Returning to our regularly scheduled programming...

I wanted to make blog number 50 kind of a big deal, but it seems that I'm lacking time and energy these days. I think I may have to schedule a doctor's appointment. I've been really tired, sleeping way too long, and generally just lacking in energy.

The KC trip was kind of an eye-opener for me. I returned believing I could pretty much face anything after going through the ordeal of working 15+ hours a day for three days straight. I don't know how doctors do it. Waking up those cold mornings with barely an ounce of consciousness, I found myself at the feet of the men in women in the armed forces. All I had to do was drag tables and curtains around. I mean, there were over 600 tables and about 3200 curtains, with about a thousand metal poles to hang them up with... and it was in a venue that is the same spacial area as a wal-mart supercenter, only twice as long.

But still, there are people just like me who answer a call and in mere minutes, are doing flight checks as they prepare to take off in multi-million dollar airplanes.

And then, there's the "diatribe" I wrote on my personal myspace-- sorry the myspace page is only viewable to people I've added, and I don't plan on dispelling my anonymity here anytime soon, even though a good number of you know exactly who I am. Hopefully this blog has answered to you more about me than you dreamed of knowing. Probably too much, at that.

But I realize more and more that as I continue writing about myself, I figure out how much I don't know. I can't remember who said that first, but he was a much wiser person than I. So wise, in fact, he realized that nobody really knows anything.

There's no real news to speak of here... I'm mostly just lamenting as usual. I will try to experience more interesting things if I can. No promises.

I did meet a new girl. We'll call her AS, since I've hung out with her enough times that she be mentionable. DC is fading to the background as slowly as ever. Even though she tries sometimes to pop back in, I've acquired a sort of shield against her brusque finesse. She apologized for being how she was, but I told her I wouldn't accept because if she's simply being herself, then it'd be terrible for me to require a change. My newly developed theory is that if she really cares that much, she'll put a foot forward and make a real effort. That is one thing she has never really done, so I couldn't benefit much by hoping for a surprise.

AS, on the other hand, has her own flaws. One being that she's a tremendous beer-drinker. Secondly, she's four years to my junior-- a major flaw in my eyes that people keep telling me isn't such a big deal in the first place. I feel like it's a big deal because the environment that I met her suggested she was older. She told me last night, as if I had planned to scoop up her weekdays, that she had homework due on Tuesday. At first it didn't seem important, but I began to realize as the night wore on that she was suggesting for me to influence her away from doing her work. I can't possibly give her that, or take it from her depending on how you look at it. So I created more hesitations in the conversation and dug the first ruts of a moat before she could make too many assumptions about me.

The only thing I ever want out of life is to find a someone I an understand wholly. Yet the last thing I will ever want is for someone to assume they wholly understand me.

Next time, I'll delve about how I gave a 35 year old man a black eye. That was actually the highlight of my week, but it will have to wait.

Milestones

Pending the completion of the blog about my mission trip to Mexico, which is turning out to be something of an epic, and has yet to be published... this is my 50th post. I only started this blog in December, so I think I've done a pretty good job of coming up with something to say.

However, as Senator Obama put it, the time for change has come. I've been living the last couple of months in a state of bumbling chaos. Each thrilling victory I've experienced leads to a brand new failure of some sort. I've come to realize that every single one, victory or failure, has been under my direct control or supervision. Every effect achieved has had a series of obvious causes... from winning the job with Roark, to completely and utterly failing with DC, who is more or less the woman of my dreams. I can't remember who said it, maybe Bill Cosby or somebody like that, but it reminds me of a quote: "I'm a firm believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have."

Obviously, I haven't been working hard enough. That has got to change. So today, I feel pretty good about my luck since I'm packing for a trip up to Kansas City to work for a group of people that put together trade shows for large corporations and money-heavy organizations. The job is temporary, but I'm told to expect 5 straight days of 12 to 16 hour work shifts. When I come home next tuesday, I'll undoubtedly be changed for better or worse. Better to have a fat check coming my way, or worse for putting my back through a blender of manual labor.

I'm going to try to embrace the experience as a cleansing. A boot camp, even. I have one goal, and one goal only-- to make it through the next five or six days without falling over from exhaustion. No thinking of the future, no regretting the past. Just working. It's going to really suck, but that's probably just what I need right now. Pure, unadulterated hard labor.

I take that back. I probably will be thinking about the future while I'm up there. I'll be thinking about how I'm not going to put so much effort into winning the affections of someone that barely acknowledges my existence. I'm going to think about how to be more independent and reliable.

Anyway, I'll be back in a week or so. Wish me luck. No.... wish me hard work.

Enough is enough.

I really, really need you to do whatever you can to act as though I do not exist.

I am way too interested in you to compete with all the guys that want your attention.

I am way too sensitive to deal with being ignored by you every time you think someone is looking.

I am way too smart to keep chasing you when you obviously love being chased, but never let yourself be caught.

Seriously, please pretend like I don't exist. You're way too beautiful for me. You're too smart, too funny. I really need you to just ignore me, and not do anything at all that might give me the impression that I have a chance.

That way I can live my life and stop being such a fucking fool for you.

Thanks.

The Path

Path... a way
Pathos... the ability to elicit emotion
Pathology...the science of the cause and effect of diseases

It's all Latin to me, but really, my path has been all three of these things.

I should really begin by saying that when I was 16 or 17, I knew I was destined to be one of those guys who experienced a lot of crazy things. I knew that during my prime, I'd make the best of it. In a sense, I treated my post-high school lifespan as though it'd be short. For all I know, it may very well be. It's been six years since I graduated high school. Six... years...

I can still remember the things I'd write in my journal about how a the girl I wanted was great in every way, except for the fact that she wouldn't date me. I've changed a little. Now, I actually go after the girls I want. The problem is, I used to be able to distract myself with new crushes or infatuations back then. In a hormonal frenzy, I'd jump from challenge to challenge without so much of a thought about the previous attempts.

Now's a little different. I'm not so hormonal anymore. And instead of looking for challenges, I'm really just in a constant state of seeking encouragement. I love a good chase, but lately, it seems as though the women I'm interested in take a look at me and think to themselves, "I'm going to give him hell."

Six years ago, I would have said, "Bring it."
Today, I say, "Can you please, for the love of God, cut me some fucking SLACK!?"

Of course, it'd be easier if these women knew that they all represent the same person to me. They all represent "the challenge". Otherwise known as "the one"-- at least in the mind of a guy who once explained perverted masturbatory fantasy sketches to his father as "figure drawings".... and got away with it, it would really seem like they are all "the one".

Of course now, I'm dealing with the biggest challenge I've ever seen. But here's the big fit. In order to embrace a challenge... to conquer it... there has to be a goal. My challenge, the ever-present, fickle one... my very own DC, answered this for me just last night. When I asked her, "Why does everything have to be so difficult with you?"

She answered, "Why should it be easy?"

I might have been a little drunk, and under the spell of this woman to an extent... but it really rang true to me. It was almost... profound.

Then again, it could have just been her way of keeping me at a comfortable distance, as usual. And like someone very smart and important once paraphrased:

False hopes beget false faiths. False faiths beget false notions, and false notions beget false believers.

I refuse to be false.