Shelly is... not drunk enough... obsessing about her obsessions... smoking... spending all her time hunched over her laptop playing Scrabble... wishing this woman wasn't married... fantasizing about the Cantor... frisky as hell... biting her nails... picking her nose.

I suppose in reality most of them just aren't that interesting.  Being interesting, or trying to be interesting is not an easy thing to maintain.  It usually requires copious amounts of mind-altering substances ... like depression, or anxiety

Shelly has made some decisions.  She's decided that she's special, but not better.  She's decided that there is someone out there, somewhere, who can handle me... who wants to handle me (eyebrow wiggle).

I've decided -- and I know I've decided this before -- that I've got too many things I need to do to worry about finding a partner.  Live, damnit.  Smile, flirt and enjoy ALL the beauty around you.  Revel in it.  Glorious and divine....

I woke up sick to my stomach at one.  I'm drinking plain water -- instead of the usual juice-spiked stuff -- and being glad the pain in my stomach is hunger, not nausea.  I remind myself that I'm fasting.  That's what I've started to call the period of time between 9 PM or so and my morning meal.  That's why it's a break fast, yah?  I've been skipping the fast part for about the last 30 years.  This is my new official diet plan.  The exercise comes when possible, and I'm enjoying that more now that I've got the martial arts mixed in there.  Makes the elliptical machine tame and in some cases actually desirable.  I love "running" on the elliptical... it's like space jogging.  It's awesome.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

I've been talking to people I know in my living room.  They're not really here, I know that.  Still I'm working in a host-guest paradigm, here in my sweats.  The person on the other sofa changes, sometimes when I will it, and sometimes it's just someone else.  We chat as if there has been no change.  The conversation is connected and solid, the responses just come from other voices.  Funny.

When talking to other people, I talk less about myself and more about them.  Folks I find actually interesting usually talk about something else... concepts, designs, relations, or maybe simply stories of other people not present. History.  I like to talk about How Things Are, which is really an inverted way of talking about me, because it can only be about how I perceive the world.  I suppose I'm just looking for confirmation, feedback, or disagreement even.  "My world looks like this.  What does your world look like?" I sincerely want to know.

Growing up I often wanted a manual, something that would tell me simply how to work this world, how to get through the day.  Looking back on my growing up, I can understand that.  Puberty in general is frightening.  Childhood for me was scary.  I think I held my breath for a decade as a young adult, just waiting to make sure time would pass.

Ah guest number one has returned, also in evening attire, flannel PJs and fuzzy slippers.  She curls her legs under her and leans on the arm. I pretend she's not knockout gorgeous and keep talking blithely, "I thought I was an alien from outer space.  I just didn't get it."

"On a mission or abandoned?"

"On a mission. Isn't that whack?" 

She laughs.  "Do you remember the mission?"

"No!  That was part of the problem.  I was supposed to remember, but again, needed the manual.  There was something I was supposed to do."

I still feel like there's something I'm supposed to do.  I've about decided that I have to become a Rabbi to get any closer.  Not that I have to BE a Rabbi... but the process of becoming one will clarify the question more, and give me some direction on the answer.  Yep yep.  The rabbinate will give me the question(s).  The sum of my years will give me the answer(s).

How delightful to be so sure of it, I say to myself wryly.  And guest number two appears, cross-legged in black tights and leopard print with a gigantic smile.  She says, "Do you think it's not real if you don't critizise it?  Why are you so mean?"

"That was the other train of thought," I remind her and the non-existent video audience. "My 'fiery exterior' ... I think it scares people."

"Isn't that what you want?"

"Maybe.  Not always. No!  And then, later, yes."

"So much for being definite."  Ow, I think, and make her dissapear.

I try to focus, to remember.  I watched as the room filled this morning, not one person under 50 save myself, and maybe the Rabbi:  the Latina who rarely speaks, the Eastern European writer woman who insists she knows what it means, the recent widow, the lawyer/shrink couple (he's so damn dapper and she's a giant ball of blargh), the brotherhood leader who ages before my eyes, the guy who drools and never knows when he's left food on his face, the State Dept woman with heavy eyeliner and beautiful hats (she's one of two who stay for services and she sings like an angel in my ear -- the drooler has the other ear and he's completely tone deaf), the beautiful elegant and super quirky school teacher, the tall man who bends with age... oh wait, there is the guy who just got married, he's under 50.

Something I should be saying... there's a nugget of a problem that my brain is working on and it's not quite done with it.  It has something to do with personal justice -- not how you act towards others, but how you act towards yourself.  I think that affects how you treat others, eventually.

It has something to do with being whole, feeling whole, and what it takes to do that.  It has to do with how we're all on Facebook, comparing our lives, defining our sucesses and wondering if we measure up.  I'm single -- and for me that might just be sucess.  I broke the six-figure salary barrier -- possibly the last person who worked at Concert who is still employed in the industry to do so, but nevertheless.

It has to do with loving yourself.  With not sabotaging yourself.

It might be a fix for me... it might be a fix for you... or it might just be more questions, leading to an undefinable answer.

I know this:  I wish us all the strength to be all of who we are.  I wish us all peace of mind, even as we forge through the brambly life.  I wish us all patience, and length of time to allow us to appreciate what we have.  I wish we should discover that we have not only enough, that we have all.  Kein y'hi ratzon, my this be G-d's will1

I find myself pressuing myself.  For weeks it seemed like I was oozing thought, pouring it from my fingers into a keyboard staccato.  Now, it ebbs and I wonder: whither goest thou, desire and lust, spinning crazed wanting that had me going and going.

Does the regained control of my brain automatically mean that I'll write less, that I'll emote less.  Is it the constant question of wild extremes versus middle-of-the-road ennui?

So I've been cleaning my house, and cooking.  The real problem with making all your meals at home is that you're constantly cleaning up after yourself.  That plus laundry, plus three games of football make for a whole day.  Vaccumed my bedroom with the little hand-held Dirt Devil.  It's bizarre but it works well.  Took all the books on the bedside table that I wasn't reading and put them on the bookshelf, leaving only the Rashi Torah, the complete Tanakh, and the prayerbook.  I didn't pray today at all.  Having some guilt about saying prayers outloud that aren't supposed to be uttered without a minyan, I think.  But belting out the Hatzi Kaddish just feels so good... how could it be wrong?  I will persist, but I do pause and wonder.

I cleaned out the sex toy drawer, taking out the condom wrappers and washing the tools.  I threw out the lube that was crazy leaking, and wiped up the bottom of the drawer.  As I disposed of it all into a trash bag, I considered what sort of story my trash tells, surely an artifact of watching too much Law and Order.  Condoms and lube, no sperm.  It can't be that weird.

Cleaning is good.  It feels good. 

I've been sleeping in five-hour stints, staying awake for about fifteen or eighteen hours.  I keep pushing myself to do more, and then I watch myself watch TV.  I did start to study Hebrew tonight, just a little, but focused and purposeful.  I put on Berlin Jerusalem by Amos Gitai, and think I haven't smoked enough to really get it.  I inhale more, hoping it will help, maybe spur on a unique thought that's worth writing down.  I wheeze and make another cup of tea.

Bitter, this memory of Germany.  Jewish hearts and minds did mingle and you can't remove their influence.  Bitter also, the effort to reclaim an ancient land.  Where shall we make a home?  Dispersed for centuries, can we make any claim to it?  What now for Deutschland?  Shall we leverage their guilt?  Can they be forgiven?  How can they not?

Twice in two days someone has told me that I'm psychic.  PS I hate this word.  Every time I say it in my head, my mother appears like a mirage.  And then I have to kick her ass.

Both times I was laying down How The World Is, according to me, clearly.  But it resonated enough with my audiences for them to think me either wise, or having had some sort of "class" on it.  LMAO.  Yes, How to Survive Living with Sociopaths 101.  Besides which, I've got a friggin' doctorate in that shit.

Officially, I am largely weakened by women. Slight smile.  If I make you laugh...  I'll take anything you want to give me...  I can tease you, make fun of you gently, make fun of myself severely... yes yes, I am 60 years old, I swear... you don't believe me?  That fine, just keep giggling and leaning into me.  Bring your brown hair near my face so I can smell the scent of your shampoo.  Here, check my ID, I really was born before the 70's.  No, hon, that' means I'm almost 40, not 50.  It's okay, who can do math after as many drinks as you've had?  Sure I'll take an apologetic hug.  Um, then I'm gonna go home.  Time to bashfully go.

So this big, bad, 3-D world where people interact is just dangerous.  Dangerous to my feelings, and potentially dangerous to theirs as well.  I'm up, I'm down, I want more, I want less.  It's nutty.  As nutty as I am, even if completely undiagnosed.

I spent time today at a co-worker's house, installing stuff on her home computer so she can work from there.  She's undergoing chemo, after a mastectomy, and dealing.  Her husband is one year past a horrific stroke and brain hemmorage that has amazingly left him alive, but different.  She says to me, I don't know how much more I can take.

I tell her that the Rabbis say God only tests those who can handle it.  She says she thinks they don't know squat.  I focus on not crying.

Ya know, big picture-wise, my life is golden.  Sure, I'm occassionally lonely.  Sure, I could use a hug.  Or something.  But I've got a job -- with all it's stresses intact -- and both my legs work, and both of my arms, and my hands.  And I can bang out an awesome rhythm.

Life is just fine.

Still, needy.  Lonely.  And slightly depressed about all the things I need to do.

Work looms largely.  I've got four days this week to do what I can and take a week off.

Hebrew -- tho it is my love -- also nags at me for attention.  I should be practicing.  At least watching some Israeli movies or something. 

Instead I play Rock Band.  I'm on a timer, so I keep trying to squeeze as much as possible in.  I smoke.  I went to the pub to watch the football game and I had 4 pints of beer.  Light beer, sure, but beer nonetheless.

So, four pints and two bowls later, I'm chattering here.  Pet me, please!  I notice that I respond *too much* when I'm needy, almost like I have to get the last word, except that I'm hoping mine isn't the last.  Too talkative, too aggressive.  I almost told the waitress at the bar that she was beautiful.  Instead I just smiled sweetly and said thank you a lot.  That really gets 'em:  thank you.

Sure, we could dig into the child's psyche -- little Shel at four, little Shel at seven, and the twisted activities of my mother.  But after a point, you can't just keep pointing to that, saying yeah, that's my problem, that's where it comes from.

No, after all these years it's up to me.  And I just can't fucking believe that, after all the love and all the effort I've got nothing -- NOTHING -- to show for it.  Shit, I barely have half of my belongings.

I don't have the vestiges of any past relationships, save for what they did to my head, both good and bad.  I don't have children, or shared child committments.  I don't have sweet old lovers who coo at me from afar.  Well, although I do still talk to my high-school honey very infrequently, and at least we're on pretty good terms, my college GF is patently annoying even in print. The one Good Thing I had going which really wasn't such a good thing except in comparison, is cordial but the conversation is tense and overwraught (for me at least) with emotion.  My estranged wife -- she's certifiable and frankly I don't trust her.  The woman who rocked my world after that... well for all the times I broke up with her, I wouldn't expect her to want to talk to me.  And the last one who tried, well I keep just not answering her texts.

So... sure it's me.  Sure, I don't know what I want.  I can ask.  I ask plenty.  And, frighteningly enough, I tend to get what I ask for.  I just do a really shitty job of asking.

When I was with Heidi (formerly known as the one Good Thing) what I really craved was physical affection, cuddling and love.  And I got it, but that was really a ploy to tear me away and the affection was later much harder to come by.

I left Lauren and what I actually said outloud was that I wanted a woman who knew how to use a strap-on.  Boom.  Special delivery.  El and the mind-blowing ride that she took me on was... mind-blowing.  Intense.  Metaphysical.  And too much.  The indistinguishable boundaries between vanilla sex and the spicer stuff was dangerous.  For the first time in 21 years -- since I first had sex with Julie -- I had a flashback.  Except this time I wasn't in the position of the victim, I was the oppressor.  This, really, was the end of our relationship.  I couldn't be initmate with her after that.  It freaked me out that I could find myself in the other position.  I couldn't trust myself.

So... broken.  Bent.  Damaged.  If you can curl yourself around my brokeness, then you should practice ducking, because I'm still upset about the whole thing.  Four year old me is just pissed as hell, and there's no clear way to make it all better.

Except to bang a drum...

No, instead I've been playing Rock Band incessantly.  So much so that I've got a huge knot behind my right shoulder blade and a smaller one in my right inner thigh.  Apparently I don't use that muscle much.  As I jam out on the drum set that isn't really making all those noises, I easily trip off in fantasic fantasies about how fabulous I really am.  It's a nice, easy way for me to decide I'm cool enough.

Sometimes I'm not sure where my mind goes as I play.  Plenty of my head is focused on the colored blips sliding down at me.  Every time I finish a song I turn to the coffee table to my right and my right shoulder fierces up in to a nugget of pain.

I didn't go to any services this weekend, for the first time in I don't know how long.  Somehow I feel ... like I'm in trouble.  I said prayers this morning.  And I can say them before I go to bed.  I've been doing that a lot lately.  For the last two or three weeks I've been saying prayers before bed, going through all the tunes I know in the WHC prayerbook, doing the weekday evening parts.  I really really love to belt out the Hatzi Kaddish.  Maybe that'll appease the great Sephardi Queen in the Sky.  <grin>

I walk around my apartment, and Milkshake follows me, occasionally throwing herself on her back and flipping around.  Of course I notice -- that's what I'm supposed to do.  I bend over and scritchle her tummy and back as she continues dancing on her back.  I say weird things in weird voices.  "Oh yeah?  Like this?  Like this?"  I tug her back leg and she lunges at me with a wide open mouth, purring loudly.  I hope this is fun.

Laundry sits in a mountain on my sofa.  I pick at it sometimes, folding sometimes, sometimes just putting stuff on standing there.  I should be praciticing my Hebrew.  Instead I'm banging the hell out of these drums.

I spent about twelve hours at Wunderland, between staying for an ultra-late poker tournament --which I won -- and going back Friday night.  I walked into that poker game with not one but two $5 IOU's in Andy's cash drawer.  I won the big pot of $25 and walked home with $15.  Not too bad.  Lucky at cards, unlucky at love they say.  I said well, that about says it.

Time to pound a drum.  When my arm finally gives out, I'll put in a movie, watch the OS/OSU game that is taping.  (Don't tell me!)  Or something.  Maybe read.  I still read... usually on the john, but I do read.

Hey Jenn, d'you mind if I read your one-act on the crapper?  Hmmmm.