I’ve kind of been trudging along the last couple years, totally ignoring this and shutting down emotionally. Something/someone happened to me that woke me up from my slumber. I was literally figuratively shocked into waking up, partially because of her and partially because it was just time. I’ve learned quite a few lessons from this episode:

Stop trying to sleep with women on the first date! It really screws everything up one way or the other.

It’s time to stop using the past as an excuse and time to get over and on with it.

Just because you want something doesn’t mean you can have it. You have to let it happen naturally.

Stop and smell the roses: I’m too goal oriented. Once I have a target I put the blinders on and go full steam ahead. I didn’t even check to see if the prize was worth the the price of admission (no offense intended — I just didn’t take the time to get to know her before putting her on the pedestal).

Watch my mouth. Some of the shit that comes out is funny, and some of it is offensive. Most of the time it’s both

I’m still an introvert. Luckily I have great friends that love me despite it. Also, there’s nothing wrong with being one.

Long time no see.

One of the things I’ve been reminded of over the past 6 months is if you don’t put yourself out there, you’ll miss the opportunity of getting anything valuable in return. Sometimes you get something back and sometimes you don’t. It sucks when you don’t, but you just have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and put yourself out there again. It’s better than the alternative of living in your own world forever.

I just finished reading Tuesdays with Morrie, and I’m putting one particular concept into good use right now.

“You know what the Buddhists say?  Don’t cling to things, because everything is impermanent”

But wait, I said.  Aren’t you always talking about experiencing life?  All the good emotions, all the bad ones?

“Yes”

Well, how can you do that if you’re detached?

“Ah. You’re thinking, Mitch. But detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it.”

I’m lost.

“Take any emotion–love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I’m going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions–if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them–you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.

“But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, ‘All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.’”

…

I thought about how often this was needed in every-day life. How we feel lonely, sometimes to the point of tears, but we don’t let those tears come because we are not supposed to cry. Or how we feel a surge of love for a partner but we don’t say anything because we’re frozen with the fear of what those words might do to the relationship.

Morrie’s approach was exactly the opposite. Turn on the faucet. Wash yourself with the emotion. It won’t hurt you. It will only help. If you let the fear inside, if you pull it on like a familiar shirt, then you can say to yourself, “All right, it’s just fear, I don’t have to let it control me. I see it for what it is.”

Same for loneliness: you let go; let the tears flow, feel it completely–but eventually be able to say, “All right, that was my moment with loneliness. I’m not afraid of feeling lonely, but now I’m going to put that loneliness aside and know that there are other emotions in the world, and I’m going to experience them as well.”

“Detach,” Morrie said once again.

Too bad I only just realized I’ve been doing it wrong when the good emotions have gone and the bad have come.

Sometimes I think: why bother getting attached when you know it’s going to hurt so much when it ends?

One of the younger females at my workplace went on vacation for 2 weeks, but didn’t go anywhere. Upon coming back, she looked different. At first, I thought it was the hair. However, after a few more glances I realized something else must have been done. My less tactful coworkers have asked her directly if she changed anything other than the hair, but she refuses to admit to anything more. I’m convinced she had a nose job, as nothing but her mouth moves when she talks now. She still looks different after her hair returned to its usual look.

Now, I can’t even bring myself to look at her as it seems like I’m talking to a different person. Why would someone want to do something like that, especially when they looked fine in the first place? I can’t help it, but I think less of a person if I know or he/she has had any reconstruction done. When you look in the mirror, are you you any longer? Were you so unhappy with yourself that you wanted to become someone else?

The only way something like this would fly is if you had the work done, then moved somewhere else and met new people who didn’t know how you looked before. You could either do that or go to Hollywood where everyone else does it too.

Hope all 2 of my readers have a Happy New Year! I had the last two weeks of last year off, and didn’t do much except veg out on my couch, with the exception of a snowboarding trip to Mont Tremblant. It’s nice to get your batteries recharged once in a while.

New Years was spent at a party at York Event Theatre, which was packed to the brim with drunken revellers — everyone was extremely friendly and approachable — I guess it’s a New Year’s thing. Why do we need an excuse to be friendly and be like this all the time? I guess being New Year’s gives girls who otherwise can’t think of anything something to say to guys.

Afterwards, I met up with a few friends who crashed a stranger’s house party downtown in the clubbing district. This guy’s pad was a geek’s dream, with a nice sound system, big screen TV and high-tech toys galore. Apparently this guy works in computer animation. The fact that it was right next door to a club didn’t hurt things one bit.

We didn’t stay for long as it was already 4am, so we tried our damndest to get a cab. Unfortunately, so did the rest of Toronto. We decided to walk in the direction of home and even though we flagged a few down on the way, they all refused to take us since our trip would be too short. Those bastards!

All in all, I had a great time this vacation. Too bad I have to work tomorrow

I’ve been back from Cancun for a week now, just missing Hurricane Wilma. While I was there it was awesome. It’s too bad what’s happened over there for now, as tourism is the economy there.

On a totally different note, I do not and will not ever understand women. I was chewed out by a friend of mine recently about an evite invitation. I admit that I did not read it carefully, but after showing it to a few of my co-workers, they all came away with the impression that it was a pumpkin carving event. They all missed the fact that there was a brunch in there too. Since I’m not so hot about pumpkin carving, I was still deciding whether to go or not.

Anyhow, we’re chatting about it, and it’s clarified that brunch is actually the main event. Then she complains that “everyone just reads the evite but they don’t respond or they just tell me verbally”. So to explain why, I mention how it’s easier for people to disregard mass emails, because you’re a small percentage of the invite and it’s easy to hide behind that. She then proceeds to go ballistic about how this is not true, because 30 people who have attended the event before and know what it’s about have responded already. I find myself disinvited.

Wait, didn’t you just complain about how people don’t respond? Huh?!

I just started reading He’s Just Not That Into You. I’m only about 1/4 into it, and I have to say although most of it is pretty true, some of it is a crock.

In one part, the author says girls should move on when a guy doesn’t call when he says he will. Wait a second! Girls do that ALL the time! They always flake. They will make dates and call the day of, 5 minutes after they were supposed to meet, and tell us they can’t make it because their dog pooped on the carpet. It’s perfectly acceptable for them. Why can’t we do it too?

I’m trying to find more examples I don’t agree with, but I can’t. So far it’s all pretty true. That one I just mentioned chaps my ass a bit though.

Actually, now that I think about it, it probably just means that She’s Just Not That Into Me. I guess I should move on in this case (hypothetically speaking of course — She is always into me!).

I’m not sure what the point of this post is anymore. The book is good. It just sucks that girls know all our tricks now.

I saw Alfie recently. It starts out so great — funny and insightful. Then it gets a bit too insightful. I think it hits home a bit too hard for me. The reviews on it are pretty widely polarized; probably because the ones who hated it can’t relate.

It makes me wonder what the 1966 original with Michael Caine was like, because the new one is given an unfavourable comparison in many reviews. I thought it was pretty good myself.