I love that I’m able to help bring events like this together. This is what I live for.

22:58 <@malouin> Ry: Story of the wreath
22:58 <@malouin> Dec 2008: it snows, Trader Joes throws the wreath in the dumpster.
22:59 <@malouin> Me and some math nerds hike to the top of the hill past people skiing down to get hella frozen meat out of the dumpster and take the wreath back on a giant REI backpack
23:00 <@malouin> Dec 2008-Feb 2009: wreath hangs on my door until it becomes crispy
23:00 <@malouin> Mar 2009: I get the idea that it would be fun to burn
23:01 <@malouin> May 9, 2009 8 PM: I bring the wreath down to my studio for the art attack thinking that there’s going to be a fire, but the fire people are out late on a job, so I throw the wreath away.
23:02 <@malouin> May 9, 2009 9 PM: I arrive at btm’s birthday party to discover that there is a fire there, so I call colin and tell him that there’s a wreath waiting in the dumpster, so he brings it by bike trailer.
23:03 <@malouin> May 9, 2009, 11 PM: the wreath is immolated in front of a bunch of hackers and bike kids.

Back to listening to Dido. M once accused me of being sexist because I like most female vocalists. Funny girl. I need reminders right now that I’m not alone.

It’s a good things I have so many hobbies to keep my mind distracted. When it’s allowed to, my heart gets a hold of it. Under normal circumstances the worst of this is a bit of romanticising about crushes I probably wouldn’t have the opportunity to admit to. This kind of got me through a lot of life.

I cut and welded the feet back on a city bike rack that had gotten flattened by a truck today. It’s a little short and silly, but usable until they replace it. Everyone seemed to be sure I was up to no good, but nobody approached me and the police never showed up at my door. I gave painting a try, I think I’ll do more of it. And I got most of the platform built for the trailer today. Pretty product-full day in a number of different areas.

I cleaned up my room up a bit today to have some space with natural light to paint and put my old backpack in the closet. It contains my old journal, mostly prior to writing online. I laughed thinking about how everyone knew I liked K, but a couple at most knew I liked M, and remembering writing in my journal with a fear that some day someone would find out how much I liked M and be jealous.

I left those fears behind a while ago. When I compare that to L, I have no feelings of my own to hide, but everyone else’s to protect. Which one is worse? One must of course ask, “for whom?”

The trials of putting M behind me were benefited by there being hypocritcal behavior to be discovered once I peeked beyond my feelings. There are still feelings there, I’ve walked away from them. They say moved on, but tend to leave out the reality that you always live with those feelings.

Every heart wrenching experience in life seems to rewire us. Supposedly we get independent and cynical. Are the strong independence of my mind and the love of my heart destined to be forever odd and misplaced? I can believe folks can be however they are, or want to be. I’ve never been one to argue with someone about how they say they are.

Pondering how to put L behind me hurts. Like I’m stabbing myself hurts.

I check my email and phone multiple times a day, breifly hoping for contact from L deciding having me in her life is better than not. My head knows her heart works differently than mine, and it’s not likely. I feel with my heart, and it’s an innocent little fella who tends to keep on believing in people and love. I’m totally a romantic insofar as I believe love will perservere in the end.

Time. Sure. Fine. But ya know, it’s not that I don’t want to think about L anymore, I just don’t want to feel hurt when I do. Pfft.

In retrospect, I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever felt understood when it comes to matters of my heart. I feel more like there were times when I was happy enough to not think about it. It really means well, more than the rest of me for sure, it just seems to get the short end of the stick a lot.

I was solidly distracted and entertained all night, thank you all. I also ran into a few people I didn’t expect to see, and was happy to reconnect. It was fun having everyone ride the Dahon and the tandem around the house, I was glad for such a large bike turnout. Part of me wants to go up to the Stronghold for the party there now, but I didn’t get enough sleep last night and I’m ready to fall asleep despite the requisite sadness returning.

There are brief moments of so much distracting happiness I feel pretty okay. I’m glad so many good people are around. I still feel lost about what to do with how I feel. I’m getting tired of saying I’m sad… I suppose I’m getting tired of feeling sad.

Good times at Hazard Factory this morning, and tonight’s party should be interesting.

btm you are serious about this thing being huge
I was just talking to someone on the phone who I didn’t even know knew you who is going
I’ll probably stop by too

I won’t bother saying what I’d rather be doing though. I feel really bad about myself lately because of how I feel. I feel wrong, broken, unwanted or something. I don’t think this things, before anyone goes off and tells me to stop. But I do feel them.

So I ran off to the 9lb due to foursquare telling me divide and serif were there, against my better, “I promise I don’t drink a lot” judgement. As it turns out, tomorrow will be epic. Make sure you come.

An hour of rambling produces three hundred words and I delete them all. It’s been a while since I did that. I’ve said them all before, they serve no purpose.

I miss L. It keeps me up at night. Sadness makes me want to hug and hold someone, feel connected, reminded of heart. This is the only support that matters, and you can’t have it when you need it the most.

My mind was elsewhere most of the day, but I did feel good about the work I accomplished. I’m not sure how much of embracing my feelings and focusing them helps compared to time. But I’m okay with it.

Part of me is frustrated with going through this phase again. I’ve gone through this once before and it wasn’t time that resolved it, it was enough growth to recognize where my heart was sabotaging me. There’s some degree of sadness in that itself.

Looking forward to seeing someone, and not being able two, are two separate parts of me in conflict. They don’t meet on even ground and I think the battles between them involve a lot of miscommunication.

I’ve mostly given up on trying to make sense of where I am. I’d say I’ve lost hope, but I create hope where there is none, to my own detriment.

Mostly, I still keep myself distracted by going out drinking with friends, or physical tasks like a bide ride or mowing the lawn. Sometimes I have the energy to focus my feelings at emphasizing, despite it hurting a bit.

I still don’t know where to go from here, but generally forward. I still feel like I’ve lost something incredibly meaningful and valuable to me, and I’m troubled by the reality that I couldn’t do anything to prevent it.

I do my best to stay away from the computer after last call, my will power is understandably weaker then, and I tend to be invasive in ways that I don’t feel are appropriate any longer. I keep hoping to be proved wrong. Silly heart, being you.

I feel misunderstood a bit, and at times I feel like if I could only explain myself better it would make some kind of a difference. I feel like talking about all of this is the most important thing to do, but that’s only important to me, which isn’t enough.

On one hand I look back at where my feelings were a little while ago, and think about feeling that way today, still wanting to date. I can’t imagine it, I feel like so much has changed. Hmm.

I’m just rambling now. It’s going to be so hard going through this again, especially feeling the way I do now.

My grandparents told me their proud of me, moving out here from the sticks and being all successful or whatever I am. I like what I do, and it excites me, but sometimes life itself is what I’m proudest of.

friend: whats your endgame
friend: because it’s gotta beat mine
friend: which is simply – don’t get trapped in an unhappy relationship again
me: hahaha. word.
me: well, the stereotypical endgame, and we tend to feel weird about not achieving, is settling down with kids + wife + house in this american myth sort of way. It’s what’s sold to us, but it’s not real anyhow. whatever.
me: My endgame is finding a cohort I can love and support who wants to do crazy things with me, live according to our ethics, and have a positive impact on the parts of the world that around us.

For those that don’t know, endgame is a WoW (MMORPG) joke. You can’t beat WoW, so it’s ironic. Yes, dork culture is funnier than you.

When I look back at growing up and think about the parts that were hard, I tend to think of the emotional times. In the midst of my parents divorce I spent eighth grade at a small school called “The Toddy Pond School”. There was some irony in the name, since I grew up near the shores of Toddy Pond in Surry, but this was named after another, and was in Swansville, a good 45 minute commute. An alternative school with no grades, multiple recesses playing tag, and show and tell, I named it “The warm and fuzzy school”. The interesting part was that students there with happily married parents were in the minority.

I suppose the worst I ever felt about my parents divorce was alienation when I was younger, and perhaps some frustration in regards to visitation with my father in the years before I started to figure him out. I don’t know how normal it is in a public school these days to come from a broken home, I have to assume much more, that our generation lead having divorced parents into a more casual era. However one thing hasn’t changed, and won’t. Kids are fucking cruel. It’s still bound to hurt when other people twist the knife, even if you don’t know how else it’s supposed to be.

I didn’t know life any different until into my twenties. An ex-girlfriend started making occasional comments about “how good I had it”, implying in some way that my success was more from the opportunities I had than I wanted to admit. I once said something to L about being a white male, and having all off the benefits that come along with that, and she said I had overcome more than I was admitting. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I still haven’t stopped to think about it a whole lot. Life with my parents the way it was, simply was.

I hope that for n. The circumstances are what they are. It’s terribly unfortunate, but I wish for the consolation of no feelings of loss. Godspeed little guy.