Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Still haven't heard back from the job I gave my salary requirement to on Friday. I don't think $125 negotiable is out of the range they were planning on hiring me for, so I am hoping the guy who is hiring just got busy and hasn't had time to think about it the last couple days, that's totally possible, but it is still kind of bumming me out.

Last night I went on a date with Hanna, the British girl I met at the Shortstop a couple weeks back, she actually texted me to see if I wanted to go out to have a drink with her in Burbank. I had planned on going to see an improv show, Winslow (Gilli's Harold team) at the Uprigth Citizens Brigade, so I asked her if she wanted to meet me there and she agreed.

I carpooled across town with Kevin, he didn't get out of work till 7:15, which put us in a precarious situation, since traveling from Santa Monica to UCB would normally take about an hour at that time. However, we got extremely lucky and hit barely any traffic, arriving at 7:45 or so, it was a mini-miracle. We also found amazing parking.

On the way over Kevin and I talked about what was going on with him at docstoc, I like getting the update on what I am missing out on, since I used to work there. Apparently he sent the higher ups a strongly worded email urging them to have more transparent pricing based on customer complaints. I was proud of him, but can understand where they were angry with him, telling him never to send something like that in an email and that if they didn't like him so much, they would have thought that letter signaled that it was time to get a new customer service representative.

Once we arrived, I realized we were one reservation short, now that Hanna was joining us. Luckily, again, right behind me in line was this guy Indrees that I met a couple weeks back, at the first Winslow show I went to. He was able to hook me up with an extra reservation, which I used to get Hanna in. I didn't have five bucks to pay for her, but luckily (again!) she had some cash.

The show was great, Winslow is definitely a funny team and it was good to show Hanna that I had some friends, since the first time I met her I was literally by myself at a bar, after all my friends had left. Afterward we went and got drinks and talked a bit, revealing that neither of us really have jobs and that we both live at other people's places. She is roommates with a seven year old girl. She sleeps in a bunk bed. These were all fun juicy details. She is twenty-eight, making her the oldest girl I have ever dated. But I'm cool with that, she is easy going and doesn't seem to have any expectations about anything at this point, which is good. She also contacted me after we hadn't talked in a while, sometimes I need a little prodding to get me out.

I am pretty good at going out on dates, taking girls out and being charming enough and asking inquisitive questions and making them laugh. It is always better when I am a little bit mysterious. I am in the weird situation now of knowing I have bipolar and I know that this will have to be a conversation eventually, it isn't exactly something I really want to talk about. I don't know if I'll have to with her, as it seems things will stay pretty casual, but for a real girlfriend, I will have to, it feels deceptive to entice someone into being with you, only to tell them your flaws after they've already made a commitment, but I don't know how else you do it. I'm certainly not going to be talking about it on a first date, I haven't even told her my mom died yet, so much baggage, where do I even begin? I think maybe this is the reason I haven't been trying much to form new relationships and also why I liked Kim so much, she accepted everything that happened to me and new everything, more than anyone else in more detail and she still liked me, maybe even loved me, until the last thing, then it all got shit on big time.

See, Hanna just texted me and referred to me as "funny boy". Yeah, I come across funny at first, if you don't know me well. I guess I am being a little hard on myself because I am mostly thinking of how my relationship went with Kate, where at first I was really happy to be with her, but at the end was mostly ambivalent and bored, I know she could sense it. Part of it was her, the parts of her personality I kept seeing were things I liked less and less over time, but I also know that ambivalence and boredom are feelings I feel a lot of the time. That stuff informs my humor to a large extent, because I am rarely impressed by anything I am able to cut through it with a sharpened critical blade, but I know it must also be a pain to be around me all the time. When I have sort of limited social engagements it's no big deal, I can go out and be like, "Yeah, I'm doing really well," it seems like everyone is always doing really well. Is this true? Or are people just really good liars? I mean, yeah, I'm doing alright. Why do you expect anything more than that?

Kate saw that side of me. My dad and my brother see it and I they are a couple of the people that totally understand and actually enjoy when they ask, "How are things?" and you say, "Pretty shitty." My friends see it a little bit, but like I said it gets old. I try to be good around my family here, as I don't want them to think I'm unappreciative of their support.

Happiness is such an elusive thing. It seems like some people just have it and when you have it, it seems to perpetuate itself. It makes you more successful, it makes you want to get out more, it makes people like you. When you are happy, good things just seem to be happening and then you are happy and that causes more good things to happen, which make you happier.

I've been feeling happy lately when I am out with my friends. This is a good thing. When I first left the hospital I felt great, but in the weeks after I felt socially awkward and strangely quiet for me. I think this is just because I didn't want to talk a lot about my recent experiences and those were the things that were on the top of my mind or maybe I shouldn't say I didn't want to talk about them, but others certainly didn't know how to approach me about them.

I don't know if there has ever been a time when I felt happy alone. I remember being alone, even back in middle school and earlier and feeling so sad and lonely. I usually had my brother around when my mom and step-dad weren't around the house, but in the times when I was completely alone in the room with my thoughts, my thoughts always leaned toward the depressing. I've always been pining after some girl, I'm always missing something, there is always something I need to complete myself. In retrospect, most of my memories are happy, but when I go back and read my writing it is always really sad and longing. I think a big part of it is journals have always been how I expressed the things I couldn't express to anyone else, so I never bothered writing about the things that were good.

All I ever tried to do was write what was real. In social situations I really can fake it and it totally becomes real. I put on a smile, say things are good and before you know it I am laughing and having a great time. Being around people makes me feel whole. My best memories are when I was with a bunch of friends driving somewhere or hanging out in someone's living room. Unfortunately, as I've become older, those times have become fewer and further between.

Then I am by myself again and I shut down. Some days I can read books and exercise, all days I can play guitar and listen to music and write and read news. Some days I can clean and get my laundry done and fill out paperwork and go run errands, all days I can get in the shower and groom a little bit and make myself something simple to eat. Mostly, when I am by myself, I just sit around, sort of trapped in my own thoughts, wondering what or who is going to break me out of it.

I think having a wife and kids to see everyday would make me happy, but it would be a really selfish thing to have a family merely for the reason of my own personal happiness. I really don't feel I could ever have a family until I was reasonably sure I could but them in a position to have a better fuller life than my own and i don't know if I will ever feel that way.

I could also be happy if I could turn my career into something where I could be around my friends all the time. This would probably mean being part of a comedy production company with people I know, this is a long way off, but who knows, it could happen someday if I play my cards right.

Today I really haven't done much. I walked a couple miles. I went to the post office and picked up my mail. I played some guitar. Now I am writing this. I was up at 10:00, but I took a nap in the early afternoon before I went on my walk. I want to do more, I want more to do. I want a job! I wish I had some friends on this side of town that were off during the day. I'd like to go play basketball with Rob, but I can't bring myself to drive all the way across town just to play basketball.

If I get this job in Santa Monica, I don't know what I'll do. Part of me really wants to live on the other side of town, closer to friends, closer to improv, but another part of me will want to be closer to work, not wanting to commute everyday. I guess we'll see, as it's largely possible that I won't even get this job anyway, I don't really need to be worrying about it.

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I need to drink more water. That was the one thing I took away from my trip to the hospital, but I've been bad about it the last couple days. I have had coffee mouth, wine mouth, dry mouth from pills, yeah. I'm going to go drink a big glass of water. That will be good.

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