Hmm, today was very random and fun.

I went to the farmer’s market at about 12:30, which was pretty late seeing as they close at 1, although if you go then you sometimes get some good deals, because they’d rather sell it cheap than pack it all back up.

Anyway, bought about 5-6 pounds of fruits and vegetables and put them in my backpack, grabbed lunch at the slanted door, and then as far as I know, the initial plan was to go back home on the same bus transfer.

But then, I decided to see how easy it was to walk from Fisherman’s Wharf to Fort Mason, which is a trek I’ll be making next Saturday with my parents who are visiting. But there were too many people waiting for the streetcar to go from the Ferry Building to Fisherman’s Wharf, so I decided to walk there.

Now, I was debating about going to the gym because a few days back I apparently did some intense cardio workout or something because both of my calves have been sore for days. I have no recollection of doing anything out of the ordinary, nothing longer, or a leg workout, nothing. Anyway, they’ve been sore, so I decided I should walk to the wharf and that will be much lower intensity and I’ll still get a bit of a workout in.

So, I walk to Pier 39, through the main tourist area, past the Cannery, past Ghirardelli Square, up and around a path, and then down into Fort Mason. I even duck into Green’s-to-Go and get an amazing fig thing that is basically like a fig newton if you put the filling of like eight fig newtons into one, with a hint of orange with it, nice.

Anyway, with my mission accomplished, i still felt good about walking and it was such a nice day, so I continued. I walked down along the bay, past the marina, past the Palace of Fine Arts, and finally was approaching the Golden Gate Bridge.

Now, the bridge is sort of an illusion, so you think you’re almost there for quite some time, but eventually, there I was underneath it at Fort Point. I ducked in there to look around, but they were about to close it, so I backtracked, climbed up the path to where there is pedestrian access to the bridge, and decided I would go walk out onto it for a bit.

Seeing as I was not planning to be out doing this, I was only wearing a T-shirt and cargo shorts. The fort closed at 5, so it was starting to get a bit cold. But, the way the wind was blowing, it seemed like the angle favored the pedestrian sidewalk, and it was actually rather delightful.

So, then I’m on the other side of the bridge at Point Vista or whatever it’s called, reaching into my bag and eating one of the organic gaia apples I bought at the market to take a bit of a break from my very long walk. This is probably four or more hours of walking at this point (for those who don’t know the distance from the landmarks I’m mentioning).

Of course, there is little option at this point but to walk back to San Francisco, so I start my walk back and wonder when this walk will end. I still feel OK, just a hint of sunburn, and knowing the sun will be setting within 3 hours and it will be getting much colder.

I am surprised to find that the height of the bridge actually freaks me out a bit, as I never have an issue with heights. I think it the combination of what is a seemingly very low fence, very strong winds, and absolutely nothing under you (which seems to be the crucial piece of the puzzle, as everywhere else I encounter heights, there is a bunch of stuff there to break any potential falls, but not here). Also, in every section of concrete there is a hole (I assume it was poured elsewhere and the hole was used by the crane to move it into position), but you can see through the hole down into the water below, and more surprising is how thin the concrete seems to be, only like three or four inches). I watch as a young father walks next to the edge with his young daughter’s legs wrapped around his head, and him only casually holding her legs as though they were walking through their kitchen or something. Thankfully nothing tragic happens, but it seems so.. possible.

So, back on the San Francisco side of the bridge, and I’m not sure where to go, because there is a huge area I’m unfamiliar with between the bridge and all points west.

As I debate what to do, a MUNI bus pulls up, so I get on. I only take it to Lombard and Divisadero, which isn’t all that far, but enough that it was worth the cash. I walk on Divisadero to Geary, which means up an incredibly steep hill for many, many blocks, and then down the hill. I take the Geary bus out until the end of Geary (which wasn’t out the beach, to my surprise). I had to walk about 10 blocks until I was at the Cliff House and Sutro Baths. I haven’t been there in a while, and it is entirely new, both the restaurant and surrounding building. Looks very nice.

I make it to the Pacific Ocean as the sun is setting. Good view, but I know this means I need to get moving, because once I lose the light, the T-shirt and shorts will be an even worse outfit than it already is now.

From there, I walk down to the beach, and a whole new culture emerges, where people just hang out with nice bonfires blazing on the beach, and people with guitars, and lots of younger people. I confirm where Judah street is, and it’s quite a haul down the beach, so I pit stop at three different bonfires, getting as toasty as possible before moving down to the next one.

When I reach Judah, I check to see the street numbers, as I want to try a cafe in the 4000 block. The end of the street is in the 4500 blocks, so I hike in to see if the place is open. It is. It’s called the Feel Real Cafe, and it some new vegan cafe. I’ve heard good things, but have been skeptical to go because they supposedly don’t keep normal hours and don’t answer the phone, so it’s hit or miss if they will be there.

I decide to stay on my healthy groove for the day and get some salad with the word "Mystic" in it. The very chilled out guy at the counter says the salad is "epic," so I go for it. The salad has no price, as the menu says they love it so much, they can’t put a value on it, so it’s pay-what-it’s-worth, basically. I’d much prefer a price, and everything else on the menu does have a price, but that was the salad he recommended, so I order it.

As I had read about this place, it has its own vibe. The place is nearly empty at this late hour, but my salad still takes quite a while. Reggae music fills the room, as I can hear them in the back chopping fresh ingredients for my salad. Nothing is cut before I ordered, it is being made by hand for me. The people in the kitchen dance and sing while they prepare it.

At one point, one of the cooks comes out of the kitchen for a while, so he has more room to dance for a bit. Then, he goes back in and the chopping resumes. Again, I had heard as much, so I’m in no rush. I don’t even have anything on me to know what time it is, but I’m guessing this salad took 30 minutes, with no other person ordering food in the entire place.

When it comes, it is huge. If you have a huge bowl for mashed potatoes that you use on Thanksgiving, it is probably the same size as the bowl for my salad. The salad is a spring mix, with red cabbage, walnuts, sunflower seeds, raisins, cucumbers, shredded carrot, celery, and other things I’m unsure of. I have no idea what it was dressed with, but it was very lightly dressed and the ingredients were exquisitely fresh and perfect. I finished the salad.

After that, I took the Judah Metro line all the way home, returning 11 hours after i initially left the house, finally getting to remove the six pounds of fruits and vegetables from the farmer’s market that I carried for this whole trip, lighting up some scented candles, and taking a nice bubble bath.

Afterward, I rubbed Aveda Foot therapy lotion on my feet, and gave them both a nice massage since today was certainly a shock to the system for them. Then I wrote this blog entry. And now, I’m going to bed. I expect to sleep rather soundly tonight.

I have no clue how long that walk was… over ten miles for sure, I would think. Fifteen, maybe? Oh well, we’ll see if my legs feel better tomorrow, seeing as the entire opint of starting the walk was to give them a rest, heh.

I know I’ve gone back and forth on this, but I think as it stands right now, the plan for writing book number two is to use an outline.

I think it is just a matter of personality, really, but I’m kind of wound in that certain way that needs more structure to be efficient.

I stopped going to hatha yoga because it was too vague, stopped going to iyengar because they spent so much time on the posture that it didn’t seem like an efficient workout, and now I’m gearing up to switch to ashtanga by learning the introductory poses at home. I gravitate toward ashtanga because it is more physical than the other disciplines, but also because it is performed using a strict series of poses. Pose number two always follows pose number one and moves right into pose number three. That interests me.

I often feel lost when I am writing the book because it seems I am simultaneously writing the prose while trying to lock in on why that scene needs to happen. What is it accomplishing? Why do these characters need to be here now?

I know that if I would just let go and live the scene, it would all find its groove, but I seem to flip back and forth between the omnipotence of the book and the needs of the characters.

That isn’t to say all the fun is boiled out of working on the book when drafting an outline, although it certainly gives that impression, but just that I keep coming back to thinking that everything has to matter. I’m not a bit fan of writing that goes off on tangents for no apparent reason. A character, on the other hand, is perfectly fine to go off on tangents, if that is their thing. It just can’t be me doing it. If my writing attracts a reader’s attention while they are reading it, I will have failed.

The outline isn’t new. Robert McKee teaches it all the time. And, I’ve been reading interviews online where Bret Easton Ellis also does them, seemingly in McKee-style. Where they are these big uber-documents that are nearly twice as big as the resulting book and everything is laid bare. All of the structure and interplay and subtext is all planned out in advance and then, when you get the outline to the point where it is locked and effective, you start the writing.

It seems like it would make the writing more purposeful, there would be clear direction, and you would know the intent of every scene and character. It would just be a matter of finding the perfect words for exactly what you want to say.

I guess it comes down to the definition of creativity. It definitely goes against the romantic notion of the found story, which Stephen King always relates as an archaeology metaphor, slowly brushing away the grains of sand to reveal an intact skeleton. Not moving so fast as to break the fossil.

But, coming at it now from the other side, which is from the inside of the text looking out, it seems easier to get lost.

One of the things that always interested me about McKee was the notion that you never write a scrap of dialogue until you are drafting the actual text. But by building characters that you knew inside and out, and who they were and why they were doing things, that by the time you finally allowed yourself to write them, they would know just what to say. The joy in the discovery of the characters still happens, just at a different stage of the process. It seems to segregate the joy of discovering the story and the joy of giving it life through words into two distinct tasks. So, perhaps that would double my joy?

I’m still torn on it, but it is my intent to outline book number two at present.

OK, I need to write this entry as a reminder to myself, because apparently I keep repeating old patterns (which, umm, was the theme of the LAST entry, hehe)

So, tonight I went to a friend’s birthday dinner. I was apprehensive about it, because the last time I went there, I recall it being very rich and creamy, so I even called in advance to ask about vegan stuff and was told they had many vegan things on the menu that night, but that the risotto could also be made vegan.

While on their website, I got a sense of the cost of the meal, and hit the ATM on the way to the party to make sure I had enough cash.

There ended up being 11 people for dinner, I believe, and it didn’t take me long to decide what I would be ordering, as I had already talked with the restaurant earlier in the day and looked over the menu even before entering. Eyeballing the menu, I figured I could get out of the door for $40, $45 tops.

Now, the big issue here is the vegan one. When I go to places that have a mixed menu (read: not a vegan place), the stuff that is vegetarian or vegan is more slanted to people getting that in addition to their salmon, lamb, or whatever. Said another way, it tends to be pretty, presented side dishes.

For example, tonight I ordered a vegan tartare, soup, and corn on the cob. All were from the appetizers portion of the menu. The risotto could also be made vegan, but I’m really not into eating non-brown rice, especially if it the bulk of the meal. But here is what arrived:

The vegan tartare ($11) had a significant number of ingredients, but ended up being three endives, and enough diced "other stuff" whereby you could have filled each endive up fully and the plate would have been empty.

The soup ($10) had hen of the woods mushrooms, wild rice, and broth. Now, I’m a mushroom fan, and don’t recall having a dish with hen of the woods in it before. At the other side of the experience, I can’t say I have any further insight into this particular fungus. The soup was served in a wide, low bowl and what had to have been three-quarters of a cup of broth, a small handful of the rice, and a quarter cup of mushroom.

The corn on the cob ($4) was one ear, cut in half, prepared well, but I honestly can’t say what was going on with it besides it being corn on the cob.

While I ate my vegan tartare, the rest of the table had appetizers like Tilapia ceviche, lobster crepes, and one wheat-puffed thing filled with sprouted vegetables that you pour firewater on and eat, and that was vegan and I did have that.

For some reason, though, I totally blanked as to what was around the bend. Which is, of course, that we were all going to be splitting the $750 check, ten ways (minus one for the birthday girl).

Now, I need to be clear here. I am writing this not to bitch about this restaurant or the party I was at, or the people I love who invited me. I had already gone to this restaurant once before and thought it was overpriced, and that was when I was employed and overpaid.

This is being written to hopefully make me realize this situation in advance next time, as this is not the first time it has happened. The last two times, though, I locked onto the situation earlier and took action. At one similar dinner, I slipped the person who threw the party for my friend/his girlfriend $30 (for my $20 of food) and said I had another engagement to run to. Another recent party like this, I spoke up earlier, and subtracted my dinner first, and THEN they divided the total evenly. And at another birthday party, at a place where the skewers full of roasted meat are served until-you-tell-them-to-stop, there was no vegetarian option of only eating the salad bar and the only veggie skewer option (roasted pineapple), so there it costs everyone the same to sit down, so not much to complain about.

Actually, in a perverse turn of events, I had a birthday dinner recently and decided to invite a few people to join me at my favorite restaurant, Millennium. I did steer the dinner past my actual birthday by a day to take advantage of a 25 percent off promotion they run every second Wednesday. But, I had actually brought a Millennium gift certificate with me to pay for my dinner, and was told it was my birthday, so I shouldn’t have to pay. So, with the wine for the table, and my costs divided out, everyone ended up kicking in $55 for that (although Millennium tends to cost me around $40 when I go, so between the promotion and the division, not too far from cost). But it did bother me that I ended up doing such an expensive dinner, whereas if I had taken everyone to my favorite noodle joint, we all still could have shared each other’s company, and even if they refused to let me pay, it would have only been $20 or so.

So, I’m not writing this to bemoan the $75, because I did have a good night. I just can’t believe nights like this don’t appear to be in flashing neon telling me to stay home. And, next year, if I have any sort of birthday event, it will definitely be far more low-key.

Assuming I learn my lesson this time. Wish me luck.

There are huge forces at work in my life, and it takes a lot of effort to keep them tamed.

The first is procrastination. It is why I will just play one game of Tetris before working on the book.

OK, one more.

Three, but that’s definitely it.

Hmm, OK, quit out of Tetris, and as soon as I get back from the grocery store, it’s book time.

It is also why I go to the gym every day. I didn’t want every day to be me coming up with excuses why, despite earlier plans, I actually didn’t want to go today. So, if I go every day, it just becomes a matter of if, not when.

So, when it came to the weight loss, I learned how to come up with a plan that builds my procrastination into the mix. I will always try to get out of going to the gym, so… go every day. And until I come up with a way to manage that like a sane person, that remains the plan.

The second major force in my life is distraction.

This one is more elusive. You know when you are procrastinating.

My life is very calm right now. Still have enough money in savings to not be worried. Stress level is consistently low. I arrive everywhere early and pull out a book or magazine to pass the time. But I think that blissed out state needs to be managed. For example, the recent job hunt.

It started as a casual thing: I should start looking for work so that when I finally need a job, I’ll already have one. Plus, with the editing, I really can fit it in. It is more adaptable than the actual writing (although editing is more writing than its name lets on), which seems to require more structure like bedtimes and schedules.

But, somehow, the job hunt became crazy. Every day, I’m hitting Craigslist, seeing what listings are up, customizing cover letters and resumes, sending them, e-mail them, hand-delivering them. One day, I did about 7-8 job inquiries and nothing on the book. Every new thing in my schedule has the potential to be the flapping butterfly’s wings in China that blow the novel off my desk halfway around the world (who needs hurricane analogies when you can turn them into something more egocentric?).

The same holds true of my recent interest in teaching abroad. It is something I am not ruling out by any means. But getting certified, and looking for opportunities, and all of that just has me on travel sites, checking out where this school is, or how close I would be to various landmarks.

Then I start looking around my apartment. Hmm, I would probably sell that. Kirk might want that. That I’d have to ship to my mother to store for me. How long would she have to store it? Would it just be a year in Thailand or more? Or would I go to another school after that? It is just a series of teaching gigs seeing the world? Anyway, I’ll probably keep half the books, and have my mother send a good-sized box for me to read at a time. Should I pay for the lifetime subscription fee on TiVO, or will that not transfer to a friend or something if I leave the country? Hmm, and I’ll need to spackle that hole in the wall…

Once again, it sneaks in under the guise of job, but then turns into a good blend of procrastination and distraction and, ultimately, it just sucking up time that isn’t spent on my novel for the day.

The third issue in my life is reinventing the wheel.

Last night, I was on the phone with Jeremy and I said something that heretofore I hadn’t verbalized or put together as a cohesive thought: I mentioned that it’s amazing after losing all this weight, I’m not applying all of what I learned to my writing, in that no one would be able to lose 115 pounds.

Like, if I had gone to Weight Watchers about a year ago (which I did, as this last successful bout was tied to my thirty-sixth birthday), and said I wanted to lose 125 pounds (that last ten is driving me crazy!), it would have been impossible, frustrating, daunting, and unfathomable.

You don’t try and lose 115 pounds. Instead, I would lose 2.3 pounds, 1.2, .6, 6.3, etc., each week. It was a crap shoot, basically. There were good weeks, bad weeks, and over time, they have added up to something significant. Sure, in the back of my mind, I knew my goal, but it was always measured solely by my progress that week. Never once did I say, OK, I lost six pounds, so only… 119 to go!

When I go to edit the novel, though, I don’t view that task as taking small meaningful steps that will eventually chart a massive journey. Instead, I see myself staring down the barrel of a 532-page, 97,910-word document, and barely making a dent, getting frustrated, and launching Tetris again.

So, I need to rethink things and focus on the smaller picture. The one I can control. Edit a sentence until I love it and can’t imagine it being anything better or more useful than it is. Then a paragraph, a page, etc. And, at some point, there will be an edited draft of the novel. It sounds slow, but not making any progress because I make the task insurmountable is even slower.

Because of this thinking, there are now new rules in place.

The first new rule is: no looking or applying for jobs until I have finished my editing for the day, whenever that is. If I miss an open call as a result, oh well… too bad. Obviously, a job interview is a fine exception (but that will likely be in the mid-afternoon anyway).

The second new rule is: Let’s call it a decade. I moved to San Francisco in June of 1996, so let’s push through for an even ten. So, stop doing anything that makes me think of leaving San Francisco until my ten-year anniversary here in June 2006. I already know how I can make money here if I need to (writing corporate contract stuff I dislike) if it ever comes to that, and eventually something will turn up in the service industry. So, just stop wondering whether I should stay or leave, or where should I go, what would I do there, what is rent cost there, etc., etc. All bets are off for ten months. So, work on the book and shut up about everything else.

I’ve also been working on adding reality to my life. Not more reality TV, thankfully. Just plain, old-fashioned reality.

This might be both the gayest and dumbest admission I’ve ever made on this blog, but I am a HUGE fan of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. If you’ve never had the pleasure, I’ll give you a quick idea. Find a family who have been through something horrendous (son shot in gang violence now in a wheelchair, unemployed coal miner who can’t provide for his autistic septuplets, etc., etc.), then you bring in a reality show design team who sends the family off on a week-long vacation, redesigns their entire house to match their special needs, and the family’s life is forever changed. I’m a big fan of decorating, home design, and all of that stuff, but I really watch it for the family’s story.

It is the most predictable show there might possibly be on television. It shamelessly plugs the heartstrings. And I just devour it. I even tear up at times. Like I said, this isn’t my proudest moment.

This week, it was a mother whose six-year-old daughter was kidnapped. So, the design team shows up to start the renovation on the TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE KID’S DISAPPEARANCE (I told you it was shameless). And, mom runs a non-profit for kidnapped kids, has reunited hundreds of them with their families, etc., etc.

At the same time, and dovetailing nicely with my thoughts of moving to Thailand, is my dating someone who has moved to San Francisco from Thailand. Uprooting his life to come here, and study, and work hard to become an independent person. He’s spending money now in an effort to get his green card and, just to get a small sense of all of that entails, it does make you wonder…

So, when you look at the lives that are facing true adversity in Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and the challenges that people go through to come here and go to school and start a new life, it really makes you face a simple fact.

Which is: having a stash of money in the bank, no job, and sitting home writing a novel is about as cushioned and adversity-free a life as you could possibly have. For as much as I try to make the novel into some Sysiphusian burden, it is not.

It is a gift.

I was fortunate enough to be born white and American in this day and age (which automatically reduces your struggle below nearly everyone else in the world who isn’t those things), got an education, worked hard to develop a skillset (although bitching about it the entire time), found a path in life that has rewarded me financially, and taken all of that to pursue a dream in as risk-free an environment as possible (I mean, I still even have health insurance).

How did I let my dream seemingly become such a burden?

The mind is a tricky bitch, and I’m certainly trying to get a better handle on it. I think I’m one step closer.

Just putting all of this down on "paper" seems to have already let a lot more joy into everything.

(And, anyone who knows me in real life, if you ever hear me complain about anything related to this, please smack me. Thanks.)

My life changed in the past two years.

I turned 37 today, so it is interesting to note that most of the changes in my life are really only two years old. It seems like it has been much longer, mainly because of the length of the lying, ongoing monologues I had sustained for so long.

35 was a big deal. I liked to think of it as "halfway to 70," and it was when it was time to embrace my inner Raymond K. Hessel. In Fight Club, Tyler Durden holds a gun to convenience store clerk Hessel’s head and gives him a choice: quit his job and pursue his dream, or die right now as he’s practially dead anyway. Durden takes Hessel’s driver’s license and tells him he will check in on him. If he’s not on his way to becoming a veterinarian in three months, he will be dead.

That was the passage that did it all. What am I doing writing this horrible drivel about the same handful of Macromedia products for four years now? Why can’t I finish this novel? Why can’t I lose weight? Blah blah blah…

In less than a month after my 35th birthday, my sabbatical to Thailand began. Six weeks with no Macromedia. No itinerary. No plans. Although, to be safe, I did pack notebooks and pens, just in case the urge hit me.

If 35 was the seed for my life to change, Thailand was both where that seed germinated and the second half of an awkward, cliched metaphor.

In short, I wrote a draft of the book there, longhand, on the beach. It wasn’t the first draft, although it was the first time the book was written from beginning to end. But it was written with such a fun spirit, that it became the moment when the book became more real than before, and my need to chart a new course in life was clearer than before.

Of course, I returned to Thailand with some major issues. I was in credit card debt. I had no money saved. I wanted to dedicate myself to the book. I wanted to quit my job. And I wanted to travel the world. Very few of the things lined up well together.

Two years in, though, and there is more clarity. I am long out of debt. Savings is still holding up nine months after being fired. The book is written and being s-l-o-w-l-y edited. The job is long gone. And, well, I still want to travel the world. All in all, a lot of progress.

Add in 100ish pounds of weight loss, and even some dating to the mix, and it’s a pretty good picture.

Not that I’m necessarily content, of course. I still think the last 15 pounds should be coming off much faster. The book should be finished. Some crazy restaurant should have hired me by now. But, I think my, umm, focused mania is positive at the end of the day on those points. Keeps me moving forward.

I’m not the person I was at Macromedia any more. I was frustrated before Thailand, but decidedly bitter afterward, like an animal born in a zoo suddenly learning about freedom, but unable to break free.

So, all of that is behind me now. Everything seems to be on track.

The big piece that is still lacking from my blog entry upon turning 35 is the sense of abandon that should accompany this.

I talk about this with friends a lot. I think it has to do with not going right from college into the starving artist thing. I never had to learn to live from unexpected money to unexpected money, gig to gig, point A to… whatever came next, because I necessarily care about there being a point B. I learned how to make money, enjoy stability, and work the system. It is a blessing and curse.

I would love to live in my own delusional world, with no need to respect reality. Someone who gets to bend reality to suit them, and not the other way around. Last week, I saw Charo host a Charo look-a-like contest at a weekly drag show called Trannyshack. She was totally batshit crazy, as near as you could tell. But that’s the problem! Because to call her crazy is bringing reality to the equation. She was just Charo, and you get the sense that she is just Charo every day. The world has decided to change and let Charo exist outside its rules. In fact, that’s not true. Charo proves there really aren’t any rules except the ones we think exist.

Prince is the same way. He has recorded so much music that he could probably put out a CD a week for the rest of his life, if rumors are to be believed. And, like Charo, he is completely living up in his own head, without worrying about the rules of the world. He lives in the world of Prince, and we accommodate him in that reality.

I think you have to be born that way, though. It doesn’t seem like something you can just start doing. Although, when I first interviewed Marilyn Manson, right before he recorded Antichrist Superstar, he seemed to accept that at one point it was a role, but then he told me:

"I always get pissed off when people say, ‘Is this really you?’ Well, if it’s is an act, at some point in my life it has consumed me and it’s no longer an act, because it’s all that I know."

So, he seems to be saying that there was possibly a moment when it was a role he took on, but then he became it. The line may have been crossed, but at a certain point it disappeared.

When I look at my options in life, a lot of them seem to be tethered to stability, family, safety, all of which have their positive and negative values.

For example, one thing that Darrel and I have been talking about on AIM lately is getting certified to teach English as a second language. Basically, once you are certified, you can write your ticket to any country in the world and teach them how to speak English. With my bachelor’s degree, I could even teach English in a college setting, although I would prefer to teacher younger people (5-9 year-olds), just because they are less evil and rambunctious then, as the goal is really to keep doing work that fuels my joy and empowers me to write. Not to mention, the younger they are, the less taxing homework there would be on the teaching side, one imagines.

When I think of teaching, it means leaving San Francisco. But it also means, where do my books go? Where do my DVDs go? Big questions, like who am I without a lot of this stuff by which I have defined myself? What would my family think if I moved to Japan for a year? Thailand? India? Europe? Would I make friends there? Am I moving forward, or leaving before I do what I’m supposed to do here? What am I supposed to do here? Why aren’t I doing whatever it is now, if it’s so damned important? Is it some psychological stall tactic? If so, what am I running from? And, if I don’t leave, what am I clinging to (in case you think it doesn’t go both ways)?

And that thinking is all negative. Every DVD I own, I could buy again. Every book is still in print. My friends here will stay with me long-distance or not. (The ones that don’t, well, what can you do? Hope the next lot is better? Heh.) My family will cope. Most of our communication is phone calls and me visiting them anyway, so where I’m flying to/calling from seems a small part of the equation.

It is all in Fight Club, which is spooky. The things you own end up owning you. You are not your (insert anything).

Who are we without the story we tell ourselves about our identity? Why do we cling to it? What happens when we let go?

In a nutshell, I want to keep making sure that I keep living a life whereby Tyler Durden won’t kill me someday.

I’m a lot closer than I was two years ago.

I’m getting there, but there’s still some work to do.

So, on Thursday night I had, of all things, a date!?

Replied to someone’s ad on craigslist (in romance, not m4m) and we got together for dinner and drinks.

He’s 28, Thai, originally from Bangkok, and a web designer in the city.

It brought up some flashbacks to my time in Thailand, although with more clarity on what was happening, since this time it was occuring on my home turf.

I think it adds a host of issues when dating someone who comes from a different cultural background. You sort of don’t realize how many subliminal, subconscious signals you get from the people within your culture on a regular basis.

Like, if he were born and raised here, I think I would have a better sense if we were hitting it off, suited to date one another, going to end up as just friends, or whether we should have jumped in bed and that was going to be the end of it all. But, nothing was that clear, which I attribute to the cultural shorthand not being there.

Neither of us is in any rush, and we plan to get together again, but it will be curious to see how it unfolds.

I do think there are a lot of interesting things about Asian cultures in general, and it will be interesting to experience some of it firsthand.

For example, on our date, he was describing a female friend of his, and his face just lit up and he started laughing, obviously thinking about some moments he has had with her. This happened right in the middle of him describing her to me, and once he stopped laughing, he moved on to another topic. Now, as far as what was actually said, I really know nothing about her. He literally went from beginning the description with almost no detail right into the smiling and laughing. But, on some level, he kind of told me everything, you know? It just doesn’t seem like anything anyone raised here would do, no one I know at least.

It is all about building those moments up, learning who he is, and everything else. We might be getting together tomorrow, we’ll see.

Dating is sort of strange, in that, I am interacting with people who have no clue I lost any weight, let alone 115 pounds. So, as a result, I do feel a little… strange when it comes to ordering food at dinner. We both got our own entrees, so it was pretty easy. But, at some point, shared plates and fried appetizers and such could enter the picture. And, until the fat is out of the bag, it’s kind of hard to say you can’t eat that because of your diet. When I told him I go to the gym a lot, he looked at me funny, like it would be strange that I would need to go often, not being overweight and such.

So, that part is kind of amusing. It does make things hard to navigate conversationally at times. Dating history is a bit tricky, since I attribute my lack of dating largely to body image issues, which they don’t know about. It will all work itself out, but it is sort of fun to interact with people who have never known me as other than being this weight.

Safe to post this here, as I use more anonymous e-mails for dating/job applications, since three years of journals is just too much information to give people in one clip.

As for the job hunt, it is going OK now. It is sort of strange when you have to put your last employer and salary down on the sheet, knowing I’ll be lucky to make a quarter of it at any job for which I am applying. Mainly hitting restaurants yet, a few barback openings, and some limited retail.

Like many things, the hunt for a job is the latest thing aiding my procrastination about the novel. It started very casually, like just sending a resume here and there, but now it is a full-on pursuit. I do think it would be good to have something like that boxing me in schedule-wise, forcing the editing on a timeframe.

But, everything will sort itself out in due time.

One other area of intrigue lately has been possibly getting certify as an "English as Second Language" teacher. Costs about $2K, and then I can basically go anywhere in the world and teach English. Lots of openings for this everywhere. I would only want to teach younger kids, as teens everywhere are a bit hellish. But living in Thailand, teaching 6-8 year olds some basic English, working on the novel at night,learning the culture, cooking my own meals, making enough money to pay for itself, it all sounds idyllic to me.

I also think it is better to write about American culture from outside of it. But, we’ll see what happens. A decent job or a decent man can certainly keep me grounded here for a while longer.

Was just reading "Loving What Is," by Byron Katie (I think I’ve mentioned her here before, but I don’t read this site, so who knows), after putting it off to the side for a while. For some reason, the passage I just read really took hold, and seems like it would make life so simple if followed. Here it is:

I would often return from a long trip to find the house full of dirty laundry, piles of mail on my desk, the dog dish crusted, the bathrooms a mess, and the sink piled high with dishes. The first time this happened, I heard a voice that said, "Do the dishes." It was like coming upon the burning bush, and the voice from the bush said, "Do the dishes." It didn’t sound very spiritual to me, but I just followed its directions. I would stand at the sink and just wash the next dish, or sit with the piles of bills and pay the one on top. Just one at a time. Nothing else was required. At the end of the day, everything would be done, and I didn’t need to understand who or what did it.

When a thought appears such as "Do the dishes" and you don’t do them, notice how an internal war breaks out. It sounds like this: "I’ll do them later. I should have done them by now. My roommate should have done them. It’s not my turn. It’s not fair. People will think less of me if I don’t do them now." The stress and weariness you feel are really mental combat fatigue.

What I call "doing the dishes" is the practice of loving the task in front of you. Your inner voice guides you all day long to do simple things such as brush your teeth, drive to work, call your friend, or do the dishes. Even though it’s just another story, it’s a very short story, and when you follow the direction of the voice that story ends. We are really alive when we live as simply as that — opn, waiting, trusting, and loving to do what appears in front of us now.

What we need to do unfolds before us, always — doing the dishes, paying the bills, picking up the children’s socks, brushing our teeth. We never receive more than we can handle, and there is always just one thing to do. Whether you have ten dollars or ten million dollars, life never gets more difficult than that.

Really liked that passage. Rings so true… just need to stop creating wars.