mahiwaga

maybe it will get better when I'm done with this ridiculous lifestyle of working, on average, 80 hours a week (and sometimes even more than that) despite getting paid essentially peanuts. but, knowing how my life has gone so far, I'm not going to hold my breath.

I found it amusing that dear S thought she should try to bolster my courage and encourage me to meet women. She serendipitously reiterated BD's mantra of mathematics, which is, if you get rejected enough times, inevitably, at some point, you are going to succeed. It is at once a very optimistic and yet very fatalistic belief system.

now, never mind the fact that I am hypersensitive to rejection. maybe I don't really quite try. it's more like I blunder into situations. this is, after all, how I got together with N all those years ago. I suppose that the words are not enough. instead I need to suffer and bleed to convince people that I really want and need them. and, sadly, I can't do it any more. at the first sign of pain, I stop and give up. which explains my massive failure rate, but I don't quite understand why it doesn't seem like it's quite that painful for everyone else.

I still reminesce about that time I told A that I really like her, but then left it at that, which I guess she was OK with, which is, I suppose, better than her saying flat out, no way. it is bizarre how a relationship that never was haunts me perhaps even more than when N cheated on me and slept with some other guy. I think my inability to show A how much she meant to me, how much I wanted her to be part of my life, just epitomizes my lack of agency in this world. thinking back to that time, I realize how helpless I am with trying to get my life going in the direction I want it to go in. Instead, I am doomed to tread paths that have already been laid out for me, and no matter how much I resist, I get inexorably pushed down these roads that people long dead have already paved for me.

I think, also, that it is funny that I also told S how I felt about her, and she discouraged me quite ardently. I think we might remain pretty good friends, but she will be married some time soon, and I'm just going to hang out in the shadows, watching other people be happy.

it isn't quite that I don't try. it's just that my attempts really, really suck.

witness the latest minor disaster. it isn't necessarily the end of the world, that I woman I am interested in fails to call me back. one out of many, I suppose. but I don't know if I can really do this mathematics thing. I can't really see myself doing this more than four or five more times without it hurting really badly, and I figure the number of times I need to try are more in the hundreds range—or worse.

heh. if I didn't hate the current Pope so much, I should just get it over with and join the seminary.

it was interesting the choice of songs my iPod decided to play on the way to Tuesday night dinner with J and friends and back again:

1. "You're the Only One for Me" by Allure
2. "It Might Be You" by Roberta Flack
3. "Everything" by Material Issue
4. "Little Heaven" by Toad the Wet Sprocket
5. "High and Dry" (cover of Radiohead) by Mike Moore

The first song reminds me of the time my sister tried to OD on Tylenol, after which I visited her for the first time at UCSD. The second song makes me think of all those times singing this song on my dad's laser disc karaoke machine. The third song was mine and N's song, which, ironically was covered by Fuse around the time I was hanging out a lot with S. The fourth song reminds me of my elementary school—this was one of the end title songs for the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" movie starring Kristy Swanson, Luke Perry, and Paul Reubens A.K.A. Peewee Herman, and they shot some of the scenes near my elementary school. The fifth song is one of my favorite Radiohead songs, and sort of embodies my plainitive demand from the universe at large. So far the universe doesn't seem to give a damn.

I don't know. I think I'll just listen to whatever iTunes serves up to me right now. Like I've managed before, there is something about music that just makes me feel better, even if nothing else seems to be going right.