Self-consciousness blows!

[Maudlin whining to follow. If that is not "your thing" please skip this post. --f.]

Been really thinking about the way I go about approaching new relationships--friends, colleagues, potential SOs, etc. whatever. A three-alarm fire in my hair, or there would be if I had hair long enough to burn. Although, before I get to the juicy shit, why the fuck have I been listening to Elliot Smith for the last four hours? I M A Dope. Okay, now Eminem's first disc is in. No wait, that's no good. If I had one wish... Jane's Addiction? Yes. Good.

What is it about my psyche that gets me to throw myself at people. I noticed this quite a few years ago, and eventually put a stop to it. But the impulse is still there, like "Oh my god..." and then like a starving wolf on a deer.... This analogy is terrible but today's a day for rememberance of the fallen, so fuck it. Actually I have been surprised to find a more than physical attraction to any member of the opposite sex in myself. (And now I just want to write a lot of elipses, as though i were writing a Holywood Insider column...)

Could I be a glutton for punishment, jumping into the street with nary a look to the right or left? But then, how does one scope out the territory? These questions have answers, yet I suddenly feel powerless to voice or think them. Anyway, enthusiasm has never been a problm. Perhaps sifting as much sand as one must a few fleck of gold bring a fluttering beat to my old prospector's heart. And how disheartening is that thought? Yet still, a few months ago my mind would recoil in horror. Perhaps the past month's posts can illustrate what's gone on far better than can be summarized here.

And now something I've expected for a week or so occurs and what happens--well of course embarassment and shame! For any reaction I have, no matter how pleased, to any situation also bears with it that fine spice of self-loathing. Thanks, asshole brain. The heart of the matter, though (to be quite illusory about what's going on--I think fizhburn will put some sort of warning on this post), is that I have regained something quite precious; that is to say, my capacity to give.

To refer to a previous post, things did not go as I could have hoped with the comely and demure hostess--but perhaps the lesson outweighs the disappointment. She is at least worth knowing, something I could do without for about 99% of humanity. Second best, then, is not bad at all. That's putting chuckles in my throat, so perhaps moving on can be got done with tonight. What is that--even when the chances of something happening are vanishingly small still hopes and dreams are pinned to it for a few fleeting hours, as though the universe balances on that point. The reaction I had to re-meeting her (there is a vague recollection of a party last year sometime) was, I say now looking at it, amazingly violent--by which I mean energetic. A capacitor is a device for storing a lot of electricity, sort of like a battery but more powerful and not so long-lasting--it blasts out electrons in just a moment, exhausting itself in an adrenaline-inducing flash. Perhaps all the emotion that had been caged within found a completed circuit, if only in a single moment. Everything after that would be an explosion of feeling, feelings, cares and heartaches and the tension that creeps into your muscles when waking life is emotionally empty and conscious time is constantly occupied with work.

Now, of course, your eyes are reading these words--or rather the electrically fabricated copy your monitor displays--and you'll say "Damn, but I didn't know you were one of these whiny Blog people." Well, (a) I'm not, so perhaps I'll not make more posts about the sort of weirdness in my mind (don't count on it, constant reader), (b) get over it (it's mostly a lie anyway, for all you know). Self-consciousness and self-referentiality creep into the work we're trying to do at this blog, perhaps inevitably. What will an analysis of events yield, then?

Firstly, mythic desire of the old-school Hollywood feet-sweeping kind can occur. It may be illusory. It may be unfulfillable. And what can unfulfilled desire be but a suffering one inflicts on oneself. Therefore, desire must be diverted into something else, dissipated into the ether of mind. Therefore let us rejoice in friendship and connection. We cannot be entirely selfish in this, and with loss of self-indulgence comes acceptance and even approval.

Secondly, the heart's healing capacity is far greater than one expects. But what one can expect in the state of relationship-mourning is so limited as to make the miracle commonplace though no less miraculous. If nothing else, the floodgates opened, and after the initial torrent other-concern and love can flow freely. Well, as freely as they ever did, anyway; let's not get carried away here. What we want is out there...

Anyway, I seem to vaccilate between the sickly-sweet and the pitch-dark, with not much in between. Hmm. That reflects my state of mind for the last couple of weeks. But something is there which has been gone for a while--calm, sure satisfaction in the present moment. Now I can enjoy this, now there is a place to smile genuinely, now there is relaxation and comfort with what is. Some friends walked by today as I sat in front of a cafe with a book, and they said I looked relaxed. At that moment I realized I felt relaxed. The Sword of Damocles I felt for so long had, at least for a while, been on a vacation of its own.

So what's next? Taking things as they come, for now. There's no rush, no hurry, though no need to dawdle. Three months left before the grind begins again in earnest--and between now and then: everything. Cautiously optimistic.

Oh, now I've got all these memories. Several years ago, yes... *double chuckles*

Via Gdog, here's a Porno For Pyros tune that takes me way way back, ha ha:

Met a girl
who'd never had
an orgasm
I couldn't believe
she'd never had one
"sit back, just let yourself relax"

...She had to know
got curious
what it was like...

You look so good...
so good to me

Thanks to P. Farrell. Ain't my life effed up? Just enough to make me laugh until tears fall. Maybe I'll see "Garden State" sober, just to seal my fate. ^_^b