The L-Word

AwesomeGirlfriend (AG) asked me the other day if I ever loved SnarkEx.

"Sure," I said, "as much as it's possible for me to love anyone, I did."

I wasn't trying to sound all mysterious and broken. And I didn't mean to sound like a tortured 14-year-old poet when I added, "But what does love mean?"

If love is just a momentary feeling, like anger or sadness or lust, then sure, there were plenty of times when I felt love for SnarkEx.

But is love more than just something you feel at a certain moment? For example, you might be angry at someone but still know that, in the bigger picture, you love them. So what does that mean? Is loving them just an acknowledgment that they're an essential part of your life, regardless how you feel at the moment? When SnarkEx told me during our breakup that she didn't love me anymore, was she telling me that I was no longer important to her?

I love tennis. I love chocolate and beer and fried cheese. I love sex. I love my cats. I love warm spring days. I love my penis. I love my family. But in each of those cases, "love" means something different. And maybe, at different times, I have felt the same kind of love for a person that I do for tennis or chocolate or warm spring days. But that's not what people expect you to mean when you tell them, "I love you."

I've found that it's way easier for me to tell my cats I love them than to say it to the humans in my life. I don't know why that is. Is it because I love cats more than people? Easier to make myself vulnerable to them? The thing is, if love is just a feeling, a surge of emotion at any given moment, then I probably do feel it more often for my cats than for people. When my cat sits on my chest and purrs and looks up at me with an expression of profound contentment, I get such a rush of emotion that it's almost enough to make me believe in God. I rarely get that feeling with people.

With people it's more subtle. Most of the time, when I tell someone I love them, I do it because they said it first, or the moment calls for it, or to reinforce how much they mean to me. But I'm not necessarily feeling that surge of emotion that I get with my cats.

It's not that I never feel that surge with people. The first time I said "I love you" to each of my girlfriends, I meant it. (And not all of those times were orgasm-related.) I've always said it first, which I assume is because men are supposed to take the initiative in these situations. (When I said it to my crazy German ex-girlfriend, I followed it up with, "Well, you know, Americans say that all the time." She got angry that I was downplaying it, and a tender, seminal moment between us quickly turned into one of our frequent fights.)

SnarkEx told me she loved me probably 3-4 times a day. I reciprocated maybe half the time. Because she said it so often, it didn't give me many chances to say it first, but I did on occasion. People have different perspectives on the whole "I love you" frequency question. Some think that you cheapen it if you say it too often. Others believe that you shouldn't get complacent and no one should ever have to guess how you feel about them. I see both points and could go either way.

I haven't said the L-word to AG yet, but there have been times when I'm been overcome with enough emotion to blurt out, "You're so awesome!" (Keeping with my Meerkat/Doubt theme from yesterday, there are also times when I think, "Meh.") This is probably the longest I've ever dated someone without saying it. I don't think I feel any less love for her (at this point in the relationship) than I did with the others, I'm just much more reluctant to say it. I'm being cautious. I don't know if she's impatient to hear it, but that's a consequence of dating a damaged divorced man.

Meerkat

I was telling my therapist about how cautious I was being with AwesomeGirlfriend (AG) and he used a great metaphor. He said it's a good idea to be like a meerkat at the beginning of a relationship.

Besides the fact that I love meerkats, this is an easy image to keep in mind: Be a meerkat! Keep your head up and look out for danger.

It's funny that he used this metaphor, because I remember previous relationships where I felt like my head was buried in sand. I was blinded by the excitement of new love and I had no idea how I would feel once that wore off.

Despite my attempts to be a meerkat, I still sort of have that head-in-the-sand feeling. I have no idea where things are heading with AG, and I really don't want to think about the future right now. When she talks about her plans after she graduates next year, like where she will be living, I get nervous. I don't want to think about us going our separate ways, but I also don't want to think about making any commitments.

We're getting along great, but I still worry about possible red flags-- things that may or may not become issues later on. This is not unusual. I'm often gripped by doubt when I start a relationship. I don't necessarily see it as a bad sign, since doubt is a fundamental aspect of my nature.

I believe in doubt. Doubt is the opposite of dogma, and it keeps me focused and rational. It's only when I'm sure and confident about something that I get burned. On the other hand, if I'm worried about something, I take it seriously. I'm sure there needs to be some balance between confidence and worry, but I do see the value of worry-- of keeping my head up and my eyes open.

Even my doubts have doubts. I don't have the best instincts in the world, and I've learned not to trust them. I don't know how many times in my life I've had a false epiphany or a wrong first impression, but it's happened often enough that I don't put much stock in them.

The first person I met in library school was this cool girl I'll call Mara. We became pretty good friends and formed the nucleus of a small clique. One day, about a year after I'd known her, out of nowhere a voice shouted in my head, "Mara! You should date Mara! Ask her out!" For about a day I was convinced that we would be great together. Then I realized what a terrible idea it was, and I'm thankful I didn't have enough time to do something stupid.

Eventually Mara graduated and moved away. Although I have lots of friends from library school, some of them quite close, I have no contact with Mara at all. I no longer think of her as that cool girl I met on my first day at library school, but as one of the many acquaintances I've lost touch with. So my first impression of her, as well as my later epiphany, were wrong. This happens to me all the time.

The thing is, my instincts are right just enough to be unpredictable. I can't simply do the opposite of what my instincts tell me, a strategy that George Costanza used to great success, because about half the time my instincts are right.

So here I am doing my meerkat thing, but I don't trust myself to spot the danger. I'm like a retarded meerkat. Is that grasshopper a threat? How about the tree? Should I be worried about the leopard running toward me?

I could run back into the hole, but who wants to live their life like that? I'll wait and see if danger comes any closer.

After all, it could just as well be a yummy scorpion instead.

New Audience

I'm not sure which cliche best fits the phenomenon I want to write about today. It may be a combination of:

• You'll find it when you stop looking
• Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone
• The Universe helps those who help themselves
  
• When it rains, it pours
  

with a dash of:

• Where the hell were all these fans when I really needed them?

Last November I introduced my Web 2.0 Reality Divorce Show, the community of divorce bloggers that I followed. I had links to them on my blog, and had hoped that they would reciprocate, but they didn't. I removed the links and stopped reading most of them last January when I was in a pissy mood and felt like hardly any of them read my blog. At the time it felt like blogging was just shouting into a void.

A few months later, I have a new girlfriend and my life looks much better. So now that I'm not drowning in a vat of despair, in the past few weeks three new online friends have discovered my blog. Two of them have even blogged about my blog-- one quoted me! It's very gratifying to know that someone (besides me) is getting something out of my neurotic rantings. I just wish I had known that people read or cared about my blog back in December, when I really needed encouragement.

This seems to happen so often in life. Good luck begets good luck. There's a hundred other ways to describe it, but maybe it all boils down to: Why do I only get what I need when I stop needing it?

At any rate, it's really cool to have a new audience, and to have a new group of blogs to follow. They are funny and inspirational and insightful. We've all been through traumatic breakups, but we approach them from different perspectives. A lot of the same issues come up and it's interesting to see how each person deals with them in their own way. So many of their posts remind me of things I've written in the past year. It's fascinating to me how blogs let you get to know complete strangers and follow their lives, or as much of their lives as they're willing to share.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was telling a friend about my new online friends the other day and he asked, "Is AwesomeGirlfriend (AG) okay with your new online friends?" Why not? Although they're all women, it's not like I'm hitting on them. I don't even know their real identities or where they live.

Besides, I don't think AG is interested in my blogs. I've told her about this blog (but not how to find it) and I've sent her links to my public blog about three times, but she just doesn't seem to have much interest in it. Either that or she has visited my blog and was unimpressed.

If I were dating someone new (and I am), I would want to find out everything I could about her, which would include a serious amount of online stalking. I would troll her Facebook profile for links and information. If said profile had a link to her public blog (as mine does), I'd be all over it, reading it for clues about her history and personality. But AG never did this. Like a creature from another planet, she just doesn't seem to have any interest in stalking my online presence. Weird.

In past relationships this might have bothered me. I've always assumed that anyone I date would be a fan of my writing. All the others have. But ever since I've learned that you can't get it all from one person, I've realized that AG doesn't need to fill that role. There are other people for that.

AG doesn't need to be my audience. She takes an interest in my life in other ways. She asks me questions all the time and is a great listener. She likes and responds to my emails. She just doesn't seem to seek out my written word. I guess she prefers Snarkbutt Live. (Much better than Snarkbutt on Ice or Laser Snark!)

Winner?

I can't believe it's been a whole year since I first wrote about the Post-Breakup Dating Scramble, the game where the first person to start dating someone new wins. Back then, I whined that I always lose because it always takes me so long to find another companion. And I was sure that I would lose again this time, because SnarkEx was scheming on guys before she even moved out.

Although I'm not 100% sure of this, I suspect that this time I'm a winner.

If SnarkEx is dating someone else, or has dated anyone in the past year, she's kept a pretty tight lid on it, because none of my spies have found any evidence for it so far. And I have legions of them. Friends and family have reported that she continues to corner them and attempt unwanted conversation, she's trying to leave town, and she's still gaining weight.

But of her dating life, there hasn't been a peep.

The fact that she wants to leave town is a good sign, I think. Her latest strategy is to apply to library schools around the country. On the one hand, if she became a librarian, the prospect of running into her at ALA every year would suck. (Incidentally, it's just like her to start a new career and then decide a year into it that she wants a change. She did the same thing with her marriage.) But if going to library school will finally get her out of town and further away from me and my friends and family, that might be for the best.

I suspect she wants to get away from here because she's unhappy. And being the bitter little man that I still am, that pleases me. Last year I decided, completely arbitrarily, that her penance for leaving me should be six years of misery. Then I added the addendum that this sentence could be commuted if I'm in a satisfying new relationship. I really thought that dating someone new would ease up my anger. But it hasn't.

Even though I'm happy that I've met AwesomeGirlfriend, and maybe she will turn out to be better suited to me than SnarkEx was (although it's way too soon to tell at this point), I'm still just as angry as ever at SnarkEx. Like I wrote here, I can recognize that maybe the divorce was for the best. Maybe I'll come out of it a better person and have a richer, more fulfilling life because of it. But it was still a failure, and I still blame SnarkEx for it. I will not celebrate it, nor will I forgive SnarkEx for breaking the vows she made to me.

I will not commute her sentence. At least not yet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This weekend I played TennisGrrrl (TG) in a league match. I've hardly seen her over the past two months. She's sort of faded away since I asked her out in February. At the time we had talked about becoming better friends and doing stuff outside of tennis, but it never really happened. I made a few attempts to do stuff that didn't go anywhere.

Our match was much better than the last time we played, back when I was scheming on her. She beat me, like she always does, but it was a very close match and I didn't throw a tantrum, even though my losing streak in the 'B' league continues. (I'm now 2-15 in the league.) The match itself was great fun: lots of running with long, exciting points that reminded me why I love tennis. I felt like I played well-- she was just better.

See, it's not so much about winning or losing, but enjoying the game.

Still, it feels good to have won the Post-Breakup Dating Scramble against SnarkEx. If that is indeed the case.

AwesomeGirlfriend

I'm trying to decide if my new girlfriend needs a new nickname. TGTBT is kinda unwieldy to write, and it doesn't really roll off the tongue (for the audiobook version of my blog, read by Paul Giamatti-- coming soon!)

TGTBT, for those of you who weren't there at the time, comes from Too Good To Be True?, which is how I described her profile on the online dating site where we met. I no longer think of her as too good to be true, although I still have occasional paranoid thoughts that she has some horrible secret I haven't found out about yet. Like that she's a Russian spy who's just after my librarian gold or that she used to be a dude. Increasingly, I think she's just good enough to be true. And even if she did used to be a dude, they've done such an excellent job that I can't really call it a dealbreaker.

Anyway, I've changed nicknames of people (women) on this blog before. My Ex started out simply as my wife, then she was the wife, then Snarkwife, and finally, when the divorce was final, SnarkEx. The cute girl I played tennis with was Tennis Girl, then TennisGrrrl, and then simply TG.

Even my new girlfriend has had a few different names. Mostly she's been TGTBT, but she's also been nameless, TBA, and AG (Almost Girlfriend) at various times. So what should I call her now?

I'm leaning toward AwesomeGirlfriend. But it's kind of long to type out, so I could just shorten it to AG.

AG also has the added benefit of standing for:

Adorable Gal
Already Girlfriend
Actualized Greatness
Active Grasshopper
Almost Gandhi
Anomalous Goodness
A-list Giamatti
Anal Gripper

Let me try it out: AG and me went to the movies last night...When I told AG that joke she thought it was hilaaarious...the doctor insists AG's tail and flippers are perfectly normal in a woman her age...

Yeah, that will work.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome the newest woman in my life on this blog: AG!

Balance

Last week I had my best vacation since my separation from SnarkEx.

• Spring break last year was the week SnarkEx moved out, and I spent it traveling and talking it out with everyone. I was still sort of in shock, but when I got home the shock started to wear off. That weekend I went to church, at SnarkEx's request, to watch her officially join it in a disgusting display of hypocrisy.
  
• My first summer vacation last year was an exercise in canceled plans, which lead to my first attack of the crazies.
  
• My second summer vacation, in August, was a little better: I started internet dating and signed the final papers for the divorce. Then I spent a drugged-out week on muscle relaxants recovering from a back injury.
• During the Thanksgiving break I was preoccupied with my dying cat and my own flu.
• And my winter break was the suckiest of them all. I was already feeling worthless and having a George Bailey moment when my dad screamed that I was an asshole at the SnarkFamily Xmas. Two weeks later came the the worst single day of my life, when SnarKitty died. That was the lowest point.

Since then I have slowly climbed out of my funk. I'm nervous about admitting this, but I know that the biggest impetus to my recovery has been TGTBT, my new girlfriend.

I've always been amazed at the quick transition that can happen when I have to wait for a big meal. One minute I'm absolutely starving, almost ready to gnaw off my own foot, and half an hour later I'm so completely, uncomfortably stuffed that I can't even look at food. To a lesser degree, that's what has happened with my social calendar. With the introduction of this single new character in my life, my dilemma has almost reversed itself: whereas I used to have too much time and not enough stuff to do, now I'm overbooked.

There are so many things that I want to get done. I still have tennis 2-3 times a week. There's a writing project I want to get to, but my two blogs and activity on Facebook keep taking precendence. (Even my blogs are behind, as I have about four ideas waiting to be written.) I'm learning Cyrillic and Russian. I want to start meditating. I have a year's worth of pictures to print out. There's a dozen books I want to read. Blogs and websites I want to keep up on. Newly discovered music I want to listen to. Netflix and TiVo demand semi-daily attention. As does AuxiliaryKitty.

And then there's my social life. I was having dinner with a married pair of friends the other day. I told them more about my new girlfriend, and I repeated my philosophy about trying to go slow with her. The wife part of the couple asked me, in an admonishing tone, "Are you still hanging out with other people?"

"I'm trying!" I said, a little more defensive than I'd meant to be. I hope they didn't think I was getting on their case, since I'd made several attempts to get together with them. But I am very sensitive to this issue. I'm almost manic about not disappearing into my new relationship.

I'm still trying to figure out the right balance between my dating and non-dating social life. The biggest complication is that other people have lives of their own. Even before I was dating someone, getting together with friends involved lots of planning, coordinating, and negotiating. Now it's further complicated by a new person who has suddenly become my primary social partner.

Don't get me wrong. Having a primary social partner is great. I no longer have to fear my free time. I have a standing date every Friday and Saturday night. And even when I don't, I enjoy the time alone, because I'm getting my social needs met. That's nothing to sneeze at.

But it does mean that maintaining my other relationships will take more effort. It's way too easy, when you have a standing date, to just depend on that person and let other relationships fall into the background. Last week I had two appointments with friends that were canceled. Last year that would have (and did) sent me into a tailspin of desperation and neediness, but I actually welcomed it this time. I was able to get some extra alone time, to work on some of my projects and recharge myself.

Being the fundamental fretter that I am, I worry that I'm happy for the wrong reasons. Last Sunday was an awesome day for me and TGTBT. It was a day of many firsts: first time we saw each other three times in one day, first time we watched a movie in the morning, first time I bought her flowers, first time we went on a walk, first time we watched TV (Dr. Who) with her roommates. That evening my brother's wife called and invited me to dinner. I've made it a semi-regular event to have dinner at my brother's once a week over the past year. Because of busy schedules, we'd sort of gotten out of the habit lately, and I had to decline this week because of the aforementioned Dr. Who date.

This is a signal moment to show how much I've learned in the past year. Old Snarkbutt would have gradually chosen the lover over the family. Slowly, dinner dates with my brother's family would fade out, because I would always have some previous appointment with the girl. I can't let that happen again. I have to make a special, concentrated effort to keep people in my life. Even if it means choosing family over TV with TGTBT's roommates on Sunday evenings.

I'm trying!

The Year in Pictures

The first time TGTBT came back to my apartment, on our second date, I showed her some pictures from my many photo albums. I hadn't planned on doing this, but when she met AuxiliaryKitty, I told her about how I'd had her since she was a kitten. I wanted to show her how adorable AK looked like then, so I hauled out the photo album.

We were halfway through the album when I realized I'd made a serious dating tactical error. About six months into AK's kittenhood, SnarkEx would make an appearance in the album. It seems like a horrible idea to show a girl pictures of your ex-wife on your second date, so I abruptly closed the album and said, "Let's stop there." TGTBT seemed to understand and didn't ask why.

Although TGTBT did not grow up among the typical American papparazzi-like family, and therefore isn't into the whole taking pictures scene, she did take an interest in my many photo albums. I showed her lots of earlier photo albums, pre-SnarkEx. There were many girlfriend pics sprinkled throughout, and I felt a little uneasy about this, but she didn't seem to mind. (Or at least not enough for it to stunt our relationship.)

I wanted to show her more recent pictures, but everything I have from the past five years has SnarkEx in it. And although it's been a year since SnarkEx moved out, I haven't printed out any of my pictures from the past year.

The last time I printed out any pictures was from the 2007 holiday season. SnarkEx was still in my life then. (It was soon after that, in January 2008, that the "shit hit the fan," as I so eloquently like to put it.) I've taken pictures since then, over 400 of them, and they're all stored in my "To Be Printed" folder.

Inspired by my new girlfriend's interest in my photo albums, one of the dozen or so projects I wanted to accomplish over my spring break was to start filling them up again. This involves going through my digital pics of the past 16 months, organizing them, deleting the duplicates (or bad ones), and printing out the best ones.

There are four main categories of things I've photographed over the past year: scenery, my cats, my stuff, and myself. Scenery includes things like the pond behind my (it was "ours" at the time) apartment, which froze in lots of cool different shapes last winter, so I took about a dozen pictures of it in different stages.

The cats are by far my most common single photography subject. That should not be a surprise.

[Really, they do other stuff besides lie around. This was SnarKitty's last summer, and I realize now how lethargic she looks in many of the pics. She was sick and I couldn't see it.]

The "stuff" I've photoed includes things like my new vacuum, my car, the collection of swag I got from the ALA conference last year, the beer bottle collection I started last year, all the food I bought for SnarKitty when I was trying to feed her, etc. A lot of these things are just visual mementos of moments in my life.

My strangest category of pictures over the past year have been the ones of myself. I've become pretty adept at shooting myself over the past year-- holding the camera out away from me and pointing it at just the right angle to get my face in the frame. It's not a talent I'm particularly proud of. It's kind of pathetic, I know, but there's no one else in my life who's going to take them. And there are moments I want to capture, like what I look like while I'm driving on vacation or when a cat is sitting on me. Or when I need a new profile picture for a dating site. Again, I know how pathetic it is.

It's funny how my divorce shows up in my photo collection. Not so much for what's there, but what's not there. Obviously, SnarkEx is not there. But I've also noticed how hard it is to find pictures of me looking happy. Over the past year I've joined a lot of Web 2.0 social networking and dating sites where I have to put up a profile pic. But I'm not really satisfied with any of the recent ones.

I think the only picture of me over the past year where I truly look happy is one where I'm posing with all four of my siblings at the SnarkFamily reunion last summer. As the youngest of five children, and the only one who doesn't have a family of his own, I don't think you need to be Freud to figure out what that means.


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This week I've been on spring break and I've had about a dozen projects that I wanted to work on. Some of them, like cleaning out the bathroom or getting my haircut, were pretty straightforward.

Others, like learning the Cyrillic alphabet (TGTBT speaks Russian, so I want to learn it), are a little more complicated and will take longer than a week to accomplish. I also wanted to take advantage of all the extra time to start introducing TGTBT to people, but most of my friends are busy or away for the Easter weekend.

We did manage to go on a couple date with my brother and his wife this week. I brought my camera along, and I took my very first picture of my new girlfriend, and got a few of us together. I guess that's a pretty big step for me-- our first pictures together. It makes me a little nervous.

But I look happy. I used the new pic for my Facebook profile.

[AK likes TGTBT's boots.]

Emergency Lesson

What's a word that combines the feelings of frustration, rage, and soul-crushing disappointment? The only thing I could come up with on the tennis court last night was an anguished cry of "Rwwaahhwwwrrr!!" as I tried my hardest not to smash my $90 tennis racket on the ground. Oh, and told my opponent to shut up.

Before I get to that, let's start with a little context, because writing out tidy chronological summaries always makes me feel better.

The park district tennis center where I play has four different levels of singles leagues. When I first started, I was in the 'D' league, which was mainly for beginners. I flopped around there for about a year and a half and then won it in December 2007. Winning the 'D' league earned me a spot in the 'C' league. I spent three sessions in the 'C' league, and then last fall an unlikely string of victories gave me the championship there. On to the 'B' league.

The 'B' league has been rough for me. In sixteen matches so far, I've won two. And those were both flukes: In successive weeks, I beat the top two guys in the league (and both of those wins I can rationalize away.) But I lost to everyone else.

It's not so much that I'm losing, but how I'm losing. I keep choking. Consider:

• Feb 4: I was up 6-4, 4-3, and ended up losing 6-4, 4-6, 2-6
• Feb 9: I was rolling in the second set, 5-1, and ended up losing 4-6, 6-7 (4)
• Mar 22: I was winning 5-3 in the first set, ended up losing 5-7, 2-6
• Mar 29: I was ahead in both sets 5-4, and lost both of them, 5-7
• April 7: I was leading 4-3 in the first set, but lost 4-6. Then lost the second set 2-6
• April 8: I was up 4-3 in the first set, lost it 4-6. Second set I was up 5-2, and lost 6-7 (4)

Since I am a pattern-seeking animal, what I've noticed is that I always choke around the same time. I get up to four or five games in a set, and then can't close it out. It's beyond frustrating. And the more it happens, the worse it gets. Each additional choking incident takes an exponentially larger chunk of my soul.

So last night, as my 5-2 lead slipped through my fingers, I thought, "Oh, shit, here it comes again." It's like watching train coming right at you, but you're unable to get out of the way. You see what's happening, but are unable to stop it. And it keeps happening, over and over again.

The thing is, I'm a problem solver. During a match, once I've figured out my opponent's strengths and weaknesses, I will usually settle on a strategy and then repeat it to myself, like a mantra, to keep me focused and energized. Something like, "You're fresh and he's tired!" or "keep it deep to his backhand" or "hit it right at him." I pride myself on my ability to analyze the game.

But I can't figure out this particular problem. I don't know how to fix it, because I can't even figure out where it's coming from. I don't feel like I'm playing any worse near the end of a set, so I don't even know if I'm choking or if my opponents just play better when their back is to the wall. Whatever it is, it's pissing me off.

And last night, after two consecutive days of this shit, it all blew up. I lost to Asshat Guy, and I had a meltdown. He's gotten a lot better over the past few months, so beating him has become a real challenge. Losing to him was infuriating. As enraged as I was, I shook his hand at the net and said, "You played well." But then, per his usual asshattery, he started to denigrate his play. Right after beating me. This is what he always does. He'll win a close one and then complain that it shouldn't have been that close: he didn't serve well, he made to many errors. Dude, just STFU and be a gracious winner, OK?

I turned away from him and said, "Shut up. Don't even start." I said it softly, so maybe he didn't hear it. But I was fuming. We talked a little after that, broke down the match (as I often do with my opponent afterward.) I told him how much more consistent he's gotten over the past year. He said, "No, I made way too many errors tonight." Goddammit, just take the fucking compliment, you unbelievable asswipe!

I left the tennis center feeling inconsolable. Another epic choke. Why does this matter? Why can't I be happy that I have a girlfriend and a good social life and (relatively) good health and I'm on spring break and I have four different forms of chocolate in my apartment? Why can't I just enjoy the fact that I got great exercise playing the sport that I love?

Look, I don't have to win every match. I'm not such a sore loser that I'm incapable of enjoying the game unless I win, win, WIN! But life is about balance, and I'd like to grab a few wins to just to keep up the illusion that I belong in the 'B' league. I really want to get out of this slump, this epidemic of chokage, and I can't figure it out.

This morning I woke up way too early, considering I'm on vacation, and used the energy from my tennis-induced rage to clean the bathroom and kitchen. Then I put my problem-solving skills to work and called the tennis center. "I need an emergency lesson," I told the receptionist, and left my number for one of the tennis pros to call me back. Maybe one of them can give my tennis game the Heimlich maneuver.

As frustrageappointed as I was last night, I know I'll get over this. (TGTBT told me she'll do her best to restore my soul tonight. What a gal.)

I have a short memory for this kind of thing, so the next time I walk on the tennis court, I'll do it with joy and optimism that this time will be different. Unless it isn't. In which case I'll throw another tantrum.

Jinxes

I knew I was tempting fate by writing a happy post yesterday.

This morning I am in a foul mood.

I drove home in the rain yesterday. I had dinner with my brother's family to celebrate my niece's birthday. After a full restaurant meal and cake, I went to the tennis center for a drop-in workout. It was ugly. I didn't move well, I was sluggish, and my abdomen hurt worse than it ever has during tennis. Yesterday I had to be stupid and write, "As long as they [my pains] don't affect my tennis game...I can live with them." So now the Universe is making me eat my words.

The day is cold, gray, windy, and completely overcast.

I got to work and TGTBT hadn't responded to my email from yesterday morning. I can make proud pronouncements about how slow and cautious I'm being with her, but am I really? The truth is that 90% of my happiness right now is dependent on the fact that I have a girlfriend. Some of that might be secondary happiness-- just knowing that I have plans for Friday and Saturday night keeps a lot of the demons at bay. But if she were not in the picture, I don't know how well I'd really be doing. And I hate that dependence.

Last weekend I was playing tennis, and during a stretch where I lost some games I thought, "Who cares if I lose? I have a girlfriend. There are things more important that winning at tennis."

Then I stopped myself. No, no, no!! I can't just give up on all my other passions in life because I have a girlfriend. If it was important to me before, it should still be important to me. I have to win at tennis!! I know this is twisted logic, but I think it's one of the many side effects of having been dumped by my wife. I cannot allow myself to become dependent on my lover. Even when I really want to be. Even when I am.

My only hope is that by writing about my crappy day, I will jinx it and things will turn around. Unless the fact that I'm writing about jinxing it will jinx the jinxing.

A glimpse into the overactive mind of Snarkbutt.

The Moment

Part Seven of My Mini-Series: Discussions on Eat, Pray, Love.

I finished Gilbert's book last week, and I was still loving it all the way up to the very last page. Most non-fiction books kind of fizzle out at the end, but this one has a kind of a twist ending that made it even better. In my first discussion of the book, I wrote about the inner voice that comes to Gilbert in times of great distress to give her comfort and unconditional love. She never really gets a hold of where the voice is coming from-- whether it's God or the Universe or her own brain.

[SPOILER ALERT] At the end of the book, she posits a new idea: that voice had been coming from her future self. In Buddhism there is the idea that a tree is created by two forces: the seed which grows into the mighty tree, and the tree itself, which wants so badly to exist that it "pulls the acorn into being." Applying this to her own situation, it was her own future self that was comforting her when she was in great distress. Her future self, the Liz Gilbert at the end of the book, knew that everything would work out, and so she was able to reach back in time and pull her old self through all of her struggles.

"Wooa!" he says, "That's deeeep!" [Sound of inhaling a doobie.]

Seriously, what a fascinating idea. Like when Harry Potter traveled in time to save himself from the Dementors.

[SPOILER OVER]

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I have always struggled to live "in the moment." It seems like I'm always living in the past or the future-- wishing my life away. I need to spend more time in the here and now.

I was reading an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert a few weeks ago and I had an even deeper revelation. In the interview, Gilbert said that most people's happiness came from memories and planning trips. "Maybe living in the now isn't that important...Maybe it's enough to take photos and make plans."

Wow! That's true. Most of my feelings of happiness has come from either thinking about the past or planning future events. So why is that so bad? Humans may be the only animals that can consciously reflect on the past and plan for the future. My cat is always in the moment, and what good does that do her? She poops in a box and has to cover it up. Why is it so terrible that I'm not always in the moment? Sometimes the moment sucks.

There are times when I'm completely in the moment, but they're rare (like when I hit a perfect tennis shot, eat fried cheese, or have an orgasm.) Most every other time, my happiness and contentment has some aspect of memories or plans to it. And I'm fine with that.

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For the moment, my life is good. I'm a little afraid to put that in writing, though. Jinxes, and all that.

Although my health problems haven't completely gone away, I've decided to just ignore them. Three different specialists have not been able to figure out, or agree, on what's causing the problems. My sore jaw from last week is still sorta there, but it's more of a stiffness than a soreness, and I've just gotten used to it. I do notice (or imagine) that I'm clenching my jaw more lately, so maybe it's a result of that. I don't know why I'm clenching my jaw, but at least I know it's nothing serious.

As for my other pains, one doctor thinks I have a mild hernia that will go away on its own, another doctor thinks that stress on my lower back is causing pain in my groin. Although both of them took a much more active interest in my symptoms than the useless ENT from last week, neither of them was concerned that it was anything serious.

So I've decided to just ignore the pains and expect them to go away on their own. As long as they don't affect my tennis game and all other fun/necessary activities, I can live with them.

I really like TGTBT. The more time I spend with her, the more I like her. But I'm also proud of the way I'm approaching the relationship-- not getting sucked in too soon.

Next week is my spring break. I will be visiting friends out of town, making plans with friends in town, hanging out with my new girlfriend, and have four tennis matches scheduled. I also have a huge list of chores and projects that I'd been putting off til spring break. I plan to be very busy.

And having plans makes me happy.