Dancing About Architecture

It could be that what I attempt to do here in this forum is an impossibility -- like trying to write about music or dance about architecture. It could be that the entire threshold proposition is so preposterous that what follows is necessarily nothing but disjunctive noise.

Much head scratching in the peanut gallery leads me to believe that there is one question which absolutely begs to be asked here: Do I even have a threshold proposition?

I believe I do. Though it may have developed only on a secondary level (we can debate the questionable assumption that one can have a threshold proposition that only comes into being well after the project it is supposed to inform is well underway another day) and may simply be enabling the creation of another shrine to my own narcissism, it is a threshold proposition nonetheless. At least, as with most things in my life, if you squint at it a little.

My threshold proposition is this: I just want to understand. There is so much in this world that I do not understand: extreme partisanship, abject cruelty, imperviousness to the psychic pain of others, being a fan of the Boston Red Sox, inability to use spell check, political motivations in apolitical situations, the ascendancy of Ryan Seacrest. The list goes on and on. But the only item of confusion on the list which I can truly be held accountable for, and for which I will continue to pay a price day after day, is my inability to understand myself (yes, again with the narcissism). I may never know the allure of owning 200 cats or selling everything you own to get four tickets for the Superbowl or why people can often be so cruel, but I can at least attempt to understand myself better. If I can better make out the shape of that entity that is "myself" maybe fitting into my own skin will be a more comfortable fit, and in the comfort, I might be a better citizen of the world, and able to give more to my loved ones and to everyone else.

So if understanding myself is truly the threshold proposition, then even if my body of work here oftentimes has a repetitive and cacophanous ring, I do believe I am making progress. Probably not as much as I should be, as I have a sneaking suspicion that I am far simpler an individual than I make myself out to be, but progress nonetheless.

My most significant issue, as far as I can tell from posts from the beginning until now, has always been one of perception. My eyes -- both the ones on my head and the one in my mind -- often fail me. My reaction to my dimly lit sight has been to throw up my hands and weep at the mere realization of it. Perhaps, as with the physically blind, I should accept the limitations created by my metaphorical blindness and begin to work on how to overcome my visual shortcomings through the use (and ultimately, the heightening) of other senses and abilities.

Sound good in theory, but at this point, I am not sure what these other senses I should work on should be. Hearing is not necessarily an option, as the richness and complexity of what I love about words and and construction of them, is the same thing that makes them a less than reliable guide to accurate perception. It depends on what the meaning of "'is' 'is'", you know?
Touch is also eliminated because the motivations to make physical connections are easily hidden and have the most potential for diametric opposition. Smell could be reliable whenever it is a factor, but it is so rarely present, that it would be a fog horn that sounds once an hour in a lifelong fogbank. Hardly any help at all.

So what am I left with? My gut. The proverbial spidey sense in the deep down recesses of oneself that has always made decisions instantaneously, and which I have scrupulously argued and fought with every moment thereafter until the decision absolutely must be made.
Wow, this doesn't sound all that reliable either, but I do appreciate the fact that it requires trust in oneself and a sort of emotional centering so that "the gut" can be heard. Ah, I guess "hearing" does play a role after all.

One of the perception "sub" issues that vexes me most is, of course, romantic relationships (with nearly every platonic relationship I have running a close second on the vexation/anxiety inducing scale). Like most every woman I know who has read far too much Cosmo et al in her lifetime (and, who, for that matter, watches too much Lifetime), I started out making a list of the things I wanted in a mate (okay, the fact that I was using "mate" as a category of reference at all says something unto itself. These days I do prefer the term "partner" -- though the kind that doesn't require a capital call). At 17, the list wasn't that lengthy, mostly consisting of broad sketching details such as, "Green eyes, Dark hair, and 'Must be like Lloyd Dobbler.'" Basically, I think I was looking for Lloyd Dobbler. Someone sweet and nice, who was funny, bright and kind, who adored me, and whom I found attractive. Ah, even then, with limited language and experience, I was still a big fan of seeking the impossible.

I realize no one can be Lloyd Dobbler all of the time, in large part because he is a fictional character. People are flawed and difficult and selfish, and that most of us are doing our best to be the best person we can be, but some days are inevitably better than others. But I would like some Lloyd Dobbler at least some of the time. I haven't ever really had that -- and whether that has been due to my poor choices or some cruel cosmic joke is a debate for another day -- but when it comes to romantic love and the act of being cherished, I have very little in terms of experience or frame of reference.

Resultantly, I often feel cast aside. I feel rejection intimately. It must be me. Always. Now, I have had at least two suitors tell me that, yes, it was in fact me. But that aside, it isn't always. I don't think.

So how do I balance with what is good for me versus what I like? I think that there are certain things that I am attracted to that have a high potential for blowing up in my face (i.e. arrogance, swagger, and unrelenting drive), but there are others (maybe more muted versions of the former category) that I think I can keep without fear of harm (i.e. raconteur, confident, smart, motivated, humble even in the face of being accomplished, a little bit snarky). Even if I can keep the latter group without fear of harm, it doesn't mitigate the near impossibility of all those traits landing in one person (and especially since I still insist on throwing "tall" in with those qualities as well). So at this point, it seems that if a gathering of those traits is an impossibility, I should modify my expectations or always be disappointed.

But here is the problem: I have found those traits in a very few people. I have seen the possibilities, and it leaves me both hopeful and terrified. How does anyone else ever measure up? Those people have yet to embrace me as I embrace them, so where does that leave me, other than perpetually alone?

The thing is this -- when I find that amalgamation of those traits in someone, something very curious happens. Rather than getting more nervous, anxious and apprehensive (as such states of being appear to be my status quo), I even out. I feel more and more at ease, and, it is in such moments that I experience the truly rare experience of "feeling like myself." Someone with such traits brings out the best in me, because they just make me comfortable with myself. It is hard to explain and I am doing a poor job here. I guess the best way to explain it is that I am perpetually thinking two steps ahead in nearly every social situation -- romantic or platonic -- because I always feel so awkward and navigating the social waters always seems to perilous to me. Over the years I have found a few trusted friends, where this tendency is obviated. I am comfortable enough to live, to feel, to be in the moment. This is why they are also my family. With romantic contexts, I have only had this happen to me on a handful of occasions. Less than a handful. But the feeling was amazing -- so different from anything else I had ever experienced. And that last sentence has nothing to do with physical acts. It was just that ability to be present and joyful and thrilled, in the moment. The Bridget Jones moment -- perfect, just as it is.

Ends & Odds

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Somehow, lately, I have been unable to communicate effectively in any format. While it has long been clear that I am not at my best via telephone communiques, it is now clear that no matter how clear the reception, I have telephonic-Asperger's syndrome. My pacing is off, my affect is inappropriate, and my nervousness exacerbates my narcissistic tendencies. Why some boys insist on use of this modern day instrument of torture as the primary means of contact, I will never know.

My fall back has always been writing. If I am awkward over the phone, I am at least passable in print. These days, however, that isn't the case. Mostly because I have become a mute scribe. I have thoughts of writing -- e-mails, blog posts, letters, text messages, status messages even -- and yet I have absolutely no ability to follow through. I have writer's block. Or maybe it is performance anxiety. Either way, I wrack my brain for some worthwhile (and hopefully) amusing task for my fingers to perform on the computer keyboard, and yet there is nothing.

Methinks I am hiding. That I have gone into a complete hibernation. Hiding from the world in every iteration.

Well, sort of.

I have discovered Facebook recently and have, admittedly, become a little fixated. I love the idea of being able to reach all of these long lost people in my past. To catch up on years of history with the click of a button. Amazing. Effortless. And I think that is the point. It requires very little effort to make a connection, and that seems to be about all I am willing to expend these days. I can't even bring myself to post on people's Facebook "walls." So really what am I doing?

I am keeping everyone and everything at arm's length. Why?

I don't know, but I feel increasingly odd.

One of these things is not like the other...

That certainly would be me. The more days that go by, the more odd I become. Oh excuse me, eccentric (one of the few benefits of being 30 is that rather curt labels of "crazy", "odd" and "nuts" can be replaced with the elegant catch-all of "eccentric").

Much like the stray gray hairs that seem to pop up out of nowhere on my head these days, I notice increasingly more eccentric traits in myself. A settling into "my ways" so to speak, which would be a more positive thing if it actually meant that I was being more accepting of myself, but I think it just means I am getting more fussy (and by extension more irritable). Man, hard to believe I am not prime marriage material, huh?

Well, maybe there isn't much to be done about settling into "my ways," but there are some old habits I would like to drop. Primarily, my need to actually hide from the world. I think I am better now than I have been for a long time -- I try so hard to keep all of the commitments I make these days -- but the root problem is still there. I refuse to flake on plans, but that doesn't mean I won't still refuse to make any plans in the first place because I feel "icky." The relationship I have with my body has long been a tumultuous one. I had thought we had reached a sort of detente in the last 4 or 5 months, but, realistically, it is a quite precarious one. Some days are better than others. However, I cannot help but continue to be appalled at my own near paralysis at engaging in normal social activities when I feel "gross." The difference in what I look like is negligible from one day to the next, and yet, how I feel in my own skin from one day to the next varies wildly. I don't even pretend to understand it. I do wish I could control it. Yet somehow, I am pretty sure that isn't the answer. Then again, I don't know what the actual answer is.

Maybe if I get my raging narcissism/over-inflated sense of importance under control?

The world does not revolve around me and the melodramas in my head, and yet I often lose sight of that fact. Maybe my mind's eye has an astigmatism and that is why I cannot seem to maintain proper perspective?

Where does one track down a contact lens for one's head?

So Who's Chasing You?

George Downes: Michael's chasing Kimmy?
Julianne Potter: Yes!
George Downes: You're chasing Michael?
Julianne Potter: YES!
George Downes: So who's chasing you... nobody, get it? There's your answer.

A few years back, at the beginning of what would become a rather remarkable pattern of people breaking up with me though it was always made clear we were not "dating," I had a long drawn out deja vu-like conversation at a suburban Starbucks with a man who had told me three months before that he was not ready for a relationship, who at the time was telling me he was now in a relationship, and who, six months later -- on my birthday no less -- would in fact marry the woman he was now in a relationship with and to whom he was at this time clumsily, and uninvitingly, comparing me: "It isn't really fair to make a comparison between you and her. If I were to really try, it would be like comparing pizza and a baked chicken breast." Fool that I was, I had to know: "And I would be?" No pause: "Well, the pizza, of course." Ah yes, a greasy, cheese-loaded, carb-laden junk food. Cold comfort for the lactose intolerant.

This was my first experience with feeling like I was living out the 1998 Julia Roberts' comeback vehicle My Best Friend's Wedding. At the time, my first instinct had been that it was a shoddy real life parody of the "Who is the dog in this situation?" scene from When Harry Met Sally, but it was subsequently pointed out to me that it was far more resonant with the "Jello versus Creme Brulee" scene from My Best Friend's Wedding. Indeed. Either way, it was cheesy (no pun intended) as hell. (But in retrospect quite befitting for a relationship between two emotional cripples, one of whom was aptly named after a common nickname for male genitalia.)

My second experience with living out My Best Friend's Wedding is not quite so literal. It is just one line from the movie that keeps running through my head. As quoted above, it is from the scene where Julia Roberts' character is chasing after her best friend, who is chasing after his fiancee, and all the while she is on the phone with her other friend in New York ranting about the situation at hand. When she finally stops to take a breath, her friend on the phone, aghast at what he is hearing, pointedly asks her, "So who's chasing you...Nobody, get it? There's your answer." Indeed. There is the answer.

Now while I am not necessarily chasing someone who is chasing another, I am generally fond of chasing those who want nothing whatsoever to do with me. When they ignore me, I have a world of excuses, some reasonable, some desperately attenuated. All excuses nonetheless. But I can't let go -- I convince myself, somewhere deep down, that to continue to try is a boldness, an irresistible self confidence, that might somehow karmically make up for my seemingly insurmountable self doubt and overall sense of creeping insecurity. Again, not so much.

Rather I am left running after someone running in an opposite direction, breathlessly trying to explain myself to my friends around me who are all just waiting for me to take a breath so that they can point out the hard facts -- no one is chasing me. Of course, it isn't like I would listen anyway.

Letter writing campaigns, gifts, calls, keeping a special place warm in my heart --oh the hope, always the damned hope. Sentimental and adoring acts -- all carried out in direct contravention to good, kind and realistic advice.

But sadly, difficult lessons are only learned on an individual's own excruciatingly slow timetable. Experience is always a better teacher than good advice.

So the question is, where does this realization that I am not wanted leave me? In a perfect world it would result in my instantaneously developing "to hell with 'em all" attitude, and embracing my life as a fulfillingly pleasant work and platonic relationships combination. The ideal nirvana of feeling nothing -- being above longing and desire. To rid myself of hope. But admittedly, it just leaves me feeling sad. Not paralyzingly sad, nor wracked with sobs sad. More like an ever-present and ongoing slow leak sad -- like something is missing or there isn't quite enough there.

Horribly incorrect I know. I am complete on my own. I should want for nothing else. I have a great new job. Everything is now supposed to be perfect.

I also know that the solution to this "sad" is that I am supposed to "get out there" and "open myself" to other people, and be friendlier than I am, and not be closed off, and not be so picky, and stop being so shallow, and smile, and try not to be so introverted, and attempt to tamp down the weird a bit.

But I don't want to do any of those things. Again, horribly incorrect, I know. But for the life of me, I just don't.

Though if I don't help myself then I deserve what I get (which is nothing).

So I know all of these things. I will (try to) apply them all soon enough. But for now, I am just going to mourn my long-deferred realization of the truth -- that in this race that I am running, much as I may want to delude myself otherwise, there is absolutely no one chasing me.

Today is the day

Today, I am 30.

Today, I am single. Today, I am independent. Today, I am self supporting. Today, I am anxious. Today, I am funny. Today. I am scared. Today, I am hopeful. Today, I am skittish. Today, I am mildly self assured. Today, I am snarky. Today, I am independent. Today, I am less naive. Today, I am slightly more wise. Today, I am smart. Today, I am dumb. Today, I am less crazy. Today, I am more eccentric. Today, I am less vulnerable. Today, I am more empathetic. Today, I am tipsy. Today, I am determined.

Today. I am lucky.

Today. I am loved.

(Today, I think I am me.)

It is Only a Door

In my life as a city dweller, I have always favored walking to any other mode of transportation. In fact, the ability to easily stroll from here to there (and not have to cross a busy median and 8 lanes of traffic) is, in large part, why I prefer living in the city. There is, of course, more to see and do in a city, but I would argue that in itself is true only because a city forces you to interact with it, every part of it, by encouraging you to get out of your car and walk the walk.

From the moment I moved to my current big city of choice, I walked everywhere I could. Here. There. Everywhere. But most often, I would cut up and over a hill, marching along the top plateau, only to descend at its crookedest point, at which I took a deep breath, admired the 360 degrees of breathtaking, postcard views, and ambled my way down through countless tourist's shots, always, without question, at the end of my descent inexplicably veering off to the right. Well, it was inexplicable only at first. It quickly came to be habit because I had an agenda -- I liked to visit the doorways. The doorways of the buildings to the right were so beautiful. Each different, each mesmerizing. Being a child of the suburbs, the audacity and intrigue of the red door always captured my imagination. As is its way, the city did the childhood daydream one better. Intricate latticework, sculpture of wrought iron, framed in alabaster, majestic in its sweeping details, some delicate, some incredibly grand. I wondered what it would be like to live a life contained within such a doorway. The thought of it, even on the darkest days, as I walked past, inspired a relentless curiosity and possibility.

And then I forgot.

I now live behind the tallest, grandest and most ornate of those fabled doorways. It has been over two years now. It is only today that I remembered that I had paid continuous homage to these magical thresholds, and that I live behind the one I found to be the most beautiful and mesmerizing of all.

Two years.

There is so much I missed for so long. Even my own preferences and desires, forgotten. And yet, apparently, myopic as my mind's eye may be, I am led back to where I belong.

Panglossian as it may sound, I know that is true. I always end up where I belong. When I lead with my other senses, I am more likely to get more directly to where I need to be. If I lead with my sight, with what I "know" and what I "want", I will get there too. But, without exception, the road is longer, bumpier and exceedingly more painful.

I need to trust in that. And yet, though I know it to be true, I can't. Trust eludes me.

Me of little faith.

When I was graduating from college, the op-ed piece in the school paper was written by a classmate of mine. Topically, it was the usual reflective piece on the college experience and what the future would soon hold. But within the piece, my classmate excerpted a poem. Though I clipped the article, and the emotion of how it moved me remains vivid, I cannot locate the yellowed clipping (and so far Google has let me down in locating the text via alternate means). What I remember is this, the poem, a piece about immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, extolled the virtues of the door. Of all the possibilities such a thing holds, of all the magic it conjures, of all the disappointments it might also contain. But that in the end, while it is all of those things, the power for it to realize them always rests with you, as, "It is only a door."

It is up to me to walk through it. Impossible as the task has always seemed, that was the part I was sure of long ago. It is the part about realizing you have walked through, and opening your eyes to the magic and the possibility on the other side, that I am only now beginning to understand.

Naked Lunch

I am having lunch with my mother tomorrow. Which is unremarkable, but for the fact that we have spoken only a handful of times since Christmas, and the only time I have actually seen her since then was at my father's birthday dinner in July.

She lives about 20 minutes away.

Our relationship began to spoil about four years ago, when I allowed myself to be bullied into an ill advised investment. Numerous tearful exchanges, a variety of 6 to 8 month periods of not interacting, and my unending state of continuous denial later, we are having lunch. A cozy party of four. Mother, child, the ill advised investment, and either her failure (or mine) to extricate me from it as the pink elephant in the room.

I need to talk to her. I need to wrest control of the situation back. I need to make her hear me. I need to confront these demons -- the last, and actually, the only which have caused me prolonged stress due to sheer anger. This topic is the only one I can think of, in all my life, that has provoked a visceral and unending anger in me. I have to exorcise the anger. It burns. I generally try to ignore it, but my heart tells a different story. It bears the telltale blistering and puckering. Ever-raw and unhealed.

But this anger, this unexplained rage -- its strength scares me. And only now am I beginning to realize it is because the pool from which it emanates is so much deeper than I had ever realized. The investment isn't the issue. My mother ignoring my opinions isn't the issue. The issue is that the lesson I learned early on, the one I have spent my whole life working towards applying, is that I don't want to live a life like my mother's. And with this ill-fated investment, I feel she has pulled me into that morass. The one that made my breath short as a child, that seemingly compelled me to ensure dinner be made and the house cleaned prior to my father getting home every day in the hopes he would be a little less angry, that spoke with a soft Spanish whisper of "shhhh, don't tell your father" right in front of his uni-lingual-face, that post-dated checks, that was generous with promises, but always made you never want to ask "how" when they where actually fulfilled, that always screened calls, that prized cash-and-carry as the existence of a viable credit card was always a dubious proposition, that was always scrapping and planning, and hoping and wishing and risking and betting, with a wink and prayer that it would all turn out okay.

It did. Well fed and properly clothed, exceptionally educated and not at all deprived is how I turned out. I was a fortunate kid. I am grateful. But that fortune was so hard fought. The battle scared me. I worried about survival from one day of the battle to the next. I worried about the foot soldiers. I was always worried. I was always insecure. I was always afraid.

There was no safety net.

And after all these years, there still isn't.

I am my own safety net. I accept that. I am proud that I can do that. But I am fiercely protective of it. The one thing I loved about working at the firm was that I never had to think about money. I just don't want to think of it. I want it to be a non-issue. I have enough for what I need and for a fair amount of what I want, and that is that. When that is threatened, my whole world seems tremulous. A quivering house of cards that can fall at any moment.

And I fear, as I down shifted the fiscal benefits of my career, that my mother now has the power. The power to pull me down, to pull me under, to drag me out to sea, untethered, unmoored.

I need to talk to her. I need her to hear me.

I am afraid.

Be Cool

Witness the animated version of my approach to dating.

Why I Prefer E-Mail

The most painful movie scene... ever.

Maybe, Just Maybe

Here is a question: If the only knowledge you had of me was through reading this blog, do you know me? Are the words that appear here the "real" me? Would reading these words give you greater insight into who I am than hanging out with me on a regular basis?

In my lawyerly inherently-relativist way, I think the answer is both yes and no.

To know the cyber-me, is to know the peaks and valleys, but none of the landscape in-between. To be fair, there have been a number of stretches of time in the past few years when there wasn't really any landscape in between to report on. Nonetheless, when I write here, it is because I am compelled. I never write out of duty or regularity or even habit. I try to write when I have something to say, but, oftentimes, it is more like I write because I have something to spill. Feelings that are just spilling over and that I can't process any other way than to spew them forth in print, to try to find some safe place to contain them. Though I had never really thought about it, this has long been my practice, even prior to this cyber-endeavor. Often when putting my hand in a long unused pocket or reorganizing an oft-neglected corner, I find folded pieces of paper documenting some angst of the moment in desperate and shrieking tones. Everything is so serious. Everything is so determinative. Funny how different and how very much the same my little scrap paper missives of my adolescence and my cyber entries of today are in both tenor and pitch.

My writing has always been the primary outlet for my scared little girl, afraid of her own shadow and unsure of how to protect herself in a world that made her feel so helplessly out of control. It is only there where she gets a voice. In the real world, she is only found in wracked sobs or rivers of tears. I guess I have always been loathe to speak out loud about a lot of my dark crevices. Actually, I don't think that I could. Correction: I don't think that I could do so without having written them out first. And that is not a matter of scripting things for more palatable consumption by others, but more so because I can't communicate something I myself don't understand. And truly, oftentimes, I have no idea what my feelings are or where they might be coming from till I read the product of my own furious fingers. Even then, my ability to share out loud is limited. There is a line in the sand that I will not cross. I had been so religious about it for so long that I forgot that there might be anything that existed beyond that line. Hence my laughable belief (and I swear, I wholeheartedly believed it up until last summer) that I was an open person.

I always thought being open was a position of vulnerability. But it isn't, it is a matter of trust. And not even trust in the other person, but trust in yourself. Your trust in your own fundamental goodness, and your trust in your choices of the people with whom you have surrounded yourself. Your trust that even if you disappoint people with what you tell them or that they disappoint you with their reactions, that being open was the right thing to do.

In a lot of ways, to this point, I have failed. My life has been characterized by a lack of trust, a lack of faith. In so many ways, it is such an unfair and unreasonable position for me to take. I have been so blessed in this life with more than my fair share of people who have stood by me from the beginning of our relationship to the present day. Even when things are bad, especially when they are. When I have been less of a friend than I should have been, as well as when I was actually present. It is stunning good fortune. It is a solid platform upon which to believe, to reach out, to trust, to let go of the fear.

But I have always been a glass is half empty kind of gal. Funny thing, that, as it really is not a result of my being a cynic, but rather because I am a closet addict to hope. In the fun house mirror inside my head, I have long been a bearer of talismanic worry. If I worry that the worst will happen, if I squelch my impulse to hope that the best will happen, then at least the worst won't occur. What kind of a desired outcome is that? Seriously? It may head off (at least some) searing pain, but the endgame is, by definition, dissatisfaction.

Despite my contemporaneous protestations to the contrary, to this point, things in my life have actually turned out just as they should. That boy (okay, the many boys) I "loved" that I thought I should have been with "forever", the (numerous) jobs I thought I should have which would have made me "so happy", the (various) schools I just had to go to because otherwise my life was "over." All not true. In fact, the alternative result was so much the better -- in the end. Hindsight is 20/20 and perhaps that same hopeful schmuck inside of me is what makes me want to justify all of the events in my life as "ultimately positive" and "hard lessons learned." But the Oprah-speak, therapeutic culture of which I am a product aside, I can see how certain life twists and turns that I disagreed with so vehemently at the time really worked out to my benefit (though I certainly protested, wailed and rended garments enough at the time). Example: the Cubs Fan "breaking up" with me last summer (which was odd because it was only at that moment that I was sure we were "dating"). It felt like the end of the world. I tried to filibuster the relationship back over the course three hours and as many cocktails. And yet for all his faults, he was (let's give him the benefit of the doubt) intuitive enough to make a point to me as to why he thought things didn't work out (hint: it was me, but simply that there wasn't enough of me. More sharing, less obfuscating.) In many ways the statement was outrageous and out -of-line, but mostly because it was true. And being forced to look at it, was a revelation. My own long held assumptions had blinded me to what others could plainly see. Needed to assume less, trust more. Listen better. Think less, feel more. Act accordingly.

All of these people showed me what is possible, and what I want and what I didn't. My academic life is over (unless I happen to win the lottery), my work life is stable and contented (for once), and I am so lucky for having all of my friends. The last missing component is that romantic part, and it does require me to put some things together.

After all of this -- the wit, the wisdom, the whining encompassed within nearly three decades -- I have concluded that the truth is this: Relationships are in fact simple: Holding someone's heart close to your own requires simply this -- you each must provide constant care and feeding to both of those hearts. That is not neediness. That is not obsession. That is love. Plain and simple. Love survives past the initial phases of giddy chemical attraction and through the mire and muck of life only because you both choose for it to do so. You pay attention. You compromise. You share. You talk. You trust. And you do it all again and again, without question, hesitation (though likely a fair amount of exasperation). All of these done, with love, in the deepest, most difficult and knotty sense. Why do you do this? Because you know you both have someone who "gets" you -- all of you -- and you both remind yourself of the precious nature of that gift every day. Even when they are spiteful, even when you are cranky, even when life rains down cruelty, or when tempers concurrently flare. You are angry, but in your heart you remember. You remember the why of that other person. Difficult and angry emotions expressed eventually evaporate, but (I imagine) the why never does.

Life is a difficult process when you navigate it alone. It is foolhardy to expect it to be easier when navigating together and all of the politics and negotiation that that inevitably requires. It is the pay-off of the pleasure of someone's company on that extended journey, and the trust that they will travel with you, no matter what, that makes the difficulties worth it.

Life isn't easy, but it can be happy. But lasting happiness -- whatever form in which it comes -- requires effort. Life is not static. Adjustments must always be made.

Then again, I guess this is the point where my theory of relationship simplicity begins to falter, and where the complicated part comes in. Knowing you need to make continual adjustments is just half the battle, knowing when and how much adjustment is required is another matter.

And so again, it seems we are back to trust.

Trusting in yourself and the other person, to know when to tighten up and when to grant a little slack.

Equal parts bravery and intuition. And a fair measure of luck.

But then again, it is easy for me to pontificate and make sweeping pronouncements, as, at the end of the day, what do I know? I haven't had any kind of a significant relationship in years. And in a truth I have long been unwilling to admit to myself, for me love is simply conjecture, purely theoretical, as it seems to me that love is more a carpool lane, than a single commuter endeavor, and therefore admission requires two people equally invested in the ride. "One-sided love" is, by definition, simply infatuation, right?

Anyway, in another truth about myself that I have always been unwilling to admit, I really am hopeful at heart. Frustrated and prone to self-pity, but deep down hopeful. The hope keeps me going, but the hope keeps me scared. The hope keeps me feeling vulnerable, In many ways, the hope keeps me alone. But in the end it is hope, and it is a precious and beautiful thing, and, much as it might vex me, it is an amazing gift.

If only I knew what to do with it.

Maybe, just maybe, if we can walk forward hand-in-hand -- the little girl and I -- and, all the while, I can carry the hope -- both woven into my heart and written upon my sleeve -- then maybe, just maybe, she and I can find exactly what we are looking for.

We'll know it when we feel it.

Frame of Reference

For those who know me, and for those who don 't, a fateful trip to my local movie theater this weekend revealed to me the perfect frame of reference for understanding exactly who and what I am.

Meet my animated doppelganger. I am a brunette and not a blonde, but the differences pretty much end there.

If you have seen The Simpson's Movie, Lisa's first interaction with Colin where she is internally telling herself to "Be cool" is pretty much the epitome of my (so-called) dating life.

Sick-O

Some thoughts from the sick-bed (or rather, sick-couch) of a very cranky sick person:

• I realize bullet points are lazy, but such is life. I feel like I have sorely neglected posting here, and figure that bullet points are better than nothing. So there it is.
• Where have I been? Simultaneously trying to recapture my youth while still attempting to find my present self. You can imagine how well that is going. (See e.g. the opening line to this post indicating the poster is home sick on a Friday night... all this discovery and re-discovery has left her bedridden.)
• News broke today that the mayor of the esteemed city in which I live recently broke up with his girlfriend. This would not necessarily be newsworthy, but for the fact that I find myself feeling sorry for her. I suppose I should be on the "He is hot, so who cares why he dumped her" bandwagon (not to mention the fact that several times she has shown she is bringing plenty of the "crazy," oft-discussed in this forum, to the party). But for all of her crazy, it was clear she was invested. She wasn't savvy, but she was invested. And if you take a look at any pictures of her (and there are many as she does not shy away from self promotion), there is such a look of overwhelming sadness in her eyes, some unspoken, unfulfilled, yet all consuming need. It is almost painful to look at. I guess I feel bad for her (and not to be unduly cruel about this, but it's true) because she reminds me of me. He liked her because she was high maintenance and dependent, but he doesn't have time for that. And dating a public figure requires a thick skin. I hope the press gives her a pass on this one.
• Ever wish you could be someone else? Not permanently, but in a sort of sabbatical from yourself?
  
• I am lacking in the energy level to cope with myself anymore. I might have to break up with myself soon if I don't shape up. "It's not you... well, actually, yes, it is you... and me."
  
• So there are a number of things I have suspicions about -- that I am fairly certain will be true, and which I wonder if there is anything I can do right now to change, but am unsure as to what: (1) I am pretty sure I am infertile. I am not sure why I think this, but I just do. This shouldn't be too big of a deal as I don't think I want to have kids, but if I think about too much will upset me because it is always nice to have the option if you change your mind. (2) I have a suspicion that I should be a lot kinder to my family because I am going to need them to take care of me when I am old -- because of point 1 above, and because I am pretty certain I will be alone for the rest of my life. I know this sounds like a pity-party, and I acknowledge that it is, and I know I haven't really been out there that long (if at all), but I am just frustrated. Frustrated-sad, frustrated-angry. Just frustrated with a capital F. There are those who I like and those who like me and, apparently, never the twain shall meet.
  
• Maybe I don't like people who like me because they like me. Perhaps that accounts for my lack of chemistry.
  
• Or maybe I am just irrevocably broken.
• Being tossed aside and getting up and dusting yourself off and walking back onto the field of play is commendable, but eventually it just gets old. At what point do you just say, "Enough is enough. I can endure no more abuse. I will not play this silly game any longer."
  
• But as hopeless as I sound, I am actually incapable of giving up all hope. If only I could. If only I could actually give up all hope entirely then maybe, like some romantic comedy heroine, I would meet by rumpled, though adorable suitor-soon-to-be-life-partner. Isn't that how they say it always happens. Oh John Cusack/Hugh Grant/Matthew Perry, where art thou?
• But see, all of this bitching and moaning, belies the fact that I am still "not ready" to meet someone. I have to "accept myself" and "love myself" first before anyone can love me. Sheesh, if I have to wait for that to happen, I really am going to be alone forever. Seriously, I have a hard time envisioning any scenario in which I am totally comfortable and accepting of myself with no insecurities or reservations. That seems to be as unlikely as me waking up one morning and being "perfect." Just never going to happen. So if my romantic happiness is pegged to an impossible scenario, then the logical follow up is that it too is impossible.
• Can I just ask here -- if any powers that be may be listening, or surfing the blogosphere -- why do I have to accept all of my issues and be at complete peace with myself before I get to meet someone, but everyone else is allowed to find love even with loads of unresolved issues and pounds of ever present baggage following them around? I am just asking. It seems a little unfair.
  
• Then again, maybe I had farther to go, more to make up for, than everyone else. I understand. But when will it be enough? I am not sure I can make enough progress to actually get what I want prior to being 90.
  
• Ugh. So sorry. Just sick and cranky (and equal parts restless, melancholy, and self-pitying).
  

The Last Best Chance

Logically, it would seem that bringing a whole lot of crazy to the table is not going to help one's case in finding true and lasting love. In fact, I could point to my entire dating history as empirical proof for that eminently reasonable proposition. That being said, given that I know that the crazy is detrimental to my achieving what I ultimately desire, why can't I leave it behind?

When I was younger, clearly it was because I simply didn't know better. Passion and obsession and commitment and loyalty and honor and desire were all the same thing. Love was a one note proposition. A short staccato note at that. Today, I no longer have the excuse of naivete. I ought to be able to achieve better range, if not perfect pitch. So why is the crazy still a component?

It is because every date I have, every relationship I consider, is my last best chance. I cannot help it. It has absolutely nothing to do with biology or its associated time pieces. I assure you. It also has nothing to do with sociologically mandates rituals. I promise. If it has to do with my age, it only does so peripherally, in that, the ever resonant chant of "you should know better by now" is always with me. I am a slave to my own selectiveness. I am picky. I know what I like, and what I like is very, very rare. Less flatteringly, I am an elitist. But I do not want to settle. I want to feel that feeling, that feeling that my fingers are skimming the sky and my toes are nestled in the cool grass of the earth beneath my feet. I fit anywhere and everywhere. Without thought.

And so I do select. I don't go out with anyone -- hell, I don't talk with anyone -- who doesn't seem to have Those Possibilities. But such people are so rare. And when I find one -- A Possibility -- the rarity and the promise of the situation itself drive me to distraction. The pressure is maddening. My insecurities magnified by a thousand. Each of these rarities, my last best chance. My last best chance at the happiness I envision in the deep recesses of my heart for myself. The happiness I dare not speak of for I will be wistful for its absence and cursed by an outward expression of its desire.

But oh the pressure of the last best chance. It makes things impossible. It stifles. It frightens. And the fear -- The Fear -- it brings the crazy.

Do I want more than I deserve? Quite possibly -- my behavior indicates that subconsciously I believe this to be true. Neuroses are a foolproof way of thwarting all happiness. Could I settle for less? Unfortunately, I just don't think so.

I don't know what is wrong with me that I can't just embrace the nice, or the friendly, or the good and just find happiness in these singular qualities. Ignoring whether all else may fall short of my traditional standards.

But I just don't think I can.

And so I keep believing in and overburdening The Last Best Chance. And so they each successively fail. Another inevitably comes along, so I suppose that the Last Best Chance moniker is itself a falsity. But I never believe that at the time. Every one could be the last. The last before I am forever locked in to that life of being alone. And when I will look back and regret my craziness, my elitism, my stubborness, myself.

But even this fear can't change the picture in my head of the way the story should end -- how it should look, feel and sound. It feels so certain when I think of it. In fact, I don't think of it anymore. I just feel it. I know how it will feel and I want that feeling. I want it more than anything.

Object Lessons

In retrospect, perhaps scheduling a first date on Friday the 13th was not the wisest course of action.

Nonetheless, some object lessons, in no particular order:

• I can in fact be attracted to someone who is not arrogant, snobbish or in any way pretentious.
• Amazing character can in fact come in an Abercrombie & Fitch-looking package.
• I clearly must have a subconscious hero complex.
• I may, in all likelihood, be too weird to date.
• My time in BigLaw, even when I try to give it a positive retrospective spin, is inconceivable, and more than slightly disturbing, to anyone who is unfamiliar with the genre (read: anyone happy, well adjusted and normal).
• Given that, I am not sure how one goes about explaining away six years of living an inconceivable, disturbing workaholic life. Feels like it might be easier (and more acceptable) to say I was in a coma for the last half-decade and have recently awoken. Hell, it would be easier to say I had had some sort of vicious addiction and been in rehab for the better part of the 21st century.
• I have no hobbies. I always hate confessing that. I am not sure that I really want any - it seems like there is enough to do in life already - but I realize it makes me sound (or maybe just makes me) incredibly boring and pathetic.
• I am more confident than I have ever been in my life. However, clearly, that isn't saying much.
  
• I don't think I could possibly be more socially awkward. Truly, there ought to be an award for it. I could use a plaque to put on the wall in my office.
  
• It is so much easier to complain about being alone when one is only theoretically dating. Actually being out there is scary. It is an amount of vulnerability that I had avoided for a better part of a year. I forgot the potential for exhilaration and for bruising disappointment in the risk/reward arena.
• It is a good thing I am out there.
• But it is hard.
  
• Really hard.
  
• And I worry.
  
• A lot.
  

The Piggy That Should Have Gone To Market, But Chose To Stay Home

I have a funny toe. It is not witty, as I have yet to hear it utter anything audible, let alone amusing. It is funny, in that it is ugly and misshapen, and odd. I had multiple ingrown toe-nails as a child, and eventually internalized their recurrence as a character flaw, hiding -- sometimes for months -- the re-affliction and its resultant phalangelical gore till my limp was too pronounced to hide and a bloody sock discovered. When it was eventually decided that I, and my rogue toe, would apparently not comport with social niceties, it was determined that something final would need to be done. And so it is that, nearly twenty years ago, the big toe on my right foot underwent a procedure whereby its nail (the alleged protector which turned against it time and again) was forced to capitulate in this tiny war of attrition -- deadened, by medical procedure, from ever again attempting unpredictable and unfettered growth. Today that same big toe on my right foot, never quite recovered from its battles against infection, still wears the tell-tale battle scars of unnatural redness and a disproportionate swelling which make it look like it was severely beaten by (or went on a really painful bender with) its buddy toe. A visual which is only exacerbated by the fact that there is only a stubby block of a nail residing on it -- short and stout, fierce and pugnacious -- even in its ugliness, kept around more for its aesthetic value (it can still take a coat of paint better than skin could) than for any legitimate protection it might offer.

The toe, like its owner is -- in short -- funny: Funny-looking, Funny-amusing, Funny-odd, and sometimes, Funny-grotesque. When I was younger, the toe vexed me. All I could see was the Funny-grotesque, and I couldn't look away. Sandals were only worn with a band-aid muzzling it. Were it to be exposed, it was quickly accompanied by a meandering confession surrounding its child-and-small-animal frightening condition. I was a toe apologist. How could I not be? I spent so much time looking at it, obsession was inevitable. These days, I am more sanguine about the toe. It is odd looking, there is no denying it, but I tend to favor the fact that Funny-grotesque can be interpreted as Funny-charming, at least if you squint hard enough. Open-toed shoes, flip flops, bare footedness -- all non-issues. I do keep the toe dressed in an array of colorful polishes, but beyond that concession to vanity (and not unreasonable standard maintenance) it stands out there for the world to see. Generally, if and when I am called upon to tell the story of the toe, I usually start and end the story with, "I had recurring in-grown toe nails as a child." And leave it at that. Given that it is a toe, and that it looks odd, but isn't exciting enough to actually be missing or to be some freak genetic anomaly, there are usually no follow up questions.

If anyone was brave (or maybe, more appropriately, bored) enough to ask a follow-up question -- Okay, I understand that was the condition, but how exactly did it end up looking like *that*? -- I might be left to address the fact that I have long ignored and therefore not pondered its answer: I let it get that way. Why? The shame of the Toe -- even that child-like self-consciousness not easy, never simple. It's outward appearance was embarrassment enough; to share that my own behavior was what made it that way -- absolutely unbearable.

Even with the powers of hindsight, delusions of adulthood, and six figures worth of professional abbreviations after my name, I cannot for the life of me tell you why I went for months (I don't remember exactly how long -- it could have even been a year, though probably not more than that) with my big toe as a continual, open and oozing wound, always inflamed, never not painful. I wedged it into shoes, I forced it on hikes, I never let it out from its bindings, as people might see it. I never told anyone. Never. And I probably never would have. I only have the toe still affixed to my person today because I was discovered. The parents of five kids finally realized their odd eldest daughter who only owned gym socks was hand-washing them all before putting them in the laundry. It is one of the few times that I can really remember my parents being angry at me. My father yelled. My mother yelled. Two different languages -- but the tone and message were the same. What were you thinking? Again, to this day, I don't know.

Their anger was fueled by my having put myself in physical jeopardy, but moreso, because of the nonsensical nature of having done so. To what end? Why hide it? How was it my fault? Again, all I have is hindsight to rely upon here, and I clumsily impress it upon the fuzzy past. I must have thought it was my fault, and I wanted to make it right on my own. I kept hoping it would go away. I soaked it in the tub during showers, hoping a little attention in the face of the daily tortures I inflicted on it would be enough. It didn't get better, and yet I persevered. I must have thought it was my fault, but again, why?

I cannot empathize with my 9 year old self. I want to, but I can't. I have no idea where she was coming from on this. I wish I did.

The again, generally, where has excessive navel gazing about my own motivations in life ever gotten me? Obsessed and embarrassed; and, of course, hiding. Always hiding.

And so, as to so many other subsequent issues in my life, it seems that I can only hope that, eventually -- with their irrationality inevitably, undeniably, splayed out before me -- I can look back on them and just have no idea what I was thinking. After all it is only a toe.

Fingers (and stumpy toes) crossed that it doesn't require bloody wounds, last ditch medical procedures, or another twenty years to get to that point.

Better Living Through Quackery

From today's LA Times:

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). You're freeing yourself from old behavior. Flaws that you let go of long ago may resurface in moments of stress. Be patient. Transformation happens in stages.

Blood and Treasure

Today, a day for so many in my generation significant for its traffic, its barbecues and its extending the length of the weekend, is, I am finally realizing, above all else a day of solemn contemplation and of profound gratitude.

Thank you to the soldiers of today who fight, through hardship and peril, who work courageously to serve the greater good in any way possible - to make improvements, to provide protections, to care for each other - even when they themselves have doubts as to the greater mission. Who on a daily basis, without equivocation, ready themselves to make the ultimate sacrifice on our behalves.

Thank you to the voices -- of dissent, of agreement, of thoughtful observation -- to those who pay scrupulous attention. Those who, in mutual respect listen to one another, and ultimately agree on the goal of resolution, if not the means. Ironic, that the most cohesive dialogue on the current conflict may be borne out in utter silence.

Thank you for the mothers of the soldiers, whose already difficult lifelong jobs -- the protection of their children from all in this world that may harm them -- are made impossible by this war, and yet they endure. They survive the constant vigil that is their children's deployment in places with names like the "Triangle of Death." Only to do it all over again and again. If not for themselves, then in maintaining the vigil for others.

Thank you to all of the soldiers that came before. Our freedom is indeed not free, and it was you who paid the price for the rights we enjoy, and often have the luxury and audacity to take for granted.

Thank you to the journalists who risk their lives to tell us the stories of the war a world away. Even in the face of governmental obstacles and increasing personal jeopardy, for which the pay is meager and the thanks and recognition often less so, they continue on. They are the standard bearers; they bear witness even when it would be so much easier to look away.

Thank you to the one who serves over there now who, at least nominally and for lack of a better description at this point, belongs to me. You have indeed proven to me that "courage" and "heroism" are not amorphous concepts; that you can find yourself, do what you love, and change the world all at the same time.

Thank you to one who is not fighting; though undoubtedly he would have been the first to serve had he had the opportunity. He was extraordinarily kind to me in a time and a place where he had no reason to be, other than the fact that he was simply an extraordinary person. More than a dozen years out, small but significant acts of personal generosity always make me think of him. His sacrifice, though not in combat, is not any lesser than those of the others we honor today. It was, at its root, for the same cause. As was his dream, I hope he is flying somewhere.

I spy

I have commented here, on various occasions, about the Starbucks' "The Way I See It" program which puts blurb quotes from various people on its cups. Originally, it was supposed to be different feted luminaries from various walks of life setting forth pithy caffeinated pronouncements. Lately, it seems to be an awful lot of Joe Schmo customers and baristas rambling on about nothing in particular. Not that there is anything wrong with that, well, other than the fact that it is tremendously boring.

As such, if the various Schmos can do it, I figure we can too. Anyone care to share the pearl of wisdom that they would imprint on the side of America's daily caffeine fix? (I only got as far as thinking up the question, and not thinking through the answer, so my response will be forthcoming).

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Thirty years ago in a column for the New York Times, Joan Didion discussed exactly why she wrote. Today the Gray Lady (the Times, not the esteemed Ms. Didion) reveals that psychologists have finally caught up to Ms. Didion's way of thinking: The field is now exploring the intrinsic utility of personal narrative in shaping who and what we are.

I do not dare imagine what some mental health professional would posit upon reading the narrative I have constructed within the "four corners" of this blog over the past three years. More than likely the prognostications would be uniformly dire. I would dare say they would see someone making methodically slow progress, but I know that the landscape of circular frustration that I have painted over time belies such a rosy and pat explanation.

It is my history. I cannot defend it. On the other hand, I do not think I have to.

Though it is hard to see at first (squint a little and tilt your head to the right, it should help) this blog is actually the rational and reasoned voice of an emotional mute. (Squint a little more, and maybe step a little closer, or perhaps step farther back. I swear you will see it.) In my three dimensional life, every time I have attempted to express true emotion to someone I care about it has played out like Jody Foster's character in the movie Nell - all screams, tears and guttural cries. Granted that, more often than not, copious amounts of alcohol have been involved, but it is hardly a coincidence. In such situations, alcohol is seductive. It can help me relax and therefore wipe away all the cognitive dissonance, to help me uncover and reveal the truth of me. But the seductive slope is, as is its way, slippery, and, as is my way, in my less than balanced life, I quickly fall down, down, down. Tumbling towards the chaos of the unsorted and un-expressable. The attempts to describe my new surrounding in the primordial emotional soup, always disastrous. One time, I broke a toe. Another, I ran down a street practically screaming. On other occasions, I have broken into uncontrollable sobs. Then there was the unfortunate call I made from a cab.

I always thought the emotions were what I was afraid of, but it is the chaos of them which terrifies me more. They are so unpredictable. So selfish. They serve me and do not account for others. They are. And they are without consideration or concern for the consequences. But those emotions, as lacking a social screen as they may be, are me. Learning to live in a fashion that honors and respects my feelings (as tempering them is certainly far different from tamping them down) is key to growing up.

Ironically, I think all of these years of trying to ignore - to silence and disown - my innermost needs and desires, made me far more narcissistic and self involved.

Ultimately, however, I think that any long range differential diagnosis based on my blog ramblings is inconclusive, because what is here is only half the story.

I have been walking through life with only half a story. In my three dimensional life, I can address the pleasant, the mundane, the absurd, the snarky. Those are safe, they are also fun. In my two dimensional incarnation, the tempest brews and simmers and boils over. The dangerous, the subversive, well, if only the unpredictable. And only occasionally the twain shall meet.

It is in the "twain" so to speak, that I think "me" really exists. It is the balance/counterbalance. It is where my own truth lies. (Odd, and yet perfect, in a life so full of contradictions to be looking for where truth lies.)

This is the instinct. The inner voice. The gut. I am trying to have the courage to listen. The choices it has driven to this point have been the right ones, they have also been the more obvious ones. Leaving the BigLaw job - scary, but a no brainer. It is the details that follow, where hearing the gut requires more rapt concentration. It becomes more difficult to understand. Actually, it doesn't. It is clear, but following it is more frightening, because doing so leaves me in much more of a position of vulnerability.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

The steps that follow are ones which are obvious. They require reaching out and connecting and committing to people. It requires honesty and presence. To do this, I can no longer hide away. The hermitage of body and soul must come to an end. But the big reveal, the act of just "being myself" is more of a process than I thought. It is hard to know where the consummate entertainer - the plate spinner extraordinaire - ends and the "real" me begins.

Mostly it is about saying what I want to say, rather than what I think people want to hear. Sounds silly, but it is a heart pounding endeavor.

I made resolutions about three particular matters and they have to do with three particular people to whom I have a visceral reaction. That sounds pejorative - and it can be sometimes - but in this case it just means that whatever reaction I have to such people, it is always seismic one way or the other. My job with each of them is to take a deep breath, to push past the fears and the potential repercussions, to hold out my hand, extended without reservation or expectations, and to love each of them. Regardless. And then I just have to trust - that in a position of naked honesty and unwaivering acceptance, the answers of one sort or another will come.

I am at the beginning of all of this and, cynical worrying lawerly one that I am, the trust often fails me. I am fearful. It is hard to wave away the clouds of anxiety. I hedge and I second-guess. This is hard. I am not sure that I have ever done anything so difficult. But I am taking deep breaths and looking forward.

For once, facing in the direction of the warmth of the sun.

Again, Listen to Your 'Gut

"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or
murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what
is.'" -- Kurt Vonnegut

The Sound of Silence

Sometimes there just aren't words.

There is witty repartee, the written equivalent of the brave face. A necessary deception when revisiting a topic that has been discussed and worried to death over the last several years. And yet, the worry is only about to begin.

Iraq, like death and mortal illness, is a concept that exists for many, or at least for me, only through a Hollywood-like lens, which is to say that it exists not at all. Not in reality. It is a civic thought, a furrowed brow, a distant problem. And then, suddenly, it lands right in your lap and, in an immediate and unseen contortion, sears a hole through your heart, front to back.

I have known for years this was a possibility. He wanted to go. Always said he did. He signed up for the Marine Corps in the middle of a war for chrissakes. And yet I never really believed he would go. Lawyers, in uniform or not, are always the ones with the soft hands. Soft hands do not an effective warrior make. But a strong and determined heart does. And one who chose the path of most resistance and highest level of difficulty long ago, and has always proven himself valiant time and again, is off to prove it "for real" this time.

I believe the kids and the cause - if that cause is to keep everyone in the infantry alive and well - to be better off for his presence. But the peril alone is such a high price to pay, even if the mission were not one fraught with so many misgivings for everyone. His wellbeing, his life, are a toll I simply cannot contemplate, and one which I would refuse to pay.

But I don't get a say in these matters. Frankly, neither does he. What the future holds is unknown. All I can do is pray, to whatever higher power might listen, for his continued safety. And learn to live with the curious combination of shock, fear and pride - an unshakable and lingering feeling of having taken a bracing blow to the gut.

Now whether I am entitled to have any of these feelings is a whole other matter. Most rational people in my life would say no. But this one. I just can't explain it. Never have. Never will. And I don't think I want to - I appreciate that, for all its absurdities, it is one of the few things in my life I have felt more than I have thought. And that is all I have to say about that.

I started this post with the statement that there just aren't words, and then went one to spew forth a thousand of them. Multitudinous as they may be, the statement is still true: There are no words to do him or the situation any true justice.

CaptiOn This

This picture is either incredibly adorable or incredibly disturbing. I can't decide.

Feliz Dia de Santo Valentin

For all the ladies (and all the men that appreciate such things) another pretty picture of a very pretty man.




Yummy.

With regard to my earlier post, the fact that JT brought his mom as his date to the Grammy's only makes his stock rise. The fact that BZ is dating a nineteen year old. Ummm, yeah, well. Good luck with that Barry. Sell, sell, sell.

Wouldn't it be loverly?

On this, the Valentine's Day (mandated by the acts of some medieval English martyr and a couple of ad wizards over at Hallmark worldwide headquarters) of 2007, I have some news: I have absolutely no pronouncements, substantive or self-serving, bitter or beseeching, topical or tertiary, to make about Valentine's day this year.

Searching within myself, I have no power to be wry. I have no desire to be forlorn. Clever sailed a long time ago. Bitter really requires too much effort. And, inspired is something I gave up on in the second grade (well, maybe it was the second year of law school, but one obviously sounds more dramatic than the other.)

So here I am on Valentine's Day absolutely neutral. If you squint at the definition a little (or a lot), it looks as though I have in fact achieved nirvana, an aspirational state of being which is "characterized by the extinction of desire and suffering and individual consciousness." I have no desire, I am not suffering, ergo I have reached a higher plane of existence?

Did I ever mention that I hate flying?

And so the truth reveals itself. For all of the protestations I have made on the occasion of Valentine's Day past (and pretty much every other day of the year), I do not really care to be above the desire and its attendant suffering. I do not need perspective. I want to be one of Love's drunken revelers, or at least to want to want to be one of Love's drunken revelers. But right now, there isn't room for love. No interest in sowing seeds to which I can give no nourishment. Like my freshman year ficas, doomed to become moribund and to remain that way, even if lugged around for the following three years, despite fervant denials, never to be verdant again. There are so many problems with me right now. I need to at least get a handle on what they are.

But I miss at least feeling eligible for love. Love does not choose me. I am not lamenting that. It is just a fact. A fact which is true, in large part, because I have been hiding from Love for a long time. Love is social, but it is not rude and it is generally law abiding, so to expect it to break down my front door, to pry the Chunky Monkey from my hands, and to forcibly remove me from my couch seems a little ridiculous.

I have indulged my inner narcissist for quite sometime now, and it is something which I aim to change. But for this moment, and the next little while, I am going to continue to let it run rampant. I need to let its single-minded focus of self preservation and effective/enjoyable survival carry me to safe and stable ground upon which I can take a deep breath, get a good lay of the land and proceed accordingly.

Right now it isn't Love that is lost. It is me.

Welcome To Wherever You Are

I am here. I am just not exactly sure where here is.

I have been retracing my steps for years, trying to ascertain which direction I have been going. Spent so much time looking at my footprints, I have never really bothered to look at my feet. I have never, even for a moment, bothered to try to understand exactly where I am.

So here I am. Trying to understand. So the experiment is this - without longing backwards or worrying forwards, but rather simply staying put, right here, what is the answer to that three word question "where am I?"

In this moment, I am scared. I am trying not to hide behind words. I am trying to be more straightforward, less obfuscating. (Words, damnit!) It is hard.

I think I have a plan. I am brave. Then I am chicken. Then I am brave again - sometimes because I believe that is what will save me and sometimes because I want to impress and surprise everyone, because no one really believes I can be brave. I do "believe" that I am brave, because in that moment, I can feel what the right thing to do is. I don't like uncertainty. Even if there is greater possibility in the uncertainty, within seconds my glass evaporates to half empty. But in the brave moment, I do feel the greater possibility.

That is another thing, I do feel. I feel a lot more at this moment than I have felt in a long time. I am happy, and then there are shivers of loneliness. I realize I must have been so numb before. Just surviving.

The idea of living, as opposed to surviving makes me happy. The idea of disappointing people - my superiors, my friends, my family - horrifies me. I think my life is currently wearing a designer label, but it doesn't fit very well. It needs to be tailored - european fits and short legs are not often a complimentary combination. I can't believe I never noticed all the extra fabric dragging on the ground as I walk. Suppose that is the problem with being a label whore. The security I seek is not found where I am at. I am certain of that. At this moment, there are no questions as to that. I am a seeker of answers, of security, of the fairytale. That is my holy grail. Those things are true. They are my satisfaction. I know that. I am certain of that. I need to find them. But they are not, and cannot be here.

I am scared. That is true in a 360 degree scan of the event horizon, (Again with the words, damnit!). It is just as true looking down at this spot, here, where I stand, now. I feel a weariness, a tiredness, right behind my eyes. That is from being scared. Sick scared. Anxious scared. Disgusted scared. Frustrated scared. Is it possible to be brave scared?

I think brave scared might work. It might be something I can be. It is something I have been, when things - both good and necessary, though not necessarily both - have happened. Brave scared has been how I felt when the necessary things happen.

Yes, I think brave scared is something I can be. So I can keep my eyes open and my heart full for when the necessary happens.