Self-Expression

• I'm proud of that fact that if you ask me to do something and I say I will, then I'll do it. I'm reliable. I'm organized. I'm not saying I'm 100% on this score, but I honestly think I'm better than many people, and if I don't do something, I try to handle it the best I can (telling you as early as possible, for instance), or I genuinely feel awful if I just plain forget to do something. I hate not living up to my obligations.

• I communicate well in business situations. This is one of those skills which has always felt like no big deal to me, but which has gotten notice at both my current job and my previous job. I'm tactful, accurate, and complete when I write documents or e-mail or am in meetings. I suspect I've gotten more reward for this than I realize. In a way, it's not a skill I want to analyze too closely, for fear that close examination will make it wither and die.

• I know lots of bizarre stuff (fact, rumor, stories, etc.), and enjoy sharing them with other people. I know the year when albums I don't even own were released. I collect strange facts about places I've been, things no one in their right mind would want to know. It comes in handy in idle conversation. And only about a third of it is baseball-related.

• I own lots of cool stuff which I enjoy lending to people so they can enjoy it too. I've been exposing Trish to stuff like Nina Paley, for instance. I've loaned CJ a variety of baseball material. Subrata has been blazing a trail through my science fiction and comic books.

• I'm likeable. I'm easy to get along with. I don't make enemies or inspire resentment in people, as far as I can tell.

There are many things about myself that I don't like. I'm not filled with self-loathing or anything that extreme, but I do feel quite flawed, and though I can probably talk about what I do like about myself at as great length as what I don't, I don't think I can convey what things I don't like about myself as succinctly.

One thing I don't like about myself that I feel like I have trouble being open with other people and expressing my feelings.

I'm a very even-tempered person, particularly around other people. I do silly things in private, like talking to my cats in diminutive voices and singing or bopping along to music I'm listening to (I was doing the "head-banging" thing to Barenaked Ladies' "The Old Apartment" while driving up I-280 on Sunday). It's rare that I let myself go like that in front of other people. Sometimes, around one or two very trusted friends, I'll act a little sillier than I usually do, but I've become more and more reserved as an adult. I think some part of me feels like things like that just "aren't done" in adult company. I feel embarrassed if I behave in certain kinds of frivolous manners in public, even though other people do so and are lauded for being "carefree" or "spontaneous".

(Have I ever mentioned that I find adult culture completely baffling? I found it much easier to interact with people when I was a kid or even a teenager.)

I'm always acutely concerned about how people think of me, although I often feel like I'm very bad at perceiving how people really do feel about me. Although I'm likeable, I often feel like I'm only superficially liked, although several people have assured me repeatedly that this is not so. I often feel like my social standing is a house of cards, and one gauche remark (and oh, boy, do I have a blind spot when it comes to making certain off-color comments) could bring it all tumbling down. I have this implicit guiding feeling (which I realized a few years ago) that I essentially live by a philosophy of trying not to make a nuisance of myself to others. I don't want to butt in where I'm not wanted, overstay my welcome, or be that crazy guy down the hall who's always looking for attention.

(I am, naturally, terrified of asking a woman out on a date if I'm not reasonably certain she's interested in me. Something in my head thinks that there's nothing worse than making my interest known when it's not reciprocated.)

Expressing my feelings is, I suspect, a complicated issue for anyone. I have always been very much in touch with feelings or anger or frustration and can easily come up with a litany of colorful words to describe them. Of course, doing so out loud seems to be frowned upon in adult culture, so if I am really angry or frustrated about something I often feel driven to go be by myself and stew about it and work through it in private.

(To my - I hope - credit, I do feel I'm good at recognizing when I have to confront others if I feel this way towards them, and try to cool down and talk to them about it afterwards if necessary. Although sometimes I'm frustrated about something internally, or in my ambient environment - boneheaded bureaucratic decisions, for instance - and then I have to cope with it myself.)

Other feelings are considerably more complicated. My handling of love has evolved very slowly; it took me several girlfriends before I felt comfortable doing things like giving flowers or traditional romantic expressions of caring. (At least one of my readers is probably picking his jaw up off the ground right now.) Romantic or sexual attraction or frustration is a terribly complicated thing which I rarely talk about with anyone except very obliquely. (In the past I've tried to be as open as I could be about all of these things with women I've been involved with, although since, uh, my last long-term relationship is now more than five years in the past, it's difficult to remember exactly how well I did. I don't think Adrienne and I dated long enough to deal with these issues, although we did grapple with some related ones.)

(You know, I haven't whined about my singledom lately. The five-year anniversary of breaking up with Colleen - November 2 - passed and it was a week before it registered on me. I guess this is a good thing.)

There are many things I take joy in in life, but quite a few of these are things about which I feel a disconnect in expressing them to other people. Most of my adult life has been a big vacuum as far as know people with whom I could talk about comic books in any depths. This started changing somewhat when I foisted comic books at my Madison friend Tracy, and also with Subrata and Lucy. I've always felt like I lack the conceptual or linguistic vocabulary to discuss music with anyone. Getting at the actual feelings and putting them into words is terribly, terribly hard.

This is something which has been a big inhibitor in my (all-too-infrequent) fiction writing: I've been stuck for years on writing a story whose emotional center involves a woman who meets an ex she hasn't seen in years, who she's not entirely over, and who turns out to have a very different agenda in the situation they're placed in than she does. I know I should just write what I can, then revise it as best I can, and go on to other stories with hopefully better skills for the practice, but it's been just terribly hard for me to do so.

I feel so inadequate about these things, like I'm not a complete human being, but that I fake it pretty well.

I was also going to write about how I feel like I'm completely unadventurous and how I feel trapped by so many things in my life, but that's really a different issue. (Besides, some party-pooper might point out that the fact that I've lived in three different regions of the country in the last thirteen years and have basically done pretty well for myself tends to disprove that.)

I always feel ambivalent about posting entries like this. I end up imagining what sort of reactions my readers will have.

Usually I get a few (three or four) responses from people I know, which I usually appreciate but feel completely at a loss for words about what to say in response. Once in a while I'll get one or two replies from readers I don't know personally. Most of my readers, I don't really know what they're thinking. I'm of two minds about this: I write this journal because I enjoy it, I find it useful and sometimes cathartic, and because I find it interesting to write some of this stuff down. On the other hand, like I said, I'm always wondering what people think of me.

Some journallers are frequently exhorting their readers to get in touch with them. I never feel comfortable doing that. I figure my job is to write, and if people want to write back, then that's up to them.

It's a strange thing, this journalling. Still, I take pride in the territory I've covered, and the fact that a hundred or so people read each entry. Believe it or not, that's plenty to keep me going.