Actively Forget

(this is an old one, written in the fall of 2011)

Yes.
Specifically to actively forget, to move on, to keep going, just like I said I was. I never stopped.
Don't do it, friends said. You'll get attached.
Of course I'll get attached. I loves me some attachment, I do.
Metered, please. Controlled, but oh! Not that much.

Shopping for soulmates never works. I would that I could be silent with someone. It occurs to be this should be a prerequisite and perhaps an addition to my various online dating profiles. "Must be able to be still and watch." That's not it, either.

The stop-start of conversation is different with different people. And indeed different at different times. So sweet when it seems to flow naturally, mutually.

Ah mutuality! Where have you been? Why do you live so far away?

No, nothing is perfect. Cracks and fissures emerge no matter how solid. I believe that. Which is why I relish in being able to watch myself, alone.

I try to find LONG stretches of time.
Hang on long moments.
Always alone.

There's something to that. This thing.
Alone.

But then there's this compelling thing about some people. What is that? What is that bell that gets rung in my head. It happens immediately, for the most part. Seriously. I know in five minutes if I'm going to fall for this one. Less. Two.

What is that?

Programming, let's say. And that's true for sure. Trying to resolve a relationship of the past. Trying to work past the point where we wondered "why can't I make this work?" And I wonder why. And how I can know so quickly. But I do, of this I am sure.

Oh that bell, that sweet sweet bell. I don't hear it but I feel the vibration go all through my body. And then I can't help but stare. Talk. Open up. There you go. Were you looking for my heart? Right here, hon.

Yeah, I know. Trying to win the attention of someone, that's my Achilles heel. I am relentlessly the six year old, doing a cannonball into the pool, picking out a tune on the piano, singing a Helen Reddy song by the slide tucked into the wading pool. It's good, I promise, and I mean earnestly. It's the best I've got and all I have and it's for you.

(brakes screech)

Right well, it used to go that far. Now I am relentlessly paranoid and guarded. Except for those internal gong moments, and then all bets are off. Pavlov's motherfucking bell, man.

Somehow I know that the initial attention is temporary, and I decide somewhere that I will prove myself, once and for all.

Yup.

Secret unlocked. Sim sala bim!

Now, out! All the madness and sadness and what the fuck are you CRYING about now? Huh? What you need, sister, is a good dose of Actively Forget. You need to open your eyes and look around. Never mind that Gong Sister you spied tonight. Keep it moving. Yes yesyes.

Come on. To bed. Your ass has to be up in the morning.

Must I Make a New Year's Blog Post? Yes? Fine. Jeez.

All right, I've been thinking about it for a while now and here's what my new year's resolutions are for this year:

-- be me, a little louder: I think it'll be okay. And the stuff that pops outta me is sometimes amazing. It's worth it to get to the good nuggets to deal with the flotsam that will also surely come

-- push the Columbo effect: That is to say, long awkward silences followed by weird questions. This works for me in terms of time needed to think. Might mean blocking out voices until I know what I need to understand, and then probe for more. Also, it's a fine meme for me. Work it.

-- get rumpled raincoat: It doesn't have to start rumpled, it'll get that way eventually naturally (re. the rest of your clothes) Also, get the stuff you need, dude, like socks and underwear. Handkerchiefs. Throw away the shit with holes. You make money: stop buying food and start buying clothes.

-- keep up the fight against fat: A great segue from the last, but true. I will ALWAYS have to be vigilant if I want to be successful with food. I love food. And food loves me. But we need some serious boundaries in our relationship. Love yourself. Love your body. Take good care of yourself, as you would your own child -- Lord knows someone needs to, finally.

Top Ten Times You Said Yes

It promises to a helluva year
And I will do what I can to do those things
That will make me a better man.

I will stop talking about myself in gender-confusing ways
I'll eat only my prescribed 1200 calories a day and
waste away, mind first

I'll speak more and write
Even more than that
We have to keep the ratio right

I'll set aside my need for
snugly love and lean into
leather lashes, properly provided

Pretend harder that I wouldn't be
Equally confused and undecided
Even if I had a picket fence & puppy

I will make more effort to learn
the purpose and power, to yearn
for the rhyme. I'll own it.

I will tear down the paper thin walls
that looked like steel for years

I'll be consistent in my stanza
my phrase
my intent
my love

My love will always be consistent
Consistently there, waiting, wondering
Wandering, hopeless like a child

No.

I'll stand as still as I need to and listen to the rush of wind. I will predict the acorn falling. I'll know what it's all for.

I'll finally get over the failure of my mother, although I'll never forgive her. I'll describe her deeds in detail and publish them all over the cloud.

I'll tell the story
of the mountain of me
and how I got to be
so
tall

I'll own it
because I'm that strong.
I'll stand still
and let the children climb over me.

I will laugh
my signature hearty chuckle
and it will shake the trees
And I'll say, "I called that one."

And it won't matter at all.
And we'll smile all the same.

The pain is part of it. This we know.
But look! Look.
There it is.
Found it.

Doctors

Okay, I admit it, it's true: I have a new found *thing* for doctors.  Or maybe I'm simply just now identifying my predilection for the highly educated, highly motivated young woman doctor. They're so freaking cute!

The ER doc defintely started this trend, though I've always had a crush on my GP. You could've knocked me over with a feather when I saw the vet this morning. Of course her giant wedding ring was a (fairly) clear indicator that I should just stand down, but I was already agog.

I'm fairly certain that even the most socially inept individual can read my face. I am only mysterious at an Aspberger conference. So I'm certain the animal doc read me right away, leading to our mutual stammering-stuttering-blushing-fest as we talked fungus and ringworm and fleas.

I try not to look like an idiot. It doesn't always work.

The Thing About The Blogging

I know, I know. I should be writing. Snippy snazzy bits of sentences and half-baked ideas go flying through my head all the time. Usually when I'm driving.

For weeks I've been promisng myself to reconnect to Blogger via email so I could just whip out my smart phone and be pithy on the spot. Or, you know, pull over.

Some of my favorite bloggers have been really quiet for too long, also. And I'd like to harass them about writing more, but really couldn't with my own poor showing.

So let's get back to it, shall we? The world needs our snark and sarcasm. It's a dimmer place without excessive alliteration and our unique perspective. Not everybody can live upside-down, or inside-out, or... whatever the hell I'm doing.

Oo-rah!

Standing Silent, Even While It Stings

I recognize the need to keep a stiff upper lip. It's part play-acting, for others' sake and for your own. If you say it enough times, you believe it. "I'm fine. No worries." I am not so big on play-acting, though it has its place. Generally though I'm more of an emotional billboard, announcing broadly exactly what I feel.

Not sure which way to go right now.

I'll tell you honestly that I feel a strange kind of sad. It's strange because there's a stiff-upper-lip built into it, and I don't know why.

Maybe the crash started when I was coming down off the multi-day high of sexual tension building over e-media: photos and words exchanged, the former stolen and reblogged, the latter crafted by me. If crescendo doesn't mean crashing, it should.

This Saturday was full of wicked news: The untimely death of Amy Winehouse, crooner extraordinaire and a real hot mess. The massacre in Norway, by a man claiming to be a Christian, fighting for Israel. And the unrelenting heat wave, which wasn't really news, but continued to punish us across the country.

I feel guilt about Amy Winehouse -- probably not entirely because I feel that I should've done something more -- but more because her death is an echo of a work friend who died late last fall, also found dead in her bed, also who struggled with alcohol and a hard, complicated life. I didn't help her either, but rather kept her an arm's length away, not wanting the dark cloud of her defeating life to touch mine. I feel guilt about that, guilt that I didn't reach out, care more, fix more.

I am bitter about my inner desire to fix and heal. I see it as an illness that looks like graciousness but is probably rooted in something deeper, sicker, and certainly less desirable. I have already promised myself and announced that I am not going to be anybody's white knight anymore. Any potential partner will come with the ability to solve her own shit, and a job of her own.

I'm distressed about the Norway shooter, who claims to have done his destruction because he wants to support Israel. Whack-job militaristic nut bags defending Israel was NOT in my wishlist for peace in the Middle East. I'm left to wonder when the cycle of attack/defend from the other children of Abraham will simmer down enough to have a family reunion. Must we lump all Christians together? Must we lump all Muslims together? God knows the Jews themselves don't want to be indistinguishable from each other, even while we grudgingly defend our own whack-job counterparts' right to exist. Exist yes, legislate no. I fear the total demise of pluralistic religion in Israel, as the "right way" to be Jewish narrows.

My friends are largely saner than I. They explain to me the realistic expectations that I should have: I can't have done a thing for Amy Winehouse. There will probably never be peace in the Middle East. My friends think it's sweet that I want to save the world, but they're a fairly logical bunch, geeks and scientists and such. I would rather live near them, though, to counterbalance my own lofty dreams and excessive emotion. Someone needs to give me the high water mark, so I know when I'm flying and need to come down.

So. I saw the flag. The those-are-your-emotions flag and the data that accompanies it. I suppose that's where I know I need to buck it up, and keep going. Me and my long face did laundry and cleared off the mountain of crap on my coffee table. I did not cry, as I often do when I am overwhelmed with the sad emotion of the composite of humanity. It is not a happy story, even when you sample the greatness of some, the compassion of many. No. Overwhelmingly it is a story that makes you shout "not fair!" and occasionally "why me?" out loud. I feel the lows, and I am sometimes unwilling if not unable to drag myself out of bed and to work. I don't take a pill for it... yet. I am mostly healthy, even though my knees scream at me during and after a workout. According to doctors I am slowly dying from fatness. Even still I struggle with not consuming my grief through calories. I seek other solutions, other ways to relieve my soul. I workout like a maniac, every day I can, turning myself into an addict for adrenaline & pushing myself beyond my comfort zone.

Who am I to want to mend souls, with my own a patchwork in tatters? I don't know. But I know when others hurt, I hurt. Empathy is hardly a strength, when it buckles my own knees. My brain searches for a solution. It is an equation, after all. There must be a way to solve it. And then I think: there is a way, through loss, through pain and tragedy. I know, I sound melodramatic. But the point is: that *has* to be there. Has to be. Not just because we need an opposite for happiness and triumph. The negative is the chisel to the positive marble, cutting away the excess, showing us the form inside the block. It belongs. It is part of the process.

So. No crying, unless it's one of those stoic single tears tracing the curve of my cheek. Chin up, and stand tall. No one is going to save you but you. No one can do what you want, but you. Dust off your boots and tighten the tourniquet. Keep walking, cowboy.

Smells

I can still smell her on me. We hugged, three times. Once in greeting, twice in departing. My wife, whom I haven't lived with since 2006. 2001 - 2006. We married in 2003 in Canada, Niagara-on-the-Lake, just weeks after Ontario passed a law making it possible for us to legally marry.

Her perfume is familiar, although I couldn't tell you the name of it. It goes nicely with my Old Spice. I would have you believe that she knows that.

We share a lot of common desires: good food, silverware that is both elegant and heavy in your hand, expensive glasses frames (although she got laser surgery), good food. She wanted to take me to dinner for my birthday, which was Monday. We went to a Japanese restaurant well known for their skewers. Their sushi was exquisite. I knew it would be. My wife don't play. Not when it comes to food.

With her I learned to appreciate fine things. I learned about blending two tastes together, two scents together, to make something completely amazing. With her I learned how to be quick and nimble, not physically, but financially and socially. I called her Rocketgirl. She was a true lion, a Leo all the way. I fancied myself a lion tamer, specially qualified to understand, moderate, and love.

I do still love. The rest, I know is folly. I love because... because I do. She has an apartment in my heart, next to some other important suites and residences.

Still, I worry, am wary. For all the fabulousness there were pitfalls, things I wouldn't describe in detail here. Enough, I would say, to give reason to the split. Faults were many, on both sides. I know so much more now. Who can say what could've happened otherwise.

So I sipped sake and listened, interjected occassionally a story, or simply exclaimed about the food. It is really good. We let the chef feed us whatever. I opted to set aside my half-assed kosher following and eat the funky fish and shellfish. I tasted the porkbelly, the first ever in my life. It was divine. The sake she ordered was light and bubbly and cold. I started the evening with chilled vodka straight up, so I was good and ready for this very drinkable sake.

She gave me a gift: a soft leather bound journal with unlined pages. And a card that said, mostly, "sorry."

So close. So soft. Known, with memories sown into the corners. Smells so good. But I don't lean in. I don't. I don't flirt, but I am looking, watching her eyes. Remembering. And then thinking about what is real, now. Words are one thing. Action something else. Will I even give enough room to move? I am fixed, for now. Time, says the 42-year-old part of my brain, is the key. That gives a pattern to movement, movement to intentions.

No. Part of me will still get lost. Gets lost between vodka and black sesame ice cream. That is enough for now. Back to me.

I hailed her a cab.