I had three cups of coffee yesterday and three Dr. Peppers, which put me at 360 mg of caffein. I was still a little wired at dinner time. Too restless to read—barely made it to ten watching TV. Must have got to sleep around 11:00, slept until 3:00 and then I was pretty much left to my breathing and my thoughts, until 6:00, which is when I got up. I did not take my magnesium glycinate the night before, and I only took 50 mg of trazadone, instead of 100 mg, to see what would happen. There are so many variables at play, so I cannot draw any definitive conclusions, but, since I need the caffeine to work easily and happily, and the magnesium glycinate and the extra 50 mg of trazadone didn’t seem to be doing anything, I figured I’d still drink 360 mg of caffeine today—no more than that—and I figured I’d start taking the magnesium glycinate in the morning, since, when I started taking it, around the time I quit taking risperidone, I started having trouble sleeping. The fact that the rice flour makes me feel like I’m ingesting cocaine may have some kind of placebo effect on me—that could be a real mental hurdle, I figured, since I think of cocaine when I look at it. Somehow, in my mind, if only because of the timing, it seems to keep me awake, even if the effect is purely mental, a consequence of observing that, when I started taking it, I started having trouble sleeping, and then, after a while, associating the big pill of white powder with staying awake.
So I might take 100 mg of trazadone tonight, as it seems that, in most people, trazadone does not have sexual side effects. That would mean, at bedtime, I’m just taking trazadone, melatonin, and atorvastatin, a cholesterol drug. Even though the magnesium glycinate is not supposed to keep you awake—it, indeed, is supposed to help you relax—the cocaine association is real, and I feel better now that I’ve decided to take it in the morning, instead. I don’t feel a pressing need to watch pornography, so my prayers have been answered, to that effect—I like it, and I will continue to watch it, but, as I hoped, I am not, like I once was, a long time ago, distracted by it. I’m not overcome by sexual desire sitting at the computer—my sexual desire is pretty much confined to the bedroom, as I would hope it would be, barring some kind of outside stimulation, such as the advances of a real life woman that I agreed to meet. So, I’m not watching it every time I engage my sex life—I’m still relying on my imagination, which, I think, is as it should be. The literal imagery and the imagination should feed off each other—in this process of discovering, on a daily basis, who I am, and what I am becoming. What I like, and how that changes, depending on my state of mind, where I’m at, and where I’m going, for that day in particular, and, also, in general. Sometime I prefer women, sometimes I prefer men, etc., although, in general, I prefer to project myself into a scenario that started with a woman, as opposed to looking up gay porn—which I am not opposed to—I just don’t find it as exciting as looking at women, and assuming, in my imagination, a woman’s place. I don’t know how normal or common that is, or what, exactly, it means, but I think it just means that my sexuality is complex, and yet, perfectly healthy, and, for me, perfectly normal.
Well, it’s 8:20 now, and I’m finishing up my second cup of coffee, and I’m halfway through writing on this book for the day, which normally doesn’t happen until after 9:30 or 10:00, which means that, if I go all the way to 4:00, I’m going to have more time—possibly to record a song, I don’t know. But it means more time on the computer, which means more neck pain, very possibly, which, I guess, if I can only sleep eight hours, and I can only watch about four or five hours of TV a day, can’t be helped, as there is no other way for me to occupy myself. I guess in the old days you could sit on your porch or whatever, and relax, without feeling restless, and with pleasant thoughts on your mind—but that was a different world, and our brains aren’t used to a life like that—we need constant stimulation, or else we get bored, and have unpleasant thoughts. Well, maybe getting all my coffee in by nine, and getting out of bed after only eight hours, will make it easier to get to sleep, and stay asleep, tonight, although I’m not expecting any miracles, as I’m stuck in a pattern of it taking a while, and then waking up, and getting back to a good place will probably take some time, but, perhaps, this will help a little, and I will have taken a step in the right direction.
You’ll love yourself after you’ve finished this book. Well, I felt that I loved myself already, but yes, I suppose I should love myself a little more, or else I wouldn’t be having so much trouble sleeping. How much of being happily gay or bisexual depends on getting it out there? Is it really that important, in the process of learning to love yourself, to express yourself freely—to hide nothing? I’m not saying you have to broadcast your sexuality, but I’m saying you shouldn’t be ashamed of it, either, as if it is something, in this day and age, that is better kept secret, or to yourself. It seems that we must all do our part to change the world, and, if we don’t, then we serve no purpose, and we are unhappy, so yes, it seems that making your sexuality known, as it must be, eventually, if you don’t hide it, is a part of learning to love yourself, at least in this day and age, when doing your part doesn’t just involve being gay—it also involves making it safe and acceptable for others to be gay, and, likewise, for those that aren’t gay to get over their fear and visceral feelings of antipathy and, in many cases, disgust. Because of my upbringing, and the states I come from, and even the state I now live in, I have, for the most part, kept my sexuality to myself, in the past—people that would meet me or know me wouldn’t necessarily suspect or know anything, indefinitely, but, in learning to truly love and accept myself, and get comfortable in my own skin, and, sleep through the night, it seems, now, increasingly important to drop subtle hints, to make this part of myself known, not necessarily all at once, but as you get to know me, or, as the case may be, as you revise your interpretation of who you might or might not have thought I was. In that way, then, I am doing my part, both for the population in general, and for myself.
It seems only natural to try this, and, while it seems quite plausible that, in the short run, anxiety about this could be interfering with my sleep, it seems that, overall, in the long run, that anxiety cannot be avoided, and it’s better to feel it, and get through it—in fact, the anxiety would be there no matter what I did, either because I was hiding who I am or because I was, in effect, coming out, so sleep loss, at this stage, when there is nowhere left to run or hide, and no libido suppressing medication to leave me in ignorance or an apathetic state, seems inevitable, but, also, it seems that there is another side to this, and that, when I get there, I will sleep better—I can hope, from this point on, with this in mind, that I will eventually sleep, and sleep well, overall, for the rest of my life. So I must have prayed for 20 or 30 minutes this morning, pausing on the four count inhale, and speaking, one syllable per second, on the eight count exhale. I thought, why should I do a four count inhale and an eight count exhale, or a three count inhale and a six count exhale—as that seemed to reduce the amount of air I was getting, or force me to inhale with more force than I might otherwise have done. After all, I’d added a new count to my routine because of this—a four count inhale and a six count exhale. But I thought about it and I still chose to use the four count inhale and the eight count exhale because I realized that, in slowing down my breathing, if I was meditating properly, then I was also slowing down my heart, and, also, the rest of my body, including my brain. And, since the point of meditation is to clear your mind, and make room for other thoughts, thoughts that, because of your relaxed state, can come and go, it seemed the four count inhale and the eight count exhale had its advantages. It could slow down my mind, help me get to the heart of what I was really feeling, and help, in turn, to relax. So, in slowing things down, I wouldn’t necessarily have to breathe in with a whole lot force, as I would need, overall, less air.
Now, I thought, would an agent take on this book? Why would my life be of any interest to other people, if you didn’t already know and like me? And, while it seemed that, if you gave me a chance, you would know and like me, you wouldn’t necessarily have any reason to give me a chance—and get interested in the first place, so I thought, no, as it stands, my series, The Telepathic Future, would not get anyone’s attention, and, unless something changed, or I got especially lucky, wouldn’t necessarily find an audience, ever. But if you did get to know me, and you did like me, then, I think, well, my series is meaningful, and many people would want to read it—especially since it’s not just any memoir, it’s not a journal, and it’s not a traditional novel—it’s its own, unique thing, and, in my opinion, it’s remarkably candid and real. This difference in form might work against me at first, but, in the long run, it would work out to my advantage, if somebody gave me the benefit of the doubt. So I wasn’t going to change the way I write, as I felt that I was writing at my best, right now; but I did wonder how I was ever going to find an audience, or get the benefit of the doubt in the first place, since an agent would likely dismiss this as the work of a mentally ill, perhaps self-absorbed person, or a memoir by a person that remained unknown and did not have a particularly exciting life—and they wouldn’t see the merit in it, not unless they read it over, looking for something new, something real, that people might not, at first glance, without some kind of recommendation, choose to read. So I don’t know—would I write something, in the future, that an agent might want, and try that route again, and then hope that this series would catch on retroactively? But what did I know about what an agent wanted, and was I even capable of writing something like that? I could try, but, in fact, I didn’t think I was capable of writing any differently, right now, than I am writing right now—that I have never been able to write based on what other people, a commercial audience, might normally want, and that, ultimately, to try and do so would be a mistake. So was everything hopeless? Well, no, not necessarily. If you believe in yourself nothing is ever entirely hopeless, and, well, I believed that I represented an audience that was developing as we speak, that would arrive, in the future, and that, given time, people, a wider audience, an evolving audience, would identify with my work. That, of course, remained to be seen, and no matter how unlikely, the point, I think, was that I believed myself to be a human of the future, that future people would find common ground, and so, in believing in myself, the work improved, and, well, as with heaven, believing can improve the quality of your life, regardless of the impossibility of knowing anything for certain, or the doubts we might have, considering that, when we die, our brains, the seeming source of our consciousness, eventually disappear.