Busy few days! Thursday and Friday were filled with starting a deployment at work to a fresh datacenter. Every redeployment is an opportunity to put a little more love in that I didn’t have time for previously. Saturday morning was more ARC training, taking a class on how to drive a van as a matter of fact. This was a little silly of course, “how does driving a van differ from driving your personal vehicle?” Yeah, right. But it is a prerequisite for next weekends driving emergency response vehicle class. I’ve never driven anything in an ambulance configuration (feeding truck though) before, although I used to own a step-van so I’m sure it won’t be any different in the end. Saturday evening Tori, Mom, Tim and I got out for art attack, and went down to MasterMark/Equinox to hang out with Colin for a bit, before meeting Andrea and Jasper back at the house for some good old fashioned horsing around. I finally got to read my vegan children’s book to a child! And then today, the final MFG cross race of the season. The most fun and muddiest I’ve had yet. I was too cold to wait around long for the prelimanry results, so we will wait for them to post the final results to see how I did, but I got a number of “way to go” comments from other races at the end. One of them called me “lumberjack.” Is it weird to collect so many nicknames from strangers?

Otherwise, oh, I don’t know. I’ve been thinking a lot the last week or two about those people that reach out to me, who put effort into spending time with me. I’m generally aligning that with an “actions speak louder than words” cliche. I’m coming to terms with my last few intimate relationships having been flings more than relationships, even though some solid friendships (relationships, granted) may still develop into more. It’s always hard wanting more and it not working out, or not making sense. Disappointing. Part of me feels like I need to make it through 2009 without any more dating, but mostly I want to make it through 2009 without another relationship that lasts less than two months. Since there’s less than two months left in the year, that pretty much throws the baby out with the bath water.

I keep forgetting to write this, and I dont’ have time now, but I don’t want to forget this again.

Talking to T the other day about missing _, and she got irritated and said “There are much nicer girls than _.” I quipped about not knowing where they are, as it hasn’t been for a lack of trying to find them. I still laugh thinking about demonizing, I forget so easily that most of the people I’ve dated never got the chance to understand how I feel, and thus can’t seem to grasp that I’d be supporting them when they’re not present. I’ve been having a conversation lately with B where he keeps implying that he is saying things that upset or frustrate me. B doesn’t know me anymore, if he did, and I can’t help but feel wise and zen about offering advice to him across the tubes.

Talking to J about missing _ and she asked if I missed her, or what she represented to me. I said that we fit well. What it represented not withstanding, I’ve had other opportunities for to fill that, that I’ve passed up on because they didn’t fit right. Also discussed how all of my introspection lately seems to be serving others much more than myself. It isn’t solving my problems. Although, I suppose, that’s not really the point. J recommended I take a look at The Mindful Brain and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy for hints on reshaping and redefining my emotional associations with loneliness away from intimacy. We’ll see how that works. I sense a huge book order coming when I get paid.

A asked me if our conversations felt like therapy and I told her not at all, because they’re conversations and not therapy. Combined with another comment about helping me, I’m feeling a flashback to M but without the arrogance. I feel like being social is getting me pent up again, complicated. Complicated takes energy. Taking care and being mindful of others takes energy.

Talked to J a lot recently about long-term goals, measuring success, how to live. I don’t really having that many long-term goals, beyond having decided recently that I want to keep living in the way that I do. While I acknowledge it is a good idea to have something to look forward to, I usually more focused on the now and the later works itself out. That is worth comparing to driving by looking in front of the bumper rather than down the road, as an analogy. I may be over-correcting too much in life. All the same, some of these I’ve started within the last month or two, but the majority are really November items:

• Take a break from dating + girls
• Cut back on coffee (no sitting around drinking coffee all [day|night] at [work|bar|restaurant] mostly)
• Cut back on juice + soda (cyclic sugar crashing rather than eating)
• Spend time more meaningfully, less horsing around:
  • Read more non-fiction
  • More volunteering, currently doing ARC.
  • Contribute more to Open Source
  • More projects: bikes, around the house
  • Finish the CX season.
  • Plan a talk with thesethings
  • Build more intimate relationships with friends/family that want it

That feels like plenty.

Even for those claiming emotional detachment from sex, how much of sex is physical and how much is an emotional connection, being close to someone? Todays topic of conversation is when someone sleeps with you, but is uncomfortable kissing you good-bye. The latter feels like affection tied pretty tightly to emotional attachment and connection. Oppose that to making out for instance, which seems more casually accepted as fair unattached physical interaction, depending on what circles you swim in. I’ve met many who pride themselves on saying that they wouldn’t sleep with someone they didn’t have feelings for or were dating, but have no issue making out with whomever. That line feels entirely self-drawn, but it’s completely affected by the social norms of that persons social identity.

I’ll be manipulative and ask, in a world where people “disaggregate, slice up, and repackage their emotional and physical needs” how much of this line drawing is getting our physical needs satisfied without having to face the responsibility of the emotional consequences of our actions? To oversimplify to make a point, “it was just making out, it wasn’t serious.”

I joked that I wrote 5000 words a day in here. I wonder what the average is for the last few years by day. I couldn’t find a WP plugin for word count that is actively maintained on short notice, oh well. All I managed was some plugin that describes the readability of my post.

I promised I would embarrass her and write about ‘love jail’ in my journal. On the whole it sounded very cynical, but the more we talked about it and the more she regretted providing my sarcasm such great fodder, the more it sounded like a fear than anything else. Conversations about a relationship limiting you from being yourself seems to be the topic of the day. Why is there so much angst toward relationships? Why are long term relationships pegged “the way the last generation did it?” It’s not so much that it just isn’t hip to be into a long term relationship, but there’s a general distrust for serious commitment or marriage being a good idea, like it is inherently false and shoved down our throats. Like, maybe we’ll put up with it, but only just a little, because we love our parents and struggle with pleasing them, mostly.

In the words of President Denis Leary, let me just say that I am pro-tit all the way. No, wait, I’m pro-long-term-relationship. Yeah, that’s right. Via facebook, “marriage is over rated.” Way to pull the cliche card sir, congratulations on bringing something thoughtful to the table. You’ve joined this debate on a day full of talking to interesting people with interesting thoughts on the topic, so it is feeling kind of pathetic at the moment.

One conversation today was about struggling with having identity and contentedness outside of a relationship, and then bringing it into the relationship. Another was about how relationships tend to squander personality and isolate you from friends. Yet somehow they were the same conversation. I don’t mean that in a meta way. They’re not the same because they’re both about relationships or both about the human condition. They are the same because they are both about how our relationships affect who we are. Here we all sit, waiting for a relationship to finally “work out”.

Yes, I’m happier in a relationship, with someone I can trust [or at least believe I can until the end] to care about my emotional well being, my interests and my life. Someone I can love who will appreciate that in a way that comes out as more than nice. I’m going to keep trying until I meet someone who gets that.

Google. T sends We Feel Fine, I poke at it while starting at network traffic diagnosing a firewall issue. I’m hungry, craving coffee. WFF stumbled me onto a journal entry about death. I cried. The traffic keeps coming.

My brain reminds me not to confuse missing _ for something emotionally ordained.

I feel like all of my personal relationships have boundaries that are limiting me from letting something important go.

Certain things come to mind every time I hang out at Mobius that are hard to ignore. At least breathing and spoons have returned to being general enough, but you can’t avoid the specifics.

It was a sad weekend. Dad blames the season, and I wonder if I’ll have to admit to my genes some day and winter in a sunnier climate.

I’m happy overall, I really am good. Maybe I need to learn to be more choosy who I’m honest with about how I feel. I think about _ saying that she felt [that] she didn’t want to be with someone [so] sad [but] not saying about it to me. I found out [later that] she thought that through another angle and explained why I was sad at [that] moment and she then understood. However, that [is] a good example of why not being completely honest about how I feel [can be for the best]. I was struggling with how open to be, trying to establish boundaries, and it [only] seemed to dig a bigger hole.

But I’m setting larger boundaries, and it seems to be the best for everyone else. It’s funny that I always feel [that] boundaries are for others benefit. Always the martyr, so distant.

[edits for readability as a result of posting from a mobile phone]

In regard to short term versus long term pleasures, “[t]here has to be a happy compromise somewhere in there.”

I think if you’re feeling uncomfortable about the quality of your activities, it is a sign to actively do something more meaningful or productive. On the other side, if you’re feeling stressed out, it’s probably time to go out and just have fun. Being an active participant in our own lives this way should achieve balance when we’re otherwise healthy.

As the wheel turns seems to keep turning my fun into stress, but that is a bigger issue with relationships, feelings, and being disappointed with not finding what I’m looking for. My independence and introversion makes working on projects alone a stress-reliever. I don’t know I’d call it fun compared to tomfoolery, but I enjoy it and it typically produces some fashion of wealth, re-defined.

Identity came up again recently in email. ‘Who am I’ is most often what do I value, who do I want to be, and who do I want people to think I am. These questions steer us in big ways and in subtle ways. I’ve thought about the big ways for eons, questioning where I fit in and what is meaningful. I’m pretty sure it is a product of my ever-growing compassion. My mind wanders all over thinking about it, checking myself. How do you value multiple life-styles that appear to conflict? I’ve managed to integrate a few myself. Looking back I recall thinking of myself as a chameleon when I was young, searching to understand why I kept drifting from one group to another. I remember being offended this year when someone implied I wouldn’t fit into a group of blue-collar folks because I’m a middle-upper class professional by day. I think mostly I don’t want to be identified that way, I’m more prejudice toward it, I think because I feel like there’s less time spent creating and that is pretty core to me. The stereotypes are interesting, professionals are supposed to be more educated and open-minded while the lower-class more prejudice. It can go either way, as stereotypes typically can.

Defending myself aside though. I recently read an excerpt in which the author found herself one of two white people in a laundromat in a culturally diverse neighborhood. She lived there, I believe, and was perfectly comfortable, but apparently the other white person in the room was a business person and was very uncomfortable and kept trying to make eye contact with her. She presumed it was because he wasn’t used to being the minority, and went on to rant about how fucking lame and a piece of shit he was for being prejudice. Which sounds a lot like prejudicing that person and placing a lot of blame for other peoples actions or the results of other stereotypes on someone that is suffering. Maybe she’s right, but you know, a lack of compassion never gets us anywhere.

Because you just don’t know. I think I’ve always been quiet, but jumping from one social group to another, wandering between video gamers, country-folk with automotive tinkering habits, open source people, adventure motorcyclists, bike assholes, working in startups, consulting for the successful, volunteering for many different events and organizations, growing up in the woods, drinking with drunks, and so on and so forth, it is really important to walk in and be accepting. It doesn’t mean they’re right, or a point shouldn’t come when you speak up against something you feel is wrong, but choose your battles and give other people the benefit of the doubt.

And I guess, keep in mind that far too often we blame other people for our own problems. Don’t sever your feelings, your humanity.

*exit soap box*

Waking up early when I’ve regularly been waking up late leaves me feeling quite tired after a long day. More training today at ARC. The ‘interact with your classmates who are strangers’ bit is always uncomfortable at first, I’m sure, but I made friends with my partner and buy the end of the day we were surely joking more than we should have been; “Wow, your splint completely healed my open fracture in seconds!”

T had company over so I read in the garage for a while looking for some quiet that wasn’t too dismal like the basement or sleep inducing like my bedroom. After a chapter or so I started cleaning and while moving a door-lock set we’ve had since we’ve moved in for the nnth time, I decided I oughtta put it in already. I kept telling myself I was going to get it rekeyed to match the front door. It’s funny that cleaning up made me put it in, while all the times I’ve come home and had to walk around to the front door didn’t.

A couple of years ago I was talking to my father about movies on the phone and he told me that he had to stop watching movies because they intentionally played on your emotions too much. That was a turning point in figuring out my father. I’m well known by my friends for being pretty emotionally affected by movies or my patient compassion in situations. Plus some ex-girlfriends know all about how big those emotions can get when I’m really open. I’ve thought about that a lot, and over the summer finally came to stop feeling like something was wrong with me for feeling the way that I do. I was sort of forced into that by a breakup earlier in the year, but sometimes life steers for us. Today while watching some training videos, I got caught up in even the slightest hint of dramatic sequence. I couldn’t help it, and started to cry each time. Again, while I’ve come to accept my feelings as being legitimate, I’m worrying lately about the point where I become too sensitive for someone close to me to be able to handle the balance. Not that it matters a whole lot to worry about it now, sometimes you just have to wait and see how amazing the people in your life are.

How much of it is not wanting to miss a good time, and how much of it is wanting to be someone that has a good time? Which could be having crazy stories to tell, or getting other people to identify you as fun/wild/crazy? The more I think about meaning, the more I’m afraid of missing out on the larger opportunities. Do I want to spend my evenings drinking and fucking about with friends, achieving short term pleasures, or prepare for something greater, more long term. I’m tempted to compare this to relationships. I want a meaningful long-term relationship. I joke about how much I’ve been dating this year, but quantity wasn’t what I wanted. I’m on my way to doing more with my time, and it’s better this way. There’s some social turbulence, but so it goes.