It Was a Good Weekend

I fought off a cold all weekend, but I enjoyed the time nonetheless. Saturday morning I got up and watched my cartoons, then bussed down to Dupont Circle. I went to Second Story books to pick up a copy of Husserl I'd seen there a few days earlier. It had occurred to me that I've never seen any Husserl on bookstore shelves before, despite the fact he taught both Heidegger and Sartre. From there I hit a few stores then Metroed out to the burbs, picking up a lacrosse stick pocket stretcher at PJ's Sports, and bussing to Tysons Corner Mall.

The mall was bustling. Even one of the shopkeepers mentioned how packed the place was. I guess people are still doing their fall/back-to-school shopping. I didn't pick up much at the mall, but I did get a meal at Elevation Burger.

Sunday was even more enjoyable. I met an old friend for brunch — we tried a place down in Clarendon, where we both had ridiculously delicious french toast. We did the Clarendon shopping thing (I picked up a volume of Heidegger), and had great coffee at Java Shack, which is now officially one of my favorite coffee shops in the area. We also caught up on about 6 months or so of life news. I'm glad we did.

So while Sunday night was my usual downer, it wasn't as nearly a devastating downer as the recent Sunday nights have been, and I'm starting my week on a relatively good note (although I'm still fighting off that cold). I think I would do well to try and spend some time with friends on Sunday afternoons. I think that makes me feel better over all.

Tumbling Down, Crawling Along

This week has tried my patience. I cannot point to any one particular event or difficulty. It simply started bad with the general bummer I had on Sunday, and never got much better. Since I will not shut my brain off with alcohol, I've had to sit in the full light of my life as it is, in all it's blandness and restrictedness.

I felt particularly bad the other night when a young man whose blog I follow on Tumblr expressed a lot of discontent and self-loathing. He wasn't quite suicidal, but he did sound very down on himself and his life. I tried to communicate care to him, but beyond that, I couldn't in all honesty say, "It gets better," especially since a lot of what he was bummed about are the same things I'm bummed about (loneliness, feeling unlovable, being overweight, etc.). I let him know I was concerned, but I could offer him no advice. I felt very inadequate, and it was only my concern for him that outweighed that enough for me to say anything at all.

I will say this about Tumblr: the community is pretty good about taking care of each other. Yeah, there are some haters; but usually when anyone expresses genuine sadness or even suicidal thoughts, people rush to send them messages of support. Who knows? This world might get better yet.

My weight seems to have hit a new "set point": ~194 lbs. That's good compared to a year ago when it was ~210 lbs. But I need to get it lower. I like to drop at least another 20 lbs., but I would be happy with 15. The biggest struggle I have now is that my traditional way of dealing with ongoing bummers is to eat (especially if I'm not drinking alcohol).

I need to start focusing on other things I can do to occupy my time. The evenings are just so fraught with opportunities to make things worse. I need to fill them with ways to make things better. I need a hobby, other than reading, surfing the web and watching television. Something that engages my attention fully for hours.

On Life Support

My social life is in a coma. It had been struggling for some time, and finally succumbed when I decided to stop drinking. What little socializing I did was mostly in bars or at parties, and I generally avoid those now.

I haven't yet discovered new venues for meeting people and socializing.

I've contemplated putting a profile on OKCupid. I realize that there is little likelihood, given my tastes in men, of actually finding a partner on OKCupid. But I might make a friend or two. I've even considered putting up a profile on the new site for meeting transmen. (Yes, I would date a transman, if I found him sexy and interesting. It's about personality and appearance, not plumbing. Even moreso, I'd hang out with transmen who are cool – I already know a few, but they life way the fuck out in MD.)

I haven't put up any profiles yet because I'm just not ready to say no thanks.

I know that beggars can't be choosers, so I'm trying very hard not to be a beggar.

Still, it would be nice to have a social life again, with men and women who are cool, who don't creep me out with unwanted (sexual) attention, who also don't drink (0r at least let themselves get fucked up) and with whom I have enough in common for a basis in conversation.

Questioned by Life

“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”

― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Reality-Based Dating

I have decided to create a profile on an online dating site. As I make my plans for doing this, I've decided on a few rules to protect myself.

1. Never make the first move. If I make the first move, I automatically become the supplicant, which puts me in a position of disadvantage. I want to be the gatekeeper, not the person begging for an opening. This is especially important as I get older. I do not want to be the typical "old gay man" trying to get others to pay attention to me.

2. Define from the outset the limits of the first date, namely that we will meet for coffee and conversation, and nothing more. Naturally, this pre-empts premature hook ups. But it also avoids awkward dinners with someone uninteresting. If I say from the outset we will not have dinner on the first day, I forestall the risk I'll be trapped buying a meal and enduring it with someone distinctly not for me.

3. Remind potential dates to keep their expectations reasonable before it begins, and I will do the same. There's a one-in-a-billion chance that I'll actually find someone dateable online (or in real life), so no one, myself or others, needs to go into a situation with their hopes too high, only to have those hopes frustrated yet again. If everyone has reasonable expectations, then no one will be too disappointed, and if by some miracle I actually do meet someone dateable, then it will be all the more awesome.

My Weekend Would Probably Bore You

I bought too many books this weekend, but I enjoyed myself just fine.

I decided since Metro would be difficult to deal with this weekend, I'd start my errands on Friday evening. I metroed out to the burbs and picked up an hard-to-find copy of Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons. I also got a few more craft supplies from AC Moore. Other than that, Friday evening was chill.

Saturday morning I woke up early. The weather report warned of a massive storm system coming our way, due to hit in the afternoon, so I got an early start on my errands. I bussed up to Bethesda, but got there so early, stores weren't open yet, so I had breakfast at the Tastee Diner, which I had not been to in years. It hasn't changed a bit.

In Bethesda I picked up a stringing kit for a lacrosse stick head, and some athletic drawers and five-toed socks from City Sports. Then I metroed down to Dupont Circle. At two used bookstores I got a slender volume of Descartes, a slightly heftier volume if Kierkegaard, and a huge paperback Bible (KJV with Apocrypha).

I started on my way home, but got off the bus when we encountered a downed tree across Columbia Road (the storm was still hours away; maybe a stiff breeze knocked it down). I walked the rest of the way home, trying a different route for kicks.

The storm finally hit, and it was something to watch. Manuel hid in the closet and napped. I checked on a neighbor's cat, and she too was napping in the closet. No problems, except for Manu's jealousy.

Saturday night was so boring, and I was so tired, I went to bed at 2100 hours. I slept until 0800 hours Sunday morning. I guess I needed the rest. I cleaned my bathroom, and myself, and met friends for brunch at Pho 14. Then I wandered down 14th Street. At Palace 5, one of my favorite boutique shops, I got a t-shirt. I looked around U Street, 14th Street and Dupont Circle, and only picked up a few things (including yet another book at Kramerbooks). I walked home from there, and then went to supper at The Heights.

I'm relearning how to do weekends. Since I'm avoiding alcohol these days, I'm also avoiding the places I associate with drinking, restaurants as well as bars. This means rethinking where to eat when I choose to eat out. I need to try some new places. I may need to make a mental list.

Also, I have too many books. One of my projects for the fall is to cull out some of the books I no longer need/do not want/cannot really use after all, and trade them in/give them away. I wish I had two of me for that project, since getting rid of books is something I have to talk myself into.

Finally, I picked up another cute hoodie yesterday, so I have two new hoodies to debut this fall when the weather cools down just a bit more. I'm looking forward to it.

Life Is Not Perfectible

Many people have the silly idea, gleaned from movies, adverts and glossy magazines, that life is perfectible. The idea that other people out there have achieved the perfect life. So, they feel dissatisfied with the life they have or even downright cheated out of the life they think they deserve but don't have, the life that no one has.  They yearn for a life of perfect happiness that is impossible, while failing to take control of the life they do have and make it more rewarding through decisive, realistic action. Existentialists are nihilists because they recognize that life is ultimately absurd and full of terrible, inescapable truths. They are anti-nihilists because they recognize that life does in fact have a meaning: the meaning each person chooses to give his or her own existence. They recognize that each person is free to create themselves and make something worthwhile of themselves by striving against life's difficulties. Life, or rather death, will win in the end, but what matters is the striving, the overcoming, the journey.

—Gary Cox, How to Be an Existentialist, New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2012, p. 15.