Distractions Archives - The Queer KYD

June 13, 2026June 13, 2026

My Earliest Memory in the Never-ending Search For Meaning.

My story would not be complete without a discussion of my ever-present search for enlightenment. The meaning of it all. The reason we exist, the purpose of life. Self awareness.

I have been studying Zen Buddhism for the past 50 years. My firm belief in existentialism, and my firm disbelief in a higher power. Or maybe it’s a dislike of organized religion. My experience as a younger man with psychedelics, acid, mushrooms and peyote. We were part of the generation influenced by the writings of Carlos Castenada and Timothy Leary. Sex, drugs and rock and roll.

That chapter in my life is a story unto itself, and yes, I did reach a level of higher consciousness. At least in my own mind.

June 3, 2026June 3, 2026

June is Closing In, Summer Has Come Too Fast

There was no Spring this year, like last. It’s summer and I’m not ready. I’m still struggling with the aches and pains of winter, as they haven’t receded like the pile of dirty snow in the street, now gone. I normally start to feel normal before now, or at least better.

My continued apologies to my readers for not writing more often. I’m trying to be forgiving for not living up to the standards I’ve imposed on myself” I can only do what I can.

I find it funny I’ve never reread any of the posts in here, not one. It’s like a painting I toiled over or a song on the piano, once it’s done I better move on. Otherwise I’ll paint over it or change the melody and lose what was once there.

May 28, 2026June 3, 2026

“Hey Kyd, Where the Heck Are You.”

Maybe that title should read “how the heck are you,” ? Mox nix, my mother used to say. Makes no difference.

I’ve been thinking about my mother a lot lately, and how much I miss her. Even though she died 5 years ago I still hurt just as much as when I was holding her hand when she took her last breath.

I just recently opened a box she sent me the week before her death, and found a small memory book for photographs. This particular album contained photos of myself, from when I was born until I graduated from high school.

There was one or two photos per year, some with just me standing there, and several with my two brothers. Old black and whites, capturing my life in pictures. A snapshot, no pun intended, of 3 brothers who were 9 years apart, and their journey to manhood. Again no twisted humor intended, but hey, made me smile. My journey to manhood and back. Some trip.

April 27, 2026May 3, 2026

Paying The Price

A simple journal post for today.

I’m dead tired even though I slept hard last night. Just about every bone in my body aches from the abuse I put it through for a good chunk of last week. Three days later I’m paying for it, as always with the pain comes lack of sleep. Sure enough I woke up this morning feeling blue.

I told my wife, the one and only Mrs. Kyd, that I was “stove up” .

“I’m all stove up this morning.”

“You’re what?”

“You know…stove up.”

“And what the heck does that mean?”

April 20, 2026April 20, 2026

“If You’re Having That Much Pain, Imagine How Bad it Really Is”

The title above is a quote from my daughter, who was responding to an email I had sent to her last Tuesday.

If you’ve read the previous post you’ll know how bad I was the Sunday night. All the bad actors were waging war at the same time. (One week later I can sit here at the dining room table and try to post. My new goal is to post at least once a week, which is pretty awful.) That Sunday night the pain had reached one of the highest I have ever felt. Ever. That’s a lot of disasters, accidents and stupid mistakes over the last 60 years, all causing major negative consequences. Broken bones, stitches, bruising, gashes, you name it -I’ve had it.

April 19, 2026April 20, 2026

Totally Irrelevant Dribble: Or How I can Kill Days Navel Gazing

Is that the right term? Navel gazing?

I believe it means that I’m doing absolutely nothing but sitting with my head down staring at my navel. Hours blown while my mind zooms in and out and back to where it started. Repeat.

In my case, just to be honest, I’m staring at a “navel” that exists in a million year old river rock that I stole from someone’s garden. A small slit that was once full of crystals, long eroded over the millenia.

Of course there’s a story behind this.

March 11, 2026March 11, 2026

The Gander Attack: A Tale of Trauma (Part 1)

(Author’s note: My apologies for doing this in 2 parts, but there was a bit of background that I thought was relevant. Although this isn’t directly related to my personal situation in dealing with PTSD, depression, and the like, it’s something very similar. Okay, to be truthful, just another brain fart from yours truly.)

This is a tale of a traumatic event, and the resulting consequences suffered by my best friend. It starts from when the two of us bonded, the traumatic event itself, and how it affected both our lives. Since we are inter-connected, we share the same goal of trying to make things better.

My best friend, Blu, was diagnosed with epilepsy when he was a 1 year old puppy. Still in the “cute” stage of puppyhood, but nearly full grown. In my humble layman’s thinking, I now feel the diagnosis of epilepsy to be inaccurate. You will have to bear with me as I let the whole story unfold.

March 2, 2026March 3, 2026

An Infinite Sadness

So after much deliberation, internal debate I have given up on the possibility of ever feeling “better”. An objective reasoning based on a simple method of analysis and data. I wake up sick and in pain, if I’ve even gone to sleep. At times “waking up” simply means getting up off the couch.

When I do sleep it’s from the dose of trazodone, then the dogs wake me up in a stupor.

Yesterday I decided to abandon all hope of feeling half decent and decided I just need to learn how to get by everyday feeling like crap. There is data that supports this, as my TimeTree calendar has a note on every day I’ve been sick since last September.

I was hoping, praying, this year would be different, but I started with a fresh count and after 2 months I’ve been bedridden for 20 days. 20 days out of 60, or for you statisticians a whopping 33%. Not that that has anything to do with statistics.

For 20 days I was totally non-functioning. I would give up on sleep, and if I slept a few hours would wake up from the nausea. All I could do was sip ginger ale, eat a saltine or a Ritz cracker, and go lay down. First the couch, then the bed. Up and down as there is nothing I can do to get comfortable. My own body the villain.

It’s hard to describe the feeling really, the worst seasickness? Or a case of the flu? All wrapped up together. If I’m lucky on day four or five I can eat plain pasta in the form of egg noodles, maybe a piece of toast.

Then I’ve got a week or ten days where I have to grab life and take advantage of the time. Live as much as I can while waiting for it to happen again. I live in fear of the next time, but it keeps on happening.

It’s caused such a feeling of melancholy, way beyond the depression I deal with.

It’s the knowledge that this is what I have to deal with from here on out, that is the way my life will be.

Remorse.

Dejection.

Like life is being slowly taken from me.

I’ve spent the last 10 years dealing with pain, so now this is one more thing to cope with. That’s the best way to put it, just cope.

Sorry if I’m whining, just feeling it today..

February 9, 2026February 9, 2026

Good Lord, I feel Like I’m Dyin

Author’s note: My good friend tells me I’m not whining, I’m venting, and have every right to do so.. So this is a vent about the last few weeks, following a horrible Christmas. Being constantly ill (nauseated) and in physical pain for these past 5 years has been more than a challenge. I don’t know how many more times I can pull myself back up, as the frequency of these “events” seems to be increasing. I was hoping for a break after the Christmas disaster, but alas…)

If you read this blog you know by now music plays a big role in my life. Something is playing in my head constantly as background music, my own personal elevator Muzak. Every once in a while it’s something new, the melody breaks through my train of thought and I have to sit at the piano.

It’s usually something from my past.

November 19, 2025November 24, 2025

Take the Good with the Bad

Or is that the other way around, perhaps the bad with the good? Either way life has its ups and downs, I just happen to have more of the latter. I could give up and give in, but can’t. Not yet anyway.

The other morning I woke up early, when the missus was out of town for a few days on business. She left only after I reassured her I would be okay and could look after the three of us. At least the dogs would be fine.

I’d been bedridden for the last 6 days. Apparently I’ve developed a serious food allergy of some kind, but we have yet to figure out what exactly. We’re narrowing it down to pork, seafood, and/or a variety of spices. Okay, that’s not too narrow. This is the second time in 2 months this has occurred. It takes a full week until I feel half way normal, a full week of hell. In the last 40 days I’ve spent 18 in bed. Most of those I couldn’t even manage feeding the dogs.