The Absent Blogger

There have been some questions regarding my sudden hiatus from blogging. My trip back to Texas last week gave me an abundance of material. In fact, I wrote an entry about a heated exchange with my dad regarding his self-aggrandizing political fundraising. But I find that in light of everything that's happened since I started this public journey towards self-awareness or self-flagellation (you pick), I'm beginning to do something I promised I wouldn't: self-censor. I think we all know why and if you've forgotten, you can mine the previous entries for the answer. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy the writing and the creativity it nurtures but I'm weary of having some of my more revealing musings enter the immortal webosphere. Hence the absence.

Here's the other thing. I'm tired. Exhausted, really. After everything I've seen and done and left undone or overdone, I'm fucking wiped out. I'm still angry and not really that much closer to reaching that elusive nirvana that every self help guru calls the prerequisite to happiness: self love. But my therapist says there's progress to be applauded. Namely, my instincts for self-preservation that I found conspicuously absent. Maddeningly lacking, to be honest. I mean how many times do you have to get punched in the face by the same people before you realize you shouldn't be handing them brass knuckles and leaning towards them awaiting the next blow? These newfound instincts manifested themselves just last week.

My day had started with an intense workout with my personal trainer at 6:45am. After work, I hit the AllState (an underground watering hole frequented by longtime Upper West Siders for no frills burgers and beer). By the time I got home and got off a late night conference call, it was 10pm. Boston was in town, the filmmaker who had dissed me last December after my successful sabotage of our budding romance. He had wanted to get together but our schedules weren't aligning. I was surprised to get a text saying: "headed uptown now." Where, I asked. As it turns out, to my apartment. My roommate had registered outrage when I told her he may come by. "Do you not ever, ever, ever EVER learn?!" she screamed to both my surprise and her friend Kelly's. I reasoned that we were just friends and if anything more transpired, I was due for some loving so she should shut her trap.

So when Boston arrived and we sat talking in my living room, I wasn't completely shocked when he made his move. We had been catching up while he downed some Yellow Tail wine, he had been over for about an hour, maybe longer. He pounced on the opportunity, so to speak, and at first, I was game. But then it occurred to me that I wasn't on the same page namely because I simply couldn't stop thinking. "Stop thinking," he said sensing my reluctance. I can't I replied. He stopped. "There's something in me that just shuts down," I attempted to explain. After all, this was a foreign concept to me as well. I had never been one to think before I acted especially when it came to matters of the heart. He was surprised. "But we've been through so much," he said in an effort to bring me back to the same page he was on. But no. I said no and I meant it. I just didn't see the point in investing any more energy or emotion, no matter how fleeting, in someone or something that had proven fruitless. I also wasn't inclined to go along for the ride (no pun intended) just because it was easier. I wasn't and I didn't. And it was this revelation that almost knocked my therapist out of her chair. She was simultaneously proud and shocked. This new regard for myself, I think I'll call it my own personal campaign of shock and awe. Even if the only one who registers those two reactions to this new concept of self-preservation is yours truly.