Green Elephants
October 1, 2002

Who writes when they're happy? Not that I'm unhappy mind you.

…months and months since I've written in my journal. I'm not sure I can tell you why, but I can tell you it's an analogy for the rest of my life -- the things I do, the things I need to change. The disappointing thing is that plenty has happened during these last months. This absence hasn't been for a lack of events, inspiration or conflict with which to fill my pages.

Maybe it's that people actually read the journal. I never really expected that. As the length of time since I last posted grew, I felt the entry had to be even that much better. Something written well. Something very interesting.

Or perhaps it's not that; it may be just a general depression. There were a couple of months of that -- not the serious debilitation that prevents you from taking showers or eating, just the more casual depression that keeps you from caring about much or having the energy to do anything about it.

After that, it may have been that too much was going on. I met a new group of friends at the Scream'n Bean and spent a month going to bed at five or six in the morning, going to work at nine, catching a nap in the afternoon, and doing it all again. Talk about demolished sleep patterns…

Later still it could have been because I had dating prospects, and that they all fell through miserably. For the first time ever, I started drinking to kill the pain. It actually works, you know -- at least partially. More specifically, it loosens that little noose around your heart that squeezes and burns. But it doesn't help that feeling of carrying weight -- that it only makes worse. But it's easier to be lethargic than it is to feel like your soul is slowly bleeding away. Luckily, I only indulged in that for a couple weeks…

Ultimately, the absence is just because I'm undisciplined. And not only with keeping up the journal. I'm guilty when at the piano. Trying to get to the piano. At work. Paying bills I can afford to pay but don't. Other chores. Life. A few weeks ago I bought the "Idiot's Guide to Overcoming Procrastination." Can you feel a joke coming? Yes, I only read two chapters before leaving it in the car to bake. It helped though. At the very least, it made me realize I wasn't procrastinating because of depression, at least so much as I was becoming depressed because I was procrastinating -- the burden of dwelling on my shirked responsibilities.

That realization helped more than I could have imagined. But it's still only a piece of my larger problem. I articulated it, finally, in my paper journal (to be posted online eventually); and that turned out to be enough to describe my whole life -- accomplishments and failures. I'm the simple product of discontent, lots of ambition, and a horrible lack of discipline.

Probably, I'm going to either win or lose this battle against the backdrop of work. That will be real advantage that working from home has afforded me. My lack of discipline and procrastination has been affecting my ability to get anything done. I'll procrastinate the whole day and realize in the evening that I still have all my work left to do. So it is that I work all night, not accomplishing any personal goals, and spend the next day procrastinating, and repeating the cycle. This weekend? --tons of work to do. Personal accomplishments? None.

I'll either overcome this and be much the better for it. Or, I'm going to crash and burn. Despite all the self-analysis and confession, it is too early to tell. It's like Madison says (I'll write about her in a bit), sometimes you see where you are and what you're doing; but you just can't do anything about it. I wrote back that sometimes you have to have to hit the bottom before you can change -- I hope that doesn't happen with me.

Life takes so much damn energy. The more you put in, the better off you are -- generally. At least, baring one's living in a "developing" (fucked by the West) country, or some other major disadvantage. That's the old saying isn't it? "Genius is ten percent inspiration..." True enough; and talent is a function of the day-to-day; so, I need to fix my thought-action link. Is that the right term? Anyway, mine is distinctly broken. When I realize something needs to be done, I should just do it. For now though, I end up thinking about all the other things to be done, feel overwhelmed, and then do anything else to take my mind of it.

And that's how I turned into a TV whore. Well, that and Tivo. I've even started watching Lexx. I can't justify it; I'm just saying. And I've developed a little crush on Kai (Michael McManus), but the show is just sooo bad. (There was a recently aired episode where Kai played chess the entire hour, however. That show was good. But that was the only one. I'm guessing they took a professional game and worked the master-commentary into the dialogue.)

Musings aside, there are a couple adventures to be dutifully recorded. A trip to Key West, a trip to Boston, and a fair amount of skinny-dipping at one friend's apartment complex -- hence the aforementioned late nights. It's so much easier to get away public nudity in the wee hours of the morning.

I'm glad to have met a new circle of friends -- all in college. People in their thirties tend to do more marriage and baby-making, and much less skinny-dipping. Since I'm thirty and not even dating, it's been nice to hang with a college crowd. And it works, for now. Though, it occurs to me that when I'm, say, forty, things will be different.

Hopefully I'll have a life partner by then -- someone inspiring and alive. It's so easy to fall into complacency after college, when the struggling becomes less. And so many people do.

Life partner. Dating. I thought I was making progress on that whole thing. Another nice thing about hanging out with people in college -- they haven't congealed into their dead pairs yet. But as for my own attempts at dating, it's been quite a ride. Some of this which follows was figured out in hindsight, but here's the gist of the story with the fast forward button mashed down:

I was interested in Emily. I call her Emily because she reminds me of, and looks like, Emily Dickenson. We were getting along, but a couple weeks later I met Bri' -- who becomes interested in me. Emily had be interested (I find out), but defers to Bri' because of some recent conflict where they shared a mutual interest in someone else. As it happens, I end up hanging out more with Bri', though didn't want to date her.

Jessica pointed out that I shouldn't spend too much time with Bri' because it would give Emily the wrong impression and ruin any chance of that relationship. (Though it turns out there probably wasn't any chance anyway.) It's a sad world where you have to curb friendships to pursue partners. But, okay. Whatever. I backed off on the spending-of-time just a bit so Emily, hopefully, wouldn't feel weird about maybe going out. Mind you, I haven't hooked up with or kissed anyone yet, so I'm still feeling available.

Emily and I do eventually go out to dinner. It was a pleasant time and I manage to mention my interest -- thinking that it was too late for casual flirting and that I should be casually up front. It turns out that she was interested in me, too. But, beyond that night, nothing seems to happen. Flash forward to her birthday party a couple weeks later. Same pool skinny-dipping pool. Lots of alcohol, and body shots. (Thank you Ashley for starting those.) Emily hooks up with someone she just met -- all night long in the spa. And that's fine. More power to her; I wish my birthday parties were so good. But it made me realize finally that any interest in me is probably less than serious.

The interesting this is that Bri' completely freaks out -- freaks out in that embarrassing, public way. It turns out that Bri' is still interested in Emily. I knew that she had been once; I didn't know she still was. So isn't that funny, and aren't I pathetic? But the night is just getting started and I eventually hook up with two other friends. (Hooking up = sex for those rusty on the lingo.) Enter stage left: Ashley and Madison.

(Eros says that I could sell the details of that story for a thousand dollars. I'm not sure who I would sell it to, and besides -- it was worth more than that, if only to me. Life should be lived.)

Rewind. I met Ashley the same night I met Emily at the Scream'n Bean. We were all supposed to go to a concert in Atlanta, but I bailed -- as I so often do. After that, and whilst developing a crush on Emily, I didn't see Ashley. It was a couple months, actually, until I saw her again. It turns out that she'd been having boyfriend troubles. Eventually though, we begin hanging out more -- going to the gym, that sort of thing. A developing friendship with no relationship/sexual tension. I thought she was straight.

Fast forward again. She's not straight. And after the naked-pool-birthday party, and hooking up, I'm thinking, "Um, I think Ashley likes me. At least a bit, anyway." And I like her… And then it starts occurring to me that we get along well and have fun together… Could dating happen her? Dating? Could a relationship happen?

I really hadn't occasion to think about it before -- having instead the idea that she was, in one way or another, unavailable. So that weekend turned out to be pretty blissful -- for a while -- with me thinking about all the ways that a relationship could be really nice. All the ingredients seemed to be there.

Of course, stretching that analogy of ingredients further than I should, I'll mention here that I can't cook. I can't even make toast without burning it sometimes. And can you imagine me trying to bake a cake? Well, I guess if it was like me and relationships, I would stare at all the ingredients thinking, "Is this going to work? Could it work? I really want cake. Does the cake want me? Every else seems to have cake. I can't live without cake! How do you bake a cake? Cake would be nice."

To be fair though, it's not like I was thinking "life partner" at that point. I wasn't even thinking "storybook romance." All I'm thinking then is, "It sure would be nice to date." Just... date...

So that Sunday night I found out that she was interested in, and pursuing, Helga. I had been a drunken indulgence at best -- and a mistake at worst. So enter stage left: wine. (And lots of it.) I didn't return my phone calls for almost two weeks; I drank; I watched TV; ignored my friends; then drank some more. I'm so easily depressed when it comes to relationships.

---dignity saving interjection--
I wouldn't care so much about dating if friends didn't disappear into their dead-pairs around thirty. I wouldn't care so much about dating if I didn't lose my emotionally-intimate friends to their sex partners. I wouldn't care so much about dating if I was constantly meeting available, quality people. In a better world, I just wouldn't care.
---end dignity saving interjection--

Anyway, people actually started get worried about me and leaving concerned messages. That really meant a lot to me. I think it was the next Sunday, sinking into bed, further in my depression, and worrying that I was about to alienate a whole set of friends, and thus becoming even more lonely, that finally picked my happy ass out of bed. I went back up to the Scream'n Bean, explained that I had "been in a funk," said some thank you's (though probably not enough) and eased back into the fold as much as possible.

Things have been a little weird since that weekend. I guess sex really does screw up friendships.

Well, a couple weeks, and back in "single-forever mode," here comes Madison back into my life. Remember my mentioning her? I'd met her only twice, rather briefly, before the pool party. She's a friend of Bri'. Sexy, cute, and definitely not interested in me. That was my perception, at least. I'm not sure I can articulate what gave me that impression. Maybe just a strong sense of independence? I don't know. Whatever it was, hooking up at the pool was quite a surprise. Though, a pleasant one, to be sure.

That morning, she had to leave, in a rush, late for work. There wasn't any chance to exchange contact information and I figured I'd never see her again. The whole thing seemed like a happy accident. That is, until Bri' called me one night wanting to know if I might be interested in a night trip to the beach; flaking out wasn't an option and Madison would be coming too. It turns out that it was Madison's last night in the US for two months, and she was making a point to see all her friends before her vacation to Europe.

It was a fun night -- a more normal time at the beach, with plenty of laughing and talking. Later, when they dropped me off at home, Bri' was passed out in the car and Madison came up to the apartment for a bit. I'm not sure if I remember there being a reason fore it; but, it was a chance for me to play a couple pieces for her on the piano, talk and exchange out contact before hugging goodbye.

The very next day or so, (I'm not sure how to measure time backward over a long international flight) she sent me an email from Paris. :) She mentioned hoping for more than a hug back at my apartment and wondered if I felt the same. It had been a slightly awkward moment, actually, with neither of us wanting to be disrespectful or violate boundaries. I wrote back, confessing the same and we've been writing back and forth ever since.

The correspondence has as been wonderful. I'm not sure how to describe the letters other than that. *Now* I'm thinking "story book romance." And how often has that even happened to me? I've become completely addicted to her letters. They're insightful, exciting and alive. And as for the situation itself, I'm not sure how things could be any more perfect. The whole awkward sex thing is out of the way, not to mention the question of attraction. And now we get to learn about each other through letters -- which I adore! And best yet, the correspondence isn't the result of a doomed long distance relationship.

Of course, it's not just the mechanics of it all. I love the way she thinks and who she is. These last few months have left me feeling like an emotional slut -- liking this person and that person; but this is different.

Anyway, so far so good. I hope I'm not jinxing it. One can never underestimate my ability to screw up a relationship. Maybe the only reason it has gotten this far is because I thought there was no chance in hell. That's what "They" always say isn't it? "It will happen when you're least expecting it, or when you're not thinking about it." Damn "Them" for making it so hard!

When you're not thinking about it, my ass. By the way, if you see a shooting star this October it means you'll win the lottery so long as you don't think of a GREEN ELEPHANT when you see it. So whatever you do, don't think of a GREEN ELEPHANT when if you see a shooting star this October!

In other happy news, Shack is back in CA! Things are looking up all over the place. And I'm getting ready to buy a house. Well, if I can find one I like, that is. I've never been through such a gut-wrenching experience as house shopping. Oh wait. Yes I have! Trying to date. And I was even just writing about that! "Short term memory, where did you go?"

It turns out that I only have enough to get a 140k place with a 5% down payment at the moment. But, I continue to save. I was so excited with interest rates being so low. (I'm pre-approved for 180k, with 5% down for a 6.5% fix rate loan.) And rates have even gone down again, so I'll shop around a final time before getting anything. The killer, though, is that everyone is apparently buying houses. So although I save tons on a mortgage, I get to pay more for the house. A lot more! Prices are soooo high. I'm worried about a correction.

Can anything good come out of the financial fluctuations this country is experiencing? "Vancouver, here I come!" Which reminds me, I'm STILL not sure I want to buy a house in Florida. But, I won't get into that again. Not in this entry, anyway.

Well, there is always more to write, but I'm exhausted. I could put off posting for another day, but THAT hasn't been working out for me! So here it is, and, discipline willing, with more on the way.