first day, rest life

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. That is at the same time both the most profound and most stupid expression I have ever heard. Right up there with "this too shal pass." I recall one time when I was talking with my mother. I was depressed about something and she held my hands and said, "Michael, this too shall pass." And I looked at her and tried to express to her how that statement can be used during good times, too, realizing that those are just as fleeting as the bad ones. And for that reason, that expression's versatility totally disarms it as an expression for providing optimism.

Anyway. First day, rest life. Whenever I am down and feeling dejected, I try to think of the profound aspect of that expression (ignoring the stupid part) and promise that tomorrow, not today, but tomorrow. Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life. I have this fantasy that I can go to sleep and wake up the next morning and leave everything behind me. Leave all the sadness, confusion, depression, isolation... just wake up into a new life, a new reality. One that isn't so desparate. One that isn't so hopeless.

What's all this hopelessness about? How is it possible? I have so much going for me, don't I? I am in a very competitive grad degree program, and I am doing really well. I have my health. I don't have HIV or cancer. I am not an alcoholic. I have money. I have family and friends who love and support me. So what's wrong?

Here are a few facts that I can't deny are causing me some issues:

• I am 31 years old and hopelessly single. I have been living in the San Francisco Bay Area in California for the past 18 months, the last 5 of which I have lived in the city proper. I have been on maybe 4 dates in that whole time. The longest "relationship" i've had since getting here was about a week long, with an adorable 21 y/o stoner guy who decided to end our relationship by not calling me for a week. If course, he didn't call me after the week was up. I had to run into him on the street to confront him to get some closure.
  
• My passion seems to be gone. I don't know where it went. It's just gone. I want to do so many things, but the energy and drive are gone. Where'd they go? It's like I can see a life that I want... it's just beyond a thin fog, a veil of depression and anxiety. I can't swat the fog away: it's everywhere. I just can't seem to do anything about it, and all the things I want for myself are just lost in the fog. These are not material things in any way. This is a vision of a healthy, confident young man who has a good group of friends, a host of healthful habits, confidence in his direction, security in self.
  

Is that really what it comes down to? Self confidence? Is that what separates me from my dream world? Is that what is missing from each and every of these new days that are supposed to be the first days of the rest of my life? Is that the substance of the fog? Is it a haze of low self-esteem?

If I stop and look at my life from the macro level, it seems like I have so much going for me. Everything seems so amazing. Oh, the opportunities. But then when I crawl back into my own head, I feel ugly, fat, diseased and incapable. Well, maybe not all that, maybe not all that at once.

So, what's the solution? Maybe writing more thoughts out? Maybe working with my therapist some more. Maybe going to bed with my fingers crossed?

'tis the season

So, yesterday was Christmas. Bah humbug. I haven't really been a fan of christmas for some time. Too many expectations. Too many disappointments. Too much pretending that you like something you received. Too much buying stuff for the people for the sake of buying them something and filling a requirement versus spending the time to find something you know they'll really like. I stayed in SF this christmas instead of visiting my family in Delaware. Anyway, I digress...

I spent the day getting somethings done around the house. Then around 2 PM, (5 PM EST) I called my parents and talked with them, as well as my brothers and sister-in-law. My brother put my new nehpew Harry on the phone... When I talked, they said his eyes lit up and he giggled a lot. He's 7 months old now and really amazing. A perfect baby. After the phone call, I opened the two christmas gifts my parents sent me. The first was a dachshund calendar. Perfect! Basically, the only thing I wanted. I think that my parents giving me a dachshund calendar for christmas will be a new tradition. The other gift was a bike tire inflating gadget. Not a pump, but a little hand-held jobby with CO₂ cartridges. They bought two extra cartridges and taped them to the packaging. Very cool. Thanks a ton, mom and dad. Both things that I either want or could really use.

After the gifts were opened, I decided I'd do what any self-respecting scrooge (or maybe the Jews) would do on Christmas: I went to see a movie, and then got Chinese Food. The movie was Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education. I took the Muni 22 Route up to the theater at Clay and Fillmore. Trusty nextbus overshot the arrival time and I had to wait. Fortunately, the bus runs every 10 minutes. Why bother having bus prediction technology on a route that runs so frequently? And why didn't my bus-stop, at Market and Church, have one of thoe predictor screens? (Probably no electric power available at the boarding island.)

After the flim (which I enjoyed, but I am no movie critic, so I won't bother...) I walked down to Geary street and caught the Muni 38 bus to try to head to a vegetarian chinese restaurant that I thought was somewhere along its route. While waiting for the bus, I used the wireless internet access (via google's WAP gateway) on my trusty new Nokia 6600 and was able to look up the address of Golden Era. I then tried to find a map of the address (572 O'farrell, to find the cross street) but the maps weren't coming up on my phone, probably due to the Google WAP gateway filtering out all those unnecessary images. Oh well. By the time I looked up from my phone, we were already on the 500 block of O'farrell. (Geary is one-way West downtown, and the 38 veers of onto O'farrell just west of Van Ness.) I yanked the cord and got off the bus. Alas, Golden Era was closed.

I had gotten the idea of getting chinese food from my memories of the movie A Christmas Story. The neighbor's dogs break into the protagonists' house on christmas day and devour their turkey, so they go to a chinese restaurant and get a roast goose or duck or something. So I really wanted some mock duck. I decided to head into Chinatown, to see if I could track some down. I walked up to the top of Nob Hill (whew!) and then back down the other side, when I realized that I had no cash. I knew I had spotted a Citibank or two in the Chinatown area, but I couldn't really remember where. I thought maybe somewhere near the House of Nanking. Turns out, I found one down where Columbus turns into Montgomery, I got some cash, and then walked back up through Chinatown. After finding a restaurant where I had almost eaten once (until a friend's boyfriend vetoed the "sit down and they just bring you stuff" idea), I then stumbled onto Lucky Creation, supposedly Chinatown's best vegetarian restaurant. (Of course, it was two doors down from Kam Lok, a really gross divey restaurant where we {the friend's picky boyfriend, the friend, my boyfriend and I} ended up eating that night.)

Anyway, they didn't have "mock duck" per se, but they did have "gluten puff" which I think is basically the same thing. I shared a table with three other men (a gay couple, one of whom was chinese, and an aging hippie.) I also got the hot and sour soup. The meal was enough to feed an army. So satisfying.

I think i'll consider it good karma, or maybe just "Lucky" that I found that restaurant. I had even tried calling friends who I had thought would have been near computers to look it a good veg-restaurant in Chinatown. (Oh, did I tell you that I passed two other Citibank branches before I found the restaurant?)

What can I say? Ask the universe and it delivers.

Happy Friggin Christmas

Happy Christmas everybody. I think I'll go see a movie today and then get some chinese food.