Strategic silence

Silence due to fear? Or to strategy? Social strategy, to avoid conflict. So is it fear of conflict? Perhaps. Perhaps it is fear of the social consequences that come with conflict what will others think of me, if they see me in a conflict? Not an always non-conflicting person anymore...
But that should be irrelevant. Another matter that appears, then, is the convenience of it. Afraid of the inconvenience that conflict would cause for the next few days? I prefer conflict to shadowy truths and repressed feelings. Open up. Say it.

Perspective

At times the intensity of humans - their exalted joy, their inspiring ideals, their sharpest of sufferings - seems to me as bland and dry as the gray bore of their unawarely deterministic lives, inconsequential to anything outside of this physical system of reactions and particle conglomerates, a boring constant across the infinite expanse of the timeline, unaffected by even our strongest efforts to change it, like the state of the ocean is to the force of its waves.

But when I manage to believe again that the possibility space is true to my perceptions, that the future is a fabric yet uncut, and holds at least two distinct states, and that I am, beyond my bodily capabilities, indeed the maker of decisions, the owner and victim of my future, the changer of the world, the forger of my destiny, then the smile and the awe and the laugh and the frown and the tear and the pain and the strength and the grief and the doubt and the fear and the bliss and the feelings and the will in others and in me feel bright and real again. I then also start caring more about buying orange juice to get enough vitamin C in the mornings.

Petty relationship muck

Complications have arisen, desipte my attempts at retaining simplicity. Apparently, our simplicities are very different, and incompatibly so. But didn't I know that?

I act, she upsets. I don't act, she upsets. I go ahead with what we'd agreed, she upsets. I grow afraid to upset her with every decision, with each novelty introduced. I dislike fear, I take up nonchalance instead. She feels upset by my nonchalance. I'm done with her. She can go, she can stay. Either way, she is not my priority now, even as she was.

As for me, I'm involved in petty relationship muck. Free yourself, dude. Free yourself. Go.

Rose

I was waiting for her outside the security area, just behind the TSA entrance where you take your shoes off and your body gets scanned. I'd brought her a hot milk tea in a plastic container that was now only warm, a little box of cashews, a thing of yogurt, a spoon, and a flower - an orange-and-pink rose I'd bought from a street vendor, with half the stem and the thorns broken off. I was dressed in jeans, a button-up shift with black and white stripes, and my black formal shoes - the mere fact that I know any of this means it was a special occasion for me.

That Friday morning I woke up early, as I knew it was due with things to prepare. She was coming that evening at 9PM, so I had to get ready. I started with a great relaxing swim from 7:30 to 8:00AM to start off the day happy and energetic. I went back home, gathered my laundry, readied my Macbook Pro, and took my mostly-empty backpack. The bus took me to the laundry place, where I dropped my heaviest load off. At 9AM I was traversing Giant Eagle to get basic needed groceries, like milk, bananas, bread, plus some of her favorites, cashews and yogurt. I took my time to pack most everything into my backpack, hung up the remaining two plastic bags from my backpack hook, and walked to the Apple Store. I got there at 9:50, and although the website said that they opened at 10AM, I was able to just walk inside.

Once there, they took my Macbook Pro and agreed to install Mac OS X Mountain Lion on it for me (it didn't let me do it myself), and I left it to them to complete the installation - I could pick it up anytime later that day. AT 10:30 I was back at the apartment, at a GTalk meeting with my 10-725 project partners to do the very last assignment for the course - the Project Report, worth .35*.28 ~= 0.098 = 9.8% of my net course grade. They seemed to know what they were doing, and though I dropped an idea every now and then, they pretty much took control over it, and I took advantage of the opportunity to wash the dishes and cook noodles for my late breakfast.

The next few hours I chatted around and found some items on Craigslist she would like - a whiteboard and an electric kettle. I made appointments to pick them up early next morning, and at about 3:30PM, I went to pick my computer back up. I then walked to pick my laundry up, and dropped it off at the apartment, picking up 6 orange roses from a street vendor on the way. It was 4:30 when I got there, and my project partners had asked me to print out the report they had finished and to turn it in, as I was the closest one. Taking it as my role in the group, I scooted off to school to meet the close 5:00 PM deadline. Printing the project report from a fresh Lion install without any pre-installed printers made it a close call, but in the end I managed to even print 2 copies of the report - one B&W and one color (the first one printed out unknowing that there were colors in the report graphs). At 5:00PM, I noticed that the "deadline" was quite soft - all I did was slip the report under the office door, and I was done with my course. Finally.

At 5:30PM I left school, and scooted off quickly to find rose petals for her coming. The closest florist to my apartment had already officially closed, but was very nice to open the door for me when he saw me looking through the window. He sold me 5 roses - 3 red and 2 yellow, and picked out the petals for me into a nice rose potpourri. Grateful to him, I left back for home and fixed up the remaining details. I opened up the roses and put them in a pitcher with water (in the absence of a vase), I cleaned up my room, I made the bed, I boiled milk and used it to make milk tea, I took a good shower, and I strewed the rose petals on the blue blanket she picked out the last time she visited. I broke off one of the orange roses to make more petals, and chose one to take to her personally. I dressed up in the button-up shirt my mom had given me a few weeks back, in my black formal shoes, and jeans. I reserved a Zipcar for two hours, picked it up, bought a pack of "Her Pleasure" condoms at the pharmacy, then drove straight to the airport. I waited for about 15 minutes at the gate before she appeared, dressed in clothes that, unlike her usual, were not particularly stylish, but did seem comfortable and warm.

She didn't seem that happy to see me - only dazed from the flights she had just gotten out of. Regardless, I was very happy to see her, and I gave her the orange rose. She seemed a little relieved but still dazed, and said she had felt sick on the plane, and that she hadn't even eaten the plane food. So we just picked up her bag from the conveyor, walked to the car, and we drove back to Pittsburgh. We made the reservation deadline with 4 minutes to spare, walked home with her red and metal-beige suitcases, and walked into the apartment and into my room. The first thing she noticed were the rose petals on the bed, and she let out a tiny, delicious squeal, the first one I'd heard from her on this trip. She seemed very pleased that I had prepared something special for her, and commented on how clean the room was, and on how special she felt when I gave her the flower at the airport.

Still, she was tired from the flight, so she took a shower, and I took the opportunity to prepare a quick dinnerette from little scraps I found - the box of cashews, the peach yogurt, a sandwich and a piece of bread she got from her plane food that I toasted in the oven, her re-heated milk tea, and a cup of soymilk. We ate happily, and then went into our room. And that's when we started.

She stood in front of me, looking at my chest, at me from underneath, as she gently touched her fingers to my arms in cute suggestion and submission. I took her in my arms and we kissed, fully, deeply, like lovers, like people committed only to one another in that silhoutted room that night.

We stood and we kissed for a while, then wanted to feel her better and pinned her to the closet wall, firmly and smoothly, feeling her delight as I pressed each part of her body with my own. It wasn't too long before she looked at me and the bed, and decided that she wanted to try the rose petals. I took off her clothes, all but her underwear, before I gently laid her down, backwards, and I saw her delight in the cool feel of the cool petals on her skin. I took off my own clothes and found myself on her, embracing her so close to feel all her pressed skin on mine, to exchange through it our passion, our intention towards the other - that full-skin embrace that for a blissful time makes you feel both protector and protegé, master and slave, and that warrants kisses across her entire body.
looking at her cute smile so close I kissed her eyes.....

Loving leech

lonelines crept up on me like a maggot hiding in a corner, just waiting for my first moment by myself. guilt threatens, and imagined future memoties in the snow and in the kitchen disappear into a parallel unmet universe. The skiing trip onto the house in the mountains, the ice skating practice sessions, the chinese and spanish one-on-one lessons... are all just vanishing future memories.

Terrified of losing myself into us, I cut you from me like I would a loving leech. You overbore me with your energy, and your joys, and your passions, and though delightful, I found little in it that was mine. I tore from you so I might keep and grow myself. I have yet skillls to learn, people to meet, ideas to consider and to assimilate, before I'm willing to invest myself into us. Now, I want to invest myself into myself.