Things I should remember

What it sounds like when I sleep, or try to sleep.

Why I do what I do.

I want to tell her I love her.

I'm distant, I observe. But it doesn't mean I don't feel. How did it turn into a defense mechanism. Sometimes I observe things too closely and it hurts a true exchange. Even when I'm listening to the other person, it's like there's a voice repeating the words back to me.

I always work on owning my reactions now. I think I could write a book about that.

I am so much happier being Rachel's friend now, but I still want more, at least to experiment with.

What are my normal moods?

Why can I just say things? Some people can talk without an editor between brain and mouth. I'm all editor between brain and mouth.

I want to express to her things other than being lonely, that there are thing in my life I need help about even if I wasn't lonely.

I wish I'd asked for help. I couldn't figure out who wasn't part of the problem (everyone but me, of course) so I couldn't have asked for help, even if I'd known what for or who to ask.

I'm naturally observant and analytical, but that shouldn't get in the way of me opening up to people.

I edit things down so people don't think I'm stalking them.

What is it like in my brain? What do I see and hear in there?

6:30 am

I woke up, bed was totally messed up, which never happens; I'm a neat sleeper, or at least a fairly contained one.

I dreamed on and off about my (ex)wife all night. Mostly dreams of familiarity, dreams of what we were supposed to be, or dreams that seemed to recognize our loss. And to make it all cheesy enough, I have "Take your breath away" by Sarah Maclachlan going through my head, like a soundtrack to my apparently depressing life. Yeah, I know it's about stalkers, but it's also about..."And after I/dry away your tears/I'll take your breath away..."

I give her my help and support freely. I still take care of her. I feel better when I do. But I don't get the help I want from her. I feel close to panic attacks, I get overwhelming sadness and I just want a hug, some contact, and I can't get it. I feel like she loves me, but doesn't want to love me. I want to tell her her sadness is because she knows it. She needs a best friend. I feel like I give that to her. But I don't get my best friend.

Who's coming?

So, yeah, that Sports Night episode really stuck with me. I get that feeling sometimes--that there's a darkness just out of touch, nibbling away at things, that feeling if you're going to have any luck, it's going to be bad.

It's that feeling you get when you watch a play in sports and just know your team is done. When you know the other shoe is going to drop. That an existential storm is coming.

That's Eli.

Halberstam

This blows:
Journalist David Halberstam killed in car crash

"The Best and the Brightest" is one of my all-time favorites. It was one of the two main inspirations for my senior thesis and taught me a great deal about organizational behavior.

Cake/Pizza

From the same episode:

Casey: I'm particular about cake. And I have to say, it's been my experience that men buy better cake than women. I'vefound that women tend to get these yogurt-frosted low-cal things laced with a rum and fruit concoction that make eating cake into something you do to be polite. So that's why I was asking what kind of cake you were planning on getting.

Although I always had the same theory about pizza: Everyone says they'll eat the veggie pizza, but everyone actually eats the pepperoni. So always get more of that and less veggie.

OK, I liked I am to misbehave

And I'll probably like it again... next time I see Firefly or Serenity. But Eli's Coming has been with me for a long time.

Dan Rydell: Eli's Coming.

Casey McCall: Eli?

Dan Rydell: From the Three Dog Night song.

Casey McCall: Yes?

Dan Rydell: Eli is something bad, a darkness.

Casey McCall: "Eli's coming. Hide your heart, girl." Eli is a inveterate womanizer. I think you're getting the song wrong.

Dan Rydell: I know I'm getting the song wrong. But, when I first heard it, that's what I thought it meant. Things stick with you that way.

Yes, they do stick with you that way.

I might fall asleep typing this

I learned not to write while I'm on Ambien, but I took it already...

So I went to the local Apple store and checked out Mac Notebooks. Not sure if their various weaknesses make up for the extra cost, and for the strgentgh of the platform. The screens are kind of small.

THen had dinner with R. I don't know what I 'm doing. She wants to hang with me, I want to hang with her. It's just that she knows I have some kind of feelings left... and I guess she seems happy to just leave it be, as long as I'm nice to her. and don;t act too maudlin around her. I don't have an agenda. I don't have some kind of sense that I know we're destined to be together... Frankly, I wonder why we don't just date until I leave... gives us a break, we can se where we are and until then, help each other out, solves our dating problem(s)

I also drank two glasses of wine and a bottle of beer. I also did some surfing for some fun tshirts to order, something for my school identity at Lewis & Clark.




I had like 9 or 10 at Fiddler's last night.

And the jazz still sucked.

No news

No real news on the dating front. Had beers with AB last night. She was a wreck! Not my fault, of course... Except the waitress/server/restaurant employee was really cute and I think she thought I was, too. Except that I think that she thought that I was breaking up with AB. I'll have to go back!

Dating in SLC really does suck. We were at Fiddler's last night; not that I was studying the crowd the whole time, but I don't think I saw a single person introduce themselves to another person. By single, of course, I mean not one, not even a married guy hitting on young girls.

Our President is a Drunk

What other conclusion can be reached? He walks like someone who is pretending not to be drunk. He is completely incoherent. "Polls go poof" "There is ample time to debate this war."

He's fucking drunk. He's an idiot. He's a criminal. He has no clue what he's doing, what life is about, anything. He really believes his own shit... thinks that God talks to him. We're so screwed.

His best friend in the world is Gonzo Gonzales. That should be enough said.

The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This is insane.

I am.

I am.

What's with the goddamn weather?

Snow??? This sucks ass.

I just realized

I just realized that MM is HG. So much for smart.

I also just realized that "Wait 'til we get our Hanes on you" is a pun on "wait til we get our hands on you." So much for really smart.

Formerly...

Formerly Trying Hard in SLC... Decided that although dating is part of my life, my venture through divorce, dating, not dating, a little frisbee, moving to Portland, and then going to law school all seemed more worthy than just stories (rapidly disappearing, I might add) about my dating life.

"I search for fine prince"

She's the one!

I the girl without harmful habits. I love dances, it is a little sports, and certainly to prepare. Benevolent, careful, lovely, sympathetic, jealous and quiet. Very much I love children, and in due course I want to have.

How can I resist this one?

KY

Here's a good one

KY woman looking for S...

I know she means Kentucky, but unfortunate nonetheless.

Then there's a Ms. "Gimme a Rimmer":

It Ain't gonna lick itself.
favorite things: cutlery. people who cough up blood. rim jobs. puppies. i
hate cats. hiking. cooking fish. they. road rash. music.

Count me in!

I know, this is kind of shooting ducks in a barrel.

Another winner!

Can't wait to meet her:

Just looking for a man that's not a lying pig. You know who you are. So many promises, so little follow-through. How typical. yeah... so anyway, have a nice life. I'll send back all your shit. The less reminders, the better. Now I see why you never bothered to call or type. Disclaimer: I am an unhappily MARRIED woman, but not really looking for anyone at this time. I've had all the complications I can handle.

dhb4u34f@Match.com has winked at you!

This is a winner...

The headline: I wont you

The rest seems to have been written by the Borat School of Matchmaking:

Intelligent, sensible, responsible, romantic, modern. I want to have children. I would like to be a good wife and excellent mother! I search for second half with which I could create strong, happy family. The person is necessary to me Which would love me and it was possible to rely on him a difficult minute. To me it is necessary hardworking Sincere, and cheerful the man. For me the main thing in men its love. I wish to find the man with Which to me will be well, easy, it is cheerful also our life will be only in understanding and the consent. I shall make all that we with it were happy also our love was eternal.

I'm in love!

This one is just... welll
About my life and what I'm looking for
I know it's clique to say this but I honestly never thought I'd be doing this. It's not that I think people who do are desperate and lonely; they're just more willing to put themselves out there than I am. Even though I would describe myself as very open and outgoing, I admit that I am somewhat guarded when it comes to letting just anyone get to know me. So without saying too much but still giving an overall picture I describe myself as follows: I'm an independent, well-educated, ambitious

Lying, revisited

Well, not really revisited. Just thought I'd talk about it. And spin. And selling yourself online. Selling figuratively, anyway.

The thing with these online systems is that they turn romance, chemistry, and the search for love into a game, and into a selling opportunity. Because you (ok, I mean, I) don't want to "lose," I cast my net wide and try to avoid saying things that might turn someone away from me. Which isn't what I'd want to do "in real life." I have my standards, and I have a personality that doesn't appeal to everyone, and someone who wants someone who does, say, country line dancing is not going to be a good match for me.

Maybe I should re-write my profile in a way that makes me seem more definitive. Rather than trying to not turn off women across the whole spectrum of acceptability, I could try to be bold and find someone who says "Holy Shit! This person is cool!" Screw everyone else, right?

So I'm not really talking about lying I guess. Just the choice of how to sell ourselves. My old rule of don't lie about anything I can verify on your profile or the first date is more important than I realized. It's not just hiding stuff. It's also positively reinforcing what it is that we want. I find myself, for example, pretending not to care how smart my potential dates are. But I do. And yet I find myself interacting with people who don't match that standard because I'm afraid to eliminate them. I would want them to do the same with me... wouldn't I? Unless they want to just hook up. But there's no box to check for that, so I can't ask.... "if you're dumb, it's ok as long as we screw. Otherwise, leave me alone."

The damn fear of rejection thing. Some people have fear of abandonment. I have fear of rejection. It's amazing what I'll go through just to avoid rejection from someone that I would reject if I didn't think they were going to reject me. That makes no sense.

Back to dating...

Weather report: Cold, partly sunny, but warmer than yesterday.
Mood: A little warmer than that, even.

So I told a friend about my theory of meeting people in SLC and she said that in some places, she actually gets approached by men. So maybe I'm just ugly. Or people in SLC are old-fashioned. There's an insight for me.

I had a date with someone the other week who had a rape fantasy. Really. I was hammered but didn't oblige. Not sure how one's supposed to handle that. She also talked dirty and said she hadn't had sex for two years. And she had had a child about 10 years ago with a player on the Jazz. So, overall, kind of a strange night. In hindsight, she also paid for drinks. Kind of a win/win. But not really. She hasn't re-contacted me and I can't say that I'm too heartbroken.

What should I drink tonight? Red? I had a beer last night, MM had to cancel. I bought a bottle of very cheap Zin last week ($3.95) so maybe I should try it. If it's halfway decent, I can buy more. If it sucks, it's not like it was going to get better with age!

Troop Levels

I did a little research and although I am still looking, here's the deal, which won't surprise anyone (except him): There were lots and lots of trained Iraqis. And the definition of "trained" varied a lot. But the level stayed around 100,000 men for a long time. But, somehow, it had always increased to 100,000. Interestingly, the number of "fully trained batallions" went down over the course of a year, but each time was reported as a step forward by the knee-pad wearing press.

By the way, if you Yahoo! "bush liar idiot" the first link is to the White House. Google is somewhat more intuitive, and gives us something about his approval falling to 33%.

Dating in SLC

Yahoo Personals is useless. It's a lower class of people than Match. I can't speak to other services, but there is a clear level of difference between the women on each site. I'd love to hear what folks think about that. Maybe I'll figure out some objective way of measuring it, though it would require some kind of subjective measure (i.e., can I put in some search criteria and see who "pops out"?)

Anyway, I let that service lapse. I will probably let Match lapse, but I'm not 100% yet.

What can I say about dating in Salt Lake?

* It's impossible to meet people
* Half of those you do meet are Mormon (not that there's anything wrong with that.)
* Apparently, almost half of the remainder are crazy, too. (no comment on the relative sanity of Mormons)
* No club/bar/place seems to exist for people over the age of 30 to meet people, or even interact. (Fiddler's Elbow, the Bayou are both great, but no one actually talks to people they don't know, do they?).

Here is what Citysearch lists under "Date" and Salt Lake City:
Zanzibar
The Bayou
Burt's Tiki Lounge
Port O' Call Social Club
Downtown Underground / Safari Club
Club Bambara
The Aerie Lounge (in Snowbird, good for dates, can't meet anyone there)
Circle Lounge
Paper Moon (gay club, probably good for meeting people)
Lumpy's (Reallly???)
Tavernacle Social Club
Area 51
Leprechaun Inn (DIVE)
Tap Room (DIVE 2)
Troll Hallen Lounge (Deer Valley???)

Soni

Oh yeah, Soni. She's nuts. Is everyone f-ing crazy?

One of the two guys she was dating (in addition to me) literally moved his shit over to her house and moved in. And she let him.

Don Imus

I don't know why I'm writing about him/this. Why do we have such a hard time balancing the fact that he's not necessarily racist... just an old-fashioned shit-head? I don't know if he's really a racist, but in this world, there are people who think bad things on a superficial level without thinking evil things. I don't know... I can categorically say that I am not racist, but I've caught myself thinking things I wouldn't want my minority friends to hear... I don't even agree with those things. I mean, I think some jokes are funny, some that are arguably racist or sexist. But I don't agree with them. I think some Jewish jokes are funny.

Someone just said something good on TV. To be a racist you have to hate black people. And he doesn't hate them. So, I don't know. I just don't want him to turn into a martyr or somesuch.

I'm smarter than you

That's right, I said it. I am. I won both my NCAA pools. I haven't lost at trivial pursuit in more than 15 years. I remember minor details about people I know--enough that I've had to learn to not mention them for fear the other person will think I have an unhealthy interest in them.

I can talk at a high level about politics, history, science. I read Wikipedia for fun. I can do the Sunday Times crossword.

So why am I mentioning this? I don't know, ironically. I think it's odd that I self edit and don't mention things that I know, or even pretend I never knew them. A few weeks ago, I was talking to a college friend who mentioned that she'd gone to private high school in Pennsylvania. What I didn't tell her was that I knew that. I knew the name of the school. Oddly, though, I don't know her birthday. Uh, that's not true, either. It's in August. So that's that. Another friend was mentioning to me her college room mate, who I'd met once, 17 years ago. I remembered her name. I don't have photographic memory or anything, things just stick with me.

Of course, I can't concentrate worth a damn and my hands shake and I can't sleep and I'm lonely and all that.

Lying

Lies and the lying liars... I haven't done any research on this, but I have a better memory than most people, and this is what I remember:
In 2004, Presnint Bush told us in several speeches and debates that there were already more than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers trained and ready to go. And when Kerry said otherwise, the Presnint chided him for being anti-American. And then we heard again that there were 100,000. And then again. Why hasn't someone (and maybe that should be me) put this into a timeline, with each time that he said it and effectively contradicted himself. Aren't those lies? Even if it was an error at some point, when he keeps reciting the number, shouldn't he have just enough brain cells to remember that he just told us the same thing and therefore it wasn't right the first time?

Just asking.

OK, Now what?

Now what do I do? So, I haven't met anyone new in some time. MM got back from vacation late last week and I'm seeing her tonight for the first time in almost two weeks. I'm really not all that excited about it. It's really more something to do. I'm still in love with my wife. I don't know what to do about that. She clearly still has something for me, but she won't allow it to be love... So who the Hell knows?

Weather: Cold, windy.
Mood: Cold, windy.

Wine for the night: Sturdy, red.

What else is there?

What is normal?

Ok, so I've been separated since mid-June. I'd been on several medications before that, but June's when the real fun began. So now it's a few months later... I don't feel happy, I don't feel recovered. And I still take my medications. It occurred to me the other day I take FOUR fairly strongly psychoactive drugs on a daily or near-daily basis. Plus caffeine. I can't tell when I'm feeling blue if it's because I'm tired, or if it's something external, or something internal I'm not catching, or it's too many drugs, or not enough. I don't know where the bottom is. I can't tell what "normal" is... if I do experience it, it's so fleeting that I wouldn't know it... my moods don't last long these days. I wish more of them were positive, however.

I tried to sleep without Ambien the other night. Right after dinner I took 3 chlortrimetons. And 1 benedryl. And then at around 11:00, I took a rozarem. I was up 'til 3:00. And I don't think I felt tired at all.

It's not like it used to be--I'd be tired, but I'd start "churning" and I couldn't stop my mind. Now, I just don't get tired. I want to just click my heels three times and have the ambien kick in.

FF has pretty much disappeared. AB is still a pal, but nothing's going to happen. MM, well, she's on vacation and we've had no contact. I dont know how I feel about that. And R, I miss R. I want to cry when I think about her. Not to be overdramatic about it, but I really don't think I can live without her right now. I think that's one of the reasons I want a stable relationship, so I have that daily contact. Like I said to AB today in reference to MM, I'd rather have an hour a day with her, than nothing all week and a big friday or saturday date.