THE GULF BETWEEN IDEALS AND CONCEPTS... BETWEEN THE HERE AND NOW

TACTICAL

I have been doing just fine.  Lexxie’s visit is still up in the air and her Mother and I have been trading messages on Facebook the last few weeks, much said without resolving the problem between Lexxie’s plans for her own excursion and mine for her visit.  I hope we get the opportunity to be with each other but if not…

...I can likely guilt KT to come and visit me next year!

My gout flare is gone and I am going to get back on track for my “1200lbs. lift”.  I don’t think that I am that far off in two of the three lifts. Recently, I did a chest workout that I was able to work up to a “double-double” at 260lbs. and two singles at 270lbs.  Later, I did 5 sets of 5 reps at 315 on my deadlift.  And with my squats at a pyramid of 10-8-8-6 repetitions (reps) or 315, 340, and 365 lbs., I could be ready at the end of June for my lift!

One of my co-workers did a challenge where he did 100 reps of 185lbs. in a squat, with the goal of doing them consecutively. If he racked the weight, he did 20 burpee pull-ups as punishment!  I think that he did 50 squats s straight before he racked the weight (which means he rested the weight in the rack that holds the bar) the first time, I think that he would rack the weight twice more before he knocked out 100 reps.  He had another squat challenge, one in which you double 245, wait 15 seconds, triple it, wait another 15 seconds, and rep out 5 more.  That is one set and there are ten of those with two minutes in between each set.  So I have enough fitness planned with these challenges on my plate as well as my own training plan and fitness goals.

DRAFT ANALYSIS

My latest gout flare had me thinking that I may actually need to make friends in a more tangible way.  It would have been nice to have had a friendship with someone where I was comfortable with calling upon them for a ride from school or to the grocery store.  Maybe their concern would have pushed me to go to the health clinic or emergency room to have my ankle looked at.  But as it was during the present moment, I did have enough people at both school and work who encouraged me to take a day off and have my ankle looked at.

See, that has always been enough for me.  Knowing that someone genuinely cares about me

without prejudice is primarily what I am looking for in a relationship.  Of course, it varies to the level of the relationship, because I am not going to expect anyone whom I am clearly on a casual level to be willing to go to any great lengths for me.  Yet, when it is a feeling is sincerely felt, a tugging of an emotional string that is so strong that the person who is feeling it has no other choice but to act, well, that does not need much discussion between parties now, does it?  Two movies rush to mind whenever I think along these lines as a display of sincere and heartfelt affection between people… “The Straight Story” starring Richard Farnsworth, and “Unforgiven” starring Clint Eastwood.  The motivation to act in both stories were pure and unspoiled by any but the mildest sense of self-interest for any of the major characters.  It was almost as though they had a calling of honor that bound them to their choices, and that they would have clearly have felt diminished had they not chosen the course that they took, regardless of the consequence.

One of the things that I believe is that it is not enough to want something.  No matter what you believe in, whether your believe is driven by a theology, ancient mysticism, or empirical objectivity, I don’t believe that you can truly have full faith in anything if at first you do not GIVE what you hope to receive  I think that we are born into the world as partially-filled vessels, but we do not become filled until we begin to give of ourselves.  That is when life begins to pour back into you and you become replenished and in this manner, having partially emptied of your own self, you can experience fulfillment.  And I think that this is especially true when it comes to our intimate relationships.

I do not feel that much more removed from “my early burglary years” when it comes to how I pursue close relationships.  If anything, I feel more angst for regarding my nature… for instance, I would not mind communicating and acting with those of you I have made IRL connections with, but, there are those who see me locally that I don’t bother to connect with.  I do attempt to do things with people, for instance, when I am asked I will go hang about with folks.  And there have been times where I have asked about someone else’s activities with the intent of planning an event.  Even with that, I have no real drive to create deep connective relationships with people.  Besides, my “draft stock”, I believe, has slipped.

From co-ordinating a love life that I envisioned as the “run-and-shoot”, and whose prospects were once forecasted in terms of being “top draft choices”, using the latter analogy, I think that I have fallen to mid 5th to 7th round choice nowadays.  Being regarded that low is almost certain to regulate me to “undrafted free agent” when it comes to partnering with a woman.  So that means, at least for me, it is more about the desire to be with someone than it is where I am going “in the draft”.  Because when you are down this low in the draft, it is more about how bad do you want it.

I already know that I don’t want a relationship that bad.  Do I even want a relationship “enough”?  That remains to be seen…  As far as my ever wanting a relationship “bad enough”, that should not even be questioned (but it has to be asked..!), if any of my claims of introversion are to be seen as valid self-characterizations.

“Where must we go, we who wander this wasteland, in search of our better selves.” -George Miller

Thoughts of what Nebraska and I could have been have been with me lately as well, because I don’t know if our relationship will ever advance to where we are held in one another’s confidence.  My wonderings takes me back to when we first made plans to meet in Chicago back in 2009.  Not only have the “prescience of fate” been lost between us, but so has the laying of a foundation for a relationship of any kind, on any level, been spoiled.

LIKE THE MOONSTONE, EXPERIENCE IS A HARSH MISTRESS

I have not felt compelled to make disparaging generalities about women of any specific demographic because I am no longer oppressed by the caricatures of any demographic, because I just don’t care.  Not that it doesn’t matter to me, which they don’t, at least not beyond the most superficial extensions of my awareness.  Part of that is due to my lack of participation in the  spinnings of “this and that” (see, I told you that they were not related..!).  And  ever were I so inclined to become involved in the scrum of the yearning hearts, my accumulated knowledge from any of my previous adventures and excursions would keep me from getting in the muck willy-nilly.

As cool and gratifying as it is to be a high draft choice, and as much as a boost up being drafted at all is, there are things as an undrafted free agent that are advantageous to the determined prospect.  Rather than being put into a situation that may not fit, as a free agent you get to float around and find a situation where you can maybe make your opportunity if you work hard enough for a “spot on the roster”.  And making the roster, not where you were chosen, is all you really want.  IF that is what you really want.

My laissez-faire approach to life has me question my own commitment to a relationship.  Other than the occasional “urges” (which reminds me to do kegels because you never can say never..?), I begin to question myself when it comes to committing the essential “emotional materiel” to a intimate relationship campaign.

Things that I look forward to:  Visiting Chicago/South Bend and enjoying time with friends and the big city.  Going back to Detroit to see my Dad, visit my peeps, track down Skye and again, visit friends.  And those, as well as a few other things of personal significance (getting a degree, going somewhere with my daughter KT), come ahead of growing a relationship.  That said, it still would not surprise me to find myself “in” something… but it HAS to be on mutually agreed upon terms.

At this point of my life, where no matter how you measure it, I have been around the block more than enough times to know without second guessing myself how much my happiness lies in an intimate relationship.