Listening: Tori Amos
Mentally Replaying: The Beatles
Aches and Complaints: really tired

preliminary thought: staring at a blank entry is sometimes like staring at a wall and the first few words end up being like bouncing a rubber ball on the wall before inspiration eventually shows up

So I've got this journal, right? But now I'm hitting an impasse on what to put here. I look at it as kind of a way to inform any interested parties on the stuff that is going on in my head. I don't figure I'm all that interesting or important, but I do value other points of view of the world very highly.

As an artist though, I firmly believe that one of the things I struggle for most in life is some kind of communion with others. I want to crawl into other people's heads and have a look around. What little glimpses I have gotten have been so delicious as to be all but addicting. And I want add to the give and take.

But the way this whole journalling thing has gone has given me much food for thought and sorta left me feeling somewhat dispirited.

But it's not really journalling, stalking friends, blogging or whatever that has left me depressed. It's just what I'm thinking about at this particular point in time while the general feeling of down-ness continues.

Stuff that has crossed my mind recently: how do you address people who are shifting out of your life when you are easy proximity to their thoughts? Or what they present as their thoughts, anyway. It's more or less normal for people to phase in and out of each other's lives as friends and aquaintances. It can hurt, it can be irritating and the way it happens shapes future relationships. But for me the weirdness is showing up with this whole public journalling thing. I can keep up with people while being almost entirely excluded from their lives. IT's a painful sensation, but oddly it's one that I can't stop paying attention.

Little girls often concrete decide to be friends. Literally, they tell each other they should be friends. Sometimes there's an exchange - friendship bracelets or something. But the practice gets dropped when we grow up. And we never ever have situation where we (calmly) tell each other we're not friends any more. The closest I can think of is in the midst of a fight when one or both parties is in tears.

So maybe I need a way to ask people "are we still friends?" and have it be a perfectly valid question, deserving an honest, unpressured response. But I feel stupid even mentioning it.... But knowing who your friends are is important to everyone, so...I dunno.


In some way this leads me to bring up enneagrams. Please resist the urge to ditch this entry in favor of yet another quiz and finish reading this post first.

I took this quiz and the way that types are selected/favored is really weird. But the selections that are supposedly "me" are kind of scary. I typically feel it's important to understand people in order to deal with situations that arise between us. Sometimes, though, this leads to getting really pissed off when I feel like someone made a decision about me without trying to know anything about me.

Maybe I need to copy these pages: 4:The Romantic and 8:The Asserter and hand them out to people as I meet them. The "Asserter" face is totally my game face. It's the facet of me that comes out in my professional life and when I'm interacting with people who I'm not aquainted with, whether it's someone in the Cam I've never hung out with, dealing with service people on the phone or talking politics. It's the facet that has been strengthened throughout my adult life to protect my "Romantic" inner facet.

You can stop laughing now. I am romantic, to an extent, but only in situations where I can trust the people involved. I used to be much more generous than I am now, and I regret that I don't trust people as easily and get irritated more quickly when my efforts go unnoticed. The darker parts, the parts about self-hatred and fearing abandonment are very fitting, as are the active imagination and rebellion at the sight of criticism.

If you haven't ditched me to go figure out what type you are yet, then yay. Double yay, if you're thinking up some kind of comment to post here that adds to what I'm talking about here.

Sorry if I'm not making any sense though. I miss my friends, but sometimes I have to take a long hard look at who is actually on my list of friends and who is on my list buds-whose-journals-I-read-sometimes.

I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to say here, except that I feel people slipping away and it makes me think of break up songs.

we danced in graveyards
with vampires till dawn
we laughed in the faces of kings
never afraid to burn
and I hate, and I hate, and I hate
and I hate disintigration
watching us wither
black winged roses that safely change their color
--Little Earthquakes
--Tori Amos