Transforme

Tangential to the sex discussion-- what is it about baristas and bookstore clerks that makes them so damn attractive? Take a woman I wouldn't normally particularly notice, put her behind an espresso machine, and odds are I am in lust. Even grocery store checkers can have this effect on me. And it's not a Freudian thing about service and servants or anything like that...

I'm not focused on appearance anyway. When I lay awake at night, sleepless, my loneliness comes from internal needs. I don't dream of the pinups and the hot girls (well, not any more than any other normal male) but someone who understands poetry, who likes to look at and talk about paintings, who isn't afraid of a big, challenging book. Which, of course, I am sure describes each and every barista and bookstore clerk :)

Am I the only heterosexual male on the planet who prefers being on the bottom? It only seems logical: as a guy I know that-- barring complete disaster-- I'll have a happy ending. I'd much rather the woman control things so she can be happy too... and with a little practice the timing becomes second nature. And yet I've been with women who have never been on top... and who wonder why their experiences, particularly with new partners, aren't very good?

I'm not talking 100% of the time here-- variety is the spice of life and all that-- and there are many ways to get to the goal, but why overlook this particular one?

I know enough to be sure of a few things about eating and my need to lose some weight: a "diet" is not what I need, but a total transformation in the way I eat. So my plan is to phase in changes.

Part one: cut out flour and sugar, cut back on caffeine, drink a lot of water. Not going to worry about times I am eating or anything else. Multi-whole-grain cereal once per day.

Part two: vegetables with every meal.

Part three: no eating after 8 pm.

Essentially I'm moving toward a modified low-carb regimen, which is what my doctor has been telling me to do for years. Cut out simple carbs and get my carbs from "good sources" (fruits, whole grains).

Not going to be easy given that I started today AFTER my first craving-- for strawberry rhubarb pie at 3am...

I miss being inspired. More to the point I miss being able to be inspired. One of the worst things about my depressions is the deep anhedonia that accompanies it. I don't mean missing the little pleasures-- that hurts in a different way-- but the intense inner pleasure that comes with being inspired. The warm, happy feelings that come from a good meal or the happy coincidence of a favorite song coming on the radio are the things that sustain me, but inspiration is what I am being sustained for.

I want to find that part of me that can stand overwhelmed before a painting, in tears, for an hour. I'm not talking about going all emo here, just about being able to feel that bone-hungry resonance again, the kind that makes me want to get up and shove a book in someone's face to try to make them understand the power of that stanza, or listen to a song over and over again as it speaks to different parts of me.

I'm beginning to think maybe it can happen for me again. And just as I'm thinking about this I get an invite out of the blue to the Eyecandy group, where people appear to be sharing just this kind of stuff. I have no idea why I was invited, but thank you. Thank you.

I'm still trying to recover from the flu-- more meds from the doctor and enforced time resting. Which makes it impossible to really get started making any changes... all I can do is think about all that needs to be done, which is paradoxically a kind of relief from actually DOING anything and at the same time pushes me deeper into a depression because I can't DO anything.

If I could just get some real sleep-- it's been weeks-- I'm sure I would feel a bit better...

I love words and quotations of many kinds, but there is one that has to remain central to my life. It is from Henry James' book The Middle Years:

We work in the dark-- we do what we can-- we give what we have. .Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.

I still get shivers when I ponder these words. A small sign that there might be something in me worth saving.

The choice I am making is simple and no different from that faced by various creatures all the time: change or die.

Suicide hurts people, and I don't consider it lightly, but it is a very real option. I've grown distant from everyone I once loved-- even my kids are at the point where my influence on their lives is minimal, and I've made a mess of most everything when this wasn't true. The world would easily adjust to my absence (this is something I realized with complete clarity).

But there is an option. Change. Metamorphosis. Transformation. Thus the title of this bog: transforme. Transform + Me. I'm going to give it an honest shot. One year to see what I can do. To see if I can find even a single landmark on the road to becoming the person I thought I could be.

Can an infomercial for 80s hits really be a defining moment in a person's life? After weeks of intense work and travel while being sick I finally get some time off and I'm curled up in a blanket in front of the tube watching infomercials. I don't watch much TV-- I don't like TV-- but I just want mindless distraction from the coughing and the weariness...

And then it's 80s Gold. And then it happens... I suddenly realize that this is it. My whole life has come to this point. Not by design or direction but by chance. I know every one of these songs. More than that, I lived them and I remember each moment. I remember the teenager I was, I remember the last time in my thirty-seven years of life that I was actually happy. 1987. Summer of. The summer between my junior and senior years.

The last time I was happy was almost exactly 20 years ago: my best friend and I in his old grey El Camino, tearing down the gravel roads towards the basketball courts, shouting out "Back in Black" and "One Vision" with the windows down and the stereo pumping.

That was the last time in my life I felt I was heading toward something, that greater things were yet to come, that a greater me was yet to develop. All of the years since, all that time, all the work and career and relationships and kids have been about mere survival. That summer I lost the master thread that gave me strength and individuality.

But now I have to do something. I can't just continue trying to survive from day to day. It's time to make a decision. Fish or cut bait. Shit or get off the pot. Make something new happen or end it all. I've listened to people talk about blogs and blogging changing the world. Maybe this one can help me change my life into something work continuing.