Here I am at my fave table at my fave White Spot, having survived the experience of making that goddamned video for my History Of Popular Music class.

But it was not easy. Technology seemed to want my head on a platter last night, to the point where after four hours of work, all I had to show for it was a video of me talking about the subject. And I felt lucky to have THAT.

So I had to get up at 6 am in order to work to turn that into something a bit more interesting.  And after three more hours of work, I had…. something. I would love to have spent more time adding more of my little touches to it, but that was not to be.

At 9:30 am, I rendered the video and started uploading it.

Which ended up taking MORE THAN AN HOUR.

Did I mention that class started at ten? So not only was I super stressed about the project, I was going to be really, really late for class. I couldn’t get the URL for the video until the damed thing was uploaded, and I had to email the URL to my prof before I left, so…

So it was 10:45 when I got there. Stressing like mad all the way. Oh, and I couldn’t find my fancy expensive headphones before I left, opening up the real possibility that I lost them somewhere.

Stress on stress times stress.

But the presentation went well. People liked the video. Liked it a lot more than I do, to be honest. I was embarrassed by it. But only the artist knows the pain of the difference between the art they produced and what they could have done.

So while I won’t fall in love with the piece any time soon, I can at least acknowledge that it was sufficient for its intended purpose.

(—)

Home now. It’s after supper. and I am feeling mellow. Well, as mellow as one can be when you are full of Diet Coke. I think I am developing a habit.

Oh, and now that I am home, I can show you the video I did :

Here, watch the fucking thing.

Boring! The album covers don’t really make listening to me drone on any better. But they were the best that I could do. In a perfect world, I would have started way earlier so I had the time to overcome technical snafus and then get down and concentrate on finding appropriate images for everything I was saying.

That would have made things so much better!

Oh well, what’s done is done. The professor liked it, especially my thanks at the end. I meant every word. The course was super amazing funtime spectacular awesome, with fries on the side. And I am a firm believer in expressing how I feel to people.

And everyone laughed at my silly little record-scratch joke at the beginning, and that pleased me immensely. I love to make people laugh. There is such joy and freedom in laughter. When we laugh, truly laugh, ours hearts are open and our minds alight and for a moment or two, we are happy children again.

Tried to get my thoughts about my protecting my own innocent across to my therapist. I think he got the gist of it. I suppose I don’t really have a clear idea of what I mean either, come to think of it. It’s like I have subconsciously but deliberately blinded myself to things I think are petty, low, and ignoble. I deal with interpersonal competition by ignoring it. If I get enmeshed in it anyhow, I handle myself with all the poise and reserve I can manage, and with the certain knowledge that I am perfectly capable of letting the other person “win” if that seems like the right move for me.

But is all that healthy? To whom am I trying to prove that I’m an angel, above it all, pure and innocent and unsullied by the petty (and lamentable) bickering and scrabbling of daily life?

On the other side of the coin…. do I even have a choice in the matter? And is this one of the reasons I have always kept myself apart? Has my isolation, on some level, stemmed from my desire not to get caught up in the dirty business of life? I have always found myself in the role of objective observer and occasionally even in the role of conflict adjudicator, like my hero Judge Harold T. Stone..

I don’t like taking sides. I don’t like being asked to go against my own judgment. I don’t like getting caught up in things and losing perspective in the heat of the moment. I like to stay outside of things because I can see things more clearly then.

And I am all about the clarity. That’s what my relentless search for the truth is all about. I want to know what is really going on. That’s the only way I know of staying in control of the situation, or at least, my part in it. That’s a basic part of my nature. In the absence of faith and trust, I rely on my magnificent mind to navigate through the world. I observe, analyze, deduce, summarize, and ultimately form a picture of the situation in my mind that I can act upon.

I know that sounds terribly cold. But remember, it is only method. My goals are compassionate.

But you can’t lead a transpersonal life. I’m not an angel, I am a human being, as messy and flawed and fragile and absurd as any other. There will be a point past which I can’t keep myself apart any longer and at that point, I have to be ready to stop “staying out of it” and become a part of things.

It’s what I want most, to be a legitimate part of life, and yet it’s the thing I have avoided the most strenuously throughout my life.

Sooner or later, I am going to want to open up to someone. Let them in. Maybe even let them experience my radioactive core.

I just hope that, when the time comes, I can do it.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.