I’m in the early stages of reevaluating the person I’ve become and hopefully finding ways to be better than I have been. Self-awareness is definitely not my strong suit, but I’ve acknowledged in the past that in very many ways I’m a selfish bastard. That “what’s in it for me” attitude is probably what drove me to the transactional relationships habit we’ve been discussing in the comment threads on some recent posts. More on that another time.

In the belief that I might atone for some past transgressions and steer a course towards a more honest future, I had a talk with Janey yesterday over lunch at the Arizona resort. We started with a calamari appetizer. Janey did a chef salad and I tried their enchiladas. I honestly wasn’t impressed. But that’s not important right now.

Janey wasn’t expecting any serious talk and I could tell she was taken aback when I started telling her the things I’ve been thinking about these past few days. I began by telling Janey that contrary to what she has said to me on several occasions, she is not a “bad girl” for seeing me while she is in a long-distance relationship. I said if anyone was bad, it was me for having put her in this position to begin with despite my knowing she was not free. I told her that it made me sad when she blamed herself. I also said that I didn’t want her to feel any pressure from me to make a choice between me and her boyfriend. She should take her time and pick the life that is best for her. By the same token, I made clear that I do not want to be a second choice or fallback option. Her decision should be solely about him and her without consideration of her feelings towards me. If she should ultimately choose to end that relationship we could start anew and see where it leads for us. In the meantime, I would be taking a break and preparing myself for whatever the future might bring. I made clear I wasn’t seeking to find someone else, in fact, I needed time alone to figure out what it is that I want.

It felt good to get all that off my chest and I figured it would lead us into a larger conversation about her feelings as well. So, I was surprised by her reaction. “I understand” was all she would say. She was ready to burst into tears and wanted to leave the restaurant. I kept trying to reiterate that I was doing this for her–no more stress and she could take her time to make the best possible decision for her future. I emphasized that my feelings hadn’t changed but I thought it best for us both to focus on what was going to best prepare us for whatever the future might bring. “I understand” was all she told me. Then we left, she caught a trike and I went to play darts.

I later got a message saying I should not have told her what I did in the restaurant because she had to fight to keep from crying. We’ve chatted some today and she wasn’t sounding happy at all. So, I guess I was selfish again after all. It seems I just can’t help myself. Telling her what was in my mind and heart felt like the right thing to do, but maybe I was wrong about that.

I think where things stand now is we are back to being friends without all the baggage that comes with cheating. She did talk some today (on messenger) about her boyfriend and some of their issues. I suggested a face to face heart to heart when he returns to the Philippines. She’ll figure it out I think. I’m not sure where I’ll be at that point when she makes her decision. Hopefully in a better place than I am now.

And that’s where things currently stand with Janey.

Oh, and I sucked at darts last night. It’s like I hadn’t played since March or something.

Tried to take a walk this morning, but it started raining so I turned around. Tried again this afternoon but when I got to Marion Hills the gates were closed. I’ve never seen that before. Made me wonder if one of those COVID cases was there. Or maybe they are trying to keep it out. Either way, I didn’t want to wind up in some quarantine ward so I retreated back to Alta Vista and walked there.

And that’s all I’ve got for this lockdown Sunday. Well, I’ve got pork chops in the crockpot. Maybe some beers and a movie later. Life goes on.

So, I’ve taken some time to sincerely think about and digest the thoughtful comments I received to the post entitled “Live and learn”. That proved to be an apt title I guess. There were so lessons to be learned thanks to the brutally honest feedback I received. So, thanks again for that.

Other than Kevin, I’m don’t think the commenters have had the unique pleasure of meeting me in person. Being known only for what you write and share on a blog like this is a two-edged sword I suppose. I try to be honest with my readers in my diary-like ramblings, but some things of necessity may be left unsaid and others might be overemphasized because they are standout moments in an otherwise mundane life. So, I think in some ways I might create an impression that I’m something that I’m not. Like being a player that has random and regular sexual encounters for example. By my count, I’ve been with twelve women in the 27 months I’ve lived here. Several of those I was dating, others were one night stands with bargirls, and a couple were friends with benefits type encounters. On the other hand, I’ve come to question my own self-awareness lately so maybe what seems like nothing out of the ordinary is actually quite perverted in the eyes of others.

Anyway, I’m not here to make excuses and I do intend to take the advice I’ve been given in good faith to heart. Whether that will result in my actually changing any destructive behaviors remains to be seen. I do want to respond to a couple of points made in those comments just to explain where I’m coming from.

From Kevin:

…we can at least be sure that your feelings for J don’t amount to love. At this point, I’d say it’s clear that there’s no seriousness at all regarding your relationship with J, and that you’re content to use women the way they may or may not be using you.

I guess I could cop out and just say “it’s complicated”. J seems special and different somehow, but yeah, when it comes right down to it, she scares me. A few days ago she was talking like she was ready to dump her boyfriend for me and I was surprised my reaction wasn’t joy at all, more like panic. I guess I was able to dissuade her from making a hasty decision, but it made me realize that I wasn’t ready to take on the responsibility of being her only man and everything that goes with that. Maybe I’m not her best option.

Has it occurred to you that your ex is probably aware you’ve been with J, and this is the ex’s way of re-marking her “territory”?

She definitely knows now as I told her I’d been dating J. And I think I’ve made it clear that while I hope we can remain friends, there is no going back to where we were relationship-wise.

If you really are seeking some sort of love and companionship, you have to start by eliminating the transactional dimension of your “relationships.” 

Yeah, I can now see that I’ve brought a transactional element into my relationships here and that is inconsistent with the love and companionship I’ve claimed to be seeking. So the question is now am I willing and able to change?

From Brian:

Honestly, you should probably swear off women in your locale. Too much of a “small town” vibe. Drama everywhere. If you want/need to sow your oats, take a long weekend and go to city XXX (wherever that is) and repeat as needed.

Yes, living in a small takes some getting used to that’s for sure. Here’s an example from this week: I’m walking home from Baloy beach and suddenly this woman pops out of the bushes in front of me (I believe she was avoiding the checkpoint on this highway). She smiled and said “you’re the guy who is always at Mangos”. Then I recognized her as the woman I’d seen on the beach there several times, just standing around. She explained that she was tapping into Mangos free wi-fi. She then asked where I was going and I told her “home”. Then she offered me a massage. Hmm. Attractive enough and I do enjoy a good massage so I agreed. And yes, I know this seems to confirm the points Kevin made above. Anyway, we get here and it turns out she actually is a trained masseuse and did an outstanding job. When she was done she asked if I wanted a “happy ending” and I told her not this time. So, maybe I’m not totally ruled by my little head!

James left a humorously sarcastic comment, but he did make some fair points, including this:

However, being a fair man, it will come as no shock to you to find that you will apply the same harsh judgment on yourself when you fail to live up to your rules. It becomes harder and harder to rationalize your actions and then your rules become in danger of being obsolete.

I honestly hadn’t considered that to the extent I’ve rendered harsh judgments on others, I’ve also been guilty of the same infractions. I do seem to have some self-awareness issues.

Megan’s comment probably stung the most, perhaps because it rang so true:

If anyone has followed your blog posts, they would see that you have been married four times, had multiple relationships along the way (married and single), and profess about “falling in love” every other day. While reading your diatribe of “oh golly, I’m just doomed to be unlucky in love” might had some resonance, your abhorrent actions tell another story. Stop acting like a lovesick Romeo and embrace your lust filled persona in full force. Eventually, it seems to just be a ‘trick the reader’ into feeling guilty for me scheme.

It is never my intention to “trick” readers, I think what you are seeing is me not being honest with myself. But yeah, I’m the common denominator in every failed relationship I’ve been involved with, so I acknowledge that. I actually did a post tallying up the score of my lifetime of failed loves. I took the blame for some of those, but maybe not enough. I especially appreciated Megan’s perspectives as woman in declaring my actions as abhorrent. And her advice to embrace my true nature and stop pretending to want love has some resonance as well.

Again, thanks to all of you.

So, now what? I’m honestly wondering whether it is even possible to change what I’ve become at this late stage of my life. I really can’t deny that I’m both a broken man and my own worst enemy. Being willfully blind about that is no longer an option. I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to do long term (or as long term as it gets for a man about to turn 65), but for now at least I’m going to just stop pursuing relationships. Better to be alone than to keep on hurting people. Including myself.

I’ll be meeting with J. later this afternoon and I’ll give her the news. Not sure how she will react, maybe she’ll be relieved. Several times now she has told me I deserve to find a good woman. When I tell her I think she is a good woman she says “a good woman wouldn’t cheat on her boyfriend”. So, yeah, I’m not doing her any favors I think making her feel that way. Especially now that I’m doubting my ability to follow through.

The ex has been leaving me alone since I told her about J. and said she couldn’t stay at my house anymore. I know my half-assed dual messaging has not been good for her either. Maybe now she’ll move on.

And I’ll be alone and making the best of those sorry circumstances. As my readers have reminded me, I’ve earned every bit of it.

But what a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing
There’s nothing at all
But what a fool believes he sees…

Well, I turn 65 in ten days, so I’ve got the living part pretty much down. The learning, maybe not so much. In my previous post, I alluded to screwing up again, and a couple of commenters expressed curiosity about what I did this time. Here’s the gist of it:

My ex-girlfriend asked if she could visit for lockdown Sunday. She’s friends with my helper and attached to the dogs. She’d asked before and I’d always told her no. For some reason, I agreed this time. It was mostly fine, she brought her karaoke machine with her and the girls sat out back and sang the night away. I went to bed and to my surprise, I woke up to find her next to me (I expected her to use the guest room). And then my little brain nature took over.

I was gone all Sunday morning on my hike and the women folk sang all afternoon. So it was all cool. I went to bed early and she joined me again later. This time she slept with her head at the foot of the bed and that suited me fine.

I’m chatting with Janey this morning and she tells me she and her sister are going for a run. I asked where and she said Baloy beach. Imagine my surprise then when I saw her and a couple of other females jog past my house! Now, the ex was still upstairs but she’ll usually sit on the balcony and have a morning smoke. I went upstairs and she was in the bathroom. When she came out I told her not to use the balcony this morning. And then of course I had to explain why. Check out Sarkinen Plumbing packages for services.

It was weird. She knows Janey from the Hash and she suspected I was seeing her (never while we were still together though). I think the ex was hurt for some reason, but we talked through it. I reminded her that we were just friends now and who I spent time with was not her concern. I was paranoid that Janey might come back and knock on my door. Also, it was time to walk the dogs. Would I encounter her out on the street? Finally, I just said fuck it, and we did the dog walk. Didn’t see anyone and apparently Janey is none the wiser.

So, why do I feel like shit? Well, I certainly wasn’t honest with Janey. She had no idea I was entertaining a guest this weekend. I don’t know if being with my ex constitutes cheating, especially since what I’m doing with Janey is in fact cheating on her boyfriend. But it still doesn’t feel right somehow. And yes, it has occurred to me that the person I’m being most dishonest with is me.

So, I don’t know what I’m going to do at this point. No intention of going back with the ex, she’s better at being a friend than a girlfriend. I still like the idea of Janey but the reality of our situation is wearying. I’m still not prepared to walk away just yet, but the thought of doing so is recurring. It could be like that old song says: “We had the right love at the wrong time”.

Anyway, that’s the update. More and more I think I might be better off alone. It is probably what I deserve.

The internet truly is forever. Or so it seems. I had an email this morning from a stranger. He’d read something I posted on a forum back in April 2017 and wondered how things had worked out for me. And so I briefly related the sad details of that unhappy ending.

That forum post had been called “A brand new plan” and detailed the soul-crushing history that had led me to give up on love completely forevermore. My new plan was simply to hire someone to provide all the things a lover might without the baggage that love brings with it. I had already found the perfect woman for the job and was sending her to school to learn the caregiver trade. I was quite smug in my belief that I had it all figured out.

And then I fell in love with her. And then she broke my heart. It’s going on three years now and I’ve mostly gotten over it. And for the first time since then, I find myself falling in love again. With a woman who is already in a relationship. It’s a little scary when I consider the parallels with what happened to me and what could potentially happen to my new love’s boyfriend. It ain’t pretty and I’m not comfortable with being in this triangle.

It was odd timing that I was led to revisit the past this morning. Because this afternoon I’m having “the talk” with my new love. I had already told her that I was taking a step back to give her the time and space she needed to decide which future she wants to pursue. I got a message from her saying she didn’t sleep well last night because of “stress” and today she wants to talk about “us”. So that’s what we’ll do.

No idea which way this is going to go but I think I’m ready for anything. Frankly, re-reading my old new plan has me thinking that maybe I was on the right track back then before I mucked everything up by falling in love.

I’m anxious to see what is going to happen next.

Love is a rose
But you better not pick it
It only grows when it’s on the vine
A handful of thorns and
You know you’ve missed it
You lose your love
When you say the word “mine”

I wanna see what’s never been seen
I wanna live that age-old dream
Come on, lass, we can go together
Let’s take the best right now
Take the best right now

Life is a poem, and then you die. Well, that line sounded a lot more profound when it was in my head than it does when it appears in pixels. I’m no poet, although there was a time when I expressed my teenage angst in words that rhyme. Kinda like that. I even posted some of my work from those long-ago days here. There’s a reason I became a mailman rather than a writer.

The Only Way

Perhaps the best way
Is your way
Maybe the best belief
Is not to believe
Maybe the only answer
Is no answer
And maybe the only time
Is this time…
And yet,
Why can’t our love
Be the only love?

Alone

Alone in my fantasies
Alone with my dreams
But when I wake with the dawning
One sullen fact remains
That I am alone in my love for you—
The sun doesn’t shine, it rains.

See what I mean? The scary thing (besides the bad poetry) is that all these years later I am still more or less living those sentiments. Talk about being a slow learner!

But this post is about a real honest-to-goodness poet I truly admire–Charles Bukowski. Perhaps I’m a selfish reader of poetry, but my favorites are the ones whose words resonate with the thoughts and emotions I have experienced. I grew up around poetry; some of my earliest memories are of my father reading poems out loud to us kids. Over the years I’ve collected dozens of books by the likes of Sara Teasdale, e e cummings, James Kavanaugh, and various anthologies.

And nope, I’ve never owned a book of Bukowski poems. I actually discovered him relatively late in life. In fact, as I was preparing this post I saw where I had written about reading him for the first time back in November 2005. That post included a link to a Bukowski biography that is also quite interesting. I love the fact that he too is a former postal worker.

Convinced, then, almost from the outset of the hopelessness of humanity and lasting friendship, he largely rejected the goals after which most strive. Instead, he found solace in alcohol. “Getting drunk was good,” Bukowski says in Ham on Rye. “I decided that I would always like getting drunk. It took away the obvious and maybe if you could get away from the obvious often enough, you wouldn’t become obvious yourself” (189). Drinking and remaining “unobvious” thus became Bukowski’s vocation, until, that is, he started writing seriously around 1960. Then drinking, remaining “unobvious,” and writing were his vocations, and remain so to this day. Necessitated by the fact that none of his vocations paid enough for him to survive, he worked as dishwasher, truckdriver and loader, mailman, guard, gas station attendant, stock boy, warehouseman, shipping clerk, post office clerk, parking lot attendant, Red Cross orderly, and elevator operator, among other things (Contemporary Authors 109).

Heh, I guess the drinking part is something else we have in common. But that’s obvious, right?

So yesterday’s rain kept me confined to the house and passing away the hours on the internet. Which led me to discover this article about a new documentary called You Never Had It: An Evening With Charles Bukowski.

The paradox of Bukowski was that he was a poet who wrote about drinking, screwing, the track, despair and fighting, but had a persona that was gentle, mirthful and self-deprecating. It’s easy to imagine his voice, with its gentle lisp, used today for guided meditation audio. When Bukowski talks about “drinking and fucking and drinking and fucking” it’s with a shy smile and playful eyes that won’t always connect with the interviewer. It’s telling that Bukowski, the author of books like Love is a Dog from Hell, Women and Post Office, loved classical music, particularly Beethoven. Despite the dipsomania, he spoke with great precision.

Is it any wonder I like this guy?

So I was inspired to spend some time reading Bukowski poems yesterday. I didn’t like everything I came across, but this one stood out for some reason.

“Alone With Everybody”

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there’s no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

Powerful stuff, at least to my troubled mind.

My favorite Bukowski poem remains “The Laughing Heart“. I’ve shared it here several times, but the first time was the night I discovered it: Christmas Eve 2015. And what made it especially special was the way I found it:

Jee Yeun and I had recently split up and I was very bitter and cynical about love. I was lamenting to a bar friend about the forlorn state of my psyche, when this stranger walks up to me and says “I’m sorry to eavesdrop, but don’t ever give up!”  Then she asked if I’d ever read “The Laughing Heart” by Charles Bukowski. Now, I’m a sucker for poetry and have read some of Bukowski’s stuff, but never this particular poem.  So I grabbed my phone and pulled it up for a quick read. Well, that hit the spot.  And I was very moved by the random act of kindness of the person who reached out and shared it.

And it is still raining.

I don’t believe in censorship, even when it is self-censoring. Recently I have done some posts about certain aspects and goings-on in my life that are more sensitive than usual. And I woke up at 3:00 a.m. this morning and some voice in my head was telling me that was a mistake.

But what to do about it? In over 15 years of blogging I’ve only deleted published posts once before. That was when I got called out at work for some content that was job-related and deemed inappropriate. I didn’t like doing it then but I wasn’t willing to give up my sweet salary over some little-read post. This time the issue that was troubling my mind was the possibility of my inadvertently causing trouble in the life of someone I care about. I still didn’t want to delete those posts so I did a quick Google search to learn how to password protect posts in WordPress. It was easier than I imagined to change the privacy setting. And that’s what I did for those five or six posts I thought might prove problematic.

Did I overreact? Perhaps. But I recalled some random guy recently commenting on something I wrote in 2005. And I got an email from someone this week saying he had found my blog while doing a search on Google about the quarantine requirements in Olongapo. A few months back a guy approached me in a bar saying he had found my blog doing some random search. Then he proceeded to lambast me for continuing to hike during the lockdown because “it made all foreigners look bad”. Anyway, the point is I tend to blog as if no one is going to read what I write. I do have some friends that I know read the blog and everyone else who does are random strangers anyway. But if one of those random strangers happened to know the person I was talking about or knew that person’s friends or decided to share some of what I wrote with them it might make a mess of things in ways that I would not want to be responsible for. Hence, the password protection for those posts.

I do not intend to make this a regular practice. I will perhaps be a bit more discrete about what I write and better consider the implications of words that may cause collateral damage to innocent bystanders. And any of you who are a regular reader/commenter here can send me a message and I’ll provide you the passwords for those posts. Fair enough? Sorry for the inconvenience.

In other news, I found this photo on Facebook rather titillating:

I’m not sure what kind of fruit or plant this might be, but damn, I want a taste:

And I will close with this:

Things will be back to normal around here tomorrow, including some photos from today’s very pleasant mountaintop hike. Stick around!

Ah, the adventures that come with being a blogger. I think it would be fair to call LTG a niche blog. In fact, these days I think of it almost like a diary that has been left outside for the world to see. And if my stat counter is to be believed, I average around 175 people dropping by for a read every day. A few of you even leave comments which are also much appreciated.

A while back I did a post about some victim of a bear attack. It included some graphic photos, including this one:

When I say I posted this a while back, I’m talking more than 15 years ago, in February 2005. That was just three months into my blogging career, such as it is. I certainly had no recollection of the post but was surprised to see that someone had recently commented on it:

Bullshit. I call bullshit. That first pic is a forced perspective. Something hunters and fisherman do (look it up). And the pic of the so called remains were taken with a newer HD camera, where’s as the first 2 pics were taken with something from the late 90’s / early 2000’s. The storey is bullshit, and the pics are in no way related to each other. Your an idiot to believe this work of fiction.

Thank you for the feedback, Fukh Hoffman. Maybe I’m an idiot but comments are always welcome, even if they are impolite and 15 years late. For what it’s worth, I did update the post in question noting that the story has been shown to be false. Oh, and it’s “you’re an idiot” not your.

It does just go to show that what you post on a blog is pretty much forever. I’m sure I’ve said lots of things that would get me canceled back home in the USA. Not that I care.

One of my most prolific commenters, Kevin Kim, mentioned the full moon picture I posted yesterday. Here it is again:

I had also taken a shot of the moon in full zoom mode with my phone. It came out like this:

And while we are on the topic of blogging and bloggers, one of my regular reads, Althouse, had a link to the love story between Jonas Salk and French artist Françoise Gilot:

“When Jonas proposed, she had replied, ‘A relationship would be all right, but I don’t want to get married…. Because I don’t want to live with anybody more than six months a year. That’s it. I need my own time to myself, plus I have my children.’ Jonas handed her a piece of paper. ‘Write down everything that you don’t want,’ he directed. ‘I’ll give you an hour.’ Françoise proceeded to write down those elements that would make the marriage unsuitable for her. Jonas read it over. ‘Very good. It fits my life perfectly.’ ‘But we don’t know each other,’ she cautioned, ‘and it may be disastrous because you’re a scientist, and our lives are very far apart.’ ‘No,’ Jonas countered, in what seemed more like a business transaction than a romantic moment, ‘even if we’re not so happy, at least we’ll be like a citadel; we’ll be a fortress for each other.’ Françoise thought about it. Both felt exhausted by the world and sought a refuge…. Though many could not fathom their marital arrangement, Salk and Gilot’s relationship matured as they grew to know each other better. ‘We found new discoveries all the time,’ Gilot recalled. And Salk maintained, ‘I have achieved in terms of personal relationships as much with Françoise as I could possibly fantasize.’  When asked in an interview how she had ended up with two of history’s most powerful men, Gilot replied: ‘Lions mate with lions.'”

Wow. Not really sure why, but that really resonated with me. I’ve been fucking up my love life for decades now. Maybe I just haven’t found a lion yet. Although come to think of it, one of my ex’s did say that I was a “lyin’ bastard!” Yeah, I’m the common denominator in all those failed relationships. Guilty as charged.

Speaking of the kind of women I seem to attract, Mary hasn’t thrown in the towel yet. She’s changing her tactics though. She continues to harass and borderline stalk me and last night I told her I was seeing someone else now and that I wanted to remain faithful. Here is what she had to say in a message this morning:

Baby, do you want me to be your friend with benefits? If you want I will see you because I like having sex with you. Is that okay with you? No money involved, just sex only.

I told her again I don’t want to cheat and will see how my new relationship works out.

But wow, it’s really something to have a 21-year-old woman practically begging for sex from a 65-year-old grandfather. Of course, I’m not stupid enough to believe that is her endgame. I guess this could be like a test to see just how stupid I might truly be.

In somewhat related news, I found this joke to be kinda funny:

How about one more?

Sometimes when I reflect on all the beer I drink, I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. I think, “It is better to drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver

It’s the least I can do!

Can’t wait to read the comments on this post 15 years from now!