When You Wish Upon A Star

In the grips of analysis paralysis, trying to determine a way forward, or at least a way out. Maybe imagining what could be, some creative visualization, is appropriate.

If I were "looking" what would I want?

I don't think there's just one answer to that: there are at least three, according to the expected depth and duration of the postulated partnership.

For the first answer, let's assume the expected depth and duration are "green shirt" and "quick." (Aside: "green shirt" comes from someone I knew a long time ago who expressed regret at the number of people he'd messed around with whose name, if he ever heard it at all, he could not remember--but often he retained fragments of visual memory, such as that the person was wearing a green shirt. This man looked and sounded disturbingly like my father would have at his age, so even though we were never close, I remember a lot of the things he said.) I think the requirements are pretty specific: there has to be some clear physical chemistry and nothing obviously repugnant in the tiny bit of non-physical interaction one may have in such a situation.

The second answer moves logically along the continuum to "dating" and "possibly a while." This is the easiest for me to imagine right now, though still by no means clear. I would hope for someone with whom there is the ability to emotionally connect; who would respect and understand all the oddness that makes me who I am; who can appreciate abstraction for its own sake; who is not fearsomely judgemental; who's pretty smart; who understands that we'll each continue to be an individual whose specific wants and needs may not coincide exactly with the other at a given moment in time; with whom there are meaningful shared interests, but who thinks it's ok, maybe even encourages, interests apart from those shared. A great physical connection/desire would be required too. Even though it ultimately ended unpleasantly, I had one relationship like this, and while it was good, it was magical.

Finally, there's the long-term relationship. I cannot really imagine seeking another of these given the state of the current one, but I suppose it would be "all of the above" with the expectation that we continue to be excited about ourselves individually and as part of the relationship as we grow and develop and change.

Vignettes

Interview
Don't ever show up for an interview reeking of alcohol and slurring your words. Though it leaves a lasting impression, it's probably not the kind you intended.

Potato Chips
I had a visit back in February that highlighted to me many of the ways that certain aimless pursuits can end badly. I didn’t even share it with my best friend, partly from forgetfulness and lack of proximity, but mostly from shame. The other person was not very attractive and wanted something different than he originally stated. I was way out of his league but proceeded anyway. In retrospect it seems like some kind of self-worth crisis.

Sometimes I'll find an unexpected big bag of chips in the pantry. I know it’s better to leave the chips alone. I pick up the bag, open it, convince myself that I’ll be fine with just one or two. I know I should put it down, walk away. This goes on for a while. Then when what’s left is too small for my fingers, I tip the bag up with one corner in my mouth to get every last crumb.

Maybe I'm lucky and don’t feel physically sick. But emotionally, I know I just totally lost control and don’t know how.

Happiness
I've spent a lot of time lately talking with my closest friend about happiness. I may have come a tiny step closer to a slightly clearer sense of what that means to me. I want active validation from others that they value the characteristics about me that I value. This facilitates connections in ways that are deep and meaningful to me and presumably to them too, or they wouldn't go to the trouble.

Shame and Hope
The other adult in my household had a 2-hour reunion visit with a friend he knew well 25 years ago, but hasn't seen since. I earnestly hope his friend told him that he's very fortunate to have an attractive and smart person in his life, since he seems utterly unaware of that himself.

On the Brink Much?

Sadly, I have nothing new--in the sense of "change in direction"--to report on the home front.

I have spent a lot of time lately "thisclose" to beginning the end. I don't know what holds me back (still) but: I think it's better not to do this when actively angry, but by the time I return a more rational place the anger, as impetus, has mostly evaporated.

I have decided that I probably should document in some detail why I think it's irreparably broken. So here goes:

• I think we have no common vision of the future
• I feel like he doesn't value the things about me that I think are most interesting
• I cannot determine what his view of the future is, so certainly cannot determine how well the present aligns with it
• I am free to hold any opinion whatsoever, as long as it aligns perfectly with his
• I do not find him physically attractive; I never thought he was a great lover
• We have not been physically intimate for over 4 years; I do not anticipate any change in that situation
• He does not seem to understand that being a couple does not mean being together and doing absolutely everything with each other
• He seems to resent that I've found things that are fulfilling but are completely separate from him (symphony, education, piano)
• He frequently ridicules the world of abstraction that I love; he ridicules me for that love
• He may criticize anything I say or do, at any time, without regard to his presentation or my feelings; I must never criticize him, because them I'm just being "unsupportive" or "inappropriately critical" or "argumentative"
• I must always instantaneously know the exact right answer to every practical or conceptual problem; that answer must align with his expectations and must be demonstrably fact-based or I'm being unsupportive, inappropriately critical, argumentative, or I'm making things up
• I must always be willing to answer any question, even when I anticipate that the answer will be unwelcome, or I'm being distant, disconnected, and I don't care at all about the outcome or his feelings
• I must not question anything presented as known or decided (broadly defined)--any attempt at critical or analytic assessment of a situation is an evasion of responsibility, a failure to make a decision, a direct attack of his personal views

Yeah, that's a bit of a mess.

"I am drunk in my desire..."

There is a Sarah McLachlan song called "Elsewhere" that has the following refrain:

I believe
This is heaven to no one else but me
And I’ll defend it as long as I can be
Left here to linger in silence
If I choose to
Would you try to understand

One of the verses is:
Oh the quiet child awaits the day when she can break free
The mold that clings like desperation
Mother can’t you see I’ve got
To live my life the way I feel is right for me
Might not be right for you but it’s right for me...I believe...

I am that "quiet child" who generally prefers to be "left ... to linger in silence". Why is that so hard to understand?

Yet there are times even I crave company, in various contexts. Being together does not have to mean "a constant interaction or pursuit of something" -- can't two linger in silence?

I listen to this album as I drive to visit my grandmother, failing finally after 91 years, at a nursing facility about 70 miles from home. I treasure the trips there and back again, alone in my car. I will often repeat this song several times before I let the album continue.

There is another line that captures my strange mood this past Saturday:
I am drunk in my desire...
I don't drink or use drugs. I'm sure that some of my food- and sex-oriented behaviors are mildly addictive in nature, but generally drinking coffee and driving fast are the only vices I have left. So when I feel euphoric, I try hard to understand why.

I have lately begun to pull my head up out of the sand to see what's happening in the world. I have discovered that not much has really changed, except me. I have had a few interactions of a fundamentally prurient nature lately with other like-minded individuals. Each has been positive, suggesting that even at a very superficial level, I'm desirable. Some have been a bit deeper, and they too have been positive. So again I must conclude it's not me, but the other in my life who has lost interest in and respect for me and my interests.

So Saturday morning, I had a some quite positive, quite "shallow" interactions with a few people, which for reasons not entirely clear to me set my hair on fire. But I could not pursue any actual meetings, so I dutifully drove to the nursing home, helped Grandma eat her lunch, and returned home. By the time I got home, my fires had cooled somewhat. By Sunday morning, I had a "drunk with desire" hangover--I felt pretty emotionally crummy all day. And he was just as unwittingly awful as ever, which will never help and never change.

This morning, I crossed paths with a past partner in prurience. He is a medical professional (let's say he's a chiropractor, which may or may not be quite true) with an enormous house in an expensive neighborhood near mine. We share a liking for efficiency, and such was our tryst this morning in his garage. (His life situation is similar to mine so the house was off-limits this morning, though I have been inside in the past.) It left me physically feeling a somewhat relieved, but as Newton taught us, "every action has an equal and opposite reaction": coming down off the endorphin high has left me wanting.

Catching Up

So, yeah, it's been 8 months. I told myself when I started this that it couldn't become an obsession like about everything else I start. That self-admonition seems to have been pretty effective.

I completed the two spring semester classes with A's. I took one summer class and received the lowest grade I've ever received (on a class I actually finished): a B-. Everyone claims that it will be ok, but I'm still not so sure.

Fall classes started four weeks ago. I'm taking two: elective graduate-level applied statistics (I get the material) and a required senior-level Introduction to Abstract Algebra (I cannot imagine anything more foreign). So far doing OK, but only with Herculean effort for the algebra (which just goes over swimmingly at home).

Home life still sucks (yes, one may correctly deduce that I'm still partnered). I cannot imagine what my defective psyche is waiting for, but by golly, I can't seem to move. Not one tiny little bit.

I was thinking about this today and I realized something important: I've always believed that as long as I was harder on myself than anyone else, everyone else would always be satisfied with me. He, however, is in fact harder on me than I am on myself. Nothing I do is right or good enough. Intellectually I realize this is about him not knowing what he wants and being incapable of respecting that others have viewpoints too, different from his but equally valid.

I have also realized that I have this experience nowhere else. My few carefully-nurtured friendships sometimes experience mild disagreement, but are obviously founded on mutual respect and admiration of the other as a person of worth despite differences. My interactions with my professors and peers at school is positive and worthwhile. My interactions with my leaders, peers, and direct reports at work are cordial to warm. So it cannot be that I'm the problematic factor.

We had an interesting conversation Friday night. He wondered why the world just couldn't handle the truth, and he illustrated his point by sharing that he was saying some pretty rude things about someone he works with, and when another party to the conversation pointed out the the object of discussion might be within earshot, he told them that he didn't care. I asked how he would feel if he heard someone saying the same things about him and he replied that if he didn't generally care about the person saying them, it wouldn't matter to him what they said. I told him that is not normal, in the "social contract" sense of social interaction.

I wonder if he is ready for the truth?

Why don't we ever see "gay but curious" in a personals ad?

The last few days have been strange, even by my standards. Which might be saying something.

I'm on the hundred-year plan to finish an undergraduate degree. I have finally begun to take classes again, and this semester I have two senior-level math classes, which started last week.

The first night in the first class, a very attractive woman sat in the desk beside mine. I mean, super-model-hot-girl attractive. Let's call her SMHG. I just made a mental note of her presence; I like guys, right? A young Brad-Pitt-cute-guy (BPCG) sat behind. Noticing him there: that didn't really surprise me too much. The second night of class (it's two nights a week), BPCG sat beside me and SMHG sat behind him. Guess who caused me the greater discomfiture? I'm amazed to report it was SMHG. What's that all about? I have no specifically erotic feelings that I can identify toward her. But I've lived my entire adult life convinced that such feelings weren't even a possibility, so would I even know what those were?

And guess what I overheard before class started that night: SMHG already has a master's degree in economics and is back to get a master's in mathematics. So not only is she gorgeous (we're in St. Louis, it's pronouced gahr-jus), she's a brainiac too. Yikes! Maybe I'm in love.

Getting Through the Workday

First, I love my job. Well, OK, most of it. But I am prone to distraction ("Look, something shiny!"), so to maintain any kind of productivity, I try to minimize the possibility of distraction.

I have known for a long time that I'm hypersensitive to background noise. I've been asked over and over, "Can't you just 'tune it out'?" Honestly, no, I cannot. I seem unable to ignore the conversation 3 cubes away, or the candy being unwrapped next to me, or the sounds of the copiers and fax machines, or people typing. So pretty much any noise one might expect in an office setting.

One generally effective approach to muting the aural distraction is through music. So anytime I'm not on the phone, walking around, or entertaining guests at my desk, I'm listening to an ancient Sony CAR Discman (really, it's 13 or 14 years old). The musical range is pretty wide, spanning from Léonin to Linkin Park, though there is a preponderance of piano from Bach to Bartók.

This morning's selection is Evegeny Kissin playing Scriabin, Medtner, and Stravinsky. I found his recording of pieces by Brahms and Schuman cold and sterile, and I questioned whether he'd gone down the path of technical brillance at the cost of beautiful music. However, I am amazed again with Kissin: the Scriabin Sonata No. 3 and the Stravinsky Pétrouchka are both are just explosive without ever losing control, which is exactly what the composers intended.

I've also been enjoying Boris Berezovsky's Chopin, Godowsky: Études. His live performance of the Chopin Études lacks a certain final polish found in, say, Murray Perahia's studio recording of the same works, but they're still very impressive. And the Godowsky, as many others have noted, is just over the top. I particularly enjoyed the Godowsky version of the "Revolutionary" (Chopin Op. 10 No. 12) rearranged for the LEFT HAND ALONE. Even though I've listened to it many times, it still raises the short hairs on the back of my neck. And come on, these pieces are meant to be show-offs: Godowsky was not trying to improve Chopin, that was never his goal, he was really trying to out-Liszt all the pupils of Liszt who were then running around showing off and diverting attention from him. I think he succeeded admirably.