Jesus Christ, I am so bored.
On Tuesday, I went grocery shopping, and I wrote the following in Pandora:
Today I saw German Dark Wheat bread stocked so full it would have gone stale before I could finish it if I had bought it all, and I burst into tears.
This is true. (For those who don't get it, which is probably most of you, Mark Schreiber (a good friend of mine in college) found German Dark bread one time in Giant Eagle, and really liked it, and forever searched in vain for another loaf. I picked up this obsession and passed it on to Ratha, and we did actually find it from time to time at the Waterfront Giant Eagle, although it was always a lucky find.) I called that an extremely good day, that evening, when I went out to half price food to celebrate Katie Boyd's birthday, and when I saw Laura.
There have been a ton of chores to do, and for once in my life I have actually been doing them on a pretty regular schedule. Drive to work—work—eat lunch—work—drive home—do laundry—change my address with various people who need to know it—etc. These things have been getting done, and it feels satisfying to do them. A little.
I've been talking with Ratha for an hour or two most days, but it's not a big deal when we don't speak for a day except to say goodnight. Maybe even that will pass. Ratha was repulsed by (and ultimately left Pittsburgh in no small part because of) my dependence on her, which was unreciprocated on her part. I can't really blame her for that—I wasn't a very reliable person during that time, and Ratha adapted to that and simply assumed I couldn't do much of anything. I've learned that that's wrong, at least in the short term, but at the same time, something strange has happened.
I try to depend on Ratha emotionally, even a little bit, and I
find that the belief that I am doing so persists for maybe a minute at
most. Something low-level in my brain just won't click, and I stay in
machine mode,
do-this-do-that-move-over-here-move-over-
Nothing is really that bad. I'm making more money than I'm spending. I have a ton of nice stuff. My job isn't bad, though it could be better. My housing isn't bad, though it could be better.
I'm just so damn bored. My dad and Nance, his new wife (as of a few weeks ago) are visiting this weekend, and hanging out with them isn't bad, but we spent most of today in museums. After that we went to Fahrenheit 9/11, which at least kept me mentally engaged for its duration.
I find myself sitting here waiting for something to happen, but nothing does. I hate meeting new people, they're all “interesting” in their own boring way. Honestly, it seems like a loophole that there are any people that I care about. There are, but one of them lives in Saratoga Springs, one of them lives in Catskill, one of them lives in Sarasota, one is moving to Seattle in about a week, and one seems to always be busy (and is graduating from CMU in a year to do who knows what). I would like nothing better than to live close enough to all of these people to see them every day, but it's impossible. I'd be willing to organize a large chunk of my life around these people (indeed, in many cases I have done so), but people tend to consider this unreasonable on my part and certainly aren't willing to reciprocate. They have their own lives. And asking anyone to do something always seems like a terrible imposition. So I sit around at home waiting for an invitation that never comes, or pouncing on the first person to log onto AIM, or sitting there worrying that if I pounce on the one person who's on AIM, they'll think I'm demanding too much of their attention.
My attitude would probably work better if I were a girl. As a man, I am expected to drive social situations—ostensibly only dating, but in practice there are times I'd like to hang out with a chick I had no intention of getting into a relationship with, but I'd have to ask, so it never happens.
I'm visiting Ratha in Florida in 3 weeks. I hope for a temporary reprieve from my boredom, but I don't know whether I can really expect it. I don't know what to expect out of my and Ratha's future relationship, honestly. I hope it doesn't turn acrimonious, and I don't think it has to, but I don't know if a friendship at the level that Ratha seems to want is sustainable for me. It's strange, because for about 5 or 10 minutes a day, I want to be with her so badly.
Laura pointed out at her going-away picnic how I moved to Pittsburgh and I have a job, and those were both goals I told her about over a year ago. This is true, and Ratha was no part of those plans at the time they were formulated. I guess that just goes to demonstrate psychologists' claims that people have no idea what will make them happy.
Ratha told me that I need meaningful relationships, after I pretty much told her as much by pointing out to her what I want. Well, no fucking duh. That's like telling a poor person it'd be really nice if they had some money. I mean, it's not that what she said was wrong, but pursuing that seems about as possible as getting blood from a stone, or turning lead into gold. I have met a number of people with whom I've had meaningful relationships, but I'll be damned if I know how I did it. What I do know is that most people simply can't merit a meaningful relationship with me. I wouldn't say that this is a fault of theirs so much as a dangerous personality quirk of mine, but the results are the same.
It's only been six days, but already I find myself wondering when it will end. I keep telling everyone I'm going to re-evaluate my situation in six months to a year, to see whether the job I have and the housing I have are really what I want, but honestly, I barely care about either of those things. Just give me some people who are worth spending time with and I'll shovel shit for 8 hours a day to live with them.
For the time being, if you have any desire to do me a favor:
You know, I don't really like keeping my journal here, but the steps to get my own site back up and running are myriad (and in progress, but it'll still be a while), and I don't know if anybody still has it friended anyway, so I guess this will do.
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Here's the definitive guide to current ways to contact me (as of the date of this post):
| Mail: | 806 Heberton
St. Pittsburgh, PA 15206 5440 Claybourne has mail forwarding, and even 48 Division will reach me eventually, but 806 goes straight to me. Also, 806 is where to pay me a personal visit should you feel like dropping by (I'm home most evenings). (Heh, as if anyone will ever even consider taking me up on that. Actually, you probably shouldn't even as a gesture of pity—the house is a mess, and it's not my house so there's only so much I can do to clean it up.) |
| Phone: | (412)
657-1395 My cell phone. Still pay-per-minute at this point, but I intend to change that fairly soon. Text messages to 4126571395@vmobl.com at the moment, to 4126571395@vtext.com after the switchover—or just use LJ's service, I'll update that when it actually switches. (Hint: I prefer text messages to voicemail.) |
| Email: | kenn@aspeiro.net You can also use kenn@kenoubi.net (or kenn@ratha.net if you're weird (actually, I'm not entirely sure that would even work, so don't use it), or kenn@ a bunch of other things—they're all the same server), but kenn@aspeiro.net is what I would consider my current normal email address. Please don't use kenn@cmu.edu or khamm@andrew.cmu.edu any more—they'll still reach me at the moment, and there is mail forwarding for them I need to set up that will let me receive mail there for another year, but I'd no longer consider them current. VinceValentine@yahoo.com will work, with very high latency, if your message doesn't drown in all the spam. |
| AIM: | TephX |
| ICQ: | 65894297 |
I think that's about it. (What, am I supposed to have a fax number or something?)
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It did not occur to me that I might ever think I had made a mistake in choosing to go to Half Price Food this evening, but as time went by, it seemed like I might end up having had an unfortunate experience. Chuck and Fred and to a lesser extent John-Eric dominated the conversation; Katie seemed unbothered by this and chimed in every once in a while, but most of the time when I would try to say something one of the other guys would start speaking at the same time, and since I am quiet and don't wish to be rude I would just stop talking.
But then, outside India Garden as we were about to go our separate ways, John-Eric said goodbye to me, and Katie also said bye and thanked me for coming, and for just a fleeting instant I felt like someone actually cared about me as a person. I'm not even sure what I'm trying to say here, but it felt very important. I haven't felt like that much lately.
This weekend is Jammy Jam, which should be interesting. I haven't been to a party since Ratha left. I guess in a way it's appropriate to go to this one without her. (We met at Jammy Jam last year.)
The weekend after next, I visit Ratha. I'm not in “waiting mode” per se, insofar as I can't afford the lost efficiency that would cause, but it's nice to think “Oh, only n more days” every once in a while.
On the phone with Ratha this evening, I mentioned that before putting my website back up, I might want to update some things on it, such as the page that describes me. It still says that I'm dating Ratha at the moment, and I told Ratha that I didn't know what to put under relationship status now. Ratha said the same was true for her.
It doesn't feel like Ratha and I are still dating, but it doesn't really feel like we broke up, either. Contrary to any expectations I might have had, I'm actually pretty okay with this weird half-way status. It seems more faithful to the fact that Ratha's and my relationship is complicated and hard to summarize in a couple of words. Also, it seems like an inherently hopeful state—much like Ratha's and my relationship before we started dating, actually. The time while we were dating was pretty hopeless for Ratha, and that much is obvious, but what may be less obvious is that a lot of it was hopeless for me too.
We are all the possibilities
As endless as our imaginations—One Love, Sister Hazel
Current Mood: indescribable
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I love you Ratha, I love you Charlie, I love you Laura, I love you Ed, I love you Dad.
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Last night I went to Jammy Jam. I had a surprising amount of fun. I overshot my alcohol target by a little bit, though, which had some good results (massively decreased inhibitions) and some bad ones (my hangover today). It seems unlikely that Jammy Jam 2k+4 will have lasting results on my life the way Jammy Jam 2k+3 did, but asking that of every party would be asking too much.
Today I had a hangover that blended into a stomach bug that made me throw up 3 or 4 times despite eating nothing but an apple all day. It was a little disturbing because I was alone, and getting sick while one is alone seems like a dangerous thing to which to be vulnerable. It seems to be getting better, though, and I was very grateful for the support I had from my mom, Mark, and Ratha.
Tonight for dinner I am eating basmati rice with RedHot, Pom Wonderful, a peach, and sliced almonds. The sliced almonds are mostly random, but rice with RedHot was taught to me by Charlie, Ratha introduced my to Pom Wonderful, and the peaches are from my paternal grandparents by way of my father and Nance. None of these things are by accident. If you understand this, then you get a pretty high percent of my personality.
Today (while sick) I deployed the thisishappening changes that Ratha and I have been working on for months. Tomorrow I go back to work. Friday I fly to Florida. I'm looking forward to it. Life seems hopeful.
Oh, and just so I don't forget, Thursday I visited Mark for the first time in a really long time. I think I'm going to make this weekly, because Mark is a good guy, and because one instance of social contact per week is, in all fairness, probably not enough to keep me sane. I might try to phase in one or even two more weekly appointments as well.
Current Mood: optimistic
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I spent all of this evening cooking Gado-Gado. Ratha scanned the recipe, and I was on the phone with her for two and a half hours, partly on the drive home and partly while pacing outside, but mostly while cooking so she could tell me what to do. It turned out pretty well, I think, though it seems questionable whether it's really worth quite that much time and energy to prepare food. (Granted, I am trying to stave off boredom, but spending that much time cooking left me with a good meal and little energy to do anything else this evening.) Nevertheless, I am proud of my accomplishment.
Today, it is one year since Ratha and I met. It's our anniversary, kind of.
I've realized something which I think is pretty fundamental to my relationships with other people. The one thing which I most deeply value in a relationship is acceptance. What I mean by this is not just tolerance (you can tolerate something that you dislike), nor even a wishy-washy “anything goes” attitude. What has been present in each of the relationships that I have greatly valued has been a deeply felt conviction on my part that the other person believes me to be fundamentally okay as I am, and that that person understands me enough for that belief to actually carry some weight.
Within the context of a relationship of this nature, I tend to notice things I could improve and work on them (although I can also become complacent), and I may even be responsive to an occasional suggestion, if I can lower my defenses for a bit. But outside of it, suggestions are either purely technical (informing me about means but not ends) or are alien—not necessarily bad, but without any real significance.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be such a thing as partial acceptance or partial trust in my head. And without that intermediate level, most relationships seem more or less meaningless. The most they can achieve is pragmatic benefit. I don't let them in to affect me at all.
The truth is that once someone is inside my defenses, they're really inside. Because I recognize this fact, and because any such relationship will be a life-changing experience, I heavily moderate and edit who I allow in in the first place. In a way it's amazing I've let anyone in at all. It's also amazing that I haven't really been burned by this… yet. [knock on wood]
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One Child-Child pastime is the sharing of impossible alternatives symbolic of the damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don't situation of the little child. Anxiety may be relieved by this pastime, not because the problem is solved, but because it is handed to someone else—“Here, you struggle with this for a while!” The following questions were overheard in an exchange between two five-year-olds: Would you rather eat a hill full of ants or drink a pail of boiling medicine? Would you rather be chased by a wild bull or wear your shoes on the wrong feet all day? Would you rather sit on a hot stove or go through the washing machine fifty times? Would you rather be stung by a thousand wasps or sleep in a pigpen? Answer one or the other! You have to answer one or the other. Grownup versions may be more sophisticated, as, Are you a Democrat or a Republican?
—p. 119, I'm OK—You're OK, Thomas A Harris
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The weekend was fun. Ratha and I went swimming at her parents' house (where she is now living), and we went to the botanical gardens, and we did a bunch of shopping on Saturday (my glasses broke while I was there, and they said they weren't reparable, so I got a new pair, which has clip-on shades). The plane trips were long and mentally deadening, but it seems like that's how plane trips are.
A lot of stuff went wrong on Friday. I forgot Eris' power adaptor, had a hellish day at work, there was a ton of rain when I was driving to the airport, and my first flight was delayed, so I was worried about missing the second one—but that was delayed too, so it worked out. I thought at the end of the day that even though it had seemed bad, it was really there to show me that all of these things were just pseudo-problems.
Monday was disturbing, though. On Monday I intentionally didn't eat anything until about 20:00. I know it was intentional rather than merely neglectful because the thought specifically occurred to me, as I was driving back from the airport to Jason's studio, “oh, you could get something to eat”, but I didn't stop. I felt sloppy in a lot of ways—dirty, poorly clothed, mentally disorganized. Again, nothing really went wrong, but this time the connotation seemed to be one of degeneration rather than paper tigers.
I feel like I've been trying harder than ever before in my life to make the new life arrangements I'm in work, even including attempting to maintain social contact, but it all seems so pointless. I understand now how my inability to set my own agenda and my constant need for attention are a drain on Ratha and would be a drain on anyone, without offering much in return, but life seems totally without sparkle right now, and I don't feel motivated to go out and try any truly new projects. I feel the psychological analog to having exhausted my glycogen stores and now needing carbohydrate so badly that I'd do anything for a soda—anything except move more than a few feet, because I don't have the energy left.
I still preserve some tiny attenuated hope that things will change somehow, but I can't see the path. None of the personal projects I could pursue seem at all interesting or exciting right now. I really don't know what to do.
The reason Monday was disturbing is that I realized that, having discovered I can get by on my own, it might turn out that I don't want to.
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Yesterday I received an email from Virgin Mobile, the pay-as-you-go cell phone company from which I got service until recently. I switched over to Verizon Wireless not because I ever had a complaint about Virgin Mobile—their coverage was good, and their pricing was up-front and not unreasonable (25 cents a minute for the first 10 minutes a day, 10 cents a minute after that, 10 cents to send a text message, nothing to receive one)—but simply because my cell phone usage had increased to the point where it wasn't economically efficient, especially with Verizon Wireless' free nights, weekends and in-network calling (Ratha is in-network, so I can call her any time totally free).
The email said they were sorry to lose me as a customer, and asked me to pass on my phone. Whoever I gave it to could re-activate it and get $5 added to their account. Now, obviously they would like me to do this so they can gain a customer (who would have to pay them a minimum of $20 every 90 days to keep their account active) to replace me. Still, I got emotional over this stupid email from this huge, faceless corporation. It didn't feel like they were trying to take advantage of me. It felt like they were my friend.
I wanted to keep my previous number when I switched to Verizon Wireless (and indeed, had consciously waited for number portability to come into effect before doing so), but I'm sort of tempted to re-activate with Virgin Mobile with a new number. I don't know what I would do with the phone—I guess I could loan it out to anyone who doesn't have a cellphone who I need to keep in touch with for a particular time period. But hey, it would only cost 1/6 as much as I'm paying Verizon Wireless now, and I'd spend way more than that on any of my actual friends in a heartbeat, right?
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1. So its been what, 4 months now? How do you feel about the makeover in retrospect now?
Well, I don't stick to the clothing rules all that strictly, because a lot of the time it seems like there isn't much of a point. I do have a wardrobe which gives me a certain amount of selection, though, and I know how to coordinate for a party or whatever, so that's good.
I'm probably due for at least a trim on the hair, but it's a lot better maintained now, I have to admit. And I've kept to the shaved areas of the beard, though I only do the bottom part with the beard trimmer (with no guard) and only once a week, because shaving it irritates the skin too much. The new beard style makes me look a little younger and a lot less … scary, honestly.
Overall, I can't say that the makeover changed my entire life, but it was a good experience because it kicked me out of a rut, and I think the new rut I've fallen into is somewhat higher terrain. :-)
2. Pick a color... and color... and a number... ok, what are they? Why?
Blue, white, 8. Blue used to be my favorite color, white is one of my favorites as well, possibly my favorite now (my first website had white text on a blue background), and 8 used to be my favorite number and was the first thing that came to mind.
3. You are condemned to spend 5 years in solitary confinement. No communication with the outside world. You get to bring five things with you to pass that time, so long as it doesn't allow you access to the outside world, and its not a companion to make it not solitary. What do you bring?
I'm going to assume that the point of this question is the social isolation, and thus, that all of my actual needs are taken care of. I think I would bring:
Hmm, 5 years is a long time. I wonder if I'd still be sane at the end of it. Probably not.
4.Who is your favorite muppet? Why?
Kermit, because he's one of the few I can remember, and because he was on Sesame Street.
5. Who are the 5 most attractive celebrities (movie stars, singers, writers, whatever...) and why?
Jeez, I'm sure I can remember 5 celebrities if I try, but I'm not sure I can remember 5 who are more attractive than the most attractive person I see on any random day just walking to/from lunch.
I just looked through Askmen.com's “Top 99 Most Desirable Women in the World” (yes, the whole list), and here are the ones that seemed attractive beyond a bare minimum level:
Of course, this is based mostly off of a single (often surprisingly unflattering) picture. “*” means I've actually heard of the person before looking through this list.
Jennifer Love-Hewitt and Lacey Chabert used to be really hot, but they're both kind of slutty now, I think.
As far as men, I have no idea, and I don't feel like looking through a list of 100 of them. Honestly, I'm tempted to just answer whoever plays Brenda on Six Feet Under, not because I think she's the hottest person in the world, but because she's attractive enough and her character is someone I'd find attractive were she a real person.
I'll interview anyone who wants one. Post a comment if so.
Current Mood: cautiously optimistic
Current Music: Zeratul - This Day (Squaredance Disc B)
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Kenn Hamm
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Last modified: Mon Aug 4 19:38:23 2008