Monthly Archives: February 2003

The Conversationalist

Does no one talk any­more? It feels as if every­one needs to be doing some­thing in order to be enter­tained. I remem­ber try­ing to get togeth­er with an old friend for some drinks, maybe a cof­fee so that I could find out how he was doing. We were good friends in high school, and since I had­n’t seen him in three years, I thought it would be a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn about what he had been doing. When we were actu­al­ly able to get togeth­er, we end­ed up play­ing board games. I had a good time, but it felt odd that I did­n’t have any news from him by the time I left.

I under­stand that most peo­ple are busy with school, espe­cial­ly in fourth year, so that relax­ation time ends up being hard-core play­ing and drink­ing time, which does­n’t involve some­thing as lack­adaisi­cal as talk­ing. I’ve been able to meet some good con­ver­sa­tion­al­ists, like Dina, Pat, Aaron, or Nick, but they’re gen­er­al­ly too busy to speak with. I don’t think any­one is at fault here, I guess I just wish that more peo­ple would be inter­est­ed in con­ver­sa­tion, who could com­mit more time to it.

I think it’s the fact that my brain is exer­cised when I can talk with some­one. Many thoughts that are cloudy in my head become more solid­i­fied. I’m also able to learn so much when some­one has a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive, and learn­ing feels so good. It’s a pity that I don’t know more peo­ple that I can sim­ply talk to. I haven’t had a nice, long con­ver­sa­tion pos­si­bly in a year, since gen­er­al­ly all oth­er con­ver­sa­tions feel rushed from work or school. No one has the time to talk until 3 am any­more.

It’s going to be a long night.

The Fourth Day

Four con­sec­u­tive writ­ing days in a row. Balls.

Pat called me yes­ter­day to see how I was doing. How fuck­ing amaz­ing is that? When I found out, the back of my nose felt tight­ly con­gest­ed, and the rims of my eyes start­ed to tin­gle. I need to be more like Pat. I real­ized yes­ter­day that he’s like my preach­er; he’s the only one I can talk to with­out fear­ing judg­ment or embar­rass­ment. It’s not that my oth­er friends aren’t under­stand­ing, it’s that Pat is able to see the moti­va­tions that dri­ve the actions one does, with­out wor­ry­ing about whether the con­se­quences are for bet­ter or worse. He’s able to see the good in many peo­ple, and I guess that I need to be remind­ed that I have some good in me on occa­sion.

I think I need boobs. I bought a turtle­neck dur­ing a box­ing day sale. I found it on a table stacked with oth­er mot­ley piles of clothes, in the mid­dle of the store, for 50% off. I did­n’t try it on, since the lines for the change rooms were ridicu­lous­ly long. I got home and tried it on, and it felt a little…large. I tried to shrink it in the wash, but it only slight­ly worked, because it still fit in an odd way. I real­ized today that it might be a girls’ turtle­neck, and that the extra room in it might be for a healthy rack. I’m not com­plete­ly sure, because I’ve nev­er tried on what I know to be a girls’ turtle­neck, and the beige colour isn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly fem­i­nine. I sup­pose I could try to return it since it has­n’t been worn yet, and has­n’t been (notice­ably) washed, but I’d rather have the boobs.

I’ve tried to change the date and time cod­ing in PHP, so that it more accu­rate­ly rep­re­sents when the entries were writ­ten, but no such luck. The serv­er this is host­ed on is locat­ed in Hong Kong, which is about 13 hours ahead, so all the entries seem like they’re writ­ten 13 hours into the future. I found out how to edit the val­ues of the date and time, but only when it’s from a cur­rent time­stamp, and not when it’s being retrieved from a data­base. I might just try to fig­ure out a way around every­thing if I real­ly feel the need to have accu­rate num­bers.

I think that I stop read­ing dur­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly stress­ful school terms. My free time alone is gen­er­al­ly divid­ed between gam­ing and read­ing, and when I need some stress relief then gam­ing is just able to deliv­er much bet­ter. As Doug and I dis­cussed, we’re able to lose our­selves, to just let go of every­thing else and be com­plete­ly absorbed. Sometimes my stress will spill over though, and I’ll feel the need to write.

5 am vs. Acceptance

A while ago, I tried to under­stand the dif­fi­cul­ties I would face in hav­ing chil­dren. I see now that a very fun­da­men­tal prob­lem with the entire con­cept is that I haven’t accept­ed what I’ve become yet. Such an inabil­i­ty is rel­e­vant inso­far as the fact that I haven’t accept­ed who I am cre­ates fur­ther dif­fi­cul­ty in accept­ing some­one else.

The same sort of prob­lem aris­es out of rela­tion­ships, but in an inverse man­ner; how could I expect some­one else to accept me, when I haven’t done so already? I feel that such a dif­fi­cul­ty is prob­a­bly the most promi­nent obsta­cle in my rela­tion­ships. Another would be the fact that I’m not sure if I am strong enough per­son to prop­er­ly take care of some­one else. Relationships are sup­posed to be mutu­al­is­tic, and it feels as if I’m not ready for them yet.

I’ve been think­ing this for quite a while now. So many things seem to be point­ing me to this fact. I’ve been slow­ly accept­ing it, and it has very slow­ly been work­ing.

Yet some­one is tear­ing my rea­son­ing apart.