Not sure I mentioned this before

I try to keep this separate from my myspace blog. There is a battle. Like the epic battle coming between ninjas and pirates. Only this one is tiny. It's within my head. Between whether to post here or on Myspace. I don't want the blogs to be duplicates. So I decide where each blog belongs. Often they relate, but are different. Usually this one is more of an emotional outpouring while the other is updates on my life.


So I wanted to point out the other while I remember that I had such a dilemma. The blog tonight fits here well, but I have more familiar readers on Myspace so it went there. www.myspace.com/markjd But you gotta have an account and be my friend. Still, could be worth it. The music on my page is pretty good shit. Check it out.

More Work Shit

So I threw my pen at the wall at court today. A fiery coworker said I was acting more like her and angry for once. I think I was just throwing a pen like I always do. But the memory came up just now. I'm home and considered breaking a pen I have sitting here in front of me out of anger. Then I said "this is kind of a neat pen" and grabbed a coathanger. I was laughing at myself for bending a weak-ass coathanger, but I even stopped THAT when the paint was peeling off. I stopped the expression of my anger to avoid getting paint chips on my carpet.


Never before have I felt more like Jack with a gun barrel in his mouth wondering how clean the gun is.


I have tried for years to be laid back. To learn to be tolerant and liberal. To get past my parents and family's conservative issues. But all I've done is learn to accept others. I have not learned to make myself more open and expressive. I don't let myself go. Yet I try so hard. I just want to know how...

Everybody's Movin' Baby, Everybody's Groovin'

Enough B-52s. Still, I am moving into a funky little shack. And I hope it will be a love shack. ;-)


Seems like a large portion of my friends also move in the next couple of weeks. I move from my tiny, expensive one bedroom apartment in the nice area of Austin up to the centrally located, but less nice area near my work. Best of all I get roommates for the first time in many years (not counting the last girlfriend a year ago)! And rent will be cheaper for me by about half.


So good times. I'm excited. Now I'm going to pop a movie in and rest from dodgeball. I hurt.

Patience

I think this topic was on someone else's blog. Jamie's and maybe a few other places lately, but I seem to lack patience. I feel like others think I'm rushing everything so they are aggravated by me. Like my pace of life is too fast. I wonder what it'd be like to live up northeast. I still feel I'd like the west coast better, but maybe I'd fit in better up east where life is fast paced. I should learn to slow down.

Since graduating and joining the "real world," which still feels recent, I have not procrastinated much. I used to stay up all night trying to talk myself into writing a paper or doing homework only to start it at 6am when it's due at 8am. What a waste of a night playing freecell and refusing to go to a party so that I can play 10 hours of freecell and miss a night of sleep in the meantime.

Well, after 7 years (okay, maybe more like 20) of that procrastination I graduated and have been pretty good at getting things done. It's strange how motivations change when things matter. But packing makes me procrastinate again. I don't like the feeling.


I haven't looked for something to do tonight (this was written Wednesday, but I fell asleep before posting) because I have to move in two weeks and I know that I don't have a lot of free days each week to pack. So I should get something done tonight. Last night was typical in that I got home from work at 1am only to get way too little sleep. I love that I'm able to do that in Austin, though I dislike that these social events haven't formed the deep friendships or dates that I desire. At least I've managed to go out drinking and playing sports so often without gaining a lot of weight or being unhealthy.

Football season approaches. Favre is being a baby. He's done and Green Bay is doing the right thing is telling a guy that they won't let him "unretire" for the 12th time. And I am too lazy and focused on other things to finish this, so here it ends.

Analyze This

I wonder how much most people know themselves. I don't feel that I have any clue how most people perceive me. I wouldn't be surprised if I were some extremely ugly dork or if I was some kind of unapproachable bad-ass.

People always talk about self-esteem like my thoughts on how others perceive me means I'm either arrogant or depressed. Other people's perceptions of me don't change what I think of me. That's how they think. And me... why would I have a perception of myself? What would I even base it on? What do I care whether I like how I look or how I behave? I have no care at all whether I'm attractive to myself. I care greatly about whether I attract others. To most people this seems like low self-esteem but in reality it just means that I am goal oriented.

I think thoughts of compromising myself don't occur to me because the few beliefs I hold and care about are strong convictions. Things like being vegan, being open and honest, being kind, are all things I have no intention of changing. But beyond core philosophies I don't care about how I express myself.

If I don't care at all about a topic, but other people do, then I should attempt to satisfy others if it meets my goals. For instance, I don't care how I look. I rarely ever have to look at myself. But I do care about romantic love, sex, attraction, dates. Probably in that order. Looks aren't the only thing I have no interest in. Fashion, ways of behaving, activities...


This means I'm extremely adaptable. I am willing to be whatever it takes to please others often. Not because I need to please other people and sacrifice "who I am" for that. Rather, I have little self-identity and my goal is to be surrounded by good people. Working towards that goal means becoming whatever kind of person attracts the people I like most. I don't care what kind of person that is. I have no desire to be any particular thing. I just desire to be surrounded by people I admire and enjoy.

So... when I actually like someone, it hurts to not be liked back. This is not a romantic thing, but even just as friends. That is because it means I failed. Not that I am a bad person because one person doesn't like me, but rather than my whole goal of being likable to the people I like most isn't working. That is very bad in the big picture. I want badly to perfect this ability to befriend the people I find worthwhile.


This blog feels like it's rambling. I keep forgetting where I'm going with all this. So I'd like to know what I'm like. Who I am. How you perceive me. But I'm a skeptic. When people describe me I'm always discounting what they say. I mean, most of society tries to be nice. Daily I see people lie and say someone's hair looks nice or that they're feeling fine when they're not. I assume all compliments of me are fake and give them almost no weight. Even insults are often derived just to hurt someone or are at least not the whole truth.

It's hard to know where I really stand. I tend to judge people by their actions instead of words. By whether a person wants to spend time with me and make me a priority in their life. By that standard I don't think I'm doing well. I make a lot of effort to be out doing things. I participate in many events and have met a TON of people since coming to Austin. I haven't made many friends. I fill my life with strangers who don't want to get to know me better. I have some great friends, but things certainly haven't met my expectations lately. Maybe most people don't seek to have deep relationships where they open up and share their lives. It could be that I'm just expecting something most people don't want to do.


I think this is one reason I'm so focused on dating. My romantic relationships have been very deep emotional connections with other people. I have been best friends with all of my girlfriends. I haven't been close to anyone in about a year now. I miss that feeling.

Embarrassment

Flirting embarrasses me. I was told I came on too strong at the pool party yesterday. I was not told by the person I flirted with luckily, but still, it brings up strong feelings of embarrassment. Somehow it's related to a fear of rejection I bet. Flirting is a difficult thing for me to do.


More fun parties this weekend. Friday I spent my time at home getting over the week, then went out and had a blast Saturday. I'm reading Chuck's newest book Snuff. Good stuff. I need to apply to more jobs. I have the paperwork for the move. Time to start packing. And I owe some old taxes I forgot to pay so I'm going to have to dip into savings and hope that check isn't cashed before I get more money into my account.

I read the last blog and remember how I'll feel in a couple days. How sad. Because once again I'm in a great mood and it's been a great weekend. But it won't last.


That's about it for my update. That's all that's new with me. Happy Fourth of July everyone. I hope you had a good holiday and that you remember the great things about America rather than some of our more tragic recent events. Think about how we forced legitimate trials onto war criminals over Europe's desire to skip them in our fight for human rights after WWII. Don't remember instead how we're torturing people and denying those same rights now. We are a nation with incredible foundations even if we are straying from them a bit in more recent times.

Even worse

The sweets are sweeter because work is so sour, but man are things bad right now. I am extremely down about my coworkers. Even the nicer ones have been extremely insulting towards me lately. I had sought to just avoid talking to coworkers, but not only is that difficult for me (I'm quite social), but it seemed like an immature reaction.


So instead I am going through that horrid process I went through in middle school. I'm destroying my ego to destroy my expectations. I thought I could be friends with anyone, find dates, form a good life. I thought with enough work and effort I'd just solve all problems and find an ideal life. It had been relatively true for the last 10 years or so. But it's not true about dating and it's not true about getting along with these coworkers. So I shall instead become self-deprecating. I shall spend my time in depression convincing myself that I'm a "fucking idiot" as I was called today at work. That I'm "weird" and that people don't like me. Finding no solution to fixing the problems I'll pound acceptance of the situation into myself.

I wonder how long this will take. It will not be pleasant.