Jibralta

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I have a hard time understanding my decision-making process from back then. Old Me thinks Young Me was a little too fearless. Although... while Old Me probably wouldn't make a lot of the same decisions that Young Me did, Old Me doesn't regret a whole lot. In many cases, the adventure (or the learning experience) was worth it. And that boyfriend was a cool guy, despite his criminal record. It's too bad he couldn't get it together in life. I was.

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Beasty Boys also had excellent bass. Fight for Your Right came out when I was about 10. I really liked it. The whole album is very good. I had no idea about the bass, though, until I got to high school and hung out with kids with cars and good stereo systems. [video=youtube;iBVdVjPVAuU]

I loved this song when I was in high school. I wasn't really into this kind of music, but I loved the bass. [video=youtube;22R5tPvp7aE] ]

] I found this old college ID the other day. I am about 20 here. I always liked the necklace that I am wearing in this picture. Unfortunately, there's a blotch right at my throat that makes it hard to discern. But basically, it was a knotted piece of leather with some sort of a polymer clay pendant. The pendant is under the collar of my shirt. My future boyfriend gave me the necklace. I met him in a coffee house, during a street fair. I was at the coffee house to use the restroom and pour water over my head because it was hot. When I came out of the bathroom (with my sopping wet head), he was standing there. We ran away together to go swim in a lake. He had what I thought was a beeper on his ankle. Turned out to be a parole transponder. Oops. After swimming, we went back to his house. He painted my toe nails and we reclined separate couches in the living room and listened to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The house was a huge mess. I thought he lived there with a bunch of kids our age, but it turned out he lived with his mom. She was schizophrenic and couldn't keep after the house. The kitchen was filthy but she was a really good cook and I ate her food even though I was afraid of it. I ended up painting the whole house and refinishing the floors for them. We spent a year as friends, and then we became boyfriend and girlfriend for about 16 months. He was a pretty cool guy, but he ended up going back to prison.

I loved Wuthering Heights, too. I think I've heard of Rebecca. Haven't read it, though.

This morning, I sent my boyfriend an I-Love-You Bitmoji. A minute later, I get a text back, "Yay! Can't wait to see you again. Love you boo" I was like, "Boo?" and then I was like, "See me again? We see each other every day." So, I opened the message and it was from my friend Lisa, who I'm going to dinner with tonight. I'd sent her the I-Love-You Bitmoji. And she liked it! So then I had a moment of anxiety. I wanted to tell her that I'd meant it for Arnold, not her. But it seemed to make her so happy, and I didn't want to take that away from her. But at the same time, what if it came up during dinner? I have really weird anxiety. I ultimately decided to CONFESS and let her know that the bitmoji was a mistake. She never responded. I actually have mild guilt about this. Why am I so crazy?

The Flamingos I Only Have Eyes for You Recently heard this on my way to work one morning. It was still dark, and the song was all beautiful and echoey. [video=youtube;FvzNeh4Mq1o] ]

I love Willie Nelson's voice, and his sense of rhythm. He dances around the back beat of a song. Apparently, when he first started out, a record producer thought he had no sense of rhythm. Crazy. I could listen to this album all day. I wish I could sing along, but my voice is in a different key and I constantly have to switch octaves. So, I whistle. I must look pretty weird whistling in my car when I'm listening to this album. [video=youtube;Hf5UvKjCDUU] ]

I love this song. I like the studio version better, though.

Did you ever read the book? It's excellent.

I think it's impossible for someone to accurately describe themselves to another person, mainly because what we think we represent and what other people actually perceive can be wildly different. I think the bolded part is really the crux of the matter. People have different strengths and weaknesses. He may be telling the truth about being independent, but it's in a way that you don't particularly value. Same with being needy. He might just be weak in an aspect that you feel burdened by.

This is a different Bruce Springsteen than the one that played on the radio when I was a kid. I caught the tail end of this song very late one night, while I was driving. I scoured the internet with the little scrap of lyric that I could remember. I was surprised to discover that it was Bruce Springsteen song. I think it's beautiful. [video=youtube;rcWF7se6EfA] ]

This is a different Rod Stewart than the one that played on the radio when I was a kid. [video=youtube;ld228IoU8aE] ]

That is a really interesting observation. It makes me draw a complete blank--maybe it hits close to home! I have to think about it a little. Well, I gave some thought to your observation. And I don't think I've come to any hard conclusions. But I'd like to write it out because that helps me to think. My initial reaction to reading your comment was, "I've never equated marriage with love." But I wasn't sure if that was true or not. After all, marriage was introduced to me as something that happened when a man and a woman loved each other very much (like sex and babies!). And that depiction was further reinforced by books, music, movies, TV shows, and commercials, as well as the beliefs of friends, relatives, and acquaintances. Also, I was in my early 30s (after I dated Tom) when I learned that marrying for love was a recent phenomenon. It made sense to me (and was strangely reassuring) when I heard it, but it hadn't been my understanding of marriage prior to that discovery. So, I questioned my knee-jerk reaction to your statement, and reached back into my memory for my pre-30s view of marriage. I drew a complete blank! I know what I think of marriage now. But I don't know what I thought of marriage then. I think I simply accepted what I was told. Everybody gets married and has children, and that's just the way it is. I studied marriage and romantic relationships whenever I watched movies or TV, and when I read books. I always searched for a romantic story line. Now I see that I was searching for the reinforcement of my heretofore unquestioned beliefs. Because what I saw didn't jive with what I was told. I saw cracks in the relationships around me. I saw resentfulness, sneakiness, selfishness. I saw divorce. Absentee fathers. Struggling mothers. I had both a belief in love-marriage and an extreme cynicism about what you actually get. Marriage looked like a thing of beauty, but unless you were really lucky, it was probably a gilded turd. So, I don't think that my knee-jerk reaction to your observation was completely inaccurate. I just hadn't discovered my own beliefs at that point. It seems crazy to say that there was (and could still be!) something about myself of which I was not aware. But I am reassured by the existence of sayings like, "Know thyself," and "The unexamined life is not worth living." As for love: No, I didn't love Tom. But I had loved before, and one thing I did (and still do) believe was that love could grow. And this I know for certain: Love, wonderful as it is, has never kept me in a relationship. In the past, it actually made me walk away from them. When I was younger and life was in front of me to discover, I couldn't make big commitments. I was incapable. But I recognized this about myself. Rather than lead my boyfriend on indefinitely, I broke up with him and set him free. I felt that it was the decent thing to do for someone who I loved and respected.

Yes. I think there are relationship-parasites, as well. Personally, I prefer symbiotic relationships in all aspects of life. I don't care if you're a schmoozer if you bring something to the table. But I resent being a host!

All of the above is true, if that makes any sense. I can be as creative as I want as an architect. But at the end of the day, someone else is reaping the profits of my innovation. It's not bad if you're being creative for people that you like. But when you have no respect for them (how I feel right now), it is difficult. To be clear, I love my immediate bosses and am glad to work for them. But our company was acquired by another company several years ago, and I think the new company put the wrong people in charge. It should have been the two guys that I work for. They each have over 38 years of experience in the industry, and ran the most profitable division in the office. But instead, we have these slippery salesmen types in charge. Right from the beginning, I thought it was a weird choice. But I was excited to be working for the new company, and I kept an open mind about it. I worked for the old company for less than a year before we were absorbed, so I wasn't a die-hard loyalist. But three years later, I can see where the talent is, and it's not in our new leadership. These guys only seem interested in chasing publicity. They're front and center for all of the town meetings, but they don't actually deliver sht and are a huge burden on the rest of us because we have to compensate for their incompetence. Thoroughly unimpressive. I wonder what political force controls this company, and how far does it pervade? I don't necessarily want to alienate it, but I don't want to work for it, either. I have to be careful who I work for.

Good advice. Seriously. Overthinking is the worst.

This is just a rough outline of an idea, so bear with me. It seems to me that there are two types of people in a work environment: schmoozers and workers. The schmoozers are basically salespeople. They sell inside of the company and outside of the company. The workers are the people who get the job done. The schmoozers make the promise and the workers deliver the goods. These are just two very broad categories that represent opposite ends of a spectrum of possibilities. There are gradations between the two extremes. The concept can be generally applied to all types of business. I think there's a value inherent in both types of person, but for my own development, I want to stay with the workers for as long as possible. And I want to find the best of the best workers to be around, because that is how I learn. The trick is not to be lured in by schmoozers who claim that they are the best.

There is a certain sadness to it. But the memory makes me smile. I like melancholy, so no surprise there.

I think the highs and lows of drama are very compatible with attraction (unfortunately). Drama intensifies ALL feelings, not just the bad ones. It can be downright intoxicating under the right circumstances. So, I can see why it's an easy pattern to fall back into.

I spent the summer of 2009 in Italy, as part of graduate school. I wrote this shortly after I returned. I just ran across it again and figured I'd post it. I had completely forgotten about it, and enjoyed rediscovering this memory. _______________________________ I miss strange odds and ends. For example, I miss Euros. Every night, I’d sort my coins into piles of 1.2 Euro for coffee the next morning. There was a good-looking guy at the coffee shop who I flirted with every day. His name was Raf (short for Rafael, I guess). He spoke almost no English, and I spoke even less Italian, but it was nice. When the time came to leave Siena, I figured I had to tell him good-bye. I was surprised at how sad I felt. In fact, when I worked out the statement in Italian (Parto mercoledi. Il mio giorno ultimo e domani—I leave on Wednesday. Tomorrow is my last day), I felt tears come to my eyes! Was this because of him? Uggh, the idea of crying while saying good-bye to a near-stranger was horrifying—especially because he was cute. Unfortunately, it also seemed very likely, as I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye. So on the Monday before I left, I walked resolutely up the hill, prepared to announce my imminent departure. When I got there, only the tough Italian lady (Lydia) was working. Excellent! She was nice and tough, and she didn’t care about me at all. I knew I wouldn’t cry telling her I was going to leave! So that’s what I did, hoping that she would tell Raf. And that’s what she did. When I returned that afternoon for a cappuccino, he was there. With little preamble he asked me if I was leaving tomorrow (Tuesday). I don’t remember if he spoke in Italian or English. With some combination of both languages, we came to the understanding that I was leaving Siena on Wednesday. He asked if I would be going to America, and I said yes. He asked me if I would return to Siena, and I shrugged and said, “I don’t know,” in English. He turned around abruptly and I couldn’t tell if he understood me. I wanted to say to him that I’d miss Siena, that I’d miss seeing him, that I wished I could have known him better, but I didn’t know how to say any of that. All I could do was hope that my expression somehow conveyed it when we made eye contact. He was working, of course, and moving around talking to people, so it wasn’t like we were just standing there staring at each other. When there were opportunities to exchange glances, I forced myself to look at him. He looked back at me, but he didn’t wink or smile at me, and he didn’t stop to talk again. He looked unhappy. I felt unhappy. I glanced at Lydia, and I saw that she knew exactly what was going on! Her expression was sympathetic. I felt embarrassed, and I wondered if our flirting had been obvious the whole month! I honestly didn’t think that it was noticeable. I felt “caught,” but the situation was what it was. Why hide? Raf walked away, and she came over to me and spoke in Italian. She told me that Raf’s name was Raf. I told her I knew. She gestured to him and said something with the word ragazzo (young man) but I didn’t really understand. I looked over to see if Raf had anything to say, but he was marching around looking very stoic with his back to us most of the time. She gestured towards him again and tried to elaborate on her meaning. I still didn’t understand. Finally, she pointed at him and exclaimed, “BEAUTIFUL!” The man next to me laughed, and I laughed too and said, “Yes!” loudly so that Raf would hear me. But he did not turn around. I saw Raf one more time, on the following afternoon. He waved at me when I came in, and he said goodbye very kindly when I left, but he didn’t take the opportunity to talk to me, even during the brief moment when no one was in the shop but us. While he stood there and occupied himself with his job, I pretended not to care, too. As I left, I almost didn’t say good bye. I was pissed off. But at the last moment, I looked over my shoulder at him and said “Ciao.” He looked up at me, and his expression and tone were earnest when he said “Ciao” back. As I walked back down to the dorm, I really wanted to turn around and march back up there and…. and do what? Say what? That’s the thing, that’s the dilemma. There really was nothing to say. Anyway, when I count my quarters into dollars, I remember counting my Euros for coffee, and I miss them.

That is a really interesting observation. It makes me draw a complete blank--maybe it hits close to home! I have to think about it a little. I like the Beatles. I just don't know why I can't get into that station!