"Hi! Having a good time?"

I'm off to a wedding today and am bunking karate. Although, truth be told, I'd prefer to get kicked around by my sensei than go to the event. Not because of the people involved - they're lovely - but because the guests will include a selection of people I really don't want to be in a group situation with.

Ghosts of girlfriends past, present and.. well, not 'future', more exactly 'never-to-be'. Which implies that I'm Scrooge. Not sure if that's where the analogy falls down or not.

Just the thought of socialising with all of them at once makes me anxious. The prospect of having to be chirpy and bubbly and happy around 'never-to-be' makes my stomach churn. Yeah this is going to be a fun day.

I plan to get hideously pissed and make a fool of myself.

No, damn it - I wish I was able to do that. And just not care about the consequences.

But most probably I'll be reserved and unable to communicate much - just generally make anyone who tries to converse with me uncomfortable. Which should cement my taciturn reputation. Fuck I love being an introvert: it's such an awesome personality trait - people just adore hanging out with me! :-/

Right, I better go buy a belt. Save myself the shame of having my trousers fall down at least. Small mercies.

filler

It's not just that the thought of 'artificial' dating methods depress me, I also think my efforts would go somewhat like this:

But who knows, maybe I'd meet a freak of like mind...

optimism

Saw this play last night - a modern somewhat absurdist take on Voltaire's Candide. I think I've got a lot to learn from it.

I think I've a lot to learn about being optimistic and happy.

Is it possible to change your outlook on life by strength of will? To alter your perception of life just by deciding that this is the way reality will look? I know it happens to people all the time, usually as a religious or 'spiritual' epiphany - which usually takes the form of adopting someone else's codified view of the world (which requires a level of trust in the wisdom of religious leaders that I can't help but find foolish..).

But is it possible to simply decide off the bat that the world is a rosy and happy place without holding fast to a particular philosophy? Or theology? I wonder because I don't have belief. I seem to fundamentally lack the ability to let go of analysis and investigation; to submit to the unknown - the ineffable. I must always eff with it.

Which has failed to make me happy. But is my personality so set, so concrete that I couldn't alter that and become a more.. wide-eyed? Naive even? I'm not sure of the words. Not sure of the mind-set I'd like to achieve. Not sure of what I could become.

Not sure I want to be someone else.

I feel that my personality isn't getting me anywhere near the happiness I desire but then this is me. I can understand why some people cling to their depression or mental illnesses - they may be in pain but to lose that which is an essential part of your being is a more traumatic thought than living with the suffering.

Not that I'm suggesting that my own issues are comparable, I could probably make the minor shift in mindset without losing familiarity with my self. I just need to pull finger and find out how to go about doing that.

I'll get right onto that tomorrow. But now I must go to bed and wrestle with my existential crisis some more.

'night all.

for you

Hi love,

It's been so long and I still haven't managed to write to you. It's not that I haven't tried, there are several meandering beginnings to letters I've still got. And there have been a shredded few that didn't survive the writing process. Lately whenever I hold a pen and put my thoughts on paper they end up a mess of stream-of-consciousness gabble with little resemblance to what I want to say or how I feel about you.

Several times I've picked up the phone and almost called you. But I don't know if you want to hear from me any more. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, and it makes my stomach churn to think how you might feel. I'm so sorry. But I'm not sorry I met you - or that I fell in love with you. I'm not sorry for all the things we've shared, the intimacy we've had. I wish I could be more for you, I wish I was a better friend to you - and I will be if you ever let me in again.

Most of all I wish I could love you more. Like you deserve to be loved. Like you loved me.

You are one of the most remarkable people I've ever met, I count myself so lucky to have had the time you've given me. You push yourself and grow and change and improve all the time, I wish I had a fraction of your energy or your creativity. You have a strength of spirit and character I aspire to: you've lent me that strength at dark times in my life and I am eternally grateful for that. 

It's selfish of me to say but I've discovered just how much I need you since you've not been around. I don't feel I've ever managed to explain to you how important you are. I've needed your strength and love so much lately while knowing I have no right to it. I've felt like I'm having to learn how to walk on my own. And I'm staggering.

I don't know if you'll read this. I don't know if I want you to. I will write to you soon and hopefully make more sense. But I don't know if I can ever make it right.

I miss you. I'm sorry. And I love you.

empty

This evening I spent in the company of the wonderful girl with whom I'm totally failing to fall out of love with. We have a great connection and rapport, an honesty that's been rare to find in my life. One that hasn't been harmed or diminished by my telling her how I feel about her. It's been lovely.

And incredibly sad.

Devastating, even, when she said I'd never told her she was beautiful. A word I've used in conjunction with her more than any other. She never heard it, never took it in.

I've never felt more invisible in my life.

I can't decide whether her leaving in a few weeks is going to rip my heart out or is the best thing that could happen. Probably both.

leaving

I seem to always be leaving home, no matter where I'm going.

peace

It took nearly seven days but I've finally had a wonderful, relaxing and fun time in Christchurch*. But I now leave in less than 2 days: I suck at holidays.

The people I know here are unlike any I've encountered in Sydney. Which is not surprising really since these people would be very unlikely to live in such a place. I miss New Zealand for the New Zealanders, not the god-awful climate..

I need to be around these kinds of people more.

I'm not sure what to do with this realisation.



* Other than time spent with Eroica (and her family) of course, that's always been good :)

ouroboros

I've started and discarded at least four posts recently on the matter of sleeplessness. Partly because I hate obsessing about this again and partly out of boredom - talking about being unable to sleep bores the fuck out of me. I hate to be this dopey, listless and uncreative, and banging on about it strikes me as the height of tedium.

But, y'know, here I am. Yapping about it.

Because I'm getting a bit desperate now. It's been months without decent unbroken sleep. Sure there have been a few nights here & there, and I can generally get by with about five or six hours as long as it's solid. But the pattern for far too long now has been get to sleep around 12-12:30am, wake up 3-4am, back to sleep (if I'm lucky) about 4:30-5am, awake again 6am.

This doesn't seem to be mitigated by my exercise levels either, at least not consistently. Possibly it's made worse by not eating enough, not sure. My caffeine intake doesn't seem to have an impact either but, in any case, that's a vice I'm not willing to sacrifice. Besides, two cups a day isn't excessive.

Please - anyone - suggest me up with some ideas about how to deal with this. I'm not willing to go the pharmaceutical sleeping-pill route but if anyone has any somewhat more 'holistic' ideas or herbal fixes then go for it. I'm so knackered I'll even try the hippy crap! ;)

All that said: yes, I'm aware that the underlying problems are not going to be solved by taking some kind of remedy. But the insomnia has just about taken on a life of it's own and seems to be self-perpetuating even without my other issues.

snippet

Greetings interwebfriends, I had a big long rambling post half ready to go regaling the events of the big family dinner this evening and some of the explosions and fall-out from there (not as bad as it sounds - well, probably not to anyone but me).

But it's shite.

I'm still drunk, haven't processed the conversations yet and, to be honest, it's probably just not that interesting.

Not that I have anything different to offer: I had a lovely day hanging with Eroica. We drank coffee, ate at cafes and generally mooched about Christchurch. It was brilliant. Bought some juggling balls (which I have actually practised with this evening - it's going to be a long road..), went to multiple second-hand shops and totally failed to buy a suit, thought about gifts for significant persons in Sydney and equally totally failed to get anything.

A wonderful waste of a day.

I wish I could do the same again tomorrow but I'm being sent off to the peninsula to cut down trees. I guess I've had it easy so far - the slave-labouring had to come in sometime.

So, farewell until my return - hopefully tomorrow night but it depends if I get time off for good behaviour...


EDIT: Musta been drunk to manage to post that without a title. Amended. Have been saved from tree-felling by rotten weather. Will now go drink coffee instead - yay!

zero sum

Though I never intended it this seems to have become a daily blog. I never really knew what was going to happen when I finally sat down to unload - I'm a little surprised absolutely stunned at what's come out. And still terrified. But, as I'm beginning to realise, I tend to end up doing the things that scare me most. Eventually.

Anyway. Today has been a... neat graph of a day as far as my mood is concerned. A sine wave perhaps? I don't know - I was always crap at trigonometry (not even sure that's the right discipline).

It started fair to middling (although a largely sleepless night really didn't help) rose substantially when hanging out with Eroica (whose birthday it is today: a ripe old age of 28 :)), dropped throughout the afternoon, before rising again in the evening.

This is despite the fact it's been a gorgeous day and I've spent a lot of it lying in the sun. With my notebooks. And, as they say, there's your problem!

No matter how good the quality of the day - if you're spending it recording your munted attempts at introspection you're not going to have much fun. I cut out earlier in the evening to have a walk in the hills and clear my head, which is where the sine wave of my day started lifting again.

Why is it that we seem to equate walking with uncluttered thinking? Possibly because it seems to work. Also: making friends with alpacas is a lovely mood lifter. This may be difficult if there are none near your home but keep your eye out, you may be surprised (I was). They're just so odd and cuddly, it's hard not to grin.

So, in conclusion I have little to say. And yet manage to use a lot of words saying it. Round up:

Lack of sleep = bad.
Coffee = good.
Best friends = good.
Sunlight = good.
Time alone with messed up head = bad.
Writing letters when sad = bad.
Introspection when down = bad.
Walks = good.
Alpacas = good.
Missing lost friends = bad.

Hope = good.

Now: to bed and sleep. Perchance to drool.