Sick

Sick and reflective. What is my damage and what is my point? So hard to talk to anyone, ever. I could write and try to express things I care about, but I can't divorce that from the urge to ingratiate and make the friends I lack.  What to do? Should I continue on Twitter? Interact more? Less? Not at all? Give up social media? Read a fucking book again? Talk to people in real life and see what happens? So many of my problems are about not being able to communicate, and so many of the world's problems are not hearing the right things communicated the right way. Just struggling to find ways to address both wants, and failing. I wish I had some sort of interlocutor to address the high and the low, the big picture of our self-destructive greedy world and the small picture of a terrified but amiable middle-aged man with some pretentions to good ideas and no bedside manner. Thanks for listening to more babble. Maybe I'll talk more often.

Pointless

Your babbler just has one of those days where he wonders what the point is. Invisible, plodding, ugly, ridiculous. Knowing that's irrational and not caring because he feels it, that the cool kids laughed then and laugh now. Useful, maybe, to others for chores, or the job, or a bit of sympathy or witless wit, but nothing really else. Not interesting, not attractive, which means both the looks and that people want to be with you. And wondering how in control his feelings really are. Alarmingly Attractive Twitter Woman didn't respond to him on IG, which makes him sad in ways that make no sense if he isn't really interested in her. So, in addition to every other lamentable quality, add poor self-control and self-delusion. Maybe being the dork on the outside always looking in, nose pressed against the window, was his natural condition, and it was pointless to try for anything else. Pointless.

Self-loathingly,

The Self-Deluder

PS Twitter crush politely trying to ditch me, Twitter friends making a big panicky show. Clusterfucked. Un-unscrewable pooch. Did it again.

The Deep, Deep, DEEP Meaning of This Blog

There isn't one. I just thought I'd warn you, since I didn't before. There are lots of political blogs that go into all that, and for a left-liberal like me I spent years on Atrios, Digby, LGM, Balloon Juice, Kos, Firedoglake, places like that. I debated the issues of the day and got into massive internecine flame wars over Things That Mattered. But did they? The guy promising Hope and Change delivered bailouts of the banks and nobody else and spent the last 3 years cutting the budget, killing the recovery, and making every major decision in favor of the people with money. Racial progress and more enlightenment on how people love each other is super, and I applaud it. But was that worth entrenching money even more in control of all of us, or launching drones everywhere, a war in Libya, another one maybe in Syria, and snooping on everyone on the planet?

I guess, at least when I've seen these things unfold the last 5 years, I say Goodbye To All That. I've spent 30 years in my head as some pie-in-the-sky intellectual wannabe thinking about all the Serious Issues of the Day that I was supposed to, and it didn't do much for the world or me either. Maybe instead of Politics with the big P, I choose as my study people with the small p, individuals I know and meet or hear about, finding out about them in all their fascinating variety. I went about this the wrong way. I started in the clouds with The Right Ideas, and they probably were, instead of on the ground with my fellow humans. Enough of that.

So this blog is about me, you, and all the stuff we get up to and think and feel in everyday life. It feels right to me after not feeling right for a VERY long time, and I hope it may feel right to whoever trips and falls in here. I'm friendly, I accept you, and I'm just curious about it all.  Get at me or not, it's cool, and I'm just going to Do This Thing! and see where it goes. Peace!

Mixed Nuts In Only 1 Bag

As in, some good, some bad news for your babbling interlocutor.  Two sorta-kinda-i-dunno at-risk Twitterers seem to be in more sanguine moods, which I'm happy about. Two people in real life got mad at me, one in the accustomed you-are-a-bad-person mode, the other in a similarly customary I Am Angry But Not Talking, Very Loudly! manner. Oh, Twitter crush said she was my Twitter crush, which was a highlight.

Back to one at-risk-maybe Twitterer and a self-conscious person's dilemma. I tried to be encouraging/bantering with her on Twitter and IG, which she seemed to appreciate. But. She is alarmingly attractive, and as a result not only not in my league but not even in the same galaxy. Still, kinda maybe worried that she takes banter and back-and-forth as flirting, or even coming on to her? I'm not a total innocent about my own motives, flirting with someone nice and pretty isn't anything I'd turn up my nose at. But I'm really not coming on to her, and her taking all of it that way instead of me trying to be an (awkward) friend would bother me. What to do? Give her space, especially since she's in a decent mood? Talk, but be cool and muted about it? These things aren't obvious to me, and I worry about them.

Well, thanks for listening, people who stumbled in this part of the jungle by accident whom I tied up. You rule!

Sincerely,

Social Scientist/Dork

Ineffectual with suffering people: a self-indictment

As in, there are at least two people on Twitter whom I talk to who regularly talk about dire shit in their lives and how they might just give it all a toss. I try to say supportive and semi-encouraging shit, but it clearly doesn't make much of a dent. I wish I could do something, but fucking what? I have no fucking idea. I went to a pretty cool state university and a top 10 law school, and I suck at trying to make a difference in people's lives and hep the people I like. So what was all that worth?

Anyways, this is another of those posts that are for getting this crap out of my head, at least for a few minutes. But I really wish I could figure it out and DO SOMETHING that mattered.

Sincerely,

Awkward As An Art Form

Starting this blog because sometimes Twitter just isn't enough to capture stuff on my mind. We'll see how it goes. Two things on my mind tonight:

(1) Someone I like on Twitter seems super depressed, not sure what the fuck to do.

(2) Twitter crush seemed a bit distant just now when we stopped talking for the night.

All very age-appropriate matters for a 40-something professional guy to be worried about, and not making me sound like a teenage boy. Jesus H. Christ on a midlife crisis!

Sincerely,

Babbling Blogging Scott