Day Seventeen

There is almost nothing worse than being given a teaser, and then having to wait for the full story.  Not like movies, that's just marketing.  When someone just gives you like 3 or 4 words about what's going on in their life, saying talk soon, and then not hearing from them for more than a week.  Grrr!

Day Fifteen

In choosing security over growth, we all outrage the soul, and the soul, outraged, manifests in symptoms - depression, anxiety disorders, envy and jealousy of others, dependencies, and many more.
~James Hollis

Yeah, I can relate to that.

Day Thirteen

Baker's Dozen.  Good, a quick post before jumping in the hot tub.  I need to soak before bed, been having a hell of a time with sleep these days.  And I don't ever remember my dreams, I have to try to remember to tell myself to remember as I'm drifting off to sleep.  Problem is, my head is already jumping from place to place and has a hard enough time just letting go of everything.  Maybe I need to turn it into a mantra.

Got a super cool t-shirt in the mail today from KP, from my hometown.  Honestly, it makes me want to get to where I'm going even sooner.  Oh well, responsible before emotional, that's one of the many things I'm working on.  Bills gotta get pee ae eye dee.

So she's back with her ex.  I have to figure out how I feel about that.  One the one hand, I'm glad because I know it can't last, and I stand a better chance competing against him, even if it's six months from now, than against someone who might be good for her.  And he's not, he's a scumbag.  On the other hand, he's a scumbag and she knows it, and she's still going back to him.  I'm afraid it's going to get her killed, and I'm also afraid that if she's making those kinds of choices, then she's choosing not to be mentally healthy.  And that's not good.  Maybe I'll learn more in the hot tub.

Day Twelve

My Live With the Thrill Kill Kult.  Great electronica, haven't listened to them in a while.  That's one of the great things about having so much music, it can go through long cycles of style.

Okay, so I've been dealing with relationships and love and intimacy and self image and chemistry.  What is chemistry?  Is it more than the phermones and enzymes and whatever the scientific crap involved is?  I don't have an answer.  Hell, I've been surviving off internet porn for so long I don't even know what is real for me anymore and what's just a product of someone or some image telling me what I should want, what sex is like.  I don't think I'm much interested in sex as much as intimacy.  Knowing myself, and showing myself, to someone with complete freedom and abandon.  But that's not what generates chemistry.  I believe it's part of it, but is it just that she was such an influence on me so early in the development of my sexual identity and now her "type" is the only thing that catches my eye and makes me want to initiate that intimacy?

Day Eleven

Have to remember to do a daily "before bed" post so I can stop missing days.

Okay, so since I've decided that anyone reading this blog is pretty unlikely, I guess it's just going to be my online diary.  And if anyone does decided to read it, well, then I guess they'll get to know the real me.

I realized yesterday while talking with KP that part of the reason I want so much for her to love me is that I think she's kind of out of my league.  Successful business woman, gorgeous, great kids, well off, that somehow if she thinks I'm worth loving, then she brings me up to her level.  But that's not really the way it works, self worth is just that; it has to come from within, from the self.  No one can do that for you.  If you give someone else that power, you by definition give them the power to take it away.  No going to do that any more, did it for far too long and it's just not worth it.  If I want to be at her level, then I have believe I can be, or that I am already.  Yeah, that sounds like a much better way to go.

Thanks for helping bring that out of me KP, you're a true friend.

Day Ten

Well, I had the best conversation, for about 3 hrs, with a very dear friend whom I haven't seen for over 6 years. Funny how time gets away from you.  So feel pretty good.

Day Nine

Them's what think they are, ain't.

Day Eight

I found a card from the Unity School of Christianity, with a snippet on it attributed to Charles Fillmore written when he was 94.  I happen to think it's awesome.

I fairly sizzle with zeal and enthusiasm as I spring forth with a mighty faith to do the things that ought to be done by me.

I hope I have that kind of gusto when I'm 94.

Day Seven

I got accepted into the Google+ testing group yesterday, and spent the afternoon playing with it and seeing what it had to offer over other social sites (yes, that really only means you, Facebook) and I have to say my impression is almost all positive.  I'll write up more later, but have to go invite all my friends...

Day Six

So I didn't post yesterday, I was feeling pretty sad and decided to take the day off.  Not like there was anyone to miss me ;)

Day Five

I know, it's only the fourth day of posts, but I took yesterday off and didn't post day four until today.

Anyway, I was reading James Hollis' book "What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life" and these parts of his take on Eros struck me as particularly relevant given my very recent history, and my attempts to overcome it.

How, when all of us have had our hearts cracked and crazed, if not broken forever, can we still steer our leaky craft through the dangerous but necessary shoals of love? How can we honestly grieve loss and disappointment and still, with due deliberation, plunge again into risk and emotional danger? How can we, in the face of shame and failure, open to life, and open repeatedly?

Who among us has not made foolish, irretrievable decisions while possessed by this god? And why would we so eagerly return to get beat up again by such a petulant god, over and over again? Eros drives us toward ends not our own at times, but in service to the fuller expression of the permutations of possibility.


I didn't write it.  Well I wrote it, but it was not my original thought.  I'm just reposting it here, since you can't @RT a book.  I love books, real actual physical page turning books.  But that's for another day.

Day Four

So yesterday was the 4th of July, just about the only holiday that means nothing to the rest of the world.  Also the only holiday where the chosen activity is to blow shit up.  So truly American.

As someone who has served in the military (Scouts Out!) I can tell you that I've thought quite a lot about what it means to be an American, and the sacrifice some are willing make for the rest of us, and I don't buy about 90% of the rhetoric.  And if you think I'm full of it, go read the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, then consider the following questions:

What is "Freedom?"
What is "Justice?"
What is "the American Way?"

Who gets to decide what "Life" is and who picked them?
Is there a difference between "Freedom" and "Liberty" for you?
Who's happiness?  Or is it not happiness, but the pursuit?  See the difference?

Day Three

It's so easy to write on a keyboard, I find that the words flow on to the page in a stream of consciousness and before I know it I've written pages of - whatever - I happen to be writing about.  And it's so easy to go back and edit, chopping this out, adding here, moving this block of thought to be more consistent with  the flow of the previous and following blocks.  And of course, there's the ability to quickly find a replacement word, or check the spelling, or figure out what the hell that word means.  So I love composing on the keyboard.

But there's something about it that is also so cold, so impersonal.  It's so easy to just pop off a thought - 140 characters or less please - without really stopping to consider the words, consider the thought, to connect with what it is you're actually saying.  Sure, that's fine for term papers and homework, but one thing I love about writing is that when you pick up a pen and paper, you're committing a very personal act.  You're pledging your time to spend however long it takes to complete the task, and however much effort it takes to actually physically write down your thoughts and feelings.  You're demonstrating to someone that they are worth your time, effort, and attention.

Finally, a letter, a physical thing existing in the world, is something the recipient can take with them, can read at their leisure, any time and anywhere they want.  So in that way it is also a gift to them.

That's what I think.

Day Two

I truly believe you have to love someone for who they are, not for what your idea of them is, not for what you can make them become.

The only question I would ask, and it's a big one-

What do you want?

I long for, but don't really expect an answer; this is a hard question because it is asking for answers on so many levels.  I hope you will really think about it.  I know what I am looking for.  What are you looking for?

Day One

The first post.  Feels like it should be something important, momentous like a first anything should be.  A first kiss.  First beer.  First car.  First love.  But I realize that now, pushing mid 40's, most of the luster of "firsts" is off the apple, so they say.

So I think instead, I'll just let this be the first step, the start of what I hope to be a lasting habit.

So if it's not going to be something special, how about something banal.  I'm a man, early-mid 40's, employed in IT more by habit than by choice.  Trying to start my life over after having been in a relationship for 17 years that I only decided once and for all was unhealthy for me last Christmas.  Desiring a change in career and relationships to something meaningful and spiritually rewarding.  I live on the East Coast now, although I was born and raised in California.  I play some guitar, and I'm trying to learn more each week.  I'm physically active, I run and do martial arts.  I have an incredibly diverse taste in just about everything.

I have no kids, which, while I'm thankful for (given how my relationship turned out), I'm also deeply saddened to have missed out on that opportunity.  I love dogs, but don't have one now.  I plan to go back to college and learn how to teach English in High School, which is one of the reasons to start this blog, and something I hope to instill in my students, the habit of writing something every day.

That's page one, day one.  Onward! to day two...