The Fox and the Grapes

 I awoke with anxiety this morning. Have had a couple of bizarre dreams two recent nights. One occurred a week or two after I executed my breakup with my gf. She was in the dream. She called and said she and her hockey playing kids were coming over to play a hockey match at my house. I responded that I don't have a rink. I was living in a very big house with a large living room. She told me to check the perimeter of my floor and look for a seam and to start lifting the floor up. I did. Turned out I had an ice rink under my living room floor. They arrived and got ready to skate. It was then that the bizarreness of the dream woke me up.

Fast forward a few nights... I returned from what might be a disastrous visit I made in attempt to win the affection of a woman I delayed my response to as I attempted to break up with the current gf. It sent the wrong signals, and she may not be interested anymore. The thoughts precipitated a dream sequence of me traveling a street nightly (or early morning) as if I was commuting. Along my route I saw a sequence of women who either ignored me or gave me frightened or surprised looks as I passed them. Time passed, and their hair got grayer and grayer. I had some thought I should say hello, be friendly, do something kind for them. I never had the chance. I woke up.

I was dating 2 women. Now, due to my foolish and selfish maneuvers. It looks like I am dating no one. I am like the fox in the fox and the grapes fable. I get what I deserve.

God have mercy on me.

At a Crossroads

 Life... is stable. Not euphoric. My ongoing highlight is the taking of child support money from my ex which I was unable to spend, hitting it rather big on what turned out to be a speculative, volatile stock, and reinvesting in a bond fund. It became a large enough sum to create income sufficient to cover my current childs support obligation. For this, I am grateful.

I still date the woman from Chemung County. I don't have romantic feelings toward her. She seems to have them towards me. This can't go on much longer, unfortunately. 

I have intense, but restrained feelings for the woman in Monroe County. They are completely unreasonable. I fear we don't have enough in common to sustain a relationship in peace and love as we would both want. Plus she is volatile. And I am no emotional genius. Maybe counseling could help us. 

I hate cars and their drivers. Most drive too fast, negligently, aggressively. A clueless woman recently ran a red light and nearly ran me over. I evaded into the other lane where there can be oncoming traffic, but it was empty late that night thankfully.

Dreams happen routinely. I remember one in which I was taking the gf to Ft Erie ON Canada to see a Rush concert. It was vivid. I remember roads, the painted lines, road signs, trees, buildings, graffiti under bridges, etc. I had to leave her at a rest stop because she lacked ID to get across the border (a similar situation occurred in real life when she couldn't get on a military base with me because she misplaced her ID). I feared I could not get across the border because I only had my driver's license and no passport, but they waved me through. On the way, I stopped at a lab which needed help, and filled in a couple hours, weirdly. Their electronic for work/time keeping was very unusual and I needed help with it. I awoke before seeing Rush in concert.

The marital strife continues to simmer. My son has a lipoma on his back. The ex insists on getting the full treatment - expensive MRI, surgery consults, etc. Not medically necessary. Lipomas are genetic, and non malignant. I have had them all over me for decades, pea sized to chestnut sized. His sister has the same thing. No medical action has been taken on her. None is needed. There is a fight brewing on who's paying for all this work. I am not. She is in for a fight.

: ( 

State of Disunion January

 Well, it's January, and the winter has been colder than usual with multiple below zero F nights and snow that stuck around for a week or two in Dec into January, then January warmed up for a week or two, but then cooled back down and we got half a foot of snow and it's zero again.

I bike when I can. The bike is ten years old now. The front derailleur mechanism is frozen. The freewheel cassette thing is frozen on my rear wheel. But I still get 8-16 speeds when I need them. I no longer flip off people who don't dim their brights, like that was even helping. I just hold up a gloved hand and shield my eyes so I can see. That's workable.

I have been toying with the notion of having two girlfriends at once. One I have passionate love for. She's in Rochester. The other I have platonic love for. She's in Horseheads. I don't know how to handle this. I wish I could have both, but we're programmed or monogamy. Someone will get hurt. The solution so far has been to back off the Rochester woman. 

I dream. It sometimes involves real life rivals and antagonists interacting with me while I sleep, so things happening during waking hours visit me as I sleep. A notable antagonist is my Dad's husband. He's likely had a hard life, and never learned self reflection or empathy, since he was so busy deflecting societal hostility growing up gay. Consequently, he's an irredeemable asshole. He's made cameos in my dreams.

Son's blossomed into a bonafide jock scholar athlete. He's got friends, a busy life, and affluence mainly provided by his mother who is a multi millionaire, augmented by her second spouse's wealth. I'm happy he's making a good go of it in school, doing much better than I did. I hate being the secondary, throwaway parent, simultaneously tossed out and financially penalized by the family/support courts locally dominated by old white republican males. It's life altering stuff they seem to casually and thoughtlessly impose on people. 

It's how the country operates: rich oppressing the poor, powerful oppressing the vulnerable. For centuries we have flirted with being a free country, never quite getting there...

Caffeinated, Overworked, Frustrated

 Life is a grind right now. I can count a good list of blessings and also a significant list of curses on my life. 

I worked 9 days in a row, and deal with micromanaging pettiness, which is bad, but get an enhanced paycheck, which by most measures is good.

I only biked to work once during this period of 9 days. Good? I wish more people joined me on the road bike commuting. It's lonely out there. I hate the car culture wrought upon us by the decision makers. It's bad for about everyone. 

I am grateful for my correspondence with my two female companions. I am not passionately attracted to one, but converse easily and enjoy supporting her and value her friendship. I am irrationally attracted to the other, and feel I don't get to see her enough. She is wildly attractive. And volatile. It's hard to be apart from her. 

I have dreamt about virtually every ex I have had as an adult the past couple months. One instance I was puttering around her house, her kids interacting with me, me feeling anxious she will find out. She does find out, and is not angry or surprised I am there, but friendly and civil. Another dream had me gearing for a fight with my ex wife. I awoke before the fight came to pass. Another ex was simply part of the extras in the nonsense plot which was happening. Another dream was my kitchen was out in the shallows of Lake Erie or Ontario, and I was wading around in it. In that dream, I awoke and found that the flood was a dream and that my kitchen was in fact dry, then I awoke to my reality and my own very different kitchen from the one I saw in the dream. A dream within a dream. Had a second dream-within-a-dream experience where my son was the main character. I can't remember our exact interactions, but the dream within a dream format stuck with me so I can write about it now.

I love my son. I wish to spend more time with him. It seems he wishes more time with me. It makes my heart swell with happiness. It may be poor strategy to let my happiness hinge on his approval, and yet I let it be so. : /

I have regular interactions with my oldest. It is good to watch them proceed with their adult lives. I have good kids. 

My middle child is distant. It works on my heart sometimes and I self reflect on what I might have done wrong.

I look forward to my week off...

Whew...

Charting the Future

 So, I rejiggered my tax withholdings on my pay, and as a result my take home is about 20% smaller than it was before the whole support court campaign. The minor pain now will help avoid major pain when it is time to file tax returns in 2026. I had cash savings locked up in CDs which matured last spring. That is now consolidated into a larger money market account. I can take the dividend from that money market and use it as spending money to take the stress off my paycheck, which can be used to pay bills and child support now. It isn't exactly prospering, but it is effective survival.

My dreams seem to put the theme out that I am inadequate to my children, my ex. Several dreams put me at West Point. One had me as a new plebe working through their basic training, attempting to get in contact with my daughter who attends there. One had me conferring with senior officers and NCOs, again apparently trying to gain an audience with my daughter. In real life she doesn't answer my texts. Not sure why. She is cordial when I do get rare time with her. She's had a lot of temporal success in life, and the resulting attention seems to have drawn her away from her family to the ephemeral attentions of her transient admirers, none of whom she has known very long. She is in the process of gaining wisdom, which I hope will lead her back to those who love her and away from those who seek to use her. A real nightmare happened in my sleeping head recently with my son with a horrible abdominal wound, exposing intestines, was with me trying to gain medical treatment at a crowded hospital med/surg ward where I was trying to get him directly admitted. The wound was bleeding lightly, but exposing his intestines. I had to take a number, like in a deli, and wait for service for him. His mother appeared, telling me I wasn't "good enough." I exploded at her, excoriating her for sitting on the sidelines criticizing while I was out there taking action to save our son. The argument was tense enough to wake me up at that point.

June was rainy. July started out hot and dry. Put in the garden about June 10th. It's growing well, albeit delayed because of the late start. Corn is already producing its tassels. Should be a decent harvest.

Plenty of commute biking through the dry weather. Asshole threw a firecracker at me on July 4th, but other than that things are calm. The new rear derailleur is functioning well, and I can bike faster because of it.

I am sticking with my current girlfriend, but I am not without temptations. A Pakistani woman passed through the lab, who I found interesting. A technical writer living outside Ithaca super swiped me on Bumble. As always, I have the exceptionally attractive Rochester connection. What are the benefits of casting aside what I have cultivated, in favor of an unknown prospect?

Decisions...

May 4 2025

 It's been relatively calm the past month plus. Court wound itself to a close. Fought to a draw. Support penalty against me was neither raised nor decreased. It was the legal equivalent of the Ukraine Russia conflict: larger hostile force attacked relentlessly at great expense while reaping very little gain. the smaller entity (me) stood fast and emerged damaged but alive.

Biking has been relatively calm, although someone did strike me with a full water bottle on Rt 352. An isolated incident. I plan on dying out there. I suppose that was a warmup act. Bike is old, 10 years, and on its 7th chain. Front derailleur is partly inoperable. 

Dreams have been highly bizarre: seducing, then having sex with a colleague, stripped to our underwear and working around it for proper penetration, on a bed, in a bedroom with picture windows, curtains open, with a busy intersection full of traffic right outside. Another had me carrying on a homosexual relationship and living in Russia, living as a closeted gay with a Nganasan man from Siberia. We went to a political rally where Putin spoke. We lived in a modest apartment in a provincial city. 

Money gets tighter with less (no) dependents to claim on my tax returns. I am repositioning to adapt to my new reality. 

Kind of looking forward to the summer. 

Spring is arriving

 The insanely unnecessary trial over child support has drawn to a close. Objections were filed, but the judge corps at the county office building refused to consider them on technicalities. The objections' overruling was riddled with factual errors, but I assume I would have to appeal, which would cost me thousands in legal fees over a trivial sum being sent to my ex. The state's family court system is easily abused and inherently unjust. I could compose as separate journal entry on this subject, but I have no more to add at this time.

I'm generally sleeping well. Waking up alone can be debilitating, knowing no one human is there for me. I have a girlfriend, but she lives in another town. I do have a cat, who is very loyal, and sleeps with me. I suppose I could remember all the quarrels we had when we were together, and how I am not subject now to anyone's judgement or control. Dreaming occasionally about ex-girlfriends, usually in surreal quasi sexual situations. I dreamt about my cat, too, and his hair sticking up on his tail and legs. That was not sexual. 

I ran 5.5 miles last evening. This was enough to tire me and compel me to drive to work instead of bike. I simply didn't have the energy. This is a first. I am getting older. My required recovery period is getting longer. The night biking subjects me to those bright LED headlamps most late model cars have now. It's blinding, even with their "dims" on. 

My girlfriend is unexpectedly ill. I hope to see her when she gets better. It must be quite a stressful time for her. It is a significant health issue. I text her when I can. 

Couple of kids are home for spring break. It's good to see them. I understand why they spend their time with mom and not with me when I am working overnights. I hope they see me more when I am off in a couple of days. Maybe they could spend the night at my place. It's a desolate feeling that results when they forsake me for their mother. Maybe I am emotionally immature, and counseling can work me through these feelings of rejection. 

I heard the spring peepers for the first time last night. It hit 60 yesterday and will hit 60 today. A bit early for the warmth...