Release the pressure that builds within...

In the last few days, I've gone from Orange County to Palms to El Segundo to Long Beach to Manhattan Beach to Silver Lake to Long Beach (again) to the Valley to Hollywood to Orange County to Disneyland (technically in OC, but another world entirely) to Huntington Beach, back to the South Bay/Westside.

Somehow, I believe I've managed to avoid Los Angeles, true Los Angeles, entirely.

Even with missing that integral part of this area, being back over on the Westside is a bit of a shock. Tan and toned bodies, surfer shorts and bleach blondes. I forget this stuff too often, don't take it seriously, to be honest. It feels so much like these people are enclosed in this one place, it's rare to see them anywhere else.

I wonder if they're under quarantine.

... ... ...

I keep forgetting if I've eaten or not. The go-go-go that my life has become doesn't lead a lot of room for food, or at least a lot of room for remembering food. Lunchbreak hit, grabbed some coffee, drove back to the office trying to remember if I had eaten breakfast, my body providing no clues to that mystery, a vague memory of chowing down a half-bowl of applesauce in the kitchen, pacing on the white tile in my rush to get going, though I don't know if that was today or last week. The smell of bananas in my desk reminded me I should probably eat, tossed down most of one, then had a couple of cashews while in the car. I need to start planting food for myself so I remember to eat. My father looked at me Saturday morning and semi-jokingly asked if I was leaning towards anorexica these days. I tend to consume more coffee than food of late. Probably should pick up a multi-vitamin to go with my fish oil.

... ... ...

Started reading Rollins' new book (no, I haven't finished East of Eden yet, though I'm still loving it, I've had this book in the trunk of my car for a few days now and I can hardly keep myself from it any longer). I wish he published more. I wish his online blogs weren't so reserved. I wish I could find more writers like him, people that let you muck around in their head, in their innermost thoughts. I value that more than anything when it comes to writing.

I so rarely want to meet famous people (though I've already met him and briefly spoken with him, some months back), so rarely care what they're up to or what they're doing.

But there you go. My mini star-obsession, my hope that there are others out there obsessed with strength and improvement, who keep to themselves and write and rage, who travel and explore cities by themselves, who read too much, write too much, and live in their own heads.

Back to work.

The Number is One.

Trying to gather thoughts... it's been a long weekend and Sunday hasn't really started yet.

At an event LA Weekly was hosting. Henry Rollins and Keith Morris were DJing. Art was on display, alcohol was free, and Wil Wheaton was reading exerpts from his latest book.

I was overly excited about seeing Rollins. The man behind the books, those wonderful books that hooked and reeled me in. It was something that sent adrenaline rushing through me, heart racing, breathing almost shallow.

I spoke with him briefly, about a song he was playing. I loved it, I wanted to go get the CD.

He was just a man, but a man who might actually understand me.

That's something that means more than anything I can imagine to me.

Understanding.

Looking at each other and knowing that we're both these wrecked and isolated beings. That we both thrive on pain, on hardship, that that's what we're good at. We can take it.

When one of my exes told me that it was if I was designed to take pain, I was blown away. But he was right, dead on to me and my life.

Other people... they don't get that. It's as though I'm in this world where people are going in one direction, and I've taken a left turn somewhere down the line and who can I relate to now?

Months later, I pick up a Rollins book, and he echos that. He writes of how the only thing he is good at is taking the pain. Someone understood. Someone actually understood.

At the event, our eyes met and held. We stared at each other, then he looked away.

And then I thought, "Did that just happen? Did we just connect?" Skeptical and trying to supress the thrill, the thought that maybe I could actually speak with someone and have them understand. To talk to another person and have them get "it".

But no, no we didn't. He had no memory of it, was just spacing out and his eyes happened to rest on me. I should be flattered, I suppose, that his eyes focused on me when they could have rested elsewhere.

Understanding.

It has become so important to me. It's not love I'm looking for, it's not the emotional thrill. I'm not looking to be romanced or swept off my feet. I'm just looking for understanding, for a person to talk to, a person that isn't mentally separated from me by a large gap of inexperience or different experiences.

We make choices in our lives that send us down flow charts, each incident separating us from our neighbors, each box we stop at a launching point to send us further down the line.

Problem is, I started going the hard way early on.

And that leaves me distant. While others are shooting down the plastic pipes at life's waterpark, I'm crawling through obstacle courses of mind and body, of social and emotional. How am I supposed to talk to these people?

Friday night, I found that I could blend. I found that I could weave myself in by slightly altering my behaviors, by controlling the positioning of the people around me. I could go into a "normal" place, with "normal" people, and take control.

I'm going to be testing this out more soon.

But it doesn't solve this problem. Well, really, if something is to be called a problem, then that means there's a solution. I'm not so sure this is a problem. I think it is just the way things are, the way things are going to be.

I know it is more than likely that I will be alone. I know I need to accept this and, usually, I do.

Sometimes, though, it's harder. Sometimes I look at someone, read a book, hear a speech, catch a blog, and I'm struck with this longing that if only I could connect with this person, then it would fill that isolating hole in me.

But I need to fill it for myself.

All I have, on this level, is me. It's a matter of what I'm going to do with it, how I'm going to experience this life, what I will take from those experiences, and how I will make myself stronger and better. It's all I can do.

I am stronger than this longing, I just forget sometimes.

Solipist

I had one of those moments today.

One of those moments where I would have done anything to escape my own skin, crawled out of my skull a la Athena out of Zeus. You hit that point where you're feeling and thinking so goddamned much you just want to get up and run. No location, no set direction, just go.

Burn off those emotions, burn off that energy.

I was reading between various projects at work, looking for my next book recommendation online, skimming through quotes of authors, trying to find that one book that will change my life... for at least a week. One that will scramble inside my brain and reorganize thoughts, introduce me to new concepts, new ways of thinking.

And then I stumbled on a set of quotes from Rollin's Solipist.

Fuck me.

I went from calm, easily distracted, but chugging along at a decent pace, to nearly incapacitated as my mind attempted to digest his words. It took me almost an hour to calm down completely, almost an hour to stop my brain from buzzing, telling me that this isn't real, that this person, this concept, this idealization is not real. It does not matter how much those words sing to me, they sing to thousands, maybe millions.

It feels like loss. It feels like there could be such an explosion there, if only the chemicals existed. I find it sad that we live in the same town, but we'll never meet.

For one moment, I was not isolated. For one moment, words bridged that gap between the rest of the world and myself. I could reach someone.

You live your whole life in this place, with set goals, set expectations. You learn to take what is given. You settle, your insides scream until they run out of breath.

I will not settle. I will be alone, or I will be with someone that makes me burn.