Echo

Not smiling tonight. Staring down people trying to catch my eye, daring them to look away. Definitely shadow side tonight.
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At a sceney restaurant on Santana Row. These men are like sheep.
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Spending time with my childhood arch rival cousin on the official first day of retrograde. Rewriting our history. Make it a better connection. Why not be positive?
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Yesterday I went to the gym, and this Curt & Unbelievably Nasty Tramp wouldn’t let me buy my usual 6x guest pass, saying I could either pay the full daily fee or she was happy to sign me up as a member. I told her that the guest pass was something I’d worked out with the manager (we’d even had a meeting about it), and first she told me there was no such thing, then when I described it, she said she knew what that pass was but it was only for people on spring break. But I was welcome to sign up as a member. Memberships are like $1200 a year. I was standing there in my gym clothes trying to buy a weekly pass, which she wouldn’t sell me, acting like I was trying to cheat some system. It’s not protocol, she said. We don’t do that. But I’d be happy to sell you a membership. I’ve heard of a hard sell but this was ridiculous. Her attitude was offensive and she wouldn’t back down. I asked to speak to the manager and she said I couldn’t talk to the manager because she was in a meeting. Finally, another salesperson came who recognized me and told her that indeed, I usually buy the 6x guest pass. You’d think this girl would back down or at least apologize, but instead, she had to have the last word, saying that it’s a special privilege because that’s not usually the way things are done.

I was furious about the whole exchange. Mostly because I’m sick of people who work at this gym acting like they are doing members a service by letting them in. I’ve met asshole bouncers at nightclubs with better attitudes.

I was at the gym today waiting for Michael and I asked one of the guys at the front desk, Nick, if I could have the name of their new sales rep.

He handed me her card and asked, “Was there a problem?”

“I wouldn’t mind having a little sit down with her and her supervisor.”

“She was a little rude?”

“To say the least.”

He grins. “You’re not the first.”

Later, as I was leaving, he said, “The more complaints about her the merrier.”

In a dog eat dog world, bitches are fastest at clawing their way to the top, but they’re the first ones who find their way back to the bottom.

There’s one side of me that has everything laid out, knows what I want, knows where I’m going, has its eyes on the horizon and sees the big picture. There’s the other side that’s like a lightning rod. It picks up currents and whatever it gets hit with either reinforces what I already know, or challenges me and forces me to reevaluate myself and my path and adjust where necessary. This has been a system that has worked for me, keeping me balanced and able to evaluate things with an almost psychic intuition. But then there are times when just as an electrical storm hits its peak, my lightning rod has suddenly been replaced with a carrot. Nothing makes me feel more vulnerable.

Now I have to sneak back into my parents’ house. This is no way to live. I need to resolve my bay area living situation asap.
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Had a day that was spiraling into nasty but had some sense talked into me. Feeling much better.

I am not a fucking commodity.
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You listen, you smile, you say thank you for your advice, and you walk away.
You listen, you smile, you say thank you for your advice, and you walk away.
You listen, you smile, you say thank you for your advice, and you walk away.
You listen, you smile, you say thank you for your advice, and you walk away.
You listen, you smile, you say thank you for your advice, and you walk away.
You listen, you smile, you say thank you for your advice, and you walk away.
You listen, you smile, you say thank you for your advice, and you walk away.
You listen, you smile, you say thank you for your advice, and you walk away.
You listen, you smile, you say thank you for your advice, and you walk away.
You listen, you smile, you say thank you for your advice, and you walk away.

And then you keep walking until you end up right back where you started.

It depends on what you’re looking for. Your life goes where you aim it. Some people are determined to die. Even suicidals can be sunny. Those are the ones you never expect.

You can’t control everything. The sooner you understand that, the more control you’ll have over the things you can control. Like your approach to happiness.

Same ol’ shit. Same ol’ shit. Oh, Fremont, I fucking hate you. You’re the most haunted city for me…oppressive, suppressive…tiny little demons crawling inside and undermining everything. So we all have our patterns. Why? Is it self-perpetuating destruction? Or are our patterns the trials and error marking an intuition of what we are ultimately looking for? 99% of intimate relationships will fail in your lifetime. There’s an expiration date. Except for the one that takes you to death, the one that happens to not expire before you do. I would like to think that one enduring relationship you find in your lifetime makes all the other failures forgettable, the stepping stones that got you to what you were ultimately looking for. But how do those stepping stones feel? How do they feel knowing they’re considered mistakes in hindsight? Why is the human process so…so…merciless?

Last year my mom claimed that if I hadn’t ended my last relationship, she would have had to forcibly step in. Forcibly? That made me angry, even though it was a terribly detrimental relationship that needed to end. But I ended it. If mediocre players make excellent coaches, can you take advice from people who themselves are in bad relationships? When they tell you you make bad decisions, is it indicative of your overall ability to make decisions for yourself? Does it not improve with time and life experience, that learning curve?  And what has the last year and a half been, but my way of coping with the terror of my own decision-making, to take life as it comes, a refusal to make any solid decision unless it slaps me in the face as being completely obvious and inevitable? I don’t trust anyone anymore, most of all myself. The only decision I trust myself to make is to not make any decisions until I have sufficient information, and you know what? That sounds like good sense but that’s bullshit. No, I don’t want to fall down anymore. I’m sick of scrapes and bruises on my ego and sensitivities, I’m sick of failure and disappointment, I’m sick of things that I hoped for the best turning out to be what I should have expected because I knew better. Because unlike other humans, I knew better. Bullshit. Tough titties, that’s life. Life is fucking hard. Life is unpredictable and you do what you can, and adapt where you must. If you were lookin’ for something else, you shouldn’t have chosen being human. Why do I like my life so private? Because succeed or fail, no one gets to judge what I do. I get to make my way and no one except those I trust get to see how I fall down, only that I stand up.  No one gets to use any kind of lapse of judgment or human weakness to rush my personal borders and deem me unfit to run my own life in a coup. “You’re 30 now, and now’s the time you need to make smart decisions.” Really?? Because I’ve committed to making dumb decisions for the first half of my life? Decisions that happened to all revolve around putting the family first? How fucking dare you.

Last Warriors home game of the season tonight. We’re a team with so much heart, but so lacking in talent. It was a great night though. Good company, good time.

Oh Gabriel… (Excerpt from Memories of My Melancholy Whores)

The only unusual relationship was the one I maintained for years with the faithful Damiana. She was almost a girl, Indianlike, strong, rustic, her words few and brusque, who went barefoot so as not to disturb me while I was writing. I remember I was reading La lozana andauza–The Haughty Andalusian Girl–in the hammock in the hallway, when I happened to see her bending over in the laundry room wearing a skirt so short it bared her succulent curves. Overcome by irresistible excitement, I pulled her skirt up in back, pulled her underwear down to her knees, and charged her from behind. Oh, Senor, she said, with a mournful lament, that wasn’t made for coming in but for going out. A profound tremor shook her body but she stood firm. Humiliated at having humiliated her, I wanted to pay her twice what the most expensive women cost at the time, but she would not take a cent, and I had to raise her salary calculated on the basis of one mounting a month, always while she was doing the laundry, and always from the back.

YOU CAN NOT BUILD A MURDER HOUSE!!!!

Just snuck out of my parents’ house and Natural One by Folk Implosion comes on the radio. Headlining song in the Songs I Will Seduce You By category. I laughed at the sky. Dangerous, god. Dangerous.
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Fremont needs one of those big Now Entering signs. It should say “Fremont–Same Ol’ Shit.”
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I told Rie that I’m reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Memories of My Melancholy Whores. I just started it, but basically a 90 year-old man on his birthday, decides that he wants to sleep with a virgin.  She said it sounded like a must-read. I told her I would try to finish it this week and lend it to her. She asked if I had the autobiography of the guy who wrote The Little Prince. I have it up here but haven’t read it yet. I told her I would try to read that as well and get it to her this week.

So I’m reading Ghostwritten and Frankenstein on my Kindle, am saving the end of The Orange Girl, and need to finish Melancholy Whores and Wind, Sand and Stars this week and get them to Rie. For once in my life, I’m going to try not to fall asleep on the plane before take off.

You have to find someone who’s moving in space as fast as you. That way, you can see each other, and more importantly, you are seeing approximately the same things, even if from different perspectives. Someone slower will draw your attention away from looking ahead. But even if you find someone faster, make sure they’re moving in the same direction. Sometimes you catch someone at the same speed and you think you recognize them for a short period of time, but then you find out, they’re heading towards a completely different place.

To be a universe unto oneself, you must be self-sufficient.

After that, you must have good relations with your neighbors.

Diplomatic status–Allies in need, otherwise, left alone.

Universes co-exist simultaneously.

Never dominate another, or allow another to dominate yours. This is a principle.