I dream of rain

..the odds are, one of them will work at any given point in time. That doesn't always hold true though.. like this evening, when I had zero drivable vehicles. But let me back up a bit.

Sunday morning, the clutch master cylinder on the truck blew. It had apparently been slowly failing for a while, but when hydraulic cluid starts dripping off the pedal, you know something's wrong. Fortunately, a new master cylinder and a pint of fluid ran me $50, and the swap took all of 30 minutes, including bleeding things enough so that I was able to move the truck up the driveway. I didn't try to move it again until this morning. It turns out I didn't get all of the air out.

Meanwhile, over the past few days the Accent's starter has been sounding increasingly rough, struggling a little, making me suspect that perhaps the battery or alternator is flaky. Until I left the gym this afternoon, that is. The starter starting making an awful scraping/grinding sound. and now it merely clicks and hums with a rather unpleasnant odor. Thankfully, some kind folks helped me push-start the car, and I was able to get it home.

So, I cleaned out enough of the garage to fit the car in it, and this weekend I'll get more of the mess sorted out so there's room to work. The starter's on the bottom, but is supposed to be fairly easy to remove. I won't have the new starter until next week, so it's not like I'm in any hurry.

In the mean time, I need that truck to be driveable, so with the dying light of the day, I was able to bleed most of the air out. Most, not all -- it'll take another session tomorrow to finish the job. Even so, the difference is like night and day. The clutch used to be this stiff, inconsistent beast. Now it's no longer a workout, plus the pedal operation is a lot quieter.

Dealing with flaky cars isn't how I'd planned on spend the evening, but I suppose cleaning house can wait until this weekend. I'll have more to write on that subject later, but in the mean time, I'm off to take a much-needed shower.

                      Those you’ve known
               And lost, still walk behind you
                           All alone
                They linger till they find you

                          Without them
                The world grows dark around you
 And nothing is the same until you know that they have found you

                       Those you’ve pained
                May carry that still with them
                          All the same
                 They whisper: “All forgiven.”

                     Still your heart says
                 The shadows bring the starlight
 And everything you’ve ever been is still there in the dark night

An exerpt from Those You've Known, from the musical Spring Awakening

Yes, I'm on an B&W kick now.

My favorite photo of the past two evenings.

Being told that my feelings are wrong, are not what I am actually feeling, told what I am "actually" feeling, and finally given grief for those "actual" feelings.

This came right on the heel of another "You don't talk to me!" accusation. Gee, I wonder why I'm disinclined to talk to someone who not only doesn't listen to what I am trying to say, but belittles me in the process of telling me what I'm really thinking.

Bull-fucking-shit.

Too bad it took me smashing her four remaining bottles of beer, a (plastic) pitcher of lemonade, and two stools... and re-kicking-down the (open) bedroom door, for her to finally stop talking back and leave like she said she would.

I use violence as punctuation, an emphasis of last resort. I'm not proud of it. But damn, there's something to be said for, you know, not repeatedly poking a tiger in its eye?

Goddamn. Once, just once, I'd like to hear her admit that she bears some responsibility for the way things have turned out.

And yes, Kimberly, I am talking about this shit to my therapist, who actually listens to what I say, asks me why, and lets me answer instead of interrupting me to tell me what I'm really thinking and feeling.

The movers are coming Saturday morning-ish. Hoo-fucking-rah.

I've lost over twenty pounds since the beginning of the year. I'm actually now at the lower end of the range I've hovered within for most of my adult life, and it's a healthy weight to maintain.

Annoyingly, most of the pants I own are now too large for me; without a belt they are dangerously close to falling off my hips. My belt has been taken in a good two notches.

Looks like I'm going to need to buy some new clothes to replace the stuff I bought around the end of last year... And heck, my underwear is loose now too. Geez..

Good news: The truck's firing on all four speakers now. Go factory radio!

Bad news: I think the head gasket is leaking. It looks like there's oil in the coolant. Fortunately there's no sign of coolant in the oil.

Next up will be to flush the whole system out and dump a bottle of Steel Seal into it and see if that helps. That stuff supposedly works miracles, but I'll have to reserve judgement until I see the results.

I'll also need a few things to perform the flush, including a garden hose, appropriate hookups, a large enough bucket/pan, and naturally, several gallons of antifreze.. Joy!

Sometime in the past 18 years, there have been two attempts to rewire my "new" truck's sound system. Two that I know of, at least. Neither was particularly successful.

The net result was that when I bought it, there was an amp shoved beween the seats, powering a speaker box sitting on the passenger seat. It mostly worked, except when it randomly didn't. There were still plenty of wires running around the cab from the original rewiring attempt.

This afternoon I decided to just rip all of that out and see if the factory radio still worked -- it powered up, but nothing came out the speakers. That turned out to be because both front speakers were disconnected, and once they were reconnected to the factory wiring (another chore, since they'd managed to cut out one of the factory connectors) gave out glorious sound, admittedly in Spanish.

Then I decided to figure out a way to remove the remote cassette player, with an eye towards hooking up my lil' mp3 player in its place. Since the cassette deck was standalone, I figured its wiring harness included power, audio lines, and a remote signal line to tell the head unit that it was turned on. I was right.

So, here's how you add an Auxillary input to a factory radio on an 1989-1994 Chevy pickup truck blessed with a remote cassette deck. This cable runs from the deck to the factory amp located under the dash. It has a 9-pin connector on the amp end, and an 11-pin connector on the cassette deck end.

 1  BRN
 2  WHT   -- Audio L
 3  RED   -- Audio R
 4  BLK   -- Audio Ground
 5  GRN   -- +12v Battery (Always on)
 6  BLU   -- Remote signal (+12v switches to AUX input)
 7  GRY
 8  BLK   -- Ground   
 9  BLU/BLK -- +12v Switched (On when radio is on)

Looking at the 9-pin amp connector, pin 1 is the pin closest to the 
7-pin connector.  The 11-pin cassette adapter has pins 10 and 11 shorted 
together.

You'll need to short pins 6 and 9 to enable the aux input, at which point anything hooked up to pins 2-4 will play!

Next up will be to replace the front speakers (one's blown anyway), and pick up a pair of RCA jacks and a toggle switch so I can easily switch between the radio and the aux input, mounting both in a replacement trim pocket that goes ito the space where the factory cassette player used to be.

The rear speakers still don't work, but I'm assuming they're merely disconnected too -- and probably need replacing anyway. Getting to them will involve removing a fair amount of interior trim, so that project is on hold until I get the rest done.

Yay, It's been a good day.

One of the folks from the awesome Tam Tam Congo, sharing a silly moment with yours truly.

Desipte what Kim may think, hardly anyone reads what I have to say here, with perhaps ten semi-regular readers and maybe a dozen more that only follow the photos. On the other hand, far more people follow what she writes, and I saw a huge uptick in traffic (on the order of 2-3x) immediately after she complained about what I'd written.

I don't think calling more attention to what I wrote was what she actually wanted, but such is the Streisand Effect in action.

In other news, she's following through on her oft-repeated threat to move out. She's started by packing up the stuff on the fridge (wow, it's so..white now!) and yesterday signed an apartment lease.

I'm disappointed by this outcome, but she's a big girl who gets to make her own decisions. She always has.

A Song

None knows the day that friends must part.
None knows how near is sorrow;
If there be laughter in your heart,
Don't hold it for to-morrow.
Smile all the smiles you can to-day;
Grief waits for all along the way.

To-day is ours for joy and mirth;
We may be sad to-morrow;
Then let us sing for all we're worth,
Nor give a thoght to sorrow.
None knows what lies along the way;
Let's smile what smiles we can to-day.

-- Edgar A. Guest

I found this poem in a book of given to my grandmother by her grandmother, published in 1916.

This reminds me a lot of Kim's friend M's photographic style. Except for it being in color.

Update:  Kim politely informed me that this was private.
So I'll take itdown.

I've barely started going through my pictures from this weekend and I'm already impressed with myself.

...Then you nap.

"The chief reason for drinking is the desire to behave in a certain way, and to be able to blame it on alcohol" - Mignon McLaughlin

Paul Carr is someone who made a career out of writing about being drunk. He quit, starting with an open letter to his friends and the world at large. Titled The Trouble With Drink, The Trouble With Me, it's not something I can selectively quote from, so see for yourself.

As I write this, it's 925 days later, he's still sober, and his latest book, Sober is my New Drunk is about how he did it:

Now the bad news: it is impossible for an alcoholic to quit drinking in secret. Absolutely 100 percent impossible. We alcoholics and former alcoholics have proven ourselves to be very bad at turning down the opportunity to drink. Unfortunately, the world around us is very good at offering us those opportunities—cocktail parties, dinner parties, birthdays, weddings, happy hours, wakes. It’s a rare day when someone doesn’t offer you a drink or expect you to offer them one. As an alcoholic, you will actively—if subconsciously—seek out those opportunities, and you will cave in to them.

Unless, that is, everyone around you knows that to offer you a drink would be not just a bad idea but a hugely selfish and dangerous one.

You need support from those around you in order to succeed -- which doesn't mean buying you a sixpack so you can properly celebrate 90 days of sobriety. If you can't get that support from your friends, you need to find new friends; ones who actually care about your well-being.

I was supposed to be married today. Well, yesterday.

A few hours ago, I got back from the semi-annual Paralounge Drum Gathering. I had a good time, and visited with some old friends on the way back too. It is a happy place for me, proof that good people are indeed out there, and that my hopes and ideals are not just some crazy delusion.

Kim and I were supposed to be married there this weekend. Not only did that not happen (it's been a very rough few months) but I went there alone, while she stayed here, ostensibly to spend the entire weekend drunk (and to spend quality time with her daughter, but that didn't really happen, from what I gather)

She didn't even wait until I'd left. The night before I left, she took a half-finished sixpack to a friend's place, and didn't return until after a "Where the hell are you? You'd said you'd be back at 10pm!" phone call at 3am. Instead of quality time together, hours later we fought, and I got no sleep at all.

As an example of one of the things that pissed me off -- she'd called her friend M over to hang out there, plus be a designated driver, but didn't think to call me.

That night she stank so badly the bedroom smelled like an ashtray, hours later. I had to hold my breath to give her a perfuctory kiss goodbye. That was the extent of our quality time together that night. Her last words before she fell asleep were "You don't love me."

I'd hoped tonight would be different. Instead, I return (with a bad headache, granted), to find the first half-finished beer and her plans to spend the night on the phone, drinking and smoking the night away again. But before she left for the phone call, she seriously suggested that I get back with Crystal, because Crystal was obviously a better match for me.

Wow. Just... wow.

So far, there are three examples of drunken antics from the weekend that she's told me about, and it seemed like I was only told because I'd get really mad if I heard it from someone else instead. One of these she says she didn't even remember. It's sad that she thinks the "finding out from other people" is what pisses me off. No, it's the behaivor itself that's the problem, not my being informed of it.

That "I don't remember what happened" conversation was a mutliple-times-a-week conversation last year -- Often followed by profuse apologies, with the "I was REALLY drunk" excuse. She forgets how that her words and actions affect those around her, and even though she may wake up with no emotional memory of what happened, her victims aren't so lucky.

It's just one more example of how she's running back to her old life/lifestyle, completely forgetting about how utterly false and miserable it was. The few people remaining in her life learned to keep her at arms length, and not trust anything she said or did.

She still doesn't get how I just might have a problem with this; how I might be taking the realization that I have to distance myself from her because that kind of unhealthiness affects me; how putting up with that shit is not good for me; how I might not want to spend my life with someone who repeatedly chooses the falsity of inebriation over the reality of sobriety.

And it particularly galls me when she says she does it as a reaction to me; how her binging behaivor is somehow my fault, yet my reactions to her are also my fault.

She forgets I've already been through all of this before with her. I've heard the excuses, the projection of blame, the denials. I've heard the selectively edited memories more times than I can remember.

So yeah, welcome back, Solomon. Be glad that this weekend you reconnected with many wonderful people, and met several more. Remember those moments when you are inevitably be accused of cheating for having the audacity to seek out healthy people to surround yourself with.

...Yes, I'm actively seeking out healthy people. I really hope Kim can be one of them, but that's entirely up to her... and I'm losing hope fast.

Now that I've written this, maybe I'll be able to get some sleep tonight. My sleeping bags still smell of campfire, and my cats missed me.

I'll write more about the joy of this weekend, with pictures, later in the week. Until then, good night, and dream sweet!

More than a month ago, my old smartphone suffered an um, catastrophic failure. The screen's backlight came on, but otherwise refused to display anything. The phone seemed to work otherwise. In the process of disassembling it, I discovered internal damage on the main board.

Lacking funds to replace the phone (yay, therapy bills) I opted to pop the SIM out and into a five-year-old nokia 1028b. Going from a full-featured android smartphone to a bottom-of-the-barrel budget phone (and that's when it was new!) wasn't as much of a shock as I'd expected. Sending text messages on a numeric keypad was annoying, but that was calanced by the fact that the five-year-old battery lasted for more than a week between charges, not to mention being less than half the size and weight. It's simply more comfortable in my pocket.

Yesterday, I finally got a replacement for my old phone. It's an identical model, so I was able to just restore the last backup I'd made. Yay for cyanogenmod on a rooted phone! A flurry of package updates later.. I've missed the ability to read my email and do other connectivity things (hello, jabber!) on my phone.

I've owned it for less than an hour, and I've already been asked to move a couch. Really.

It's an 1994 Chevy K1500 Z71 4x4, equipped with 5.7L V8 and a manual transmission. It's in excellent shape -- except for the dead radio.

Alana was giggling with glee when I took her for a drive around the neighborhood. Don't worry, she rode up front, though I'm sure she'd have loved to be in the back.

Tomorrow morning I'll get it registered, and I'll have a few days to get used to driving it before I take up to the 10th anniversary Paralounge Drum Gathering.

I'l probably cry when I put the first tank of gas in it..