sex

It’s a heady collection of tags: authentic experience, nyc, love, sex, friends; should be a real barn-burner of a blog.

Back in Humboldt for a week now, feeling the raw world-conquering momentum bleed away into wood smoke and the smell of fallen leaves. It’s not unpleasant at all, this country home of mine — next week will be alive with family and friends; the way I fell in love in the first place — but today it gives me a feeling of wistful sadness.

It seems I make myself a smaller person here, or maybe it’s vice-versa with the Mother City making me bigger. Much as I believe the hype about the internet flattening the world, it will always be true that different things happen in different places. It was an immense recharge, to walk again the streets of Brooklyn, to feel the quick hard snap of real subway doors, the great heaping crush of humanity, densely packed ambition and excellence. I draw power from the capital of the world.

And it’s not just the women, but I won’t lie: they’re a big part of it. I have a no kiss-and-blog policy, but this little slice from William Gibson has stuck with me since adolescence, and pretty much nails me to a T:

But Bobby had this thing for girls, like they were his private tarot or something, the way he’d get himself moving. We never talked about it, but when it started to look like he was losing his touch that summer, he started to spend more time in the Gentleman Loser. He’d sit at a table by the open doors and watch the crowd slide by, nights when the bugs were at the neon and the air smelled of perfume and fast food. You could see his sunglasses scanning those faces as they passed, and he must have decided that Rikki’s was the one he was waiting for, the wild card and the luck changer. The new one.

I’m glad to be mature enough to appreciate how things work above and beyond (as well as in and around) sex. Brilliant conversation beats mediocre fucking any day of the week, and anyway good conversation is how you scale those shining peaks of physicality. Takes time, but anticipation works. So I’m happy having a drink and catching up with an old flame, or striking up an honest new connection; not so much of an agenda, just moving on the moment. That’s how all my good times have happened.

It comes in a flood though, my confidence. Once I start feeling good about myself, quit apologizing, ducking out of eye contact, it’s hard not to go over the high side. Josh the Lothario is a natural groove for me; crackling with energy. “Because I can” becomes a powerful rationale: I’m a lucky guy; I can do a lot of things.

Indeed, I get a thrill having more than one love interest, and it’s time I owned that, quit trying to dodge/judge myself. As the man said, the only way to foster Love in your life is by being yourself at 100%, and so I choose (now) to embrace my polyamorous free-lovin’ playboy status.

But then it comes to babies, to the existential question of Settling Down. That posterized photo up there is me and Frank Edward Robbins VI, aka Freddy — or me being a god-fatherly figure here, “Fredo” — who I got to meet and hold in Greenpoint. A pure delight, and a clear indication of things to come.

Indeed, the first wave is on. LGD, author and progenitor of the “35 To 55” strategy will be moving to PDX in the new year to start his family. Jumped the timetable a bit — switched to a Patraeus-like surge, he did — but it’s a happy thing. He was ready, as others are rapidly becoming.

And yeah, I’m a family man in my heart, though not yet in that state of readiness. When I moved to Humboldt I took on a sort of homesteader’s outlook, putting myself through a nesting phase, but without another bird or any eggs. It was lonely, and in some ways a bit of a force, but overall a good thing for my maturation I think. I can feel the potential, the theory, a slick hot run of fortune and luck leading up to the Big Jackpot. It’s a fantasy, sure, but that’s what I need these days.

The question here and now is what comes next. Back in the country, my confidence wavers. The sheer logistics of my life here exert a powerful force: lots and lots of work (I am procrastinating right now, in fact) and a home 10 miles from town. The cute bartender down the hill might pour me an extra/full glass of wine and let me hang around while the waiters fold napkins and talk shop, but I can’t make anything of that. I turn to a shrinking violet. Strange. Hopefully that opportunity knocks twice.

Part of me wants live in New York again, and while my next move is into the garage here in Westhaven, I know for a fact I’ll be visiting NYC more often in the near future. It’s a big life, and I’m a big guy; need my big city fix from time to time.

For now I want to try carrying some more of that energy along, keep some of that swagger on me out in the woods. Unshrinking. Walking tall and getting “out there” out here too.

As a followup to my Californication post below, I’d like to try and shed a more positive light on things. Clearly that kind of writing elicits a reaction — hey, sex still sells, and it’s some of the more honest blogging I’ve done of late — but I think I may have given some people the wrong idea. Not that I don’t appreciate all the ego-boosting, but I can’t help but feel a little bit guilty, like when as a kid you’d fake or exaggerate an injury for attention.

So yes. Let’s get down to brass tacks. In our last installment, I concluded that there was some serious Fear going on, and this was why my sex life was more or less dead. And yeah, the more I sit with that the more accurate it feels.

That’s not particularly great in and of itself, but the first step to happy living is figuring out what you want. Then you have to get it, and that’s another mountain to climb, but just getting some direction is a vital and necessary first start. I honestly feel better already.

When I survey the past couple years — relatively sexless and workaholic — they seem a cocoon. On the one hand maybe I’ve been gestating, and am preparing to emerge chrysalis-like in new glory. On the other hand, maybe I’ve been in hiding, retreating into the woods to bury my shame under a thousand layers of self-made silk. Or something.

Maybe it’s both. More than anything else, I get the feeling I’ve been keeping myself under wraps, off the scene. It’s not a new revelation, but every time it comes up it’s with ring of truth. I think I’ve got a stronger way to say it, one that comes to mind with an anecdote:

So, I was at this wedding after-party and a tall chesty and very drunk girl decided to catch my eye, much though I may have been ducking hers. She wanted to know what I was made of. “What is your story?“ she kept asking me with narrowed eyelids, high-heel-stumbling in place, slumping tits-first into my shoulder and then threatening to tip over backwards. “You’re one of those nice guys, aren’t you.”

It was phrased as an accusation, and maybe that’s why the question got through my normal social filter, because, in the way she meant it, I had to answer deep down that no — no, I’m really not. I’m not one of those nice guys. I am in fact a pretty bad guy, the way you mean; bad in the way you’re probably hoping for right now. But I’m in retirement. So, sorry babe.

She didn’t quite get me, so I told her I didn’t want to make out with her, after which she left me alone.

This exchange was definitely on my mind when I wrote my previous post. It was an authentic unrehearsed moment, and turning it over in my mind there’s a feeling of something true in there.

Much as I exhibit many of the qualities of the nice guy — first and foremost that I am nice, and also a guy — my nature is… something else. And for whatever reason I have been trying to shoehorn myself into this somewhat plastic “nice guy” mold for the past couple years. I won’t waste too much time speculating as to my subconscious (heartbreaker’s guilt, playing it safe) motives, but as a diagnosis this feels like a Real Thing. And again, the point is to move onward, not wallow in the past.

Now. Let me be absolutely clear. It does not follow logically that because I believe I am not a “nice guy,” that I am a not-nice (mean, bad, loathsome) person. Just like any other guy pushing thirty who’s lived a few interesting days in his life, I’ve got a shabby pile of self-loathing lying around. We’ve all got dirty laundry, but this isn’t a pity party. I realize I am a wonderful person, capable of great love, and with all the things to offer you’d expect from the 99th percentile. Indeed, I revel in this.

Moreover, and not to get too post-modern on y’all, but I fully realize that this shoehorning, much as it may be ostensibly motivated out of the desire to quote “do the right thing” — to do right by the women I welcome into my life — is deeply and terrifically counter-productive at achieving this end. Going through the motions is simply an awful way to behave, romantically. You will either:

1. Be unmasked as inauthentic or condescending, and hurt the poor girl’s feelings.
2. Simply lose interest because your heart’s not in it, and hurt the poor girls feelings.
3. End up stuck going through the motions until finally you have to break things off, and hurt the poor girls feelings.

The moral of the story is that our protagonist (“poor girl,” for those of you keeping score at home) doesn’t have a chance as long as I’m faking it. It’s just as inadvisable for me to behave this way as it is for her to fake orgasms. So why have I been doing this?

A lack of confidence feels about right. Without the gall and spine to carry off a love life under my own terms, I’ve degenerated back (role confusion) to the lowest socially-acceptable common denominator. To paraphrase a great film, there’s that fear-talk we talked about.

Und zo, as I said before, I feel a thrill at finally getting my hands around the problem. Coming to grips, it seems imminently solvable: I just have to man-up and master the fractal enigma that is my own authentic romantic persona, and that sounds like an exciting endeavor. It feels damn liberating.

Maybe it’s just my recent-haircut attitude talking — less tangles, more angles — but it feels like I’m entering the prime of my life. I’m fit, smart, witty, and I do pretty amazing things with myself, even if they do keep me at the office until a lot later than I’d like sometimes.

Hopefully this sense will grow. There’s a lot of positive momentum right now.

You know, Showtime is giving HBO a run for its money in the high-production-value TV serial department. Since I heard Duchovny won some award, and I’d already been impressed with the quality of Dexter and Weeds, I figured I’d see what Californicaion had to offer. I find that I like it.

Firstly, I do enjoy David Duchovny. As a teenage fan of The X-Files, I always thought it was kind of a bummer that his and Gillian Anderson’s careers never took off. Seemed like a lot of talent there in their brainy personai. Duchovny seems quite at home in the role of a self-destructive down and out (though still living quite well) New York City author moved to Hollywood. It’s not easy to pull off the intricate mix of sour self-loathing and towering hubris, peppered through with the occasional flashes of authentic charismatic genius that the character requires to not read as a total douchebag. Indeed the actor may be cribbing from his own life more than a little, but regardless it’s highly watchable.

Secondly, Natascha McElhone is captivating as the leading lady, which is essential for the whole formula to work. If we don’t love her, the whole thing falls apart. Thankfully, we do. Or at least I do, and so I buy the essential premise hook line and sinker. The narrative revolves around this on/off relationship, and it’s through this that we see the characters’ redeeming aspects as well as their deepest flaws. It’s from this love story that the show draws its power. There’s an awful lot of fucking, yes, but because at the center of it all is a heartbreakingly jilted romance, the whole achieves a level of emotional sincerity that saves it from the gratuitous precipice on which it sometimes teeters.

The result feels like a dirtier, brainier, more grown-up take on Entourage; SAT vocabulary words, french-cinema sex-farce, and a strong romantic through-line, but also an exploration of the American culture industry and the people caught up in its workings. Entertaining stuff.

Personal Reflections
I’m perhaps biased here, because I feel the sexual ethos of the program dovetails with my own sensibilities quite well, which isn’t something I frequently find. My particular blend of feministic chauvinism / power-tripping cunnilingus is pretty far outside the strike zone of mainstream sex-as-marketing, so seeing it mirrored back in a cultural product gets me thinking — which is all I really ever do these days anyway — but maybe, just maybe, it gets me thinking in a way that might lead to doing… something. At some point.

Sigh. It feels as though I’m retired, sexually. Like I hung up my spurs. I’ve certainly quit trying, and much as I flatter myself with the notion of being an eligible bachelor and all, fortune favors the bold and if you don’t try, well, you can’t really expect much. It’s who dares wins, and I’ve not felt daring in quite some time.

An example. Just this past weekend I rolled out on a sly invite to a wedding after-party. Aside from being not as drunk as everyone else, it was as ideal an environment as Humboldt has to offer for meeting women. There were even some pretty ones there, and people I didn’t even already know. Heady dready rasta mamas and cute be-booted cowgirls abounded. I even had my inviter offer to introduce me to whoever I wanted. But of course I didn’t make anything of it.

And so I wonder, why is this? Some part of it must be fear, and some part of it is certainly a lack of energy/focus, and some just plain old being rusty and out of practice, but these answers seem pathetically vague, especially since I’d actually like to see a change.

I’m reminded of one of my sister’s great writerly maxims, a gripping command for the aspiring creative soul: own your shit.

Confronted with that kind of mandate, I have a few responses.

• Josh Koenig has some issues with self-esteem, in particular with his potential value as a partner, even in the most limited of contexts. Without an internal sense of self-worth, it’s hard to get very attracted or to be very attractive to anyone else.
• Josh Koenig is also, at some level, sexually repressed. As are most of us, but it’s certainly not helping the cause here.
• Josh Koenig worries about the intimacy and vulnerability that truly excellent sexual chemistry facilitates, worries about hurting and being hurt.

That all reads like fear, actually. Fear, uncertainty and doubt. Huh. The more you know. Josh Koenig needs to get back in the game.

Well, I’m not sure when or how this will all change, though I’m sure it will eventually. For my own sake I hope things limber-up soon, but it’s a challenge alright. Until I discover, embrace and embody my sexuality as an adult — as opposed to playing the erotically-inspired Peter Pan act that did so well in my early 20s — there won’t be much joy in mudville. On the other hand it sounds like a fun thing to experiment with, the discovery of a new sexual persona. The notion of experimentation itself has a kind of naughty resonance, the freedom to make mistakes, and it seems to me that unburdening myself of some super-egotistical baggage is probably a good thing here.

But it’s late and I’m still a bit under the weather. Given that I’ve thoroughly disgusted my mother and probably 33% of my other readers, and yet honestly feel no guilt, I believe I’ll call it a night and retire in meta-victory.

So the other day I’m down in the little cafe in the basement of the converted warehouse complex where our office is in SF, and I end up doing my cream and sugar right next to this tallish girl who works on the same floor as us. I’ve seen her around a few times. Once we were alone in the elevator for a floor and a half and her nipples got hard. We smile at one another in the hallway, but have never spoken. I don’t know her name.

Getting cream and sugar nothing of consequence transpires, but it’s an interesting moment. For me, at least. Charged.

I’ve come to trust, at this late date, that when I feel like something is going on in that way, it’s quite likely that the other person in question feels the same. Just tonight having a little nerd-bike schmooze at Zeitgeist this was incontrovertibly proven — she doesn’t say hi kind of sheepishly on her way out the door unless she really was looking back while you were having that loud conversation. Drupal set message: trust your first impression.

Aaaaaway, the impetus to write is that the whole concept/phenomena of lust is one that’s been under wraps for some time. Sublimated and maybe a bit suppressed. It’s been a much-lamented state of affairs, as everyone knows. Feels like a change is gonna come, and this is good, but it’s also a trip, re-realizing how sex can throw you for a loop, scramble yr brain.

Lust. There’s no real containing this feeling, which is probably why it’s conventionally considered sinful. It’s like fire — contagious, consumptive, hot, hungry, often destructive, and absolutely uncontrollable once initiated. One can steer clear of the whole situation for a time, but inevitably it feels like a huge part of the human condition is being missed. Zombie life. This is often how it is with powerful deep dark parts of the psyche not traditionally endorsed by society: the nether-world slides by beneath the realm of workaday consciousness, alluring and clandestine. You can live clean in black and white, or risk the depths and bathe in technicolor.

For me the real embodiment of this feeling is in many ways tangential to sex, a jumping off point for broader hunger, for the infinite potential of human coupling, for larger ambitions that are symbolically captured in romantic pursuits. Or maybe that’s too small an idea of sex. Put it this way: fucking is subset of that which makes me lusty. Credit the waning influence of adolescent hormones or my crazy schedule, but really I see a larger dance, one with many anticipations, satisfactions, stimuli, tension and release.

But even considering this, allowing it into my mind, is a new-new thing. Heretofore it’s simply been off the table. That seems to be shifting, which I like. But is also unpredictable, and therefore kindof scary.

Scary in a good way? Maybe. Being open the the universe is always good, and this is really really a part of who I am… I think time will tell.

In keeping with my recent wedding-borne inquiry into default notions of romantic future, the arc of the story, and also owing to the fact that I finished my most recent book conquest — the inestimable Mountains Beyond Mountains (we’re helping out PIH w/their drupals at chapter3) — I’ve been considering the possibilities.

Fact: to the best of my knowledge all but a recent few of my significant romantic interests (the “old flame” category) are now married, engaged to be married, or have been married. Some of them even have children. This would seem to suggest that the kinds of girls I’ve been into over the years are the marrying kind. Also it would seem to suggest that my future more likely than not lies in undiscovered country.

Counter-Fact: I haven’t been in any relationships lasting a year or more, and have never lived with a lover. Also, to put it diplomatically, I don’t have a strong track record of fidelity.

Fact: I really really like kids. I’ve always loved children, was a babysitter as a young man, and I’ve gotten into arguments with people who suggest that it’s morally questionable to bring new ones into the world (as opposed to say adopting). I seem to have a pretty strong desire to pass on my DNA.

Counter-Fact: the particular circumstances of my life (massive work, lack of steady location, etc) are not conducive to settling down. I’ve also shown a particular affinity for rambling, as well as a resistance to compromising personal goals or priorities for the sake of others.

This is how I tend to think, but really this kind of score-carding is bullshit, a truth I’m glad to realize. What I’m interested is not an evaluation of my worth or readiness as a comrade in nesting, but rather some kind of concept of my purpose and aim in a life of love. Looking back, I’ve variously taken on the gestalt of hopeless romantic or shameless hedonist, both with some success and some failure. Neither of these seem particularly apropos now. Some new fantasy of love awaits.

I recently invented the idea of “power dating” for myself, partly because I liked the phrase linguistically, and partly because it seemed like a decently dirty criterion to evaluate potential opportunities. However, what I find really is that I need some kind of objective, goal, or at least understanding of method. Putting aside things I want theoretically in some far-off future, what am I looking for in the precious present? That’s a good fucking question.

For now, I’m still grappling with the unknown, but actually considering this is leading me to permit a whole universe of potentialities, all of which embrace the “facts” but none of which fit into some Leave It To Beaver narrative. More than that, getting out from under the weight of figuring this all out — seeing it as a fascinating question of life rather than a problem to be resolved, hopefully in the next five to six years — is liberating.

So, Kellymundo has a subscription to Vanity Fair, which I happened to pick up (RFK cover story) in the bathroom today. This happens to be the issue with the crazy Miley Cyrus Photos!!!!! ZOMG BARE 15-YEAR OLD SPINE!!!!

Sometimes I’m ashamed of America. Sometimes it’s because we start pointless wars of choice that kill thousands and leave millions homeless and destitute. Sometimes it’s because we’re so collectively sexually confused, repressed, frustrated, nervous, and (updated inre Joe’s point in comments) desperately depraved, we can’t fucking tolerate the challenge of, you know, Art.

Annie Liebowitz is the real thing, and this photo is completely respectable.

America, you’re crazy baby but I love you.

Bonus Liebowitz: Sting portrait, and homo Arnold.

God we’re stupid sometimes.

Flashing through the accumulated images of the past week, it’s a heady mixed bag. Trying to work my way from being a direct-actor to a manager. Trying to get ahead of the curve. Trying to continue my studious avoidance of all feminine diversions. Trying not to get boring as I get old. Trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Trying to communicate. Trying to love. Trying to speak correctly. Trying to listen. Trying.

And a few things occur to me.

In the smear of pint-night down at Everett’s, veterans of the military and Gillman st telling stories early, Kelly and Zya creating interpretive dances to Neil Diamond, then the kids coming in as the evening sets in; there emerges a ray of light in shiny blue tights, sheer brilliance, such as to make me avert my eyes. She looks pretty good at the coffeeshop usually, but this is another level, enough to make a man reexamine his beliefs. It occurs to me that my “my head’s not in it” excuse for studious avoidance of such is a self-fulfilling prophecy with real limits in its utility. Something’s got to change, but for the moment, hey, at least you’ve got a collectable pint glass to duck into.

And from this, a potential remedy for my romantic listlessness, a possible self-concept, an avenue of habitual action. How does “power-dating” sound? It’s more applicable than my retired manslut persona non grata, and it could be useful to get me out there in some way. It ties in with ambition and other shadowy forces that need outlets. I don’t know how it squares with living half-n-half between here and the Bay — where exactly do I set my sites? both? — but it seems worth trying.

The general premise is that, hey, I’m a single successful guy. I’m trying to make something of my life and managing some success. Why shouldn’t I be aiming high, perhaps absurdly and intentionally so, in my pursuit of companionship? Why shouldn’t I try to find someone who wants to be part of a power couple? It’s unlikely that my ambitions are going to cool off anytime soon, and I like powerful women, so why not make that my new thing?

I’m not sure yet, but this still seems like a halfway decent idea in the morning.

Finally, on another note, a chance for adventure. My great friend Julia has some free tickets to Coachella, and I’m going to try and pull off a little last-minute trip action. It’ll be good to get a change of scenery. I’ll take some photos or something.

Spring Awakening is a famous pre-expressionist German play by Frank Wedekind, revolving around the onset of puberty among some schoolchildren in a deeply repressed 19th Century community. It has a new life as a somewhat simplified or dumbed-down Broadway musical. Since I first read the text about a decade ago in College I’ve been borrowing the title, which has an appealing lyrical quality, as a shorthand for the semi-cyclical (re)emergence of my lust for life.

It is the vernal time again, and Humboldt County isn’t disappointing. The sun is shining, and last night I went out to a kick-off party for our nascent roller-derby league. Our friend Hanna is participating (around her regular gig down in SF learning to tattoo; that’s dedication) and there are a bunch of other good second-degree connections. The place was loud and full of ruckus, rock bands and dance-teams, a silent auction of art, desserts and donated items. With a minor amount of cronyism and a little but of quick bargaining, we managed to score a truly atrocious/awesome USA USA USA blanket: the flag, the eagle and a FDNY truck marked 911. Made in Korea. Amazing.

It was the first night of spring and also the full moon, the club chock full of attractive people with ambiguous sexual agendas. Mine was/is rather nonexistent. Much as I relish the return of the sun and the verdant fertility on display all around me, to-date I’m personally untouched. I’m sure that if I gave myself enough rope to get all boozed-up and wild like the old days there’s an odds-on chance I could hang myself sufficiently well to at least make out with someone. It’s an occasionally appealing thought, but it hasn’t happened.

These days I’m traveling more regularly than ever. I’m trying to hire people. The muscles on top of my cheekbones involuntarily twitch from time to time, which I assume is stress-related. As is to be expected of such desperate declarations, my new-years resolution of “less work, more sex, flossing” is falling flat. Even the flossing has become spotty, though twice a week is much better than never.

The above reads like a complaint, and I suppose it is, but actually I’m feeling pretty upbeat lately. If I quit cudgeling myself for being such a workaholic for a second, the sweet kick of being busy and engaged lifts me up. I have a feeling something similar would happen in my pants if I quit preemptively busting myself down for being a Lothario. It’s an occasionally appealing thought.

Work and Play: New Perspective on Relationships

On top of being conventionally successful, the process of starting a business with two other equal partners has been an incredible learning experience. It really is a relationship, and not always an easy one. We’re friends, just like you’d want in most any relationship, but there’s a whole lot more being piled on top of that friendship.

I realized the other day that this endeavor has gone on far longer than any sustained romantic relationship, and that I’ve been undeniably more generous with my time, energy and patience in building the business than I have heretofore with matters of the heart. Not that I see (or want to start seeing) Love as a business proposition, but it is a revealing contrast.

Another aspect of this is the how these various pursuits intersect with the inner drive of my ambition. The connection with work/career is fairly obvious, but it occurs to me that in my more romantically prolific days much of that action was aided and abetted by my desire for personal accomplishment. It’s a crappy and egotistical thing to admit, but for a lot of my young adult life I wanted to prove myself a good lover. It was a brass ring to reach for, and that was part of what drove me.

Today I don’t have that ambition, nothing to prove. Indeed, getting back to that preemptive bust-down I mentioned before, I’m more worried about just what might happen. While I have theoretical ambitions to be a family man, that’s not the sort of thing that translates into day-to-day real world behavior. Indeed, to the extent that this ambition creeps onto the scene in influencing my actions, it’s more of a buzzkiller than anything else.

To conclude, I really need to loosen up and have some fun. Probably that means setting some boundaries for myself, figuring out a more reasonable goal to reach for. Is there anything wrong with just having a good time? And isn’t it through simple acts of openness and joy that greater truths and possibilities are uncovered? This is what my experience tells me, and what my written beliefs profess. My habits of action are currently misaligned; have been for some time.

The question is how to let go lightly, forget the cheek-twitching stressors and let myself be once again swept up in the truth and beauty all around. Good question.

Like most of my peers, I don’t much like valentines day. It tends to be an artificial creator of stress, unwanted and advantage-taking. I resent it conceptually, even though in practice it has worked out on occasion.

A decade ago a friend of mine drove me from NYC to New England where my then-girlfriend was going to an all-girls college. The first love of my life. That turned out to be a very good weekend, the cold brisk Massachusetts air and light through leaveless trees, frozen ground and beautiful old architecture and heavy quilted blankets. Probably the best valentines to-date.

Five years ago I went on a first date, out with an artsy clever brash girl, a self-described bad girl, a girl who brought me gifts from the dollar store: this garish yellow notepad I still have (and use) today, and a bar of soap called stud which set the tone but was promptly lost. We had drinks at Beauty Bar, and it was the night before the big protests against the Iraq war. That one worked out alright too, even if we didn’t stop the war from happening.

This year I stayed home, begging off from seeing the cute soccer-playing girl I’ve gone out with a few times in the past couple months, probably signaling finis to that going-out. I didn’t intend for that to be the case, but the tone of her voice strongly suggested displeasure at our scheduling difficulties, or more specifically my lack of attention and follow-through in that regard.

It’s something I have some experience with, the way that women get gradually fed up with me and my half-heartedness. It’s not something to be proud of, but I’ve learned to recognize the scorn this inevitably brings, even in trace amounts.

I would like to be a better person, and sometimes I am. But I’m also fickle and picky, especially when it comes to women. At the same time I want them all to love me always. It’s literally childish, I know. This is one of the main reasons I’ve tended to avoid dating people who I know socially. It makes things simpler, operating without the additional pressures that a second-degree friendship brings. It makes it easier to play it straight when there are fewer people to please.

“People to please.” Jeebus, Koenig! This is how you know your life has gone off it’s philosophical rails, when you start thinking of your day-to-day like a public relations campaign. The truth always feels better, right? Even when it seems unpleasant and hard, especially when it seems unpleasant and hard.

Yeah, shit. So what is the truth? The truth is that my purposes and objectives have changed over the past several years, and my romantic sense of self has yet to really recalibrate. I was having a little heart-to-heart with my man Luke down in the Cornell Club, and I vocalized for the first time — which I’ve been saying and feeling in so many words some time now — that what I’m really interested in is finding someone to settle down with. Speaking the words made me realize how true they were.

That’s all well and good, laudable, obvious even, except that in tandem with this I seem to have lost my lust for visceral experience, the flame of Dionysus gone flickering, low and cold. Couple that with my vanity, my hubris and ambition, the height of my high-side soulmate standards and a recent spate of confusion about my life’s purpose and future, and you’ve got a potent recipe for long and lonely times, which is what the past 18 months have been, for the most part.

The truth is I really don’t care about sex for its own sake anymore. It’s not motivating. Well, that’s not really true. The more accurate truth is that I don’t care about sex as much, and I care about its consequences a great deal more than I used to. The cost/benefit analysis has changed.

This feels grown-up, but also sad. There’s a loss of faith in there, a cynicism, a dimness, a pessimism, even some fear. I don’t know whether this is just an aditudinal phase or the irrevocable effect of experience. I hope for the former, if for no other reason than life’s more interesting when one believes in mystical and potent powers which supercede the narrow realms of consciousness and logic. And because I don’t want to be ruled by fear. And because I have a lot of fun memories, and would very much like to make some more.

Something’s amiss. Pure fun is still nowhere to be found, and more of my philosophies are offended. “Presence is perfection.” “The most important thing is to stop struggling.” These are catchphrases for the self, yeah, but they’re also things that I have believed in, ideas I still intellectually embrace. Presence is more illusive than ever, and this paradigm of public relations — expectation/perception-management — produces crippling bouts of precisely the sort of “struggle” it’s most important to stop.

As the philosopher says, “beliefs are habits of action,” and in that light many of my so-called Axioms of Living are no longer things I can truly claim to believe, at least not in the utilitarian sense. They are not the principles that I live. Which is probably why I feel so estranged from myself.

The crisis of meaning has always been with us though, and the fire and the blackness wait around every corner. It feels good at least to be able to put my finger closer to the likely source of my discomfort, even if I remain clueless as to a resolution. This is not exactly new territory (as a survey of recent posts tagged “sex” confirms) but it feels more precise.

The best that can be said for artificial constructs like valentines day is that they provide a focus, an inflection point for things that are already happening. Learning is always a plus.

Remembered because Tommy gave me the latest Hold Steady album, and also casting some light on recent events, here’s one of my all time favorite Kerouac quotes:

“...boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk – real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious.”

It’s a good one to remember. Published in 1957 too, meaning it was written and thought even earlier.

And, apropops nothing, my company as if it were run by lolcats.