Thoughts, Ramblings, Contemplations

Gone. No more. No more.

It's over...for now, atleast.

I'll see how long it can keep up, going this way. At least for two year.

My livejournal is retiring. Again, atleast for now.

The URL? Easy. My name. www.hermitsmoores.com.

There I will maintain my posts and other stuff that I'm planning. More full fledge critical blogs, critiques, reviews, essays, and all that blog.

So, again, we'll just have to see how well I keep it up. I bought the site for two years and if things go well, it'll keep going.

I'm not looking for anything big or huge or anything, but something for me to do.

An outlet to just throw stuff out there and not have people listen. I guess we'll see.

Who knows.

It happened again, the could be end all be all of things between me and the great ol' Selena Kyle. Fights of talking and space and miscommunication because of the lack of thinking in the heat of the whole mess.

I couldn't think, I couldn't think of a reason to tell her that it needs to be done or why I'm acting the way that I am acting. Whether she will understand, I don't know. I really don't know if she will or want to understand why I am the way I am.

Space. Loner. Hermitude. I love my space. I LOVE MY SPACE. I can't stress that enough. And it is not because of Selena that I need it. Not her at all. I need it for me, my own sanity.

Psychologically, I'm sure I know why I have such a need of space. There is no compromise on this. I need my space. I don't think that this will ever change. EVER. I love my space, my time, my alone time, to just be with myself, unwind, watch a movie or read, and not just deal with anyone. SPACE. MY SPACE. My own little sanctuary.

Growing up, at the age of 16, I have pretty much decided I wanted to be on my own. To do my own thing. Growing up, all I know is my family and not much more. Just family. My over protective parents and my brother and my grandparents. Family.

I love them, I do, but I've always wanted to be on my own. Being up there, with them, it just feels suffocating. I need someone to answer to, to let know what my plans are and to do things. With that, in the great ol' double edge sword, I learned to be a hermit, and I learned, no YEARNED, no DESIRED, to be on my own. To make my own mistakes, to do my own thing. To succeed, to fail. On my own. My own thing.

I literally have to move away from them. 1,000 miles away. To have my own space. And it worked. It took a fucking long ass time and my father dying for me to grow up and get comfortable with myself and my skin. But overall, I got it. I got my independence. I get to do what I want to do without having to tell anyone or answer to anyone. I'm no longer suffocated. I get to sit home in my own little world and do my own thing of unwinding and relaxing.

What a life!

People will look at that and not understand. What kind of life is that? You are just letting you life pass you by, sitting at home and not doing anything. True, but it is my life. Not answering to anyone. Doing my thing. Doing what I want to do.

And overall, I have my space, my independence. My own being.

Selena, dear ol' Selena, needs to understand that it is not about her. Not about her at all. It is all me and my psychological issues of wanting space. And ultimately, I don't think that is going to change. I will always constantly need my space. I don't think it is something that I can give up. No. I can't.

I made my sacrifices. Growing up, being on my own for so long, from the sweet ol' age of 22, I've had my own space. From the sweet ol' age of 26 or 27, I've grown into who I am today, comfortable in my own skin. I have my found self of me...what many people have been searching their twenties or maybe their own life for.

That is the smart ass dick who constantly needs space.

To go from having all my weeknights alone to do what I want and my weekend days and nights to do what I want, living my life as I please, not answering to anyone....perfection...to being with someone 4-5 times a week, is a drastic change in my life. It is a drastic drastic compromise I have to live with, a decision that sometimes I regret, but I need to do to change. That's ultimately, what I want to do, but again, it's tough. It's new. It's scary, and sometimes it is SUFFOCATING. It isn't because of Selena, no. It is because of my innate need to need space. All rooted in me growing up with my family.

That will never change. I need my space.

So when I see Selena's stuff encroaching in my little sanctuary of home, it's scary. It's frightening. Change. Things are happening and I don't know how I feel. I don't mind the things of convenience but when it comes to clothes, that I don't understand. There's no purpose of it being there. It's not a matter of convenience at all. It is something that is encroaching on my space.

Maybe she's just marking her territory, or maybe to her, it is a matter of convenience to leave them there, but I don't know. It's scary. It's frightening. It points to something that is serious, but it really isn't. To her at least.

To me, in my mind, we aren't just dating. We are actually going out. She's my girlfriend. I even changed from saying "the girl I'm dating" to "my girlfriend"...because to me, that is what we are, and also because it is easier to say. But to her, she doesn't see it that way. We are only dating, not exclusive, and are able to date other people.

I can never date anyone else, because it would require me to give up more time than I'm willing to give up, and also, I haven't met anyone else that made me want to spend more time with. Almost all of my time I have been spending with Selena.

Again, ideally, I would love to have a relationship where we two are able to spend time together and that we both have a separate life outside the relationship. Maybe I do need to find someone that needs their own space too, to be able to do things on their own without the need for my company. That would be ideal and I know of only one relationship that is that way.

It seems that even Bradley and Rut-to-the-ledge have the same problems before. But eventually, they made a compromise.

I have compromised, but again, it just seems that I need more space. And honestly, looking ahead, I don't know that if that will ever change in me. Not anytime soon.

I would just love to have my free time and just go to a movie on my own, to sit there and relax and just watch and not worry about entertaining anyone. I just want to be able to sit down and watch, analyze a movie, because they mean so much to me. Movies, films, are my life, my passion. It is something that I want to take part in making, and I watch to learn, not just to be entertained.

Sometimes I will rent movies to watch just because I want to learn from it, because it is similar to a movie that I am writing. So I need to watch it and learn from it when I can. Grant it, again, that I can make the compromise to invite Selena to watch, but other times, there are just movies that I need to see and waiting is not an option. I don't know. I 'm just stubborn.

I'm just stubborn to change, to give up my valued independence and space. Something that I sacrificed so much for. I lost so much because I needed this NEED for space.

I wasn't there when my beloved grandmother passed away. I wasn't there when my father passed away. Things I had to sacrifice, things that made me regret moving down here to find myself, to find my independence, to pursue my dream.

I gave up being with my family, my loving father and mother, to pursue this movie thing. Movies are important to me. They are a livelihood that I want to have.

So, watching these movies, needing my space, not having someone to answer to means that much to me because I gave up so much, and lost many that are near and dear to me because of this selfish need to get my own space.

All in all, it is not a matter of being with Selena or Selena herself that is causing this problems. I know for DAMN SURE if I was with someone else, this would happen. I will always feel suffocated and need my space.

It is just a matter of finding someone that understands that, a matter of finding someone that is willing to give that to me.

If not, then I'll just be alone, with my space, and I'll be okay with that.

I have to be.

How can the one I gave my heart to just go ahead and throw it out and stomp on it the way she did? How could I have fallen so blindly into this lust of affection and attention knowing all too well what will happen?

Am I a fool to believe that she can be different, that she will be better than the rest? I must be a fool to think that way since it seems to be happening again.

The wretched pain of yearning and not knowing what everything is about. She keeps close but distant, the ultimate game of have but can never have.

It's a evil game as this poor marionette is manipulated by the heartless puppet-master, stringing him along, making him jump through hoops to prove to her that he means everything he said. She is special, beautiful, and truly a wonder.

Yet, she plays games. She has my heart on the ground with her heels over it, ready to stomp and squish. My heart is nothing but a bug that doesn't deserve to live. It is a nuisance that doesn't needs to be ended.

My heart, my heart, my poor little heart that only seems to beat because that's the only thing that it is sure of doing.

Everything else is a mystery, a mystery that it doesn't want to solve. Why? Why?

It'll just end up in more heartache. It'll just end up in more questions with no answers. The frustration it feels is legitimate as it goes about its business.

Such a sucker for love; a fool for love. Nothing more can come out of this. Nothing good can come out of this. It is just a petty game that it can't afford to play anymore.

* * *

It seems like it has been a while since I've written in this dear ol' blog of mine. It comes to a time where I really don't have much to say but have everything to say. My mind seems to be a jumble mess of mixed emotions.

There is joy, regret, laughter, sadness. A mixed bag.

I just don't think I can clear out these emotions anytime soon. They are just here and it seems it will always be here regardless of whatever happens. It will always be here despite everything I've tried to do to trust.

There's always that lingering feeling of doubt, of what is happening, of what is us, and what is this, and what?

I just don't understand anymore, and it just seems that I'm just a fool to believe that it can be anything different than what I've already been through. Who knows? Maybe she is telling me the truth and I should respect her privacy and trust that she is true.

Trust.

There is that word again. When can I ever trust people fully again? When?

I don't know anymore. I don't know much about anything anymore except that life goes one with the beat of time. Life is just life and I just need to face it as it comes.

SERIOUSLY

If it happens again, if my heart breaks again, I just have to allow it to happen. If she lies to me, then she lies to me and I have to deal with that. If she actually does have something that I need to know or should to know and she doesn't tell me, then that is something that I need to deal with.

People are selfish. They only want the best for themselves and nothing else. No one is ever that selfless. Never. Not even me.

* * *

My eyes and mind cloud over as the remnants of the alcohol takes over, leaving me the ickiness of the "icky-shuffle" of my brain. It happens time and time again, more frequent now with my tired eyes and tired body.

Old. My body can't take this shit anymore. Old. I'm getting too old for this shit. I'm getting too old for these late night excursions and drinking drinks of multiple ounces. Just too old for this shit.

I guess it wasn't the drinks that actually put me over, but more of the combination of many factors that put me over the edge. Just horrible.

Yesterday was a mess day of sickness and queasiness. Just a blah day of the worst kind. Just a blah day of the worst kind.

It's been a while since I've felt that way. The movie didn't help, nor did the lack of sleep.

It's just funny how things are. It has to be an age thing or something, because when I was young and the insomniac that I was, I had no problems at all with the 4-5 hours of sleep that I got. Sometimes it was much less. Now, anything less than 5 or 6, I get a grumpy mess of zombie flesh.

My mind just doesn't work. There's no focus, there's no relevant or significant thoughts. All there is is the constant reminder of why I should not be drinking, why I should not be staying up so late, and why I am just old. There is only pain. PAIN.

Just a walking zombie of messed up emotions of pain and pain. There is nothing more as I try to put on my best face and hide my queasiness as I show up at the family dinner. I couldn’t do anything but just sit there and eat and just be quiet in my own little hermit way of antisocialness.

I smile my polite smile when I need to. Ask my polite questions when I need to. Swear off the alcohol when I need to.

I sit there in misery as the young'ins laugh at my pain and my misery. It is LOVE when you know that family can laugh at you and you don't get pissed. It is love when your family can laugh at you and your pain and your misery.

Because it is only a small insignificant pain. It isn't anything drastic, life threatening or life changing. It was just a bad hangover. A tired mess of BLAH!

I felt like shit. Words of concern as my uncles and aunts ask about my well being; of why I am not as fun as I use to be. Concerns of why I'm not drinking. Am I quitting? Just a simple "I'm tired" and "I had too much to drink last night" was all I can manage.

It is true.

Actually, I didn't have that much. Not that much at all. It was a decent night that led to a horrible morning. A disgusting morning of ugh.

Sigh.

Home is what I yearned for. My loving bed that never betrayed me before. My favorite thing in the world when I feel that way. I want to make love to it just by being there, wrapped up in my blankie and just die. And I did.

* * *

It's raining. It's been raining for the past week, week and a half. Some of the days were bad, horrible. Just a torrential downpour of precipitation. It even woke me from a deep slumber.

It's refreshing to see the rain, overcast skies, and just downright feeling of home.

I miss the rain. The lovely sweet softness of falling rain on my head. Tiny rainy drops that caresses you in the tantalizing shower.

I just can't believe why anyone would not like the rain. It cleanses the soul. It cleanses everything that it touches, making it new and refreshed.

It just changes the landscape and the people a little bit. None of this rushed impatience that I'm so use to down here. Everything is at a crawl with the eerie emptiness because not that many people like to go out in the rain.

Just a refreshing mess of love that I enjoy when it appears here in the land of the SoCal sun. It's a change of pace, a pace that reminds me of home. A slowed pace of relaxed laid-backness of just so whatever.

It's rain. RAIN. I love the rain.

Jumping up and down in a puddle as the rain just pounds and pounds and pounds you from atop the sky.

Where do you go? What do you do?

Life is just an unblended emptiness that is slowly filled with the constant ticking of your heart that matches the rhythmic ticking of the proverbial universal clock that we do not see but feel through experience.

It is blank the second before and the second before that and will slowly come painted as is, in full Technicolor with each tick and tock.

Life is just a funny funny little thing.

I never appreciated it before. I always harped on the negative, being so critical and analytical that I am. All aspects of my life is constantly dissected in my mind, turned, prodded, poked, and dissected some more.

I live a life full in the past, always thinking of the what-ifs possibilities that I can never relive and never rechoose my choices; living with the regrets of poor decisions that I've made time and time again.

But as always, life is all about experience. It is all about going through the motions, going through the actions, and seeing for oneself how things are to gain that valuable life-experience of "being there" "doing that" so you can say that you’ve "been there, done that" and you can move on and not look at it anymore.

Live and die. Love and hate. There shouldn't be any regrets and there shouldn't be any self-pity and loathing on your part because any choices that you made or missed opportunities that may arise is all because you chose at that time with the information that you were given. Making the snap decisions of life that everyone does time and time again. There's no time to think about the choices you made at that moment. That time comes after you make those choices and you struggle with the idea whether it is a good choice or not. Is it a good choice?

Should I stay or should I go?

I don't know. That is the big question. That is the big question that is hanging over my head right now. Should I stay or should I go? Again, I can't base this decision on anyone, no one. It has to come from me. I have to come to this decision on my own and I have to live and die by this decision.

Moving home. That's big. That's huge. I never thought that 2008 is going to be so full of changes. New job for sure. Possibly a new/old home? Who knows? It's all up in the air. Am I scared, frightened about my future?

If I say that I'm not, that's a lie. I am scared, a little frightened about where my life is going to end up after the year. Fuck, by the middle of the year. Where am I going to be?

As the time flies by, and the more I think about it, the inkling feeling that I should move home is gnawing in my skull, my brain, my heart, and it's becoming such a prominent thought in my head that I can't shake it anymore. I can't think about it too much, because it will just blind my decisions, coming up with "reasons" for me to move back, to comfort me. I can't do that. I can only make the snap, thin-sliced decisions, that I am so used to.

Go by my gut, go by my instincts.

Now I'm not saying that my gut is the Golden Compass that is never wrong. Fuck, that is not the case. I have made some bad decisions in my life based on my gut, but overall, I do trust it. I'm still trying to learn from my gut, what to actually believe and what to dismiss. It's not easy, because that sinking feeling in your gut just sits there and then the rational part of your brain steps in and makes you step back and rethink things. It reins in the impulses that I usually have, to make my decisions based on feelings and emotions.

What should I do? Where should I go?

Don't think about it too much and just let things happen. You know what you want to do when that time comes. I'm just needlessly stressing myself out, creating doubt that I can't afford to have because my small tiny brain is full already with things that I do need to think about.

I broke the news to the rest of my family today that I'm going to move back...sooner or later and that there's a possibility that it might be sooner. March is my deadline.

It was set by Cat, but again, I can't rely on her. I have to come up with my own decision to stay or go independently of her. She doesn't even know where she's going to go yet. I can't rely on that.

I can't read it. I can't read us. I can't read what this is going to be. There's this reason of doubt that it is going to last, because most likely it won't. It just can't. There's just too much there that is so unknown. But there is that fucking optimism again. It's just there too, thinking that it all might work out for the best. That there might be a happy happy in there. Whether there is a ever after, "HA!" is all I can say to that.

I don't know what my future brings. I don't know what it will be like if I do manage to move home.

All I know is that I'm old. I feel old. I have always felt old, have been old. I'm just an old wise sage. Will I find a job that supports myself and my dog up in Washington? Where will I live?

All I know for a fact right now if I do manage to move home, I can't live with anyone. I will be on my own, in my own house or apartment with my dog. That's what is important to me right now. My independence, my freedom to do whatever I please with whoever I please when I please without any watching critical eyes of family.

How far away from family, my mom, will I be? Who knows?

I don't know, I guess for me, with my old age, I'm finally thinking that I am ready to settle down, maybe start a family if I am ever fortunate enough to find that girl. Who knows about me? Who knows right?

Will I have an outlet to make friends up in Washington? Will I have an outlet to be social? Will I be the social hub or will I just do whatever I please and hang with myself like I usually do?

I don't know anything anymore.

How about the writing? What is going to happen there? Will I abandon it like my abandoned scripts and projects? What am I to do, because I moved down here partly for that? Will I just give up on my dreams of being the Director/Writer so easily without a fight?

Does me moving back mean that I have resigned my dreams and admit defeat that I will never be what I try to make myself out to be?

I don't know. It is sad to think that. Really sad.

But I did try. I made an effort, and I guess hopefully I will continue with it, albeit slowly, but I will continue with it. Going at my own pace. Doing it on my own whim and will.

How hard is my life going to be when I move up? Will I have to battle the bouts of depression because of the lack of Sun in the Northwest? Will I have no friends? I don't know. It's just there and open and a little scary to think that my whole life will get uprooted again and I will have nothing and start fresh again.

In a way, it is refreshing, but in another way, downright fucking frightening. I mean, c'mon dude. DUDE!

As I'm getting older, I just have this nesting feeling, this nesting sensation. I want to just make a nest in my own home, with my current son Pickles, and maybe start a family of my own. Maybe not. I don't know what cards I'll get in the future on that front. I guess I just don't know what my life brings, but I do know that I want to nest, to just settle down and start a family.

I can't imagine doing that down here. Things are just so expensive. Very very expensive. I can't afford my own place. If I do manage to find someone and get married, what about children? Can I raise a kid down here with the exorbant cost of living? The spendy small houses with non-existent yards? Can I?

I don't know. The lifestyle and the people here is just so different from how I grew up. Material things matter more down here than just downright genuine sincerity and good people. Where are all the good people at?

Sigh! That's all I can do about my life right now. Sigh!

Maybe I'm I just need a change to reinvigorate my life right now. Maybe a new job will help. Maybe being in a new city will help. Maybe new friends will help. New hobbies. Just new things. Just different things. Just a different lifestyle. I don't know.

Just a lot of things cloud my mind as I don't know what I want to do. The constant indecisions that just make up my life. That's what I am, a thinking machine of "I don't know". I don't know. Indeed.

There's a change in the air. There's a certain sinking feeling that I pretty much have to start making tough decisions in my life and I'm not sure if I'm ready to make them.

A large part of me feels, believes that I am truly ready to make these decisions. These decisions will help guide me in the right direction in my life. The direction of finally settling down and being the adult that I know I am destined to be. But am I truly not sure how I can handle these decisions.

These thoughts and choices are just clouding my head as my deadline approaches. Things are just so up in the air right now with my life that I'm not sure what I want.

I can't count on anything to make my decisions but myself.

I think the thing is that I can't really decide on which way to go. Life is so uncertain. Life is just so blank right now; I can't see anything but what is right here, right now. The future is too clouded with "what ifs" that I can't base anything on that. I just have to wait and see how things play out.

I don't know, it just seems that there are quite a bit of signs that are leading me to think that a huge change is about to happen, or need to happen.

I don't know how big of a change this is going to be, but it is going to be huge.

I just need to really decide on what I want. It just seems that I never know what I want until it is time for me to decide. I live and die by my decisions. No regrets. Live and die.

Change. Moving. Signs. It's just everywhere. Everyone I know seems to be going through a huge change this year. It's just weird. Really really weird.

I'm not going to say that I'm going back to my old ways of seeing signs and interpreting them the way I want to see them. I can't. That's just too arbitrary, but it does happen. It happens a lot. It's just too much of a coincidence that this must happen. Just too much of a coincidence.

My life is going to change a lot this year. Tons. I can already feel it already. I'll be losing friends because they'll be moving away. I'll be losing loved ones, because it just happens to be that way. Life is life. We lose things. It just happens and I can't do anything about it. Nothing at all.

It happens.

Scott and Rutledge are moving back to South Carolina later in the year. I'm not sure when, but they are. I love them. They truly are great people and they are one of the biggest influences in my life to be who I am today. They were my outlet to be social. They helped me feel comfortable in socializing, which I never did before. They were a huge part of my growing process to love and accept myself.

It's just going to be strange that eventually, we won't be hanging out anymore. Whether I make that decision or not, eventually, we'll never hang out again.

I knew for a while that Yen will eventually move back. She misses home and family. She's the type of girl that likes to be around family. I don't blame her. I just didn't know when she's going to move back. Even now, I don't know when she's moving back. I've been telling her to do it for a while, but with her grandmother's death, I thought she would be going back sooner. She hasn't made up her mind yet on when, but she knows for sure that she is most definitely moving back. She's just not ready to do it yet. I don't blame her. It's too new, too fresh. She needs to take her time on this. She can't rush on this decision. She has to wait, get a clear head, think it through and then make that decision when she's ready to. She can't force herself to make this decision. It comes naturally.

Change. It's coming hard and it's coming fast. Am I ready?

I don't know.

A friend of mine just recently broke up with her boyfriend, who came from the Pacific Northwest. They've been together for about the past two years or so. They just broke up because they are just too different. They want to do and like different things, and things just weren't working out.

He doesn't like it here in LA. There's a chance that he'll move back to the Pacific Northwest. But, I don't know if it is going to happen. I don't know at all.

It just seems a lot of my social outlets have been changing. They are moving away, doing their own thing, changing their lives. And in a way, I'm just being left behind. I really don't mind since I really do move at my own pace. Slow and comfortable.

Jun is having another baby. She seems excited. Her life is coming together, slowly but surely, it's coming together. She's getting the job that she wanted and working on another degree that will get her better things. Her life is coming together. She and David are thinking of buying a house. I'm guessing they are going to move out to Rancho Cucamonga. It's the really the only place that is affordable, but fucker is far far away. It's not like I hang out with her at all, but this will most definitely mean that we won't hang out ever again.

I'm too good for the IE, the Inland Empire. It's just not for me. Nothing is really out there. Nothing at all.

Changes. It's happening. I can see it happening, and I'm doing what I always do. Sitting and waiting, taking in everything before I can make an informed decision. I have to evaluate all the different choices that I have and how it may or may not impact my life. Lots of things are just bouncing in my head and I can't come to a conclusion. I just can't. I have to detach myself a little bit more and look at the whole picture.

Lots of changes and people leaving. It's frightening. What am I to do?

Cat is leaving. She is, so she says, so she thinks. She just doesn't know where she wants to go. Seattle. Colorado. Guam. My decision needs to come separate from hers. I can't weigh my choices on her choices. I can't count on her, I can't count on that. That would be a brash thing to do, a brash choice to make, basing everything on her. She has her own life to live and I can't make that choice for her and I can't base my choice on hers. I just can't. Wherever she decides to move to, good for her.

I have two options and those are the ones that I need to focus on. Those are the ones that I need to think about and separate it from her.

For a long time, this thought was always in the back of my mind. It never never seriously thought about it. It just wasn't for me. I always knew that home will always be there, for me to fall back on if the "shit hits the fan" so to speak for me down here. I never seriously thought of it as a option for me.

I just know that when my time comes for me to move back, I will do that. I just never knew when. It was only a fall back option for me. I never seriously entertained the thought of doing it. It just doesn't happen, but it did.

I guess it was Thanksgiving with the bonding with my mom that made me rethink the whole thing. Cat's decision or thought of moving to Seattle may have played a part, but it really didn't. Being home for Christmas really did open my eyes and allow me to see what can actually happen. It feels good. Really good to be back home.

I just don't know if it will or can happen. When? I just don't know.

There are a lot of things to think about and consider. Tons upon tons.

I have to think of my family and what they think. I know my mom always wanted me to move back. It's her wish for me to move back. Seems like every time I see her, she'll bring it up.

I don't know what Hien thinks or feels about me moving back. I'm not sure if he likes the idea or not. Maybe he likes it up there, on his own, doing his own thing. Maybe I'll cramp his style. I don't know what he thinks. But, I can't consider his feelings or others. I have to only think of myself and come to that conclusion on my own. I have to do my own thing. I can't count on anyone else. I just can't.

But I know for sure, change is in the air and it is going to come. I just don't know how it will play out. I just don't know. And it is the not knowing that frightens me but excites me at the same time.

2008 will be the year of big decisions and the year I grow up and be an adult and make adult decisions and begin my life as an adult.

Tons of choices to make. Serious choices that affects a lot of people. My decisions here and now will affect a lot of people in the future and I can only hope that it is the right decision. If it is not, then c'est la vie, I'll have to deal with it.

Life.

What a fucked up thing.

I don't exactly know when I just lost my absolute trust of people. I don't know when or why I don't trust most people anymore.

Sure if you are family, I have no reason not to trust you. Sure if you are a good friend, I have no reason not to trust you. For the most part, I trust my family. For the most part, I trust my friends, some of them, on different things. With Scott, I trust him completely, with my life. With others, not so much.

I just don't know why I have problems with trust. For the past couple of years it has been a huge problem of mine. Huge. My lack of trust, or the constant nagging and doubt because of something that I can't understand or I don't know.

I think it is not a matter of trust but more of the matter of not understanding, not knowing, and for me that is frustrating. Very very frustrating.

She told me it was over, over over. I had no reason to not trust her. No reason at all. I don't know her well enough to not trust her. She gave me no reason to not trust her. Well, there were some things that created doubt, but that's me.

When I have doubt and certain things happen, and given enough time, my gut starts acting up. It starts nagging. Red Alert. Red Alert. Abort. Abort. I start to go crazy. My head turns into a circus entertaining ideas from everywhere, imagining things and scenarios that back up my little doubts and not knowing. It kills me. It absolutely kills me.

My problem. My issue. Trust.

She tells me it's over. She was really tired. I could understand. I should have seen, but I heard other things. My brained, gut, and intuition all processed something else. It processed something totally different. Images ran in my head. Ideas start to flicker out of the ashes and start to flame up, and soon I'm just consumed in all of these thoughts that hold no truth. They only hold truth in my mind, in my head, and we all know that the mind can psych us out. Mind Fucks.

That was it. That was that. My doubts. My frustrations. My lack of trust.

When did I become this way?

Is my pessimism still there, thinking on nothing but the negative. I thought I gave her the benefit of the doubt, but obviously I didn't because I automatically jumped to conclusions. I jumped, leaped, sky dived to these conclusions. And I had no right.

My imagination took over because of snippets of information and knowledge that she told me or that I gathered or that I put together. Put everything together, they aren't concrete. Not enough to make snap judgments.

Sure I was upset about it. Sure I'm upset about what happened, my insecurities, the whole situation and miscommunication. I fucked up. I fucked up royally, but it's done, and all I can hope is that we can pick things back up and start again.

I don't know, I just got a feeling that you were hiding something from me. I don't know what it is and I can only put the pieces together with my own thoughts, my own insecurities and from what you gave me. I put things together wrongly this time and made the wrong assumptions.

I should have trusted you that you were tired. I should have. I shouldn't have assumed that the call that you got when you were calling me was him. I shouldn't have assumed that he talked you into making plans with him after you had dinner with me and that for some reason you went along with it. I shouldn't have read too much in your tone after you called me back and that slip in your speech was you holding back your emotions and your tears because you are lying to me. I shouldn't have assumed that. I shouldn't have assumed it at all. I have no right. I shouldn't have read too much into the change of plans that you made and really accepted what you told me as fact, that you were tired and you wanted to sleep.

I should have trusted you. I should have, but I didn't. Thoughts rage in my head. RAGE. Out of control. Gone. Gone. Gone.

On the phone last night, clearing the air, it was just a bad time to talk to me. I was letting my emotions and my heart lead the conversation and that is bad. I was upset at the time, not thinking clearly, not at all. I couldn't do anything about it. Nothing at all. I was just pissed and disappointed.

I wanted to be there with you. I wanted to actually spend New Year's Eve with someone I genuinely cared for that way. But it didn't happen. You were going to pass out on me again. I bore you that much. But you were tired. Really tired, and I should have seen. You made me dinner. You. I should have seen that you were tired.

I'm blind and dumb. I just couldn't see. I only see what is in front of me and what my mind tells me to see. Sometimes that is never accurate. Doubt clouds my vision and mutates it into something that isn't there.

I don't know how I got this way. I really don't. I don't know if I was ever like this before Star.

A part of me thinks that I was. I would pick up little things that go against things that people will tell me, contradicting things, and I just catch it. Something is not right. Some people I can read, other's I just can't. I can let some things slide with some people, because I really don't care about thing. Sometimes, I just can't let it slide, because my heart is involved and I really care for them.

I just don't want to get hurt again. I just don't want to get my heart torn out and stomped on. It's been through that time and time again. Fun times. It's done having fun times, and just wants good times. Serious times. I don't think I have the strength to put the pieces back to together anymore, and I don't even understand why I just feel so protective of my heart. It's really not like I've ever truly fallen in love. Just crushes here and there. But to me, they were big, they were real, and my heart can take no more heartache.

Thinking back I guess I can pinpoint the start of this. It all boils down to one person, one relationship. One act of betrayal that just left me even more cynical, even more jaded, even bitterer. BITTER.

The twinkle twinkle that was Star.

She royally fucked me over. To her defense, I should have known and I should have ended things on my own. I was just too naive and much too green to realize it at that time.

We never defined what the relationship was to be. We kept it open, because that is what she wanted and it was my first. But, again, I never kept it open. It was just her for me, while she shopped around and kept her fuck buddies. For a while we would just spend our weekends together, with me spending the night and such.

One day, she told me about a guy that contacted her on myspace. She tells me he's nobody, just a Asian guy with a thing for White girls. He had his friend talk him up. Cute. Yes. Anywho, he was nothing. Nothing, so she tells me.

I was a fool to believe. I believed her.

On my ritual drive up to Fresno for Thanksgiving, I thought I'd surprise her. I stopped by her place to give her a rose. I called to make sure she was there, and I stopped by. She was with the kids at that time.

She did something that I thought weird. She met me downstairs. She met me outside with open arms, a hug, and a few smooches. Sweet, but I should have known better.

She tells me the guy that contacted her from myspace was in her apartment. See, for any other guy, red flags should be going. Fucking warning sirens should be blaring out and punishing your ear drums.

Stupid 'ol me was, all right.

And there he was. The dude. The dude that means nothing to her. The dude.

We chatted, did our thing and I give her my rose. I looked at her bathroom and she has flowers there. Not from me. From her "others" I'm sure, but it's from this dude. This dude.
[
I left and thought nothing of it. I left and thought nothing of it. We talked throughout the break and the time I was in Fresno like nothing happened. We talked.

Since then I felt her pulling away. Drifting away. The weekend before my company's Christmas party, we went shopping for clothes to wear. I was tired, because she knows that I have problems sleeping over at her place. Just not my bed. While I took a nap, she was outside, doing something. Making a new mixed cd. She tells me it is for me, but I don't know. I trust her. I was blinded. Not because she was beautiful, not because I liked her, not because she was my first for everything. I was blinded because I was too trusting and too naive.

The Friday before the she was out clubbing with a friend. I thought it was a girlfriend, but I didn't know. I went out to play poker with my circle and that was that. I picked her up late Saturday and she was tired. Up all night, partying and what not. I looked at her bathroom and there was another bouquet. Not from me.

Again, I should have known. I should have let it go because we are in a open relationship. Only dating and nothing more. But, I can't. It was my first. I didn't know the rules and ultimately I am just too nice.

We drove by a restaurant and she told me that she and her friend had lunch there this morning. So this friend stayed the night. He would call later too, but I didn't know. She told me it was her fuck buddy. Life went on in my little head. Nothing was wrong. Nothing was out of the ordinary.

Got to the hotel room early and we started to mess around. She didn't want to do anything, because she was too tired. She stayed up late. C'mon, it made sense to me. She was out partying, living it up. That's it.

So I let it pass.

I think a few days went by. I got my place and was in the process of moving my small stuff over to the apartment and I called her. I told her I was happy that I got a bigger place. She could come over anytime.

There she told me. We weren't a match. She didn't tell me she found someone. She just told me that we weren't a "right fit". I was pissed. Upset. Betrayed. I knew better. My gut was telling me something. Something was wrong. All the signs were there, blatantly in my face. I just ignored them and took them at face value for what they were. I trusted her. That was my fault. I trusted her.

She cried and cried. I didn't understand why she was the one that was crying. She's the one that was ending things with me. I was the rebound. I should have known better. She used me to make herself feel better about her last relationship. She used me because I was a nice guy. I made her feel better about herself.

Being used FUCKING SUCKS.

I had my suspicions as who this guy was. I checked her myspace page and sure enough, it was him. I knew. I just knew. My gut was right all along. I knew.

I lost my trust. I lost everything. I didn't want to be in that again. It wasn't that I was heartbroken and that we broke up. No, it wasn't that, because I know I would have done it sooner or later. It was just that she strung me along, used me, and never told me. I was so nice and naive, she used me. She LIED to me. I don't appreciate being lied to.

I don't appreciate being LIED to. I hate being lied to because I will never lie to anyone when it comes to things like this, because I know better. It's just not me. She fucked me over. I can never trust again. I can't. I trusted her and I got killed, heart shattered and grasping for my last breathes.

I never imagined that it would happen. I never did. Fuck me for being fucking naive. Fuck me.

It was my fault. All my fault.

Why is it that you make me feel this way? What is it about you that I can't quit?

I've only been around you for only a matter of seconds but it seems like I've been with you for an eternity. Just one sip and I'm gone, gone, gone; drunk into oblivion without a care.

Every time I caress you, hold you, and put you to my lips, I quiver at the excitement that you will bring. Excited and blood rushing. Thinking about it now, I quiver at the thought of when I can get another taste of you. Thinking about you now, I quiver at the thought of the euphoria that you bring me. I am bewitched by your intoxicating essence. I can't quit you.

You are so multifaceted that I can't imagine coming close to figuring you out. Are you sweet as a plum or bitter as a lemon? The hoppy taste of wheat or the smooth tangy grape juice that I love. What are you going to be today, tonight, tomorrow and forever? Who will you be?

I'll be riding high without a care. Dancing into the euphoria of bitter sweetness that makes me warm and giggly. Buzzing with enlightenment. There's just so much of you, I can't consume you all, but it is just that one sip, that one taste that makes my heart pitter patter for more.

I'm weak for you.

Your soft wetness that touch my lips, teasing me with the effects that I only feel when I'm around you.

Oh, to be drunk, oh to be buzzing. It's the best feeling in the world. It's like a brand new me. You make me feel new, different, strong, and bold. You make me throw away my insecurities, my faults, and allow me to be the best person that I know that I can be. Oh, it is only you that can treat me like this. You treat me so good, so well. I am yours, yours, yours. My liquid courage.

Caressing your bottle or rubbing the stem of your glass, I tease, I touch, just waiting for the time when I can take a sip again. I take it slow, making sure I take you all in, making sure I taste every last bit of you, till the last drop. I do not rush it, do not force it, because I want you to last forever.

With all the joy you bring me, how can I ever have my doubts of you? But, reality soon sets in and I hesitate and rethink you for all that you are.

The doubts rush my head, making me rethink all the reasons why I shouldn't.

The pain the morning after, if the high ever goes away. The wrenching headache and muggy thoughts and slow thinking. I move like a zombie, constantly in pain. It's one of the worse things I've ever felt; up there right alongside heartache. The wretched thing that is the hangover.

Porcelain hugging over the bowl heaving up all that was consumed, all of you, and things that weren't you at all. The yellowish-green bile that sits in my stomach that shouldn't be coming up at all, burning my throat all the way up, leaving that nasty burning acidic taste in my mouth that can't be washed out no matter how much mouthwash I use.

With too much of you, memories fade to black as things get lost. I lose precious memories of precious moments of my high time in my brand new self because of you. I don't remember who I became under your influence, I don't remember what I've done under your care. I can't risk me always forgetting who I am and who I can be. I just can't. I can't risk you forever changing me into someone that I know will ultimately be my downfall.

Loss of control, doing things that I normally would not do if I'm not around you. Saying things that I would later regret. Being free without any restraint. There are many pluses to these things, but I'm not sure if they outweigh the negatives at all.

My doubts of being able to have you forever and forever because I don't think that I can do that forever if you always treat me badly.

I guess I just need to find the balance, enjoy the good and not worry about the bad. Maybe I just need just a little bit of you instead of the glutton consumption that I normally do. I just need to learn to ration just enough of you to make me feel the euphoria that you make me feel without the pain afterwards.

Can I do it? 'Cause right now, I love every moment that I have with you, but you will always bring me pain, doubt, headaches, and unclear thoughts.

What shall I do? What do I do?

I guess I'll just have to go along with you, and your constant teasing, you making me the way I am, because I can't quit you. Hopefully I'll manage to live with the pain, or maybe I'll be able to step back and ration enough of you to live with a healthy balance. But if it comes time for me to quit you, I will.

It will be painful and heart breaking because you make me feel things I haven't felt before, I haven't felt in a long long time. It will be difficult, gut wrenching to let that go. It will be worse than any pain that you cause me now and forever if I keep you up. But it is better to feel the worst pain ever in one single moment, one single second then to feel a life time of excruciating pain.

I'll have to make that choice. I'll have to see how we are. I'll have to see how we balance out. I'll have to see. It is only in time that it can happen, and I hope that I can make the right choice and do the right thing. I can only hope and that's the best that I can do.

My trip home was very very short lived. Very short lived. Only a week, but in a way it was long enough. I didn't get to hang out with that many family, but the family that I did hang out with were the family that I enjoy hanging out with. Well, except for one, he's the black sheep of the family and I don't think that we've ever connected before.

We just don't share similar interests, and there's nothing I can do about it. Maybe if I hung out with him more? I doubt it. Out personality just don't mix. But, meh.

It just struck me today as I was rereading my yearly reflection that I still call Seattle home. I guess maybe it was a conscious effort that I wrote that, or maybe it wasn't. It just slipped into my unconscious as I rambled along, but I don't know. Home is home you know?

I still believe that I can never go "home". I can never go back to the thing that I once called "home". I just can't. Things just changed so much during my absence; it just isn't the same anymore. Everyone has grown up, I have grown up. There are so many changes. We all have our own lives, busy doing whatever it is that makes us us, that it's hard to go back to that time anymore.

Again, as I've gotten older, there are family members that I don't care for, or that I don't care about hanging out with anymore just because I've changed so much. I see things differently now, and that's not going to change or revert back to how I was. Why go backwards? Why?

Just going back for Christmas, I can feel that. I have a greater connection now with my mom's family then the extended family that I grew up with. Maybe they are just younger, or maybe I just miss hanging out with them. They are fun, well fun in my eyes. I can give them shit and they can't do anything about it. I'm their older cousin. HA!

But, it is all good. It is all fun. I loved spending time with them. I'm able to talk with their parents like I would talk with anyone else. Honest and my smart ass self and they respect that. They won't get offended if I say something different or something they don't want to hear because they know that they can’t tell me how to live my life. Because I don’t even take that from my mom, why would I take it from them. That's how it should be.

We all have different opinions. If you don't agree with an opinion, voice it and then we'll talk it out. Don't take it personally. I'm just sharing an observation. They understand that people out there have different opinions, diverging viewpoints, and they are okay with it. They understand that other people think differently and see life in a different way.

But going home, visiting, it just changed things for me again. Again, I think I'll be able to move home without any problems. I think I'll be able to fit in comfortably with the new group of family that I have connected with. I don't care if I hang out with the ol' gang, because I have my own. I'll show up just to be nice and catch up, but that is the extent of it. I have other people I want to spend my time with.

I don't know, maybe I'm just in the family state of mind. Looking back, I've always been in that family state of mind. I love family, but I did move here for a reason and that was to start a new life and change and grow. I finally have.

But, out of the three family members from the usual group that I hung out with, two of them were older and have families of their own. And again, I'm old. I think like an old man, and that's probably the reason why I'm able to chill with them because we think the same way. We are able to wax poetic about life and how it should be lived because we all share the same philosophies.

It seems funny how a lot of us are so different but not all that different. Take Hien and I for instance. Out of the two of use, I'm the most Chinese between the two of us. I speak more Chinese than he does. He practically almost has forgotten his Chinese. I'm more into Chinese music and Chinese Movies then he is. He has some interest in them, but not as much as I do. I'm Chinese. But again, I'm trying to reconnect with my roots.

He is comfortable with being who he is. And if it works for him, it works for him.

The same thing goes with Menty and Kiety. Kiety is me and Menty is Hien. That's how family is. Yet, we are all the same. We all see things the same way. Life is life.

Kiety finds it fascinating that I'm reconnecting with my roots. I'm trying to learn more about our family and our family history. He's shocked that I listen to Chinese music. He claims that he remembers the Vietnam days like it was yesterday. I think I may have found another history outlet in our family. He'll be someone I can ask about family stuff.

Again, I don't know when I started to get into the family history stuff. Maybe it was just all my talks and all the stories that great uncle and great auntie told me, but I'm hooked. I want to know more. I just do.

Maybe it is this reconnecting with my roots thing that made me feel so grounded and so calm. I'm no longer battling to find my identity. I am Chinese and that is that. I'm not a FOB or a ABC. I'm just a regular guy who happens to be Chinese. I accepted my roots and my culture and there is nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing at all.

But again, overall my visit home was excellent. It was really really good, and I actually had a white christmas. It has been fucking seven years that I've seen snow. It was nice. Really really nice. I was outside in a t-shirt and jeans and some busted slippers, but it was great.

My time up there was pretty chill and relaxed. I just stayed with family and didn't venture far. I had a car, but I just had nowhere to go. My mom was pretty much home the whole time I was there so I just spent it with her. The only day that I had any free time to myself, I visited my mom's younger brother's family and just chilled there. It was really really good.

Ha. I didn't expect to be drinking that much when I was up there. I really didn't at all. I didn't really expect my brother to drink also, but he did. It's really really good to see him bust out of his shell. It's fucking great to see that he's slowly becoming his own person, unafraid to do the things that he was afraid of doing before.

It's also funny that we came from the same parents but he has the Asian allergic reaction thing going on when he drinks. He turns bright red and nothing happens to me. I guess he just needs to drink a little bit more and build up his tolerance. Ha, during Christmas day he took a sip of wine and he's getting hot already. Just need to build it up and he'll be fine.

Buy yeah, I'm an alcoholic and a horrible social drinker.

Christmas Eve, I spent it with Menty and his family. His kids are so cute even though Ella was being shy and didn't want to play with me. Boo. But I had a little too much to drink. 10 drinks and the last two were pretty strong because I made them myself. Rum and coke. Can't fuck that up. I woke up with a hangover and I drank even more the next day.

Hien had a few drinks too. Menty couldn't believe it, but he did. Maybe I bring out the socialness in him. I just hope he continues with it.

Christmas Day was the worst of my drinking. It's a big social family gathering for my family and I was cooking. Apparently no one liked my cooking much, but dammit, it wasn't that bad. It was decent dammit.

Anywho, I started drinking about 1 pm, since dinner was about 3. I started with a bottle of wine which I practically drank myself, then another bottle. Let's just say I had about 2+ bottles of wine myself. The last few hours of the dinner I don't even remember. I don't even remember some of the text message convos that I had. But apparently it reads coherent. Oh, I kind of drunk text a friend on Christmas Eve. I kind of passed out for a few hours near the end.

But yeah, I was feeling really really fucking good that day. That was the first time that I got drunk in front of family and my mom. And I'm not a bad drunk. I'm a happy drunk. I'm the "I love you man" drunk. It's all fun. There were a few accidents but it was all good.

I'm just a social drinker and thankfully I don't do that at home by myself. That would suck.

But all in all, it was good to be home. Christmas was fun and it pretty much seals the deal that I know that I would want to move back there someday. It is a nice place to settle down and start a family. Maybe I'm just at the point in my life where I feel that I can do that.

I might be able to afford a house up there myself. If I do start a family, my kids will have cousins around their age that they can grow up with like how I grew up with my cousins. We'll all be one happy family.

But all in all, I have to reiterate, life is fucking good right now. And most of it is because I learned to live in the present, taking it one day at a time and just letting go. Whatever happens, happens. There are no expectations, nothing to live up to. Life is complicated enough, might has well make it simpler.

Life is good.

I'm home. Sitting here in my usual writing spot in the beautiful state of Washington, I'm home.

I read through my blogs this morning, to reflect on the year that was. I read through my big blogs, my yearly blogs of growth; the blogs near my birthday and the year end diatribes to see what insights I had during that time in my life and see if anything has changed since then.

It just amazes me that another year just went by in a flash, a blink of an eye, and again my experiences have become my memories. It is placed alongside the memorable and the unforgettable. The pluses and minuses of having an elephant's memory. You never forget.

So, Christmas time at home; the end of the year; I have to do my yearly Bah Humbug and try to jump into this thing I call my yearly reflections.

2007. Wow. What can I say? This has been the year of my biggest change. I actually do have to admit that this year really came up on me and surprised me the most. My life changed so much this year in such little, subtle ways, that it just baffles my mind how it can happen without me knowing.

Where do I start?

Writing.

The writing that I've done this year has been exceptional. It all started with me finishing with the SUM of love. Again, as I've written in my birthday blog, it is the best thing that I've written. It took me three fucking years to finish the mother fucker, but it is finished and it is really good. I was able to mix the subtle humor and the drama almost perfectly to make it work, to make it flow, to make it stand out. The situations that I put my characters in seem real and not forced. It is just a very natural script and it strongly demonstrates how I've grown and matured as a writer. I'm able to take my time and perfect the situations and focus more on the characters and let them grow as a person and be able to dictate the direction of the script.

Not too long ago, I went to a little "talk" with UCLA's Director of the Screenwriting program, Richard Walters, and he read the script. He said that it was a really really good script of drama. I was able to blend themes and topics that the masters themselves do. Now, he didn't say it is perfect, as I know it isn't perfect, far from it, but it is really good. I'm proud of myself. Really proud.

Magically through some x factors and a stranger's good grace, it is in the hands of a producer at a small production company. The last I learned, she was 20 pages into it. I'm not hoping for a miracle, just that it is read and I'm looking for notes. I'm trying my fucking damnedest not to be excited about it. If she likes it and wants to produce it, great. If she doesn't, c'est la vie. That's what I say.

Now, again the SUM of love took me about three fucking years to write. A month later, I started my last/current script, tentatively titled A Ghost Story of Some Kind, and I am finished. I just finished shortly after Thanksgiving. This is the fastest script that I finished in a while. It took me about six months I would say. Not bad at all. This is also the shortest script. Maybe because it is so rushed and so short, it needs a page one rewrite. It's bad with tons of potential. The writing group has it now and I'm just waiting till the end of the meeting before I reread it with fresh eyes.

This past year has been a very very productive year for me. It really has. I know I still waste a lot of time, but I manage to make something with the time that I don't waste. For that, I'm happy.

The strict schedule that I have in writing, plus the betting schedule I have with Scott, helps tremendously. I have a set deadline of eight pages every two weeks or it is $10. I'm not going to lose to him (knock on wood). I'm not.

Finding a new place to write is good also. Volcano Tea, my favorite boba shop. Not because I like boba, I really don't, but because it is a good place to write. I go in, sit there for about two hours with my 1s and 0s and just plunge into my fantasy world that I think of at that time. Sure it has its own distractions...the loud noise, the customers, the boba girls and the boba girls.

But it is a good place to write. It is a good place to clear my head.

I think I have been going there weekly since the end of last year or earlier this year. My dear readers, as you can tell by the limited numbers of entries I had this year, you can tell that I've been busy working on something else then my regular diatribes and jibjab nonsense of whatever that flows in my head. I've actually been working.

Life.

Life is fucking good. Life has never been better, and I don't know who or what I have to thank for that. Life just changed so subtly that I didn't know that it changed.

Again, there's this confidence in me that just came out of nowhere. It was never there before, but it magically appeared like Lucky Charms and it is "magically delicious'. I know my years down in Los Angeles and steady personal growth and change that happened since I moved down here, especially of the past 3 or 4 years after my father's passing, helped tremendously.

Again, I'm so comfortable in my skin. I know who I am and I know myself inside and out for the most part. My flaws. My strengths. Everything; and I'm able to live with them without any problems.

The smartass, dick, nice guy, asshole that is me. I am okay with that. I am okay with being the dick when I'm frustrated and pissed off. I am opinionated and think in a different way than most of my friends. I'm okay with that. I know where I fit in and where I don't. I'm okay with that. Tis is life. I am me, and here I am.

I don't know, I guess having a great group of genuine/real friends help tremendously. They allow me to be who I am, and they understand who I am for the most part. They don't want me to change or try to change me. They just accept me for who I am and that is all that really matters to me.

With that, I don't know, I guess I just got more and more confident about myself. There's no insecurities of being lost and trying to find my way as I did years and years before. That was a really really tough time for me and I surely surely do not want to experience that again. Knock on wood. Hopefully I'll never be there.

Maybe the whole confidence thing goes hand-in-hand with another thing that I noticed about me this year, my sense of optimism. Again, I don't know where this came from, but it freaks me out. I've never been so optimistic in my life. Most people see me as the pessimist, me, I think of myself as a realist. I never thought that this optimism will come. Again, it probably goes hand-in-hand with the whole confidence thing like peanut butter and jelly. To be confident about oneself and one's future and having faith that everything will turn out all right even when times are tough. But I know in the end, the realist will take over and see that no matter what happens, it was meant to happen, good or bad, especially the bad. Life is life, and life is shit. C'est la vie.

It's just nice to know that my life is finally slowing down and I'm able to relax and breathe and be comfortable in this pace of life that I'm living. I'm able to just do whatever it is that I want, go anywhere I want, and hang with anyone I want, when I want. If they are doing something I don't want to do, I don't go. Plain and simple and they are cool with that, because they know I can be picky on what it is that I do with my time.

I'm just at a point where my life is comfortable. I'm fixed. I'm fixed. I'm fixed. My anger has subsided. What little issues I have left are things that I will slowly chip away at, at my own leisure. I have faith that eventually, I will be totally fixed and there's nothing left for me to change.

I guess it all goes back to personal change and my realization that I'm not perfect. There are a lot of things that I want in my life and to get them, I have to slowly change. Again, I need to make this change on my own and not change for someone. I need to change for myself. If you change for someone, how is that a change? It is only a compromise for that person, and what if you aren't with that person anymore? Will you revert back to the old you?

Also, why would someone want you to change? If they like you, they should like you for who you are? They shouldn't be thinking that, hey, this person is a little fucked up, but he has great potential. He'll be my new project. It doesn't work that way. A great movie that demonstrates this is Neil Labute's The Shape of Things. For those who haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.

Most of this change in me started, I don't know when, but it became more and more prominent towards the middle of the year. Why? Why indeed.

Maybe it is because of Sheilah. I told myself and my friends that after her, I'll give myself a year. I'll take a break from things in a year. I wasn't ready to jump back into the game; not like I have any game, but I wasn't ready to just go find another relationship, whether serious, or casual (which I can never do anyway). I told myself that I give myself a year.

After then, if I find someone that I like, I will hopefully make an effort to ask her out or court her in my own little pathetic little way. I suck, I know. At least I know I suck.

So, come July, it was on.

I don't think I've written about this, but for some odd reason, I had a feeling that I was going to find someone by the end of the year. It is near the end of the year and have I found someone? I don't know. Maybe? I'm the type of person that over think things, and I am most definitely over thinking this right now, but I'm just going to let things be and hope for the best. It's the only thing I can do. I'll just have to open my eyes and just see and experience.

Any who, I'm jumping into tangents left and right, telling a story like Dalia tells it, but eventually I'll get to the point. Just bear with me readers, bear with me.

Any who, I guess one thing that prompted this little change in myself at the middle of the year, besides the whole Sheilah thing, is a health issue.

I blogged about my chest pains. I don't think I wrote a follow-up about it, but my cholesterol was a little high when I went to the doctors in June. Again, there were some dull heart pains that came and went for a few months. Knowing my family's history of heart disease and my father passing away from a heart attack at 44, I got a little worried. My coworkers tell me to go see the doctor, demanded that I go see the doctor, and I did. My cholesterol was high. 200.

He recommended a regiment of exercise and eating healthier. So, that was June, and I decided that I was going to start exercising and eating more healthy to begin with come July, but this gives me a greater incentive. So I consciously made that change for myself. I changed my diet and am hoping that I can go back to the healthy diet now, ran every day, and started to lift. Blah blah blah blah, and it came down. I'm not sure where it is, but I think it is okay. I just need to exercise more.

Any who, but ever since I started to make that conscious effort to change, things started to happen. That confidence thing that I told you about earlier and also a few coworkers commented about how good I look. I don't get that many compliments about my looks, because they are so whatever and I know they are so whatever. There are sometimes that I think secretly to myself that I'm hot, but I know better. Even now, when some coworkers, especially the Austrian, say I'm good looking, I laugh at the ridiculousness of that comment. I'm flattered, but c'mon man. It's me.

Any who, it was a great confidence builder, and eventually as the months go by, I noticed certain things. Strangers will call me cute, or I would lock eyes with strangers and they would smile the smile. I have to say, it's a good feeling to be noticed. A really good feeling to be noticed.

So, this conscious change is a good change. And I never looked back. It felt so natural, like it was a natural change in my life. Something that happened for no rhyme or reason but that it was just a part of life.

Maybe because I'm 28, going on to 29. I'm 28 years 8 months old. It is about that time that astrologers call the return of Saturn.

I'm at that point in my life where things are just perfect; I'm ready to just settle down and face my 30s. I'm no longer lost in my quarter life and things are just falling into place. I'm at a point where I'm ready to settle down in my life. I'm at a point where I'm ready to step up and live the life that I've taken so long to grow to be comfortable with it. It is going to be fucking nice to be able to just live a life without any insecurities.

And to help me take the step into the right direction, I started to date again. I went out into the field and braved the daunting women.

It was in July that I went speed dating with my cousin Yen. It was an experience that I will never forget. I believe I met about 45 girls that time for about 2 minutes each. Some girls were tough to talk to because it was just tough. They didn't want to talk, or we just couldn't find a connection. I felt good. Confident. Everything seemed to be working well. I didn't try to force things and just went with it.

I got a few matches and emailed them and I went out with one. The funny thing about the whole thing was that I don't even remember how any of my matches look like. It was just bad. Even when I went out on a date with one of the dates, I didn't even recognize her until we locked eyes and gave me the nod of recognition at our designated place of meeting up. The date went fine, we chatted and it wasn't awkward at all. It just felt more like hanging out with a friend. I really wasn't attracted to her at all, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why I marked her as a match. Later it turned out she was crazy. I sure know how to pick 'em. Fucking crazy lady.

Then later I decided to do eharmony again. I don't know what prompted me to do it, maybe it was the discount that they gave me, but I did it for three months. I would get these matches and start emailing, but I only met up with one. It seems that they keep on sending me matches of Asian girls, who want to be teachers or are teachers. Just weird.

Looking back, it just seems funny that for the longest time, I was never attracted to Asian girls. But now, I have the fever. Maybe it was just because I grew up with a bunch of white people and that I didn't find that many cute Asian girls up in Washington and ever since I've moved down, I'm seeing more and more attractive ones. Or maybe Sheilah had something to do with it, or maybe I’m just getting desperate, but I'm so into them now.

One night, I saw a picture of a new match and thought she was all right, kind of cute. So I contacted her and we were onto communicating outside the service already and I looked at her picture again. Ugh. Not so pretty. I didn't know what I was thinking, but I always give them at least one meeting because some people just aren't photogenic. So I went out and it was what I expected. I wasn't attracted to her, but the date was great. We went to dinner and the conversation was great, everything was working out, but one thing was missing. Chemistry. I didn't feel any chemistry with her. It felt more like hanging out with a friend than anything else. I didn't get that feeling of wanting to call her right after the date just to be able to talk to her again. All I felt was that I needed to get home and be with my dog.

I gave her a second chance to see if it was just the first date jitters, so we went out again. I met her coworkers and we all got along great. But again, something was just missing. It just wasn't there. I knew for sure when it was over, done with. It was when I knew I didn't want to touch her. I'm typically a very touchy feely person. I'll put my hand on the small of your back, or walk close to you so my arm would just softly glide across your arms. But, there was just nothing there. One time she would hook my arm to slow me down because I was walking too fast. Normally I wouldn't mind at all. Though I didn't say it, all I thought of at that time was that she can let go anytime. She can let go any fucking time.

So, eventually I started to not reply to her emails or take my time in replying. I would never email her first and eventually she got the hint. I feel bad for not coming out and tell her, but I just couldn't do it. It's funny, a few weeks ago, I went out to play basketball with a friend of mine and I saw her at the park. She was going to play soccer and she was practicing near the parking lot, which is near the basketball court. I couldn't make her out for sure, but I'm almost positive that it was her. I tried my best to hide myself behind the basketball. I suck, I know.

Other than her, I really didn't meet up with anyone else. I would email and IM another girl in particular and we have maintained that "pen pal", friends in the empty void, relationship and will chat from time to time, but we never met up. We spoke on the phone just once and that was it. Will we ever meet up? I don't know. She's always busy. I asked her out once and she just ignored the question and I just left it at that. And now, I'm her slave.

I don't know how it'll be with her if we do go out. I'm sure I'll just be my smart ass self because I'm not going to try and impress her. There's no reason for me to try and impress her, so things might go well. The pressure is off, if you will. I don't know, but again, I don't think we'll ever meet up, not even to date, but just get dinner or something. Darn.

Oh, and if you are reading this, HI!

But that pretty much brings me to the end of my dating experience, or my 2nd attempt on eharmony. I'm also chatting with this other girl on there, but I don't think it'll ever work out. She lives too far away.

But all in all, my eharmony subscription is over. Things just never work out with me and eharmony and it is always things that happen outside of it works.

So, the girl that I'm supposed to find by the end of the year. I may have found her. She's the boba girl. It took me a damn long time, but it finally happened. It had its missteps, but I think things will work out in the end. See, there's that fucking optimism again.

But all in all, life is good. Life has never been better.

I know I posted this in an earlier post about my family history and how I bonded with my mom, but this year has just been a fucking great year where I've grown up even more and became a better person. I was able to bond with my mom like I never had. I'm comfortable with my life and where I am in my life that I might even considering moving up to Seattle again. Sure there are some reasons that are out of my hands that prompted me to move up there, but if I do end up moving up there, I really don't have a problem with it.

The only thing that I'm worried about is the weather and the lack of sun. I believe I'm the type of person that needs the sun to help with my moods. I think, 'cause it's been a while since I've been in a gloomy place. Maybe I'm just so fixed that it doesn't affect me anymore. I don't know.

All I know is when or if I move back, I'll be living alone with my dog. That's all I want. My mom can't stay with me...not yet. I'm just not ready for that.

So there it is. 2007 is the year that came out of nowhere and surprised me. It will forever always be a year that I will never forget. It is one of those years that changes your life and the direction that it was heading all for the good.

I'm not sure what 2008 is going to bring me. I already know that it is going to bring even more changes and tough decisions. Decisions of moving back, finding a job, making new friends, motivation to write, a serious relationship, maybe. 2008 is going to be the year where I'll be an adult and make very adult decisions in my life. It is the year that I'll settle down.

But till it happens, when it happens and becomes another faded memory in my mind, I'll just take it each day at a time.

So come on 2008. Bring it to me, bring it on. Make it memorable and beautiful.