The good:

Finally made it to the coffee date from Week 1, even though it was Really Cold once again, and it yielded interesting results.

I’ve been continuing to try and make new friends when possible, and I’ve talked to some cool people that way.

The bad:

There’s been lot of procrastination beyond making said friends, because I’m really afraid to get too involved with people right now. I don’t want to get anyones’ hopes up, on a friendship level or a romantic one, until I feel more comfortable around people. Like I said, I’ve been coming into contact with a lot of people who could be fun, cool or just plain nice, but at the same time, there’s this apprehension on my part because I just don’t know who or what would be good for me, and because I’m not really sure where I’m welcome or safe. Now, “safe” can be bad in excess, but I think you need to feel at least a little safety to not end up curled up in the fetal position behind a dumpster, screaming racial slurs at onlookers and urinating on yourself. (Yeah, a little dramatic, but it made me laugh.). I’m once again in this place I arrive at sometimes where I just don’t know who wants to hear from me when I’m in the mood to talk to people, and with newer people, that’s obviously even harder to read. So, if you think I’m awesome and want to talk to me, make the first move sometimes and ENABLE ME.

Other than that, procrastination continues in general, on doctors’ appointment/bureaucracy stuff, music stuff and so forth, but the procrastination I described in the last paragraph’s been the worst, and most fear-based over the past week, plus I haven’t already lost a point to it (there was a point lost for one specific person, but not *everyone*), so it’s our boogeyman of the week.

I should be posting “Obsolete” soon, in its current state. I made peace with it, and want to get to the present day at some point in my life.

The good:

I started talking to another new person, though, who I’d been putting off actually engaging for a while just because it never seemed like the right time. That’s been kinda cool.

I also went into a social situation that I was a bit apprehensive about, because of a pretty long history of weirdness surrounding it. As a rule, I tend to avoid those, but I didn’t here, and I had a good time. We’ll see where that goes.

The bad:

I backslid a bunch on the “dealing with bureaucracy” shit, but not on anything super time-sensitive. Still, I hate seeing that cluster of annoying phone calls and form fill-outs move from day to day on my to-do list. We’ll dock me on this one, and hope for the best come Monday.

Aside from that, it was an extremely slow week. Everything else I’ve discussed is in something of a holding pattern, waiting on funding and/or better conditions. Coffee plans from Week One may finally be happening tonight, though (and it’s really cold out, too; I’m seriously thinking that humans should be allowed to hibernate during the winter).

That’s about a month’s worth of my resolution. Usually, by this point in the year, people forget about them. So, not too bad.

Oh, one more thing: I keep thinking about contacting someone I don’t actually know, who may know a thing or two about my family’s somewhat checkered past. Could be a dead end, could be me opening up a big can of worms. I’m starting to think that, either way, it may be worth doing, just so it’s not one of those things that nags at me. Stay tuned.

2. A page that makes it a hell of a lot easier to find all my music without wading through the music category.

3. Merch. No, really. Holy shit, does this site need merch. It needed it damn near a decade ago. Please ride my ass about this, adventure lovers.

4. A guest post from one of the confused, disappointed people who come here thinking that it’s a porn site, presented as-is, without any editing.

5. A huge crowd of screaming women, like Usher has. Man, that Usher guy, he’s got it MADE. Seriously, people ask me that “if you could be anyone, at any point in history” question from time to time, because people love inane questions, and for the past few years, my answer has been “Usher.” You can whisper his name in a public place, and a hundred miles away, a woman will scream until she faints. He seems to have the right mindset to handle all that attention, too, so it works for him, at least at the moment. (I wouldn’t want to be me in Usher’s body, for that reason. I’d need to be him, full-on, for it to work. My mindset wouldn’t work for being Usher. It’d be kinda like that episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” when Larry gets stoned.) Also, I don’t know about you guys, but I never hear anything bad about the guy. There may be stories out there, and if there are, by all means tell me, but you don’t get beaten over the head with “Usher’s a dick” stories or “Usher did this awful thing” stories, so I’m hopeful that he’s just this dude who makes women gather in large groups and scream until they pass out, which they seem to enjoy doing as long as Usher is involved somehow. But yes, this site could totally use some of that Usher action. Mmmmmyeah.

(Update on Usher: not that Wikipedia is an indisputable source of truth or anything, but there do seem to be some “Usher allegedly put his johnson where it shouldn’t oughta have been” stories out there. Unfortunate and not excusable if it’s true, but at the same time, when you’re Usher and millions of screaming women follow you everywhere you go, you probably can’t even take a wee-wee without being mounted by a woman who’s cleverly disguised herself as a urinal and maintained her post for years in the hopes that someday, Usher will walk up. Also, to clarify on my other point, I’d probably want an on/off switch for the screaming women, otherwise it’d be a little hard to sleep.)

Recapping previous weeks’ issues:

I am so knee-deep in the shit with the bureaucratic red tape now, it’s astounding. I’m not hiding from it anymore, though, no matter how demoralizing it may be. And it is. It really, really is. So, +1 in that column.

Still trying to reschedule the coffee plans from Week 1, but I saw one of the two people involved in said plans. Effort was made there. I suppose the real test will be how I react to plans the next time there’s a cold snap, so we’ll leave this one even for now.

Haven’t put much effort or thought into the “spending more time with a particular person” thing, but I also haven’t really had a moment to breathe this week. So, no change there, either, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s not me causing a clusterfuck by forcing an issue that I can’t really give any time or attention to right now, simply because loneliness, insecurity, or some need to have what I think I may want demands it. I think I’m being responsible here, though if I keep talking about this, I’ll probably give half a dozen people a complex, so we probably won’t refer to this again unless there’s news. Same for the “scheduling plans in really cold weather” thing.

An update, however, on the “getting back to music” thing: it’s in progress, my mind is there, but it’s taking some time to figure out how to hook up the rat’s nest of instruments I have without making my living space intolerable to be in. Planning this one out’s gonna take some time, but I am planning and testing and doing some real work on installation. Stay tuned.

This week, I didn’t shy away from reconnecting with another friend who I’d been out of touch with for a month or so, through the holidays unfortunately. Felt bad about that part, but our friendship has been such that, when I don’t hear from them for a little while, it’s usually because they’re dealing with some things, and unless the time between contact gets excessively long, it can usually be assumed that I’ll hear from them when they see their shadow, so to speak. In this case, there has been some extra stuff going on, though, so I made the first move just to be sure all was ok, and it was.

I also, despite having a lousy day yesterday and being filled with anxiety over the general prospect of doing so (“Am I too much of a trainwreck at the moment to be the kind of person who should be starting friendships?” was basically the gist of that), went out last night, met up with a new person I’ve just started talking to, and we had a very good time by all indications.

And, finally, a lot of work was done toward being less of a perfectionist and more welcoming in regards to the operating environment of Heck. I’ve historically been incredibly particular about who runs what there, which puts a lot of the responsibility for the space’s success on me, but I’ve started delegating a little, and so far, so good. People enjoyed themselves at two events there this week, and it still felt like the place I’ve spent 3 years being protectionist about.

So, combining this new shit with the improvement in previous weeks’ shit, this week was a pretty rock solid week in my ongoing war against fear. Hopefully, this trend will continue.

Total time: 20 minutes, split about 40-60 between jogging and walking
Total mileage: 1.02 miles

Not a supreme amount of effort here by any means, mostly “wogging”, as Deb would say. Legs feel fine, lungs totally weren’t ready for the abuse. On the plus side, the coughing I’m doing post-run should be enough to get rid of the last of the congestion from the cold I had last week.

We’ll see how I feel on Monday and take it from there.

The way I’ll be tabulating this, for those who are curious, will not involve double-counting fear-related things that I have not yet overcome. 1 fear, 1 point in either direction. The score will also change if I overcome something from past weeks, crediting me for beating it. The only thing I haven’t totally worked out yet is how to deal with situations where I regress into fear. Perhaps I’ll dock myself the original point, maybe a half point, still deciding. Input from the audience is helpful here.

For instance: if I’d actually gotten off my ass and dealt with the paperwork bullshit this week, the current score would be Me 3, Fear 2 rather than vice-versa. Having not done that or rescheduled plans with the friends I didn’t see because it was too cold outside (in fairness to me, I was sick with a cold for about a week, so I wasn’t in any shape to be out, but that still doesn’t change the score), the points from the previous week still stand.

So, this week, after seeing that my fear of getting back to work on music created an awful situation where someone I cared about actually passed away before I fulfilled a years-old promise to perform for them, I started work in earnest on rebuilding my studio. Enough is enough. I really can’t think of too many situations worse than having someone die before you can keep a promise to them, so I’m going to see if I can prevent that from happening again, at least in one corner of my life. I installed software, took stock of what equipment I have here, and have given some serious thought to the layout of the room, as it pertains to having instruments set up in it without making the place a total clusterfuck. I’ve also been giving my share of thought, way more important than this piece of software, that synth, or this way to utilize space, to how I can make music fun for myself again, without flat-out abandoning older finished and unfinished material, which while good, is largely about all the bad things that have happened in my life (which was a big part of what made me run screaming from music in the first place). Thankfully, progress is being made.

Unfortunately, I did run into another situation where my fear did get the best of me. There’s someone I’d kind of like to spend more time with, but I’ve been hesitant to put my best foot forward there, because I don’t want to be a disruption, a burden or worst of all, a disappointment to them. I’m also not really sure where their head’s at regarding me, nor am I entirely sure where mine is where they’re concerned. I can deal with finding out that no, they’re not thinking the same things I am, but I feel kind of like I should tread very carefully until I’m sure how I feel or what I think, because I don’t want to overpromise and underdeliver (as I’m really prone to doing in just about every part of my life), and I feel like they deserve more respect than they’d get if I got them all excited about something and then changed my mind. Even writing this seems like a big, possibly inappropriate step, because I just plain don’t want to get anyone riled up until I feel a little more sure of myself and what I want, and I may have written this just a little too specifically. I’ll meditate on this one for a bit, and take it from there.

More on the minutiae of my neurosis next week. In the meantime, wish me luck.

Pulled out of plans Sunday night because it was REALLY cold, and cancelled a doctor’s appointment because I didn’t want to deal with the intense amounts of red tape and bureaucratic idiocy involved in having all the paperwork in line, but I did reconnect with a long lost friend, deciding that life was simply too short to hide under a rock and let the situation cause me periodic anxiety as it had been for some time. (No, probably not the one you’re thinking of, regular readers.)

So, I think I’ll reschedule the plans, attempt to deal with the paperwork idiocy at the beginning of the work week, and see what else gets thrown my way.