Nightmare without Grace

It's 1:40 AM and I'm actually afraid to go to sleep.

The last couple days have seen some pretty knarly bad dreams. Two nights ago I was exectuted in the electric chair, and the dream did not end when they strapped me in and threw the switch. It was unpleasant. Last night I dreamt of evil. It was pure evil. It was coming, in the night, and no one knew but me. It made a sound, and only I could hear it. It came and hovered over me, and it was so cold...

b-a start

From: http://www.toothpastefordinner.com

I'm not going to explain to you why I like this comic so much. Suffice it to say, if you are an American male between the ages of 27 and 32, you probably understand that you now have unlimited lives in "Contra" (or was it "Gradius"?).

It's official

After 15 minutes of application, 1 hour of review, 10 minutes of registration and $66 in fees (all handled online), I am, once again, a college student.

Given, I'm only registered for Swimming phys-ed, but it still seems like it was much harder the last time around...

Get Me Outta This Office Chair!

My back is killing me.

I've been doing menial search and replace work on a document for most of the day, save for when I'm doing arbitration between engineering groups on technical issues that I don't technically grasp. I mean, I sort of know what "remove CDB dependencies on the DRM brokers for the WHeads", means, but then on the other hand, I sorta don't.

I need a good hike, or run, or swim, or good workout...

...or a good stiff drink.

Let me tell you something, you dumb fuck

...That's been floating around in my head all day, and I don't know why, but I just had to say it.

I have no reason to be angry today, and maybe it's just a poor sleep schedule, but I am. I feel mistreated by the world, which is total bullshit. It probably means that I'm mad at myself for something, but for the life of me, I don't know what I've done now.

Guess I'm just having one of those days where I feel like I should be better at being me. I've had enough fucking practice after all...

It May Be The Whiskey Talking...

...but the whiskey says I miss you every day.


... Except I don't.

I think about you still, sure, but no longer longingly. I think about you in the way that you think about anyone you spent a great deal of time with, and were close to once, but no longer see: with some curiosity, and without ill wishes, but with no desire to ever see you again.

Finally, I'm there.

Someone Else's Homework

Sexual Deceit

I wake up in the spare room at some unknown hour of the night or morning, the extra blankets piled on top of me, my head, whiskey fuzzy, barely peering out from them, with a straight sight line down the hallway towards the master bedroom. I've been woken by the pitter-patter-clomp of bare feet on the hardwood, and what I see, walking from the bathroom back to bed, is the tiny naked bottom of one skinny legged, fuzzy headed roommate of my lover. My chest tightens and I feel a rush of cold coming from inside me, the feeling that something is terribly out of place that I hadn't noticed before.

They had been partners for four years, before I met her, and split up soon after, but were still sharing a house. I suppose I knew they still shared a bed, "as sisters" my lover assured me, but I'm not quite sure, with the clarity of hindsight, why I fell for that. It wasn't even the realization that her (former?) partner was sleeping with her naked, so much as seeing her, the next morning, walk around the house in her bathrobe, clearly bare underneath, that drove the realization home. Not only is my lover not being faithful to me, I'm the one she's using to be unfaithful to someone else.

The ride back to my sister's place, where I was staying until I found a new apartment, was mostly silent. I stared out the passenger window while she drove, my guts churning while I tried to work out the courage to say "no more", when all I wanted to do was ask her to spend more time with me. I wanted an excuse from her, any excuse, to make it allowable, so I could continue to love her when I could, at lunchtime, after drinks or before dinner with the woman who was her partner, her family, her life. I didn't find courage or time for either, as I was brushed out of the car to make room for her "busy day", and left standing in the parking lot of the apartment complex, between lust and despair, stomach twisted, heart racing, wanting her, wanting sex to drive the feeling away and, at the same time, disgusted at the idea of touching her.

Sshhhhhh....

I've just woken up.

I'm on the couch at my friend's house in Venice, and I'm still under the blankets. I was letting morning thoughts and feelings--about friends, girlfriends, work, sex, money, whatever-- idly float over me. I was just forming in my mind and image of a woman, stradling me, barelegged, when the feeling of making love to someone you're really in love with, the knowing, just before the instant of entering her that this is the woman you want forever, the feeling like it's been years since you last made love, and that her skin in the finest thing you've ever felt, this comes over me without warning and my guts to turn to jelly.

God, I miss that.

God, mornings are weird.

My Rabbi once told me...

I'd like to think of myself as someone who cares very deeply about the feelings of others.

It's always been particularly hard for me to say "no" to a woman. This is not because I'm oversexed, though I am, and not because I'm lonely, though sometimes I am that too. It's because I hate to feel like I'm, in any way, making someone feel like she is not good enough for me. It can be hard, at the end of dinner and a movie to tell someone that it's just going to be dinner and a movie when she, and not unreasonably, is expecting more. After I stumble through the words, and say goodnight, and then stumble through them again in the ensuing phone call, I start to think about a time when I was much better at this.

I remember, back in college, when I first started dating, I reached a place where was able to tell someone no, or no more, and do so firmly. I'd wait around all day to see them, feeling sick to my stomach, knowing what I was going to have to do, then tell them plainly, clearly, and as kindly as I could that I just didn't feel strongly enough about them to continue dating. I wondered for a bit why I am so much more bumbling at this now, but then I remembers the after-affects of saying no back then, and realized they were no better-- and often worse-- than today. Now maybe that's because the women were younger then, but mostly, I think it's because there's no good time and no good way to let someone down. There's a bad time and a bad way, mind you I understand that, but a good way? Anyway you do it, they're always sure you could have done it better, and maybe they're right.