Thoughts (again)

I have so much to say but don't know where to begin. I'm a little drunk. I'm a little irritated. I'm kind of happy that I actually feel something right now...

Time to start turning these feelings into something positive. Update tomorrow, I promise.

Thoughts For Today, August 18th, 2008

Yesterday I spent almost the entire day in Northampton. I woke up a little before 9 (gotta love being essentially unemployed) and headed into town. Upon arriving and parking I walked a few blocks to get cigarettes and decided to keep on walking. After about 4 miles of aimless meandering I popped into Packards to see Jared and Kendra. We chatted. It was fun. Then I went to Pulaski Park, sat on a bench, and finished a book that Jil's father bought for me when we first met. It occurred to me that it was the 17th and they were showing my absolute favorite movie of all time (Harold And Maude) at The Academy. I called Kaliis and we decided to go to the 5 o'clock showing. It was around 1 when I called her. I walked to my car to get another book (always keep books on your person or in your car). While walking there I came across five people on different occassions who recognized me and used my name (e.g. "Hey Peter!", "How's it going Peter?", "Long time no see Peter..." etc.) Although I recognized the faces of two of them I did not know any of their names. I hate generalizing responses to things like "hey man, what's up?" but sometimes I am forced to. Anyway, went back to the park to read and wait for Kaliis. She was late and so we opted out of the 5pm showing and settled on the 7. We decided to head to the mall to take advantage of the tax-free weekend. We then went to the movie (amazing as always... I teared up a bit). Afterwards we walked to Bishops for Karaoke. I stayed until 1 and then went for another walk around town before heading to my car and going home. I got home around 2:15. Essentially I meandered in and about Northampton from 9am until 2am with an hour detour to the mall. It was one of the better days I've had in months.

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Contrary to Saturday's post I went and picked up the majority of my stuff from Jil's today. We chatted for a bit and, with the exception of some truly awkward hugs, was an extremely amicable experience. She brought up the 'you should come over and hang sometime' as well as the 'we will always be friends' aspects. I didn't shrug them off completely but I also wasn't jumping for joy at either prospect. Don't get me wrong; Jil is an amazing person. She is fun and funny and we had some great times. I just have a hard time staying connected to someone that I have disconnected from. To be fair my usual timeframe from 'Seriously Seeing Someone' to 'Spending Time With Someone I Used To See Seriously' averages about a year. We broke up in July (it might have been late June, I didn't mark the date). We'll see how this pans out. I did find out something that I found hilarious though... Jil, If you are reading this I sincerely wish you the best of luck with THAT! ;) (I think I just died a little when I typed out that smiley)

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What does one do on a Monday these days?

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If we don't settle on a place soon we are going to head up to my cabin in Rowe for a month or so. Upside to that: I'll get to catch up on some reading and writing
Downside to that: I will be almost completely isolated from society. No internet access. No cellphone service. No neighborhood bar. Just me and nature.

Thoughts

On August 4th, 2008 I spent approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes examining the proverbial 'Road Less Travelled'. I decided to consciously think about every major choice I have ever made in my life and how things might have turned out different if I had gone the other direction. It was a fascinating time period.

After that I thought about what I wanted for dinner.

That was less fascinating.

A Statement Followed By My Response Followed By My Explanation Of Said Response

She wrote:

"Do you know what hate really is?
It's unrequited love"

I responded:

"I have spent the past few years coming to the conclusion that unrequited love (on the part of the giver) is actually one of the strongest forms of passion there is. With unrequited love you are constantly forced to examine yourself under such a microscope do determine why you even bother. In most people's eyes, "they don't feel the same for me as I do for them" equates to "it's probably better to just walk away." Yet in some cases that becomes extremely difficult.

Assume for a moment that you are the type of person who believes in the 'one perfect soulmate'. You stumble across all the essential qualities you are looking for in a person. The two of you get to know each other at great lengths. You have devoted time and emotion in building up a spark between you. Your feelings grow until one day you can't keep them in any longer. They do not reciprocate. Now you are posed with a dilemma, can you just walk away knowing full well that they are everything you could ever want and more?

In my experience, passion this deep doesn't often exist in relationships for a long enough period of time. But there are people out there who burden themselves with this type of dead-end passion forever.

Just my two cents of course."

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I met someone a few years back who matched my personal criteria tenfold. I had always assumed that she was beyond my reach. With time we became passing acquaintances, then kind of friends, and shortly thereafter extremely close. I held my feelings inside for months. Finally I couldn't keep it in anymore and explained how I felt. She didn't take it well and stopped speaking to me for a bit. We have since grown back together knowing full well that I still hold these feelings for her to an extent. It's not as strong as it was that fateful day when I poured my heart out to her but I'd be lying if I said that she didn't cross my mind once on a while.

Sometimes it's hard to swallow that passion. Most relationships have a honeymoon period of varying length. Unrequited love is similar to that; a honeymoon period experienced by one lonely soul.

Brightkite, Twitter, And Endless Road Construction

-i am now a Brightkite user. what is Brightkite? well... suppose you had a thing for me. now, suppose you were borderline psychotic and needed to know exactly where i was at any given moment. Brightkite can help you! essentially when i am out and about i text to this website where i am. it can be specific (for instance, a little while ago i was at the grocery store and told Brightkite exactly where i was down to the street address), it can be general (tomorrow i plan on being in amherst during the day... odds are my Brightkite account will primarily tell people that i am in amherst until i decide to inform it exactly where i will be), or it can be ridiculously vague (the next time i go out of state i intend to only tell Brightkite which state i am in at any given moment). so what's the purpose of this? my circle of friends have this tendency to mass text everyone with the generic 'anything going on tonight?' text. frankly it gets annoying. with Brightkite i can show everyone exactly where i am at. i can upload pictures from my phone to the site to correspond with my location (wanna know exactly who i am hanging out with? i'll upload a pic...). i can also put little notes with my locations explaining things like how long i intend to be there and/or how intoxicated i may be. of course, you could always call me and get all of this information direct from my mouth but where's the fun in that? besides, it integrates with google maps so never again need you call for directions to meet up with me. granted, it is still in private Beta at the moment so there aren't too many people in the area using it but hopefully that will change. if you are interested in it (or need more info) i have a few invites left. drop me an email. if you just want to keep tabs on me or are interested to see what it's like to have a website keeping tabs on you (whenever you see fit) this is my Brightkite profile.

-i often forget that i also have a Twitter account. Twitter is similar to Brightkite but doesn't rely on location based entries. it's rather similar to Facebook or MySpace status updates but primarily sent spur of the moment from my phone. for the month of August, i intend to use my Twitter account to keep tabs on what's on my mind at any given moment. you can follow these updates here.

-why is it that the majority of places i need to get to are hampered by construction and detours? i live approximately 4 miles south of downtown northampton. usually it's a straight shot to get there. since sunday, however, there has been a detour through easthampton. you cannot (unless you work at the tubed products factory) simply travel down route 5. approximately 2 miles north of my apartment, also on route 5, there has been some sort of construction which brings traffic to a standstill every day between 9am and 5pm. it's just plain annoying. yesterday i went to lunch with my friend Kaliis in south hadley and there was construction on the bridge. it wasn't problematic on the way into town but on the way out traffic was backed up the entire length of the bridge to the rotary on south hadley's side. we ended up taking the other bridge (through south hadley falls) into the flats of holyoke but even then had to correct our route as we were driving to avoid the holyoke side rotary as it was completely closed off and would have forced us back into south hadley. this is ridiculous. you would think that they would attempt to time all of these construction projects/detours to make travel easier for people. and you wonder why i tend to spend most of my time at my computer in the sanctity of my apartment.

-i'm off to finish Green Wing. if you have yet to watch any of it, i urge you to. it is a British sitcom about daily life in a hospital with almost no hospital aspects involved. think Sports Night without Aaron Sorkin and with british accents... in a hospital. it's smashingly good.

Dreams Made Reality

i had a dream last night. in it i went on a quest to meet more like-minded people without actively seeking them out.

passive-aggressive networking of sorts.

when i woke up i had an idea:

i am taking 25 books from my collection and writing a short note in each with my email address listed at the end. each note will be written in the margins on either page 26, page 57, or page 131. the note will be personalized to the book itself and will instruct the reader to contact me if possible. i doubt anyone will follow through but either way i am dropping these books off at various used bookstores and libraries in the valley throughout the week. if you happen to stumble across one, congratulations!

i am also considering doing a similar thing with mix cds but have yet to determine exactly what i want to do with that idea. i'll keep you posted.

on a different note: it amazes me how courageous people can be. i am a frightened person. i tend to keep to myself as much as i can. i hate opening myself up. i am constantly in a state of vulnerability.

recently i exposed an aspect of myself to somebody and almost immediately regretted it. it took a while but i received a response this morning. were i in their shoes i probably would never have gotten back to me. lo and behold not only did i receive the response i wasn't expecting but it was exactly what i needed to hear. it was cordial. it was humorous. it left no room for misinterpretation. if you are reading this please allow me to thank you again. seriously.

until next time

Things on my mind at approximately one o'clock sunday morning...

-recently i was talking to someone and they had mentioned that they had begun taking photographs. they determined that this would be a new hobby of sorts. i can't for the life remember who i had this conversation with and that bothers me. was it you? wait, i think i remember who it was. either way, i need a new hobby.

-my friend Gauge is in the hospital. it sounds relatively serious. i realize that i will be spending time tomorrow at cooley dick. i hate hospitals. i do, however, truly like Gauge and am willing to put aside my distrust of the medical professions... for one day.

-i am listening to various Modest Mouse bootlegs from the late 90's at the moment. my favorite parts are the adlibbed lyrics that Isaac Brock tends to add to the latter halves of many of my favorite songs. at this exact moment i am trying to discern exactly what he is singing towards the end of 'All Night Diner' from a show in New York City, May 19th 1999.

-tonight i watched the south hadley fireworks from the parking lot of my apartment complex in holyoke. i was not the only person doing this. i sat and talked with a woman who lives in one of the other apartments. i had never met her before as i normally do not associate with the other tenants here. we talked about life in the service industry and the fact that she was getting new teeth. she thought i was 18. i knew she was in her late forties. when she began talking about her lackluster sex life i knew it was time to go back inside. doing so caused me to miss the finale. i hope it was smashing.

-i have re-evaluated my fears in life and have discovered a new one: someday i will die. maybe tomorrow. maybe 50 years from now. my fear doesn't lie in death however. instead it relates to the fact that the majority of the people i know wouldn't find out about my demise in a timely manner. i intend to share the passwords to my social networking sites/blogs/email inboxes/etc with someone who i can trust to pass on the news to the masses. i'd hate to go forgotten.

-i couldn't tell you the last time i ate soup. i kind of want to rectify that soon.

-stumbleupon is the tool of the devil. thankfully, being an atheist, i accept all tools with an open mind.

-i had a baffling dream earlier today but now i can't remember it. that's probably a good thing.

-if you are reading this and we recently discussed the 'need to talk' i urge you to contact me. i am lousy at initiating conversation. if, however, you changed your mind about 'needing to talk' expect an email from me later this week. i don't like loose ends in my life. i also don't like soup. i still kind of want to rectify that soon.

-on a scale of 1 to 10 i deem this version of 'Cowboy Dan' awesome.

-supposedly i walked out on a bar tab on friday night. i had (wrongfully) assumed that the two drinks i had before my little shindig would have found themselves on the bill for the shindig. i will rectify this soon. maybe over a crock of soup.

-i am thinking of setting up a facebook event for lunch in august and seeing how many people i can coerce to share a meal with me. i am thinking indian food. i might be down for some chinese. it won't happen until august regardless... keep your eyes peeled.

-the time is now one o'clock. i think i am done here for now.

-if you made it this far i owe you a hug. remind me of this the next time i see you.