I almost walked out of Tai Chi class the other night.

Someone asked me if I was going to “pass out again”, because I got light-headed the class before and had to leave early, most likely due to a side-effect of the new medication I’m on, though I was far from passing out.

I was flat-out offended, and began experiencing what my therapist explained are “automatic thoughts” — irrational thoughts that affect mood negatively. I had to step back from the situation, put the words out of my head, and calm myself down. If not, I would have overreacted, and probably regretted it. But I couldn’t figure out why I was so upset. After all, I’m far from one who gets offended easily.

Was I being publicly emasculated? Was I being judged without consideration of all the facts? Was my commitment to attend practice after not eating for two days being belittled? Was it the tone? Was it because I couldn’t speak back and defend myself, for fear of polluting the sanctity of the class¹ with my personal politics? Probably a bit of each.

I tend to have similarly bad reactions to people being surprised that I don’t know something. It feels like I’m being judged, as if they presume to know who I am. Even though it’s supposed to be a compliment, it’s a back-handed one, like saying “I thought you were smarter than that”. John used to be especially guilty of this², but he successfully corrected the behaviour years ago. It took a psychologist to point it out to him, and adverse reactions from several people, including me.

I know I’ve already come a long way. I’m not so sensitive about my weight (for a guy) any more. I stopped caring what people think when I know the truth. But this incident made me realize that I still harbor a sensitivity to certain things. I still have some growing up to do. Still have to realize that people say things without thinking, or don’t mean what they say, or that I may even take innocuous things the wrong way. Even though I feel that I had a right to be offended, I still don’t want to be.

And the fact that I was offended just makes me more upset.

1. I approach my work with the same kind of reservation and detachment to remain professional. After all, these are situations in which we can’t choose the people we work with, so there’s nothing to do but accept and any unpleasantness. [↑]
2. And quite self-aware of it. As a person oblivious to pop-culture, he loved to hold it over people when he knew something they didn’t. [↑]

When I left, the flowers on my kitchen table looked like this:

When I got back, to my surprise, they looked like this:

She made the bouquet herself — hand-picked the flowers, chose the colours, even made sure it was symmetrical, knowing my odd habits¹ — and left them there to greet me from my journey home.

I never ask for these things but she does them anyway.

Which is exactly what makes them so significant.

1. I tend to straighten her necklaces, her sandal straps, the curls of her hair, the draw-strings in her hoodie/yoga pants… [↑]

Assume as necessary.

Why is it so politically incorrect to show your feelings? Would it be inappropriate to tell you that I’m in love?

That your dimples are like hinges that purse your lips in the most adorable way, and I want to kiss them. That I want to have you here next to me, to feel the weight of your body pressing against mine. That I want to smell you on my fingers, I want to fold my sheets around you, I want to feel your curls under my hands as I lather and rinse.

Because I’m sick of being polite and I’m tired of propriety.

So let’s deal with this attraction. Let’s not ignore what’s between us.

A reader sent me this letter (posted with her permission, of course):

Almost a year after I had managed to leave the island behind, the room, the floor, the sheets, the rape – I accidently ended up on your blog entry called “The beginning to the end” and it changed my world. It awoke feelings inside of me that I had for a years time tried to suppress and scare off so that I never again would open up to anyone, never trust anyone and therefor never end up in the same situation again. At that time, all men were a potential threath to me.

Reading and watching that very blogentry have had such a great impact on my life and will to become ‘myself’ again, to reclaim my body and to dare to move towards feeling and being ‘beautiful’ again. Your video granted me the sensation of how sincere, pure and giving love and affection truly are when it’s shared and not forced. It made me remember blocked out feelings and situations and it made me start to long for something that I had completely shut out for over a year.

I have been wanting to write you this email for quite some time, but I havent been sure of myself or if the “new” me (which is the old in fact) would survive and I didnt want to make this into a sunshine story if it really wasnt – but after many downhills, trials and tribulations, theraphy and social interaction, I am there, I am back and I am standing strong again. Nothing will ever be the same, but at least I made the right choice, for me. I have always been lifeloving in overload and even if I am only halfway there yet, it is still enough to keep me going.

I still watch that video every now and then, to remind myself that anything is possible and that you can recieve “help” from the most unexpected sources. It used to make me cry, now it makes me smile instead, isnt that beautiful? I know perfectly well that you never meant to post that entry for me, but it helped me in one of the most difficult times in my life and for that I will be forever grateful. Thank you.

Yours sincerly,
Emma

I’m at a loss for words.

I met her a few times. She was nice. Quiet. I was one of the more junior students and she would occasionally give me words of encouragement.

But what endeared her to me was the way she interacted with him. A comfortable familiarity, an unspoken bond they never overtly displayed in public but kept hidden between them, a secret they shared as if to reveal it was to spoil it.

Sometimes, they’d talk about their kids. They were getting older. Getting married. Moving out.

When they found the cancer in her body, he suspended classes immediately. He told us we could find new teachers with his blessing. I looked up their address and sent a basket filled with pâté and dipping oils. That was over a year ago.

And as much as I’d like to do something, anything to make him feel better — offer my condolences, tell him he has an ear — there isn’t anything I can do. Nothing will make up for his loss.

Our bond will remain unspoken too.

At the hair salon tonight, a new girl washed my hair. She went through the usual routine, but before she finished, she placed her fingers along the front of my hairline, and with constant pressure, slowly worked her way back.

The water was warm, my hair was wet, and I felt the tension going down my scalp. It was completely sublime.

The edges of my lips started curling, but I couldn’t tell if I was helplessly smiling, or it was the stretching of my skin upwards.

In the shower tonight, when washing out the stray hairs, I tried doing it on myself. It didn’t feel the same, of course.

It was like that scene in Secretary, where Lee Holloway (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal) tries to spank herself with a hairbrush when exploring her submissive tendencies. I love the expression of intent, and ultimately letdown, on her face.

The problem with manual stimulation is that it never feels as good as when someone else does it for you.

You interpret my heart, my nature, as you wish to believe it.

— Onegin

People see what they want to see.

As I touched on a while back, some of it comes from insecurity. Other times, from a fallacy of projection as some people ignorantly, and megalomaniacally, believe that everyone must think and act as they do. There are a few other cases that don’t fit into either of these categories though.

An example: I once offered a guest in my house some yogurt. The first thing he asked was, “Is it going bad?”. He didn’t believe I would have given it to him otherwise. It was a perfect reflection of his deadbeat friends who expected you to eat before coming to a party, and he had never known any other type of people. A more extreme example is if you offered to feed someone at your house and they got insulted because they thought you were implying that they couldn’t afford to feed themselves. Some people see things that aren’t there. It’s an amazing subconscious sign of their characters.

The way some girls interpret things is also an interesting phenomenon. Some of them think a guy who’s talking to them must be hitting on them so they drop the b-bomb in random points of conversation, just to warn you they have a boyfriend. Some girls think you’re gay because you don’t make any advances towards them. Some girls think you’re torn up, depressed because they declined your advances, and end up making a bigger deal about it than you do. I want nothing more than to tell these girls to get over themselves, but I bite my tongue because they end up embarrassing themselves more than I could ever do myself.

There are also times when a person is so pig-headed and stubborn that they see everything through a filter, interpreting your actions in some crazy way, and believe you’re at fault because they subconsciously refuse to see their own mistakes.

The old me would have been insulted when someone assumes I’m a certain way. Nothing would anger me more than someone presuming to know how I feel or what I’m like, and I used to care desperately what they thought, even if I knew I was just misunderstood. It’s an interesting feeling to be passed that now¹.

I’ve learned never to take responsibility for other peoples’ interpretations. Only take responsibility for your intent. You learn a lot about a person from the way they interpret things and from the way they see the world.

With the truth in your heart, it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks.

With the truth on your side, nothing can go wrong.

1. It’s actually been quiet a few months since I wrote this entry. I didn’t post it at first because I wanted to be absolutely sure that it wasn’t a fickle feeling, and that my strength was firm. Reading back on it now, it seems more relevant than ever. [↑]

She leans the chair back, my neck to rest in the cradle of the wash basin. The water comes out lukewarm. She knows it’s hot outside.

Shampoo. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. In small circles, her fingers work my scalp, massaging without too much pressure, scratching when there is no itch.

“This is the best part of my day”, I say.

“Mine too”.

I like to think that humans are, in general, cerebral beings, unaffected by bias or emotion.

But every time I’m met with a bigot, who has nothing to cling to but the strength of their opinions, I lose this hope.

The more they speak, the more they prove themselves as incapable of accepting anything but their own beliefs. Added to this is a lack of self-awareness, causing them believe that they’re not closed-minded, they’re just right.

Often it betrays an insecurity. You can tell that underneath their words, they harbour a subconscious feeling that they’re wrong. To make up for this, they express themselves strongly enough to convince themselves that they’re right.

As logically as you explain things, step-by-step, premise to conclusion, they won’t understand. They’ll never be able to accept the truth, and remain completely ignorant.

It’s impossible to have a discussion with someone like this.

The discussion is superficial, and the issue lies within the person themselves.

A photo of Lisa, lying on Trolley’s bed, treating her surface piercing with salt water after a mid-day burn. The light was already coming through the window, but the smoke made the individual rays distinguishable. I’m pretty satisfied with the way the colours turned out, although the picture doesn’t really capture how much darker the rest of the room was. Definitely a very particular mood, like being under a flourishing tree on a sunny summer day, with the cool feeling of grass underfoot.

Lisa is one of those people with which one can spend time without having to worry about running out of things to say. She can do enough talking to keep a conversation going, so as long as the vibe is right, there are no awkward silences. She gave me a super for the first time, and I could barely move afterwards (although this is also partially be due to the hydro I graciously got through Adam). It was a little scary to feel so out-of-control, but everything was comfortable enough for me to keep it together. I was peaking for more than an hour straight, something I hadn’t experienced since I first started, what Scarface would call, “back in the day”.

It’s always interesting to meet someone from a totally different group of stoners. Each group has their own style, rituals, etiquette. One can tell a lot from how someone rolls, how long they take before passing, how carefully they correct runs, or simply how they act when they’re under the influence. The session becomes a way for people to share their traditions with others, to discover the characters of people that may otherwise remain hidden behind the guard put up in everyday life. By taking part, one becomes open in letting others know that one is comfortable enough to even act out of character.

There is a risk, there’s a risk when your dealing with love
You could snap my neck
Any speed you drive can be dangerous
When this frame fails me
Will I trust you to carry me through?
I know there’s no such thing as safety
But I know what a promise can do

—Trust, Thrice

I’ve alway been one to put a little too much faith into people. Although this often ends up hurting the parties involved, myself included, I’ve always felt like it was worth it. I’d rather give someone the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps this is why I end up being let down so much (John would add that my intolerance is partially to blame). Some people don’t like to take that risk and need others to make the first step, need others to make that leap of faith. I know, because in some cases, I used to be one of them. One may hold back until they know that the other person has as much at risk as they do. It’s the easiest way to not get hurt.

There’s always one person who has to make that first step, to lay everything on the line. It’s one person who has to be the first to go for a kiss, the first to say, “I love you”, without knowing what the other person will say in return. It makes it easier, of course, if one can understand or accept the fact that there are risks involved in any sort of relationship, that not everything will go the “right” way.

There’s a Simon and Garfunkle song that goes, “The roller coaster ride we took is nearly at an end / I bought my ticket with my tears, that’s all I’m gonna spend”. When Paul Simon penned those lyrics, in the manner which he plays with words and rhymes to create his beautiful, renowned lyrical verses, he should have written, “That’s all I need to spend”. There’s absolutely nothing more that one can give.

Tears are a small price to pay for a chance at happiness.

I had the chance to experience some strong, uncerebral conviction from someone I, unfortunately, didn’t have much respect for. I imagine that it was caused by a refusal to understand anything outside of her frame of mind. She seemed so zealous in her opinion, so upset at any mention of the contrary, that any attempt to loosen her resolve proved to be more than fruitless.

It seemed as if she was making up for her ignorance in strength of opinion. In order to seem as if she was knowledgeable about the subject, she became extremely opinionated.

How can one argue with such a difficult person? My answer is simple; I don’t. Argument is something that I’ve given up on completely, in general. I now find discussion, as opposed to argument, to be an exercise in loquacity and conversation. At my age, it seems that most people have surpassed what Erikson believed to be the identity vs. role confusion stage. They have become confident in their beliefs, and there is little that can be done to show them a new view. Of course, there are always a few people who can keep a beautifully open mind, accepting the possibility of anything, perhaps something as adventurous as admitting they are wrong.

There always seems to be a fine line between someone who is opinionated for shallow, insecure reasons, and someone who is opinionated validly. Unless one attempts to understand both cases, they both seem the same.

The adventure becomes not the enlightenment of the former, but the distinction between the two.