radiant. She’s hot. She looks at me like I’m the prison punisher, though. Afraid to face me. Empathically, I see myself through her eyes and I find myself terrible. Not that I think I am terrible. I think she thinks I am terrible, and I don’t know why she would deign to live with me if I am terrible.

I don’t know whether I’m going to follow through on my effort to leave notes around the house for her. I’m very disjointed from the relationship right now. It’s a source of confusion and frustration to me, and I look forward to my trip, in that regard. And that’s a shame. I’m thinking that instead of “absence makes the heart grow fonder” I’m going to live “absence makes the heart rest peaceful”.

It’s my fault for looking at the damn scale. It’s her fault for not being able to live with it. She has a choice whether to feel humiliated in my presence or not, because I’m not sending those signals. I handed her the kitten yesterday for some bonding and some relaxation, and I said to her “The kitten doesn’t care what you weigh and neither do I”
She yelled at me “But I care.”

Then that’s not my problem, that’s yours. Why do you make yourself suffer for that? Why must you insist on making yourself suffer.

Why do I follow the female stereotype in this relationship of thinking that I can save her from herself?


It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. -- Alonzo Newton Benn