More.

How disappointed am I in how my adult life has turned out?

Why don't I do more about it?

What exactly do I expect from myself?

Me in all this.

It was a really difficult week. It wasn't all good. It wasn't all bad. It was just hard to go through.

I coped with the new job at the store and my mixed emotions with that, for sometimes it's really cool there and the people are really nice. Other times, I wonder what the hell I'm doing and why the hell I transfered from a familiar place where I know people love me to someplace strange, busy and occasionally frightening. (Aside from the business with management that I've overexplained and my currently aching feet, there are weird moments there. Last night, for instance, a homeless street preacher trying to anger me asked me if I was crippled. Another time, a drunken, gay customer asked me if I needed help getting down some steps and grabbed me hard by the arm and wouldn't let go, even when I told him to. Today, Ernest, a friend of mine from college, was in my line at a cash register; I said hello to him, and Ernest said, "Well, this is awkward," because it was apparently disappointing of me to be a lowly cashier in a bookstore.)

I got in trouble at my main job again, as well, and I'm going to have to work to fix things, which I can do. I believe in myself, even if they don't completely believe in me there for the reasons I've given them, and I know I can survive trouble and change.

My finances will probably get better after this week. I'm relying upon certain things this week to turn my situation there, at least, around. I paid all my utility bills on Friday when I got paid. It felt good to do that.

My brother's engagement made me feel great for him, though it also served to remind me that we're not very close. I heard the news from my parents, and I left him a voicemail. He included me on a group e-mail with a blanket thank-you and dirty joke the next day. I've not spoken to him. If one of my cousins had gotten engaged, I would've at least gotten a phone call. And even though I know his engagement is not about me, my perspective on the situation can't help but notice what feels like a slight.

The engagement also reminds me that I'm now the only one in my immediate family and extended set of cousins to not have a partner. I'm the family's token gay, and I'm the family's token spinster. I feel like Matt the Dateless Gay Guy on "Melrose Place." I'm the Family Gay Eunuch.

The way I'm reacting to all this is probably an indication of why my psyche's not ready for a boyfriend. It's not all about me, and I know that. These feelings, though unreasonable, do exist, though. I have them. It's selfish and dumb and petty to have these feelings, but they're there.

So, saying all that, I must admit that it would've been nice to have someone to come home to this week. It would've been nice to have someone home with me, someone with a real stake in how my life goes, someone with their own set of things to tell me about ... someone who'd help me keep perspective and still help me feel like there was someplace where, when I was rejected everywhere else, I belonged.

I know love's probably not really like that. But, to hear some people talk about it, they say those things. My dad said that about his wife this week, that it's better to have someone than not.

I'm frequently alone and not lonely. I know the difference. This week, sometimes, I got lonely. But I didn't get lonely a lot. I'm not just idly sitting around, waiting for someone to show up and give my life a "purpose" or "meaning."

People around me are moving forward, gathering dependents and accollades. I see them and wonder what I have. My life seems small.

I want all of you with boyfriends or partners or fiancees to remind yourself, if only for a second, of the good things that sort of romance can provide you.

Because I felt safer with my finances and because I was proud of myself for surviving this hellish week, I broke down and bought the "Freaks and Geeks" DVD box set I've eyed for two months. It probably wasn't the most responsible thing to do just yet, but I had my last paycheck from my old bookstore. And it was larger than I thought it was going to be.

It was probably dumb to do it since my birthday's coming up next month, but I felt like, at the end of this week and with most of the bills paid, I could safely enjoy "Freaks and Geeks." (What I've watched of it so far, by the way, has been really, really good.)

This week's been tough. And, though I wasn't entirely admirable, I did survive. And that felt like something to take a small amount of pride in.

I sorta want to cry, nurse my emotional wounds and retreat into my own self-pity.

But I can't. I have stuff to do.

This is just a mood. It'll pass. It's a snapshot of a mixture of feelings.

Looking up.

Weird, bad day.

But, on the plus side, I'm dressed better than usual.

And I had lunch with my dad.

And I got paid and immediately paid all my utility bills and what I could of the credit card bills.

So, even though it was a weird, bad day because of work stuff, I did what I could to make it better. Or, at least, not any worse.

The coolest thing EVER.

My father just called me. And my mother just called me.

My brother Dan, the cool and nice one that I speak to, just got engaged to Samantha, his absolutely spectacular, friendly and beautiful girlfriend of two years.

Yay. Yay yay yay.

Something that my family can feel good about!!!!

What a welcome change!!!!

Wow, I haven't used this many exclamation points since I signed someone's yearbook.

They're getting married April 2 in Savannah, where her family lives, in a Catholic service.

The photo above is of Samantha's hand wearing the engagement ring Dan bought her. Great ring. Great.

I'm being such a girl about this. But this rocks.

"Glamour and glitter, fashion and fame."

A couple weeks ago, when I had money, I bought this new CD, and it's really good. It's by a Welsh artist who sounds a lot like Dido, except more upbeat.

In my store, we've put it on in-store play, as well. It's upbeat and fun to hear while you're working.

Of course, I still can't help but giggle everytime I read the artist's name.

Jem.

It reminds me of that '80s cartoon "Jem and the Holograms," where a girl named Jerrica found out that a computer program allowed her to transform into a pink-haired rock star named Jem and turned all of her girlfriends into a rock band.

Talking with Henry the music clerk last night, he told me that he had the same problem.

"Every time I look at that CD, I expect something on it to read 'TRULY OUTRAGEOUS!'" he said.

Then, overhearing us, Judson approached us. And we started - without prompting - to sing the "Jem and the Holograms" theme song.

"New Guy's having a panic attack!"

I worked with assistant manager Chuck for the first time last night. Well, it wasn't the first time that I worked with him. Technically, that was about three years ago, when he was training at Mall of Georgia.

"Hi, I'm Chuck," he said when he met me then. He's cute, possibly gay and well-dressed.

"Yes, I know," I said, pointing to his nametag. "I can read."

I thought I was being funny then. Or just being a smartass. I was in a mood that day. And he's cute. So I got weird.

He reported me to my managers at my store for "attitude," which surprised me because I didn't think it merited that and didn't know he was offended by it. They made me apologize.

He was just starting a new job, and I made him feel unwelcome.

That was three years ago. When I've seen him since, I've said hello. He's cold to me.

When he heard about my transfer after it happened, he immediately called my bookstore for the lowdown on it. Maybe because he didn't like being out of the loop. Maybe because he's charged with entering new employees in the system. Maybe because he thinks I'm weird and doesn't want to work with me and would be perfectly content if I dropped off the face of the earth.

I didn't know.

So I wasn't sure how exactly working with him would go.

For the first half-hour or so last night, it wasn't pretty. In fact, next to that time I watched the American version of "Coupling," it was one of the most uncomfortable half-hours I've ever spent.

I walked in. I tried to clock in.

I still didn't have my store codes, so I had to ask Chuck about them. (People who I'd told about this 'situation' a couple weeks ago told me to stay out of Chuck's way, but he's my manager ... and, the way the store works, getting out of his way isn't really viable.)

When he spoke to me the first time, he called me "sir" and didn't make eye contact with me. He didn't say hello, didn't smile and seemed annoyed. Really annoyed. He said, "Oh, OK, I'll take care of that," and headed to the back office.

A few minutes afterward, the job applicants came in and asked me if they could talk to a manager. So I called the back office and asked Chuck, nervously, if he would come up and talk to people.

He sounded annoyed. But he told me that he'd be right up.

Another employee said hello to the applicants and told them that Chuck was great and really, really nice, so they had no reason to be nervous.

This is the Chuck that people tell me about. I'd never seen him.

Greeting the applicants, Chuck came up, spoke to them, told them hello, smiled at them and wished them luck with their applications. He shook their hands. Then, not talking at all to me, he turned and started to walk away.

I was walking near Chuck, and I didn't know whether they discouraged paging over the intercom the way we did at Mall of Georgia, where the managers all carry cell phones. Since I'd just called him, I asked him for future reference what the proper means of contact was.

When he saw me walking next to him, I swear to God, he turned and started to walk the other way. But then, I said his name to ask him the question. And he stopped, called me "sir," and answered the question ... WITHOUT ONCE LOOKING ME IN THE EYE.

With that, I proceeded to very silently freak out. Carrying books back to the children's department, I began to feel lost. And I began to doubt whether the transfer was a good idea. And I'd started to wonder what I should do, if I should do anything. Maybe he was just busy. Maybe he wasn't intentionally trying to be rude. Maybe he was. Maybe he's trying to psyche me out. Maybe I didn't really need to talk to him. Oh, wait, I did. Maybe I'm just a paranoid.

Sweat gathered on my brow. I began breathing deeply. I felt a panic attack beginning, but, at the same time, didn't want any of the other employees to think, "Oh look, New Guy's having a panic attack!," or, worse, give them another reason to call Chuck.

I was just starting a new job, and he made me feel unwelcome.

But then, that changed. I don't know why. But it did.

When I walked to the back room to check the schedule and to see if Chuck had entered my codes into the computer, enabling me to do my work, he told me that he'd just finished it.

Thanking him, I added, "I'm kinda nervous."

Chuck didn't really say anything. So I let it go.

I asked him instead if I needed to get a register, and he told me, shuffling through papers because he was busy, that he thought I was scheduled for customer service. I was.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that I was paying WAY too much attention to what Chuck thought of me. And that's not why I was there.

So I got back to doing my work. I shelved books, helped customers, asked questions.

Chuck, eventually, approached me and started to tell me a better way to arrange the books to shelve. He answered my questions about the new register functions. He helped me find a section in the magazines and, when I apologized for asking something that I thought I should already know, he told me that "all the stores are different and that it takes some getting used to."

He watched me work. He even sorta smiled at me when he saw that I was keeping busy. He saw how I spoke to other employees.

He was nice after the first half-hour. Not too nice, but nice enough.

When a guy I knew from college and CNN approached me in the store and spoke to me, I chatted with him for a moment, though I told him that I needed to work.

That guy asked me what I'd been doing lately, and I told him about my jobs and where I was living.

I was telling him that I'd just started at the new store when Chuck, who wasn't wearing a nametag - something I DID NOT point out to him for irony's sake, by the way - happened to walk by.

"Oh well, get back to work," the guy said to me. "I don't wanna get you in trouble."

Chuck heard that. And laughed.

So I went back to work again. And I did the shelving and asked more questions and was still nervous enough to sweat about it.

But people softened to me and will continue to do so as time passes and I prove myself.

So things are good. Or good enough, anyway.

Changing outfits.

Once again, because I don't like what I decided to wear this morning, I will change shirts before heading into the new bookstore tonight.

Today, for some reason, I wore a black shirt and navy blue pants. Black-and-blue is not the message I want to send my first week at the new store.

So I got a folded, clean shirt out of my car, from the laundry basket I put back there for moments just like this one, and it's light blue. It'll match my pants better.

I feel like I'm getting ready for a date. What's up with that?

I'm still nervous about the new store. I don't know who the closing manager is going to be tonight. I don't know if my codes will finally be in place. I don't know what I'm going to be assigned to do and if I'll have the computer access to be able to do it properly.

I'm working a lot, though. That's kinda cool.

Trivia team update.

I showed up a half-hour in at trivia last night, and the team had a perfect score. We maintained that perfect score until the next-to-last question.

"Which nation has a cape called San Lucas?"

The answer to this one is so freakin' obvious that we felt stupid for missing it, as though we'd been genuinely tricked.

"Cabo" means "Cape of" in Spanish.

Then, on the final question, we had the right answer written down - but then changed our minds about it.

We lost.

The team that won had a perfect score.

My first day at the new store.

Have you ever seen the first episode of "Mary Tyler Moore," when Mary interviews with Lou Grant? Mary's all chipper and eager, and Lou Grant is scowling and indifferent and tells her that he hates spunk.

Picture me as Mary, and you've basically got me and the rest of my new bookstore. At least, that's how it felt.

I was working my ass off - or trying to. I was trying to be up-to-speed and useful. And people either didn't notice or didn't much care.

For some reason, Mall of Georgia hasn't deleted me from their system yet, which means that Buckhead can't give me my register and computer codes yet. So I can't run a cash register, the thing I'm really good at.

Instead, I was doing customer service and shelving. I think I walked the length of that store 17 times last night. If it stays at this pace, I'm going to be in great physical shape.

The layout of the store is completely different from mine so that, even though I know the sections and know what books are in the sections, I don't know exactly where the sections are. So I got lost a lot.

You see, at my store, Drama, for instance, is next to Fiction. In the new store, Drama is next to TV and Film. So, if I thought I had an idea where something was and went there, I'd still end up lost.

The customers were nice enough, even though I asked someone else where a section was before I walked a customer to it.

The manager spoke to me in this bemused, mildly irritated tone. And, even though the store was still a mess by my standards, he told us it was all right to go home, which a bookseller assured me other managers wouldn't do. (MOG managers would've been freaking out over the status of that store.)

When the manager gave me a quick, point-to-a-section-and-tell-you-what-it-is tour of the store (which I did pay attention to), I didn't want to seem like just some random new employee, so I started straightening shelves when he would walk me by them. (I wasn't trying to be obnoxious. I was trying to be useful. I know the basics of the store already since I've worked at one for four years, and I can't just memorize it from having it pointed out to me. I'm going to have to walk there with books, learning it myself. Hell, I'm being paid to "work.") Eventually, he started straightening, too.

It was frustrating. And amusing.

So, from what I can tell, the store needs help. And I'm there to help.

Clothes make the man.

To better prepare myself for my first shift at the new store, I went to Wal-mart on my lunch break and bought a belt and shirt to wear.

The whole purchase ran about $15, but I believe it's necessary. (Even though I'm - GASP - wearing Wal-mart clothes.)

I looked at all my clothes this morning, and nothing was right. And, for some reason, I couldn't find any belts anywhere.

I need to stockpile them, I think.

Benjie doesn't live here anymore.

I was 15 minutes late to my last day of work at the Mall of Georgia Barnes & Noble on Saturday, which just felt typical at the point when it happened. Ever since I moved 40 miles or so away from that store, I was never able to get there on time.

Despite the start, though, it was a pretty good day.

They let me do Children's Storytime for the first time ever, and I read a group of one-year-olds two books about pirates, using my "pirate voice" and a wavering British accent. I had to stop the accent when one of the children started crying. Other than that, my reading received a decent amount of praise.

The staff got me a cake and a card for my last day. Since I'd been at the store over four years, I was sorta not-so-secretly hoping that there would be a to-do about me leaving. And they didn't disappoint.

The thing that made me the most happy was, of all things, that my card was signed - with genuine affection - by Christy, Casey and Heather, three people with whom I haven't always had the best working relationship. Over time, things improved greatly as we learned how to work with one another.

The significance of me leaving that bookstore, though I didn't realize it until I was driving away for the last time, is bigger than I thought.

I no longer live in Buford. I no longer work in Buford. I no longer have to commute to Buford. Buford isn't part of my day-to-day existence anymore. It is, as it was five years ago and as it was when I was in college, just the place where my mom lives.

My first shift at the Buckhead store is tonight. I know no one who works there, though one of the managers trained at my store a couple years ago. His name is Chuck, and I've had maybe four conversations with him ever, so he's not really, you know, an ally yet.

This is going to be weird. And fine.

Talking dirty with my mom.

I went to lunch with my mother, for Mother's Day is Sunday.

While talking to me about jobs, she asked me if I'd done any writing lately.

"I've been writing on a site under a pseudonym," I said. "I've gotten some good buzz from it."

"Why a pseudonym?" she asked me. "Oh, is it gay stuff?"

"Yeah," I said, which is sort of a lie. I write about more than gay stuff. I write about deep, dark family secrets that I don't want her to know I've mentioned in public.

She guessed that my pseudonym was my real initials.

"Do you call yourself B.J. or something?" she asked me.

"Yeah, B.J.," I said. "Because that'd make me really popular with the gay community."

She looked at me and paused.

Then, she asked, "Why would that make you popular with the gay community?"

Long pause. Then, a chuckle.

"Oh ... my ... God ...," she realized, still laughing. "I can't believe you would say that to me."

"But you said it," I said.

Still laughing, she said, "Well, Happy Mother's Day to me!"

Then, she told me she was going to call her assistant as soon as I stepped out of the car and tell her everything.

"She's a lesbian," she said. "So she'll think it's funny."

Do something.

Last night, I was mad. Really frustrated. I was so mad that I didn't realize how mad I was until I launched into a tirade while on the phone with Aaron. So mad that I got angry that he wanted to keep talking and talking and talking. I wanted contact. Movement forward. Action.

The action I suggested to Aaron was not something Aaron was open to ... and probably not something that I want to do ... but I just felt like having sex beat talking about why I wanted to have sex.

Also, I already knew, at the point where we started the fucking unnecessary "discussion of motives," that I don't really want to have sex with Aaron. I would have, though. Just to shut myself the hell up long enough to take action about something.

I'm sick of talking. I'm sick of myself talking. It's all I ever fucking do. I don't ever actually do anything.

Look at this. This is me writing an analysis of a conversation during which I complained about how I talked about how I never do anything. This is fucking sick.

My anger stems from lots of things. But mostly, because this is one of my stories, I have to admit that the catalyst of my current fit is ... an electronic rooster.

Technically, I suppose the catalyst is the crow of an electronic rooster.

This is gonna be a long story.

My office job is dead-end. My current manager has favorite employees - people that he migrates to our area from his old department - and admits openly that he doesn't know how to "talk" to me. He doesn't understand how I tick. He looks at me like I'm from another planet.

He's my third manager since I started here. He's chatty and friendly and nice. But he doesn't even bother to say hello to me anymore.

A couple months ago, when I tried to talk to him about something job-related, he flatly told me, "Go away."

He unofficially designated my supervisor Ethan as the person who's supposed to "talk" to me, so now I have practically no interaction with my manager at all.

Yesterday, during a regional conference call, I was talking to Sherry, one of the people on the call from Orlando, about something job-related. I'd just gotten an e-mail from her, so I started to talk to her about the e-mail she'd sent me. (Since I call the roll on the call, I can pretty much determine when it technically "begins." Besides, the topic was relevant to pretty much everyone.)

She and I spoke in civil tones for a few minutes, "in front of everyone on the call," and we reached an impasse, resolving the issue.

To get us to stop talking about it, though, someone on the call decided to interrupt our chat by playing a prank.

An ear-bleed electronic rooster's crow was launched over the fucking phone line in the middle of me talking.

At my desk, I pulled the phone away from my ear. I imagine most of the people on the call - held for workers in three different states - pulled their phones away from their ears.

Then, when it ended, there was silence. No laughter. No anything.

"WHAT WAS THAT?" Sherry asked the group, sorta angry.

"I don't know," I said. "It was obnoxious."

"Somebody ... thought ... it ... was ... funny ...," my manager said on the call.

He's got the rooster noisemaker in his office.

"I'm tempted to get off the call," I said.

"Me too," Sherry in Orlando said.

There was silence.

Then, my supervisor Ethan, who sits in my manager's office during the monthly call so that they can make faces at each other during it, piped up.

"Ethan ... thought ... it ... was ... funny," he said.

(If it came from their end, which I think it did, they obviously didn't get the prank at a deafeningly loud volume.)

"Well, good for Ethan," I replied curtly.

Another long pause.

I don't think it's professional to interrupt me and a colleague on a conference call with an electronic rooster crow. But, hey, what do I know ... I didn't go to business school.

"Apparently, not everyone thought it was funny," my manager said.

Another long pause.

Then, my manager asked me to go ahead and call the roll.

I'm going nowhere in this company. I'm not treated with respect. I don't care to the degree that I should about doing my job.

I'm sick of all this bullshit. I'm sick of myself.

Goddamnit, I feel like going back to the drawing board with my life and just starting the fuck over.

It's funny to me that I'm saying this, but that electronic rooster crow was the last fucking straw.

Things intended to make Lupo feel better.

Lupo told me that he was sad I hadn't updated the blog today, so I'm writing this.

Lupo told me that yesterday's posts ended on a positive note that suggested I understood my own weaknesses and was willing to take action to fix the things that I thought were "wrong" in my life. He called that brave.

Because I don't want Lupo to be sad, I'm updating the blog, even though I'm still stuck in my dumb cubicle and still facing financial troubles that are slowly making themselves better. There's not really much new to report.

I was thinking of following Vic to Jekyll Island this weekend, but I have a meeting on Sunday night. It seems like an awful lot of driving for what would essentially be an overnight stay, but it beats doing nothing to celebrate after my last official shift at the Mall of Georgia bookstore on Saturday. (That I'm leaving there now makes me feel like I'm living through my own May sweeps series finale, if that makes any sense.)

Lupo suffered from sinus trouble for a couple weeks earlier this month. Whenever he wrote me and told me that he was sick, I would offer to call him up and "coo the Gizmo song" from GREMLINS to him until he felt better.

When I first suggested it, he told me, "Thanks, but I've already vomited once today."

He doesn't know how well I coo, obviously. I coo well.

The "Friends" finale is tonight. I, at one point, felt that saying goodbye would be poignant. Now, NBC's overpromoted the damn thing so much that I just wish they'd all go the hell away.

I am a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm coming at this the wrong way.

* I talk about love, rather than clean my apartment or clean out my car.
* I talk about when I'll write, rather than finding some place to do an open-mike reading.
* I complain about direction, rather than applying for a new job.
* I worry about faith, rather than reading one of the 8,000 books that I've purchased in my life.
* I question endlessly, but I don't bother with solutions. Instead, I even admit that all I like about the questions is the chatter.

Looking at it that way, I suck. I need to do something about that.

Jenipher's Trip to the DMV.

My friend Jenipher just sent me this e-mail about her trip to the DMV. I am relating it to you now, for it is interesting.

Nothing like this ever happens when I go to the DMV.

NOTE: Now that Jenipher's legal last name is "Resendez," notice how she's now peppering her conversations with fun phrases like "numero uno." Yesterday, she referred to herself as a "Latina," which I thought was funny since she really does look Scandinavian.

___

Yesterday I went to the DMV to renew my expired license and change my name. I had to stand in FIVE lines. In line #5, a weird guy started staring at me. I felt obligated to be nice. Here is our conversation in its entirety:

Weird Man (after staring at me for a few minutes): I don’t mean to stare, but you are very attractive.
Jenipher (looking uncomfortable and not making eye contact): Thank you.
WM: You must be Scandinavian.
J: No.
WM: Are you sure?
J: Yes.
WM: You look Scandinavian.

(Another awkward pause.)

WM: We have been blessed with beautiful weather.

And then it got exciting. Luckily I had my camera with me. Here is a photo I took of the incident. After the weirdo man (on the left) accosted me, Wolverine (right) stepped in and salvaged my honor. He wanted to ravish me then and there but I am married now, and had to pass. Though, technically, it would not have broken any bonds of marriage, as he is numero uno on my Top 5.

Trivia team update.

We won again last night, by the way.

Thanks to the fact that I knew Denzel Washington military films.

And, moreso, thanks to the fact that no one knew that the biggest earthquake in history hit China in the 1500s.

The ranks of the freaks who suspect they could never love anyone

Talking to Nick the Cute Waiter about my love thing last night - because I'm still on that topic, he listened to me wax on about it for about 20 minutes, then he told me that "you won't find love when you look for it" and that "if you're not finding it, then you're not ready." I asked him why he was speaking in bumper stickers. Then, I started talking about the validity of "narrowing the field" and what-not. He told me that I was taking what other people said about me too seriously. I kept talking and kvetching, which I do sorta well for a gentile who's seen too many Woody Allen movies.

And I guess I wasn't listening to him or I guess he thought I was beyond help, for that's when he told me, "Your soulmate's gonna need to be deaf."

I was confused - yet offended.

"What?" I asked, taken aback.

First, Nick, who's 21 friggin' years old, apologized for it.

Then, at my urging, he told me that I worried entirely too much and didn't listen enough.

And then, and I don't know if I got this phrasing exactly right, Nick told me, "God only knows how big the butt-plug will need to be to get you to loosen the fuck up about your life."

So, yeah.

I got quiet. So quiet, in fact, that Nick, who was laughing when he said all that, wondered for a moment if I was still on the phone.

I was.

Part of me thinks he's wrong. Part of me thinks he's right. Part of me knows not to care what the hell he thinks. Part of me thinks, "Dickhead." Part of me thinks, "Damn, he just said that. That was so harsh that it was sorta awesome."

Considering all this, I didn't really have a response for what he said.

Black called in the middle of my chat with Nick, so I clicked over and talked to Black instead of Nick.

Black's like me. (Cool, I just found an excuse to type that.)

Girlfriend-less Black waxes about love the way I do. Black thinks about it like I do. There's comfort in that, and that's the conversation I was better prepared to have last night, however much I may need to hear about needing to relax and ceasing worry.

Part of me, I know, kinda enjoys worrying. It's familiar and friendly, and it feels like action - even though it's more like wheel-spinning.

Does that make sense? That kvetching is actually a comfort on a lonely night in a messy apartment? Late-night, unnecessarily philosophical phone calls with Black about how we should date more and about how we're smart but misunderstood creatures who just haven't connected with the right person (OR INSERT: job ... faith ... meaning ... direction ...) are no longer about finding answers.

They're just about enjoying the talk.

I understand that. And I understand the implications of what sort of person that makes me.

I'm good at talking. Really good at it. I like doing it. And I enjoy the maddening way I think.

Others can't really stand it. Some can.

This morning, I got a great e-mail from a guy who reads the blog. He told me to trust myself implicitly, to remain feeling and vulnerable ... and that love will come eventually.

This is all too complicated to go into now.

I have a life that I need to fix. In the meantime, I just have to live in it.

Um, can I get a recount?

See what Care Bear you are.

I took this quiz from a link on Mark's site, and it called me this.

Lies, damn lies.

All crazy nerves and bad hair.

I can't concentrate today at work.

I need a haircut, and I've eaten pizza two days in a row.

For some reason, I'm thinking about love. I don't know why. I think it has something to do with the fact that I had a good conversation about art at a bar with a guy last night. And, as I was leaving the bar, Jonathan grimaced and seemed to openly disapprove of the guy that I was just talking to - not attracted to.

So I texted Jonathan when I got home - and asked others about this.

I basically asked this:

If the people I end up talking to are so bad that it becomes a running joke, what sort of people do my friends actually think I should go for?

If you can point out what or who's wrong, point me toward who's right.

No one's really answered that question or that challenge yet.

I had one person tell me that it's a continual process, which I knew. Another one told me that I shouldn't care what Jonathan thinks. Another person told me that Jonathan was dissuading me because he secretly wants me, which I'm sure isn't true.

I am taking his criticisms of the guys who hit on me to heart, though.

I don't know why.

I think I don't trust my own taste in guys.

I'm getting my haircut today. I can't stand this bob thing I've got going on. I look like the fifth Beatle.