I'm very lonely, blogger. I don't know what it is. The fact that I have no difficulty making new friends wherever I go. The fact that I almost always have fun wherever I go. The fact that I am constantly busy driving and working and dancing and planning and all sorts of other verb-ings. The fact that I am contented easily. The fact that I have books and video games and food and more books to occupy every waking moment I'm not out with people and very comfortable pillows and blankets when I'm asleep. The fact that my girlfriend is a thousand miles away, in a different direction than usual as she hikes in the colorado mountains, unreachable until monday. The fact that I feel pulled toward people by the inevitably interesting things about them. The fact that I feel repelled by people by their inevitable inability to be who I want them to be. The fact that I reveal neither of those. The fact that my expectations for others are as high as those of myself, and everyone (including myself) is failing. The fact that I'm tired of facts. The fact that what I really want to do is not be better, but just to feel better. The fact that that disgusts me and depresses me even more than the not being good in the first place. Blogger, why is it that I can work hard and get things done and still feel useless, go to job fairs and work on my resume and still feel like I am doing nothing, hang out with people who remember my name and enjoy my presence and feel so totally and utterly alone and unable to bridge the gaps, have a loving family and a loving girlfriend and friends who are all but loving (and even faith in a God who loves me) and still feel totally untouched by love? I don't know, I'm depressed. Reading helps me forget. Drinking doesn't. Funny, that? Something is cracked inside me I think, and I all run out, dripping on the floorboards and the carpet, draining into the bedsheets. Misanthropy starts within. Those who alienate themselves because they have been hurt one too many times are not true misanthropists. No, the true misanthropist is alienated because he is unable to bring reality into focus, align his perceptions of reality with his expectations and desires of reality, or vice versa. He blindly gropes in front of him, smile on his face, uncertainty in his eyes, despising reality for being blurry, despising people for being either shallow or unfathomable, despising himself for his inability to hold his head high without feeling fake, and his inability to lower his head without feeling shame and defeat. I close my eyes and see the world imprinted upon my retinas in opposite colors, a natural phenomena, a property of our visual system. I fear I may be split in two, and only a shallow David remains, like a transparency slide held up with a blank sheet of paper behind. Where has the light gone? Where the artist with his steady hand? Where the pen?

So I got home just in time, it seems. I am getting 40 hours this week, having expected 20. There was something happening every night between tuesday and saturday this week, so I worked 8 hours thursday, 14 hours friday, 10 hours today (with a break in the middle for tango workshops with argentinian professionals) and 8 hours tomorrow by myself. Then I am scheduled 40.5 hours next week, with another long (12 hour) day on saturday. ugh [laughs] but it's money, so that's good. Unfortunately, it's preventing me from doing some tango things. I had to cancel dance class friday night and I had to skip dancing in the mall today, as well as next saturday. Fortunately, since Charles requested off next weekend, it means he has the long shift friday, and I only have to work during the day (and my regular evening schedule can go as planned). But we're ditching Matt by himself on Sunday, since I'll be in San Antonio for Irina's white coat ceremony (she's starting med school, and gets her doctor coat). I think I may be her only non-family-member supporter there [laughs]. Anyway, today was tough because I strained my lower back a little this morning moving a huge bucket of fryer oil. Not enough to whine about, but enough to notice and look forward to sleeping off. Then dance class happened, and don't get me wrong, it was amazingly helpful, well worth the price, but the constant twists and spins in the second workshop made my back hurt 5 times worse, so that every time I leaned over or squatted for the rest of the day, I had a sharp pang standing back up. [sighs] I'll be ok, but I actually took pain killers, which I really really don't do. On the plus side, I had lots and lots of sugar cookies, leftovers from thursday night but still soft and chewy, with which to console myself. [grins] Tomorrow, as I mentioned, I work solo, then church, then a party at a place called Cosmos. The band I go there for is splitting up for a while so the members can travel; they have cajun music, bluegrass, and tango, and mix them sometimes too. Plus Cosmos has really good quesadillas and a really really good red wine (Turner Road 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon). Monday I work, and I'll probably come home to spend some quality non-sleeping-or-eating-or-showering time at home, unless Charles can convince me that Monday is infinately better to hang out with him than Tuesday (my plan right now). Dancing wednesday, work and dancing thursday, work and dancing friday, work and more work saturday, then traveling before sleeping and then fun fun sunday, then back to the grind monday, when I'll probably be working again. [sighs and laughs] I don't give myself much free time, do I? My brother doesn't mind...it means I'm not kicking him off the computer very often, or if I am, it's only for a few hours, or an hour or two before he would be going to bed anyway [laughs]. But, speaking of bed, my back and my eyes are conspiring to make it impossible for me to stay awake, despite the little buzz I have from so much sugar throughout the day topped by an amaretto sour one of the bartenders was nice enough to slip me (since I really can't stand the white zinfandel everyone always has at weddings and that all the rest of the waitstaff were drinking). So, blogger, this is me saying goodnight. Goodnight!

So yah, I'm really freakin' tired, but I figure I ought to post now. Ohio was great. Lots of sleeping and not doing what we planned to do because we were lazy. Lots of West Wing, some Star Trek and fashion shows, some Diablo 1 on PS1, some DDR, lots of reading, an awesome picnic at an outdoor theater performance by the Cleveland Symphony performing Rogers and Hammerstein, and another guy whose name I forget who wrote the lyrics for Westside Story, learning to rollerskate backwards, playing a new card game called Kung Fu Fighting, playing (and enjoying) Apples To Apples, a really really good white wine, taking my darling to learn tango, and some random shopping, and more that I have forgotten. I'm now home, and will have little free time between now and the weekend, and need sleep, so goodnight blogger. p.s. I'm home now, so my Comments buttons now work for me again. Have I mentioned that firefox sucks? I got advice from a friend of a friend of my girlfriend, who is a computer science major, but we'll see if I can make it work. I mean, really, I only know pretty basic HTML, and I'm not bad at adapting stuff. Writing my own stuff to fix this? Yah, we'll see. laters

So, I am at my girlfriend's house, and for some reason, they cannot connect to google, or gmail, so I can't check my email. grrr. I am also reminded that I hate firefox, not so much because it is a constant reminder of how virus-vulnerable IE and Netscape are, but because the code for this blog does not work for it. For all you firefox users, the two text boxes, for my posts and my info/links, are supposed to be see-through. And the font is actually pretty small. I did not do a fantabulous job designing a blog that I would enjoy looking at just to screw it up with stupid huge text and boring white space. So yah, go get on your friend's IE and look at my blog from there, so you'll know what I Actually created. Maybe sometime I'll look up another way of creating it, so that I can write it using commands that firefox will also accept. But not today. [laughs] Anyway, Grace has DDR, now, so that's cool. We played that a little, then spent quite a few hours playing Diablo together. [smiles] It's so nice to be able to participate in things together. Friday we're going to some concert celebrating Sondheim (sp?), so it's the Cleveland Orchestra doing all showtunes. Should be excellent (unless they play too much Gershwin). I'll let you know. Laters, blogger.

1 day 4 hours: countdown to Grace-time. [laughs] I have not, however, wasted several days of time packing. As always, it has been saved until the last minute. Mostly because Friday I caught up on sleep, then went to dance lesson, then went to hear some guy play at a coffee shop. It was cool, he had an amp-hook-uped violin, a regular viola, an electric guitar, and a keyboard, along with a bag full of noise-making devices like quarters, clappers, tennis balls, etc. He also had a really nifty tool that allowed him to record a sound, loop it, record on top and loop that, etc. So he would loop the sound of a tennis ball being banged against the ground to a beat, then a quarter hitting the ground, then he added a couple extra tennis ball syncopations. He even, at one point, had me record the slurping-the-end-of-a-smoothy sound, twice, on beat. It was amusing. He recorded some guitar and some violin, and played melodic non-recorded lines at other times. He alternated this music with guitar ballads and soft picking sessions and violin/viola jigs and rags. It was very entertaining. I proceeded to wake up yesterday at 10:30 in expectation of going to San Antonio with my friend Irina and her friend Alison from DC. They didn't wake up till 11 though, so when Drew called at 11:30, we went out to lunch. The plan ended up changing to Galveston because they didn't want to drive 3 hours just to turn around and come back after a few hours, and since Drew had very little left to do at work, he ended up coming along to Galveston. It was fun, we had good seafood (though the gumbo very blah, and Drew couldn't eat it because it had sausage, in addition to the shrimp he was going to overlook for this occasion) and we saw a bunch of cool historic houses (from the street, but still), and then went shopping in the historic section stores called the Strand. We finished the evening by rolling up our cuffs and standing in the surf at the seawall beach. It was pretty in the dark, only seeing the white of the cresting foot-high waves and the sparkling reflections of lights from town behind us, and the water was very warm. We went back to Irina's house for snacking. Provolone goes well with dark Rye bread, by the way. [grins] Then I drove Drew home, and crashed there because I was freakin' tired. Today, he's on my side of town again for work, and he's going to finish up and then we'll see a movie. I gotta call Grace and see if she wanted to see either Batman or War of the Worlds with me. I just don't want to save them for when I get back, because I'll undoubtedly miss them in the theater [laughs]. But, if that plan is happening, I have to get some stuff done, and I need to go to church that I need to leave for very shortly (so I don't miss the later one and have mom get mad at me). So, au revoir, blogger. Until again.

So, dad signed up with a health club at one point. He then had to fight them to cancel the membership. However, they have continued to send emails with about 4 "healthy" recipes a week. Some sound really good, but are complicated enough that I'm not going to bother. Others sound like only a health nut would eat, because there are so many abnormal substitutions. Regardless, here is an easy one I've been meaning to try. And, since a certain someone who I am going to visit actually has mint plants, I thought posting it here, so she can help remind me I want to make it, would be good. [grins]

Apple Mint Julep Recipe
****************************
2 cups chopped fresh mint
8 cups apple juice
1/2 cup lime juice

Place chopped mint into cheesecloth or a coffee filter and tie
with twine. Place bag of mint and apple juice in a large
saucepan. Bring to boil, then remove from heat; cover and let
cool. Pour into a large pitcher; cover and chill. Discard
cheesecloth bag, and stir in lime juice and serve.

Makes 8 servings
Serving size: 8 ounces

(normal or occasional or passing through blog reader, this is not for you)

Hey babe. I know you can't get email, so you could always blog me. Or lj. or post a word document "email" on ripway. and you still haven't told me if I can leave phone messages on the answering machine, i.e. whether you take them off and write them somewhere or if my message is now going to be in the middle of a bunch of messages not for you. I'm sorry I only called once last night (tonight, technically, when I'm writing this). I got home a little late, because Amy was dancing with Mikas, who she loves dancing with, so I wasn't going to interrupt her to leave, since it's she and not I that needs to get home at a particular time [laughs]. Anyway, I don't have your cell number to call it. If it's written somewhere, it's only in a single place, which I have forgotten about and can't find near the computer here anywhere. So I called the house, and you didn't answer, and I clipped comics, and then it was 1:30 here, and that's 2:30 there, and I didn't want to wake you if you were asleep. So I'm sorry I missed you, and you can feel free to wake me up tomorrow during the morning or midday, though I'm going to get a haircut (at least a trim, since it really is a little too shaggy for what I want right now) sometime after 11 when Ian gets home from driver's ed. just remember it's an hour earlier, and it's 3am here when I'm about to go to bed [grins]. And tango I'll be leaving for at 6. Ok, love. sleepy time. [kisses you]

(goodnight nosey blogger reader; no hard feelings, but no kisses for you.)