I revisited this blog this month because a woman that I admired sent me her early-twenties record of exploration and it charmed me. With this site, I too can charm myself whenever I want (or cringe, though always less than I expect to).
I was surprised/concerned to log on and see that over the last month or two this site has had the most traffic of its life. These are secrets! Kept in public! Don't anybody dare tell them! (kind of serious).
I thought about sending her back this blog, but it has no artistic thesis like hers had and I decided that was a good enough excuse not to send it. Once I sent it to a friend and she said it was rude to invite someone to read work you hadn't edited. Well, I didn't write it to be "work" but I suppose it has become "a work" by virtue of scale if not scheme. I sometimes default to not sharing. I can always share later.
We had coffee - this inspiring woman - and I. She seemed to offer me some things I wanted, but I was too shy to accept. I will try to deserve them before taking her up on them.
I am being coy. She runs a community-building endeavor, and she sort of offered to let me host or create in its space and umbrella of existence. Instead, I set up a practice session at my house. A warm-up. She expressed interest in a weird couch based on my DOTU story... I'd love to make a rocking couch for her. I just need to find a couch, buy a little bit of wood for the rockers, and track down an angle grinder.
What would it take for me to want to host something in her space? It lacks a level of coziness that my plans require - easily solved by a few couches, though they won't necessarily fit. I would bring tea and snacks. It is very doable. I want to already. I want to be her friend.
Should I move on to other topics? I might get laid before the new year. It's all up in the air. But it has been interesting. The woman mentioned about told me to go to Martuni's to make out with a friend. We didn't make out there, but we did more than that at his apartment later.
This potential sex drove me to tell my good friend about my persistent crush on him. Are you confused yet? Two different men - extremely different men. The Martuni's evening is actually the end of this story, for now.
But before Martuni's, me and a man I might have sex with had a lovely afternoon walking through the park and having dinner. He bought dinner, then texted me to look at the beautiful moon, then our mutual friend implied he was interested... All of this prompted me to act on my long-standing crush on my best friend in the bay. I thought "maybe we (me and good friend) won't be single at the same time again for a long time." So I did it. Edith and others have encouraged me to tell him, and I've been telling them about it to get that encouragement. It finally worked.
Another reason I told him is that I had been "practicing" telling him by writing letters and then I decided again to "practice" and opened my notebook to find 3 pages of "practice" that got progressively less-hinged and I realized I did not need more "practice." The actual revelation was very simple. After a good meal at Happy Family Gourmet. In the car, in the dark, before I went back into my home, bringing up his "type" and our friendship, and then just saying "I have felt bad lately because I have a crush on you." Should I have said that I was telling him about the crush out of a sense of guilt? I did my best.
His response was very kind and measured despite his being totally surprised, apparently. I told him to tell me that he didn't think about me that way and he refused - he said he had thought about it but that losing our friendship would be too horrible. I thought this would leave me still wanting him, but instead, it feels like a kind of generosity. I had been so sure that he wasn't attracted to me and that that would be the end of it.
Instead, I have made him tell me that he truly values our friendship. I have been surprised so many times that it's the case. When I ask him why we get along, why we are friends, he says it's because I put the effort in - so you can see why I would be confused. But when he isn't stressed about work we do have a lovely time together. He likes driving out to nature, eating Chinese (or other) food, nerding out about language, talking about life, listening to music. He'd prefer to nerd out about using the piezoelectric effect to drive sound wavers to position lasers, but I cannot offer that. Talking to the inspiring woman, she asked why I had a crush on him. I listed his admirable qualities in a very unconvincing way until I stumbled upon a piece of the truth - that in the time I spend with him I feel fully present. That the simplest pleasures become my whole focus with him.
An exception that proves the rule - on Friday, we had fancy dim sum and I treated it like the last chance for him to change his mind about adding a romantic element to our relationship. Actually, I never verbalized what I wanted from him. Of course, there are many things I want from him and many things I would be happy with - what we have right now being one of them. But I never expressed that openness; I just told him that I had a crush on him and let him react. Was that a mistake?
We talked a bit more about it at lunch and when it became clear that there would be nothing between us that would lead to my getting laid before the new year (an arbitrary goal that has emerged just because there is a possibility of it) I texted this other guy while my good friend was in the bathroom to set up the Martuni's encounter.
Shocking! Well. I was about to leave town for six days in the mountain compound. I had to act fast.
Six days is too long, by the way, of course. I knew that but I felt I owed my aunt all of the time I could offer with her, and then my cousins are coming down this evening. So today, now, as I write, is the only time I have unbuffered with my parents. And you know how I am electing to spend said time. Every time I overexpose with them I know I am reseting a clock of curiosity that is really struggling to tick already. Too much familiarity, too many little annoyances, and I am left with no desire to understand them or to be understood by them.
Maybe through games or activities I could unblock it a bit. They are excessively industrious, taking on projects of various proportions around the place and attacking them rabidly. It makes me indolent. Their restlessness drives me to read and nap and stare at a red-tailed hawk circling the valley.
Today it is incredibly stormy though. It started last night with blustering wind - now we are approaching howling, and the rain is driving. The bare branches of the trees are dancing. The ground is puddled. The south-facing windows battered with drops, the northerly ones dry. The house is in a cloud so thick you can see less than 100 feet - and at night it was even thicker. It was so strange to feel the wind whip my silk pants, but even though I could see the air, even though it was thick and lit by my flashlight, it didn't seem to move. Why didn't it swirl? How did all the droplets move invisibly at 10+ miles per hour?
So now mom is reading, I am typing, dad did some work and is now toodling about on laundry and other tasks. I have a bath bomb to use. More books to read. It's 10:30 in the morning. I must have other stories to tell. A part of me has wanted to work a bit during this time, and I have written some ideas down. I was so drained for the last three weeks though that I think a hard pause on work is needed. I am reading High Tension, about the formation of electric monopolies and rural cooperatives. It is giving me more ideas, and more excitement about being part of this century-long saga of electricity.
Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre. I have decided to test that theory. Five days in and I am not dead.
