Homo Status
April 13, 2003

Another entry. Another apology. One would think that, eventually, I could find the discipline to write – at least my journal entries – on a regular basis. They are guide posts in life, but I shirk them relentlessly.

One of my challenges is that it takes so long to write. I stare and stare. I revise. I delete and go off on tangents. But that is symptomatic of a problem that pervades my life. When I have a goal or a project, I work on that until I can’t work anymore – either falling asleep or getting sick with the whole idea entirely. If I were ever to take up swimming, I’d jump into the ocean and swim until I drowned.

The latest news to date is my new homo status. Well, homeowner status. Actually, I’m a homo-homo. If you’re a geek like me, just say homo-squared. Of course, if you want to be even more specific, call me homo-cubed, give yourself 9 extra geek points and go drink a latte.

$ kill -9 homo_rant

The house. It’s expensive. I knew it would be. But I thought the roof would cost three thousand dollars, not five thousand dollars. The floor was supposed to cost two thousand at the most. If I had engaged my go-go-gadget-basic-math-skills before pulling up the carpet, I would have realized it was going to cost almost as much as the roof.

Paint isn’t costing too much, but I have had a terrible time picking colors and have driven Madison insane in the process.

The floor is causing me a great amount of consternation. Should I pay three thousand to have the living/dinning room and office repaired? Should I pay $2700 to buy new bamboo floors and lay it myself? Should I pay $4700 and have someone put new floors down for me? Should I try to sand and refinish it myself? I have to move in by the end of April and my procrastination is bleeding away both time and options.

I’ve made a little more progress on the roof, though that was touch and go for a while too. The only thing left to decide is what type of skylights to get. If anyone out there has first hand experience and recommendations, I’m very interested in them. So far I’m thinking that I should go with flat, instead of bubble, because the bubble tends to get yellowish and the flat-skylights are more impact resistant (a function of materials not geometry, I’m sure). But I’ve also been told that the "bubble-types" are less likely to leak. <sigh>

Roofers. I’ve had over-the-phone estimates were someone has said, “three thousand” of the top of their head. I’ve had written quotes that come with a fifty-year warrantee for seventy-five hundred dollars. I’ve had some realistic quotes and have calls into at least twently companies that never called me back. But the company that is probably getting the contract spent a two hours talking with me at my house and pointed out a couple extra things that I need – like attic ventilation.

In other news, Madison and I have been on rocky relations for a couple months now. When it’s good, it’s so nice. But almost daily we’ve been getting on each other’s nerves, or fighting about something. I hate conflict. Sure, it has to happen sometimes, but this is making me crazy. There are days where I’ve had a horrible pinching sensation where my heart is. The stress is going to kill me if it keeps up.

The story is the same as everyone's. Some of it is my fault. Some are her problems. The rest are life pressures – the house, school, work… But I’m not sure how to move past this stage yet. One thing seems to be space. We’ve been spending all of our time together – and even though all of it is fun, it isn't always quality time. We’ll cuddle on the couch and watch “Will and Grace.” We work together on the house. We go shopping together. Following a half week trip to Orlando, though, things seemed to get better.

She mentioned, casually, on one phone conversation during that time, she'd had time to think about things. Perhaps there was something eating at her that she resolved. I think some of it was just breathing room, though. So I’ve been trying to make sure that I’m not constantly asking when she is coming over, or when she is going to call. In fact, I’ve all but stopped. When I do ask, I try to qualify it with “an out” so to say.

And I am going to try to make more of our time together, quality time.

I’ve been reading a couple relationship books. The one I’m working on now is “Break Up or Break Through,” by Dr. Dina Bachelor Evan. So far, I'd give it high ratings. It tends to focus on gay and lesbian relationships, but I think it is good insight for anyone. Some of my favorite quotes and ideas so far are:

• "Stay Present; Be Honest; Act Out of Love, Not Fear"
• “[relationships]…are the finest route to enlightenment—the best personal growth activity on the planet.”
• “You must be more focused on what it is inside you that prevents you from feeling love that on house to get your partner to be more loving.” (ed: assuming your partner isn’t an ass, I guess.)
• “To succeed in relationships, you must work on yourself, and your partner most work on himself or herself.”

But enough of that. Not fair subjecting you the reader to uneccesary cheese if you don't need it. Maybe I can get Madison to read the book after I’m done,and if I still think it's worth the read.

There is one huge problem I need to get resolved if our relationship is going to last even a couple more months. I feel like she is constantly criticizing me. And the criticisms come complete with this dirty looks of all kinds. On several occasions she has said, “I was only kidding.” <insert another dirty look> But when the two of us had dinner with my mom and brother a few weeks ago, they both picked up on it. In fact, they both seem to think it was worse than I did.

Well, that plus the tendency to say ‘whatever’ with increaing frequency. I HATE it. Nothing says, “I don’t give a flying fuck about you or your stupid ideas” more than that.

Maybe if I start focusing more on some of my own issues -- I’ve been surprisingly insecure, for example -- that will leave some space for her own work and joint work on the relationship. Right now we’re a bit like a pressure cooker than can’t hold anything more.

Currently listening to:
Daniel Soto - DI.fm Exclusive December mix, on the Hard Trance channel at DigitallyImported.com.

Maybe I should end it here. There is always more to write, as per usual. But I need to stop drowning myself in tasks with no end.

Well, one last item, maybe – just for record keeping sake. There are several tactics I need to adopt in my fight to improve myself. The aforementioned (how would you say?), time limits. Maybe that’s just time management. <gasp!> Has it really come to that?

The second are rituals. Not the Willow and Tara kind – though those might help too. Rituals that become habits. I can read all the biographies and all the self-help books in the world. But none of it means ass if I can’t assimilate the good ideas into my life. And I can’t do that consciously. I have to make it a part of me. Habit, through ritual.

The third thing(s) are biographies. I need to read more of those. I’ve started “The Man Who Loved Only Numbers.” --Fascinating so far. I also started “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.” Please God: I hope that book gets more interesting.

The other thing I need is “an endless bag of money.” In fact, I might write a book called, “Everything I ever needed I got from my endless bag of money.” Not quite sure how to incorporate this last into my life – yet.