I have violent dreams. I don’t like to sleep, some for that reason, others because it is sleep, an unproductive mini-death. I function on 4 hours or so which, if truth be told, likely is the source of said violence. When I do sleep, I crash, and I wake up feeling better, but utterly more calculated. Yes, I’m quite in control, but ruthless. Cold. Mean. Either way, sadism finds a way out, in my temper when I’m tired, or in my logic when I’m rested.

It isn’t 24/7, because I do have my moments where I’m easy going, relaxed. The sadism doesn’t rule me, but it does wear me from time to time as if my skin simply covers a deep seeded need to destroy. It’s anger. I have a lot of it. I’ve practiced letting it go by meditation, prayer and punching bag, but it’s there. I tap into it when I need it and shut it down when I don’t, but as we all know, ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.

I’ve been in therapy, which did allow me to let go of my road rage and the waking violence that stained my character. I don’t scream at traffic, in fact it rarely bothers me now, and I don’t destroy everything around me when I’m in a rage. That I did so recently, perhaps serves as a reminder that it is a constant thing. Stress triggers it and my life has been through a rough 2 months. I have high expectations of myself - in my work I am almost possessed. I must be the best. It isn’t that I am competing with anyone but myself, but in my head the demand for success is there. I have to be better than I was before.

Physically, I push myself too hard. Quite a while back I tore muscles in my back and I can’t tell you the agony that caused me in pain, but I pushed until I was bed-ridden even beyond that. I’ve had knee surgery twice on both knees, yet I still run everyday, twice. The visit to the doctor is always amusing - and I even view my blood pressure as a challenge. Blood sugar/A1c. I’m healthy, overall, but stress will eat me alive if I keep going at it like this. It’s a toss up which bothers me more, the heartburn or the blood pressure.

I know it. It doesn’t stop me from hitting the pavement every morning and evening or from staying up 24-48 hours straight to get everything I need done. Work ethic I have, but it’s a wonder the moral fiber hasn’t torn through all of this. I still haven’t crossed lines which my temper would mow over, but my conscience would never allow me to forget. It’s a blessing, truly.

But in those vibrant movies that play in my mind as I grab what sleep I can, I don’t hold back. Violence, not even tainted by logic or even humanity, pervades many of them with a wet, red stain. Sex. Blood. Death. The details I’ll leave to you to grasp wantingly, I’m not for attracting those kinds of searches or those kind of people, but other than the startled moments where I wake and find myself in bed, with N or alone, and come to grips with my mind in the darkness, I don’t feel much of anything with regard to them.

I wonder what ‘they’ would think if they knew. Would they trust? Would they run?

I know N’s answer. I guess with that regard ‘they’ will never really know me - except the small handful who have seen me belly laugh, been the targets of my anger or judgment…. those that have walked beside me in the roughest and sickest times, those that have celebrated my successes, grieved my losses as their own - those with, and for whom, I would walk into fire and give everything I have in this world and the next….they will know.

It’s a small comfort as I retreat into my head and try to find success again with remembering my humanity. And learning that my faults and failures don’t make me any less of a man. I made a decision years ago to be better than I was. I lost fat and gained muscle. I lost N and rediscovered her. I almost lost my job and I have conquered it now. I’ve proven my ability to everyone but myself.

I am intelligent, but so blind. No jogging. No working out. No work. No phones. No pager. No pda. No newspaper. No reports. No laundry. I’m eating my favorite pizza (#45) tonight with good, stout beer. I’m going to watch a movie and pet Sasha. I’m taking a break until Tuesday. Don’t bother calling.

I’m struggling with a mood that I can’t quite wrap my mind around. I’m weary, tired for no reason besides what I consider the usual fires and problems I have to put out and address. The water damage is pretty much worked through, though dealing with the volume of incompetence really was a struggle. I hate being called at 11 to discuss something I already set into place before I left the office. I hate repeating myself, but in business there is always a wall of polite impatience before you get to the outright aggressive impatience, at least if you are a civil person, you have those barriers. I have them. I hate them, but I have them.

Anyone that knows me knows I loathe filtering. It’s a lie. A necessary one, for my truth is a stark and cold and bitter place to find yourself, but still a lie. And so, having found myself in this place, where I teeter on the edge of being unnecessarily cruel to those that don’t really deserve to know just how evil my mind can be…I retreat into silence. And quiet. And remain alone.

It’s easier when the only voice is mine and only I can be wounded by my jagged edges. So why is it I seek her out? She that dines on my moods with such fervor that we maul each other, attack each other until we are too exhausted to move, or even think. A mirror sometimes. Where we make each other bleed in every way, so deep that the wounds don’t even hurt at first. Only later.

But at my word she doesn’t dine at my malignant feast and instead tries all that much harder to pull me out of this black hate of everything. She that says something that can break a smile across my face even as I choke on those poisoned words that come so easily. She that runs her cool touch across my hot skin and presses a kiss to my brow as she watches the struggle play out and trusts me to see it out. This time. Because I asked her to help. She trusts me to excise it from my body and not hers or ours.

I don’t believe in forever, but she reminds me that I can believe in tomorrow.

A new chapter is up. Go find it. If you’ve not looked since November, you’ve got two chapters to read.

I’m going to bed while listening to the new Evanescence and perhaps even the Doughtery cds. I’m looking for some relaxing jazz music if someone can recommend any.

In the meantime, I’m getting some sleep and imagining a building without sprinklers.

It rained today. In. my. office. As in the sprinklers coming on for no fucking reason. One minute I’m sitting there, another I am blinking away the steady spray of water as I’m watching the electronics in my office shut down in the ‘its-going-to-need-massive-repair’ sort of manner. The screams of some, the curses of everyone else and the general sensation of my good humor flushing down to absorb into the carpet with the rest of the water in Texas.

My carpet squishes. The cleaning crew will be spending the entire evening sorting out water from my carpet and everything else. I can’t get anyone in there to fix or work until they are done. Meanwhile, I’ve got a stack of refugee paperwork I snatched in the vain effort to continue my work here. Now that I’m home, changed out from the clothing which made me wet in all the ways I don’t prefer…I can’t seem to manage anything.

Meanwhile, this is what I’ll be doing:

Checking out D’Jaevle’s lair, while using Messenger and surfing sites like this one or perhaps going through the sex blog list here, or here. As you already know, I think she is brilliant - her as well.

I’ll be editing my Sage add-ons. My entire blog list is on there and a few others I’ve only recently come across, but not linked. I may write (this post would certainly suggest that), but I wouldn’t count on it being about anything other than her.

I feel like reading some dark, moody fiction, but I may settle for music. I just downloaded a few songs from iTunes. The search for one of them, called ‘Remember the name,’ drove me nuts for no less than two hours while I hunted on google with incorrect lyrics.

I still want to see The Fountain. He reviewed it. I found him in my awstats and it raised my curiosity. I may go and see it tonight, or perhaps sometime tomorrow. The soundtrack isn’t bad either, written by the same man who did Lux Aeterna.

If you’ve made it this far, give yourself a treat. I might even tell you if the movie was good or not.