Day Five: 11/16: Post-script

Life lessons from the Sith Academy:

If you're having eating problems, don't drink - no matter if the wine is awesome and sweet and only 4 oz.

Also, the shoes may look good with the outfit, but if it's 34 degrees and raining and those shoes are thin slippers meant for spring and summer, then find another pair (even if that other pair looks blah with the outfit).

...

The concert was fine. I'm still not a Mellencamp fan, but I have a new appreciation for his music, especially his more recent stuff produced by T. Bone Burnett (who's sort of a really big deal). Our seats were AWESOME (seven rows back from the stage), and the set was gorgeous and intimate. The concert itself started with a documentary about the new album. I found the film pretentious (on the part of John Mellencamp, not the filmmaker), and perhaps revealing in a way that wasn't flattering or intentional. Also, it was long and dragged, but I liked the camera work, which was done on 8mm with a several old hand-held cams. It made the quality organic and intimate.

It did me good to go to the concert. I may not be a fan, but the act of going out and attending an event raised my spirits immensely, and I feel a little less intimidated about going out.

Anyhow, I woke up this morning feverish and out of it, staggering around weakly when I had to crawl out of bed for whatever reason. I'm better now, but it's almost mid-afternoon, so I feel like I've wasted most of the day. Maybe I can find something productive to do.

(Excited aside: In March, Garrison Keillor is coming to town!!! Fuck yeeaaah! I love A Prairie Home Companion, and while this isn't the show itself, I like Keillor's wit enough to want to spend an evening listening to him)

Day Six: 11/17

I did not salvage the remains of the day by going out or doing something big and life-changing. I stayed indoors again, and finished the art meme, which is not appropriate to post in a public entry, because of one small occurrence of wang. And then I played more Mass Effect, while meditating on a couple things.

I talked to Tuesday today - the first time in a long while, it feels - and I actually opened up about a lot of my problems and what had happened. I didn't feel pathetic, which I take as a good sign; my default mode after I talk about my problems is normally "pathetic." Instead, I felt relieved. It was the first time I actually had spoken aloud any of what I have written. By speaking, I felt I had given myself a voice, which has been absent in my life for so long.

I thought about relationships: I put people on high pedestals. I cheerfully ignore their imperfections - their egotism, their selfishness, their foibles, the things that make them absolutely human. I make them into something higher than human. When the relationship ends, I see the things that I ignored and feel disgusted or betrayed, like they never showed me that side, when really, they were showing it the whole time. I need to stop blinding myself to these things, instead of getting caught up in a dream. I think if I spent more time seeing instead of dreaming, then half my relationships would have worked out. Or I would have been able to accept their ends with more closure and peace.

Ugh. I have a crunchy cynical outside and a gooey romantic inside. I need to be more realistic. Nothing lasts forever, no matter what romantic notions of eternity or the future your partner is spouting. Getting caught up in those notions only hurt me - twice even! Sometimes, I think I unintentionally set myself up for heartbreak. Maybe I want to believe in "forever." Belief and knowledge are two separate things, though. It's alright to believe, but don't let it cloud what you know.