when i first set up this blog, i chose the title in reference to my adventures with match.com. i thought for a while i would write posts about some of the stranger aspects of that experiment. i would have written about the guy who posted pictures he took of himself shirtless in his living room, wearing ski goggles. or about the e-mail exchange that culminated in me being told to use a pair of forceps to pull out the bug that crawled up my vagina and died there. (how that one went so far astray still baffles me.) or the time i was called a racist after a polite "no thanks". or about the guy who, after two dates, needed to have "a talk" wherein he shared a 20-minute literary allegory about blind, misdirected love, followed by a speech about how nobody gets him. we didn't have a third date.
i should have written about them, i think it would have been fun to write and fun to read, and perhaps i would have found a new perspective or nugget of truth that would have affected someone else.
but i let the moment go. slippery little suckers aren't they? and the last week or so, i've been thinking about just how slippery.
i've been thinking about how often i choose not to share my thoughts and observations, for fear that they not be received or understood. and it's so much easier to let the moment pass, to busy yourself with something else, or claim an obligation (which is most often just an excuse in a suit and tie). i've got to-do lists scattered about my apartment and running through my head and on my computer, and when faced with a choice, it's so easy to choose the simple, mindless tasks, which can be easily crossed off, over beginning the difficult undertaking. i think many of us do this to some extent. when studying for finals, did cleaning your dorm room suddenly seem more appealing than ever before?
two things happened this last week to bring this into sharper focus. first, i went to see a one-man play by Mike Daisy at the Berkeley Rep, called Men of Genius. i went on L. Ron Hubbard night. i can't capture the material or the performance in a description, except to say that he masterfully wove tales of one batshit man's life in with observations about human nature and dark events from his own life. i laughed a good, deep laugh and was deeply affected, in a way that's stayed with me a week already. i don't consider myself an artist or a real performer, but for the first time i saw the potential value in putting my observations and insights out there for others.
the second was bigger, in every sense. an acquaintance from the Cal Cycling team died this week. she and i were casual acquaintances; we'd raced together a couple times and chatted at parties and didn't know each other very well, but i was always glad to see her. you know that moment that you walk into a big party where you don't know some of the people and you're figuring out how work your way into the crowd? well, she was that person that you could walk up to first and she would always make you feel like you were at the right place. i regret that i didn't take the time to get to know her better. hearing other people's stories makes me terribly sad; i've gotten to know her better in the last couple days than when she was alive, and the fault is my own. she put herself out there, in her personal interactions and in her writing, including her race reports and her blog, and she had an amazing mind. she seemed to fearlessly share herself with other people. she burned bright, and everyone close to her knew it. i wish i had paid more attention.
i want to know more about the inner lives of those around me, which these days means reading more blogs. i was resistant for a long time, and i still prefer to go for a walk or share a meal and hear about a friend's life from their lips. but the opportunities are fewer than the events in our lives and so much slips by. and i want to start to open up my own inner life more. my biggest fear is i'll discover there isn't enough of it. second is a worry that my references and observations won't come through. but i figure it's time to try, even if i'm only winking into the void.
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