In which I come back, ignoring the length of my recent absence.

So I was in a relationship for about a month. Then I broke it off, the usual patterns. Needed alone time, couldn't seem to get it. I never read. I rarely pursued any outside interests. The benefits of being with the other person weren't worth it to me, so I decided to end things. I didn't do it cleanly enough--I was too wishy-washy before ultimately saying what needed to be said, but it was better than past breakups [I always just ghosted or sent a "Dear Jane" text.]

I am kinda-sorta still on the apps but not really looking much anymore. I realized that I have not meant anyone yet in these past two years that have made me comfortable enough to where I am willing to give up the things I enjoy as a single person. I don't know if that's ever going to change.

Work is really miserable. I'm responsible for everthing because I was the only person dumb enough to stay there. I'm trying to re-establish my apathy toward deadlines, etc., but it's hard. And I applied to for the permanent verison of the role I have on a temporary basis, so that will be even more punishment if I do get it, and I'm almost hoping that I don't. Only reason I'm doing it is more money and easier road to retirement.

It looks like the travel plans this summer are happening, so that's something new to be excited about, though it will be a trip out of my comfort zone. I'll be with friends most of the time so it should be okay. Not sure how I'm getting around or what I'm doing after that though. And already worried about what comes afterward.

Never quite got over the end of the marriage. I'm starting to think that idea where it takes half the time of the relationship to be fully past it may be true. The hurt is not quite as deep, it's more to the dull-throb stage and not the shooting pain. Years ago in a poem I compared it to pain of a phantom limb and that is still accurate. I feel a little guilt about the recent breakup, I feel like I'm continuing a cycle of abandonment, even though I was totally imcompatible with the other person. But I wonder if that's what people sometimes do. They are left and so they feel compelled to leave others--similar to what they say about residual hauntings--an endless loop of leaving.

Something I learned today...

I decided to remain at my job for now. I have an opportunity where I want to see what happens, it could make my life a lot easier if it worked out. What's really helped lately is that I've really quit caring if people are upset, if deadlines are missed, etc. I do what I can in the eight hours alloted per day. I'm doing the job of around 2-3 people at the moment, and that number is about to increase. I sometimes get a secret pleasure from causing issues, and I suppose that's when I know that I've truly become a government employee, after years of training.

I go out more frequently but often don't really interact with people other than transactionally. But some of that is changing. Despite my issues with it here, I think this is probably the best place for me at this point in my life.

Seek You, and being seen.

Almost finished with the illustrated semi-memoir SEEK YOU, by Kristen Radtke and it's one of the better things I've read in a while. There's something about being seen in a written work, to say "Yes, this is my experience too." A feeling of validation and legitimacy that we all seek. Many things struck me about the book but I especially related to the idea that we are often performing, even when we live alone. I often imagine my life as a movie, even when I am sitting alone here I imagine how I might look on screen. I spend much of my life preparing for and trying to visualize social interaction. What I may say, how I want to look, the impression I would like to give. I wonder is anyone really natural with others? I know I felt a level of comfort with one person in this life so far, and I don't know if that can be replicated. I meet people but never feel that sense of ease or of being with a kindred spirit. I think the current model doesn't work for me, and I'm going to need to try something else...

What do we talk about now?

I've never felt like completely throwing in the towel here. Any long lapses have been due to inattention instead of a deliberate decision to stop, though I believe I did have a couple of "goodbye" posts several years back. I know at one point the job search got so depressing that I didn't want to write about it anymore. As far as my recent output, things get really repetitive around late 2020, and I don't know if I've ever really gotten it back on track.

New Year's was New Year's. Spent it chatting with different people on different platforms, all on my phone. My weekly report usually has me with at least 8-9 hours of phone usage per day, sometimes more. Maybe if I were the type to make resolutions, one of them would be to use the phone less, but it's really my lifeline. So probably not happening.

I'm still looking for that exciting book that can make me forget everything. It's getting harder to find. I'm hopeful that something is actually going to get better this year. eew job, travel plans. Something.

I don't really have a clear favorite book this past year. I enjoyed THE SENTENCE by Louise Erdrich, and liked OUR COUNTRY FRIENDS by Gary Shteyngart. The new Franzen was pretty good. I liked Colson Whitehead's THE HARLEM SHUFFLE. The Sylvia Plath biography RED COMET. Enjoyed S.A. Cosby's RAZORBLADE TEARS, and I won't even go into all of the older books I read. The libraries fullly reopened this year and that really helped me make it through. The curbside ordering they were doing in 2020 was much appreciated but there's something about being able to browse.

Still fooling with the dating apps, know I should stop, but just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in....

The better and worse of 2021....

Better: Movie theaters being open, being able to finally go out with a group of people.

Worse: My job has become more difficult in just about eveyr possible way over 2021, and I think I'm going to need to leave in 2022, one way or another.

Better: Lots of new online friendships.

Worse: Not really any in-person friendships, other than some people here I met online that I occasionally see [and they are awesome people.]

Better: Got to see my family a couple of times.

Worse: Not really able to relate well to them, and my hometown has gotten really depressing to visit to where I don't think I want to do it anymore.

Better: Vaccinated and boosted.

Worse: Don't think we're ever really getting out of this. 2021 wasn't much better than 2020, and I don't expect 2022 to be any different.

Better: Lots of travel plans for 2022.

Worse: Not sure if they're going to actually happen....

So my mental state is a little better than last year at this time, probably because I'm able to go out more. I feel some dread at how my life may end up long term. I don't see much changing, but I suppose it still can. In the words of a great philosopher, maybe partying will help...

Artifice

I've recently become acquainted [okay, through Patreon] with a somewhat well-known podcaster. She mentioned today during a Zoom hangout that originally she had a division between her "podcast self" and her authentic self, but over the past couple of years she's taken down that wall and has let the listeners be more a part of her life [of course, a lot of her podcast has been her being super vulnerable about her life and past relationships.]

It caused me to wonder about the idea of what some call "masking," which I've pretty much used as a survival tactic for most of my life. I tend to feel like all my interactions with other people are a sort of act...not that I'm phony, but I have to say and do certain things to cause the social gears to move smoothly. Everything is a performance, even if it's a really bland performance, a plastic orange.

Not quitting yet.

Skippsed a month and a half. But I've been reading a lot and went to a book event yesterday. Finished several books lately---OUR COUNTRY FRIENDS by Gary Shteyngart. I saw him speak yesterday. It's the first novel that really deals with the world of 2020. He does it in a way where the pandemic doesn't dominate the novel---it's not solely about the pandemic but the characters are all living in our times. He said something interesting during his talk, he said basically anything written from now on that is set in contemporary times is going to be about the pandemic, comparing it to novels written during WWII. d Even if they weren't war novels, the war hung over them. It's a complicated novel, with a lot of characters and relationships, but I think he handles it admirably. He's been one of my favorite writers of the last decade, beginning with SUPER SAD TRUE LOVE STORY, then the memoir LITTLE FAILURE and his previous novel LAKE SUCCESS. I've also enjoyed his earlier work, ABSURDISTAN, though I don't think I've read his debut novel THE RUSSIAN DEBUTANTE'S HANDBOOK. He is very funny in person. I also enjoy his magazine writing, he had a recent piece in THE NEW YORKER about his botched cirumcision that caused a lot of consternation.

Willy Vlautin is a local writer whom I htink I first read during my Great Recession Book Binge that is chronicled in the early years of this blog. His most recent work THE NIGHT ALWAYS COMES, has a little too much in the way of Portland fan service [there seems to be a local reference in every other sentence.] But his stories catch like wildfire and just about everything I've read by him I've read in no more than a day or two. I just picked up a novel this afternoon from a couple of years ago, DON'T SKIP OUT ON ME which I think I'm probably going to finish tonight. He says he likes to write about broken people and that's what he does. I feel so bad for the characters but I can't wait to see what happens to them next.

I just finished BEWILDERMENT, the new Richard Powers novel, and it's probably one of the saddest things I've read in a while--I'm afraid that it may be our future.

As far as my own future, I don't really know what it holds. My job continues to be a source of unhappiness, and I'm looking elsewhere, but who knows what might happen. My personal life is becoming just wake up, work, read, look at stuff on my phone, go to bed. On weekends, more reading and looking at the phone. The book event was a rare outing, though I'm starting to go to the movies occasionally with a group of people, but I don't see much changing in my life. I'm a rock at the bottom of a stagnant pond.