Names, Identity, and Procrastination

As anyone reading this blog is likely to know, I'm an aspiring writer. And I've now settled on a pen name!

For ages, I've been going by David Aarons, which is simply my first and middle names with an S tacked onto the end, but I've always felt like it didn't flow properly. If I'm going to build a brand around a name (and fiction writers definitely need to do exactly that), I need it to roll off the tongue but stick in your head. I have nothing against my birth name of David Aaron Huff, but there's just something about my surname that wouldn't work on the cover of a book, and David Aarons (which I've been using for a long time) feels like a gear grinds up somewhere halfway through.

So I figured I'd add a middle name to that! I've already co-opted my own middle name, made some alterations, and repurposed it as a surname. Putting a spacer in there should do fine. I finally picked one a few days ago, and after some settling into it, it's still working for me, so say hello to David Zaine Aarons.

Sure, it's arbitrary, but I like the sound and look of it. It has a certain weight to it.

Anyway, the main reason for this post is not the announcement of my official pen name, but rather that all of this thought of names has led me to think quite a bit about the nature of names themselves, and how we relate to them.

A name is a definition, sometimes a statement of identity, sometimes of nature, sometimes of both. We use them to keep infinite thoughts and ideas and objects and creatures and people separate from one another and in order in our minds. Sometimes the name reflects the named, and sometimes the opposite happens. But something that fascinates me about all of this is that some names have colors and shapes and ideas associated with them directly, and it's not always possible to know whether those concepts were tethered to those names by language and culture or if they're attached to something deep in the base of our psyches.

Some are clearly cultural, even pop cultural. In the US, at least, if you hear of someone named Thor, you probably expect a large, muscular individual (most likely wielding a hammer) to be behind that name. However, if you're from a Scandinavian country where the name would be a little more common, you may not necessarily have those same preconceptions, despite the fact that the mythology originated closer to home. If you hear the names Nigel or Reginald, just TRY and tell me you don't half expect to see a stereotypical, possibly even anachronistic Brit when you're introduced, because I hear those names and all I think of is this guy:

I love the fact that some names have this kind of information stapled to them. This didn't have anything in particular to do with my motivations for altering my pen name; that decision was a purely aesthetic one. Oddly enough, I find that I already think of myself by that name. When asked my name, my mind defaults to the one I've chosen for myself rather than the one that I've had for almost 22 years. Self-definition trumps Pavlovian conditioning, haha. Some part of me is surprised at that, but to be honest, in a way it makes sense. We all have our own conceptions of ourselves; of who we are and what constitutes our nature and being. Sometimes the names we were given don't quite fit with those ideas. Maybe there's something in our subconscious that is prepared to accept and apply something that is subjectively perceived as being more "us".

In my case, I may have an extra leg up on that, as I've gone through a massive redefinition of personal identity over the last few years. I feel, almost literally, that I am not the same person as I was in high school. As over-dramatic and pretentious as it sounds to say it this way, maybe David Aaron Huff died when he was about 18, and David Zaine Aarons was born in that instant.

Perhaps it's silly to feel like my name should reflect the changes in my beliefs and personality, but it's not the only thing that's changed as I have. One of the reasons I'm so attached to my long hair and goatee is that in my head, they have a sort of personal symbolism. They help to separate me as I am from me as I was. They represent something to me. I suspect most people have something like this; nobody's the same person from adolescence to adulthood, and most of us probably recognize that.

Picking a pen name is good, but it's still a pretty small step. I'm a master of procrastination, and I need to figure out how to turn off the autopilot on that, because I'm not getting as much done as I need to be as far as writing is concerned. I need to discipline myself into steadily working every day, and I'm struggling to implement that new habit into my daily life. It's very easy to keep telling myself that I'll work in a few minutes. There's such a wealth of distractions on all sides; I'm guaranteed to be well-supplied with things to do. So many movies and TV shows to watch, so many books to read, so much music and so many podcasts or radio shows to listen to, so many games to play. It's all too simple to let all of that stimulus crowd out how many stories I have to tell.

Writing is fun, and I love it, but it's a lot of work. I know quite a few people who assume that writing must be a really cushy job, and I suppose it is if you define 'cushy' as 'not involving hefting blocks of raw stone in the hot sun'. But it involves a lot, especially fiction, at least if you intend to go about it properly. Everyone has their methods, but I have to conceptualize and flesh out ideas and painstakingly outline and structure a complete story before I actually go about writing it. I need to know where I'm going and thoroughly understand who I'm traveling with so that I can tell the story the way it needs to be told. As much fun as it is, that's a lot of work, and then once that's finished, I go into the writing process, which is about 1% inspired art and 99% the verbal equivalent of manual labor. It's not at all difficult to look at all that work and the sheer scale of the collected tasks ahead and decide to go watch Doctor Who instead.

Not to mention the fact that something Robert A. Heinlein once said often springs to mind: "The first million words don't count." Odds are good that you'll need to write a million words or so of fiction before you start producing publishable work. I'm not intimidated by the number so much as I simply hate the idea of wasting a perfectly good story. If I'm going to tell the story, I want it to be heard!

But those are walls I know must be torn down. Ass in chair, hands on keyboard, no sidetracking, no procrastination, every day, whether I feel 'inspired' or not. And I can always return to a story and rewrite it later if I feel like it needs to be published. What's important is that I stop putting off the trip and start getting there.

The Mysterious Yonaguni Monument - Artificial or natural?

In 1986, Japanese divers in the Ryukyu islands stumbled...er, swam... across a unique rock formation under the water that appeared to have been carved by some ancient civilization. The massive stone seemed to have been fashioned in a shape reminiscent of the stepped pyramids of Sumeria and Meso-America. In Japan, it was big news. In the United States, nobody talked about it.

In 1995, an even bigger structure like the one from 1986 was found off the coast of a Ryukyu island called Yonaguni. Apparently, it was the most popular news story in Japan for a year. A huge 'platform' of rock was discovered with what appear to be tiered ramparts, streets, and holes for wooden posts. At first, Japanese archeologist Masaaki Kimura thought the natural rock formations were probably a natural phenomena. After diving down himself, however, he changed his mind. Here are photos of what he saw:

In total, eight under-sea sites like this one have been found surrounding Japan.  American scholars have been loathe to address the existence of these stone monuments. If the stones have indeed been altered or the structures built by man, then scholars would be forced to rewrite their idea of human history. Why? It has been estimated that these stone structures have been submerged for 8,000 - 10,000 years. That means that during the stone age, there would have been an advanced civilization in Asia -- 5,000 years before the Egyptian empire! It would bother American historians for something amazing to be true. They are rather attached to their dogmas.

So I've said it. I believe that those shapes are quite evidently the result of the work of human hands. Professor  Robert Schoch of Boston University, who decided to meet with Kimura and make the dives to the monument, has stated that there is no reason to believe they are man-made. I don't know what his reasoning is, but he is supposedly an expert on geology. 

Here is one more piece of evidence that something like the Yonaguni monument exists and is known to be manmade: the Macchu Picchu ruins.

To me, these show how possible it is for Yonaguni to be the remnants of a powerful, ancient civilization. But what do you think? Feel free to comment!

Three Musicians Bryce Couldn't Live Without

The first musician I would like to lend my praise to is Loreena Mckennit. Her incredible skill possesses an intricate duality in its effect: Both the power to break one's heart and the power to mend it. Her lyrics and melodies seem to cry out to us from a forgotten age of the earth, speaking on behalf of our own lost, personal histories. Her voice is...well, I think she somehow must be an angel, because mere mortals just don't sound that beautiful and haunting. Aside from her vocals, she is an impressive instrumentalist. She plays the harp, piano, accordian, penny whistle, bouzouki, and perhaps more.

SUGGESTED LISTENING FROM THIS ARTIST: My favorite albums by McKennit are "The Visit" and "The Mask and the Mirror," though all of them are great. If I were to recommend one song, I would say, "All of her songs." Fine, I'll be fair: check out her masterpiece entitled "The Old Ways." THEN listen to all of her songs.

Another musician I would highly recommend is A Fine Frenzy. The band's  vocalist, pianist, and songwriter, Alison Sudol, creates a powerful realization with her lyrics: That the world is more beautiful and fantastic than it seems at first glance. Many of the words she sings carry a rare positive energy, and her style and presence glorifies the beauty of femininity in song, something which most other pop musicians seem not to know exists; if they do know it exists, they choose not to admit it. I think A Fine Frenzy ought to be displayed as a beacon of righteousness in a world of ugly radio play.

SUGGESTED LISTENING FROM THIS ARTIST: A Fine Frenzy's debut album, One Cell in the Sea, is amazing. I like all of the songs on it, but I often find myself listening and re-listening to "Come On, Come Out." But yeah. They're all good. Familiarize yourself with her now so that you will be prepared for the upcoming release of their third album.

Another musician who is particularly dear to me is a relatively unknown Texan by the name of Doug Burr. He possesses an incredibly unique yet invaluable ability to compose and arrange songs so that the tracks on his albums flow together like one, masterful suite. From beginnin to end, the listener feels he is transported to a realm where notes are the building blocks of a beautifully melancholy world. With a blend of the familiarity of American folk and a transcendience that is all his own, Burr's songs tug at the heart strings and make one happy to be in possession of human emotion, whether they be painful or ecstatic in nature.

SUGGESTED LISTENING FROM THIS ARTIST: Without a doubt, I have to say that you need to listen to Burr's album, "On Promenade," from beginning to end. No skipping around. The album in its entirety is an experience that you shouldn't miss out on. If you want to hear a single, I would recommend "Red, Red" from his album, "O Ye Devastator." Like what you hear? Buy his albums. Help him rise to the stardom he deserves.

I Call it Sharing

Last weekend, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or the Mormons, participated in a very important event. Well, it is important to Mormons. Every April and October, they hold what they call 'General Conference.' General Conference is a time when Mormons all over the world stop and listen to the words of the men they consider to be the apostles and prophets of our day. This conference lasts for two days.

I am a Mormon, and I was able to sit at my friend's house in Idaho and listen to the speakers who shared insights to the worldwide membership of the Church. Although the conference center in Salt Lake City is extremely large, it is not large enough for the 14 million members of the church. And not everyone could make it to Utah, USA, anyway, for there are Mormons in nations all across the earth. Because of these reasons, the Church broadcasts general conference over radio, television, and the internet.

It is amazing to hear the words of an actual prophet on two occasions each year. I say actual prophet because we believe that he is as much a prophet as Moses, Abraham, or Joseph of Egypt. Prophets are men who God chooses to speak His words to the people on the earth, conveying messages that instruct God's children in the ways of Happiness. It is easy to often view God as a scary, angry man who sits in some unknown sphere and punishes the people of the earth. Mormons view Him differently; we know He is a loving and caring being who teaches His children commandments that, if followed, open the windows to let in the light of true happiness. If God punishes us for doing wrong, it is because of His deep concern and His desire for us to turn away from darkness and unhappiness and face the light again.

To many, this sounds ludicrous, and Mormons are mocked on every hand for believing in modern prophets. I have experienced this mockery first-hand. I have been yelled at for my beliefs. A pastor of another faith tried to get me and my Mormon friends thrown in prison merely for being Mormons. An attempt has even been made on my life for being a Mormon. And for all this, I will not back down or deny that I know that the God of this earth loves His children as much today as He did anciently, and so He still speaks to us today. What He says through his prophets today is openly available to all. Here is a short video clip of an apostle speaking at a past general conference meeting:



I openly invite anyone who has questions to either visit our church's website (mormon.org) or to leave a comment on this post. A huge part of our religion is sharing the happiness we have found in our faith. God's words from his prophets are for everyone, and you ought to know them and find the peace and joy that can be yours. I hope you accept this invitation. Some may view this article as an attempt to shove my ideologies down their throats. That's not what I'm trying at all. I am happy, and I know why I am happy. I call my invitation sharing.

Sometimes, Vikings should be real again.

Do you ever spend hours in idol gongoozlement over the sheer stupidity of some folks? Well, if you do, you probably hold a belief similar to one that I harbor within my own heart: that there should be Vikings on the earth again.

Draw from that whatever conclusion you'd like. I think it's self-explanatory.

Perspective

Perspective.

I don't think we realize how relative everything is. We don't let ourselves think about it. We try to make everything concrete, objective, quantifiable. We need things to make sense, so we arrange a constellation of references and landmarks neatly around ourselves and ignore the fact that we only see them from one fixed point of view.

We lock into these angles as tightly as we can, because the only way we know where we are is by comparing our position relative to everything else in our lives, from an atomic microscale all the way up. If our perspective started to slip, we'd lose track of our identities. And sometimes that happens. You've probably had that feeling of falling in a metaphysical sense. Like gravity has shifted away from the familiar downward pull and is beginning to reassert itself in a different direction. Like everything is flying past you in a blur. Like time has stopped for you but sped up for everyone else. These feelings usually start for me with a strange sensation that my emotions have shifted into physical form; crystallized in my chest, pushed aside muscle and bone, and cut something in my core.

That sudden disconnect kicks me into a surreal state where my perception of time and self alters significantly. Days seem to drag on forever, but weeks go by like ticks of a clock. My life becomes one of those artsy time-lapse scenes from romantic comedies, where the protagonist sits motionless at a bar while the world speeds around him, only I generally don't get the mournful acoustic ballad playing over the top. Under normal circumstances, we don't notice the motion, just like we don't notice the rotation of the earth; because we're held by its gravity, locked into relative movement. But unlike that rotation, our relation to the universe is all in our heads. Everything's hurtling around us at impossible speeds, but we've learned to pick things out of the storm and keep our eyes on them, giving us the illusion of place and stability.

But the point is, if any of this sounds familiar to you, you've had a slip of perspective. Normally, we move at a steady rate in one direction, the objects and beliefs that make up our worldview orbiting around us. But if we stop for a minute, those things don't stop with us. They keep moving at the same rate, and suddenly everything looks wrong. Foreign. Even if we don't stop for long, there's a sense of unfamiliarity when we begin moving again. We're creatures of habit, and we come programmed with a deep obsessive compulsion buried somewhere in our brains that grows accustomed to having everything in its place. This part of our consciousness develops a dependence on patterns and recurrences, and goes through withdrawal if faced with change of any sort, with the side effect of a kind of existential disorientation.

Sometimes these slips happen suddenly, and sometimes they gradually build while we're not paying attention, and when we discover that something is out of place, it wakes us up to a sudden awareness that nothing is quite where we left it. Either way, these crises of self-location can be devastating. As I've spoken about to some extent previously on this blog, I went through a particularly harsh example a few years back, when my first love and I split. It was like going to sleep in your own bed and waking up on the rings of Saturn.

Previously, I had convinced myself that one of the reasons that loss was so debilitating for me was that I hadn't established my own identity within myself yet; that I'd built my concept of self on someone else, and that when she left, I was left not knowing who I was, and while there's probably a great deal of truth in that, I don't think that was the sole cause anymore. I think I'd settled firmly into the idea of that specific set of circumstances as 'real' and 'right', and then suddenly, my perspective changed. I stopped and they continued moving, and when I looked up, they were far ahead, taking with them everything that I understood.

This happened again for me with yet another love lost not long ago, and I keep feeling that familiar sense of standing in a billion-mile-per-hour wind. I'm not being buffeted by it as badly this time around, but it's still not my favorite place to be, haha. In any case, I find that I'm trying to re-establish perspective.

Perspective. It's more fascinating to me than ever, because right now I have a pretty clear view of things. And there's something amazing about it. Perspective is a purely human creation. We have found a way to draw order out of chaos, simply because our strictly regimented brains NEED order. How amazing is that?

I also find our relation to previous perspectives interesting. Our minds store little snapshots of certain perspectives we once had, and sometimes, without warning, our brains bust out the photo album and start flipping through. Sometimes it's triggered by a familiar formation of circumstances that looks kind of like one we used to have, sometimes it's totally random. But I occasionally have these oddly specific, incredibly vivid nostalgia spikes out of nowhere. It's the nearest thing to time travel we have right now. Images, feelings, smells, whatever; sometimes they all come flooding in, and they're often of the most obscure things. Not momentous happenings, just... moments. Flashes of history. Most things fade in our brains with time, edges worn down by the endless tumble of thought, but these remain untouched.

Yesterday, I was in the midst of working when one of these hit me with meteoric force for no apparent reason. I'm not sure what triggered it, but suddenly, it was late in the fall. I was eight or nine years old, and it was a blue, chilly, dying evening quickly giving way to night. The sun had fallen behind the mountains a few minutes ago, and daylight was quickly fading. We'd been adding on to our house, and my parents were working. I was sitting on a large plastic bundle that contained pink fiberglass insulation (one of several sitting on our front lawn between our house and the apple trees, playing Pokemon Yellow on my Game Boy. I distinctly remember that I was in Viridian Forest in the game. Above me, despite the chill in the air, there were small clouds of gnats roiling about. It was almost too dark to see the screen, but I kept playing anyway, eyestrain be damned. There was an indescribable scent in the air. I don't think I can explain it; it resists verbalization, but it was... crisp, and sharp.

It's odd; these memories always have a unique, associated scent that is distinct and clear, but somehow unattainable; like I know that even if it's a familiar scent, I'll never be able to smell it that WAY again. Sometimes I have a strange yearning, like if I could just somehow smell that fragrance that same way now, it could transport me back there for a few minutes, or make things better somehow. That we even have perceptual memory and perspective in our olfactory system is bizarre and fantastic.

Nostalgia carries with it a longing that is destined by the laws of physics to be unrequited. Even if we don't want to do things differently, I think there are places and moments in our lives we'd all love to return to, just to experience them again. To walk in the shoes of our younger selves. To look around us and see things for just a few minutes from a perspective we've long since lost in the chaos. Things change within us and things change around us, and usually, we feel like they all change without us. And we never know in these moments which ones are going to take root in our minds and reappear down the road. I very clearly remember that moment when I was eight or nine, and it wasn't laden with significance. It didn't even feel special at the time. It was just an ordinary day. But when we redefine the ordinary so often, even mundane things can have a powerful effect on us down the road.

When my viewpoint takes hold once again and coalesces into whatever shape it takes, I can't help but wonder which experiences and moments from the last year or two will lodge in my memory. What will soften and fade with time? What about this time will strike me out of nowhere ten or fifteen years from now? The only way to find out is to wait and see, and try to find order in the chaos.

Prison Asexuality and Being Stuck

I've noticed something very strange occurring in my life, caused by the dissonance between lifestyle and location.

Sometimes you hear about people that are "prison gay". That is, people who are not actually homosexual, but are forced into a position where they have no heterosexual prospects, and more or less decide that their needs have to be met somehow, so they'll take what they can get. This isn't, of course, true homosexuality ("I guess you'll have to do" does not equate to attraction); nor is it limited purely to prisons. It's fairly common in any setting where populations of one sex are either completely segregated from or vastly outnumber another; China reportedly has quite a bit of this sort of thing due to incredibly unbalanced male-to-female ratios.

Well, I'm prison asexual.

I am in NO way asexual by nature; I am, in fact, an intensely sexual being with a very active libido. Sexuality is very important to me, and I could never remove it from my life entirely and be completely happy or fulfilled. I've never understood how people could take vows of celibacy. The way I see it, why not just commit suicide, haha? Even an existence of total intellectual, metaphysical, and emotional stimulation and fulfillment would not be enough. It'd be like leaving a wall out of a house because, really, you only need three walls to hold the roof up.

But here I am.

To explain, you have to understand something: I am an atheist. I'm not agnostic, I'm not undecided. I'm not sitting on any fences. I don't believe in any kind of deity or higher power or any such silliness*.

And Rexburg, Idaho is an extremely religious city. This town was founded by Mormons and has mostly remained Mormon. It also has a great number of very attractive women, and I don't pay a damn bit of romantic or sexual attention to any of them.

And from there, it's a matter of simple statistics: Take the female population of Rexburg. Remove those who are out of my age range. Divide the remaining number by my personal standards of physical attraction and remove those who aren't my type. Filter those left who would be intellectually and emotionally suitable matches for my personality. At this point, we're already left with a pretty small percentage of the number we began with. But we're not done. From these, subtract individuals who believe in God and those who are proponents of abstinence until marriage (a concept which I find ludicrously unwise, but that's a rant for another day), and you are left with zero.

You could take the most gorgeous girl in the world and set her down in front of me, and I won't even notice her looks here. It's ridiculous. And as flippant as I'm being about it, it's FRUSTRATING.

I'm not good at being single. I never have been. I'm the kind of person who thrives in relationships, and I vastly prefer to be in them. I have worked long and hard to reach the point where I can be a complete person as an individual. You have to love yourself before you can love another, and all that. But still, it gets lonely. I'm struggling to be able to pay my bills and trying to carve out a place for myself in the world. Having to do it all alone is kind of discouraging; having to do it in a town like little Rexburg, Idaho even more so.

Anyone reading this blog probably knows me, but here's how it goes: I'm a freakishly tall, thin guy with long hair and a goatee. Anywhere else, the only thing that would garner notice would be the height, but here, it's very unusual for a guy to have long hair or any kind of facial hair (well, with the exception of eyebrows; they haven't started regulating those... yet) due to BYU Idaho's weird standards for that sort of thing, so I tend to get one of two reactions: "Oh, that's interesting" or "IS THAT A SKINNY VIKING I SEE!? ARE WE BEING INVADED BY REEDY, BESPECTACLED MARAUDERS FROM THE FROZEN NORTH LANDS!?"

Well, I have also occasionally been mistaken for Jesus by small children who loudly announce their momentous sighting of their lord and savior to their mothers in supermarkets. So I suppose I get three reactions.

In any case, I don't really mind any of the reactions, but one way or another, I'm always sorted into the box marked 'Other' around here without even speaking. Other traits that are uncommon relative to my location, including my atheism, my geekiness, my political leanings, etc. just further trim social opportunities. I'm proud of all those things about myself, don't get me wrong; I'm very comfortable with myself and my worldview, but the simple fact is that I'm a square peg, hammered into a round hole by a determined and industrious child not overly burdened with intellect. There are places where I would fit, but first I have to extricate myself from here, and some days it just feels impossible. I'll wake up and lay in bed for a while, not moving, trying to convince myself that there's some reason to get up and keep trying. I don't have any forward momentum right now, and I'm fighting against my own inertia to try to build some up. Sooner or later I'll manage to lever myself out of here (hopefully with a satisfying "pop"), and with luck, launch myself somewhere I'll fit in a little more. Anywhere but here.

I know that in the meantime I can be working on improving myself. I'm well aware that I have a fully stocked shelf of shortcomings just like anybody else. But it's so hard to focus on those problems when I feel so trapped and out of place. This town is incredibly claustrophobic for me. Some of the only bright spots in this town are my friends. The ones who've stuck with me through everything. Guys like my friend Kris and Fuzzy Blogic's very own Bryce (Camden too, though he's something like 6000 miles away at the moment) are and always will be my brothers, and I will always love the hell out of them, and their company is always comforting and helps me maintain a firm grip on my sanity. I suppose if I'm stuck for now in a place I hate, at least I can be in good company until I find a way out.

* My opinions are exactly that: my opinions. I mean no offense if you believe otherwise, which you probably do; and I would be the first to stand up for your right to hold those opinions.

Oh, Those Brains!

I often overlook a very obvious fact in my life. It deals with a discovery I made long ago, but evidently, I forget it quite often and become caught up in believing the opposite.

My brain is freakin' strange.

Yep, that's it. I never get used to it, which is very odd, since it's something I have been aware of since before I can remember. The only comfort I find in this comes with two profound truths, the first being that sometimes it's actually quite entertaining, the second being that, well, your brain is freakin' strange, too. Don't even try to deny it. Nobody believes you.

As I said, I don't remember the beginnings of my strange brain. It probably happened even before I had a brain, when I was still just a funny idea floating around the cosmos. God was probably like, 'Hey, it would be really crazy and hilarious if that thing actually got to be a person!' Thus, I was born. After I was born, I got to start doing things. Usually those things were boring, but sometimes they were strange, and haunt me to this day. Because involuntary thoughts are less embarrassing (since they mean I have a legitimate excuse as to why they occured), I will focus my examples of my brain's strangeness on dreams.

A couple days ago, I was reading a novel by Lloyd Alexander. It's called The Castle of Llyr. It's an excellent book, yet I somehow managed to fall asleep whilst reading. SOMEHOW. I guess it might have something to do with being insanely busy, like a recently beheaded chicken in a wolf's den, never getting a chance to lay its...neck...to rest. Because if it did, it would die by being eaten by vicious lupines rather than by its prior fatal situation. Alright, I digress; My life isn't quite that crazy. But almost.

Anyway, as I was saying, I fell asleep. And it was the adventure of a lifetime, I must say. First of all, I suddenly was Batman, and not Bryce at all. Batman has a much more interesting life, though after this dream, I can't say I envy him. For one, I never got to leave the same dumb building even once. Also, Sir Ian McKellan lived there. Normally, I would be ecstatic about being in the same building as Gandalf and Magneto, who are the same person. But in this case, he was one cantankerous old chap. He had this nasty habit of somehow getting a hold of my batarangs and taking them away. After he would do that, I, Batman, would feel a huge torrent of rage. Losing one's batarangs is a tremendous source of frustration, as you can well imagine. Every time he took my batarants, I had to trek all the way to the top of the building, were Mr. Ian had a nice balcony with a terrible view: it overlooked an industrial site with railroad tracks. I guess that means he was a bad guy, which I felt he was anyway, because he kept taking my batarangs.

At this point, you may be wondering why Sir Ian McKellan kept taking my batarangs. Because he liked to sit by them. Yes. He would take them to his balcony and place them neatly in a stack on the chair next to him, and then he would just sit down and do nothing. And whenever I came back to get them, he would get mad at me. So I developed a plan. I would make him mad, too. How? Simple: all I had to do was grab his tea-cup saucers and throw them off the balcony and watch the agony on his face as he beheld their doomed smithereens upon the railroad tracks below. Then I would escape him, and every time, there would be a really intense car chase inside the building.

I can't say how many times this process repeated itself, but it was a lot. Finally, I got to be Bryce Wayne again and not re-possess my batarangs, and got to spend an evening in a modern art gallery. Some nameless, faceless person was there with me, and was kind enough to create descriptive sentences that were intended to explain the abstract paintings to me. I woke up just after he described to me a monochromatic, blue painting. He said: "The mounted horse did awesome flips, then he went and baked a 12-layer pie."

I must say that, despite my love for Lloyd Alexander, this mad creation of my brain entertained me far more than the adventures of Taran the Assistant Pig-Keeper and his lovely lady, Eilonwy. I hope that next time I read that novel, I have a similar experience. It's good to be reminded of just how crazy you are, after all. Keeps things real.

More musings on human relationships

This is going to be another post that is largely devoid of wacky hijinks and so on. I'm in a reflective mood, and once again in need of getting my thoughts out there. It's not terribly important that they reach an audience so much as it's important that I verbalize them and make sense of them for myself. If I can engage a reader or two with it as well, that's fantastic, but this isn't a post you should be looking to if chortles are your quest.

It's interesting to me how time and growth radically alter approach and perspective. Of course it seems obvious when it's worded that way, but I still find it fascinating.

Take my first romantic relationship for example. I was around 16 when it began, and I was absolutely convinced it was going to last forever. I was ridiculously happy, and the companionship and connection that we shared was intoxicating (as love always is). When that eventually ended (which seems almost inevitable in retrospect, given our youth and naivete and half-formed beliefs/personalities; all things common to every teenager, and all things teens tend to hold aloft as if they were trophies before we figure out that we don't know everything and we have a lot of growing up to do), I was absolutely crushed. I was completely destroyed, and I was totally unprepared to deal with the loss. I effectively shut down for almost two years. I spent much of that time more or less alone. I didn't stop spending time with my friends, but I spent the majority of my time in my own head, thinking about things, trying to figure them out; trying to exert an influence on the universe to change the way things were by sheer willpower. That worked just about as well as you'd think it would: the universe continued about its business, completely unaware of my pains.

For a long time, I was inconsolable. I carried a torch for that girl for a long time. And for a while, that sort of thing is a romantic gesture. Then, eventually, it becomes unwise, and ultimately pathetic and pitiable. I held my torch up far, far past the latter point.

Because you see, if there is one thing about that relationship that I'm absolutely sure about, it's that I DID love her. I loved her more than anything. What we had was genuine and real and good for who we were at that point in our lives, and I loved her completely and unconditionally. But I was so attached to that relationship that I was unwilling to allow it to fade away, which unfortunately led to a very ungraceful, dragged-out ending that probably caused both of us a lot more pain than we needed to go through, and I'm afraid I can't claim innocence, because a lot of that turmoil didn't need to go down. I was a TERRIBLE ex-boyfriend; all presumption and petulance and outright refusal to accept the realities of the situation. And that's the one regret I have about my relationship with that girl: that I wasn't yet man enough to let her go when she needed to go, and I tried so desperately to hold on that I'm sure I left scars where I dug in my metaphorical fingernails trying to maintain a grip on something that had already slipped away.

Now, I'm older, and time has passed. My wounds from that time have all healed, and from this distance, I can see clearly that that relationship was never one meant to last. For all our honest affection for one another, we were a deeply dysfunctional couple. We were trying to build a permanent, solid structure from scratch while we were still pouring the cement for the foundation. We were rife with immaturities and insecurities and unhealthy codependence, and we weren't ourselves yet. You can't plan for the future until you're completely self-aware in the present, and that's exactly what we tried to do. The adults we grew into are very different people than the teenagers in love were. As a teenager, no matter how confident and sure of yourself you may be, no matter how well you think you know who you are and where you're going, you are, by nature, in a state of flux. I didn't solidify into the person I am now until I was 20 or so. During the period in which we split, I was incredibly unstable and uncertain in a huge selection of ways that weren't apparent to me. I was struggling to reconcile an upbringing of religious faith with my changing beliefs and values, and ultimately I failed to do so and realized that it had been a very long time since I'd actually believed in God. She maintained her beliefs. I was sure that I was So Very Mature, and with time realized that I hadn't even been close enough to maturity to shoot it with a sniper rifle, let alone actually possess it. We didn't share as many goals or dreams as we'd thought at first.

If we'd known how different we would end up being, would we still have joined hands in the beginning? I don't know that we would have. And that's one reason I'm very glad that humans lack that kind of foresight. For all the difficulties, for all the pain, for all the abruptness and the pains of adjustment and the things we would both change if we could go back and do it all over, I'm glad I shared that time with her. Regardless of what we'd become, we loved each other in those moments, when we needed it. We made sense to one another and kept each other on our feet through a period that is notoriously confusing and turbulent. We loved honestly and earnestly, and it was a beautiful thing for that alone.

There are quite a few parallels between that relationship and the one I've just fallen out of, and the parallels make me a bit uncomfortable. This romance was on a much shorter timescale, but its magnitude was of no less impact to me. Greater impact, in fact. With a couple more years under my belt, I have become much more confident in myself; much more certain of my own identity. I've sorted out who I am, and along comes a girl.

The story goes as it always does. Instantaneous connection. It seems to come from nowhere. Not necessarily eyes-meet-across-a-crowded-room-and-lo-and-behold-love-came-to-pass instantaneous, but a very realistic, organic immediacy. Right out of the box, everything just works, and the more time passes, the deeper that gets, the more right it feels. It's a platform I can stand on without questioning my steps. We start building, and the foundation is solid this time. We aren't sinking. We shift up a gear, and then another.

Then suddenly we explode. It's not a violent explosion; there aren't billows of flame or thunderous crashes, or any sound and fury at all. There's just a sickening grinding crunch, and we've stopped, and she's walking away.

Now to my dilemma. Do I hold on to hope? Is there REALLY a chance that this isn't the ending of the story? Do I dare keep holding this torch? If so, how long do I hold it? At exactly what point does it become foolish or pathetic if I do? I don't know where the lines are. I don't know where much of ANYTHING is, honestly. I'm disoriented and dizzy.

You can't change something by merely wanting it to change. But there's also not anything I can DO to change this situation, which leaves me feeling out of control; a position I am not comfortable with at all. There's little I hate so much as something broken that I can't even try to fix. But there's nothing here for me to do. She's not ready for a commitment as serious as the one we had. I can't make her ready, no matter what I do. But that leaves me in a position of helplessness; unable to act on a circumstance that is very important to me. It makes me feel like a bicycle repairman on board a malfunctioning space shuttle. As much as I want to solve the problem, I only have two real options: hope the ship's diagnostics systems repair themselves or hop in an escape pod and bail. If the former, I could end up going down with the ship. If the latter, I leave behind something amazing that doesn't have to be doomed.

This is all a frustratingly familiar sensation, and one of the most irksome aspects of it is that all other concerns tend to feel trivial by comparison. I can certainly work on improving myself while waiting to see how things resolve one way or another, but I must admit that it feels a bit like lifting weights while the gym is on fire instead of either leaving the building or getting a damn fire extinguisher.

And my decision is made infinitely more difficult by the complexities of my own emotions. Uncertainty aside, I absolutely still love this girl more than I could even begin to express, and hearts don't come with switches you can flip to just turn that off. So I can't even make an OBJECTIVE decision, haha. The love that tells me to keep hoping and the pragmatic side that tells me to accept defeat and get the pain over with now rather than potentially saving some up for later by risking to hope combine to create a rich dish of fear, doubt, hope, and everything else all bouncing around like ping-pong balls in a dryer.

And even if I were to choose to give up on this, as I've said before, I've never been good at accepting my fate. I'm not sure I know how.

But something that truly concerns me is this: Whatever decision is made, whatever happens here, will I look back on this and feel the same way I do about that first relationship? Will I say that this was good for the time but not ultimately what each of us needed? Will I see in hindsight that we didn't share as many goals and dreams as we'd thought?

I don't know the answers to any of these questions. I don't know if there ARE answers to some of them, or if there will be. All I know is that in the internal struggle between hope, pragmatism, and fear, hope is winning thus far. I hope that's a good thing.

Rise from your grave, long-dead madness!

"The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley."

Robert Burns laid that phrase to page in 1785, and 226 years later, I feel I can comfortably say that he was damn right. Those schemes sure do have a way of ganging aft agley. Or, more simply, no matter how well you plot things out, no matter how good your intentions, things often don't go as you plan. For better or worse, I've become very familiar with this concept. It's frustrating no matter who you are, but for a guy with mild OCD, it's something I've really grown to hate.

"Sir David, this blog is for wackiness, and you're quoting Romantic era Scottish poets!"

I know. I'm trying to make sure I meet the requisite wack quota while still getting down what's on my mind here. I have to express myself right now, and this seems like a suitable venue. I'll try not to get angst all over your couch, but all of my schemes are presently in the process of ganging hella agley*, and I guess I need to talk, even if only to myself.

A while ago, I met an amazing girl. We fell in love, and before long, we started making plans to move in together. We both started working so we'd be able to pay the bills, and found some apartments and a house that we liked as options. Well, given the subject of this post, I think you can guess where this is going, and your guess would be exactly right: things went all pear-shaped. I hold out some hope that the situation might only be bent rather than broken, and that it will in time return to the more pleasing figure of, say, a starfruit (which is, as everyone knows, the best of all fruit shapes), but there can be no guarantees, and I don't dare develop any sort of confidence in that outcome, because I'm pretty sure that if I did, Murphy himself would descend from his crystal throne and smite me most grievously in the face with his fearsome scepter. And also because the coin is just completely up in the air, and I don't know how long it's going to take before it reaches the apogee of its arc, let alone which side will land facing up. All I do know is how I feel, and what I want to happen. It scares me a little to know both that I'm not in control of the outcome and that I'm too close to this thing to see it clearly. I never have been any good at accepting what fate hands to me, and love certainly doesn't help with that.

The reason I feel Fuzzy Blogic is the place to talk about this is simple: Fuzzy Blogic is another collection of big plans that never got off the ground. We used to have big ideas for this place, and we're still not willing to let them go. That parallel made me decide to write this. These plans are much more easily restored, much more within my immediate reach.

I have more to ramble about, but I don't have the mental acuity to say any of it coherently in my present state, so for now I'll return you to your regularly scheduled madness. Maybe this time it'll actually be regularly scheduled.

* I'm probably overusing this phrase. I'm not trying to carry on an overly long gag; I just really love the word 'agley', and I think we should bring it back.