Tonight i was supposed to hang out with the crew, and they were all going bowling mostly. I did indeed see my friends, and they’re nice people and we hung out a bit. I couldn’t make it as far as bowling. I’m pretty down right now and being around the group is something I can only do for a couple of hours, I guess.

Something between petulance, shame, unrequited puppy love, and an egotistical unwillingness to admit reality is riding me lately, like a man rides a horse. The better part of me knows how dumb that is, but the big rejected dick is in charge of the serotonin, the testosterone, and most of the sympathetic nervous system. My apologies.

Lately I have a serious Quixotic wish that people could all hang out in a pack and sleep together in piles like cats. Exclusivity and ownership and competition and possession turn all this love into shit.

Since we can’t have that vision of Paradise, we try our best to get what we want and do good for others. I fail, you fail, they fail, he fails, she fails, we fail, one fails.

There’s part of loving someone that makes you feel big and important, because you have such a good feeling about another person and want so much for that person to be happy. And then there’s the other side of that, when you realize that how you feel isn’t that important, and that you can’t necessarily give everyone what makes sense to you, and that the needy part of your feeling can be hurtful to others just when you want the opposite. And that’s where we re-learn each time how to conjugate failure.

OH SNAP! Suzy, you packin’ chrome?!

408 HP, 32 MPG

It’s 3:40 in the morning and I just woke up. Not surprising considering that I had three drinks earlier; alcohol isn’t a good sleeping medicine.

The Herb Alpert I was spinning earlier took me back to early childhood. My parents had a few of his records, and I would take one out and put it on the old KLH turntable with the multiple-record playing arm and listen, kneeling on the carpet exactly between the speakers to get the best of the stereo effect. My favorite was “Going Places”, with Herb on the cover in an old aerobatic plane.

For some reason I also remembered visiting my grandmother with my mother at around the same age (maybe 4). She lived in Leisure World in Seal Beach. My grandmother didn’t enjoy the company of children very much, but she would give me a Van de Kamps peanut butter cookie or two from the blue and white Dutch ceramic jar, and then I would go out and ride my tricycle slowly around the deserted sidewalks. The smokestacks of the power station off in the distance puffed out white clouds and I creaked about on the trike trying not to bother the other old people there.

The clock ticking on the bookcase next to me is loud in the night quiet. That’s a third childhood memory, of the big school clock on the wall as I looked down at my project or my text, and at the other kids around me, in my third grade classroom. I was sweaty and flushed from recess and it was hard to concentrate, but I tried to get my penmanship right while hoping that the clock would tick a little faster and I could leave.

Now the clock is ticking next to a man approaching middle age alone in the same town, in the same house, on the same couch. Maybe I should get the Herb Alpert records out and sit on the carpet again, and go places with Herb.

Herb Alpert and Belfast Bombers.

ON THIS 4th day of the month of March, in the year of our Lord Two Thousand Four,

IN THIS City of Newport Beach,

IN THIS County of Orange,

IN THIS State of California,

BEING THAT numerous people we know have had a day which is unduly full of Fecal Matter, packed with Refuse, jammed to the brim with Sludge, and frothing over the top with Bilge and Sputum,

AND ALSO BEING THAT this comes on the heels of the first third of an inauspicious Year full of Illness, Divorce, Injury, unrequited Romantic Love, great Trials at the hand of the Government, loss of Employment, mental Anguish, Overwork, and inexplicable Failures of the Providence in which we Trust to Provide for us,

IT IS HEREBY PROCLAIMED that the Fourth Day of March in each Year shall be known henceforth as Crapmas.

By the Power and the Seal of the Great Lodge of the Exalted and Honorable Order of the Diedrichs Table, vested in me in my Office as an Ancient and Confirmed Member of the Thirty-Third Degree, I do proclaim this forth.

Ignatz Mouse
General and Presiding Plinthist
Grand Oriental Chief of the Ninth Secret Lodge
Grand Persiflager of the Reformed Templars
Hierophant-Elect

Since I’ve given up pretending anything is okay, and since I’m louder and whinier about how shitty it feels, I get responses.

And I know people are trying to say what they think is helpful and truthful. And I know these are people who want the best for me. But, I get:

“You should work on being content with what you’ve got” from people who have what I want and don’t seem to think it’s such a big deal

“I have no sympathy for you unless you meet lots of people” from more than one attractive person who doesn’t exactly need to comb match.com for people

“You need to go out with people you don’t actually want” from people who have someone they wanted and didn’t have to fake it

You know, folks, I don’t see most of you going out every Friday night with someone you barely know and don’t like so much. I don’t see you being content with whatever plate of shit is all over your lap, you’re as upset as anyone else when there’s something broken in your lives. I don’t think you get it at all, or even want to try. You assume that I haven’t tried any of the fixes you have in mind.

Just so you know. I’m not just whining that “I can’t get a date”. It’s a lot worse than that. I’m a sexually immature guy pushing 40 who’s never had a real girlfriend. I’m horribly sensitive. I get dumb 12 year old kid puppy love crushes on people who disdain me. I can’t get along with anyone my own age and the younger people I’m friends with find me old enough to be gross. I’m overweight, bald, and ungainly. My intense fear of rejection makes it nearly impossible for me to approach someone unless I like her so much that it’s a self-defeating project. I magically pick people who are unavailable to me. I care when you’re not supposed to care, I don’t lie when you’re supposed to lie, and I get attached to people before they have any interest in me. I fall for people who are too young for me, too beautiful for me, too experienced for me. I am in no “league” at all.

I am a punchline to a joke about sexual losers.

I’ve lived with this reality for more than 20 years. I’ve maybe tried some of the things you think of in the first 30 seconds. I don’t mean that you’re not trying to help, I mean that it feels like I’m in a wheelchair and you’re suggesting a new brand of athletic shoes because you’ve never been here.

I’m in therapy for the second time in my life and there are no guarantees of anything getting better, ever, even inside my head. The likely outcome of my life is that I will die very alone having connected with no one. Evidence to the contrary has not appeared. All I have against this huge disastrous neurotic mess is 21st century voodoo, that no one can prove actually does anything.

The fact that some of you find me entertaining and good at Trivial Pursuit is oddly enough not cheering. I appreciate that you want to say nice things but when my core as a male human is totally rejected it’s not easy to say “hey, but I told a funny story last night and knew where Panama hats are made!” and feel good about it.

Yeah, it is me. I am obviously doing – or being – something completely wrong. But my chances of fixing that are slim, and long-term, and right now I go through every day totally fucking empty inside. And I have to watch others connect over and over, and get nothing, ever.

This has been my entire adult life. I am broken inside. None of you are, not like this. Please stop pretending you know what I feel like.

I should never have shared this in the first place. Everyone hates weakness. Well, hate this: I’m a sexual failure for reasons no one understands. Half my life has dripped away and the rest is looking worse. Fix that with a dating service and a self-help book and a “pray about it”, why fucking don’t you.

I’m sure every woman who reads this would never let me near her after this. And that would be different, how?

Robert Mitchum sing Calypso!

When I’m really, really down I listen to this song on repeat.

It makes me feel like I know what Heaven might be like.

And we’ll all go together
to the wild mountain thyme
across the purple heather..