are you still here? (everybody leaves, everybody grieves, everybody heaves sometimes)... this is to be part one of part two of the conversation that would have been a website had it continued and you might know all this if you've been catching up with me or reading the entries in order or just care enough to know, so I'll just skip the long winded segue and get right into it... again, it is me responding to the words after the > (and are indented twice)...

but before I do, I am watching Imagine: John Lennon while compiling this entry and it is obviously influencing me... I paused, cooked, ate, and the end comes... the candles outside of the Dakota are on the screen right now... I was driving home from work when I heard it on the radio and drove over and found communal numbness... that was the end of a rather hysterical and in some ways somewhat wasted decade (esecially the last five years of it)... I sobered up for a few minutes...

imagine all the people...

some of my best and worst memories of this lifetime flow through me briefly now... briefly because I am focused on this catch up and no one is here to share the depths and I don't feel like going there by myself at the moment, mostly because I do not have time to do both (go there and catch up)... alas, so much is missed alone...

and so few really want to share...

and on with part two (lots of things, after all)... as you may have noticed (besides understating the obvious at times), I tend to get lost in writing... it is my escape from the madness and nonsense and sometimes, from life itself... that's not exactly what I want to do all the time, escape from life, that is, but writing has been my way to survive the traumatic experiences I've passed through in this life...

we do not have to focus on the past or the downbeats of our lives, but if we are to be close, it is cheating each other if we do not let each other know where we've been for that is much a part of what makes us who we are today... and if a few of the ends are still loose and a few bags are still dragging a bit, that's ok because that's what friends are for, to help clean up the mess and focus us on the paths we want to be on... you say in your other email that you're always the strong one and I know what's that like... you have my permission, more, you have my encouragement to dump on me anytime as long as it goes both ways and we trust each other to first be able to handle it and second, believe we do not mean each other any harm...

strange as it may seem to you from your experiences as always being the strongest person, you can, if you come to trust me enough and want to, cry on my shoulder or release any emotion you feel with me... that's part of my definition of being a friend... it could be very cathartic, or at least novel...

> Enough about me (didn't I say I hate people who
> can only talk about themselves, hmmmm...), regarding
> your website and your wants list... How 'bout that
> intimacy thing?

I've come so far from where I've been I've all but forgotten who I am (there's so much depth beneath my nonsense, I sometimes fall in and forget there's a surface to come backup to... it may be the perfect disguise for the fool or the wise on who courts perfection and flirts with disaster but whatever will be only time will tell even if I forget what I'm after, the best I can do is laughter sometimes, the best i can do is laughter)...

I don't know about intimacy these days... except for kids crying on my shoulder and people pouring their hearts out in intimate moments where I am in a parent or therapist role, I have not been close to anyone in any way, by my concept of closeness, in almost ten years... I suppose I still give good intimacy, but I have almost forgotten how to receive, how to be on equal terms...

since I was first walking I seemed to be in charge of my life and able to get my way by convincing those around me that they wanted things my way... I was parent to my adopted families before I was in middle school, probably earlier... I was cooking with gas (that is, using gas stoves and ovens) by the time I was in first grade because there was no one home when I got out of school and I would not walk past my house a half mile to my aunt's house... when I started school, I lived right across the street from the school and refused to each school lunches so firmly that it convinced my parents to give me a key and I was on my own until at least 6pm and I was seldom home until 9 or 10pm (living, for all practical purpose, at a friend's house)...

I may have been precocious or spoiled or neglected or obnoxiously stubborn (definitely was the last), but I simply saw the life I wanted and did it and expected everyone else to go along with it because it was my life, after all... my size, age, and the norms of society were simply irrelevent...

and so from the start of my memories in this life I was independent and setting my own rules and the one everyone, including adults, turned to for answers... it was all I ever knew, so it didn't seem strange or different to me... what was strange to me was how, as I grew and experienced more friend and their families, I was exposed to various family structures and rule systems... most were very similar (and similar to how I chose to live, except that they seemed so much more complex and externally dependant... I mean the rules seemed to be based on society and religion and things outside the family instead of based on individual decisions... my ethics came primarily from within me, as did all my other ways of thinking... that's probably why I have so few rules in my life)...

all this was going somewhere, but writing this at work might not be the best idea if I am meaning to focus and not be silly or irreverent (not always one and the same...

>That's about the only thing I miss
> about not being married or with someone. That and
> affection, and going out and doing things with someone
> who is "for" you, if you know what I mean. It feels
> good to have someone around who is on your side of
> everything.

yes, this was where I was going... the sharing of everything... the partnership... the caring and knowing someone will always be there... that I miss most of all... I've know that a few times in this life with best platonic friends and with friends who were also lovers... after high school, I was a wandering loner for about seven years and then moved into in a share-everything relationship (I was not in love, I believe she had a profound crush) for almost ten years (though right to the end I was daddy and she was my little girl and whatever I tried, nothing changed that dynamic, which is one more reason we drifted apart {I want more balance in a relationship}... I sometimes miss my little girl, I always miss the friend she could have been)...

and intimacy... I miss hugs... I miss cuddling... I don't miss sex as much as I used to, but then, maybe that's just because I've gone a few years without it... I have been sexual with relatively few people in this life... apparently not many human bodies stimulate me sexually because most are not cared for very well and I don't like being sexual, or even intimate, with someone who does not care enough to take care of their own body... if they neglect themselves, why trust them with me?... if they can ignore their self-abuse, if they can be insensitive enough to not feel their sluggishness, why believe they'll be any more sensitive with me?... I know I am turned on by youthful energy and people who take their bodies to optimal limits and physical extremes... I know I am turned off by fat lazy bodies...

it is not always easy to explain why... maybe it's just some instinctive selectivity that keeps me from acting physically on the free love openness I feel emotionally... the last couple of decades have not exactly been a good time for promiscuity... and maybe all that is rationalization and my sexuality is very superficial and bought into the pop culture view of what is attractive...

we come full circle to where I began, I don't know about intimacy... it is challenging for me to be comfortable with physical intimacy when I am not comfortable in my own body and I am not comfortable these days... I've been lazy... I tell myself I am hoping someone physically fit comes along and shows interest in me because that would motivate me to get back to running
and working out and taking this body seriously again... I think an external locus of control like that is stupid, so it's a stupid thought, but it would work for me... maybe for the first time in this life I really do want to follow someone else's lead... trouble is, nobody's leading...

the bottom line for me physically is that I have never met anyone with more energy than I have... I am always (almost?... maybe) the last one up at any party always looking for one more song or laugh or dance or giggle... that's why I used to (in the seventies) smoke and drink myself into a stupor, because otherwise I'd be sitting up alone feeling lonely wondering why nobody else wants to stay awake with me (the line from "Gesthemane" from Jesus Christ Superstar comes to mind)... I felt I had to bring myself down, put a governer on my engine, so to speak because if I didn't I was flying over people's heads (literally and figuratively)... that's also why I took to writing, because often I did not quite take enough chemical input to knock myself out (cuz I didn't really want to) because I keep hoping someone will come along... "I don't want to miss a thing," ya know?... this remains true today even in my supposedly aging, definitely deteriorating, out of shape condition...

there was a time when I was so acutely in touch with myself physically that I sensed power few have believed or understood... I will try to explain it one day if I can still remember (and some of The Moody Blues songs come to mind now... they are probably as powerfully ingrained in my psyche as Harry Chapin)... I wonder if you understand what I mean by - I have been gone from my body a long time... and I don't think it's fair to pretend I am in here just to get my rocks off, so the speak... I don't think it's fair to give someone a shallow sharing that misrepresents who I really am... again, rationalization?... I don't think so, but I am sure of one thing most of all and that is the more right I think I am, the more wrong I might be...

and with all the passion and lust and power of sexuality and sensuality and the bodies we inhabit, emotional intimacy is most important to me and there is the root of unconditional trust and I wish I could find a way to share that, but I don't know if I ever have... I have definitely gone through the motions believing I achieved it and have been through experiences that would suggest strongly that I did, but I don't know... maybe that is because it did not last... it's supposed to be forever, isn't it?...

as much as I think I am a hedonist in my mind and as much as I believe in unconditional freely sharing love in any way that doesn't hurt and as much as I believe that bodies are superficial temporary vehicles for our brains, I still seem to tie physical intimacy to emotional intimacy and want the latter first (even when I was offered and accepted the former first)... in my head I think I am a swinger, but in practice I am almost like a virgin holding out for the proverbial right one... it's a really good laugh to be me sometimes...

after all these years of fiercely stubborn independence, maybe I've been waiting for someone strong enough to tell me what to do, what is really right for me, what I really want... or at least someone strong enough to actualize the freedom I think I want to actualize...

and maybe I think too much...

the bottom line is I wish I had a true friend who would not feel threatened or put off by the thoughts in my head, someone who could keep up with me when I am at my best, someone who'd push and nudge and tickle me to be my best, and someone who'd accept me as I am no matter what... I've never actually known that sort of unconditional love in this life (I sure hope I'm
not a dang fool old man still looking for a mother, but this paragraph almost sounds like it... sheesh)...

whatcha think?...

>Actually, I think that is where all of my
> relationships get painful for me. There is that point
> at which you feel like this person you love is against
> you and not for you anymore, and life becomes a
> struggle. You feel like your life is being sucked out
> of you, when the people you love should be giving you
> life. I don't ever want to be a sucker.

one way relationships are energy-drains, for sure... all of mine were, and each left me near-dead in different ways (because I'd die for love, I stayed hanging on too long each time... sometimes someone will take only surface stuff, materials, money, even sex, but completely neglect {or abuse or just passively ignore} the person inside, the emotional, psychological, intellectual, creative, living, breathing person slowly dies in that imblanced sharing... that, unfortunately, I know from experience... I suppose it would be fair to say three times, once in each decade - 70s, 80s, 90s)... one thing I appreciate you for is this impetus to review my life from this angle because it is a way to sort through the past (baggage and beautiful memories alike) and reevaluate myself and clear the table for a brand new start... that, dear friend {like it or not, you've given me this great gift already just by caring enough to be interested in knowing me}, is something I will thank you for a lot...

. o O ( NOTES ARE THE NEW HAPPY PILL ) O o .
(just let me know you were here)