Didn't wake up today until 1:30pm, which isn't as bad as Day 2, but still set me back a bit. After taking a shower & doing Sara's laundry, it was well into 4:00pm and I was looking forward to a nice leisurely walk around Montmartre. I called Sara in an attempt to see if I could stop by her office to use the internet, but ended up reaching her at Paulo's where she was napping before prepping dinner.

I'd forgotten all about dinner, which was to be at 7:30pm. All I could think was "another day wasted in Paris."

I did find out from her all the details pertinent to dinner, like Paulo's address and the codes to enter his building. She also told me of a little internet shop on Rue de la Pompe where i could get online.

After finishing the laundry, I set out for the shop. I found it with no problems (i'm finally really getting the hang of navigating Paris' streets), and signed on. I attempted to activate international roaming on my phone, wrote a post for my weblog, and checked my email. No email from Katrina (co-worker) yet, so I guess either there's no company news or she's just forgotten to email me.

After fighting with the french keyboard for 20 minutes or so (very difficult for a touch typist to adjust to a completely foreign layout), I got done what i needed to do and set out for the next half of my stroll. Being 5:30pm or so, I decided to just head in the general direction of Paulo's.

I figured i'd stop at a cafe along the way for a croissant & coffee. I made my way somewhat aimlessly, which I enjoyed since i knew i was heading in the right direction. Of course, I did check the map frequently to make sure i was still on track.

Eventually, I found a nice place, and sat down, ordered a cappuccino & croissant, and read for a bit. This was probably one of the my most perfect moments in Paris. I was… unencumbered. No longer ill at ease with not knowing the language, fairly certain of where i was and where i was going (in a physical sense at least, if not in the sense of "in my life" in general), and didn't feel rushed to get there.

You could say that I finally just enjoyed the moment–being an American in Paris, sitting in a cafe surrounded by Parisians, drinking coffee, and chuckling quietly to myself as I read a book by one of my favorite authors.

I sat for a while until the waiter came out and gave me change, then leisurely got up and started on my way again.

I found Av. Mozart (my next "checkpoint") fairly quickly and started down towards Paulo's. Generally, as i've walked around Paris, i've looked at the shops on both sides of the street and occasionally at people as they'd pass.

About halfway to Rue Jasmin, I happened to look across the street to see a man who looked remarkably like my father. I looked back again, and realized that it was my father… and my mother, and my little brother. I hesitated briefly before deciding to cross the street and greet them.

Fate can certainly play strange cards sometimes, or as mom said (to which my dad, surprisingly enough, laughed)…(and i have no idea how to interpret that) "God watches out for us."

Anyway, as it turns out, the family & Kristin & Ryan were–for all intents and purposes–lost. They knew where they were, but they weren't sure where they were supposed to be going. They had bought one phone card that didn't work, then a second phone card that worked but wouldn't allow them to call Sara's cell phone. They were, in a word, stuck. Out of options, they were going to start trying to call peoples' work numbers (at 6:30pm, at shot in the dark at best).

So, here I am and here they are, fortune smiling down upon us. I noticed them, so one must wonder on whom fortune had laid her biggest hand.

In any event, family and friends successfully rescued by Fate, or God, or both; we proceeded to Paulo's without further incident. Dinner went wonderfully, the two families meeting for the first time.

After dinner, my plan was to make up for lost time and to go walk Montmartre. Of course, my little bro is like a lamprey at times and insisted on going with me. So, i went back to Sara's place with the fam., and we waited for Kristin and Ryan to show up with their luggage.

Once it got past 10:45, I realized that it would be much too late to get any decent time at all in Montmartre, since the last metro would be between 12:30 and 1:00 at the latest.

So, plans foiled once again, I got a head start on my journal and map notations.

Hopefully, tomorrow i'll get to walk around Montmartre before the 5 pm train to Deauville. There is still so much of Paris I haven't seen (& it is mostly my own fault, wasting three days), so it's pretty much certain that I will have to return when the days aren't so stressful for my sister, and when I can afford it.

I've also realized that the trip would have been much better with a companion. Someone who could ensure I get up and go to bed at a decent hour.

As much as it's nice to have Paris one-on-one (or one-on-2-million, depending on your point-of-view), it would also be nice to share it with someone.

for the last couple months, there's been this thing going on in my life that i've not really delved into here on bipolar. well, now that that's been brought to it's (inevitable?) conclusion, and since i can't say these things to the involved party, i thought i'd share them with you. who better to unload on than a motley collection of close friends and complete strangers?

she has returned once again, or rather, had returned. a couple months ago–after a particularly low point in what has become an otherwise smooth emotional roller-coaster, and after i'd just been thinking about her with more frequency–she called me up out of the blue.

she'd been almost completely out of my life for close to two years, and the last time i'd even seen her (at a distance) was more than a year earlier. she called me up and we talked. we talked and we hung out. we hung out and spent hours together. me, being the eternally optimistic, overly forgiving person that i am, was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

i was doing alright, really i was. maintaining emotional control, not letting my thoughts run away, not letting my heart get carried off without my head. i was wary. optimistic, forgiving, understanding, but wary.

among the many things she expressed to me during the time we were hanging out, was the "fact" that she had missed me over the year(s), thought about me quite often, and just wanted to be able to hang out with me again. how sweet.

and i tried to believe her, i really did. unfortunately, the same warning signs kept popping up that i'd learned to take notice of in our previous "moments." she would call and complain bitterly about how bad her days were, about how she had no friends, no one to talk to, nothing to do. how utterly bored she was. i let these things slide. i know her. but, (and does anyone else notice this or is it just me?) it seemed to me like i was a "last resort"–she had no one else to call, so she called me. there was nothing better going on, so she wanted to hang out with me.

personally, i like my friends to be busy. i like for them to be busy and still want to at least say "hey" to me, to at least take a few minutes and just talk about nothing. i have always got something i can be doing, and sometimes i have a bad habit of letting that keep me from doing this for my friends, but that's my fault, something i'm aware of, and something i'm trying to work on. just ask nate, he'll tell you.

anyway, i know that i don't want to be "better than nothing" for anyone, no matter what the circumstances. and, especially if this girl who has fucked me over in extreme ways and on multiple occasions wants to come back into my life and tell me she cares and misses me, she'd better damn well be able to show me that that's true. she'd better say "y'know, i've got some work that i need to get done, but i *really* want to see you tonight. you wanna go get some coffee for an hour or so?"

so, then this france trip came along, and after we'd been spending all this time getting to know each other again, trying to be friends again, talking about what the possibilities were for us as something maybe more than friends, i leave for a week. i leave for a week, and the night before i leave, i have to practically *beg* her to come hang out with me to see me before i take off. hello, flag on the play.

and i called her from the airport the next day and i said "hey, if you're thinking about me, you know you can call my cell phone and leave me little messages throughout the week. i'd like that." when i get back home, there's one message–from Tuesday. fine, y'know, she's busy working, she feels weird leaving me message she knows i'm not getting. fine. whatever. no big deal.

i get home after my long ass flight and call her, but she doesn't answer. i call her again before i go to bed that night, again, no answer. finally, she calls me the next day, and talks about her drunken weekend and apologizing that she didn't call back sooner. she tells me that school's just starting and she's really busy. she can't see me. she's got class tonight. she calls me after class on her way home, and says she has to do homework. she can't see me.

well, so much for being missed.

so, i say y'know what, nevermind. if she wants to hang out, she'll call me. when she's not busy with school, she'll call me. after not hearing from her for several days, the obvious realization sets in. in actuality, she doesn't really care. she doesn't really miss me. she makes no effort to spend even the smallest amount of time with me after i've been on the other side of the planet for a week, so it's fairly obvious that i just don't mean that much to her. and if she doesn't care, then why should i?

i haven't called her back since… i guess it was last wednesday or so, when we talked and i told her some of this stuff. about how i felt like a "convenience friend". how i felt that she didn't really care. she, of course, gave me all sorts of excuses, apologized again, and told me that she really did care. well, again, i think the truth is fairly obvious. she called yesterday and bitched about how "the phone works both ways." my response was just "i know, i've just got a lot going on right now." she called again today to say that she "got the message," and that she was just calling to say "hi" and "goodbye."

i thought about all the different ways that i could undertake to get the explanation of all this across to her–i could call her, i could email her, i could write her a letter and take it to her at work. but i know that, if i did that, it wouldn't make any difference. it would be wasted breath, wasted thought, wasted effort. she won't get it, she won't accept it, she won't learn from it.

still, i had to get this off my chest somehow. i had to go through it to get past it. now it's out there. now it's done.

well, not much has been happening, i'd have to say. busy at work, busy at home. i finally managed to finish entering about 3 months worth of comics into OmniComics (that's about a 2 ft. high stack.) got them all entered, bagged & boarded, and now sorted into their appropriate boxes.

and wednesday night i cleaned my room. doesn't sound like much, but if you consider that i hadn't vacuumed the carpet since i moved in… over a year ago… you might understand why it's a "big deal."

of course, our cats are constantly in heat, rolling around, and shedding like crazy since it's summer, so my nice black sheets & comforter are already caked in cat hair. good thing i never have to worry about entertaining female guests. har.

today has been a bit on the depressing side… i took my car into the shop yesterday (saturday, today being sunday of course) expecting to have about $275 worth of work done. got a call earlier today from the place and they informed me of all the other things that are wrong with the car and how they "need" to be fixed immediately. so, now the total for the repairs will be closer to the $700 mark, and i've realized that i've made a huge mistake.

doesn't sound like much, but if you consider that i've had a pretty good run of luck most of my life (big decisions wise, anyway–never having made a "really bad" one, or at least not many)… you might realize why it's a "big deal."

i decided a while back (you all remember the ongoing "new car" debate, right? right?… anyone?) that i would not get a new car, would, in fact, fix my Tercel run it for another year until i can save up some scratch for a downpayment, and everything'll be hunky dory. i knew going into that decision that there was some work to be done… brake pads, axle replacement, possible engine trouble to overcome… well, now out of the gate i've spent yet another $800 on the damn car. (just spent $800 three months ago-ish getting the clutch replaced)… so now i'm $1500 additional dollars into the car since the beginning of the year. i realized today that this decision was a mistake, and thinking about the consequences of making this mistake has gotten me a bit depressed. i don't like making mistakes. little mistakes, maybe, but not life-impacting mistakes. i don't like it one bit.

couldn't get ahold of Jim tonight to get a ride to band-practice, and brax had errands to run and work to do Tuesday night, so we've effectively just missed a week of practice four weeks before our first show… bleh.

bleh. bleh. bleh.

time for bed.

it's been a slow week. not much going on. but, happily, it appears that a couple members of the old murray crew will be coming into town this weekend to hang out. it'll be the first time we've had quite this many together since jim's wedding. it should certainly be interesting.

on Saturday, we're planning a little get-together at Jim's house… the band will probably play, possibly even Old Man if they're up to it (we haven't really asked them yet, so Paul, this is me asking).

Valentine's day came and went without much difficulty, i mainly just did my best to ignore it. i'm not going to whine and bitch about not having anyone to share this "special" day with, because really, the fault lies mainly with myself. i need to get up off my lazy ass, go do some things that make me happy, and yank my balls out from where they've crawled up inside my abdomen long enough to talk to a girl (or four) that i might be interested in. one 'o these days, that'll happen. this is the year for it.

last night i finally made my first batch of turkish coffee, though i found out (did a little online research) that i really probably picked up the wrong kind of pot. i guess the one i've got is adequate, but the real ibriks depend on the wide bottom and narrow top to help "cook" the coffee (the coffee grounds sitting on top of the water form a lid of sorts that helps raise the temperature… or something like that), but the pot i picked up is only marginally narrower at the top. really though, it turned out pretty good for a first attempt. only thing i didn't have was a froth on top of the coffee… the froth got all boiled away. and i drank three of the little fuckers, so needless to say, i was pretty wired for a while last night.

well, now i've got something to fix next friday when we get back from the bar… assuming i'm lucid enough to prepare it… drip coffee is quite a bit easier to make.

ah well. that's it. that's all i got.

ok. so, technically, i missed the deadline for the end of the year blowout post. we'll just have to make do.

the new year is already on us, and i can't help but feeling that i barely noticed the old one passing. if it weren't for the fact that i have to put my coat on just to go out and smoke, and that even inside the house, my fingers are always cold, i'd be hard pressed to believe you if you told me it was winter. top that off with the fact that the seasonal depression that seemed to have affected me every year for the past 6 or more never did really grab hold of me this year, and things are just that much more surreal.

the only really major event in my personal life this year was the move out of the casa de bipolar, and into a newly christened casa de coffeemonk. one would think that such an event would have been enough to really drive home the concept of the passing of time, but the transition was so smooth and uneventful in itself, that i hardly noticed the change. of course, the unfortunate side-effect of the move has been the loss of hang-out time with my compadre brian over there to my left. on the positive side, i've been enjoying increased hang-out time with the old crew and getting to be closer friends with them all over again. and i've made some new friends that had formerly been (to me, anyway) outside of my normal circle, and welcomed them into the family.

on the romantic front, this past year has just been a continuation of the same barren wasteland of the year before. so, nothing to write about in that arena.

i hesitate to make any sort of new years resolution, not having ever made one before, but i believe that my life has reached a point where i will either have to make some drastic changes, or simply accept that there are some things over which i have no direct conscious control. i've let my writing slip for such a long time, that my typewriter and i are hardly on speaking terms anymore. i've been so remiss in maintaining my reading habits that the same 15 books that were sitting unread on my bookshelf at the beginning of the year are still there looking particularly unhappy. i've also become astoundingly lazy. but, my friends, changes… they are a'comin'.

already over the christmas break i read three books, so the reading muscles are once again getting primed to tackle those paperback copies of the Illiad and the Odyssey. I took my laptop to my grandmother's house over the break, and this time, i actually managed to turn it on, re-read some of the writings i'd been working on, and even to endeavor to add some lines to the story. the laziness thing will really be the tough nut, but i think i'm beginning to get sufficiently pissed off to the point that i'll soon be able to chastise myself into action.

so overall, the past year has been very very… blah–for the most part. but i have high hopes that this year will prove to be more fulfilling.

stay tuned.

wow. a whole year. yep, as brian pointed out, and as the more observant of you might have already noticed (yesterday), bipolar is now officially a year old. and i think i'll take a cue from brian on this one, and talk briefly about how the year has played itself out. i already did the self-referential link scavenger hunt back in january, so if you want links the easy way, go check that out.

how have things changed for me since my first entry on bipolar?

well, i guess the biggest thing would have to be my employment situation. when bipolar accepted its first visitor, i was unemployed and had been for a few months. i would have to say that was a pretty down time for me, emotionally, but i did enjoy the fact that i didn't have to do anything at all during the day if i didn't want to. i got a crappy job at Kinko's, because it was easy to get and i needed money pretty desperately. a month after getting that job, during the week i was in the training class, i got the job offer for my current job at corvus. so now, a year later i'm still happily employed, doing what i love to do and making decent money doing it. my professional life has never been better.

i'm just now (next week) preparing to move out of the apartment i've lived in for over two years, to go share an apartment with paul and current roommate brax. the three of us have lived together (well, obviously brax and i have) before on several different occasions, and we get along famously, so i'm really looking forward to the move. not to mention the fact that i'll finally (after over a year) have my own room again. when i first moved into my current apartment, i was living with my then-girlfriend–the often-mentioned, evil her. of course, i was completely in love with her, and everything was fine for a few months until she did her heart-stomping and friendship/fishhook thing on me. after she finally moved out, i had our room to myself for a few months until brax moved in (the first time). since brax couldn't share a room with Jess (since she's, y'know, a girl) he and i took the upstairs bedroom and shared that for a few months until his girlfriend got her meathooks back into him and dragged him back out into an apartment with her. then i had the whole upstairs to myself for… about a month, until brian's roommate situation fell through and he needed a place to stay "until he got on his feet and got his own place." a year later brian's still here, still sleeping on my couch. soon enough, though, he'll have the room to himself, and i'll have my own room to myself. as brian said, he thinks i'm the only person he could have shared such close quarters with for so long. i'd have to agree with him. i think i'm the only person on the planet who could live with him this long without going to the pawn shop to buy a gun, or checking myself into a mental institution.

i wrote my first post something like three months after the breakup of a very brief but intense relationship, and thankfully, by the time we started bipolar i'd pretty much gotten over it. so, i haven't yet had the pleasure of writing any serious relationship posts, since i've not had the pleasure of being involved in any relationships for the past year. i like to think that i'm just being picky and waiting for the right girl to come along, but i suppose i'm really just fucking shy as hell.

i'm probably about 20 pounds heavier than i was a year ago, but i've recently started trying to work out on a semi-regular basis to try and get back down to a more ideal weight. most of my friends say they can't or can only barely tell. of course, they're my friends, what else are they gonna say?

so, with all that's happened, it's been an interesting year. it's strange to realize that i have a record of quite a bit of that time. i've attempted to keep diaries in the past, but never been very successful (thus, my seeming inability to post on a daily basis). you are all witness to my longest running continuous diary. don't you feel special.

well, here's to another year and all the fun and excitement that it might bring. for those of you who've been here since early on, i hope you've enjoyed participating in our lives, and to you newcomers, thanks for reading… stick with us, the party's just begun.

well, just got back from dinner with my father. he picked the Irish Rover, which was great for me, since it's probably my absolute favorite restaurant of all those on the list. overall, it was a good dinner (the food was excellent, as usual), even though we did get the evil waitress from hell. to be honest, i'm surprised she's still working there, she obviously hates it. she was much better this time out, but then again, how could she have been any worse? needless to say, we got out of there before the whole paying the bill / leaving a tip thing came up. but i did get a particular pleasure out of relating the entire story (minus the fact of paul & brian's drunkenness during the events) to my dad, since it at least gave us something to talk about… which leads me to my next observation…

i am too much like my father. i think, all these years, i've blamed my almost morbid quietude in social situations on the fact that the majority of my friends in high school were people who loved to hear themselves talk. i was the kid who could almost never get a word in edgewise. but now, after hanging with my dad this evening, i'm beginning to think it may simply be paternal emulation. getting a conversation started with my dad tonight was like pulling teeth.

me:  "uh. so, uh. how's things?"

how's things!? what the hell kind of question is that to ask your father? and, of course, my father's response:

him: "oh… good. y'know." (or something along those lines)

me:  "… … cool."

<< side note: paul just called me out last night on the phone. he pointed out that i almost always answer any statement or question with just one word — "cool." (in a kind of dull monotone) > >

well, after several false starts, we did hit a few almost good conversations in there, the main one being when he informed me that, when i was four and the family was planning to move to Kentucky, my primary apprehension about the move was… indians. yep, indians, i was apparently afraid that Kentucky, that vague forest-land was teeming with wild, violent, Daniel Boone, Bill Custer at Little Big Horn type indians. and really, i think this is possibly the most important thing my father has ever told me since i moved out of the house and went to college, because, get this, my earliest memory of a childhood dream was about indians attacking our house and the little old lady who gave my sister and i milk and cookies.

well, now i think i understand that dream a little better. obviously it was some kind of anxiety dream about moving to Kentucky.

another conversation we got on was the life decisions issue. it kind of saddened me to hear that there are several things in my dad's life that he sometimes wishes he'd done differently. the only one he specifically mentioned was moving to Princeton. i can't help but wonder if some of the others have anything to do with me. as i've told several of my friends when we've gotten on similar topics, there is only one thing i really regret in my life–the horrible way i mishandled the breakup with the girl who i seem to be mentioning quite a bit lately. that whole situation is probably the only thing i'd go back and change if given a chance.

altogether, i guess it was one of the better father/son hang-out sessions we've had, despite the absurd conversational difficulties. probably the best part was that i got to take him to dinner. normally, he pays for dinner, then slips me a twenty before he leaves. this time, i paid for dinner, and he didn't slip me the twenty… it was liberating, and it just felt good.

in other family news, my sister has been so completely enthralled by the wondrous adventure that is bipolar, she had to go and start her own little weblog. at this point, i've given her a couple days to get into the groove, so go check it out. she's currently living in france, so perhaps she'll be able to expose us all to a little culture… or at least teach us how to say dirty words in french. oh, and that's multi – literate, not mult – illiterate or some such. she's quite the intellectual.

damn. two longish posts in one day… what's up with that?

ok, here's a reduced calorie version of the post i attempted to make the other day.

( or, the story of the year 2000 )

other things that happened pre-bipolar:

started the year in the arms of a beautiful woman, who i ended up falling in love with, and who ended up leaving me a couple months later.
lost my job of two years at the local bookstore, because of my own negligence.
spent two months off work, before breaking down and taking the Kinko's job (around the time of bipolar's first month).

so, now it's a new year, i've got the perfect job, and i'm making good money. hopefully this year will be a little better than the last.

there's something about the woods in winter. i'm not really sure exactly what it is that i like so much about them. i mean, i love the woods in summer too, the full trees, the waving green leaves, the birdsong filling the air, the feeling of closeness and solitude–connection with nature. but in the winter. hmmm. the cool air. the open sky. the trees bare, revealing their underlying structure. the silence of the woods, broken only by the occasional chatter of the last squirrels hoarding for the winter, the seemingly distant calls of the few birds that tough out the cold months, the crunch of dry leaves under your feet.

during the spring and summer months, i never really think about camping all that much, but as soon as fall and winter roll around, especially winter, i really get the urge to just run off into the woods and stay there for days. i would love to just take a weekend, hike deep into the woods away from civilization, spend my days wandering around, reading a book by a stream somewhere, writing whatever thoughts enter my head, building a fire and cooking up big pots of beef stew and strong coffee, staring up at the clear night sky counting the stars, watching the smoke and embers rise and disappear while one side of my body freezes and the other cooks. i wanna wake up and see the morning fog drifting through the trees as the birds sing to me.

the only thing i can imagine that would be better than this, would be having someone there to share it with. someone to sit close to, more to be near each other than to share warmth. someone to point out the little things that give me wonder, someone with whom to share my joy.

well, i'm back on the job today, after taking two days off for that whole birthday thing. thinking, yeah. i'll take two days off, come in on Friday, then have TWO MORE days off… well guess what? we're on a deadline. "we need help and you're the only man who can do it, you're the last man available, can you, maybe, work this weekend? please?"

"yeah, i guess."

ah well, this'll make it much easier for me to get next Friday off to go up to chicago and watch one of my absolute most favorite bands in existence, the monkeywrench. their latest album is pretty kick ass, btw, but i've long considered Clean As a Broke Dick Dog to be one of the greatest albums of all time. it's definitely in my (not-really-defined) top-ten.

hm. this week has been a little odd, both nights that i was off work, i ended up getting drunk (not wasted drunk, but pleasantly drunk). this is not like me. my friends usually bitch about me "never drinking with them." sad thing last night was i was drunk after only two pints of Bass. i guess i've become a lightweight again. well, we'll have to fix that.

oh, and i still haven't heard from her. i'm trying not to think about it, because, y'know, fuck her if she can't make a little effort to at least pretend she cares. lip service is all i've gotten (and no, not that kind of lip service). a person can talk about how much they care until the mad cows come home, but it doesn't mean shit if they can't make a little effort to show you. yeah, maybe she's busy, maybe she's got stuff going on. she could still take five minutes to call & leave a message, or just say hey, can't talk right now, but wanted to say hi. even that would at least be something. can't you tell i'm trying not to think about this? oh yeah.