Flummoxed

This whole thing has me flummoxed. It's been years since I've felt this noticeably alone. I used to babble on about the willowy, ethereal Buddhist woman and Stevie Nicks and so on, but those were mostly idle wanderings of the mind.

Now, it's as if I almost desperately want someone to be with me, to touch me, to let me put my arms around her, to feel her head on my shoulder.

And there's nothing sweet or charming or touching about some lumpy sack of potatoes like me feeling this way. This is the stuff pretty people do, and it feels wildly inappropriate for me to have these same desires.

Speaking of Alan Watts, he had a great suggestion for meditation. He said one should observe one's own thoughts as if they are sounds coming from the street outside. What a perfect way of describing that process of seeing one's own thinking.

And that's what I've tried to do today. I've tried to see this crazy longing as if it were something coming in from outside. What's it about?

Well, it's harder to deal with than some other things because part of it is tied to basic biological wiring. I was born with it, as we all are.

There is no fundamental right or wrong here. Things are just as they are. But I am swimming against the tide of conventional wisdom and cultural sentiment, and I don't see how this can end well.

108 Days of Gratitude - Day 16

Today I am grateful for the writings and lectures of Alan Watts.

His real gift was peeling the veneer of mysticism off eastern philosophies and explaining them in ways westerners could understand without devoting their lives to gurus of possibly dubious quality and intentions.

So, thanks again, Alan. I wish I could have known you.

What does a 'wink' mean, anyway?

This match.com thing – if I send a 'wink', I assume that means I wait for her to send a 'wink' back, and then I follow up with an email. Is that right?

I'm winking, but no one is winking back. I'm not surprised, of course, but maybe I'm not doing it right.

I've noticed a few recurring themes in profiles I've viewed. Lots of Jesus (I'm in the Bible belt, of course), lots of "I want life to be an adventure," and lots of "I like to par-tay." I've seen a couple of profiles encompassing all three – Christ-centered adventurous par-taying.

None of those, of course, describe me, but I can't even get a wink back from the women who say they enjoy quiet evenings and philosophical discussions.

Negativism

You may have noticed something about my posts: many of them, even if they have a generally positive tone, include at least a few negative asides or parenthetical statements.

In my previous post about my fifth grade teacher, for example, I make a passing reference to how poorly my other teachers thought of me, because of my grades and my general family reputation.

Yes, I am a very negative person. I didn't become persuaded of this myself until I was about fifty years old, even though people had been telling me so since high school.

Up until that point, I thought to myself, 'Well, hell, yes, I'm negative. You treat me like I'm a pariah because I'm smarter than you, or because I didn't come from as good a family as yours, or because I'm clumsy and near-sighted, or because you think I'm goofy-looking. What am I supposed to do, motherfuckers, smile and pretend I like being treated this way?'

Possibly an early
ancestor. Maybe I
should use this as
my Facebook profile
picture.

(Oh, and thank you, Johnny Hart, for introducing a clumsy, near-sighted caveman in "BC" and naming him 'Clumsy Carp.' Yeah, thanks a fucking lot.)

Plus, negativism was consistent with the way both my parents viewed the world, especially my mother. I picked up a lot of it from them.

Eventually, late in life, I came to see that way of thinking as just a dead end.  I wasn't wrong, but carrying all that negative energy poisoned me nonetheless, and made an unpleasant situation even worse.

But after an entire life of negativism, getting rid of it has been difficult. It's habitual with me.

When I read other people's posts that are continually cheery and positive, I find myself thinking, 'WTF is the matter with you? You sound like Pollyanna.'

Yet one of the most persistently positive people I know was one of the last victims of childhood polio in this country. She spent most of her life on crutches, and now, in her sixties, is in a wheelchair. She has far more reason to be negative than I do. But she stays more positive and upbeat than I ever am.

108 Days of Gratitude - Day 15

Today I am grateful for my fifth grade teacher. His name was Ben Matthews. He saw something in me my other teachers didn't.

As a child, I had a hard time understanding my teachers' attitude toward me - I knew they didn't think highly of me, but I didn't know why. I can speculate on it now from an adult perspective, but I don't know the reason.

Ben Matthews was the first male teacher I ever had, and the first that seemed to believe in my potential. In spite of my bad grades and general 'poor white trash kid' image, he got me into an accelerated learning program in the school district. Two days a week, I went to classes at another school, where we learned things that they didn't think an average fifth-grader would understand.

And I flourished in those classes. Mr. Matthews realized I would do better with a more challenging curriculum, and surrounded by other students who were as bright as I was.

I remember studying archaeology and the Cretan civilization. To this day, I have an amateur's interest in archaeology and ancient civilizations that began with that class.

I guess that was when I realized I wasn't the worst damn kid in the school.

Adventures in Depression

Hyperbole and a Half: Adventures in Depression

If you don't experience clinical depression, this may help you understand what it's like for those of us who do.

108 Days of Gratitude - Day 14

But first, this:

I sort of know what I want to write here, and yet I don't.

As I think I mentioned several days ago, I have been feeling a little more 'aware', for lack of a better word, over the past few months than I previously had.

It's as if I had been lightly drugged for perhaps two or three years, and suddenly the drug wore off.

When there's a full moon, I always stop and look at it. And I look at it alone. It's been that way for years and years. I can't tell you the last time I sat and looked at the moon with a companion or partner.

During the time that I seemed as if I was lightly drugged, I had eventually reached a state of equanimity regarding that. I had settled into my place in the universe, found the flow of the Tao, and saw that whether I understand or don't understand, things are just as they are.

Now, suddenly, that answer seems inadequate. It's still the correct answer – I remain convinced of that. But it's an answer that, at the moment, doesn't satisfy.

Yes, this is craving. This is attachment. It's a spiritual shortcoming to be experiencing this. At the moment, I don't care.

I am at a crossroads. In one direction, I can turn the flute and singing bowl music back on. I can meditate, sit quietly, and lull myself back into that sense of being mildly drugged. The craving and attachment will not disappear, but they will subside to a point I won't  be continually distracted by them.

Or I can forge ahead on the other path, down which I have gone before. I have no reason to believe this trip will end any differently than the others did – with either someone overcommitting to me and suffocating me, or me overcommitting to someone else, and receiving yet another patient explanation about how I'm a nice guy, but I don't offer drrrrama, passion, glamor and intrigue! and blah and blah blurp snort fart grunt.

I said I wasn't going to talk about this for a year, because I talk and talk about it and nothing ever changes. But it seems as if something has changed. It hasn't changed enough to produce a different outcome. I'm no thinner, younger, better-looking or more outgoing than I was before.

But I'm sort of slogging ahead into that emotional quagmire, doing the same I do over and over, hoping against all common sense for different results.

108 Days - Day 14

I'll toss this in while I'm at the computer. I'm grateful for my home and neighborhood. I own my home free and clear. No bank can take it from me.

My neighborhood is on a seesaw. It could go either way. A block to the north, they're rehabbing and gentrifying along NW 16th. A block to the west, they've busted meth labs and crack houses.

But my little corner of the neighborhood is doing well. A new family has moved in across the street, and following the lead of the previous owners, sunk thousands of dollars into upgrades and improvements. When I first moved here ten years ago, the owner at the time was in the process of evicting a heavy metal wannabe band. The sheriff had to forcibly remove them, and crews in contamination suits had to come in and make the place bearable for remodeling contractors. They pulled about twenty big lawn bags full of garbage and trash out of the house. It has come a long way since then.

My newest neighbor on the east is a young woman who is executive director of a nearby neighborhood commercial district that is enjoying a revival after decades of neglect and deterioration. She's been very active in working to improve the neighborhood. She has a lot of energy and drive, which we need around here. She's also an artist, and it's pleasant to have another creative person nearby. I'm grateful for her presence and her commitment to the neighborhood.

Apple Face Time

I guess this product has been around a few years now, but I had not used it until yesterday.

I was able to video chat from Full Circle Books, using my iPhone, with someone on a Mac laptop in Edmond. The sound was just as good as you'd hear in a regular phone conversation, although there was a little static as I walked around the book store.

Frankly, the thing is just amazing to me.

So, I'm running a little behind

It's not that I've quit being grateful. I have a list of pending gratitude items, and Blogblah! helped me focus my thoughts in this regard over the weekend.

108 Days of Gratitude – Day 13

It may sound like a reach to say I'm grateful to be able to walk. But I have had one friend and three acquaintances lose that ability. All of them spent the rest of their lives in wheelchairs. I've lost track of one of them, but the others all died young.

You've probably seen me post here from time to time that I would like to disassociate my consciousness from my body and just float free like a cloud. I'm kind of a sedentary egghead anyway, so I would get along without a physical form better than some people.

But every time I wrote that, I was aware that if I didn't want my physical body, there were a few people I knew who would have been glad to have it.

Revisiting match.com

I am going to slightly bend my ban on love life-related posting here. I feel OK doing it, because this is more like a consumer report than another 'forever alone' post.

I decided to rejoin match.com this week. I had been a member for a few years, and cancelled the account about four and half years ago.

A lot appears to have changed since then, and not for the better.

During the first 24 hours my account was active, I received about ten winks and a couple of emails. That was certainly better than the results I had gotten the first time.

None of them lived anywhere close to me, but they all seemed genuine – no sultry 'Russian beauties' with garbled English pleasing to be making the contact of me. One of them even commented on specific things I had written in my profile.

But within 72 hours, all but one of those contacts had disappeared. They were all fake, possibly the same person or group of people, probably planning to phish me for credit card data or lure me to a malware site.

Doing a little Googling today, I see that match.com has been the target of a few lawsuits over the past few years, alleging that perhaps more than half of its user accounts are fake.

This did not seem to be the case the last time I was a member.

They deserve credit for aggressively tracking and deleting the bogus accounts, but it is a little disconcerting to see ten winks at eight pm, and all of them gone by the next morning.

The user interface is also different. It almost seems designed to force users to click around all over the place, trying to figure out how to respond to an email or look at winks.

Twenty bucks a month seems like a lot to spend for this kind of service, and I suspect I will keep it maybe ninety days and then let go of it again.

108 Days of Gratitude - Day 12

Today I am grateful for solitude.

Not to rehash old material, but I spent 25 years as a reporter – a job that allows scant time for alone time and reflection. I was married during 10 years of that time, so my alone time at home was limited as well.

But everything about the way my synapses are wired encourages me to solitude. It's part of what keeps my mental state steady.

I'm glad to have the opportunity to finally spend plenty of time with my own company.

108 Days of Gratitude - Day 11

Today I am grateful for my friend blogblah!, aka John R. Long.

I see John about once every two weeks, usually at Beverly's 24/7 Restaurant near Baptist Hospital. Like me, he keeps irregular hours, so I'm likely to see him there at some odd hour when most decent people are tucked into bed.

Sometimes we head over to Penn Square and watch a movie – generally, the crappier the better.

But what I value most about visiting with John is that I don't have to measure my words around him. He's not offended by my politics, or my skepticism and/or cynicism, or my lack of a 'proper attitude' (whatever that is) about women, sex and love.

I'm also fond of his sister Mary (aka mindovermary), who deserves her own Day of Gratitude in the near future.

108 Days of Gratitude - Day 10

Today I'm grateful for the teaching of the ancient Zen masters and Taoist sages.

I am not immersed in Zen like I was even a year ago, but the basic understanding I gained from my study is still with me, and will be, I believe, for the rest of my life.

The Buddha said his teachings were like a raft one uses to cross the river. After reaching the other shore, the traveler continues on his journey, but leaves the raft for another to use.

I feel as if I am that traveler. I don't think I will ever again walk around with dharma talks playing in my headphones, but I have not forgotten:

"If you understand, things are just as they are. If you do not understand, things are just as they are."

108 Days of Gratitude - Day 9

I am so fucking grateful I don't have to work.

I work best in near-complete seclusion, with maybe one or two other people around to provide some conversation and occasional distraction.

But I am not a team player, and of course, team players are what corporate America cherishes most.

I was in a restaurant for breakfast the other day, and there were quite a few suits in there. Guys with moussed cubicle haircuts, heavily-starched oxford cloth shirts, cordovan tasseled wing tip slip-ons, and suits that were a little tight around the waist.

That used to be me.

Perhaps those guys thought I was some kind of bum in my black linen peasant shirt, hardware store jeans and shoulder-length hair. But I bet they'd like to be me a lot more than I'd like to be them.

I worked for thirty years, so I feel like I did my share. It's just dumb luck that I got to retire maybe ten years early. But I'm grateful it happened.

108 Days of Gratitude - Day 8

I am grateful for my ex-wife.

We get along better than most divorced couples. In fact, except that we don't live together and we see each other only every few months, we get along about the way we do when we were married.

Even though I was in my mid-thirties when we married, I still wasn't mature enough to be married, and I wasn't responsible enough to be a husband. I'm still not, probably.

I was more like a big kid than a husband to her. As I've said before, she deserved better than she got out of the ten years she spent with me. Don't get me wrong – I don't think we should still be married.

But I'm grateful she's still in my life in a small way.

108 Days of Gratitude - Day 7

Today I am grateful for Kat Parker.

Kat has been my occasional housekeeper for about five years now. Being my housekeeper is no easy chore, because I'm a slob. You remember Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple? That's nothing.

Most of my slovenly housekeeping is just the way my brain functions, or malfunctions. In addition, though, I have a lower back problem that doesn't bother me much when I lift heavy objects, but does cause pain when I do things like sweep or mop or push a lawn mower. (Yeah, I know: how conveeeeenient!)

About two or three times a year, Kat, sometimes accompanied by her fellow housekeeping ninja Annie, sweep through this house and do in a day what I could not accomplish in six months.

When you don't see me at the coffee shop for weeks or months at a time, it's because Kat has made my house livable.

I am also grateful for Kat's mom, Rena, who occasionally goes through my mountain of unopened mail and sorts out the crap from the real stuff for me.

108 Days of Gratitude - Day 6

Today I am grateful for freedom of religion.

Religious intolerance is at a higher level in this country now than at any time in my adult life.

I didn't think much about this when I was a fundamentalist Christian years ago, or when I was a passive atheist. But when I became interested in Taoism and Buddhism, I realized how easily I could be targeted because of my beliefs. There are countries where people practice their religions in secret for fear of persecution or even death, and I'm glad that the USA is (so far) not one of them.

Why I support Occupy Wall Street

I support Occupy Wall Street because I believe the financial sector - not the manufacturing sector, not the retail sector, nor the small business sector - has acquired power and influence completely out of proportion to its role in our society. America is not a couple of huge banks and brokerages with 300 million people just sort of milling around outside of them.

I also believe, and have believed since I was a teenager, that Congress responds reliably to two things. The first, and most efficient, is big wads of cash. The way big businessmen resolve their legislative differences is to hire lobbyists, have the lobbyists throw money at the legislators, and whoever throws the most money wins. Very elegant, very polite, very businesslike.

But the other thing to which Congress responds reliably is external irritants, usually in the form of people marching in the streets, screaming obscenities and hurling bags of shit at them. So, if you don't have millions of dollars to spend, you go with the number two choice.

I recognize that some of the people in this loosely-organized protest are far to the left of even me, and some have a personal axe to grind that has little or nothing to do with Wall Street.

In the late sixties and early seventies. we had all kinds of people protesting the war in Vietnam. Some were Marxists and Maoists. Some were peacniks. Some were just John Lennon fans. But if they had not all gotten in the streets, regardless of their particular motivations or causes, I guarantee you we'd still be fighting the Vietnam War right this minute, always throwing just enough ordnance to keep the thing chugging along and keep the cash flowing to the people who hire the people who throw wads of cash at Congress.

The people who are 'way out on the fringe, the anarchists and such, are the ones who push the envelope to the left, making it 'safe' for pundits and legislators to move into the space between them and the so-called 'center'.

Even if you don't agree with them, you have to credit them for creating that space for those who will probably actually get the job done, but not until it's politically safe for them to undertake it.

Remember, Big Polite Money hated Franklin D. Roosevelt, but they feared Huey Long.

That's why we need a Huey Long.

I'm going to the mall now.

108 Days of Gratitude - Day 5

Today I am grateful for talent.

I know a lot of people who are more gifted artists than I am. But my talent has been sufficient for me to live on twice.

I had two jobs, spaced 27 years apart, that were dependent upon my design and graphics skills. During those 27 years, literally everything changed in the design, layout and prepress world. There was not one gadget in my 1970's toolbox full of rubber cement, burnishers, X-acto knives and Rapidograph pens that was of any use to me in the Photoshop/Illustrator world of 2001.

Fortunately, I had kept my skills mostly up-to-date. It still took me a couple of months to get up to speed, but the basics – composition, design, typography, etc. – had not changed much.

I was able to create that '108 Days of Gratitude' graphic in about 20 minutes. (And if I'd let it sit overnight, and come back to it the next day with fresh eyes, there are things I would have changed.) I tend to take it for granted that anybody can do this, and I forget that most people can't.

Apple updates

Apple released a series of updates yesterday that allow iPhones, iPads and Macs to work with the company's new iCloud feature. The upgrades were frustrating for me, to say the least. I think the whole process took about 14 hours. I was up most of the night with it.

I'm not even sure this iCloud is something that will be of particular benefit to me, although I can see where other users may be quite happy with it.

108 Days of Gratitude - Day 4

I'm grateful for the Internet.

It created a job for me when I left television. It allows me to feel as if I'm in touch with the whole world from my desk.

There have been some stories in the media suggesting that the Internet causes people to withdraw from society and become brooding loners. I can't speak for anyone else, but I think I would have withdrawn from society and become a brooding loner with or without the Internet.

Rather than cause my isolation, I think the 'net has helped alleviate it.

108 Days of Gratitude - Day 3

I'm grateful for my VW Beetle. It's a 2009 model, chili pepper red, with a little less than 15 thousand miles on it.

It's fun to drive and easy to park.

And it's paid for.

I considered trading it in for one of these newer, sleeker 2012 Beetles, but the new ones don't look Beetle-ly enough for me.

And I've become attached to the one I've got.

Like a bowling ball

I know I've said this before, but it seems like everything I eat sits on my stomach like a bowling ball swallowed whole. It's been this way for a couple of years or more now.

I've just returned from Cattlemen's, where I ate about half of what I ordered, and I feel like – well, like I swallowed a bowling ball whole.

My father's appetite and weight both diminished when he got to be about the age I am now, so maybe it's genetic.

Lord knows it wouldn't kill me to lose some weight.

108 Days of Gratitude - Day 2

Today I am grateful for the Logitech Performance MX mouse.

I had been using its predecessor, the Revolution MX, for five or six years. The innards of the mouse had gotten loose and a little 'sloppy', so that if I even hit the leg of my desk with my foot, stuff would jump around on my monitor, being 'scrolled' by the mouse's wheel.

I didn't even know the Revolution MX had been supplanted by the Performance MX until I found it on Amazon. The Performance MX weighs less, has a replaceable battery, and unlike its predecessor, can be be recharged from a USB port, which frees up an outlet in my 80-year-old home's den.

As much time as I spend at the computer, these are all big improvements for me.

Another Google analytics note

Not surprisingly, most of the traffic that reaches this blog comes from inside the United States. But the second largest source of traffic is... Austria.


Hmmm.

108 Days of Gratitude - Day 1

Blogblah! has a meditation he does when he finds himself down, and I hope he doesn't mind my sharing it. He uses a Buddhist mala, which is a string of 108 beads similar to a rosary, to count 108 reasons to be thankful. By the time he's reached the 108th bead, he's reminded life isn't as bad as it seems when (like me) we tend to dwell only on the negative.

My plan, since I'm taking some time off from one of my regular space-fillers here, is spend 108 days recounting things for which I can be grateful. Some will be big things and some will be tiny things. Some may even strike you as silly. (Tomorrow, for example, I plan to be grateful for a computer mouse.)

But by the time I'm done, maybe we'll all see that my life isn't as awful as it sounds if you read this blog regularly.

So...

DAY 1

The death last week of Steve Jobs at age 56 reminds us that even with great wealth, power and prestige, health is not something to taken for granted. Jobs was two years younger than me.

I am afflicted with hypertension and an occasional attack of Howling Bowel Syndrome, but other than that, my health seems quite good. I've been hospitalized only twice, and one of those times was following a traffic accident when I was eight.

I am grateful for my good health.

Popular Keywords

I've had Google Analytics on this site the whole time it's been up, but I hardly ever look at it. The last time was probably two or three years ago.

I noticed this evening that over the past month, 15 people came to this blog by searching Google or Bing for the expression "catshit safari" — a term which I'm pretty sure I invented to describe the search for cat shit in hard-to-reach corners of the house.

But the search expression that brought the most people here over the past month was "nothing to live for", which brought 64 visitors.

Sounds like they might have heen depressed. But I'm sure they left here completely cheered up.

108 Days

This is a note to myself so I don't forget something.

Using the Dictionary

I used the word 'mawkish' in the preceding post. I realized as I wrote it that I wasn't sure what it meant.

I have a larger-than-average vocabulary, but it's full of words whose meanings I intuited from their context in a written passage, rather than by looking them up.

Like "intuited", for example.

Blogblah! used to frequently refer to himself as 'peckish'. Months went by with me thinking 'peckish' meant something like 'peeved', rather than 'hungry'. I think it was Lark who eventually straightened me out on that.

I remember using the word 'erstwhile' in a news story once. It was years – decades, in fact – before I discovered I had used it completely incorrectly. Of course, no one else in the alleged 'newsroom' caught it, either.

If you search the word 'physiognomy' on this blog, you'll find it somewhere, a few years back. I meant 'physiology', but it was again years before I discovered my mistake.

The Macintosh has a perfectly good built-in dictionary. There are several others available online. I have begun, at age 58, a habit I should have begun at eighteen, or even eight: looking up words when I am unsure of their meaning.

A One-Year Moratorium

This blog begins its seventh year next month – or is sixth? I'm never clear on these anniversary things.

When I began it, I didn't have a clear idea of what it would be about, except that it would be very personal and mostly about my daily life. I wasn't writing it with the intention that it become popular. but only that it give me an outlet for my own thoughts. I have kept very few secrets from this blog. It's almost like a personal journal available to everyone who finds it.

As it turned out, the blog's central topics pretty much found themselves, and I'm not entirely happy with them. The Taoism and Buddhist material is OK, but all the 'Diary of an Unloved Guy' stuff strikes even its author as tedious and self-pitying.

I once forced myself to take a one-year hiatus from writing about my non-love life. I came up a couple of weeks short, but I essentially reached my goal. I'm going to do it again. If you look at the entire six-year run of this blog, you'll see that nothing has changed in that regard.

In fact, if you could read the barrage of posts on this subject I wrote on The Well before this blog began, you'd see that the general stasis in my love life has been constant, with a few interruptions, since 1998.

I feel reasonably confident that when I resume my mawkish loneliness postings in October, 2012, nothing will have changed.

But trust me, during those twelve months, I'll still be feeling as sorry for myself as I always do.

I'll wrap up with a quote that came in e-mail the other day. The sender seemed quite angry with me at the time, so perhaps her tone was affected by that. Here's what she wrote:

"You think that women's initial repulsion of you is about your clothes and lack of hair combing. Trust me...it's about how you hate them and don't even know it."

If you want to comment on that quote, feel free. But I will let it stand as is, and will have nothing further to say about it.

Why I'm an atheist

If I had to explain why I'm an atheist, I think this little graphic circulating on Facebook could just about sum it up.

I really doubt that God, if he actually existed, would have meant me to be the person I am now. Or that he would have surrounded me with the people who were around me for most of my life, such as during my TV career.

God would have to have a pretty perverse sense of humor.

My front porch

I slept about half the night on the front porch, listening to the rain.

I bought a very expensive outdoor wicker sofa a couple of years ago, and it has been worth very penny I paid for it. It's long enough that I can stretch my entire six-foot frame out on it, and the cushions are soft enough to sleep on.

Every so often some loud manmade noise would intrude on my sleep - one of my neighbors pulling a car into the driveway, or a plane passing overhead. But mostly if I woke up all I heard was rain and occasional thunder.

M. Gastón jumped on the sofa and slept by my feet.

Eventually I got hot – even in the winter, I have to have a fan blowing on my head and shoulders when I sleep – and I came inside and finished the evening on my regular bed.

But it was nice to spend part of the evening at least a little closer to nature.

Should have knocked on wood, I guess

After having an August and September almost completely free of allergy problems, my sinuses have finally started reverting to their usual late summer/early autumn stuffiness. It's not as bad as years past, and it's six weeks late. An early frost will help, but my sense is that the first frost is going to come late this year.

Hemorrhoids

Still a damn pain in the ass. I hate 'em.

Last American Who Knew What The Fuck He Was Doing Dies

As usual, The Onion uses satire to get to the truth in this Steve Jobs obit:

Last American Who Knew What The Fuck He Was Doing Dies

On Death

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new." – Steve Jobs

-posted from my iPhone

Long-haired slugs vs short-haired slugs

In the comments to the preceding post, Blogblah! asks the question:

1. MCARP, does the length of your hair and/or beard impact in any way your struggle with the guy on the couch picture/self image?

I've thought about that myself, and I don't know the answer.

I like my hair longer, and as I mentioned, I get some favorable comments on it. But when I see other men with hair this long, especially if they're my age or close to it, they look to me like skid row bums. Of course, some of them are skid row bums, and maybe I'd view them more favorably if they were wearing something other than wife beaters and corduroy cutoffs.

As for the guy on the couch, well, that photo was a real eye-opener for me - the difference between the way I perceived myself and the way I look to others.

I might mention that the photo was taken by a woman to whom I once thought myself rather attracted, and who clearly felt no such attraction to me. We had a lot in common, or so I thought, but one thing we did not have in common was that she did not look like a beached whale when sitting on a sofa.

If I had applied my rule of thumb right from the start, I would have seen that instantly.

Did I answer your question? I don't think I did, but that's all I've got.

Internal narratives

When I was in love with the willowy, ethereal Buddhist, she chose another man instead of me. I came up with all kinds of rationalizations for this, which I won't enumerate here.

But the story I made up for myself about this ignored the obvious truths which now, having disconnected myself emotionally from her, are quite evident. Simply put, he's better-looking than me, more charismatic than me, younger than me and more interesting than me.

But for years – years! – I would not accept that plainly evident truth, even though one mutual friend told it to me outright. Instead, I clung to my own internal narrative, which had her mind clouded by the machinations of a meditation instructor, or cringing in fear from the affections of the one man who could truly bring her happiness, blah, blah, snort, berffle, grunt.

Even I can get hooked on internal narratives that substitute comforting falsehoods for truth. Those years of self-deception about her weren't fair to her, or to me.

Intelligence

I am, frankly, a fairly intelligent guy. When I was given an IQ test in grade school, I scored in the top five percent nationally. I'm probably smarter than the president, but not as smart as the actress Sharon Stone, who is a member of Mensa.

The only person I know personally who is in Mensa has loud, voluble arguments with himself and once showed up at the coffee shop dressed as Zorro. But he's almost certainly smarter than I am.

But what bothers me is the people who tell me that being intelligent is offensive. I've heard this several times over the past twenty years or so. During the last two years I was in television, I was scolded by management for making my coanchor 'feel stupid'. I did this by knowing answers to questions that she didn't.

If an intern asked me who Queen Noor was, for example, I would make my coanchor 'feel stupid' by knowing the answer. So, I was obliged towards the end of my career to protect my coanchor's ego by pretending to not know the answers to fairly straightforward questions about news and current events. My silence allowed inaccurate news stories to get on the air, but I didn't care, anymore, and I knew my coanchor and my supervisors didn't care, either.

In another workplace, I deeply offended and hurt the feelings of a coworker by using the word 'profligate' in a sentence. (Have I told this story before?) She didn't know what 'profligate' meant, and was pretty sure I knew she didn't know. She thought I had deliberately chosen that word to make her 'feel stupid'. After thinking about it a minute, she also began to suspect that 'profligate' was a profanity that I had chosen because I knew I could sneak it past her moral outrage radar.

That intelligence or awareness of the world is now considered a character flaw should come as no surprise to anyone watching the Republican presidential nominating process. Good god, what a bunch of dim bulbs (and bright candidates pretending to be dim bulbs to avoid offending the base).

This began, I guess, when someone asked then-candidate Ronald Reagan to name the leader of some foreign nation. "I don't know his name," Reagan replied, "but if I'm elected, I guarantee you he'll know mine." Thunderous applause erupted from the Republicans in the audience as Reagan offered swagger and bluster as a substitute for knowledge – a practice George W. Bush would make the basis of an entire political career.

Rick Perry may have pushed institutionalized dumbassery so far even the base can't accept it, but I'm not sure about that, yet.

Corollary to this uplifting and celebrating of fundamental ignorance is the notion that all opinions are the same and all opinions have equal weight and validity. Under this line of 'reasoning', your opinion, based on your knowledge of science and current events, is no more valid or valuable than my opinion based on Bible numerology or the teachings of a Melchizedek Cosmic Shaman or something I think I heard on Alex Jones's show.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but that doesn't mean opinions based on paranoia or superstition are just as worthy as opinions based on facts and sound reasoning.

Sorry if I made you feel stupid by posting this.

30 Days, More or Less

I have been almost completely secluded for the past 30 days. Sure, I get out for breakfast every morning, but I don't talk to anyone except the servers. It's been very quiet, very pleasant and very calm.

I've visited with Blogblah! a couple of times, had lunch or dinner with my friend Diane maybe three times, and dinner with my old Wednesday/Friday group one time.

I haven't been in my old coffee shop hangout at all.

What I have been doing is drawing – nothing worth showing, but at least releasing some creative energy nonetheless. I've struck up some casual acquaintances online with other digital artists, and I hope I can glean some helpful information from them.

I had to replace a tire on the VW. This is the third tire in six years that I've had to replace because of crap in the road, but the other two were on the minivan. In this case, it looked like a roofing nail, but it made a hole so big it couldn't be repaired. Tires for the VW cost from three times to six times as much as they do for the old minivan. Thank God there's a Firestone place within walking distance of my house.

Visited with my stock broker today. For the first time in my life, I've put money in a fund and not only lost the accumulated return, but part of the original investment as well. I'm not broke, but things aren't looking rosy.

I mentioned awhile back that I had a bout of gastrointestinal distress. That has mostly cleared up. I suspect, although I don't know, that I had a mild case of this listeria infection that's been going around the country. These problems began when I started eating cantaloupe at breakfast every morning, and I thought at the time that might be the culprit.

I did a little Googling and discovered that cantaloupe itself can indeed cause digestive upset, so I quit eating it. But nothing changed. Then, weeks later, I read about the listeria outbreak connected to cantaloupe from a single farm in eastern Colorado. I don't know for a fact that my cantaloupe, which I got in a restaurant, came from there. Nor did I have the fever, body aches and other symptoms associated with listeria. But the timing is suspicious.

Whatever the facts (TMI ALERT), my ass is no longer spraying like a fire hose.

I wrote previously that I had this sudden and inexplicable resurgence in my libido. I was so cranked up that for awhile I seriously considering getting a pro, which I have never in my life done, or even a couple of pros. Because the only threesome I've ever been in was me and both hands.

But then, suddenly, I was back to normal again. Thank god. Some sort of testosterone burst caused by sunspots, I guess.

I saw an interesting-looking redhead in a restaurant yesterday. I applied my rule of thumb: if I think she's attractive, that means she's too good-looking for me. I need to go to Catfish Cabin or Furr's Cafeteria and ogle the Aunt Bee types.

Oh, let's talk about this some more

Upon reading my previous post, mindovermary wrote:

I was reading MCARP'S blog today and as usual, he is talking about how unattractive and uninteresting he is. I don't happen to agree with him. I will say that with his hair long and his beard scraggly, he is not as good looking as he was with short hair and groomed beard. I think he is rather handsome when he grooms.

It doesn't matter what I think when he thinks differently. Whether someone is attractive or not is directly linked to how that person feels about themselves. I, and the women I know, are attracted to men who are secure and confident in
who they are.

First, on a practical note, response to my long hair has been mixed. Some people think it looks better long, and others prefer it short. I grew my hair very long between 1998 and 2000. I kept it in a ponytail while I was living in Texas, and I will say it seemed very popular with women there.

I cut it first to go on a job interview. Later, I cut it even shorter simply for the sake of convenience. For most of the past decade, I have worn it 3/32 of an inch long, and cut it myself with a Panasonic shower-friendly electric shaver. At right is a picture of how it looked this morning. Someone told me I'm starting to look like the Dude, and another said I resemble Meher Baba, either of which I'll be happy to take as a compliment.

On to this thing of self-confidence. I think I am secure and confident in who I am. If I wasn't, I would be spending a lot more time and effort managing my 'brand' or my image, and I simply don't.

I'm confident enough, in fact, that I've been called 'arrogant' more than once. My experience has been that women find arrogance attractive in certain men, but I'm not one of them.

The person I see in the mirror every morning while I'm brushing my teeth seems to me to be a lot better-looking than women generally seem to find me. As I've said before, I've had trouble figuring out where this face fits on the scale between Matt Damon and the guy who played Newman the letter carrier on Seinfeld. I seem to rate it more highly than the general population does.

Why in God's name do I keep posting about this? I guess because I don't have anything else to talk about, but I want to keep the blog going.

The unhappy truth

So... what's
your sign, babe?

I guess most guys figure out by the end of high school what kind of women are 'attainable' by them. i.e., not likely to laugh out loud if they flatter them or accuse them of stalking if they say 'good morning' to them.

But I had insufficient feedback in that area. I knew in high school I was nowhere near the top of the ladder, but I couldn't accurately estimate how far down I was.

I'm not an ugly guy, by any means. I am just extraordinarily ordinary-looking. Mine is a face that would disappear into a crowd, except for the fact that it's parked atop the 6-foot-tall slab of beef that is my body.

(I am overweight these days, but even when I'm not, I'm anything but thin. I sort of resemble Merlin Olsen, the late football player/actor, in body type.)

I entered college confident that I was somewhere in the broad middle region of looks and charisma. I was no Ryan O'Neal, who was the gold standard of hotness at the time, but no Ron "Horshack" Palillo, either.

Evidence began to mount that I had overrated myself. Women I approached inevitably rejected me and often took up with guys that I thought were a lot less interesting and attractive than me (although often wealthier or with a better supply line of drugs).

But then college ended, I entered the workplace, and I soon found myself on television reading (and hysterically hyperventilating over) the news. I was the least good-looking newscaster in town – that was obvious. But still, I had made the cut, hadn't I? That ought to count for something.

But it didn't.

I kept approaching women who were, frankly, much too hot for a shambling, beefy sloth like me, and I kept getting rejected. And then I started looking in that broad middle region of looks and charisma. What I saw were hundreds of women to whom I was not the least attracted.

I am aware that a lot of people end up married to people to whom they are not attracted. It's called "settling," and I eventually did it myself. It wasn't fair to me to have done that, but moreover, it wasn't fair to her, either. She loved me, but she would have been better off with a simple, slow-witted Baptist youth minister than she was with me.

Now, in my senior years, I am able to sort of comfortably say that which was evident from the late sixties to the present: I am really an unappealing, unattractive guy. I'm a lot lower on the ladder than I wanted to believe. That is mostly just the way the genetic cards were dealt – the Tao of mcarp, if you will.

But I'm still not going after the 'Aunt Bee' types, whether I'm 'supposed' to or not.

Some good news for a change

I have suffered from severe late summer allergies all my life. In my twenties, thirties and forties, my allergies were so severe between the last week of August and the first week of October that I would spend most of the time in bed, surrounded by tissues and sinus medicines. Some mornings when I woke up, my eyes would be badly swollen I couldn't open them.

But about ten years ago, the severity of my late summer allergies began tapering off, and they've been more bearable with each passing year.

This year, the August/September/October allergy season has passed almost unnoticed. I've had maybe three brief sneezing jags for the whole six weeks.

And now, an unsolicited testimonial

You may recall that earlier this year I was somewhat attracted to a woman much younger than myself. She sent me to the friend zone quickly, but that was what I expected in the first place, so I wasn't too broken-hearted about it.

She has since moved away with a boyfriend her own age. But today, she posted this comment on my Facebook wall in regard to my own posts about my daily activities.

" ...you remind me of the old man on Fraggle Rock mixed a bit with the Swedish Chef of the Muppets, with a hint of the man that Dennis menaces...lovin' the daily mcarp..."

Of course, she forgot to mention Dr. Johnny Fever.

But I think her description probably reflects the general feminine opinion of me in a much more succinct way than I ever could. I can sit at my computer and blather about the resurgence of my sexual prowess, but in the outside world most women look at me and are reminded of various cartoon characters from their childhoods.

T M Even More I

In addition to everything else, my stomach and GI tract have been giving me fits intermittently for about three weeks now. I've had this before, but it's been years ago. When I was in college, I took two doses of Pepto-Bismol every morning to just get through the day.

It went away by itself that time (after many months), and I assume it will this time, too.

I wonder if this and the renewed libido are somehow biochemically connected. Earlier in the summer, I also had the worst case of acne I've ever had in my life. It was minor – almost unnoticeable – but still worse than anything I experienced in my teens.

Of course, at my age, stuff like this has the potential to be more serious.

But, as I've said before, I've done everything I was 'supposed' to do. I don't have insurance, and I'd frankly rather die and leave what money I have to someone who will use it constructively than blow it all trying to keep my worthless ass alive longer than it needs to be.

T M I

I used to have a couple of female friends who talked candidly, and at length, about their sex lives. It wasn't 'sex chat,' in any way, shape or form, although the details were usually rather explicit. Even so, I wasn't offended, and I didn't mind listening.

On the other hand, I had another female friend whose stories of sexual exploits, although far less salacious, always had me fumbling on my iPod for Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, so I could turn it up full blast.

(In my own family, discussion of sex and sexuality was strictly off-limits, as you might expect in any family in the late fifties and early sixties – although you might also think my folks would be a little more open about it than most, given that both of them were willing to fuck pretty much anything that walked on its hind legs.)

Anyway, you might want to put the 1812 Overture on before reading further.

For about the past ninety days, my libido has been functioning at roughly the same level it did when I was thirty, and I am at a loss to explain why. It's fairly frustrating, since I am in fact not thirty, but fifty-eight, built more like a Kay County farmer than a sophisticated, urbane metrosexual, and I am profoundly exhausted with the company of other human beings – even willowy, ethereal ones. I am, in other words, a lousy candidate for random sexual encounters.

The longest I was ever 'master of my domain', to use the Seinfeldian euphemism, was close to two years. I was depressed, heavily into meditation and Buddhist philosophy, and, as the coup de grace, affected by some sex drive-killing blood pressure medication. Everything still worked, biologically speaking, but I just didn't care. If Milla Jovovich had landed in my back yard wearing nothing but a parachute, I would have called her a cab. ("Milla - you're a cab!")

Even though I was still in love with my willowy Buddhist friend, I was mostly interested in sitting on a hillside with her, watching the clouds. I wanted a relationship, but I wanted it to be mostly intellectual – someone on my own level or close to it with whom I could have interesting and stimulating conversation, or just quiet evenings saying and doing nothing, while she walked around in gauzy, floaty clothes.

My perfect woman,
people tell me. 

Now, suddenly, it's like some sort of fog lifted. Unfortunately, there's not much I can do about it. As I've said many times in the past, one can realize that he's attracted to people who are not 'appropriate' for him, but that doesn't change the fact that he's attracted to them.

I am attracted to women who are, to put it bluntly, too good-looking for me. They're out of my league.

As I've written before, I am apparently 'supposed' to be with a burly, stocky, angry but gregarious woman – an "Aunt Bee" type – who will whip my fat stockman's ass into shape. But even with a thirty-year-old's libido, that still doesn't appeal to me in the least.

Random notes

I bought a TV this week. It's the first new TV I've had in 15 years, I guess. I haven't had television at all in a long time.

Pulled the thing out of the box, and the only thing I recognized was the screen. All the connections – and there are many – were foreign to me. I had never seen a TV with USB ports and a LAN connection. I misplaced the manual almost immediately. I guess I'll go online and try to learn more about how this thing works. I doubt I'll watch any actual television with it. I'm thinking about getting Netflix, and I can watch movies right now from iTunes.

In other news, I'm sitting at home almost all day, and enjoying it. Haven't been to the coffee shop in a couple of weeks. Went to dinner with my old Wednesday/Friday group the other night. I don't do that often, but it's good to touch base with them occasionally.

I've thought lately that I would like to make some new friends. I don't know where to look. Most people bore me. They have to be extremely bright or extremely eccentric for me to enjoy their company.

The blower in the central air unit has gone out. I haven't had anything done with it because the weather's been so temperate I haven't needed it, and probably won't need heat until December. It has to get below freezing and stay that way for a couple of days for the house to get cold enough to be uncomfortable.

Autumn

Wow — maybe autumn really is here. It's cloudy and 54 right now, with rain in the forecast. This is very welcome after the hottest summer on record for my state.

This is also the kind of weather that makes a guy wish he had someone snuggled up under the covers with him. But I'm going to do the zen thing here, which is to note that I am experiencing that desire, and then move on.

I have been accused of not being in touch with my feelings. Actually, I'm quite aware of my feelings, and it's a very Buddhist thing to be aware of one's feelings. But it's not a Buddhist thing to be ruled by one's feelings.

Transitions

Another person and I have dissolved our friendship of six or seven years. Frankly, it feels like a relief.

She would have her own interpretation of the events leading up to this. My interpretation is that we had reached the point where she expected me to be on 24-hour hot standby to help her with emergencies, anxiety attacks and minor crises that were usually the direct result of her own negligence or lack of planning.

She had done this previously with a couple other of her male friends, and I knew it would eventually come to me.

My list of close friends is shrinking. But I am more comfortable with solitude than I have been in a long time. I guess I like myself better than I used to.

A few days went by during the past couple of weeks in which I did not think about the willowy and ethereal Buddhist woman. That's significant because they were the first days in probably six or seven years that I did not think of her even once. It used to be an every day occurrence.

A return to normalcy

It gets harder and harder for me to be around other people. I spend more time than ever alone, and I'm happy and grateful to have that time.

The flurry of angst I felt about women and relationships seems to have subsided, and I am almost back to my old comfortable indifference. The outburst of resentment shared here over the past few weeks harkened back to the late 1990s, when I carried on like that all the time.

More Blog Changes

You may have had some trouble accessing this page recently. Blogroller, the service that auto-loaded the list of blogs maintained by other members of the Well, has apparently shut down. When this page tried to load the Well blogroll, it was led instead to redirect to the parking page for blogroller.com.

The problem is now fixed, but the long list of blogs maintained by fellow Wellperns is no longer available.

The Pillows Arrived

And they work. The drawback is that they feel like a toilet seat. So it sort of feels like I'm sitting on the can while using my computer.

That's what I have my iPad for.

Heart Is Contrary To The Way

Via Sweeping Zen:

Emmon: If (the way) cannot be conceived by the heart, how can it be conceived/thought of?

Mster Nyuri: As soon as a thought arises, there is also the heart. Heart is contrary to the way. No-thought is no-heart. No heart (the empty heart) is the way of Truth (True Awakening.)

I Don't Want It Very Badly

Sometimes being alone sucks, and I guess I've been more keenly aware of alone-ness's general suckitude over the past several weeks.

But nothing is going to change in that regard. I close my eyes, and try to visualize things being somehow different, and I can't. I can't even imagine it. I can visualize myself living on a space station more easily than I can visualizing myself in a relationship. In fact, imagining myself in a relationship is a little like imagining myself at the dentist's office.

Mind Over Mary is right, or almost right, when she says I don't want anyone in my life. I do want someone in my life, but not very badly.

The Reluctant Waitress

There's a place I go many mornings for breakfast. I've been there so often, most of the waitresses know my name, and I theirs. They say hi to me, even if I'm not at one of their tables.

Except for one. She's pleasant enough if I'm her customer; otherwise, she'll look the other way when I come in, or studiously examine a check until I pass. If I say 'good morning' as I walk by, she'll pretend she didn't hear me while everyone else says 'good morning' or 'hi'.

Naturally, I'm somewhat attracted to her. Is it because she so clearly dislikes me, or does she dislike me because she senses I'm attracted to her? Or maybe it's both — kind of a closed feedback loop?

I'm not pushing it. In fact, I'll avoid sitting at her tables if I can, because it's so obvious I make her uncomfortable.

She seems to chat up the guys who have short hair and NASCAR-logoed windbreakers. I wouldn't put on a NASCAR windbreaker to get close to Milla Jovovich dressed in nothing but three strategically-placed cups of chocolate pudding, so I'm certainly not getting one to wear to breakfast.

I wonder though, what it is that makes about one out of twenty women kind of cringe when they see me coming.

Hemorrhoids

Had 'em since I was in my twenties. Maybe that's why I'm go grouchy.

Until recently, they've never been more than a nuisance. But now, when they're being feisty, I can't even sit in a chair.

I ordered a couple of those donut-shaped cushions today. They support your ass while letting your 'rhoids just sort of float free.

I will report back on my results, because I know you want to hear every precise detail.

It's All Tits And Ass From Here On Out

A few months ago, I noticed a young woman with an awkward, sort of stiff gait crossing the street. I remarked to the woman who was with me that she had the stride of a gymnast or swimmer.

My friend's lower lip started to quiver, so I asked her what was wrong. I got about five minutes of weepy argle bargle about the marginalization of women above a certain age, and something about patriarchy, and something and something.

I hadn't commented at all on this young lady's attractiveness or lack thereof. But by merely noticing her long, stiff-kneed walk, I had oppressed and undermined women everywhere.

My mother, as I mentioned in previous posts, was 'way ahead of the curve on this stuff. As early as about 1967, she was lecturing about weak, irresponsible men — which included, presumably, all the ones she was fucking. I was taught that I was, simply by virtue of my gender, both guilty and impossibly, irredeemably weak, and that the best I could hope for was the opportunity to clean house and do dishes for some woman who was intrinsically better than I could ever hope to be.

As a result of that upbringing, I was bending over backwards to avoid objectifying women long before the term 'objectifying' came into currency. From adolescence through my late forties, I wouldn't even compliment a woman on her clothing, because that would mean having some inappropriate awareness of her gender, appearance and, perhaps, her sexuality.

Even so, I seem to be objectifying women by simply taking note that they're ambulatory. So, once again, fuck it — I'm done. It's all tits and ass from here on out, folks.

Done With It

I am a heterosexual male. I am attracted to women. I may not trust women, but I am attracted to women. More specifically, I am attracted to certain kinds of women, and they are mostly of the willowy, ethereal, Stevie Nicks archetype I have posted about so many times before.

That may be shallow and superficial, but it's the way it goes with me.

I was discussing this with a female friend a few days ago, and for the first time in the years I have known her, she cut me off and said the topic wasn't open for discussion. She was upset, I think, because she believes, as many of my female friends do, that I am 'supposed' to be attracted to sturdy, sensible, scowling women who will straighten me out and make me be disciplined and productive. Or, alternately, that I should be that completely asexual 'bean bag chair' on which they flop down for a good cry when their boyfriends have shit on them.

The first paragraph of this post strikes me as being fairly tepid and noncontroversial. Yet I posted it with some trepidation, because I know if I had said something like that in front of my parents, my father would have squirmed nervously and my mother would have come completely unglued.

"You're not going to be like your father!" she would have scolded. "You're going to learn how to do laundry, and wash dishes, so that if you ever get married, you'll know how to be a dutiful husband and supportive of your wife!" My mother thought I should aspire to be a maid or housekeeper, largely so I could take care of our home while she was out getting hammered. I think she figured I would never marry; in fact, she once suggested to me that I was gay.

The housekeeping training didn't stick, as anyone who has been in my home knows. But I think what did stick was this notion that I was supposed to be some sort of groveling servant who existed only to try to please women by being the always-patient listener, always available to do favors, always willing to put her needs and interests before my own. The eternal rescuer, in other words.

Well, I am 58 years old now, and fuck that. I am done with it. And I am done with apologizing or feeling guilty because I like feminine women. If that's not 'nice' of me, too fucking bad. I am old and frumpy now, and not capable of playing Jake Danger for anyone, but someone else is going to have to be Big Brother/Daddy.

I Almost Forgot!

A few weeks ago, I found the 'eat shit' woman on Facebook. Hadn't talked to her since 1982 or thereabouts. Sent her a friend request. She never answered, but she imediately upped all her Facebook security settings to Threat Level Red.

I guess that's the way we say 'eat shit' in 2011.

More On Depression

From the New York Times blogs – Dick Cavett on depression:

...when you’re downed by this affliction, if there were a curative magic wand on the table eight feet away, it would be too much trouble to go over and pick it up.

More here.

More on Introversion

From The Atlantic, 2003

Caring For Your Introvert

Follow this link to a 2006 interview with article's author, Jonathan Rauch.

And another Jonathan Rauch story on introverts and romance.

I'm Tired of Being the Bean Bag

Sometimes I write things here that later resonate with me almost as if they had been written by another's hand. So it is with the 'punching bag' reference of a couple days back. As soon as I saw it in writing, I realized that I was bugged by it more than I had been previously willing to admit.

Actually, though, 'punching bag' is probably the wrong term. It's more like I'm a big, comfy bean bag that women like to plop down on while they're waiting for their boyfriend, Jake Danger, to get out of jail. Or maybe things didn't work out with that tweaker they took home after finding him sprawled out in an alley behind the Paseo, so they come hang around me while they're waiting for a suitably scabrous crackhead to sweep them off their feet.

Anyway, I'm noticing that I'm not as tolerant about playing 'Uncle Mikey' to them as I used to be.

A Very Strange Man

I remember one time Ms. HRP and I were going somewhere. We had chatted a bit in the car, then ran out of things to talk about, and were sitting in silence as I drove. Suddenly, she turned to me and said, "You know, you're a very strange man."

I took that as a compliment. But it's another of those 'eat shit' kinds of things. No hidden meanings. She just meant what she said.

In fact, the 'eat shit' woman once told me I was 'moody, temperamental and weird.' I didn't think I was temperamental, but I took the rest of it positively.

A Brief Note

I am so sick of these tea party fuckers.

Then Again...

Here again is the guy who's not giving up his identity or soul for romance. So, I'm frankly being a little ridiculous.

Revisiting Mind Over Mary

I wrote something the other day about Mind Over Mary's comment on my first 'eat shit' post.

There was another line in her post that I wanted to explore:

I am not in a relationship because I feel like I have to give up my identity and my soul to be in one. It's all about me. I know that no man is going to give me what I want until I'm ready to take it, and that may be never.

I have written about this before, I think. I've dated women who loved me and had a wonderful plan for my life. But it wasn't my plan. One wanted to turn me into a ballroom dancer. She has since taken up residence in Glennbeckistan, and I guess I would have been pulled along for that trip, as well. Another, who talked about Martha Stewart in a manner normally used to describe the Dalai Lama, wanted to turn me into a suburban Republican. I was not ready to do either of those things, and as I told one of them, if you want a guy like that, go find a guy like that – don't try to remodel me into that person.

I read a web post somewhere the other day about how to impress women in bars. I personally think if you're trying to impress women in bars, you've already lost the battle. But the article had advice like, 'Be the first to sit down. This demonstrates your dominance over the other males in the group.' It also recommended, 'When you sit down, spread out. Claim as much space as you can. This also establishes your dominance, plus it forces other males to remain standing, making them appear weaker than you.'

I can imagine some half-wasted bimbo in red suede cowboy boots seeing me sprawled out on a chair or sofa in a bar and thinking, 'Mmmmm – look how much space he takes up! I want to carry his seed in my body and give birth to his offspring, that our tribe may grow strong and kill many mastodon.'

The fundamental problem with almost all this 'how to pick up girls' advice is that it encourages men to adopt contrived, inauthentic personalities – to be plastic actors on a stage with other plastic actors. This is what I did in TV for many years, although for different reasons, and I can tell you from that experience that a] it's exhausting and b] you can't keep it up 24/7 forever.

In fact, if you're like me, your whole personality runs so counter to creating drama and immersing in constant stimuli and distraction that you've all but disqualified yourself from any sort of romantic opportunity.

So, like Mind Over Mary, I'm not giving up my identity or my soul to be in a relationship.

But It Made Me Feel Alive!!!

'Tis Better To Have Loved And Lost... Not Really.

So says psychology professor John Buri, Ph.D. in this article from Psychology Today.

That's like buying a car, only to discover that it is a piece of crap, and announcing --- "At least I was able to enjoy driving it for a month and a half before it broke down."

It's Okay To Be An Introvert – Sort Of

Here's another of those articles about introverts, published recently in Psychology Today:

There's More To Introversion Than You Might Think

Many people, including introverts, believe that introversion is a personality trait that curses you for your entire life. However, introversion is not a unitary quality; its six facets moderate over time and can show significant changes throughout life.

That's good news. There's hope for us. We may be able to change. Even though as a group, we produce most of the world's art, letters, music, scientific discoveries and technological advances, there's still a chance we can break through our limitations and become car salesmen, televangelists, politicians or multilevel marketing coordinators.

And here's one segment of the article that caught my attention:

Excitement Seeking Facet: Psychologists have long known that people vary in the need to be stimulated as well as the desire to take risks. If you're low on the excitement seeking facet, you'll probably never go bungee jumping or become a race car driver.  You seek peace and quiet and are perfectly happy with keeping to your daily routines.

What are introversion's benefits?  Being low in excitement seeking doesn't mean that you are not willing to change or experiment. People low in excitement seeking just don't need to be stimulated by lots of noise and action.  They certainly make better roommates or neighbors because they prefer a steady, quiet, lifestyle.

Unless you crave a neighbor who makes you feel alive.

All right. I'm through ranting for awhile.

But, as Linus Van Pelt famously said in Peanuts, "I love humanity. It's people I can't stand."

Still not feeling very Buddha-y.

What I'm Talking About Is Being Used

From Mind Over Mary:

MCARP doesn't trust women. He thinks he wants a Stevie Nicks type girl who is into mystical, spiritual stuff and who will be completely honest with him. My girls want men who are like the guys in romance novels and will be completely honest with them.

How many times do I have to say it? NO ONE wants complete honesty. We all want to be lied to and we all want the guy or girl who is lying to be good enough at it not to get caught.

There are no perfect men or women, but there are specific types of people each individual is attracted to. I get that. I also get that the one person who decides whether they will be in a happy relationship is the person looking at you in the mirror.

If you're trying to figure out why you can't find the perfect guy or girl, take a good look at you. Blaming the entire population of guys or girls for not being able to find someone is silly. It's all about you.

I'm not sure what to say about this. I have never thought much about the 'complete honesty' thing. All I was saying in my previous posts was that I was annoyed by women who approached me, initiated the contact, told me they were interested, only to reveal – usually in a matter of a couple of days – that they weren't interested at all, and that sometimes they actually mildly disliked me. I can't come up with any rational reason why that would happen.

Let me recall another example. A few years ago, I was sitting on the patio of a local restaurant. There was a woman sitting at a nearby table with whom I was passing acquainted. While she was sitting there, a fairly good-looking guy in motorcycle leathers was aggressively flirting with her, and she was mostly ignoring him.

Another woman, much younger than any of us – a teenager, in fact – walked by and struck up a conversation with the motorcyclist. This conversation culminated in him loading her on the back of his motorcycle and taking her for a ride around the neighborhood.

The other woman, who to this point had been all but ignoring him, became suddenly incensed that he had ridden off with a much younger woman in tow. She came over and sat down beside me. She was obviously drunk. "You know," she slurred, "I happen to think you're a very handsome man."

Well, that was an interesting turn of events. Because in the weeks and months preceding this conversation, I had appeared to be a very invisible man, at least to her. That wasn't something I had worried myself over – I'm a pretty average-looking guy, and women look right through me all the time. But now, here she was, almost a stranger, practically sitting in my lap and telling me how hot I was – because some other guy she actually didn't give a damn about had 'snubbed' her, in her mind, for someone younger.

Obviously she didn't give a shit about me, either. I just happened to be the closest guy at the moment, and I guess she thought the motorcyclist would be in a jealous rage when he came back and saw her sitting with me.

This is not
me, dammit.

She was yanking both our chains at once in some bizarre effort to bolster her own ego.

So, no, I don't trust women, at least not in matters like this. I have the Everlast logo on my forehead that says I'm just a chunky, good-natured punching bag for all kinds of female issues, and I don't know how to turn that sign off. Every time I try, everyone whines I'm being 'mean'.

Mind Over Mary says if you can't find romance, you should look at yourself. I agree. I don't blame other people for that, and I don't blame myself. It's just how things are.

But what I'm talking about right now isn't finding or not finding romance. What I'm talking about is being used. I don't like it, and I don't feel like I have some moral obligation to endure it.

Don't Waste Your Time (Or Mine)

"People who love in the expectation of being loved in return are wasting their time." — Paulo Coelho

Sincerity costs more.

So, blogblah! tipped a waitress two bucks Friday night to tell me to eat shit.

But she didn't sound like she meant it. I guess sincerity costs more.

Eat Shit Addendum

I don't know what set me off on this. This stuff has been on my mind intermittently for years, and occasionally I just pop a gasket about it.

I am OK with the idea that most women I meet are not going to find me attractive. I think that's true for every man – even Frank Sinatra said he struck out a lot more often than he scored. And the flip side of that coin is that I don't find many women I meet attractive. Not many at all, frankly. I meet someone I find really interesting about once every two to three years.

I am also OK with the woman who tells me to 'eat shit'. In fact, I find it, in certain circumstances, rather adorable. It's the 'you're cute when you're angry' thing.

What I am not OK with is the woman who is thinking 'eat shit', but is saying just the opposite, for god knows what reason. Just something to do while 'Jersey Shore' is in reruns, I guess.

I don't like being emotionally ragdolled by someone who's just looking for some passing amusement.

Of course, this would probably carry more weight coming from someone who had not ended a relationship by climbing out a woman's bedroom window while she was in the kitchen talking on the phone.

Oh, update: what set me off on this was that woman in the coffee shop complaining that men 'got lazy' and didn't do enough to make her 'feel alive.'

A little wrapped up in my own drama

...as I am prone to be from time to time. I'll be back when I have something less baggage-intensive to write about.

More on 'eat shit'

I was telling a friend about the various things I have learned mean 'eat shit'. She said she thought I was cynical.

But that doesn't make me wrong.

A sigh is just a sigh, 'eat shit' is just 'eat shit'

Here's another story some of you have heard before.

Many years ago I worked at a TV station in another city. There was a woman there to whom I was rather attracted, but she was in a relationship, and I got no sense at all that she had any interest in me.

One day she was complaining about something that had happened to her during the day, and I made some smartass remark about it. She looked at me with narrowed eyes and said, "Eat shit, mcarp."

I naturally assumed that meant something along the lines of 'I actually have the serious hots for you, and now I'm overcompensating because I don't want to admit it to you, or even to myself.'

As it turned out, that's not what she meant at all. What she meant was, 'eat shit.'

You must remember this,
A sigh is just a sigh,
'Eat shit' is just 'eat shit.'

That was an important lesson for me, though, in understanding the difference between reality and my own wishful thinking, which, when it came to romance, often got the better of my common sense.

Later, I learned there are some other things women say that also mean "eat shit."

When a woman says, for example, "I've been trying for two years to get you to notice me," that means "eat shit."

If she says, "Here's my phone number – call me," it means, "eat shit."

If she says, "I'd like that. Let me arrange for a babysitter," that means, "eat shit."

If you kiss a woman, and she says, "That's what I've been waiting for," it means, "eat shit."

If she says, "You're everything I look for in a man," it means, "eat shit."

So now I pretty much assume any flattering thing a woman says to me is actually her saying, "Eat shit. You're such a clueless fuck, you don't even realize I'm actually making fun of you."

Yes, I realize it. I just don't know any graceful way of responding to it.

At least that woman who told me to 'eat shit' actually expressed her true feelings, instead of yanking me around for weeks or months.

Rant Redux

I listened to a woman at the coffee shop complain this morning about how men 'of a certain age' get lazy. We don't go to the gym anymore, nor do we create passion and excitement. In other words, we don't do enough to entertain her. We're not giving her enough gasping, eye-rolling tales of intrigue, danger, heartbreak, snort, snarf, blort, argle bargle to engage her and her friends at girls' day out.

I told her some of us outgrow our need for constant drama. "Oh, it's not drama," she replied. "It's passion."

"Oh, I know," I said. "It makes you feel alive."

"Well, yes," she said. "I want to feel alive."

"I'm alive right now," I replied. "Therefore, I feel alive. This is what being alive feels like."

"But I want to feel more alive!"

How the hell do you feel 'more' alive?

Sometimes it sucks being alone. But good lord, what's the alternative?

Sometimes It Sucks Being Alone

Sometimes it sucks being alone. Not all the time, or even most of the time, but sometimes. And lately – like the last four weeks or so – it seems a little suckier than usual.

I can't tell you how many hours I have devoted to pondering how I ended up pretty much romance-proof. I can guarantee it's been thousands, over the years. Eventually, I got tired of having the same conversation with myself over and over, and I mostly put it aside.

The zen thing to do with this right now is to note it – 'hmm, I seem to be noticing and feeling loneliness (and/or horniness) a little more than usual' – and then let it go. That's what I'm trying to do.

It just now occurred to me that this seemed to coincide with the shutting off of the perpetual background music. I didn't turn it off on purpose; the computer stopped playing because of a software update notification or something similar, and I never bothered to turn it on again.

Changes/progression

Sometimes I feel like a Time Lord who regenerates every so often.

If you look at my music list in the right column, you'll see that I haven't had any music going in the house for, as I write this, 23 days. This after literally years of non-stop 24/7 chants, Tibetan bowls, shakuhachi songs and Indian sitar music. It's been nothing but silence here for more than three weeks.

I haven't had a haircut since October. For eight years, I wore it almost exactly 3/32 of an inch long, and cut it myself with electric clippers. Now, it's almost long enough to put in a ponytail, which is how I wore it back around Y2K.

Meditation practice is gone. Fuck it. I still consider myself nominally a Zen Buddhist/Taoist, but I'm doing without all the Tricycle/Shambhala Sun/Buddhadharma stuff.

If you look at it, you'll see it; if you look for it, you won't. That's what I've got, and it's all I need.

As you may have read, we had the hottest July on record this year. Not just the hottest July for this state, but the hottest July for any state, ever. Now, as I write this in the second week of August, it's cloudy and 68° outside, and I am lovin' it. My usual summer depression has lifted, at least for today.

There have been some other changes in my general outlook/demeanor/thought process lately, but they're not the kind of things I want to post on the Internet so anyone and everyone can read them. I worry that I've given up too much privacy already. Suffice it to say that the changes are fairly profound – profound enough that I actually wonder if, given my long history of hypertension, I've suffered some sort of micro-mini-stroke that has affected my personality. The changes surprise me – pleasantly, I guess.