1000 Words

[tiredofvampires]

Hahha, daw, Cap, oh my...you're too kind! But thank you!! That's especially nice to hear when I logged off, re-read it, and thought, ewww....lol

 

Okay, how 'bout this -- I'll find something to write about and make you my agent/marketing director! That might help me move some inventory, heh heh...

 

For some reason I do my best writing when I'm not planning on writing for any purpose. I've gone to writing classes and workshops, and they give an exercise and everyone's scribbling away while I sit there like a stone with mindblanks. lol What's up with that....

 

Not that you won't be the first one to hear about it when I'm struck by lightening and get a real book idea. Promise.

 

And thank you for reading...

[tiredofvampires]

WooooooHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

 

That rain yesterday was just the beginning -- now it's THUNDAH!!! I love that heavy, pounding sound that rolls out of the sky...like a million surround-sound bass drums, playing off eachother in close-up and distant echoes.

 

It's so intense...almost deafening.

 

And here's the lightening. Ricocheting off the clouds.

 

There's nothing like it in this world. So primordial. It's music.

 

BLISS.

[itsallgrand]

I love reading your posts too. Like reading a good book. If Roadtripper pops back up (or another man who catches your interest like that and sends you a fine email), you post here and I will help push you to contact him!! lol.

I empathize with that because oh the opportunities I've missed in my life with a similar "I'll get back to it" line of thinking. Gotta strike when the iron is hot! And regret nothing.

 

Thunderstorms are one of my favorite things too...primordial, exactly, and I love that feeling. It's like a fresh beginning, the world beginning, all over again.

[sleepingdonut]

Your comments on thinking in pictures and relationships between science and the human condition made me think of this: link removed

[tiredofvampires]

Thanks, IAG...

 

If Roadtripper pops back up (or another man who catches your interest like that and sends you a fine email), you post here and I will help push you to contact him!! lol.

 

Lol, okay, sounds like a plan! I guess this really does indicate something about how my "seize the day" default has taken a hit lately. Yeah, it was largely due to traveling and being preoccupied that I didn't return his letter...and I DID have my sights set on another at the time as well, however tentatively...but it certainly couldn't have hurt to reach out and give him the gist of a hello and let him know I'll be game later, when I'm more settled (especially seeing as how I was giving the fledgling other potential relationship I was focused on a 98% prediction of failure.)

 

But yes, I would have had no regrets...and possibly, a good penpal by now. Which it seemed Roadtripper was really a great candidate for.

 

Possibly the stupidest thing about all this is that this isn't the first time. A couple of years back, I had exactly the same thing happen (with slightly different reasons for my lagging), and on this same site. It was a guy who I think might have even matched me better than Roadtripper. I was similarly horrified and in shock when it happened, and even expressed as much on ENA then as well. I vowed never to wait on something like that again...and here I am, having done the same thing!!! Tch, it really is disconcerting that it would happen AGAIN. So from now on, I think I'm going to just have to jump in any time anyone looks the least bit promising and just be real. Not commit more than I can at the moment, but find a way to frame it so that it doesn't look like I'm wishy washy or disinterested (which is hard given that RIGHT NOW, I'm not feeling the whole thing as I was just a few short months ago. Which I think runs the risk of snowballing, if I don't keep putting my best foot forward.)

 

Yes, I love the cleansing quality of thunderstorms. But they also feel so dramatic...the elements at their most voluble and powerful.

[tiredofvampires]

Your comments on thinking in pictures and relationships between science and the human condition made me think of this: link removed

 

I love, love, LOVE this reference, sleepingdonut! Thank you so much for posting that! I especially like the message of the conclusion -- which is essentially my entire approach to dating (not just in my own life, but as I advise others). And maybe why I'm stalling a bit. I have a lot of passion and "charge"...but it's been blunted lately. And I want to make sure it's at full "force".

 

Or...maybe it's my Faraday cage, that I've unintentionally built?...(incidentally, Faraday is one of my heroes, my favorite people in history. Just as an aside.)

 

Anyway, thank you for tuning in and that awesome and apt link. I am definitely a girl in love with metaphors and parallels, especially ones that actually play out in real, worldly phenomena in unlikely places.

[tiredofvampires]

I knew I shouldn't have looked at that picture of the Syrian boy.

 

Totally losing it.

 

I can't stop crying.

 

Poor little wee thing.

 

He's not one child. He's every child.

[tiredofvampires]

Noting: anxiety. restlessness. AGITATION.

 

INTENSE agitation.

 

This is bothering me. This seems so silly and overblown to be obsessing over...but I have reason to be. Of course, there's always a "reason" to be obsessing and agitated to this extent, isn't there? It always seems like the apprehension is warranted, until it's proven to be silly and overblown. But this has not yet been, so here I am...

 

The weather in the last few weeks has been patently unbearable for me, making me want to flee this place even more. A string of hurricanes (plus just good ol' notorious southerly winds) have brought an unbroken season of lifeless heat and humidity. It's felt like I'm walking in slow motion, or swimming through the air rather than walking. Even the trees look wilted and bowed in motionlessness. Sweat just sticks, forming a second skin, everywhere I go. And because I don't work in an air-conditioned environment, there's no escape. I've also tried to exercise with walking while it's like this, and I feel as though my body is sponging up the muggy air into my bones, making the aching pains I have even worse. Deep inhalations just make me want to lie down in a stupor and gaze up at the low-hanging sky, rather than continue on. There are actual studies of the effects of humidity and barometric pressure on syndromes like mine, and it appears this kind of weather hits us even more than regular, healthy people who just find it very, very annoying. For me it's been excruciating, to the point of thinking, "Even if I end up homeless, I need to leap this state, I can't carry on in a place that frequently makes me feel like I'm starting to decompose while alive".

 

I do have an AC in my apartment, which is technically portable, on wheels, but as I've had it have to velcro-ed to the window sill in one room (the living room), where I sleep and do my work, the bedroom, is without the alleviating effect and especially in the afternoon when the sun drops, it becomes a large sauna with the solar heating unit aimed directly at my bed, which is the only surface I wish to be on.

 

This is on top of a particularly nasty flare of pain, which is another story involving a doctor visit gone horribly wrong three months ago, and the endless replays in my head about how I should have done this or that differently -- mostly, how I shouldn't have gone there in the first place. And then the ceaseless attempts at "positive" chatter about how it's all 20/20 hindsight, and how I need to move forward instead of continuing to look backward, and how, of course, this will heal like all the rest (though I am never without some new twist to set me back.) And currently there's been this incessant recurring thought that this round won't abate, rather just keep spiraling, because in some cases I've read about -- and given my highly-wound physiology and state of mind -- that seems more likely than it fading away.

 

So that's the backdrop. Which is already about anxiety, restlessness, and apprehension. And a paralytic feeling -- that whichever way I turn, I can expect at very least for it to not pan out the way I'd hoped.

 

But that's really not what my issue is right at the moment, or at least the cause of these feelings. Well, it is and it isn't. They were certainly contributory in this oblique way to the immediate quandry.

 

Yesterday, there was a release from the humid weather, after the final throes of the last menacing near-miss hurricane passed. And suddenly, there was movement in the trees again. There was a newfound wind, a return of animation in the air. And as the result of some slightly better sleep -- which I'm not sure what to attribute to -- I felt actually energized. Really energized. My body didn't feel consumed with pain and malaise, it felt light and I felt alert. My pain was there, but it was at tolerable levels. So this being a immensely motion-oriented "seize the day" sensation, I starting thinking about what I'd like to do with my day. But it felt out of place -- like being woken from a restless slumber to do a jig. Or a mazurka.

 

I should say that all these conditions that have made me feel anxious and weary have taken a very major toll on how enthused I feel about seeing people. For one, it's physically hard to sit when sitting causes the pain to worsen, positionally. There's no glossing that over with some different viewpoint -- it just is what it is, which is why it feels so helpless. So socializing takes on a kind of "grit my teeth" quality. And there's only so long you can clench your way through an event that's supposed to be fun before you realize you're not having fun, you're just showing up to try. And then because this is a recent development, after that doctor's appointment, I'm going down this mental downward spiral about how sweet life could be without this THING in my WAY. And on and on, the story goes, inevitably reaching this crescendo where I just want to go home and sleep it off, only it's not to be slept off. The next day, I'll battle the same basic elements in different ratios.

 

The funny thing about chronic pain is that even on a day when the pain is less, in a way, it's just as bad -- because you're wondering, when is it going to come back? How much time before the coach turns back into a pumpkin -- when does the axe fall? How do I extend my stay? How long do I get to feel more like a normal human being again? When is "it" coming home? It's like living with an abusive jailer who sometimes leaves unannounced and you're left with yourself for a while, how long you know not. You know it's borrowed time -- but it's yours. So it's a conflicted reprieve. You go out into the world sensing it in a way that no one else is. Life takes on a fleeting quality, a precious quality one step removed from everyone else, tinged with melancholic yet mystical reverie, and this is a color painted accross every thing that you encounter, including the most mundane.

 

So on a bad day, varying levels of despair and self-preservation dominate. And on a good day -- like yesterday, anticipatory anxiety combined with suspended happiness are dominant. A weird overlay, for sure.

 

It's a strange way for your soul to be thieved. It eats you because even when you are given a pass...it's hard to know how to even use it or where, and to invest it in anything seems foolish. So you just kind of wander and stumble through the goodness of life, not knowing which part of your experience is the dream, which part of it to take with you. Protecting yourself even when the alarms have been turned off for a while, and you only lose more by self-protection.

 

This is what happened then, with that mixture: I somehow had this intense longing to go out with a friend and enjoy some activity together. A lunch or coffee I've taken so many rainchecks on; or to visit with someone. I'd been isolating, and now I wanted to break out of it for however long. It's not that the anxiety was less or the dreary catastrophic thoughts were less, but I felt a stronger brew of antidoting thoughts and feelings, and wanted to build on those as much as possible, not just for the sake of this day, but in the interests of my current research having to do with re-training the brain, which is another whole topic.

 

Anyway, so this hankering went on, and eventually I turned on my phone, but it was late in the morning. And somehow...I just got carried away writing and researching on my computer all day, because it seemed not much was going to happen. I considered, deliberated, then rejected the idea of going out to a certain event that day because it involved a lot of sitting and I just wanted to preserve myself with less pain.

 

Then around 7 in the evening, I went to the other room to check my cell, and I saw a text waiting for me from this guy who I've been very casually speaking with, sporadically. The text said, "Come over and we can catch up...", something of a follow-up to some random banter we'd had just a couple of days prior that functioned more as small talk -- something I realize I dislike in any medium.

 

The message had been sent almost 12 hours prior, close to 8 in the morning.

 

Why is this significant?

 

Well, first of all, I'd have to say something about this guy. He's different. He's different from all the guys I meet here. And we met not on a dating site, but at a political activity at a woman's apartment, involving making cold calls to prompt people to vote a certain way in the last mid-term election. So that was some time ago, many, many months. At the time I met him there, I didn't think much of it except that he was strikingly handsome, and very pleasant in a mellow-but-not-dull sort of way. I liked his energy. And someone who is black always stands out a bit here as "not from here", just because the black demographic is so disproportionately small here (it's like 2%, according to stats). Since I'm a minority here as well, that always makes things feel more balanced to me. I also, as an aside, find black culture in general to be kindred to me in some way, with a lot I relate to, so there's that feeling in the mix as well (maybe I ought to confess as well that I find black features in a general way to appeal to my aesthetic inclinations). So all-in-all, meeting someone clearly who is not from here (so read: less inbred), someone working alongside me for causes I believe in on his free time on a Saturday, someone clearly articulate and thoughtful, and someone really attractive made an impression.

 

But that came and went, and I didn't think of him again until many weeks later, I ran into him at the beach park where I do my walks. I was on an evening walk on a particularly brooding day, so I'm not sure why my (I would imagine intense) expression invited this, but he called out to me to say hi. I didn't recognize him at first, because he'd chopped off the short dredlocks he had before, didn't have a cap on, and it was semi-dark. But he seemed really happy to see me, remembered my name (which is rare -- and he has a rare name, too, which I promptly had forgotten), and so we chatted a bit. He eagerly offered to exchange phone numbers so we could talk more some time (this was even though he was with a girl, and she seemed nice as well -- but I wondered what their relationship was.) I left that scene in a completely different mood -- kind of bouncy and excited. And a little on edge. I admit I was truly surprised that he'd gone out of his way to not just notice me, but to call out to me with such apparent enthusiasm. I didn't realize I'd made such an impression on him, and couldn't imagine it was the same kind of impression he'd made on me.

 

Anyway, I won't go into the whole history of the next few months, but let's just say that there were multiple attempts to get together and we kept missing eachother, but it was much more my doing. I was going through a lot with my housing/smokers crisis still, and I gave him just the bare-bones gist of it. I don't think I even told him the part that I live in public housing. Save that for later. And then I told him I was going on this long trip to visit family far away, so he was like, we have to get together before you leave! So we did do that, had lunch together -- and it really felt very, very platonic, almost professional. We didn't speak much of our personal lives, just the projects we were working on, with me asking him a lot about a new non-profit he had started. This conversation left me with even more attraction to him -- his enterprising nature, his worldly knowledge, his being savvy about many issues that I find few to be, his being well-traveled, and even that even though he was originally from Zimbabwe and had left at about age 12, he had no accent. Not that an accent would have bothered me in any way, and I do like accents, but he has this "man of the world" quality about him, very seasoned, though I'd put his age at possibly 10 years younger than me. Hard to tell. As he mapped out the trajectory of the places he's lived, he seemed to have really covered a good portion of the globe in those years.

 

The other thing is, we talked about living here. I told him how remote it feels to me here, and he asked me if I thought I might leave. I told him I would like to for many reasons, and still have not found a practical way. He told me he sees here as a stepping stone, that he would eventually move on after he's accomplished some stuff here. So neither of us see this as "a home to stay" (even though in my case, I was born and raised here -- but it's always felt like a foster home of sorts.) Which made me feel even more cut from the same cloth, as so many people come here and say, "I'm done searching, this is THE place for me, I've found Shangri-La." Not him. We agreed on some of the limitations here, including the insular nature of the people to match the geography but more than anything, the prohibitive cost of living.

 

He also told me that I was welcome to stay in his apartment downtown whenever I needed a crash pad, if the cigarette smoke got too much where I live. He said he wasn't home many nights, which made me think perhaps he's already spoken for. Maybe that girl at the beach? And at that fledgling point, I was already slightly disheartened with the thought, being honest with myself.

 

You could say it was a bonifide crush now. One which I realized I wouldn't realize in any way, so it was strongly tempered with a sense of "being real" and an intent to deactivate it if at all possible.

 

Look -- he was completely out of my league. His background, his experience, his marketability, his physicality. I mean, holy crap, we met at about 1:00 for lunch, and by that time he'd gone for a mountain hike on the other side of the island at the buttcrack of dawn with friends, had gone to do office work, and had done some major business calls. So I was happy to leave it here -- a buddy, a friend, someone to fight the good fights with who I really related to.

 

What I found interesting is that he was so persistent about finding out when we could meet, when I was coming home from my trip. He texted me while I was ON my trip, to see how I was doing, wondering if I was home yet.

 

And then when I got back here, we didn't text much until a meetup was happening at someone's house, for members of this grassroots political organization we both are connected with. That was less than a month ago, and I was frankly very relieved to have a situation laid out where I could be around him but the focus would be on various topics of discussion.

 

It was a really good evening, with good company. My mom came with me to that, as she was visiting me, and she told me afterwards -- in a word, WOW. He's everything you cracked him up to be. Without my prompting, she remarked on him being "very" handsome, for one, but also that he was clearly very intelligent and tapped into what's going on.

 

He actually didn't say much and we didn't talk there much...it was more of a social thing, group circle, intimate party thing.

 

But I don't know if it was my imagination...it seemed that every time I turned my eyes to look at him, he either was glancing at me, or turned to glance at me in sync. It was almost unnerving. I didn't know what to make of it and I certainly didn't want to make more of it than it meant. He came alone, by the way.

 

But at the end of the evening, when my mom and I were leaving, I went over to him and hugged him, and we said in unison, "We have to get together to catch up!" It was just this warm, mutual feeling of respect and recognition. He was like, "definitely, let's do that."

 

The next day, he texted me saying it was really great seeing me there the night before. So I answered in kind...

 

And then I went into this sort of bad space I've described at the beginning of this post, where I really didn't want to go out and felt the need to just preserve myself. So I was glad there was no follow-up for a while.

 

Which didn't last long -- as of his text last week asking how I was doing. Lying, I said I was doing fine, and it moved on into total, random small-talk, ending on a "pregnant pause" note. I thought, okaaay...he's taken a lot of initiative to reach out to me, enough to make me wonder now. There was the glancing accross the room at that get-together, and the very disarming, disarmed hug. Now this. But am I being too passive? Was I supposed to end that conversation by prompting him in some way, to ask how/when we'll meet?

 

Is he going to actually invite me somewhere? Should I do the inviting? I was really in this quandry. This was all so very equivocal.

 

"Just MAKE A MOVE ON ME" I heard myself say preposterously in my head.

 

I thought about it for the next couple of days, and somehow by yesterday, I was in the general mood that I ought not to put stock in anything in my life -- the comings and goings of pain, the ups and downs of the weather, my body, the comings and goings of people, of love interests, dating prospects, friends, hopes...that it was all so transitory.

 

So I spent most of the day sitting at my computer yesterday deep in thought and doing some research on various things. Engrossed enough was I that when I heard my cell in the next room alert me to an incoming message, I just thought, "I'll pick that up later." I was just feeling a roving sense of disequilibrium, enough not to feel impelled to check who was messaging me on this beautiful Saturday morning. And then I just forgot about my phone, because it wasn't ringing.

 

And then I saw in the evening that he'd sent me that message.

 

"Come over and we can catch up..."

 

I'd been hoping for that for so long...and was jonesing to go out and make the most of the day, thinking I had enough energy to enjoy someone's company for once. And here, 12 hours had gone by with me none the wiser, oblivious to that opportunity. With HIM, specifically.

 

I was absolutely beside myself with self-rebuke. *%@*#%&%(#*&!!!!!!! I couldn't believe it. Why? Why? Why didn't I pick that up sooner??!!?!

 

Absolutely disgusted with myself and not sure how to justify such a lag, I texted back a message that took up 4 texts, to the effect of "I can't believe I saw your message this late!" and that sometimes my phone either doesn't send me messages promptly (a true fact, but it's rare) and sometimes I'm just not close enough to the phone to hear it signaling me.

 

Then I thought about it and thought...to someone who is continuously on his phone (which is most people)...this sounds awfully lame and fake. Like, I was making up some BS reason for not texting back, a sort of dog-ate-my-homework scenario. In light of the fact that I'm aware many people play little games, even though that's not me at all, there's my track record of being hard to pin down to a date and time with all my travels, issues before, etc. So I thought about what it might seem on his end -- and it just looked like I was trying to make excuses. I did say that I was bummed because it would have been a perfect day to get together, as I was deliberating what to do, but ended up on the computer most of the day and just didn't hear the phone. I did say, "Let's give it another go", told him what I was doing today, and asked him what his schedule was like. So I made a point to sound interested...but there was this weird "explanation" to do with it, or so it seemed to me.

 

Count on me to then make things worse by compensating for what I perceive (perhaps, or likely projecting) as a faux pas. So I write another message -- comprising another set of 4 texts -- telling him how I just remembered what went wrong: I heard the message come in but was busy and then forgot to check my phone, which was in the other room, until night time. So my phone was working, but it was my bad.

 

I don't know why I felt the need to bombard him with these bits of technical garbage, but I did. And I haven't heard from him since.

 

Perhaps he's been busy all day. Perhaps he's just preoccupied.

 

But since I asked him about his plans today, you would think that since he's always been consistent about responding to immediate questions, he would have texted back.

 

Eight texts in a row (with a half hour pause between sets of 4), talking about why you didn't get someone's text and explaining yourself. That's what I did. Is that normal? Or rather...is that something that would convey a flattering impression?

 

My intuition says no. Negative. While it was all true, and I have not behaved in a desperate way at all up to this point, and even was not pushy in my message about today as a possibility...how could 8 texts in a row over such minutiae -- some of it sounding odd, some of it flakey, not come off as at least a little bit neurotic?

 

Why do I have this need to explain myself so much? Especially when I notice he's mastered minimalism with texting.

 

And so here it is -- I have no idea what the silence is about, but I feel I've fallen into the "what does this text mean/not mean" nonsense that I deplore in everyone else. I've fallen INTO the dark side with this. I hate texting, really. It somehow puts you in this false state of heightened awareness and reading into what people mean and say. It's not a real discussion. It's got no inflection. Had I said all those things verbally, it would have taken 10 seconds or less and have been laughed off. But in this context of a text interchange...every word carries the weight of the world in this distorted framework.

 

I could be completely blowing this out of proportion. This could be a tempest in a teapot of my own making. But I can't help feeling like I blew something.

 

At very least, what I blew big time was that I somehow just was too apathetic to look at my phone when I heard a message coming in. What was that about?

 

I mean -- what was that REALLY about?

 

I don't want to go so far as to say I was stepping on my own feet, because I know if I knew it was him I would have replied immediately. But there was something about it that was still...I was recoiling from something. There was some vague sense of futility about seeing who it was. As I said, feeling that there's really nothing to hang your hat on in this life. And this vague sense permeated me for long enough to pass by an actual opportunity to get out and find something to enjoy.

 

What were the odds it would be him? But it was. And on a perfect day when I wasn't exhausted, I had energy, and was overall good -- except for that axe hanging over my head that this was just until the warden gets back.

 

But...goddamn texting.

 

I'm not a soundbite girl. I'm not with this age of words condensed into single strokes.

 

I don't talk in partial sentences. I don't answer just the last question you asked. I answer them all. And I explain things so well, you'll wish you never wondered.

 

I can't fit myself into this...even without texts, people have said to me that I'm more detailed in my explanations than anyone they've ever known.

 

And the thing is, a change of medium is not going to change that, I can see. It's just not.

 

There's no place for this way I am.

 

I can't fit 1000 words into the governing MO.

Too many words.

 

I just end up looking crazy.

 

Or was I a bit crazy in that moment?

 

Maybe it's what's behind all those words. The dammed-upness.

 

I'm as crazy to break out of the cell for a little while as I am scared and in dread of being dragged back in.

 

To be allowed to live a little almost seems crueler sometimes than to forget what it feels like.

 

But most of all...who on earth can I ever trust to tell about this invisible jail that my laughing eyes belie? I want to tell anyone who might care, and I want to tell no one.

 

I'm always a little heartbroken and a little relieved when things don't pan out. Cuz then I can keep my stories to myself, all 1000 of them, a million words apiece.

 

The most that seems to escape is loquaciousness in the moment.

 

 

As the whole day has gone by with no response from him...I have to wonder if there's something here to fix, and if so, what to do to fix it. It's making me a little loopy. Because all of it is speculative. Or is it even speculative that I'm a bit neurotic and it could seep out under the right circumstances?

 

Then again -- if you knew me. If you knew this beast...you'd know that I wasn't born this way. In fact, I'd almost be crazy not to be crazy from all this. The catch is, I just don't think there's a way to explain that to other people.

 

And in the final analysis, it doesn't matter how you got crazy to most people.

 

NOTING: CLINGING.

 

CLINGING...

 

CLINGING...

[tiredofvampires]

ETA:

 

And the thing is, a change of medium is not going to change that, I can see. It's just not.

 

Because it's the way I THINK.

 

I don't THINK in soundbites.

[tiredofvampires]

Alllright...I HAD to post this...from a friend, in my email today:

 

Sad News from Minneapolis

 

The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday in Minneapolis of a yeast infection and traumatic

complications from repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71.

 

Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities turned out to pay

their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty

Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and Captain Crunch. The gravesite was piled high with

flours.

 

Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described Doughboy as a man who never

knew how much he was kneaded.

 

Born and bread in Minnesota, Doughboy rose quickly in show business, but his later life

was filled with turnovers. He was not regarded as a very smart cookie, wasting much of

his dough on half-baked schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times, he still was a

crusty old man and served as a positive roll model for millions.

 

Doughboy is survived by his wife, Play Dough, and three children: John Dough, Jane

Dough and Dosey Dough, plus they had one in the oven. He is also survived by his elderly

father, Pop Tart.

 

The funeral was held at 3:50 for about 20 min.

 

If you smiled while reading this, please rise to the occasion and pass it on to someone

having a crumby day and kneading a lift.

[ballerinababe]

Ack, just wanted to drop in and say I feel for you! First the missed connection with Roadtripper (!!), and now the missed text from the new guy. It does seem like a sort of self-sabotage, or a self-fulfilling prophecy of the futile feelings you've described. I think if the new guy doesn't respond to you because of your verbose/"neurotic" texts, then you guys probably wouldn't have clicked down the road anyway. But hopefully he DOES respond. I get the impression from his body language (i.e., the long glances) and texting that he likes keeping you in the loop, that he is intrigued by you, that he wants to meet up but only at his convenience and whim, and he isn't looking for anything serious.

[tiredofvampires]

Thanks for the input, BB...that's interesting you say you feel he's not looking for anything serious and it's only at his own "convenience and whim". Hmm...so you think something about him sounds self-absorbed? I'm interested where you might be getting that impression.

 

I don't see him as someone who is a Don Juan, someone expecting women to throw themselves at him, even though I suppose he could have his pick. He has a modest and understated bearing.

 

...I think?

 

I know..it DOES seem like some kind of self-sabotage going on, doesn't it. Or at least some kind of ambivalence. But I've searched myself for what's going on, and really, I think while there is ambivalence for sure...just in general about starting a relationship...and no doubt a lot of fear of self-exposure...I know that with Roadtripper it was more a matter of my wanting to craft the right message to him and somehow feeling overwhelmed enough with the events of my trip (which included seeing this guy I'd spent 3 months Skyping with), that it just got put off and put off...and then I returned home and it just kept falling through the cracks of other pressures. I think if it was really self-sabotage, I wouldn't have tried so hard with the guy it didn't work out with and traveled to see. I'm trying to separate the issues, and I think it's not quite that, though it would seem so. And there's a fine line between ambivalence and actual self-sabotage...but a very fine line.

 

And then with this guy now...I think I feel intimidated by him. And perhaps that's not a promising sign already (if we jump ahead to questions about compatibility), because people that I think are truly on my wavelength don't have that effect on me. I feel somehow that they are easy to talk to, easy to find lots of common ground with naturally, and it feels personally inviting and somehow like I'm not "trying hard to keep up lively conversation." Maybe it's because he and I know eachother so little, it's too surfacey at this point to tell. But something about him is telling me that my guard should stay up. It's hard to put my finger on. He's not someone who easily makes me feel like I can "let it all hang out", and the idea of that with him is frankly a bit terrifying.

 

But my being in quite a lot of pain -- more than when I was on my travels (most of the way, anyway) -- has a lot to do with this. It's hard enough to dance around how I'm feeling in my own body to deal with pain and coping with it, but the layer of energy required to make myself feel presentable, and furthermore to want to appear attractive (as that's coming up spontaneously, since he's attractive to me) is a Herculean task.

 

And not one many people relate to. There's a tune-out factor for most people whose lives are not touched directly by ongoing physical pain issues.

 

To what extent this leads to self-sabotage I can't say for sure -- but I tap into myself to investigate and what I come up more with is fearfulness and guarding, because of the very real issues I'm dealing with that are not easy to discuss, if it's going to be any kind of authentic friendship. At least that's the root of it.

 

I guess if I'm being honest with myself, pain or no pain...I'm not entirely sure that the vibe I get from him is that he's the missing link, soul-connection-wise. Were this to very hypothetically progress in a non-platonic direction. Maybe, BB, you're picking up on something in my story that's got some truth to it, about him. Aside from the intimidating bit (which is probably about his entire physicality even more than his striking good looks -- as I feel fragile next to him), I feel that there's something a bit...this is so hard to identify...not conscious about him.

 

I don't mean he's not socially conscious, interpersonally conscious...but it's on a certain level that may not go as deeply as I need. I'm trying very hard to avoid the word "spiritual" here, because that would reduce what I'm trying to say to a catchphrase, and a tired one at that. But with a lack of better words to work with...I'm not sure he's deeply in touch. In touch with many planes of existing, in his own body and how that manifests as interconnection. I'm talking about being deeply in touch with oneself and therefore capacitating intuitive processes that transmute one's own individual membrane of feeling. And then their body language conveying that to me as a door to walk through. I felt that same limited sphere of operation with the guy I visited as well. Life was living him, rather than the other way around. He was just operating. A well-greased machine smart enough to be attending to whatever was to be done in an autonomous way...yet like a programmed automaton. An autonomous automaton. If that's not too oxymoronic. It's so hard to explain such a subtly-felt lack.

 

I think...the closest it comes is, it's a lack of presence. Being present.

 

Something feels gross.

 

I do this. I do that. And that's to be done and this is to be done. And these are to be done. Bah-boom, bah-boom, bah-boom. Drink. Eat. Phone. Check phone. Head out. Next thing. Check phone again. Text. Water. Shut trunk. Throw out the junk mail. To be done. Bah-bah, bah-boom. I do this, and I do that. do do do do do do do do I do this because this is what is done.

 

It's just so hard to describe. If you've gone through half your life training to watch each moment (really, as it feels to me, because I've been given no other choice, the choice to tune out) -- how it arises and matures and then passes away into something else, like watching the trajectory of a bullet in time-lapse photography, only feeling that ongoing process in your body and how it relates with all that surrounds you...it's apparent when someone else is just gear-shifting unconsciously through life, as if a discrete and self-contained unit. It feels jarring and ultimately alienating to me.

 

Missing the nuances. Like skimming over life rather than reading it.

 

I watched him inhale a cheeseburger that time we had lunch, before my trip...and I think it struck me particularly at that moment. That we are proceeding through things in a different way. Not just at a different rate (the guy I visited on my trip was so quick, quick, quick in his motions and movements and transitions, with his lack of presence, but I think he prided himself in his efficiency, as he saw it. ["TOV, do you do anything 'fast'? {laughter}]). But I mean, proceeding in a different WAY.

 

And how will that affect how he listens, how much he really truly listens if I ever start taking risks to talk about personal stuff?...which is not a far shot from the causes that connect us and what I am doing in my life in such veins; and how he will just be attuned at all...I think that's affecting how I feel. I feel that in the world he might be living in, there's far for me to fall.

 

I guess put much more directly, I'm not sure how emotionally sensitive of a man he is.

 

There, that was a lot simpler to say, haha.

 

Even though we may align on some of our heartfelt causes.

 

 

 

But anyways -- there IS an update to this, and I just haven't had a time to write about it yet.

 

Since I'm pressed for time right now: I did end up "fixing" what happened last weekend. And as a result, today I'm going over there (his house) for a while this afternoon.

 

I think it's worth mentioning how I "fixed" it, but since I want to get my walk in before I go there, this is the report for now.

 

This should be interesting.

 

All this could be much ado about nothing, or very little more than my reflections about how I feel I'm on a very unpopulated (maybe even unpopular) path.

[tiredofvampires]

Okay. This is a vow:

 

I'm not BSing my way through this.

 

I'm just going to deliver whatever is true. And let the chips fall where they may. Whatever we end up talking about.

 

I'll be okay falling, if that's gonna happen. There's always something else to hope or to want to get up for.

 

IMA BE ME. Thank you, Wanda.

 

 

And that bullet analogy -- I'm not sure it's the right one. I like the time-lapse photography part...but it would be more like time-lapse imagery of some organic process, like a flower growing and wilting and decomposing and then the seeds germinating.

 

A bullet is so unyielding in its path, changing only everything around it but not itself, even if you slow it down to see it. So nah.

[Capricorn3]

Looking forward to the next episode...

[itsallgrand]

Looking forward to the next episode...

 

Yeah, me too. Hoping you had fun with the interesting man.

[sleepingdonut]

I love, love, LOVE this reference, sleepingdonut! Thank you so much for posting that!

 

np.

 

On another topic, it's clear you have a strong writing ability, and you have no trouble writing a lot. So you should do Nanowrimo with me. There's still 45 days left to come up with an idea

[tiredofvampires]

You selfish bastard

[tiredofvampires]

*will be back to regular programming at some point*

[tiredofvampires]

On another topic, it's clear you have a strong writing ability, and you have no trouble writing a lot. So you should do Nanowrimo with me. There's still 45 days left to come up with an idea

 

Belatedly, thank you so much for this prompt, introducing me to that -- I've never heard of Nanowrimo! It looks pretty cool! (By the way, I LOVE your screename -- it makes me want to laugh every time I read it. )

 

I'm sorry it looks like I've run out the clock on this -- but it seems also to involve coming up specifically with a FICTIONAL piece, right? And here's my problem: I suck at plots. I wish I could think of writing novels, but I know I have this problem with creating actual stories. I mean, stories about things that have never happened (maybe why I'm a terrible liar? ha) I'm more of a painter who writes. I like fleshing out scenes...and then what. lol I'm just in awe of fiction writers, because they pull from their own lives without it being directly so in their imaginations.

 

But are you a fiction writer? Did you go for it, and submit something?

 

Thank you again for the kind words, and also being a buddy and nudging me (you're right there, I do have no trouble writing a lot -- but "a lot" doesn't always mean "good"! haha) Maybe I'll do it at some point, just to dare myself. I'd be incredibly lucky to squeeze out a short story.

[tiredofvampires]

From a decade ago. Retouched.

 

 

 

CROWN

 

You remember amethyst eyes

touching around the moon

sapphire oceans away --

You remember rubies

scattered in the brambles,

torn and bleeding cherries,

sweetening under the sun --

You remember opals

in the palm of your hand, golden teardrops

and their pearl sisters

sweat-stricken at your temples.

Most of all you remember

the mirror-faced-to-mirror

infinite reflection:

emerald stones of earth,

moss holding evergreen water,

water holding speckled rock,

lustrous stones hewn into facets,

fixed and set

beside each other.

 

You have forgotten

to remember.

 

You once wore the low crown of fog,

crown of worn cloth,

crown of shattered glass, dried sticks.

A crown for cloaked crows.

 

Bring the crown of thorns, a graceful

engravement of scars

to be laid at the altar of memory.

 

May I help you adjust

to position

on that same forehead a crown of light,

halo tumbling after halo

delicate and ebullient as fruit

unblemished in summer?

May I step back and admire

the torches of color

and listen to them

lead the chorus?

A crown of jewels

befits you.

A crown for uncloaked kings.

[sleepingdonut]

It doesn't have to be fiction. You could write creative nonfiction. Or just write something crazy like how everyone on ENA manages to find healthy relationships by riding giraffes in Africa and the licking sacred rocks of the local Tjninbuti tribe. Perhaps you overwhelm yourself by trying to come up with an entire plot in your head. It's OK to write and just see where it goes.

 

I'll be doing Nano this year. It officially starts in two weeks.

[tiredofvampires]

It doesn't have to be fiction. You could write creative nonfiction. Or just write something crazy like how everyone on ENA manages to find healthy relationships by riding giraffes in Africa and the licking sacred rocks of the local Tjninbuti tribe. Perhaps you overwhelm yourself by trying to come up with an entire plot in your head. It's OK to write and just see where it goes.

 

I'll be doing Nano this year. It officially starts in two weeks.

 

Hmmm, that's tempting...creative nonfiction. I like their flexibility -- very cool. Thanks again for telling me about this. I guess the "Novel Writing" banner threw me off. But looking again, it does seem that you can enter a short story, or write in any genre and loosely call it a "novel", even though the goal is 50 times the title of this journal, haha. They seem to give you a lot of free reign to call it whatever you want to call it.

 

Do you go in with a pretty good idea of what you're going to write?

[sleepingdonut]

Do you go in with a pretty good idea of what you're going to write?

 

Not so much. My writing is mostly character-driven, so I'll have a general idea of one or two characters as well as a few of their circumstances and perhaps life aspirations.

 

I suppose my thought process could be roughly quantified like this:

 

1) Imagine a person

2) Imagine some tough or challenging circumstance for that person

3) Imagine that person's goals and dreams

4) Now write and try to get them there

 

Then as I write, it becomes natural as to when to introduce other characters, other challenges, etc. But for the most part, I have no idea exactly what's going to happen when I start writing.

 

I believe it was Hemingway who said once he was done with a draft of a novel, he'd try to condense the first fifty pages into five pages. I've never been that extreme myself, but I always find there's plenty to throw out once I finish a draft. So the point being, don't concern yourself that every word you put down in the beginning is immortal and glorious. The most important thing is just to put something down.

[tiredofvampires]

Thanks for the good pointers, sleeping.

[tiredofvampires]

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” ~ Blaise Pascal