I woke up from a bit of a nap, considered trying to stay asleep but failed. Per usual, I immediately checked my email to see if L had written me. God I miss her so much.

J was telling me about an uncle whose wife left after having four kids together, and how he never changed the house because he still believed she would come back. Dad told me today that he was impressed by my social skills out here, and that maybe I’d find someone better. I’m tempted to be cynical in both circumstances.

Sadness has me gripped pretty well right now. I don’t really want to go out and drink as a distraction. Mostly I want to sleep, but that’s not going to happen because of the heartache. I’m trying to not drink still, my mind is scattered and I have trouble maintaining focus for even a few minutes on anything mental.

I was talking to J about feeling like everything you do and say is ruining your chances of being happy with your person. I feel like everything I do drives L further away from me, which matters because my heart isn’t letting go any time soon. You tear yourself feeling like you don’t know what’s going to happen, but even if you’re really told, I guess the hurt fights back.

I guess another person asked if they should be worried about me. I’m still not sure what that means. I know it’s an expression of concern, but it always sounds less like, “I’m going to give Bryan a hug and see if he wants to talk because he’s probably feeling pretty emotionally hurt and alone right now” and more like “Do we need to have an intervention and have him hospitalized to keep him from hurting himself?” Which, you know, I have the benefit of being an asshole and being okay with it, but with the sarcasm removed that’s sort of what I’m saying.

G asked me who L was and I sort of waved it off. I regretted it afterwards, because it didn’t seem right to end a conversation where someone was actually asking about me, but I decided it was, in the end, not a “how are you?” question, but more of a unsubstantial question about who I was dating. I don’t blame her, but it’s not really the conversation I want to have. I mean, does it matter who L is? *indulge* *indulge* *whine*. L is a great person who I care about deeply who decided that being a part of my life was too much guilt and burden to bear in consideration of the rest of her life. And that’s fine, whatever, you can’t do anything about that.

Which isn’t to say that I didn’t try. Sometimes emotionally charged. Like J and I discussed sometimes you try to stand back and give space. I feel like I failed at communicating both my feelings and my expectations completely because of how it turned out. I have to remind myself it was her choice and that I couldn’t have done anything about it.

Struggling with wanting to go out, but reluctant to go drinking, and when I think of going out to eat I realize I’m not going to be any more distracted that way. It’s like, grin and bear it, but it’s a hollow pain, not a sharp one.
G: who’s leah?

47 miles from the farm in Olympia to the Vashon dock in Tacoma. Olympia was nice, as well as out around the fort. Kind of a bore otherwise. Got lost for 45-60m in Tacoma trying to stay off the main roads. I met a cool old squid and road with him for a while in Tacoma after he gave me a thumbs up for catching up with him. Two hours from Oly to Steilacoom, about 45 minutes to Tacoma, then a lot of time spent lost getting through it. Riding alone the shore and looking at the Olympics was just amazing and must be repeated. The narrows bridge looked pretty cool from up on the hill too.

About an hour across Vashon sticking on the highway. That was just an exercise in climbing hills. 13 miles. Pretty, except I was mostly focusing on not having a heart attack on the hills. A more casual route when not trying to get home right away would be better. Should take the WHa(?) out there one of these weekends I’m not on a bike trip. Hopefully there’ll be one before the end of the summer.

Then about 9 miles from Fauntleroy back to Georgetown. Came within a foot of getting by a car looking left while making a right turn on red when I was on the path. That was good for the old blood flow. Saw the bike sabbath kids at the north end of the Duwamish trail too, but had plans to meet Mom and Tori for food at Squid. That was about a half hour.

So I guess that’s just shy of 70 miles, which isn’t much more than the 63 coming down on the other side. Mom said not very many people biked back anyway, so I’m glad I took a different route, got to see some new places, and could go full bore with little regrets. Seven hours, including an hour long lunch, the two ferry rides (bout 40 minutes total) and getting lost in Tacoma. That makes, uhh, 4.5 hours travel time or so, which wasn’t bad at all for the IRO.

I think it took us six hours including stops to do the 63 miles as a group down the other side yesterday. This was basically Bremerton, including the Belfair Valley Road (detour suggest by Brandon) to Belfair, then south on WA3 to US101, taking side roads starting at the intersection of US101 and WA8 to add a little fun.

I failed to find a working hose at Squid, so I ran home for some ice cream. Next time I need to bring heavier sunscreen, the spray works fine when I’m not out in the sun for six hours but I’m a little warm. Now I’m going to try to squeeze in a nap before going out to lament loving and it not working with J.

Ride to Olympia from Bremerton was nice. Mom drove down so I threw my camping gear in her car and rode the IRO. Need to get a real seat I guess. Still impossible to not think about L and have heartache over it. Had a hard time not leaving the group when I was upset.

M said I’ve lost weight. Yeah. I didn’t drink at all yesterday. Tented alone with the chickens, chatted a bit and hung out by the fire until the last couple of people pulled out sleeping bags.

Met more Sherwood folks, saw Jason from there. Saw Mitchell, other aquantainces. when we went swimming at a public dock we ran into some bike kids. Point83 came up, Chris Jewel, about it.

After a cup of coffee with mom I took off alone on an east route. Rode through Oly and stopped for some boxer breifs and clomitrazol. Made it to Steilacoom in two hours. I’m eating now, and will probably ride through Tacoma and get home via Vashon. I feel beter about mashing and hurting myself when my mind gets stuck on L when riding alone.

“Bags without people don’t make sense”

Or hearts without love don’t make sense?

S was talking last night about not wanting a relationship. She sounds a bit unstable. I get why people get fed up, for an obvious multitude of reasons, but I’ve never felt that way.

Off on the ferry to Bremerton. Made it with a few minutes to spare, up to last call with J, S and roommates. J commented on how weird life is, with S showing up unexpectedly and all.

I joked that just when you have it figured out, at 11:58pm, and you think you’re going to be happy, it’s tomorrow and someone changes everything on you. Dad used to say the same thing about women, but my heart still hopes for one to love.

Still poking at the happiness study when I have time. Case number 141 is chilling.

I think the most important element that has emerged in my own psychic picture is a fuller realization of my own hostilities. In early years I used to pride myself on not having any. This was probably because they were too deeply buried and I unwilling and afraid to face them.

In your last days, you “could not settle down,” You “just sort of wandered,”

“One of the most perplexing and charming people I have ever met in my life,”

Interesting note that JFK was in the Grant Study but his files were removed and sealed until 2040.

Had E watch the video, it’s amazing the feelings in conjures up.

Dry ice bombs, being hooligans takes planning.

Saw Rusty at ACC this morning and chatted about how the showing of Weaponizers went at Central Cinema, the future showings, and the welding rental shop. Sounds like that latter is progressing.

Camping at Clair’s farm in Olympia tomorrow. A few of us will be biking down from Seattle.

Talking to J last night about happily singing sad songs… It’s sort of amazing how much local kid drama can happen in twenty four hours. Every time I stop back in that scene I have to catch up. I’m like, “Yeah I heard about that yesterday.” “No, that was yesterday, and then… !”

Talking to M today it became obvious to me that people are already making assumptions about who M is. In the course of life, I’ve dated what I feel isn’t that many people on average. I suppose it’s natural that each person would assume that I’m talking about the M that they know. There’s an interesting segway there into something else I’ve been wanting to talk about, basically [insular] social scenes and bro-dom and such bullshit. I’ll get to that later or some day. So anyway, the ambiguity is working except that it’ll likely just cause confusion because of assumptions. But that’s cool, earlier I told a friend, “Intentional ambiguity. If they want to know what’s going on because they read it they can ask me.” But yeah, I’ve dated more than one M.

Talking online about L to bike people. It’s so difficult to say the right things to people with everyone else in consideration. Talking about L in this way breaks me apart and I start crying. What the hell. It’s too fucking complicated to take everyone’s feelings into account.

That was fucking hard.

There used to be these advertisements on the bus that were a timeline that was all, ‘born, school, wife, house, kids, retirement’ with ‘change the world‘ scribbled in. A while ago I read a bit about someone talking to some cancer researchers who were saying that when they ask for funding it’s “to cure cancer”, but in reality it is just to fight a small battle against one type of cancer. But everyone wants to cure cancer and change the world.

Not to say that folks need to shut the fuck up and appreciate, because I’ve been told that before by M (heh, “I dated this girl once” as the joke used to be) and that’s a different conversation, and it is its own type of bullshit. Really though, find some humility, and little love, and improve the life of the people you see every day.

Honestly, it breaks my heart that I’ve never dated anyone who I could play Kenshin for and share with them the sense of how vitally important it is to live this way. I probably feel this way due to recent events, but it makes me feel unloved and not understood.

Everything seems upside down in the hood lately. Brigh‘s been starting shit. I don’t know what to do about that. Which, isn’t to say I should actually do something, but I don’t know what my reaction should be. I really don’t like folks interfering with other people’s lives, especially when I get the impression it is only for the sake of their real estate values. Fuck people who value money over living.

I talked to J for a while last night on the street about scenes and how they suck. We agreed being the bridge between scenes can cause you to carry more load than they deserve. I’ve never liked blind support of “bro’s”, that is, standing behind someone because they’re part of your scene, not because of what you believe in. I feel this all drills right back down to this ‘need to belong’ instinct that breeds insular, prejudice social groups. There’s no place for that, it’s not cool. I got a sweatshirt yesterday to make my ‘poser’ hoodie. I gotta get some fabric paint somewhere, maybe I’ll leave here early because I’m upset anyways.

I meant when I was riding in to read a bit about the history of solidarity because I called this shit out, but today got really emotional and I just don’t have it in me. I don’t think I would find myself that far off though.

T was telling me that N went to a show at FBK after not having been there for a long time and found that a ton of kids were covered in patches for political punk bands whose message was lost on them, they were uninterested in politics altogether. They were basically scenesters. Or, I think they’re called posers around there. Fucking uniforms.

I’m glad in this mess of scenes I’m still finding some real people though. You know, like Almost Famous “real people”. Or not really, but said that way.

IRT the awesome conversation with J about moving from the “sad house” to the “angry house”. M says “neither of those houses sound good. can I live in a house called sometimes sad sometimes angry but mostly happy house”, to which I replied, “well the idea is that they’re on the same street. presumably there could be a happy house on that street, but it could also just be a “coming soon” sign on an empty lot.”

Despite all my hard work, woke up pukey today. I can’t sleep enough because of my mind and my heart. The rest of my body feels their pain. Speaking of which, I should force myself to eat something. Herro cliff bar.

It’s 3:30am, and the birds are chirping already. Don’t they know it’s still dark out? I was just out there, it was fucking dark.

Tonights ride started with a comment at the prefunk about how I was the subject of much gossip. That was all there was to it though. Few people in Point83 approach me on a personal level, as opposed to a social level. So that probably acts as enough of a moat to keep the noise down.

I kept my drinking to a minimum. When we ended up at the 9lb, after I while I started feeling sad, so I left and stopped by the show at FBK in search of friends where there’d be some mutual happiness about each other’s company. Leaving 9lb was weird, I left half a drink there, I don’t think I’ve ever done that before.

Found J & J at FBK, saw some other acquaintances. There was much appreciation for me having some dry ice left over from Russ and I fucking around with it on the ride, with which I made a little smoke machine for the band. J said my ex-girlfriend was stupid, because I’m awesome and have dry ice. Being drunk aside, I could tell she meant it and appreciated it. It’s flattering having folks like you when you feel left alone. The show ended, and with recent neighborhood weirdness FBK went quiet for the night. J and I went to his house, stopped by my house to refill, then over to the Hen House for a bit of an after party. It was a small enough group everyone sort of knew each other and I’m too tired and sad to be working at making friends right now.

J made a comment at FBK about how fucked up it was that everyone was happily singing along to a song that was inherently sad. It’s doubly fucked up with relationship drama, but that all aside, he was right. It is far too easy for us to rationalize away feelings.

A girl at FBK asked me questions about my ‘leather-people’. “Oh, my leatherman, oh, wait, I see what you did there.”

Bike camping again this weekend. It’ll be nice to get out of town.

J and I talked a bunch about relationships and heartbreak, moving from sad house to angry house, the tragedy of running away from good things.

Every email I get, every text I get, I want it to be from L. If I was fourteen I might think it pathetic. I own my feelings now, at this age. It’s sad that they aren’t reciprocated.

Hiding in the bathroom for a bit where I don’t have to worry about the awkwardness of someone popping in to ask me a question while I’m crying, I think I’ve finished a bit of the roundup of the last 27 years. This will probably sound cliche, because the words lack the ability to harness my feelings. If happiness is love, then losing love is sadness.

Besides there being so many things that remind me of L, and there being no hope to avoid them, I have a few memories that would bring me incredibly joy, and happiness having that in my life. Now when sitting and thinking about them, they make me sad, a reminder of loss?

I guess, with realizing that the way I feel is perfectly human, normal, and perhaps unfortunately under-expressed, I see some silliness in looking for answers. Feelings are sort of a religion for me insofar I don’t try to explain love, I’m happy feeling it. It seems like people in my life that get close to me sometimes have issues dealing with how that affects their own problems.

Which is to say, it all makes sense now, and I accept it. I simply miss L, and that’s hard but okay.

And I’m drinking too much.

Posted last night from my phone, using the web browser. I’ve done this a couple times, it’s functional but the interface isn’t all that great. Set up ‘post by mail‘ today, which should be easier to compose
emails on the phone and send them. General directions are here. The one trick is when using gmail, which requires ssl for POP3, you need to specify ‘ssl://pop.gmail.com’ as the mail server and port 995.

Tori shared a video from The Atlantic about a 72-year-long Harvard study about health and happiness.

The job isn’t confirming, it isn’t keeping up with the Joneses. It is, playing, and working, and loving, and loving is probably the most important. Happiness is love.

Go heart, go.