Five Things That Sucked About Lord of the Rings.
Is it so strange that one of my constant puzzlements and sometime irritations is that I don't have a death wish? I don't, really. It's occurred to me many times, but I've never come anywhere near as close to offing myself as that one nasty time in '91 or '92. Everything since then, no dice, I have an indomitable will to live. I think about just walking into traffic and trusting that a car will either stop or hit me, but when I get to the curb, I inevitably look both ways and wait.
I might be tempted to view that as a removal of free will, and in fact sometimes I feel that way (that's when I get annoyed), but I have to remember that the causes and motivations for my actions are not always apparent, sometimes lurking under the surface for hours or days or weeks or years before I understand why I felt something was necessary. (Yep, still waiting on some of those from 2000-2001. It's worse than getting my car fixed.) So I presume I have some purpose for keeping myself alive in the face of daunting amounts of emotional pain that I'd really like to end; some purpose beyond the fact that my life is not entirely mine, that I'm bound to all the people I love and who love me in return, everyone who would be diminished by my death.
Seriously, though, isn't this crap suposed to end at some point? I'm supposed to come out the other side happier/stronger/more secure or something. Light at the end of the tunnel sort of crap. Every exit is an entrance somewhere else (Stoppard; yes, I used to be a theater major). God closes a door, he opens a window. Whatever. Choose your tired and sugary metaphor.
This damn thing is uncanny.
[12/12/02-00:45] randomcam3l: am I doing what I need to?
[12/12/02-00:45] magiccrystalball: yes, definitely
[12/12/02-00:45] randomcam3l: will it get better before it gets worse?
[12/12/02-00:45] magiccrystalball: my sources say no
12/12/02-00:46] randomcam3l: will it get worse before it gets better?
[12/12/02-00:46] magiccrystalball: my sources say no
I decided (before I asked magiccrystalball) to try and listen to the
people who like me and say I'm doing okay, instead of the dissenting
opinion. I think I'm doing okay, and the
people who concur have a better objective view of things. And there's
really not enough reasons to hate myself.
Tomorrow, December 12th, is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the guardian ("patron saint" doesn't do her justice) of Mexico. A year ago, we were on our road trip from Puerto Vallarta, in that goddamned car. I believe we spent the day and night in San Miguel de Allende, and then on the 13th we went to the pyramids at Teotihuacan; but I'm not sure where that travel journal is right now, and I could be a day ahead. In either case my world was very different a year ago today, in that I was stuck in port with my girlfriend, living on a boat without a whole lot to do. And we fought with some frequency, only rarely with a good reason, and I worried about money a lot...well, I didn't say there'd been a revolution since then. So many memories. Memories sometimes flood on me, and I'll spend a day with the past intruding into the present, flashes of high school or college or something else flying through my consciousness as I work or sleep or read.
I wish to share with you a secret about women. This secret comes from what is now several years of experience, both in college and in The Real World Beyond[tm]. It is a basic axiom, referring only to the beginnings of relationships, which at this point is still all I'm good at. It is this.
There is almost nothing that makes a woman want to sleep with you more than an honestly-held willingness on your part to go straight home the moment she asks you to.Seriously. Plan on delaying sex as long as you can and you're almost certain to find doing so more difficult as a result, if the woman finds you attractive. It's bizarre, and I find it disconcerting, but there it is. Numerous women I know have confirmed this, and I suspect it to be part of the shared folklore of women, kept silent around the men, maybe hidden with a little more care than the more limited folklore of men. (I was about to expound on the differences between those folklores, but I think I'll wait for another day to shoot my mouth off.)
I can feel I'm holding a whole bunch of internal tension in my shoulder joints again. Annoying because with the right side I can't tell if pain is that nerve-pinching again, or the separated shoulder still healing.
But the stars are pretty tonight, and the sun will rise again in the morning. Things will not always be as they are now.