This time last year I was spending a conspiratorial week traveling from Orlando to Southern California and then up to Northern California and back with my brother and his bride-to-be to do their wedding. It was meant to be in secret for reasons that escape me at the moment but the plot had been uncovered by older sister Kathie earlier in November, resulting in a lot of hurt feelings and a lot of shrugged shoulders from moi and brother Matt. Family. I guess the secrecy was an ill-fated attempt to keep things simple, and given all of the little elements Marty planned for our few days in Northern California, it wouldn’t have been possible to pull it off given the huge entourage any family event tends to create for us Bustilloses. Ack. We say that we believe in Family but the belief is a lot more manageable in theory than the real thing when planning a four-day adventure/wedding get-a-way in Sonoma.

One full-day was spent slowly creeping through Southern California traffic resulting in a 10 P.M. arrival in Sonoma, with a 6 A.M. call to meet at the front-desk the next day, which happened to be Thanksgiving. Ugh turn oh-my-god when we were driven out to an open field where two giant hot-air balloons were being prepared to take us and those others gathered aloft over a cold but sun-drenched Napa Valley. Once we were back on earth we were treated to a hearty breakfast buffet, which required naps when we got back to the bed-and-breakfast. The day ended with a Thanksgiving dinner aboard the Napa Wine Train.

It had pretty much been a perfect day with a good measure of adventure, beautiful sights, family and wine-induced reflection. So, a number of co-workers had been sending Thanksgiving emails and there were still some family tension over the “secret wedding,” all of which led to the following email sent to co-workers, family and friends:

Subject: Many Thanks Indeed 

Date: November 25, 2010 10:48 PM 

T-Day On the wine train in Napa. OMG I ate way too much. I thought, before I drop into a over-eating induced coma, that I’d drop y’all a line. I just wanted to share how thankful I am that I get to work everyday with some of the most dedicated, brilliant, creative and funny people I’ve ever known. I know that there have been more than a few times over the past year when I’ve been a little too quick with the quip or verbal jab and with the double load I haven’t always entertained the most positive attitude or disposition. I apologize for not giving y’all the support or attention that y’all deserve. I’ll strive to do better, but more than that, I just want to say thanks for being there for me and for making me feel like an important part of a fascinating family. Happy Thanksgiving, xo, jbb 

You know what’s changed in the past year? Well, no secret wine-train wedding ceremonies for me this year. That was fun. Sadly I still haven’t been as connected with my work-team as I’ve been in the past and tend to spend too much time with my nose to the grindstone and not enough enjoying the journey. Ack. Well, one thing that’s changed: I’ve been fortunate enough to have spend the past ten-months trying to step away from the wall of computer monitors and enjoying the journey with a very classy and secretly-geeky lady. Damn. Happy Thanksgiving y’all. The next 365-days are going to be amazing.

I love this subway commercial. The boy’s “this is too good to be true,” reaction when the beautiful girl asks him if he wants her to be his girlfriend and then the disappointment when he realized it’s just a rouse to steal his lunch is priceless. Ain’t life grand. Reflecting some of that innocent realization, I had a wonderful conversation recently with a high-school girlfriend. The conversation with Peggy drifted back to the first time I asked her out and for all of the years that we’ve known each other I was surprised at how differently she remembered this particular event.

I think I even began by saying that I usually pride myself at having very vivid memories. Well, that was until another conversation we had years ago when she surprised me with a few stories about us that I had absolutely no memory of. That said, you’d still think that I’d remember something like asking her out the first time with a bit more clarity. Ha. So, the story goes that my wonderful girlfriend at the time, not Peggy, decided toward the end of our senior year that “we should see other people.” Perfect. Senior prom, grad night and I’m left to hustle to find a date after being with said girlfriend since our sophomore year. Ack. I did end up going with the old not-girlfriend to prom but was determined to not repeat that underwhelming experience for grad night. Okay, to be fair it was an okay but more than a bit awkward to share with someone who has decided to “see other people.” [fail trombone].

Anyway, I knew Peggy because she was a good friend of a girlfriend of one of my football buddies. I do vividly remember walking up behind her in a crowd as we were all shuffling to get to our afternoon classes, touching her on her shoulder and when she turned around asking her if she’s like to go with me to grad night. There was a bit of an expected blank stare on her part and then she said that she’d have to ask her parents first. She is still embarrassed that she had to ask her parents because she was only 15 and her mom had said that she couldn’t date until she was 16. I remember being happy because she didn’t say “No” outright or laugh. But what I didn’t remember, and what Peggy told me in the recent conversation, was that me asking her out was the very first time that we’d actually ever spoken to each other. I was flabbergasted. I assumed that we’d talked at least a few times because, if this were true, than this had to be the one and only time that I can ever remember (which clearly isn’t as reliable as it used to be) ever walking up to someone that I wasn’t first friends with and asking them out. Wow. After all these years, I was stunned.

Grad Nite 1976 - Two Very Young Kids

What was it that enabled me to break out of what would become a life-long pattern just this once? In that that version of myself is over 30-years in the past, I was kind’a impressed with that version and wondered what happened to that guy. Oh yeah, life and experience intervened. In all fairness, life is different in ones hometown in that I may not have talked to Peggy before that fateful day but I knew who she was, so she was not a completely random stranger. So, to continue the tale, we went to grad night and dated a little that summer and then in the Fall I moved to Los Angeles to attend Loyola Marymount University and we stopped dating. Well, not quite, but that’s a tale for another time (and probably another phone call so that I don’t get the detail too screwed up). Ah, memories of youth. I love the boy’s last line, that no one hears, “ah, I don’t think this is working out…”

P.S., Peggy recently had a monumental birthday and her lovely daughter wanted to get a lot of her friends together. I wasn’t able to make it to the party but I sent the link to the following video to her. It’s good to have friends.

Journal Classic: Following the Logic of Feelings

Heart, why are you pounding like a hammer?
Heart, why are you beating like a drum?
Heart, why do you make such a commotion
when I’m waiting for my baby to come?
Oh heart, don’t do it if it’s not the real thing
Heart, I get so easily deceived
Heart, there is no other I can turn to
if not you, heart, then who can I believe?”
“Heart” by Nick Lowe

I vividly remember when it first happened. It was in the seventh grade when I walked up to Mary Hinck and said, “Hi,” and she said rather unfeelingly, “Oh, it’s you.” It’s like I didn’t even really know that it was there until it came crashing to the ground in front of God and everyone. Jesus, I thought, if this is what love feels like, I don’t want any part of it.

I didn’t mean that, of course, and have spent the intervening 17 years demonstrating it to no one in particular. But something very definitely changed after that first brush with emotional death.

photobooth iowans by 3Neus/flickr

Back at home, though I never once for a moment doubted my parent’s love for me or my siblings; emotions, especially anger, seemed to be like Steven Spielbergian pyrotechnics. Like the much-feared nuclear holocaust, there would be a blinding flash of emotional light: my father would explode over some such reality of living with five children. My mother would then deploy her tactical arsenal. Another flash, then children running in every direction, vainly hoping to avoid becoming part of the scorched landscape. Then just as quickly as it had begun, it would be over. Father would be about his business and mother would continue hers. It all seemed to my childish mind to be quite unnecessary.

So it only seems right that at one point in my life I hung around with a religious group that held to the philosophy that “feelings” could not be trusted. “Feelings, they come and go, but objective truth, now there’s the ticket.” Of course the objective truth that was being referred to here was the Bible, the Scoffield Reference Bible in the King James Version to be more specific. And Love, well that had something to do with some Greek word and God and Jesus dying and . . . (all of which of course made no sense whatsoever to my teenage mind, but who was I to scoff at the insights of my elders?).

I don’t know why I always seem to use this column to take pot‑shots at Evangelical Christianity (no doubt an unconscious attempt to pay them back for the emotional trauma and near fatal brain damage I experienced while getting my Bachelor of Arts degree in Biblical Studies). In fact, before this starts sounding too much like “Sex and the Single Brain Cell,” I have to question the wisdom of attempting an article that would argue following the logic of emotions. I mean, either you understand it or you don’t.

I guess it’s just one of those things that pisses me off. While I was playing my little religious game, going to seminary and all, reading Kierkegaard’s Either/Or, thinking about Pluralism and other “important issues,” my own wife was suffering from emotional deprivation. Perhaps this isn’t unusual for couples where one of the partners is working full‑time while carrying 12 units of graduate school course work. It’s called, “I love you, but I don’t have any time for you”—a rather mixed message.

Quite inevitably she announced to me one day at lunch, rather unceremoniously, “You know, if you were just my boyfriend or if we were just living together, I’d leave you.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to look up from the book that I was reading. I knew it wouldn’t be a pretty picture. This was not at all what I was expecting.

So off to counseling we went. A well-meaning Christian friend told me about the horrendous percentage of couples who go to counseling and end up divorced. I think she was trying to caution me against the practice. Of course she failed to mention that no one goes to counseling because things are going great. Someone in the relationship has just about had it (a la, “if you were just my boyfriend . . .”) and it’s either this or the door. No doubt the percentage would be even greater had they not at least tried counseling. Still, it didn’t sound very promising.

Once a week we’d arrive at the counselor’s office. She’d outline the gripes of the week and I’d patiently listen, mentally preparing my counter‑arguments. Then the counselor would turn to me and say, “So Joe, how do you feel about what she has said?”

“Well . . . .” Feel? Did he say “feel”? Most of the time I’d say something about the supposed logic behind my actions and nothing about my feelings. This went on for months. Then one day it dawned on me. It happened while she was complaining about her needing to use the new  Nissan sedan, which had an air‑conditioner, ’cause she had to wear nice clothes to work while me and my Levi’s could put up with the un‑air‑conditioned Toyota pickup. When it came time for my little meaningless counter‑argument I let it out. “You know,” I said rather matter of factly, “if she was convinced of my love for her or that she was number one in my life, than none of this other shit would even matter.” Opps. Did I say that? They both stared at me like one does when a toddler unexpectedly makes an adult‑like observation.

“So Joe, how do you feel about her then?” It took another five months before I could clearly say how I felt. In view of the fact that I write a column called “Sex and the Single Brain Cell,” it should be obvious that we were to become another statistic.

“Oh heart, there must be no mistake
Beware, special care, from the start
Oh heart, though I’m glad for the first bit of love to have
Be certain now, else you’re gonna break
Oh heart, motor of emotion you’ve never been like this before
Heart, at first I thought you were joking,
but I know deep down in you that you’re sure.”
“Heart” by Nick Lowe

I realize that the above narrative is a rather odd way to set up an argument in favor of following the logic of feelings. Those who consider the concept to be little more than a dangerous dose of pop psychology will no doubt feel justified. But, like I wrote before, unless you understand the concept you’ll have little appreciation for my argument (which is really no argument at all).

The reason for my sensitivity about this subject is no doubt the result of my own struggle with the concept of “feeling,” starting with the amazingly disarming question: “what the fuck do I want out of life?” Laid out like a raw nerve, the question began to unravel the reasons why, two years ago, I would have recoiled at the idea of following feeling’s leading.

Simply put, an anemic sense of self worth prevented me from thinking that I was an adequate judge for determining the meaning or direction of my own life. “What the fuck do I want out of life?” It’s just a simple question. But there was a silent yet pervasive lack of self‑trust, which perhaps extended personally and culturally to a time when authority figures were depended upon for making the decisions of life. And feelings were the luxuries of irresponsible youth and melancholic old age.

“She said, ‘you know, if you were just my boyfriend or if we were just living together, I’d leave you.’ I wasn’t sure I wanted to look up from the book that I was reading.”

Just below the surface was an ancient belief that if I were left to my own devices, judging things on the basis of what I “want,” I’d no doubt do damage to myself and evil to my brothers and sisters. This was somewhat based on a twisted application of King David’s repentant song and Solomon’s words of advice:

“But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people. All who see me, mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads.” (Psalm 22:6,7) “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5,6)

Not long after the news of my marital separation broke, my well-meaning father strongly suggested that if I turned this dilemma over to Jesus than all of the fuzziness would clear up and I’d make the right decision. Perhaps. But equally possible was the proposition that I got into this situation because over the course of the last 14 years I’d “turned over” such situations to the Lord, in my own feeble way, and failed to read the writing on my own heart. Ha. How was God going to talk to me anyway except through my own heart?

A child no doubt lacks the common sense and self‑discipline to negotiate the troubled waters of life without parental instruction and example but I have, for a long time, ceased being a child. And when I turned to the judgment bench of feelings I didn’t find a power hungry madman bent on my own destruction or the lording over of the lives of my loved ones. Quite surprisingly I found a mirror image of myself, perhaps a little more insightful, perhaps a little more excitable, somewhat like a profile of ones self that until this very moment one has failed to even notice.

I took feeling’s leading and made some difficult decisions. Perhaps out an inability to read feeling’s messages or like myself, out of a lack of trust, many fake their way from sun‑up to the evening news thinking that this vague sense of dissatisfaction is all part of life. Life’s a bitch and then you die. Right?

Someone once told me that there was more to it than that. Risking the possible dissolution of our marriage, she courageously challenged me to confess what I already knew about my feelings. Among other things, this difficult experience has shown me that feelings, whether acknowledged or ignored, have a way of making themselves known.

Sources:
Following the Logic of Feelings (“The Editor’s Wild Hair” column)  by Joe Bustillos. Air, Dirt & Ink (ADI), Vol 1, Issue 4, January‑February 1988)

image: photobooth iowans by 3Neus. http://www.flickr.com/photos/motherscratcher/2267589346/ retrieved on 2/3/2010

cover image: La Estrella esperaba, pero nadie llego by Mercedes.. Life as I picture. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mercedesdayanara/366501299/ retrieved on 2/3/2010

Just saw “Up in the Air,” and don’t know if I should be depressed or not. Ryan Bingham, played by George Clooney, is the quintessential road-warrior, who spends over 300-days a year business traveling and he loves it. He’s a firing expert who works for a firm that gets called in when it’s time for lay-offs. The job isn’t “fun” but he’s found a balance that works for him and it doesn’t include any relationship commitments. His foil is 23-year-old Natalie Keener, played by Anna Kendrick, who has come in to make the job more efficient with technology. She has her whole life mapped out and it’s completely the opposite from Ryan’s.

The movie is basically about life choices and the stories that we tell ourselves to make these choices work. Ryan’s life is a set package and he’s happy. But he has to contend with those around him who are convinced that he’s made a mistake by not settling down and making a lasting relationship investment. Sans the mega-frequent-flier mileage and movie-star good-looks, I seem to resemble those contentions. Alas, it’s been my observation that most of us make these life choices long before we’re even aware that we have a choice. Those first few years after high school and those first few years out of college, set us on paths that tend to be impossible to break away from. And most choose not to, and make their lives there, for good or bad. Then there are those of us who get a wake-up call and/or have a higher expectation for ourselves.

For a long time I was jealous of this one friend, a fellow Biola University graduate, who seemed to be on this straight path, right through his undergrad (in accounting), working for a Newport Beach firm and marrying the boss’ daughter. There was none of this meandering that I’d already done to that point, going from one university to the next, and several majors along the way. Then I found out some time later that he quit the firm and that he and his wife had bought a water-bed retail store. He was happy being the salesman while the wife (also an accounting grad) worked the books. Life is funny that way.

zen fountain by joe bustillos

Oddly, as much as I seem to have not fostered any romantic attachments for a number of years, unlike the Ryan character, I’m not cynical about such connections. I like to think that I’ve decided that being alone is better than being with someone who isn’t right for me. And truthfully, at my age, with the moving across the country and the getting kicked out of my doctorate program and buying a new place and working at a teaching position that doesn’t recognize the 40-hour work week, I’ve chosen to not go out there and find someone. It can suck around the holidays, but I have more than a few friends who’ve confessed to having fantasies about sleeping alone and not having to put up with their mate’s chatter. So, life-choices. I’d like to find the important connections in life. I guess I just have to do it in a way that works for me and so far I haven’t found it. I’m at that age where if I go out and do something or some activity it’s because, at it’s core, I enjoy doing that thing. I’m not going to do it “to meet chicks.” I do need to get off my ass, but just because it matters to do the things you love as often as possible. Life-choices.

Peteca toma seu banho by elbragon

Then Brother Matt mentioned during his recent Florida visit that my current and persistent lack of a girlfriend was causing mom to openly worry whether I’ve changed my gender preferences. Thanks mom. The truth is I’m beginning to wonder: have I become lazy, too cautious or too picky when it comes to dating?

This is hardly a new phenomenon. I went through a pretty long dry spell after breaking up with a live-in girlfriend in the early 90s. One friend spoke up at the time and said that he and my other friends were worried that I’d given up on having someone in my life. I was just beginning my teaching career and pretty much every waking hour and ounce of emotional energy was being poured into surviving those first few years. I thought I was, for the first time, being smart and acting like an adult. Apparently not. Damn.

past girlfriends by joe bustillos

Another friend, who knew that I’d been very fortunate with the level of attractiveness of my former girlfriends and female friends, said that I needed to expand my preferences beyond curvy playboy playmates. Out of frustration she quipped that at our age all the good ones were already taken anyway.That one left a scar. I mean, if all the good ones are taken and I’m not taken then does this mean that I’m not one of the “good ones?” Shit. That didn’t leave me with a particularly hopeful sense of having a future with someone I found attractive.

So at least one part of moving across the continent over a year ago was to get a new start on social things. And as much as I’d been warned to not have high expectations by two very good friends who have lived in the area (I mean, after all I’ve spent a lifetime spoiled by all the pretty people in Southern California), my dateless-state is not for a lack of attractive women where ever one goes. So, again, am I being lazy, overly cautious or just too picky? Sitting here staring at these words reminds me that the fact that I reflect and try to think through all of this is just not normal for guys, so my well-meaning friends say. Ack.

When I was in the process of moving here one friend suggested a couple websites, like meetup.com, where one could easily meet like-minded individuals centered on common interests. I signed up but never got off my butt. Another avenue to meet new people would have been to join a church. I used to inwardly chuckle when someone suggested that I should check in to see the size of the singles group before getting involved. But I couldn’t see making my choice of church based on some babe-meter. I had other issues about churches, so I never really even considered this as a meaningful option. In fact, being as busy as I’ve been over the past year, getting involved with anything for the purpose of meeting women hasn’t been enough. Put another way, there has to be a value to the thing beyond just meeting women. I am the complete inverse of several of my good buddies who’s main reason for doing anything is to meet women. That’s just not me. Don’t get me wrong, I love meeting new people and I generally find the people I encounter fascinating, but given how busy I am there are scant few hours dedicated to meeting these fascinating people.

One of the take-aways of my last relationship was how much better things seemed to come together for me when I’m in a relationship just in terms of energy and a sense of purpose. It’s not that I need someone for these things as much as having the benefit of someone to share the journey with, just in terms of bouncing ideas off of and getting outside of my own head on a regular ongoing basis. At the same time I do have a very full life with my career and writing and just the stuff that fills each day that I’m not entirely convinced that having as much freedom as I have isn’t much better than the complications of letting another voice into my life. Part of the problem is that I am very good at adapting to living all on my own and convincing myself that I really don’t need anyone. Too lazy, overly cautious or just too picky? I think I need to work the “friends” angle and just get out more to be with other people and find the joy there. No pretenses, no props, no re-inventions, nothing that’s not really a part of my life and passions. I’ll dare to go to the park without the borrowed dog and see what happens. jbb

Jessica at Laguna Lake by TravOC

Sources:
Image: Peteca toma seu banho by elbragon, http://www.flickr.com/photos/elbragon/3183246877/ retrieved on 10/15/2009, Creative commons/attribution license.
Image: Past Girlfriends by Joe Bustillos, http://joebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/mygirls-1.gif retrieved 10/15/2009. Creative Commons/attribution license.
image: Jessica at Laguna Lake by TravOC, http://www.flickr.com/photos/travoc/89394031/ retrieved on 10/15/2009, Creative Commons/attribution license.

What would you do if (name-redacted) sent you a friend request on FB? Would you confirm or ignore . . . I still regularly think about (different name-redacted) – almost daily. I’m worried I can never get past her. And yes, I just got a friend request from her.

image by clipart.com

I’d been letting my “being-too-busy” dictate my social life (or the lack thereof) lately… okay, for the past year. But this dilemma required a response, so I sent the following back to my buddy:

Good question. First I’d be totally shocked because (name-redacted) isn’t an Internet “social networking” person. Second, I would be suspicious of her motives. All that said, I’d probably confirm. It’d be fun for a few days and them I’d remember that it didn’t work face-to-face, there’s even less for me via FB. Then I’d move on, per se, as one can move on from someone who’d previously defined ones life and crushed ones heart.

I have been over a year now without affection and intimacy in my life and that’s because of her. I think about her pretty much every day too, but I think of her as the one who had the chance to have everything I could give and rejected that so completely that I had to move to the opposite end of the continent, away from everything I knew and loved, so that I might start a new life and find someone to love me. I wish her well but in my mind I can’t get past the fact that she chose to not be in my life when I offered it. Now, it does help that I’ve benefited in every way imaginable by this rejection beginning with my job, to my friends here, to the new place I’ll be moving into in about two-weeks. But I think of her as the “oh well” in my life. I know Holly would ask, but if she said that she’s got it all figured out and she wants me back, what would I do?

There’s a danger being overly definitive about previous relationships, but my ability to trust her on any meaningful level has been permanently damaged. There’s no way in hell that I’d leave what I have going for myself in Orlando “to be with her.” If she said she’d come out here I wouldn’t believe it or trust her. The latter would be very destabilizing if it were to really happen (awkward!). Nope, I left everything I had to give. That well is complete dry. I gave up over a tenth of my life to her, almost to my own ruin. She’s not entitled to any more of me. I have to integrate all of that back into my life and be present in the good that is a part of my life now. Like i said, she’s the “oh well” of the past six years of my life.

And you, my friend, have got to do the same with your former flame. As (name-redacted)‘s psychologist once described me (not knowing that we were still seeing each other): “he was a wonderful memory which will give you warm feelings later in life, but nothing in the here and now.” amen, end of chapter. Hope this helps. Much love, jbb

image by neva

Over a year ago I wrote about my friend Neva:

I wasn’t living in Long Beach when Melissa Etheridge made her breakthrough playing locally at a club called Que Sera on 7th Street (funny that her wikipedia article doesn’t mention Que Sera), but every time I come out and watch Neva I think I’m seeing the beginning of the same thing. – neva rocks taco beach! *video* – May 4, 2008

I don’t remember how long I’d been going to my favorite watering hole, Taco Beach, when I happened to be there on a night when Neva was performing. Nothing formal or flashy, just an acoustic guitar and amazing voice playing over the bar PA, taking the passing attention of the audience between their conversations and drinking. Doing a solo acoustic set in that setting was not for the faint of heart. The audience wasn’t overly obnoxious or disruptive, but I’ve seen pretty talented musicians stare down at the floor, reduced to mumbling through their songs because they couldn’t break through the conversational sound-barrier. Sometimes it seemed to take a whole band to grab the audience’s attention, or at least something electric and loud. Neva had a backing-band a couple of times, but most of the time it was just her and her guitar and she was able to get the whole place rockin’ in her direction.

Wanting to be a supportive fan I checked out her MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/nevamusic and was met by the typical unappealing sprawl of a page where she’d post a poster for an upcoming gig that broke the pages frame and left one scrolling in all directions because one couldn’t see the whole poster at once (NOTE: I’ve shrunk the example page so that the viewer can see the whole poster at once. Notice that the list of gig dates along the right column are entirely illegible and the multi-spacing added to the confusion). Of course almost all MySpace pages are noted for their amateur quality. Regardless of the visual quality of her MySpace, between her MySpace and Facebook accounts she’s been able to muster up an online following of more than 800 folks. It’s difficult to figure out how many fans she has who are not online, but I’d guess that the online number is only a third of the folks who come out to see her shows (this guess is entirely based on the wide variety of folks who attend the shows I’ve seen, from college kids to retirees). Anyway, over the years I started taking pictures of her gigs and posted the results on my Flickr account. Then I started to shoot some video. I’ve only managed to edit and post one “performance” video and one “slide show” video (the latter video being mostly about my moving away from So Cal, Taco Beach & neva concerts). We talked on occasion about her website, but nothing came of it. Then she moved from Southern California to Lake Tahoe and I moved to Florida.

Just before I left So Cal I heard that she was working on a studio recording and eagerly bought the six-song set when it came out last February.We talked a couple times and she was doing pretty good with the CD but wanted to sell a lot more and joked that she’d sold a copy to all of her friends and family and still had a lot to sell before she would get to the point of having paid for the studio time and CD manufacturing. One of my first thoughts was that she’s not exactly living in a music mecca, living near Lake Tahoe. But then over the past few years I’d been following the careers of a few successful independent artists and part of the key to their successes was generating Internet buzz and gathering a much bigger following than they ever could with just public performances.

Lessons Learned From Those Who Went Before

The first on the list is a former software writer who decided to celebrate the birth of his first child by quitting his job and going fulltime with his music career. Jonathan Coulton built a strong following with the technorati in part because he spoke their language and found a way to be quirky, funny and touching usually all at the same time. Coulton produced and released two CDs, Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow and Smoking Monkey by 2004. Podcasting was just then taking off and Coulton offered to help his friends who were experimenting with the medium. But what really seemed to help Coulton was that he offered every song from the two CDs as a free download on his website. He understood that the free music would help generate a lot of interest and buzz and that at the same time those who became real fans would willingly buy his CDs (which were just one click away on the CD Baby website). The combination of speaking fluent geek and free-to-buy worked perfectly. But that alone does not a successful career make. Coulton kept interest up by deciding that the following year he would record and release one song a week for the whole year, and following the success of the last releases, he offered the recordings on his website for free, with the understanding that there would be CD collections made following the end of the year. Thus, the incredibly successful “Thing a Week” project was born, which resulted in a four-part Thing-a-Week CD collection. This past month Coulton released a follow-up CD/DVD project, BEST. CONCERT. EVER., recorded from concerts performed over the previous year, which includes fan-video, internet personalities and various interviews.

Looking at Coulton’s website one would not assume that this is the work of a genius, or wunderkind self-promoter. It’s basically an old-school unglitzy blog, low on graphics, big on text, with a tiny header and row of tiny buttons/links along the right column. It’s definitely the kind of thing that a former software writer turned successful musician might produce. But if one digs a bit below the text, one will discover that Coulton does two things right. One: everything a fan might want to know about him and his music, including the lyric, guitar song-sheets and the download-able songs are all just a click away. Two: he welcomes fan music videos, fan concert videos and fan involvement with his wiki and forums. And maybe this is the biggest key to his success, he came from and is still part of the community that now supports him. There’s no cult of personality or detached stardom. There a genuineness that bands and artists from major labels can’t hope to pull off. There’s no promotion machine trying to convince us that we want to listen to him. Just the craziness of his songs and simplicity of his performances are enough to general real interest and fun.

The next role model, Geoff Smith, is a Nashville musician who splits his time performing in a piano bar that partly owns, running a successful musical ringtone business (using a free/plus-premium model), writing jingles and doing live-video-streaming concerts with and for his friends, most notibly Cali Lewis from Geek Brief TV. The first time I saw Smith was one night during the holiday season a couple years ago. He’d turned on his web-cam and was streaming live-video from his living room, sitting at the piano taking requests from the chatroom that was attached to the live stream. He spent the whole evening playing Christmas songs mixed in with a little Beatles and other pop-tunes, bouncing between his piano to acoustic guitar. His talent was obvious and his enthusiasm and playfulness made for a very fun night watching this stranger from across the country while I worked on whatever project I was working on at the time. Not too surprisingly, Smith’s website conveys a lot more personality right away, but it’s also very user-friendly and transparent for the fans. In an email correspondence I asked Smith a bit about the blogging platform he was using, because I recognized the WordPress theme as being related to the one that I’ve been using for the past few years (Revolution, which became StudioPress by Brian Gardener). Smith confessed that he didn’t know too much about the inner workings of the blog because he has a friend doing that part of the business.

Like Coulton before him, Smith connected himself to many of the A-List podcasters, offering his services as a jingle writer and performer. He also offered his fans something a little different from Coulton’s free-to-buy method. Smith recorded a CD, Ones and 0s, and if you bought it directly from his website you’d get a bonus track subscription which entitles you to download new songs/videos that he updates on an ongoing basis. He recently released the 21st upgrade track from the CD. Buzz, community, relationship and using online/new technology to connect with the community/fans.

neva-music.com version one

neva-music.com version 1 by joe bustillos

The website is important, but as we learned from the two examples cited above, it’s completely meaningless without the willingness of the artist to be available to the community and fans in a way that was never realized (or really possible) in the pre-Internet world. MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Ustream, Stickam, these are all tools to connect artist with community/audience. Getting past the fad-ish attention these technologies are getting from the general media, these tools can revolutionize relationships for those willing to let them into their lives. Transparency, genuineness, vulnerability, real-ness.

A couple things were paramount in my mind as I was putting the website together: 1) promote the brand, 2) make the  CD easy to get, 3) make the calendar/gig schedule easy to find, 4) make the website very visual. As I noted above, Neva’s MySpace and Facebook pages were none of these things. The best part of the MySpace page was that her music started to play as soon as you landed on the site, there was usually a giant poster about her next gig or schedule of gigs for the month dominating the page and way below everything else fans could make comments. But visually it was chaotic and her name didn’t stand out all that much. It looked like everyone else’s page.

1. So I put her name and image way up front (more in #4).
2. More could be done to promote the CD and make purchasing it more obvious. I found a “discography” widget that was made to list the CD and  the singles with links built in to sell the CD and singles. She just has the link to sell the whole CD, It’s a work in progress. I love how Geoff Smith has icons on the footer of his page connected to all of his products/projects, and these icons are persistent across all of the pages of his blog.
3. I wanted to put some kind of calendar on the front page that was click-able to info about where and when she’d be doing her next gig. I found a widget that did the gig thing in a list form. It’s a lot more clear than the MySpace version, with click-able links to venue information and maps. But having a calendar would have been visually more involving. I created a calendar using Google Calendar that I could embed in her website, but didn’t get it working the way I wanted.
4. Besides being a talented writer and performer Neva is very easy on the eyes and WordPress template(s) I’ve been using have become more and more visual. Color, image, feeling, I prefer this version of a promotional website to what she previously had on MySpace and Facebook.

So, this is still version one. Supporting community/fan communication is essential and this model only allows for comments to individual posts. The other thing is that i don’t know how much or if Neva is going to want to do individual update (e.g., blog entries). Additionally, I’m considering an experiment using the SquareSpace online publishing/blogging platform because it takes the layout/visual webpage/website design up a whole level. It has the design sense of iWeb without the irritating template limitations.

Big Picture: Facilitating Community

As the technology/Internet coach, I see my part of this as the one to find a way for Neva to comfortably interact with her community using the these tools. She knows her audience. She knows the people she wants to work with, on the music end of things. My part is to help her get started using these tools to communicate her beautiful voice to an Internet audience. jbb

Sources:

Image: Neva in an Alley, http://www.myspace.com/nevamusic

Image: screen-grab by Joe Bustillos, Neva’s MySpace, retrieved on 7/27/2009

Image: screen-grab by Joe Bustillos, JonathanCoulton.com, retrieved on 7/27/2009

YouTube Video: When You Go by Jonathan Coulton, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPBsSlYYezc&feature=player_embedded, retrieved on 7/27/2009

Image: screen-grab by Joe Bustillos, theGeoffSmith.com, retrieved on 7/27/2009

YouTube: I’m a Twit by Geoff Smith, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3biEam1_GgY&feature=player_embedded, retrieved on 7/27/2009

Image: screen-grab by Joe Bustillos, neva-music.com, retrieved on 7/28/2009

Image/slideshow: nevamusic @ Taco Beach by Joe Bustillos, http://www.flickr.com/photos/joebustillos/sets/72157603250930056/, retrieved on 7/28/2009

image by joe bustillos

In the time that I’ve had my one dating experience most relationships have gone through whole life-cycles from discovery to death. Truth be told, the vast majority of my time with e-harmony I haven’t been actively pursuing anything as much as kept the service in my emotional back-pocket as a “Plan B.” I had a lot of fun the first few months when I was convinced that my former relationship was over and loved the possibility of meeting someone who was specially selected for me. Then that former relationship came back… kind’a. Well, it didn’t quite come back as much as it just took an extended period to expire. In the meantime, some of the air was let out of my e-Harmony expectations to the point where I just kept the subscription so that I could feel like there was a possibility of something for me in the future. Then when that former relationship really expired (for real this time!), it took almost all of my ability to trust myself and relationships with it. At that point I kept the e-Harmony account because I wasn’t ready to kill it too. Lately I’ve been thinking that it’s time to change a few things.

Something a match wrote in her profile reminded me of a quote from one of my favorite movies, American Beauty, when the main character, played by Kevin Spacey, is accused of being a bastard, to which he says, “Nope; I’m just an ordinary guy who has nothing left to lose.” In my case, with 1,251 rejections to my name, I’m clearly doing something wrong and I most definitely have nothing to lose. It should also go without saying that I’m counting on my results turning out way better than how things turned out for Lester Burnham, the American Beauty character by Kevin Spacey.

So, I started to think about putting some effort into opening up the social circle using Meet-Up.com to get out and hang out with folks with similar interests. I’ve also been hearing good things about the Plenty of Fish dating site. But none of that is all that different from what I’ve been doing for ages. So, the “got nothing to lose” twist is that I’m thinking that, given how much I post online, I should include a link to my Facebook profile (or this blog) in my e-harmony profile or whatever website I sign up for.

This definitely isn’t a plan that Dr. Warren from e-Harmony would recommend and there is a definite danger of giving away too much information too quickly, which is a bit like insisting on telling one’s whole life story when someone just asks “how ya doin’?” And there’s the risk that being this open makes it more difficult to walk away from an unwanted match if the match is persistent. Of course, once someone that I meet online knows my name all of this information is just a Google-search away anyway. So, what do I gain from this level of exposure? It counteracts the possibility that someone is going to close a match because nothing popped out at them in my initial profile or in my answers to their five questions. If they click the links they’ll get to know the things that are important enough to me for me to write about (assuming that they’d bother with the links… which is a big assumption).

Another thing that I’m thinking about here is that I’ve always seemed to do best in my relationships that were more based on friendship first, where the level of communication is left as open as possible, where there’s no real fear that saying the wrong thing might chase the other person away. This idea does run a risk that has been a running theme of my relationships with females, of always being seen as the buddy and never as the lover. But I’d much rather do the work needed to be the lover with the foundation of a kick-ass friendship than be someone’s lost weekend with nothing to talk about in between (not that I’m having to turn anyone away… [sigh]). I do have to work on a lot of bad habits, beginning with putting almost no effort into meeting or spending time with new people. I love having a lot of control of how I spend my time, but Life is passing me by while I ponder the words of this blog entry. Onward and upward: “I’m just an ordinary guy with nothing to lose.”

Sources:
image: Emotional Cut-Out by Joe Bustillos, © 2009 · Some Rights Reserved ·

video: American Beauty: Trailer, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q3ltyPJJMQ Retrieved 7/10/2009

image: mouseguy, microsoft clip-art

Originally uploaded by fensterbme

It was Valentine’s weekend for some. For me it was just another weekend spent grading student blogs. But after reading an article in the UK’s Telegraph online newspaper titled, “Valentine’s Day: Technology is killing romance,” one of my students wrote a blog entry weighing the article’s premise that, because of technology, people don’t write love poems or letters to each other anymore. She said that a survey of over two-thousand people revealed that 62% had never sent a love letter (via the postal service). At the same time most everyone said that they had sent a text-message love note. My student shrugged that even though a text message isn’t anywhere as good as a real love letter, a text message is better than nothing. I’ve heard this one before: if it’s not on paper, written by hand, it’s just not as real. I don’t mean to be cruel or even crude, but I think that’s just bullshit.

Well, I was a little gentler when I began my response:

I’m curious, what is it in an electronic Valentine’s message that make is not “expressing yourself with your own thoughts”? I’ve been known to use every communication means at my disposal to let my beloved know that I was thinking of her. From 140 character text messages, to “Hello” IMs, to overly long voice-messages, to rambling emails, I found the “electronic” experience to have a certain level of “presence” that I didn’t experience before. Granted I might have over-used said technologies.. a bit… resulting in … let’s just say that my options are very flexible these days. But that’s not because of technology, that’s because some folks just don’t know how to put one word after another in a coherent (and passionate) manner. What’s that old saying about a good painter never blaming his tools…

long-haired writer

On a completely different note I was just told by a potential “match” that my e-Harmony profile photo was “a little scary.” WTF? It makes one second guess. The photo is dark and pencil-sketchy. Does that translate into dangerous and scary? I haven’t taken an official teacher-photo in several years so I’ve been using Photo-booth pix. Good thing I didn’t use any of the fun-house effects. I really shouldn’t let these things bother me, but I do wonder at how often I’ve been bumped off because of some misperception beginning with my profile photo. Then again, someone unable to appreciate something a little artsy probably isn’t going to work well with my continual self-assessment and re-interpretations of my self. Damn. Of course, having posted this photo of myself for the millionth time, I probably come off as totally self-obsessed and self-absorbed. I switched my profile photo to a “I voted” shot, which will probably piss off someone because it’s “political.” sigh.

Source: Adams, J. (2009, February 9). Valentine’s Day: Technology ‘is killing romance’. Telegraph. Retrieved http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/technologynews/4568243/Valentines-Day-Technology-is-killing-romance.html

love tattoo by Jenn_Jenn (cc)

The ideal of love is it’s unconditional nature. The closest we usually come to that kind of love is the love between a parent and her child. But even that love has it’s limits, it’s conditions. I know that I’ve come up against my own limitations with a love that I thought was permanent and eternal. I thought I saw the face of God with this love and poured all that I had into it. But I was wrong. Time and trust were broken and I had to walk away. So much for the face of God.

I’m looking for a hard headed woman,
One who’ll take me for myself
And if I find my hard headed woman
I won’t need nobody else, no no no.
- “Hard Headed Woman” by Cat Stevens

I found a level of intimacy that I had never dreamed existed. The face of God. I was inspired to be my best self, not wanting to hide any part of myself but to bring all of it into full expression and creativity. Wherever I thought I lacked I set about to push through to be better, to be the best me because I was renewed by this powerful connection and boundless intimacy. Fearless, complete, committed, doubt-free, a self that I hadn’t seen in over a decade came into existence. A love of my music that had lain silent and had been a forgotten memory rose in me. I saw, I felt, I touched, I tasted, I couldn’t get enough. I became part of something much bigger than myself. The face of God. My world changed. I changed. Then I waited. And waited some more. I waited longer than I ever imagined I was capable of waiting.

He came from somewhere in her long ago,
the sentimental fool don’t see,
tryin’ hard to re-create what had yet to be created
once in her life.
She musters a smile for his nostalgic tale,
never coming near what he wanted to say,
only to realize it never really was.
- “What a Fool Believes” by Michael McDonald

Yeah, I knew better. I understood the circumstances. It all made sense. Clearly it wasn’t what I thought it was. It had been our special secret for so long but in the light of day it was something she’d rather no one else ever knew about. I wanted to shout about it from the mountain tops and she was pained to even acknowledge that i had been a college friend. How could something so powerful be so much the creation of my own head, a delusion that I never asked for? And if that were true, then did I really see the face of God or was that all wishful thinking too?

Hello. How are you?
Have you been alright, through all those lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely nights
That’s what I’d say. I’d tell you everything
If you’d pick up that telephone yeah
Hey. How you feelin?
Are you still the same?
Don’t you realize the things we did, we did, were all for real, not a dream?
I just can’t believe
They’ve all faded out of view yeah yeah
- “Telephone Line” by ELO

I wonder. I never expected for it to happen when it did. Does this mean that if some lovely with a dainty cross necklace smiles at me that I can go back to believing in the Man behind the curtain? Somehow that seems twisted. But there I was a few mornings ago, looking through the profile of one lovely e-harmonette, and the thought struck me that if this were “the one” than would I again become best friends with the Man behind the curtain? I mean, we stopped talking because for all of those years that I spent waiting I was hearing that He knows what I want before I do and wants to give that to me and the fact that it wasn’t happening must mean that A) I’m doing something wrong, B) she’s not “the one, C) Not now, or D) Any combination of A, B, or C. Eventually I began to wonder that it might be: E) there is no Man behind the Curtain.

The best proof of love is trust by dopesmuglar

And as much as I’ve spent the past year living like it’s option E, there is this part of me that needs for there to be someone there to talk to in the darkness of my own soul. At the same time, even if I were to be blessed with the mate of my dreams, how do I trust someone who stood by while my heart was slowly broken and brought to this place of doubt? I’m willing to acknowledge that I got it all wrong but where do I find the place of trust again? Needless to say, none of this is going to be attractive to anyone looking for a Christ-led home and looking for someone to love them like Christ loved the Church. Yeah. I understand the analogy but I’m not even going to pretend to live up to that expectation. I have the hair and the beard, but that’s pretty much the extent of it. Funny thing is, someone who hasn’t gone through this “intimate faith” experience or doesn’t believe in anything doesn’t seem particularly attractive to me either. Alas, I seem to have conditions piled on conditions piled on conditions in my pursuit of unconditional love. Lord help us.

So long, I’ve been looking too hard, I’ve been waiting too long
Sometimes I don’t know what I will find, I only know it’s a matter of time
When you love someone, when you love someone
It feels so right, so warm and true, I need to know if you feel it too

Maybe I’m wrong, won’t you tell me if I’m coming on too strong
This heart of mine has been hurt before, this time I wanna be sure

I’ve been waiting for a girl like you to come into my life
I’ve been waiting for a girl like you, your loving will survive
I’ve been waiting for someone new to make me feel alive
Yeah, waiting for a girl like you to come into my life
- “Waiting for a Girl like You” by Foreigner

Closed before I started

Yeah, I know, get over it. But there’s something really cruel about going to one’s e-Harmony account, find a few cuties in one’s “matches” folder only to see that said cuties have “closed” the match before you even get a chance to say, “Hello.” Argh. It’s no doubt a sign of my own shallowness that I’m irritated enough by being “rejected” by attractive women to write about it. Nah, it never feels good to get the “closed” message, but after getting and giving the “closed” message over a thousand times I can feel myself teetering toward giving up on the whole process. Just like everyone else, I want to be attracted to my potential mate, but these two examples really add insult to injury. Thanks, e-Harmony. I wonder how I might do on plentyoffish.com? jbb

For example, one young lady asked: In your Must Haves/Can’t Stands profile, you state that you “can’t stand someone who is overweight.” Hopefully, you can see from my photos that I am in no way “Skinny.” I’m a “Healthy size” girl! :- ) Where does that leave us?”

My answer: Excellent question. I love the spirit with which your question is presented. Funny thing is that I’ve known many a “skinny girl” who would deem themselves over-weight to the extent that I wish the statement were framed in terms of my concerns. 1st a confession: I myself am currently overweight, so there is a little of the pot calling the kettle black here. “Healthy” is an excellent word because my biggest concern is that one’s weight is such that it doesn’t restrict ones physical activities or put at risk one’s longevity. “Healthy” also means to me having a good (and somewhat) realistic self-image. We can all improve, but is that drive enough for us to constructively do something about it? For me, overweight has been a sign of someone who has felt unloved to the extent that they are self-medicating with food. I’d rather someone love the food they eat versus eat because they feel unloved. I’ve been there, I know.

Her followup question was all the more intriguing: “Should you still wish to communicate after reading my first question, I would like to know why you chose to join eharmony. Are you looking for a committed relationship that could possibly lead to permanency or something else?”

Friendly Confines servers

I joined e-Harmony because I recognized that I wasn’t likely to meet the kind of person I want in my life without someone working full time to do that for me. As a college teacher, I love the people I work with. I love their passion for their work and the intellectual drive with which they pursue it. But trying to forge a personal relationship with coworkers presents too many potential conflicts to make that a very wise option. I have a younger married co-worker who has taken it upon himself to help me in this area. I’m honored by his efforts and find it very endearing, but I’m hoping to make a connection via e-Harmony first. I believe that my years of living as an unattached rogue have been a “make-do” because I was really made to be in a relationship with someone but I decided that as important as that was, being with someone was not the same as being with anyone. I would like to make a meaningful connection and see if that could become something more permanent.

Then there are the more direct questions: How do you feel about holding off on having sex until marriage?

Sex can be a powerful imprinting force within a relationship, and I believe it’s natural to want to begin to experiment with sexual compatibility before marriage. I don’t want to sound like a typical male, but having seen a few couples who have made the no-sex-before-marriage commitment I have often seen them rush into marriage because they want to feel okay about having sex. Having been married and had other relationships, I’d rather be more organic about my approach to sexuality in terms of balancing all the other components of a healthy relationship such as friendship, trust, discovery, intimacy and let ones sexually just be another component rather than driving force either from getting physical too soon or from abstinence.

The there are the more possibly controversial question: My sister is gay, and our relationship is very important to me. If you had children, how would you feel about having a gay person involved in their life?

My best-friend, whom I chat with pretty much every day, is gay. We met when I was in Pepperdine’s doctorate program and she has been a steadfast friend ever since. As much as I love the Bible, I have a hard time with the church’s censure of a whole class of people because of the writings of Paul. I believe that Paul only understood the gay-lifestyle in terms of lascivious behavior, in which case he cautions against giving oneself over to sexual pursuits regardless of ones sexual preference. So, if I were to pray for my friend I wouldn’t pray that God would “fix” her but that He’d give her the desires of her heart, just as I want for myself, to find someone to share her life with in every way that that means. My son is grown so there’s no issue there, but as a teacher I’m ashamed that parents continue to instill ignorant stereotype and don’t seen that we’re all just people.

In the many many months I’ve invested in my e-Harmony… thing, perhaps, I should be comforted that it’s pushed me to really examine what it is that I’m looking for and the things that really matter to me, and that it is a moving target often dictated by my most previous experiences. Add to that the recent pleasure of telling friends “this is what I want.” Good times. jbb

Music: “Break Up the Concrete” by The Pretenders

I have these two wonderful friends, Dan and Terri, who are always looking out for my happiness. They’re a young happily married couple, any two of which is an oddity these days and whenever we go out they’re always looking for a woman for me. It’s very endearing to me. So, several weeks ago, knowing that there was no talking them out of their self-appointed mission, I decided that the best way to deal with this was just to tell them specifically what I’m looking for. Fortunately we were at one of our favorite spots, Mellow Mushroom, where a young lady works who had caught my eye from the first time I’d gone there last summer. So I told Dan and Terri about the young lady, petite, curvy and bright. I added that it doesn’t have to be her, that I was just giving them an idea of my “preferences.” Good times. A week later, Terri met Dan and I at our other favorite place, Friendly Confines, and Terri made sure that our waitress that evening was up to my specs and when we got there Dan made sure to sell her on the wonderful fun she could have if she went to have sushi with yours truly. To the young lady’s credit she was playful and not overly creeped out. I didn’t have my business cards, so I gave her Dan’s card with my name and cell # and designated Dan as my “agent.” I have no illusions that anything will come of this, but it was fun to have my friends actively make the effort and look for someone based on my preferences. I’m one lucky dude. jbb

music: I Know Why by Sheryl Crow from the Wildflower CD

For my friend, Sukie, thanks for the encouragement. More ancient tunes to follow…

So, one other thing that came out of the conversation was that one of my best friends (and boss), Holly, generally reads the blog up to the first paragraph, but stops reading at that point if I don’t mention her. Hmm, so I wonder if she’ll continue to read this, in that I didn’t mention her until the second paragraph. Oh yeah, the point isn’t just to mention her but to say something witty (or if I’m smart, flattering). Awkward pause. Damn. Do you know how weird it can be to have shared years of very personal stories and experiences, hear the unfiltered thoughts of fellow-workers and try to remember to pay attention to who might be in earshot when I open my big fat mouth? The scary part is that I write a publically available blog. So on more than one ocassion Holly has stopped me mid-sentence and asked, “is X at her/his desk?” just as I was about to say something that might not be taken well by the party under question. Doh! Talk about being smart beyond her years. Smile.

She joked that I might become frustrated because knowing that the blog is being read by various parties, administrative and students, I might fine myself stifled. I guess if that were to really become a problem then that would be a sign that I’m not in the right spot and should probably move on. But just as with my previous jobs, I find that the frustrations and screw-ups of my bosses, students and co-workers are perfectly in keeping with what one might expect from passionate flawed human beings. My co-workers are special because they have chosen to pursue a goal that sets them apart from most of their contemporaries. Beyond that, you have some of the most brilliant inquisitive minds that look past the mundane day-to-day burdens of the work-a-day world to see a much larger picture, but then at the same time completely derailed because they take personally some anonymous criticism from one disgruntled student out of dozens. Far from stifled, I love my co-workers all the more because they openly own their flaws and poke fun at each other because we are such weird and wonderful human beings.

I mean, when one of my co-workers has marital frustrations he’ll ask for my opinion and insight on the matter, I, who haven’t had a date in endless days, and another co-worker who has sworn off even the concept of “marriage.” You’d think one would ask for help on such matters from those who have proven to have had some success with the subject. Well, except that finding someone willing to claim “success” in the marriage arena, usually is unwilling to share the “secret” for fear of torpedoing said success or because finding such successes are ranked just beyond finding leprechauns near the ends of rainbows.

Truth be told, I’ve always known that I ride a fine line when I choose to write about the things going on in my life or my observations. I do it because it’s what I do. I do it because, in times of trouble, I need to vent and think out loud. And I believe that writing about it is much better than venting my frustrations on whomever is unlucky enough to be within shout-range. I do it because I love painting the literary picture. I do it because I’ve done it for countless years before there ever was an audience to read my thoughts. My guess is that my relationships in the late 80s and through the 90s would have been horrified at the things I wrote about had they found them published in a public forum, were there such a thing in those days. And I’ve resorted to writing my thoughts and feelings in the last half-dozen years because I usually wasn’t in a position to have that consistent intimate conversation with the one(s) I loved that I needed. So, given that I do have an audience with whom I work with every day, it’ll be interesting to see how this frames my ongoing need to write. And imagining that my current e-Harmony experiment proves to be successful and that I will also continue to have the dear friends I have to share my future frustrations with, what will become of my “sex and the single brain cell” blog? Well, that’s a problem I’d be willing to adjust to.

I don’t know that I’ll ever become a closed off “private” person. After many years of song writing and performing I imagined that I could take all of that public passion and emoting and channel it into my marriage. It was a nice sentiment, but I guess it was way too much to expect from one person and one relationship, especially in view of the fact that I never bothered to communicate those expectations to her. There is something private and proprietary that I hope to have with my special someone, but then just the joy in having that might be something that I feel compelled to write about and share. Ha. That’ll be a challenge because so much of what I’ve ever written about has come from the frustrations and not from the good times. Yeah, that’s a change I’d be willing to adjust to. Either way, fret not faithful readers, I could always fall back and write about my crazy co-workers, like this one time when doctor… oh wait… need to save those stories for a later date. Sorry. jbb

… and I will agree with the damn computers and get on with a life well lived. jbb

Music: “Don’t Bring Me Down” by Electric Light Orchestra from the “All Over the World: The Very Best of ELO” CD