Friday, January 16, 2009

Here we like to get things over...

That's a line from a song I like. "Here we like to get things over / life, love, anything at all."

I actually was riding the subway last night (before the chunk of my city that I live in went dark - and cold!) and peeked at a fellow's book, it was called "Getting Things Done", and I liked the idea.

I guess I am thinking tonight about how I am not over Voice, and I'm not over Music, and I might not quite be over Soulmate either. Do you get over or do you move on? I've been with four women since, Painter and the Gymnast being the most notable (and two others who I'll get to describing here). And it's probably helped. But nothing's gone away. Do I stop and think and try to deal, or do I keep moving?

I don't know why I'm feeling this so intensely tonight. Maybe because I know where Voice is, we're on good terms and working together, and I decided not to be there. Maybe because I left the city because of the blackout and can't contact anybody else anyway.

Given the title of the blog, last night I went to a public speaking workshop by one of the best speakers I know. I was suspicious that the workshop wouldn't be any good because the guy is a natural. Sure enough, I was right. He said that if you believe in what you're saying and have something to say, it'll come naturally. I don't think that's true, not quite. Nor is it entirely false. The times I have been lost it's not been because I have nothing to say, but because I have nothing to say to whoever's in front of me. You need to say something useful to the person, and for that you have to know something about her. There are times when she gives you nothing, asks you no questions, doesn't care about anything you might conceivably have to say. In those situations, you'll be stumped. Probably, don't speak.

But otherwise, practice is good and learning or figuring something out about the person and what you might have to offer them wouldn't be bad either.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

A mostly freed mind

The author of the book about online dating "Millions of Women are Waiting to Meet You", writes at one point that he has only felt free, or sated, of sexual desire for a few moments in his life. I am going through one such moment. Not that I'm getting all that much - in fact, I haven't gotten any in 2009. But there seem to be other things that matter more, these days. I've been working hard, really hard, at something that is sure to fail. I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out how to change a horrifically lopsided situation. And people I love, Voice included, are in it with me. Well, I suppose it makes more sense to say I am in it with her. She's on stage in front of thousands of people screaming her lungs out. I struggle my way through the crowd to get to the front so that she can see my face. "I think it will boost her morale," I tell Guitar.

"What would you do right now, if you were me?" she asks me on the phone. Our phone time is down to about 5 minutes a day, she calls from work and we talk until she or I get a media phone call.

"I'd like to think," I say, "that I'd do exactly what you were doing, if I had the strength."

"I don't know what to focus on - oh, wait, that was a complement," she says.

"It was."

"Your complements are always so indirect."

I haven't spent a moment alone with her in almost a month.

The Gymnast is making her way into my life now. I saw her once since I came home from the US, just for an hour. I was distracted, wanted to get home to work. She wanted to cuddle. We cuddled for a while and I began to protest that I had to leave. She kept contriving conversation topics and not releasing me from the cuddling. It was cute. But I left. I'll see her tonight, but tonight, too, I'd rather be working. So I'll go to her place late, I suppose, maybe spend the night with her.

From the time Music left my life until now I have not felt so focused or strong. I haven't felt like I could take it or leave it the way I feel now. And if I could keep this feeling forever I would. I think when I met Music I was much closer to this mental state than I was after I lost her. Loneliness and neediness are not sexy. And maybe it is true what they say, that it is better to want what you have than to get what you want. What I want to do in the world is so much more powerful than what I want from women or sexual life right now, and I feel a lot more balanced as a consequence. And perhaps it doesn't need saying, but my attractiveness hasn't suffered at all. The only problem this feels like something that happened to me, not something that I did or changed. Maybe if I can remember this feeling well enough I can call on it when I need it.