Well, I have water. And hot water too. I’ve been doing loads of laundry and dishes in the dishwasher. Not to mention sweet, sweet BMs on a toilet.

But my bathroom and bedroom ceilings still look like this. Not to mention the coarse dust on everything and the uprooted furniture. I had several entries with pictures to post, but my colour-calibrated monitors are sitting in the spare room. I have no idea when the contractor is going to be back to get everything dirty again. Otherwise, I’d do some cleaning.

Either the construction company is on holiday (which contradicts what the worker said), or they’re dodging me, because I haven’t been able to get a hold of anyone for days now. I’m stuck in limbo here, literally living in the living room (what a fitting name). It’s left me rather sick and unmotivated.

Nightmare. The word almost everyone has been using to describe this hot water situation. From my friends and coworkers, to the plumbing technicians, to the sales reps, to the contractors.

When the contractor came over to make holes in my ceiling, he brushed against a pipe that went to the hot water tank, and since it was almost rusted completely through, it snapped and started leaking. Water shoots out of the hole any time I turn the water on, so I’ve had to shut off the main valve. Now I have no water. I can’t wash my hands, I can’t go to the bathroom.

The exhaust pipe that goes to my furnace isn’t up to code anymore either, so even if I get all this work done on the house, my ceiling would have to be ripped up again when the furnace goes. And since mine is 12-years-old and rated for 15 years, it could die on me as soon as three years (or sooner). So I’ll be getting the furnace pipe replaced too, which essentially doubles my pipe installation costs.

In addition to moving as much furniture out of my room as possible into my guest room (thereby robbing me of my photo studio, Tai Chi practice area, bedroom, and main computer), I’ll have to cover the remaining things in sheets to protect them from the dust. When the piping is all replaced¹, the contractor needs to come in and patch up the holes, scrape all the stipple off my ceiling, respray the stipple on, and repaint it. I don’t even have an estimate of how much that’s going to cost.

The house is my one area of stability. Where I retreat to when everything else is falling apart. The one place I need to be constant. I won’t feel settled until it’s all been resolved.

And to think that I was looking forward to the holidays. I was picturing myself enjoying my well-earned time off, eating bacon and eggs, playing a few games, and starting some new projects.

How far away the image seems now.

1. And with luck, they won’t refuse to do the job because they don’t have enough clearance. [↑]

Sometimes, I have to get out, even when it feels like it’s 40°C outside, because I need my music loud, and I need to fucking strut, and the birds clear the way cause they know it’s serious, cause the pictures are fucking killing me, so I’ll just keep skipping songs until it hits me then I’ll CRANK IT until it hurts, walking it off like it’s nobody’s business, dancing inside to the bass pounding in my ears.

The experience of emotional deprivation is harder to define than some of the other lifetraps. Often it is not crystallized into thoughts. This is because the original deprivation began so early, before you had the words to describe it. Your experience of emotional deprivation is much more the sense that you are going to be lonely forever, that certain things are never going to be fulfilled for you, that you will never be heard, never be understood.

Emotional deprivation feels like something is missing. It is a feeling of emptiness. Perhaps the image that most captures its meaning is that of a neglected child. Emotional deprivation is what a neglected child feels. It is a feeling of aloneness, of nobody there. It is a sad and heavy sense of knowledge that you are destined to be alone.

I’m so fucking angryfuriouslivid at John right now. We were supposed to talk and play tonight, but yet again, I get brushed aside for his friends or girlfriend. I have no other communication with him, save for the phonecalls.

It’s not just this time, it’s a whole bunch of times added up. And I’m left alone, again. This is the first time ever that he’s made me cry. And I’m not even sad. I’m just angry. I’m sweating. I can barely see through these tears.

At least I found out that I could show my feelings to him. He’s the only person with whom I don’t have to worry about being polite. I can raise my voice at him, and I don’t clam up like I do with most people.

Right now, I have no one. John’s the one person I can count on to talk to me when something goes wrong. No one else truly understands me. It’s completely devastating when it’s this person who pulls the rug out from under you.

Maybe I am sad. Maybe this makes me think of how I’m always a second priority to everyone I know. That I’ll be alone for the rest of my life. That it’ll always be like this because I’m fucking flawed and fucking defective and fucking unlovable in some way.

I wasn’t going to drive to nowhere tonight, but I think I will now. I just have to remember not to rest my foot on the pedal.

People don’t understand how fragile I am. That sometimes I have to fight to feel significant, that I have to convince myself that people would be sad if steered into a concrete pole and died.

Just because I try to be easy-going and understanding doesn’t mean I’m not important.

I’m a person too.

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. [↑]

Try to put me down and make me feel bad. Do your best to make yourself look good.

Throw some advice my way (I’ll leave it). Assume you know me better than I know myself (what arrogance!). Give me some food for thought, and believe you were anything more than a passing fancy (but try to get over yourself).

My god, how wrong I was about you.

More than a crazy week, I managed to survive a crazy fortnight. Something went wrong almost every day, from getting my hair highlighted, to almost getting killed in a near-miss car accident, to finding out that my company was bought out. On top of this, I kept losing sleep, which only exponentiated the stress. Now is the process of picking myself up and dusting myself off.

I still feel over-stimulated, so I’ve been hermitizing. Staying away from people for a while. I’m limiting myself to one social interaction or extra-curricular activity per week. It would actually be nothing if I had the option, but I keep getting pulled into things because of their annual exclusivity, such as Thanksgiving dinner at Louise’s.

I’ve cut off the woman who gave birth to me. There’s a tremendous feeling of relief, after having done it. I’m grateful for all the support that people are showing me, as well as the fact that none of them have given me advice as if they know more about the situation or have more wisdom than I do.

I hold Pat’s opinion in highest regard because he’s the only one who understands from both a cultural and first-hand point-of-view. He was also the only one who told me, “Good for you”. This, from one of the most forgiving, caring people that I know, confirmed to me that I made the right decision.

John offered a unique perspective too, since losing his mother at a tender age. “You only get one”, he said, although he never chided or judged me about it, perhaps because of the number of times I’ve called him up in tears because of her.

Of the last five times I’ve tried to play table tennis, things didn’t work out once. It certainly made the last two weeks a lot more difficult to handle.

Table tennis is the only thing that helps me sleep well, not to mention the fact exercise releases endorphines that fight the exact depression I was going through. I’m taking it as a sign that I’m not meant to play at the moment, so I’m giving it up until next year.

In the meantime, I’ve taken up Tai Chi. Through the last while, I went back to the Tao Te Ching looking for answers, and it renewed my interest in Tai Chi, which I see as a physical manifestation of the theory. I was also able to clarify a few of the concepts with my uncles while they were here, so I’m reading things over with a fresh perspective.

Broken, lookin’ up I see the enemy.
And I have swallowed the poison you feed me.
But I survived on the poison you feed me.
Guilt fed. Hatred fed. Weakness fed.
It makes me feel ugly.
I’m on my knees, I’m burning.
My piss and moans are human.
I set my head on fire. I’m dead inside.
Shit adds up. Shit adds up. Shit adds up.
Shit adds up at the bottom.

—Tool, Bottom

Remember those days in high school, when you couldn’t sleep because of upcoming finals, or the girl you liked told you she didn’t like you back?

Sometimes I miss those days.

Every time I want to say something, complain, vent, I think of others. I never lost both my legs. I don’t have any crippling social disabilities. My parents never left me naked on the asphalt. Hell, Aaron went through shit so bad two years ago that I can’t even talk about it, and he’s one of the last people to deserve it. I really don’t have anything to complain about.

Then I question the timing. And every time there’s another load added, I think, “I CAN’T DEAL WITH THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW”. I have deadlines to meet, sleep to catch up on, insecurities to allay. Is this some divine way of telling me that I’ve been having it too good lately? A way of balancing out how well things have been going? No, the timing is good, my friends remind me. This isn’t in the middle of a divorce, or the death of a family member, or massive debt. This is probably one of the most convenient times for all of this to happen. I really don’t have anything to complain about.

So I have to shoulder all of it now. Not to put it all aside, but to deal with it head on when I have to concentrate, to stop freaking out when I’m lying in bed, to stop being absolutely terrified when I’m in an uncomfortable situation. Another rollercoaster ride, another crucible, another bridge to cross.

Thank god I’m stronger now. Thank god I have my friends. Thank god I have a girlfriend I can communicate with. If I didn’t have John, Trolley, Aaron, Pat, Darren, Bronny to call, I’d be going FUCKING NUTS. I’D FLIP THE FUCK OUT. Yesterday, I spoke to every single one of them through the course of the day.

Shit adds up.

I’ve been a jumble of emotions lately. A mix of excitement and worry, fun and stress, unsettling uncertainty and crossed-signals. On top of it all I keep getting all sorts of BULLSHIT from people, when it’s the last thing I need.

I generally don’t like this feeling. To grow, and this is especially true for me, one needs a foundation of stability. Once the basic things are constant, there can be changes and adjustments made to improve. Now I find myself struggling to keep the simplest things under control.

It’s certainly been an interesting year so far.

It’s been rough going the last few weeks. Every day is a conflict between doing something relaxing, doing the chores that will make me feel comfortable, or going to bed. Even now I can’t relax. I clean my mirrors of fingerprints in between sentences, or brush Dolly of excess fur as she forcefully nudges my wrists in mirth, and only continue writing when I come up with the next idea.

A sore throat and weary body had me calling in sick today (I suspect that I caught something from petting the same cat as Karen yesterday, who’s seems sick as a dog), although I ended up going in and working six hours anyway. All the extra curricular things are slowly wearing me down. There’s the two side-businesses, the new effort of learning as much as I can about my new Canon Rebel XT by photographing everything, and the blogging. I also started table tennis again, although I’m not sure how often I can attend, taking four hours out of a weekday. The one reprieve is a LAN party I’ve had planned since September that starts tomorrow, and even though it’ll be a good weekend of gaming, it’ll still mean little rest. Normally I’m planned, prepared, and practiced for a LAN, but this time it’ll all be improvised.

I’m being tested, and even though I know that I’ll get through this, it’s still difficult. I’m forced to deal with people I’ve avoided my entire life. I’m pushing myself past the limits of anything I’ve ever gone through. To be honest, it’s a little easier than I would have imagined. The strength and confidence that I’ve gained over the last two years has helped tremendously. Knowing that things get done in their own time keeps me from being overwhelmed. If I can make it through this, I’ll be stronger than ever.

It’s difficult to sleep with so much on the mind, and even more difficult when you’re filled with anger about not being able to fall sleep. With my duvet wrapped around me last night, I turned my alarm off completely, deciding to get into work whenever I woke up, knowing that I’d need the rest to focus on a persistent network issue. After trying to fall asleep for an hour without success, and feeling like I’d waste the rest of the morning, I got up very frustrated. Those who know me, know that five hours is considered calamitous. I cooked a heavy breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast, knowing that I’d still have time to get to work early, a bit of sustenance to get me through the rest of the day.

The main problem I’ve been facing for the last week has been the setup of a VPN for a new out-of-office sales rep we recently hired. It was the perfect morning to get to work early, because I could work on the server for about an hour without having to worry about affecting any client computers. I traced the problem to an outdated version of the firmware, and crossed my fingers (after my last flashing disaster) as I burned the latest version. This was at 7:00 in the morning. I spent the next 13 hours trying to figure out why internet access stopped working within the range of internal IP addresses .1 to .36 (which makes absolutely no sense without being a power of two, and especially odd when we had no DHCP ranges set).

This meant carefully learning the existing structure of a network I didn’t set up and figuring out the Windows internet protocol. I’ve had no formal training in being an MCSE, so a lot of the day was spent reading through white papers and technical notes for a possible DNS/DHCP/IIS/firewall/RRA setting I may have looked over. Network service slowly degraded throughout the day as I began troubleshooting, including a simultaneous crash of the main custom software on every system, a loss of dynamic dns addressing (which brought our new online service down), until I couldn’t even find the network address of the router.

When you’re filled with angry perseverance, you get a lot done. If only other people could understand that. Wearing a face of determination means I don’t have time to be pleasant, or have a lunch, or listen to innane stories of your grandchildren.

On the walk to work, I had already decided that as soon as I got off, I was going to play some table tennis at one of the bi-weekly sessions, vision blurred, eyes drying, as tired as I was, and passing out after dinner. This obviously didn’t happen. I’d been seriously planning on going since last week, but things just kept getting in the way.

Until the last 15 minutes, the only thing I could think about was whether I’d have to pull an all-nighter, and whether or not I’d even be able to solve things if I did. That’s the risk of tech support; the solution can be as simple as it is elusive, and there can be no progress until the very last tweak. Halfway through the day, I already decided that I’d call an external network specialist to help if I didn’t get anywhere by tomorrow afternoon. I was too tired to worry about not getting the network up before the next business day, which would basically bring the company to a standstill, and too tired to be angry at everything that was going on. After figuring out our network structure, three calls to tech support, and learning internet protocol theory from the ground up, I finally figured out that all I needed to do was do a hard reset of the router, and configure everything from scratch.

It was probably the most difficult day I’ve had since I started the job, but I knew that if I could get through it and fix the problem, I’d be able to get through anything that could be thrown at me. Not only did I get the web connection working through the entire subnet, I also got the sales reps laptop to connect to the VPN through dial-up. Yesterday was a late night, getting a website done for a client friend. Tomorrow’s another 14 hour day, and even though I’ve known about it for a month, I don’t think it’ll make it any easier.

I realized that I only really feel lonely on days like these, when my body aches, my mind loses focus, and all I want to do is have someone else take care of me. To have someone else decide what to do, because I’m too tired to decide for myself.

Stepping outside, hungry and exhausted, I put on a wintery playlist for the walk home, since it was two hours past sunset and the fall nights are getting frigid. The first song that came on was Explode by the Cardigans. I’d been saving this song for months now, skipping it every time it came on so I wouldn’t get tired of it.

Today I finally deserved it.

It’s been a long week, although it was technically made shorter from the long weekend. Three cancellations in three nights. Nothing’s working out. I left work early yesterday because my eyes stopped functioning. The previous day I’d worked a full 14 hours.

I used to get angry or frustrated at things like this, but now I find myself cold and emotionless, accepting things as the way they are. The advantage is that I’m a much more stable person. It isn’t even any attempt to be stoic, but I’m sick of all the bullshit.

All I want is a break, just one thing to go my way.

Please?

Let me make this perfectly clear.

I am not like you. I do not think the same way that you do. Never. Ever. EVER. Ever believe that you understand, or assume that you know, how I’m feeling or what I’m thinking just because you are, or have ever been, in the same situation.

To believe that you understand, is arrogant. To assume that you know, is an insult.

You’re usually wrong anyway.

No, I didn’t learn this meaning of the word from grade school, or even from the ebonics primer at Dolemite Dot Com.

(Actually, I learned it from 2Pac’s Life Goes On)

Yeah.

I only recently had a modern day poseur pointed out to me. This isn’t the same as an intellectual poseur, this is the poseur of personality. The one’s who want to be quirky, eccentric, different.

At first, I didn’t notice; I was just annoyed. Then Loo’s perspicacity put a name to it. I can’t stop catching others now. I find that the one distinguishing behavior is the over-statement of character traits they wish to have, such as, “I did this funny thing because I want you to see me in a certain way, and by telling you this, I will make you believe that I am who I want you to believe”. Or “I like this song too₀ I listen to anything because I have widely varying tastes!”. Over-statement such as this may or may not be based on some kind of insecurity; some do it to hide because they’re uncomfortable with themselves, others just want to be memorable and only end up being remembered for the wrong reasons.

Sometimes it’s even worse on blogs, where people write one line posts that don’t say anything because they think they’re cool and cryptic and that people are interested in what they have to say. Or others who post conversations, and expect everyone else to understand or appreciate the humour behind them. Or even people who actually write about how they’re fucking INTELLIGENT, or GRAMMAR FREAKS, or ATTRACTIVE. Why the fuck do you need to state it? LET THE WORDS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES. The key to writing is to SAY not TELL. Telling an audience how someone is feeling is nowhere near as effective as describing direct actions/thoughts/reactions related to those emotions without actually stating the emotions themselves.

In the end, it all makes me even more zealous about being humble, unassertive. I’ve always been one to “speak softly and carry a big stick”, as Teddy once put it. There are tons of great surprises when one doesn’t present all of oneself from the start. And after all, when one is revealed as a true self that doesn’t match the false image that’s projected on others, one ends up being a phony.

And I fucking hate phoneys.