Mumblings of a Hermit

Where doe the heart go when it no longer beats for the ideal that it once had? Where do we go when we are no longer wishing to be where we want to be? We are just moving zombies roaming the lone Earth with other zombies trying to get somewhere but never can.

Sitting here in this desolate aerospace of waiting, I sit and ponder the idea of never being able to love the love that I thought I was able to. I sit here and ponder what might have been between us? What might have been? What might have been?

I sit and sit and sit as people pass me by and I never look up to see or ever notice them. They are just the walking zombies no different than me. They experienced everything that I have ever experienced and so much more.

What might have been between us?

The flower blooms to reveal the true beauty but soon it dies without the proper nutrition that it needs. I am not a botanist nor a gardener. I am just a lone wanderer that came across this flower and was entraced by its mock beauty. I was blinded by its exterior beauty.

I went to it, sniffed its sweet aroma only to be poisoned by its scent. I fell trap to her sweet disguise. I fell trap by her amazing beauty that I fail to realize that I can never take care of her. I am not a botanist nor a gardener. I am just a lone wanderer.

I came to it not knowing what it is that I need to do to take care of it. I watered it, I fed it. I gave it all the nutrients that I thought that it needed and nothing more.

The flower is a strange being. It needs more than what I can provide. It needs much more than what I have. But I was too far gone, too far entranced by it’s beauty to realize that I can never keep it alive.

What else can it possibly need? Fun, entertainment, affection that I can no longer provide? I gave it much love, much heart and warmth. For a time, this dear flower did blossom for me. It blossomed and showed it’s beauty, but again, I was too blinded to see the true color is only black.

The thorns prick me and prick me. I bleed and bleed. My heart is dry. It bleeds no more as no more tears fall from my eyes.

All that burns in my veins is angry air, bitter air, jaded air.

The flower dies and leaves no seeds. There is nothing left for me to take. The flower, the seeds bloom somewhere else. To have someone else find it. Maybe he can take care of it better than I can. Maybe he is invincible to its sweet poison.

I know I was fool to fall for a flower. The scent made me weak. The sweet touch and pefume that it emits made me gaga for nothing else.

I knew I was getting in way over my head. I am no botanist. I am no gardener. I cannot take care of it. It will just die in my hands. It will die in my care.

So it did. It left me with nothing but bitter sweet memories as I pull out from her poison. Withdrawal was a bitch, but I’m through, I’m done. No longer under its control. No more.

It leaves me with nothing left to do but to wander on like before; the listless wanderlust zombie of yore; putting one foot forward and dragging the other until I fall down and never to get up or I reach my destination. Whichever comes first.

Slow and sure. Slow and sure. I get back to the daily grind of writing. I get back to the daily rambling of the nonsense of a senseless man of nothing.

Words flow and flow to the ether of space only to leave nothing words and meaningless poems about nothing in particular.

Waiting and sitting for my time to fly off into the world and be the bird in the sky that I’ve always wanted to be. Flying north for the winter that is upon me. Never south as that’s where everyone else goes. I go where no one goes.

I am the headless wanderer that goes wherever his feet take him. They go left so I go left. They go right so I go right. Right left right left left right right right, pretty soon I’m back to where I started from. Never leaving where I always wanted to leave.

From the ether I came to the ether I go. Gathered from the dust of the world did I come from and back to the worms and the bugs I will go.

Insect food is what we will always be, insect food is what I strive to be. Nothing but giving back to the Earth that provided for me.

Blinded by the mist that slowly comes my way. I’m lost in the silvery gray wetness. It suffocates me. I am so in it that I cannot see what it is that I am doing. Lost and lost, no equilibrium to keep me straight.

There is no more guiding star to take me where I need to go. No beacon of light to guide my way. I follow on and on like before, with only my gut insticts and my senses….

the days go by and i feel the shoulders all cold and wintery. they turn tail and run to get away from me; this molester, pervert stalker. they want nothing to do with me.

i walk around the office with accusing eyes following me. their eyes remind me of what i’ve done. they judge me and pass down my guilty sentence…rightfully so. i am guilty for the things i done, i am guilty for hurting someone so close. i am guilty.

locked in a prison without bars, a prison without guards, locked in the prison of my mind. my mind is racked with guilt, with guilt, with guilt. guilty as charged.

they look at me and they look at me. “what happened to him?” they ask. “how could he do that?” they question. the answers escape my mind, because i don’t know why i did it. i just did it, without thinking, caught up in the moment, and now things are irreversibly broken, fallen to through the trajectories of entropy and disorder.

i never thought i would be capable of doing it. i never thought i would be. but apparently i am. does this mean that the thing that my long lost friend accused me of almost a year ago is true? does this mean that i am a bad person, horrible person, taking advantage of a situation that presented itself? it just makes me wonder is it true. is it true.

i feel that it is. i am wrong, i am wrong. i silently judge myself as the harrasser that i’ve been coined.

i am a horrible horrible person. i am a monster. i am a sick perverted sicko. i just am.

Thoughts gather about the other night. As I sit here and run through everything, just going through the night, minute by minute, second by second. It will be a night that I will never forget.

The turning of the new leaf has left me into the brand new plant that roots in all things. I live my life as with the rising and the setting of the sun. With each day, it comes and goes with the new experiences that came to pass.

What is there for me to look forward to now that most things are done? I sit here, just anticipating what is to come. I sit here thinking of what might transpire. I sit here full of confidence because of what came before. I sit here.

Things seem so different now, things seems so strange. The cats are out of the proverbial bags and they are all free to roam wild, free and confident without fear of anything. They run wild, like my heart runs wild with these feelings of feelings, which I cannot explain or decipher their true meaning.

What is to become of me? What is to become of these morals that I hold dear? These once beholden truths of life that I lived by, that I once hold so dearly? Will I become the type of man that I so truly despise not so long ago, or will I be a better man than I’ve ever been.

Now it just seems so easy to get together and catch up on the things that we’ve missed in each other’s life. Now it just seems so easy to get together and do the things that I’ve so hated not so long ago. The mobile walkie talkies and conversations through the impersonal personal void.

Now it is all things giggly and blonde with the junk in the trunk and the trancer who moves with the beat. All that is in my thoughts is the wild blossom that I’ve been fortunate to find or is it the blossom that found me.

Holding and scrubbing, rubbing and jerking, touching and cleaning. Things that I do often enough but never before. Firsts. Firsts. Firsts.

Oh what a night, oh what a week, oh what a month, oh what a year.

A year of constant change. A year of constant stripping. A year of bravery that will never be forgotten.

What is there to matter now that I had some of the pie? Maybe I’ll get hungry enough to finish it this time, to not hesitate and jump right in. Things are just right. Things are set in motion.

You win some, you lose some. Things go and go.

I never thought that it would come true, I never dreamt that it would be like that. I never dreamt that it would be that night. I guess dreams do actually come true.

I never thought that a flower could pluck me and that it is people that pluck flowers. I am truly mistaken for I was plucked out of obscurity.

After Just Like Heaven and Freedom to fly and be the colorful wonder that I am, I never truly dreamt that it would go that far.

It started slow as things should have started. Heartfelt conversations to get you to trust me, to help you blossom and open. To get you comfortable with who I am and what I’m all about, and that is to be with you.

I just wanted you to show me show me show me how you do that trick so I can truly say that I know how to do it. You taught me to relax, to be gentle..go go with the flow. Little flicks here and there and that is all you need. Soft and soft.

Then through the dark, I found you. My hands guide their way, patting through the dirt, the ground, to find you. Down on hands and knees searching and searching, then my hands finally touched you.

Down at the base. Your stem. I worked my way up, softly caressing your petals and your leaves, rubbing your stem with my soft touch. I bent down to smell your sweet aroma, your natural perfume that you emit oh so softly.

Gentle and gently, I moved my hand to admire you in the dark. You are a rare flower that I have never known. I gently explore, going deeper and lower and there you were, slowly opening up your sweet blossom for me. From there, I plucked you without hurting you, without damaging you.

I took you home and prepared you for show. I cut down the stems and cleaned it from the dirt and sands of the wild. Sprinkles of water splash down on us, cleaning both of us at the same time.

In the light is where I truly see your beauty. There in the light is where I got to finally see the beauty that I’ve been exploring. I carefully cleaned. There I brought you closer to me so you could feel the affection I have for you.

When your petals finally touched me, I shivered with your soft touch. It was something that I truly never experienced. A first for me. Many firsts for me. It was a find that I will never forget. A find that is forever burned in my memory.

Then I layed you down, drying you off, getting ready for the big day ahead. The day where you will be presented for all to see. My blossom. My shining star.

We rested up as best we can before the rise of the sun will start the big day. There we lay, me and my blossom, shined down upon by the waking sun. I bring you closer to me, so I could feel your soft pedals on my skin. With a few quick strokes, ecstasy.

There you are on the show, my prize possession, on that golden pedestal. There you are. There you are.

The “outing” life is a life that I was just introduced to. It is a life that I’ve been told that I needed to start a long time ago. That will be the time when my life will truly start, a turning of a new leaf. The “outing” life.

Seeing things, meeting new people, getting comfortable in the things that I usually hate. I guess I am turning a new leaf with this new phase that I am just entering. This is the new me, the new plant that I have become.

I have become the jib jab of the social, joining ranks with most civilization, doing whatever it is that I usually do, but doing it more often, but now with people I hardly know. Talking, joking, holding hands, cuddling with the rest of them. The Talk Soup with mobile gadgets that I rarely put to use.

The new leaf, the new plant that I have become. The sun shines its bright rays down on me and I soak it up, for it gives me the sustenance that I need to survive in this social world.

Before I was weak and withering in the cold dark damp place under the cloudy skies of the north….and even in the sunny skies of the south. Now I got my sunshine, more than I can take and it has shaped me into the healthy being, comfortable with the “same name” and with the “Goldilocks” that I’ve come to know.

The long walks down the pier and around the blocks, the dinner conversations with American Pie and Small Towns along with the unlocked “Secrets from Victoria” to the “stomach thumbing” and “boy shorts”. Watching the movie about my hypothetical future self…the virgin in me.

Things cease to surprise me. Things cease to wow me, to blow me away, but I am blown away by all things all at the same time. The chase around the office by the 8-year-old cute sweet play “monster’ or the cry fest with the 18-month-old that I didn’t know how to control.

The experiences comes very few and far between which keeps me interested in keeping on this small quiet “laxed” life that I live so I can experience the next small wonder that put that “cute smile” on my face.

These moments they come and go, come and go, like the people that come and go in my life. I’ll talk to just talk, to keep the company, to show the ropes of the relationship where we stand, but I do things on my own, describing my own aesthetics to life to show to me that I am my own being, not to be trifled with or to be directed into doing something that I do not wish to do.

I let life come searching for me as I live my life day to day going with the flow going through the motions going with the motions like the rivers that constantly flow.

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in mine) because that is how hearts should be carried when you fall into the thing that has been so elusive to so many people. Your heart is the heart that will beat in sync with mine.

You are the “Tiny Dancer” that tap dances and keep the rhythm to my soul. You are my quartz $0.25 watch that I wear constantly because it was the first thing that I got, the one thing that I found, that just so enraptures me.

You are a find, a treasure, a lost object that makes me enjoy doing the things that I never enjoyed doing. You are the thing that makes me be the better man that I know I am being just because you are there with me.

The pink trash cans with the swivel tops that my heart usually goes in shuts its trap forever for my heart will never be rejected again….it is time for me to reject the heart of others because they know that I am the treasure that I just described.

I am the find, the treasure, the lost object that makes them enjoy doing the things that they’ve never enjoyed doing. I am the one.

They see that in my eyes, my smile, my touch, and my humor. They hear it in my tone, my voice, my sweet Unchained Melody of witty charms that I spill like Exxon. There is nothing to clean up this mess that is me, because there is no need to clean up this mess. It is something they need like the plant that needs the sun.

There you go, with your ponytail swinging in motion with your gait. With each stride it swings from side to side, like the repetitious dance that all flirts play even when they aren’t even playing. The sweater that so binds you like my hold on you, so tight yet comfortable, so fitting and stylish….

The toe tapping jams that spill through the air to the melodies in your head….I am your sweet tune that you hum to when you go to bed.

Your dreams are sweet because they are of all the times that I made you smile and turn that rosy shade that you usually get when you are intimate. I am the thing that makes you feel.

So uplifting I bring you, soaring through the skies like the “eagles” in those sappy love songs that I am so fond of but am too embarrass to let known that I love. I am the unabashed embarrassment that you keep away from your friends because you want to keep up an image of the cool, calm, and collective hard to get type, but you are the sweet mushy cheesy sappy love song dork that you are because I’m with you.

The giggles I take from you makes you even more angelic than I can ever imagine. Filled with the indescribable girlish charms that I love so dearly….each girl have their own set and I’m in love with all sets. The charms of women that set me wild.

So determined to do the thing that you set out to do, because that is what you need to do to keep your mind off of me. The casual way you just smile at everyone but the glimmer in your eye that sets some apart from the others.

Who are you? The cute little Hawaiian blossom that dared to test the gods of their veracity. Who are you? My twin in name that makes me forget to act around you, because I’m not ever acting around you.

Who are you? The stranger that I have not gotten to know yet, but will eventually. Who are you indeed?

Just mere acquaintances that turns to friends that turns to lovers that turns to soul mates that turns to the doves [that] suddenly appear

The progress of life, the progress of love, the progress that I sit so “complacent” for. The one that that will wow me because I am not easily wowed.

As that once teen queen so proudly proclaims in that song oh so long ago…I’m Crazy for You.

Your toes with the lovely hearts that are so branded on it…that you showed me with no shame as you allow me to hold your foot, touch your thigh, hold your hand, cuddle up with you to keep you warm in my sickened state, to hold you so tight in that warm embrace. You allowed me to get close, in a way that I rarely do. It was a new change for me…a new leaf that I’m turning.

The Shooting Star that I saw and it reminded me of you. “Why do you like me?” is something that I would like to ask you whenever I remember, but when I am with you, I always forget what it is that I need to do, because all that I ever focus on is you.

You are the guiding light, the “North Star” that is my forever compass so I am never lost any more.

Your gold locks that gives away your presence; the traces that lets it be known that you were a part of my life. Will it ever last? I question but don’t want to question at the same time for I don’t want to jinx what it is that we share or have.

Since knowing you, even watching a big white bunny rabbit that orders a glass of water doesn’t surprise me…for I am distracted by my thoughts of you……

Statement, not question. Notice the lack of punctuation. No “?” but just plain statement. Don’t you get me. Don’t you get me. Please, don’t you get me, because then what is there to know, what is there to talk about?

I’m a man of very little secrets, wearing my heart on my sleeve, it’s hard not to know what I’m think and what I want.

When I’m sad, I’ll have that blank face on, but my eyes tell the story. When I’m happy and too lazy to smile, I’ll have that blank face on, but my eyes tell the story.

What is there to do in life when all you ever cared about and everything that you wanted to do was just a mere imagining of what your life is? Then one Tuesday afternoon, you wake up from the boring monotonous boring day to day activities of work; coming out of that a coma that you’ve been experiencing for three years and you come to realize that you are everything that you make yourself out to be? What will you do then when you realize that the life you lead is nothing but this nightmare of stalled movement?

You believe whole-heartedly that your life is going in the direction that you wanted it to go. You write the words on the blank screen, typing away with happy apprehension about the things you see in life; telling the story how you wanted it to be told and not the other way around of how others believe it should be told.

You wander aimlessly through life with your eyes closed just hoping that you will blindly walk your way into history and fame with the “so called” unreachable dreams of what it is that needs to be. You wander in the blackness that only closed eyes could provide to you, because you are too afraid to look, to see, to feel, that all that you have been living is a lie that you tell yourself to make you feel better.

What happens when you wake? What happens when you actually see that all is lost and all is gone and all is a lie in this little game called life? You blinked your life away, with each blinking lasting for an eternity it seems. You sit motionlessly, blinking your life away, because you are just too afraid to face the life, to live the life that was dealt to you.

So you just sit here like you do every night typing away in your cryptic message, in your cryptic tone, telling yourself that everything is all right, that everything is okay. You sit here typing away. All that is in your heart, all that is in your mind, typing away, typing away, releasing all the pent up anger that is in you…releasing all that is holding you back. Releasing.

But months pass after you open your eyes. You treat the days that go by as nothing unusual because they aren’t anything special. They are just days like any other day that goes by in the year, in the decade, the fathom, the century to the millennium. They are just days. The sun rises and sets, marking each time stamp against the calendar that you put up for yourself to let yourself know how long it has been since your day of personal freedom.

Four years and two months is the time since your personal freedom. You mark that down as a momentous occasion. You mark it down; you highlight it in the familiar yellow that most highlighters are. You circle the big day on that big gigantic calendar that you set up for yourself. It’s a momentous occasion to celebrate.

Or so it seems. Again, your eyes are open and you see. You see that it is nothing but a lie. You see that all it is is just a day, a day in the life filled with many days. Days of freedoms are just days that fill a calendar. They are just days that mark time. There is no significance to anything. Not even if you set significance to them.

So I wander and wander and I listen to the soundtrack of my life. Filled with songs that blares on the radio and filled with songs that only people in the know will only hear. My life is like this combination of taste and tacky…It goes and goes, generic, yet simple with style of independence and eclectic.

That’s your life. I live it free to my own determination. I live it free with my own decision. I live it free with my own free. No one telling how to define my life, whether it is going out and enjoying the simple pleasures or doing the things that I have no interest in doing. I set my own pace, I set my own rules. I am the leader of my life. That’s how it has always been, and unfortunately, it is just now that I understand that.

Yesterday comes no more, and is a fading distant memory that I pull out of my head like it was from a time that time forgotten. It is a time that they will only recount in fairy tales and legends. They are long forgotten after the eyes open and a new day begins.

The day before is wiped from the memory totally, not focusing on anything in the past, but focusing everything that is happening HERE. NOW. THIS MOMENT. THIS SECOND.

Living free, alone, unattached, unhinged by the life that I’ve lived before. Committing to the uncommitted life that I chose for myself. Loving that decision that I’ve made. Living the life free and absent-minded of the things I’ve done, tinged with only remnants of a broken memory, but remembering everything that ever gone on in my life.

Living and forgetting..not being able to reach out and grab the things…disappearing into thin air like most things in my life.. My past is far and far and far behind me….just fading memories in an elephant’s mind.

Sitting, watching, waiting. Sitting, watching, waiting. Waiting for what, I don’t know. Watching what? What isn’t there to watch? Life is all around, life passes me by as I participate in the life of my choosing. Life. Life. Life. Full of life, full of love, full of memories, dreams, wishes…Life.

Mindless ramblings, mindless whispers of the ghosts that haunts my life and my existence. Afraid to speak up and afraid of fading so they make their existence felt and guide their hands across my life…giving me little lefts and rights that I deal with swiftly at my leisure.

Nothing forceful or permanent in a impermanent life. Things come and go, come and go, and slowly fade away or are quickly adapted to in the grand scheme of things. Nothing is ever permanent in a life that only last 80 odd years if you are lucky. Nothing is ever permanent…everything happens and happens and they just go away like everything else…life the air you breathe.

So, don’t you get me. Don’t you know me or try to understand me because there is no permanence to who I am. Ever changing and ever drifting along with the wind, floating and going wherever it is that I’m going. Never grounded enough to figure out where it is that I am from one day to the next.

You’ll be lucky to get me on a breezeless day, ever going nonchalantly, not caring about anyone or anything but myself and my survival of things that don’t cause pain and tears.

Ever FREE falling through an empty void, not knowing when or where or if I’ll ever land, I just go wherever it is that I’m going, and that is down and down and down, but in a black empty void that I surround myself in…it’s just like a listless space…floating in thin air, soaring and soaring to a destination that I cannot see or grasp. I just float and hang on to this motionlessness, moving forward not knowingly.

I fall and fall, ever moving forward, ever moving wherever it is I’ll end up. Maybe there will be something or someone that crosses my path and will float along with me. Maybe. Just maybe.

Found and sure. Lost and afraid, paranoid of the things to come. These are things that I will always be facing and never be done with in my life it’s never a definite to find who one is. Who you are is a life long journey of always finding and testing and pushing one’s limits to figure out what it is that you life means. You have to experience and to live accordingly to the rules and philosophies that you live by and throw away only to make new ones as time passes and whenever you see fit.

Nothing is lasting, everything is ever fading. Life begins and ends and ends and ends. That’s how things are. Things end and new things begin. You see this everyday and everywhere, but soon, you wouldn’t be able to see anymore. You will be one of the things that end. Life.

You go back to wherever it is that you grew up, wherever it was that you’ve lost who you were and you try to find yourself again. Try to find the part of you that you are so sure of, only to find that half of you is there and the other half is the best part of you that you are now. Meld these two halves together and you got the whole of who you really are.

Mindless rambling, incoherent jib jab. Things to come, things to do. You are who you are whether found or lost always going forward and never looking back because you are your past and the past is always with you regardless if you think about it or not. You are a culmination of days and years gone by. A culmination of experiences, pain, tears, feelings and emotions, that you can never put out of your system because the made you who you are today.

Without each moment, without each experience, without each grand gesture of life…you will be nothing but a walking zombie full of nothing to give and never touching anyone.

Years, ages, pass as we all grow up and apart from those familial bonds that we are so familiar with. They tie us down and keep us grounded as to where we came from, but yet again, they tie us down. Keeping us from our full potential.

It’s never a wonder why I never miss a beat with family, because growing up with they, we all know everyone else inside and out. We know each other’s characters, our flaws, our strengths, we know all. There are no secrets that are kept till the end of days. Everything will find an outlet in one way or another. Someday, all things will be clear.

Getting together, seeing each other are just passing times of speedily catching up and learning new things about each other. We’ll pick up conversations that abruptly ended only months, years before. We never skip a beat. We do what we need to do to keep up that blood bond….for we are family.

Spreading our wings and fly and becoming who we are is a part of life that our family is so familiar with. Most of us grow up in our own ways in our own time. Whether it is picking up and leaving to find one self, or a family tragedy that slaps us in the face, helping us to realize that we need to get our shit together and grow up..getting that new job…graduating school..whether it is highschool or college. Things progress with time and changes accordingly to each person

What is it that I want to say tonight? What is it that I want to write here tonight?

I don’t know but I do know that I came out to clear my mind as I get ready to head up to the Bay area again this weekend. This has been a weekend that I’ve been anticipating for quite some time. I’ll be doing my usual road trip during Labor Day weekend, driving wherever it is that I usually go. Last year it was San Francisco and the year before was Sacramento. This year will be San Francisco again and also to San Jose for a wedding.

I was just up in San Francisco not two weeks ago. I went up for my ex-roommates wedding. It was nice, I guess, but I had a great time there. It was just fun relaxing and chilling with a bunch of new people and meeting up with some old people again. I had a great time. I didn’t feel awkward or out of place like I usually do.

I just did my own thing, felt comfortable in my own skin, enjoying the ceremony and the banquet. Overall, it was an enjoyable reason…. for many reasons.

I met up with my ex-roommate last night and we just discussed things. We just discussed whatever it is that we discussed and at the end of it, I was just frustrated with everything that she told me.

I would like to think I’m a smart guy, maybe I’m just not that smart to understand why? Why? Why?

Maybe it’s because I’ve never been in a relationship, or maybe I’ve never been in love to understand what it is that she’s going through. I’ve always thought of myself as a romantic, a hopeless romantic at that….but I guess maybe that kind of love is just too real for me to understand. It doesn’t compare to the ideal notion of “love” that I have in my head. Maybe that’s just it.

Overall, I’m just frustrated at everything and everything. I just have to face the fact that I just don’t understand….and me not understanding something just frustrates me. I have many friends that can attest to that. Many.

I just hope in the end, she knows what she’s doing…I just hope she knows what she’s doing.

I’ve been in a small social funk lately, a very small social funk. This is sort of weird for me, because it is rarely that I get this social. maybe I’m getting older and feel more comfortable about who I am as a person and just want to finally go out and meet new people….and maybe meet someone special. Who knows why it is that I’m doing these social things.

For instance, I met up with a long lost cousin this past Saturday night. I only met her once before for a couple of hours a couple of months ago. She came from Philadelphia to work here in Westlake. We’d exchanged numbers when we first met and bid our farewell at our great uncle’s house and we never talked since.

One night early last week, I thought I would call her up and see if she’s interested in hanging out. You see, I had a writers’ group out in Ventura on Saturday and since I would be out in her part of town anyway, I thought we maybe able to hang out…otherwise, who knows when I would get to see her again.

But she called me instead. She called me out of the blue as I thought about calling her. It’s funny how things like these happen. Just funny. She called about this weekend; she called about the wedding that is up north. She was wondering if I was going and I absolutely am.

So, we met up this past Saturday. I got to her place at around 6pm…after a few minutes of being lost of course. Later, we went out to get some dinner at the Westlake mall or something. We just sat at the outside food court just talking about anything and everything until 3 AM.

It was a nice outing and weekend overall, but weird. I just never talked with a total stranger until the dead of night before…grant it she’s family, she’s still a stranger no less.

Now whether she’s going to go to the wedding this weekend, I have no idea. I told her to email me with her flight information if she does decide to brave the face of strangers and I’ll pick her up from the airport.

Besides me, she doesn’t know anyone who is going to the wedding. Again, it is going to be a very interesting weekend, regardless.

So I’m heading up to San Jose on Friday morning, then heading over to San Francisco on late morning/early afternoon. I’ll be heading over with my brother and I’m not sure if my mom and aunt and her kids will be joining us or not. If they do, that will be interesting. Again, this whole weekend is going to be very interesting.

I don’t know what the plan for the San Francisco trip is yet….maybe Chinatown and dim sum as we wait for Suong to get off of work and then our tour could start. Alcatraz, Fisherman’s Wharf, Golden Gate Park….I have no idea and I really don’t care. I’m out and away from the city, just relaxing not thinking about work and such. It’s a much needed vacation, outing, rest…

I think the plan is to stay in San Francisco till late…maybe we’ll head back after dinner. There’s no rush. Not much is happening on Friday anyway….Saturday is when the “work” for the wedding will technically start. Airport runs, guests to host for the house party…so on and so forth. The worst of all, socializing..small talk…death.

No, I know I was ranting about how I became the social butterfly lately and everything, this is different. This is going to be a big “social” event..party, chit chat..small talk. Small talk is my kryptonite. I can’t handle small talk. I love it when I am able to just talk to the person, about anything, about who they are, what they want..you know, just have a decent conversation. I can’t deal with the weather and other shit like that. I just want to have a genuine conversation.

But in a situation like that, with all these new faces, it’s kind of hard to find someone to connect with. Maybe if I show up early and find a connection with someone there before the whole shindig starts, things might be different. Maybe if I find that right girl who doesn’t mind flirting, things might be different; that girl with the chemistry, that other flirt….maybe things will be different.

Who knows, maybe with my new found self..things might be easy. I’ll be the chatty guy who never shuts up, being the smart ass that I am, making them laugh, insulting others who do not understand my sense of humor…it’ll be grand. It’ll be great. I can’t wait.

I’ve been itching to get back into photography again and to get back into hiking again. It’s been a while since I’ve done both, a very long while since I’ve done both. Maybe this weekend, I could get back into my photography habit again. It’s as good of a time as any, a wedding and a party and all. Maybe I could get some nice pictures, some nice candids. Who knows?

As for hiking…I guess that will come when it comes. Maybe when the weather gets cooler. Malibu Creek, Santa Monica Mountains, Topanga Canyon. I have so many options and places that I need to take advantage of. Maybe I’ll ask a friend of mine if she has any recommendations.

All I know is that I need to start doing something more active. I have no desire to play basketball anymore, but I’ll go out next week maybe just to meet up with that particular friend that I haven’t seen in a couple of months. Maybe we haven’t lost that spark between us after all, but again, we are both flirts. Flirts flirt. So would flirts ever lose that spark even though they haven’t seen each other in over 9 months?

So I never got a chance to ask about Smiley Face last night. Didn’t get a chance at all and I didn’t want to. It’s not that I didn’t want to talk about my little predicament; I did, I really did, but circumstances prevented that from happening. We were in deep discussion our her predicament and my puppy love didn’t really have a place in a conversation like that…and besides, I was angry.

But apparently the next time we meet, I will be the one being interrogated. I guess that would be a good time as any to discuss Smiley Face. It would be a good time.

I’m sure I will be discussing the other situation with Suong this weekend, even though I told my friend I wouldn’t talk about it. I got to find a way to not talk about it, but talk about it. Maybe things will be easy and that things will be discussed already, but my friend told me that things were never discussed between the two. It was a baby sitting fest during their last get together.

Maybe…maybe. Again, things just seem to be happening just a little too soon.

How far do we go for something like this? How much are we willing to sacrifice to make that kind of connection with that someone to do that something to do whatever it is that we must do to do what it is that we want to do? How we must jibjab the nonsensical to clear our conscience of the things that forever cloud our mind? How much gibberish is there?

There is a great distance between us. Will this distance ever shrink? Will it ever come of a comfortable distance that we are both looking for? Are you hoping that it would be longer or are you like me, secretly hoping for a shorter one?

I just sit here doing my usual routine with a cup of orange juice because why not? I just sit here thinking how things transpired between us and how the day went with the flying paper clips and the supersonic nuts…

I just sit here rethinking the day, the week, the month, and I just have to say that there’s no bigger smile on my face than when I’m just thinking about our time together.

It put that little look of private lost happiness that rarely surfaces on my face and people question what it is that puts that mysterious look on my face. I tell them nothing for it is not for them to know. It is all I need to think about to get me through the day.

But the day progresses and day turns into night and night turns into dawn and I just sit and wonder, sit and think, sit and sit, and all there is for me to do is to write and put these private lost happy thoughts into the cryptic words that I usually do.

About 1500 miles lie between us. Buildings and empty space. Concrete and grass. Dirt and sand. Heat heat heat. A oasis of mirage and illusion that lies between us. We are two specs of sand in a vast dessert, separated by nothing but other specs…lost to each other.

To find each other will prove the existence of fate and destiny….God, some might dare to say. To find each other will be a miracle in itself.

I met a person that was deemed a match yesterday and it was all business down to the formal handshakes when we introduced each other and when we parted ways. We each kept our space of professional courtesy and slowly dissect our lives and our thoughts that way. What was to be a meeting of like minds turned into a meeting of like minds but without the chemistry and the constant flirting of co-habitable like minds.

I am too laid back and too much of an apathetic slacker to be anything that may seem attractive in your eyes. You are too much of the businesswoman to be the woman that I want to play with.

Whether things will continue with us, I have no idea. I guess if we talk we will talk through the void like we usually do…but maybe the stake has finally met its final resting ground in the heart of this never begun relationship. Things just didn’t spark like the chemistry wasn’t there with Rocky’s wife. There’s just nothing there…business is business.

Now I sit here just typing away stealing glances at the people around me. The one who I usually see in here with the laptop and the internet is talking to the young young young college girl who just wants to make it through school, as the other more quiet antisocial girl…the cute coffee girl that I see often works and keeps busy to pass the time. She hides behind the counter cleaning this, moving that, doing whatever, and never stops to take a breather.

The young college girl in her cute cons and her bootleg jeans..way too cute and hot by the way…sits so intuned in the conversation with the creepy internet guy, that it just seems like she maybe interested.

But I sit and type and look at the sunflowers that sit so pretty at the counter. So bright and exuberant in color like its name sake. It’s not hard to smile at something like that. Hard not to.

I reached out to you tonight. I reached out to you. I was nervous and reserved and quiet in my thoughts…these were the thoughts of private lost happiness that piqued the interests of others to know what it is that was bothering me. My outreach to you was what I kept a secret from the others.

I know that it is right for me to do what I did. I know that was the best thing I could do and that was to act. I had to act like life been telling me to act. I bit the bullet and reached out to you…just with simple words and questions…That is how things should go…simply.

I sit here nervous as to expect a response. Will it be soon or will I have to play the waiting game? Will you know who it is when you see my name or will you treat it as a solicitor and trash it like normal folks do?

I was funny and kind and sincere in my words to you. I was my usual self with a bit of smart derriere in tone…to keep it light and relaxed.

But all in all, I really don’t know what it is that I want. Did I fall for her, not for her charms, but because of the distance between us? Did I fall for her because I know that there was no chance for her to come back here and be with me…did I fall for her because she’s safe?

I see that she’s cute, hot to my eyes….her smile just melts whatever icing there is in me…but are those really the reasons or is it really for the reason I listed above….I will never know.

I am alone now in the coffee shop..almost around the time that I usually go…but should I go now? I need to be up early tomorrow to drive a long way to take part in the writers group that I am a part of. I will drive to a city that I’ve never been and afterwards, hang out with a long lost cousin that I barely know. That should be interesting to say the least…Very interesting.

Flirting. My drug of choice. Flirting. It never ends. It never ends. I do it so effortlessly and with such pleasure today and almost everyday that I am at work. It works easier, so much easier, when she is willing to participate in these little games that I play. The paper clip tossing, the sly word play and the innuendo in the window that makes her blush her cute blush.

The slight touches and hand holding, ass slapping, and just plain playing that we do so often. Chemistry is what we have. Chemistry is just so apparent that it is hard to miss. You play it off like we don’t, but deep inside, you know we do. You know we do. We work well together. You get me at work, and I get you at work. That’s where our relationship stand. That’s where we should be.