It's weird to me how my dreams of tranquility surround quietly enjoying the hills of Gas Works Park.

Clearly a trip is in order.

I accidentally backed onto a fairly interesting and apparently evident conclusion:
I tend to be afraid of dating people I have high chemistry with.
Going as far back as my first girlfriend, it even makes sense back then. As much as I think highly of our chemistry ... I was extremely in control in the relationship, and never really let her take the reins, so to speak. It's far easier for me to try to give and please than to be pleased, I think. I noticed this even with regards to light bondage/domination: I feel a need to be actively pleasing my partner, and tend to feel disconnected if I'm not getting that response.

It's true that I might actively (really actively) enjoy the aggressive woman, but initially at least I find myself a little more emotionally resistant. That of course turns out to be highly problematic because I for one have a high(?) libido. Or perhaps just guy-normal. Generally I've been lucky to be with girls who also have a high libido: people who think that not being intimate at least twice a week means that the relationship is starting to show serious cracks. But because I'm dumb enough to be a little less available to the aggressive woman, I've been less likely to be with someone who's ... as avidly interested in affection, appreciation, and making out.

We're all going to die soon. It's terrible. So when I'm with a beautiful intelligent funny woman and the world is full of joy --- I want to find a wall to stand against and work on some yoga poses.

I really thought that at some point that my personality would get a little less semi-hyperactive / enthused with life and that I would be a Normal Guy. I envy those guys that are truly mellow, but it hasn't been in me to be that guy.
It kind of makes sense that if I'm not that mellow normal guy by now, I shouldn't expect that I'm going to be that guy. And maybe I shouldn't set myself to need to grow into that kind of normal guy.

Is the money you're getting paid to destroy your life really worth it? Wouldn't you be better suited being paid crap and following some dreams?

Working on stuff that you have passion can be worth it. Working harder on stuff you have little passion for ... it's disheartening. A large part of me wonders about the Bay and/or Boston at this point. It'll be nice to have something to show my mom versus the usual internals work I do, but ........ I know quite well that at this point I'd happily take a nice salary cut and be allowed to go work on stuff I have passion about. I don't feel that that opportunity is around here right now, though, and that sucks.

Then again, there's the realistic possibility that I'm just currently frustrated by working too hard. I get to head to Santa Monica for a little romantic getaway next next weekend: that should very much take the edge off. We'll see where I am at that point.

The world is full of small fleeting moments of amazing beauty. As much as I wish I would have held more of them closer to myself or embraced them more fully, sometimes letting them wander off on their own is the only real choice.

I was filling out some restaurant reviews at UrbanSpoon.com in response to some excellent service, and I realized that I can't think of any restaurants that I have not enjoyed. Not just "not enjoyed recently", but "not enjoyed". I've been hearing lately from friends that they enjoy my positive world-view, but it's interesting to note that, if I have such, it may be rather automatic and involuntary on my part. I could probably delve around and figure out what waiter I hated or what food was served poorly, but -- my mind seems to flush out the bad and concentrate upon the good. I wonder if I should be less Pollyanna-ish, but I have no idea how one even goes about being that. My own mistakes I could tell you a lot about, but the mistakes of others I tend to dismiss and forget readily.

The four zoos in the United States with wombats are Brookfield Zoo (Chicago), San Diego Zoo, Memphis Zoo, and the Birmingham Zoo in Alabama.

I'm easily impressionable. Ten years ago or so, I met my friend's roommate. She was cute, brilliant, funny, and focused. Rebecca finagled it so that I was able to take her to the opera, which seemed like a nice night. I felt relatively good about the night... and then my car broke down one block from her place while I was dropping her off. I'm pretty hypersensitive about my actual limitations and failures, so felt like crap. We had a couple ... do's after that, but I don't think she was feeling it and I'm certainly not the type to press things. The conversations we had, though, were great and interesting to me. Dumb stuff like the practical effects of giving cash to homeless people on the streets... I remain interested in her opinion and insight. And yes, I've had a crush on her since then, with the realization that things were never going to connect between us. Then she moved away and I hadn't heard of her for a while. I kept her in the back of my mind as the Beatrice to my Dante. She was the kind of woman who made me want to be a better person.

... and then I found out that she was having a baby. That she'd temporarily given up on finding a husband and instead arranged to share a child with a gay friend. That tends to blend in with the 'driven' picture I have of her, but it's still startling. How could someone so excellent be unable to find the right partner?

I'd been painting onesies for friends, so when I went down to California this past weekend I ... almost magically got to have lunch with her and present her with some I'd made for her. I'm still lightly shocked that she said yes to lunch, but I was tickled pink. I sat there across from her and there was almost too much to catch up on, so it stayed a shallow-ish conversation - but she's still close to intimidating. And I still felt that hanging around with people like her would be a good life plan.

I can show you a nice roadmap of why I'm still Single, but her? I'm baffled.

There's a Stanky Legg dance competition as part of the Storm games. At the previous game, a guy pointed me out to his girlfriend and said "you've got to check out this guy's moves". At last night's game, the women told I should move to the aisle where I'd "win for sure".

I was pretty chuffed. I've always felt like a mediocre dancer, so it's highly pleasing to get complimented. Even if the dance is about as simple as the Salmon Dance, it's still fun.

I feel deeply and truly uncool. Sitting at dinner with my parents and my girlfriend, I watched the conversation swirl around me. Already distracted by excruciating back pain, I kind of waited to be able to stumble into the conversation. When I did manage to do my gentle intrusion into it after being silent for five to ten minutes, I was interrupted midway through my second sentence. I gathered up my cojones after a little bit and reinterrupted right back, under the theory that I might matter and that my contributions might be valuable in some way.

I'm too deferential and reserved to take forefront in many conversations. I get out of the habit of talking and so when I do talk, it's too quick and too quiet, making my contributions that much less valuable.

I guess that helps build a reputation as a semidecent listener. It's what I'm used to. But it also means that I'm lame at one of the fundamental aspects of self-expression. I let myself get rolled over, buffaloed by others, and find myeslf caught within the contrails of others.

What do I want? How do I want to drive my own life - and my own conversations?

Sometimes I go whole days listening, bored, half sleep
I won't say anything that's worth a thing to me
One day, suddenly, time took a turn that once felt so brief
I blinked to see polite ghosts fading quickly
-School of Seven Bells, Half Asleep

The great thing about noticing that you're fucking up is that you're still alive and still have time to work on it.