Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in brianlocke's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
8:47 pm	A death in the family I had one of my cat's, Ranma, put to sleep today. He was going blind due to an eye infection, and he was having problems with his teeth as well as the start of a urinary tract infection. I wasn't there for him. When I moved to PA with Brandy I had to leave my 3 cats behind. I intended to come back and get them over Christmas but being in the hospital messed up that plan. My friend Jenn has been taking care of them while I have been away. Ranma is survived by his twin brother, Tenchi, and his adopted sister Ryoko. I have always felt that a person should be there for their pets, even if they need to be put down, and I wasn't. Ranma was my cat, When I say that, I mean he only loved one person and only ever would love one person, me. He tolerated other people, but he adored me. He followed me around the house, he followed me to the bathroom and would sit in my underwear when I sat on the toilet. he would climb in my lap and demand attention. As a kitten he would snuggle up on my pillow and lick my ear. He was there for me when I was at my lowest. When I was alone and in despair he and Tenchi were there for me, they gave me a reason to live. And when he needed me.... I wasn't there. It hurts... A lot... Rest In Peace Ranma 1998-2008 You are loved and will be missed. I am sorry I wasn't there for you. Current Mood: sad (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
9:23 pm	Wow, what a long strange trip it's been Sorry it's been so long since I have updated my blog, but been a bit busy. So much to tell. In September I moved to Pennsylvania with Brandy to be near her family. In October, I went to the ER with severe chest pains in my right lung. Respiratory distress they called it. I call it the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. Took 8mg of morphine before I could breath again, then when it started to wear off the bastards didn't give me enough pain meds to keep the pain away while they were busy chasing a mythical pulmonary embolism that didn't exist. Meanwhile my girlfriend was afraid I was dying and to be honest I was. It took 2 days and more scans than I can count before they finally noticed fluid building up in my right lung. They then inserted a catheter into my right lung and drew off about 1.2 liters of fluid over the next few days. Turns out I had a Plural Effusion caused by a strep infection in the plural space of my right lung. The plural space is the space between the inner and outer lining of the lung, It usually has a small amount of fluid so the two surfaces can move against each other without friction. The inner lining has no nerves, but the outer lining? It has a shitload of nerves and is one of the most painful places in the body to get an infection. Add to that that it is hard for antibiotics to get there and I was in trouble. After a few days on the catheter some of the fluid was still there and wouldn't go away. They finally decided to go in surgically and clean it out. This is a major surgery called a thoracotomy. I was scared. I haven't had a surgery, unless you count the stitches in my head after the accident when I was 3. I woke up in the recovery area and I was pretty out of it. They put me in the TOHU or Transitional Open Heart Unit because I had a thoracic surgery. I had tubes all over including a catheter and two huge tubes in my side to drain fluids. After two days they decided to go back in because I was still having blood drain from my tubes. The second surgery I woke up from and I literally didn't know who I was, where I was or what was going on. I had a dream that I was being turned into a cyborg, and when I woke up I wasn't sure what was dream and what was real. eventually I started to come out of it, but that really feels strange to not be able to tell the difference between reality and dreams. They hooked me up to a morphine drip for the pain but later that night the iv line it was hooked too came out of my hand. I kept hitting the button for more morphine and the pain was still there. I finally noticed the blood on my sheets and called the nurse. she quickly realized the problem and switched the morphine to the PICC line they had put in because my veins are so hard to find. In Total I spent 3 weeks in the hospital and another month recovering. I also found I had diabetes so my diet had to change and I cut out Dr pepper and caffeine. I don't really miss it that much, the morphine helped me kick the habit LOL. Anyway we moved out of Brandy's mom's house and into our own apartment in Allentown, and it has not been easy. We have had our problems and we have gone to couples counseling to help us adjust, but it has been good for both of us. There are a lot more things I can tell you, but I want to end this here. Have fun my friends. Brian Current Mood: content (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 27th, 2007
10:46 pm	Yep she *is* the one OK I know I have been bad about updating my journal but I have been busy these last few months. Brandy came down for thanksgiving and stayed an extra 2 weeks, then after going home and going crazy without me for a while, she came down in feb, for another month. We had a blast together then flew up to PA to visit her family. Her family all loved me, even her cats and dogs. I cam back in April and I have been trying to get on disability due to my brain injury. I talked to Brandy's doctors while I was there and they seemed impressed with how far I have come on my own without therapy. They also agreed that a lot of my problems are related to the brain injury. With luck I should be able get disability soon. Brandy is moving here to Waco in June. I can't wait. She makes me happier than I can remember ever being. I love her very much. Current Mood: content (Comment on this)
Saturday, September 9th, 2006
2:03 pm	Is she the one? You know, I had given up on love. I had decided I was going to spend the rest of my life alone, that there was no one on Earth who could get me. No way anyone could know the pain I have been through. No way they could contemplate how alone I feel. And then I found the SoTBI mailing list. A whole bunch of people who had brain injuries like mine. I found out I wasn't alone. I found out that alot of the things I had been blaming myself for, for so long, were not my fault, they were caused by my brain injury. They convinced me to get on anti depressants and my life started to turn around. The list was great, but most people there were newly injured, not many of them were lifers like me. So none of them really knew what I had gone through growing up. Then she joined the list. Like me she had been injured as a child. Just like me she had grown up as an outsider. At first we were just friends, but as time went on I found us growing closer and closer. I tried to keep my distance, I have hurt people in the past, I didn't want to hurt her, and I didn't want to be hurt. I had given up on love, I was actively trying to avoid it. I guess you can't fight love. I don't know if I love her, I just know I want her in my life. I just know I don't want to live life without her. Current Mood: hopeful (Comment on this)
Monday, July 24th, 2006
9:13 pm	Doing much better well been 4 weeks on the Effexor, and my mood has improved dramaticly. Went back to the Doctor on friday and he went ahead and added Wellbutrin to the Effexor to help deal with the side effects I was having. Hopefully my sex drive will return. Current Mood: mellow (Comment on this)
Friday, July 7th, 2006
5:34 pm	2 weeks on Effexor XR well it's been 2 weeks since I started taking an anti depressant. I am still not up to the full dosage my Doctor wants me on but should be there next week. Only real side effect I've noticed has been pretty annoying but not life threatening. A decrease in my libido. Not that I was getting laid before mind you, but now I am starting to feel better about myself and might actually want to get laid... Welcome to my world. Current Mood: optimistic (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 7th, 2006
3:11 am	Brian is dead Brian Locke died 32 years ago. I am not that Brian Locke. I am the cripple who took his place. I have spent the last 32 years thinking I was him, trying to live his life, and failing. But his life ended that day 32 years ago. It's time I started living my life. I can't live his life, I'm a cripple who lacks the tools it takes to live his life. I mourn for his death, and I am in the process of grieving. Once I get past the grief, the anger, the denial, maybe I can get on with my life. No one cried when he died, there was no funeral. But I miss him. Rest in peace Brian Current Mood: melancholy (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 27th, 2006
12:44 am	Nice to know I'm not alone I joined a mailing list for people with Traumatic brain injuries and I am finding out I am not as alone as I thought. I finally have people I can talk to about my problems and not wanna smack the shit out of them when they say they "understand". You can't understand unless your brain is broken. I've spent 30 years trying to deal with my broken brain on my own. I went over my medical records and the only neuropsych review I had was back in 1983, I was supposed to go back for another a year later. Never went. The Occupational therapist declared me "cured" a year later and I haven't seen a doctor about the brain damage since then. All the problems I have had were warned about in the neuropsych review. Have you ever had the experience of looking at a description of yourself and realizing that you are not the person you thought? I realized that my emotions are a lot closer to the surface than in most people. When I was a kid I had little control. I have learned over the years to choke down the feelings, but is that the best thing? When I was working as a chat moderator, I let go. I unloaded my anger on the fucktards who deserved it. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I have to let it out somewhere, otherwise I'm gonna choke some poor bastard to death. Why am I like that you ask? (probably not but fuck you you ignorant asshole, you are gonna learn something whether you like it or not) Emotions, especially anger come from deep within the brain. They are kept in check by the frontal lobes. When the frontal lobes are damaged, the brake on the emotions is damaged. Imagine the brain as a car, the emotions are the engine, the frontal lobes the brakes. When the engine revs up, the brakes keep it from racing out of control and running someone over. Damage the brakes and... SPLAT!! some poor bastard gets run over. That is why often after a head injury people lose there temper much quicker. I've often told people I don't get angry easy, but that's not true. I get angry very easily, but it burns out fast and I have always considered that as annoyance, not true anger, but it is. There are other emotions to, and many is the night I have cried myself to sleep. Yes I admit it, I cry. I have wound up in tears after arguing with my father many times. Those emotions are always there, close to the surface, ready to boil over. I have learned to clamp down on them, not show them, but they are there. So the next time you feel like telling me you understand what I am going through, go hit yourself in the head with a brick and if you wake up screaming, then maybe you will understand me. Current Mood: irritated (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 18th, 2006
2:00 pm	Trying to get on Disability Well after much reflection and research into my type of brain injury, I have discovered I am not as alone in my problems as I thought. Turns out my behavior reads like a textbook description of right hemisphere brain injury. My problems dealing with other people, my inability to focus on tasks, memory problems, especially problems in ordering my memories. I don't know if I will get it, I hope so. Only reason I have a job now is because I am working for some very close friends who understand me. Anyone else I would have been fired long ago. I am still lonely and with the realization that most of my social problems are due to the brain injury comes the knowledge that one of the reasons I have trouble is that I lack the ability to flirt and interpret signals from flirting. That is inaccurate, *I* can flirt but I might as well be flirting with a wall since it takes two to tango, and I can't read the signals from other people. Makes for a very lonely life, but now that I know what the problem is, maybe I can try and find support, try and find some girl who understands my problem and can cope with it. And monkeys might fly out my butt. Of the two I think the butt monkeys are more likely. Current Mood: pessimistic (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 14th, 2006
2:57 am	To be or not to be To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. - Soft you now! The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember'd. Current Mood: depressed Current Music: Broken by Seether and Amy Lee (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 23rd, 2006
1:06 am	The nature of Humor I was chatting with Micki and I was popping off one liners left and right, making puns as I usually do, when she said I was funny. Of course the response to that comment is always "Funny 'haha' or funny 'strange'?" to which she answered "Yes!" This exchange brought to mind the classic joke: These two Cannibals are eating a clown. One Cannibal looks at the other and says "Does this taste funny to you?" This is a classic joke. It is always funny. You will always get at least a smirk form someone you tell it to, no matter how many times he has heard it. So the question I ask is why? Why is it funny? Let us examine it, we have a juxtaposistion of a clown who is supposed to be funny, being eaten by two canibals (which in almost every other context is a fear inducing image). The punch line "Does this taste funny to you?" is a word play. It is both a pun and a play on the dual meaning of the word "funny". It is an interesting question to consider whether people from other cultures would consider the joke funny. Substituting a cultural symbol similar to a clown for them. I doubt it would be as funny. Some things transcend cultures and are funny to any human being. I speak of slapstick humor, the lowest common denominator. A pie in the face is almost always funny. The question one must ask is why? One must suppose that the first joke was when Oog the proto human slipped in a pile of Mammoth dung and fell on his ass. Why? Consider this, the class clown is almost always the outsider, the person who doesn't belong. The only thing they have to offer the groups is laughter. The ability to make others feel better with humor, had to have been beneficial to our ancestors. Consider also that properly used humor is a weapon sharper than any sword. A rapier wit can often destroy an enemy far more effectively than a sword ever could. The sort of things you can do to a man is destroy his pride. Ridicule is a weapon. There are always those who need their ego's deflated. Humor is the weapon of choice. Properly used, ridicule can drive an enemy to make mistakes. Maybe we should be using that weapon more in the war. make the enemy look foolish, hand out flyers of Osama bin Laden fucking a camel. Or better yet being fucked by a camel. Show him as a woman, as a coward hiding in a cave. These will hurt his cause more than any bomb ever could. Current Mood: amused Current Music: Thousand Foot Krutch - Move (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 21st, 2006
12:29 am	Decided to try keeping a personal journal I decided to start keeping a personal journal, a real pencil and paper journal. Why? Look bellow the cut if you wanna know... ( Read more... ) Current Mood: morose Current Music: Godhead Eleanor Rigby (Comment on this)
Monday, March 13th, 2006
11:25 pm	the demon of self doubt For most people, it's easy to know who your friends are. Not for me. The part of my brain that processes that sort of thing is gone. What I wind up doing is believing someone is my friend, and only finding out later that they weren't. Before you get your knickers in a twist, this isn't a rant, and it isn't about anyone in particular. This is about my own personal failings. The thing is, I have friends, people I trust completely, but they are people I have known for nearly 20 years. My problem comes with others. I can never really trust my judgment about people. I always have a nagging doubt in the back of my head that this person I consider a friend, is only being nice to me for their own reasons. Whether it is business, or just a desire to "be nice to the loser who thinks he is my friend". I know there are those that do that, but, that is always my problem, I can't tell the difference between people who really like me as a person, and those just humoring me. This is where self doubt comes in. It sabotages me, it makes me consider all of my friends as mere pretenders. I look in the mirror and wonder why anyone would consider me a friend. I know this is irrational, I know that I have real friends, but I also know the others, the pretenders, are out there. And unlike most people, I lack the basic tools to tell the difference. So what do I do? Do I close myself off from the rest of the world so I will never be hurt? Or do I keep blundering along, fooling myself and believing people to be my friends when they are not, getting hurt over and over. When you get hurt the way I have you tend to build up a wall around yourself, never letting anyone get close, because you remember the pain, of being hurt. Over time that wall gets so tall, you are trapped inside it. You can never be hurt, but you can never find love. The fortress has become a Prison. And I am in Solitary confinement. And that is what hurts the most. Current Mood: lonely (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 1st, 2006
8:50 pm	My first love...(not what you think) I see my first love every night. So distant yet so close. Forever beyond my reach. When I was a child I dreamed of being with her, of touching her face. As I grew up, I realized she was forever beyond my reach. Men had touched her face, and then abandoned her. And now my love sits there, alone, calling to me. Many have heard her call, only 12 have answered. Who is my love you ask? The Moon. I dreamed of being an astronaut and walking on her surface like Neil Armstrong. I read books about space travel, rockets anything I could get my hands on. I even wanted to build my own rocket like they did in that TV show Salvage 1. The show sucked ass, but it touched my dreams. Hollywood hates her. How many movies have shown the moon only as a place where horrors await, that we are better off not knowing? I think probably the best Movie I ever watched about life on the moon was called "Plymouth" about a colony on the moon where they mined Helium3 from the moon. It was hard science fiction, no space opera. Hollywood hated it. It was made for TV, it came in under budget and it was shown only once, maybe twice on TV. It got good ratings but Hollywood hates anything that requires people to actually use their brains. I know I will never walk on the moon, but I have hope. I have no faith in NASA, they are more concerned with preserving the jobs of people who worked on the shuttle than in really cutting the cost of space exploration. The CXV was the plan submitted by t/Space for a replacement for the shuttle. It would let us put a crew of 4 into orbit for a cost of $20 million per launch. Compare that to the $500 Million cost of the shuttle per launch. Why you ask? Because it is different, it comes from the mind off Burt Rutan, perhaps the greatest Aerospace engineer who ever lived. It launches from the underside of a carrier aircraft, meaning you don't need a launch pad infrastructure. But no, we must bow down to the albatross that is the space shuttle. We must keep the people who work on it now employed. Ok I am not in favor of wasting our money on that, but the problem is that the CEV wastes weight. The current design has it arriving at the ISS with about 6 tons of extra fuel it doesn't need. It would be better if they could carry it as Cargo instead, but it can't. The Shuttle, was a huge waste of money. It sucked the life from every other program at NASA. The Shuttle never lived up to the promises they made when it was built. The Shuttle is nowhere near as reusable as they claimed it would be. The SSME's (Space Shuttle Main Engines) have to be removed and completely rebuilt every launch. It would be a lot cheaper to use different engines. Heavy Lift capability, we have none. We have to pay the Russians to use their Proton rockets for the heavy stuff. We killed the next generation heavy lift vehicle after Apollo. The Nova Rocket was intended to put 1million pounds of cargo into orbit. the Saturn V could only do 1/10th of that. That's the same total mass as 4 space shuttles. With that kind of heavy lift we could have a base on the moon within years. not decades. Not that this makes a difference in my dreams. They died when they turned astronauts into glorified truck drivers. The fact that I could never pass any physical to get into space also helped kill my dream. But still... Sometimes.... I look up at my lost love and dream. Current Mood: contemplative Current Music: Enya Adiemus (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 27th, 2006
11:49 pm	The funk is over for now I get in those moods pretty often, happens when I look too closely at my life. I know it depresses other people, but sometimes I need someplace to vent, here or in my myspace blog. Either way, it's a catharsis. I get by, one day at a time. Some days are just better than others. Current Mood: blah Current Music: Jem - They (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 26th, 2006
1:23 am	The downward spiral continues I don't know why I get into these funks. Maybe it's the lack of sleep, maybe it's the compounding of problems. Maybe it's just a short circuit in my brain. I find myself wanting to scream in frustration at the universe. Let me steal an analogy from George Carlin. It's like he difference between "being sick" and "not feeling well". When you are sick, people will do what they can for you, help you out, comfort you while you puke etc. When you "don't feel well" people consider you a slacker and an asshole. No one is willing to do anything out of their way for you or cut you a break. I have a brain injury, but it's not obvious to people. The scars are hidden by my hair. The only symptoms are I'm a klutz and I have no social skills. Lots of people meet that description though and they don't have a brain injury. Sometimes I want to shave my head so everyone can see the monster I really am. let them see the scars on my head since they can't see the scars inside. Let them see the deformed skull that resulted from the accident. I'm crippled, but no one can see it. I didn't even see it. I find myself wishing that I had been killed that day. In a way I did die that day, all that is left is a shell that has lingered, rotting away from the inside out. Waiting to die. Waiting to find that other part of me that did die that day. The part of me that had a future. Instead I linger on, counting the days, wondering when I will finally die and be done with the whole fiasco that is my life. Wondering how much worse tomorrow will be than today. What new disappointment will I find when I wake tomorrow morning? What new way has life found to break my spirit? And yet I get up in the morning, and face the new disappointments, and I die a little more inside. Every disappointment, every betrayal, every lost dream, I die a little more. Which will be dead first I wonder, my body or my spirit? Current Mood: depressed (Comment on this)
Friday, February 24th, 2006
10:00 pm	My personality defect test results Haughty Intellectual You are 100% Rational, 0% Extroverted, 28% Brutal, and 57% Arrogant. You are the Haughty Intellectual. You are a very rational person, emphasizing logic over emotion, and you are also rather arrogant and self-aggrandizing. You probably think of yourself as an intellectual, and you would like everyone to know it. Not only that, but you also tend to look down on others, thinking yourself better than them. You could possibly have an unhealthy obsession with yourself as well, thus causing everyone to hate you for being such an elitist twat. On top of all that, you are also introverted and gentle. This means that you are just a quiet thinker who wants fame and recognition, in all likelihood. Rather lacking in emotion, introspective, gentle, and arrogant, you are most certainly a Haughty Intellectual! And, most likely, you will never achieve the recognition or fame you so desire! Sweet! To put it less negatively: 1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive. 2. You are more INTROVERTED than extroverted. 3. You are more GENTLE than brutal. 4. You are more ARROGANT than humble. Compatibility: Your exact opposite is the Schoolyard Bully. (Bullies like to beat up nerds, after all.) Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Braggart, the Hand-Raiser, and the Robot. * * If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits. The other personality types: The Emo Kid: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Humble. The Starving Artist: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant. The Bitch-Slap: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Humble. The Brute: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant. The Hippie: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble. The Televangelist: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant. The Schoolyard Bully: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble. The Class Clown: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant. The Robot: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Humble. The Haughty Intellectual: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant. The Spiteful Loner: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Humble. The Sociopath: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant. The Hand-Raiser: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble. The Braggart: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant. The Capitalist Pig: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble. The Smartass: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant. My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 89% on Rationality You scored higher than 0% on Extroversion You scored higher than 25% on Brutality You scored higher than 65% on Arrogance Link: The Personality Defect Test written by saint_gasoline on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 21st, 2006
6:58 pm	Why is it I feel so alone? I have friends, good friends, people who are willing to help me when I need it. And yet I feel so alone. I look around and it's always like there is this wall between me and everyone else. I have no one I can really confide in. And even if I did there is noway anyone could understand why I feel the way I do. I have considered going to a shrink but I have neither the money nor the confidence that they can do anything for me other than prescribe pills that do nothing but mask the problem and fix nothing. I live outside of the real world, on the edges, just surviving. I'm always on the outside looking in. So I sit here waiting to die. No hope for the future, no one who understands the pain I feel, nowhere to go. All I see ahead of me is darkness. Current Mood: depressed Current Music: Disturbed Decadence (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 20th, 2005
9:54 pm	Wow, i have some great friends Micki and Jonathan are sending me $200 ($100 from the powerball ticket they won on) and $100 from their savings. They are fantastic friends. Another friend is loaning me $200, so all I need is $200 more. I want to thank my friends, it is people like you who make me feel rich. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 19th, 2005
10:20 pm	Well I need $600 Spent today calling around Dentists offices trying to find how much it will cost to get my tooth fixed. Most were around $700, with one going as high as $1800. Basicly I am screwed. I am stuck in between a rock and a hard place here. I need help. I am going to swallow my pride and ask for help. If you can help, I have a paypal account set up at sirlocke@hot.rr.com I will pay back anything you give me, but I can't promise when. Current Mood: distressed (2 Comments |Comment on this)