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10:01 pm - Mon 1.13.2014
Wrapping Up 2013

Wrapping Up 2013

(Watching/listening to The Hollywood Reporter Round-table series on PBS - Just finished watching the episode with the Golden-Globe nominated actresses, and now it's on to the screenwriters...)

Once again, I feel like a lot is "slipping through the net" in here, and I don't really have any excuse for it. I don't. I have all the time in the world - I'm just so fucking tired all the time...

For an example of what's "slipping through the net", I wrote a review of 2013 in acting terms, but I never recapped the year outside of acting.

Granted, there really wasn't much of a year "outside of acting" in 2013...but there were a few things that happened.

And those few things were kind of a big deal.

For example, for a few bright, shining weeks, I almost had a girlfriend.

And, in a way, that's much bigger news than my booking this or that acting job - After all, I book a number of acting jobs each year, but I've logged 20+ years with no girlfriend.

So this was pretty momentous stuff, because I've been so long without love & romance in my life that I've kind of "gotten used to it". So it was alternately exciting and alarming to have it once again emerge as a possibility.

And then, from my perspective at least, as randomly as it began (She initiated the contact), it was over.

I've written about what I think happened - basically saying we "over-thought it", and neurotically "talked ourselves out of taking a chance".

And who knows? Maybe that's exactly what happened...and maybe not.

Who knows?

But it was kind of cool that it even emerged as a possibility, when I'd basically given up on it.

And I was disappointed that it fizzled out.

And kind of relieved.

And it was a little surprising/depressing, to have to consider that maybe "I don't really want 'love' and 'romance' that much anymore" (This was my first real shot at love - and sex - in decades, and I chafed at having to negotiate the distance between my place in K-town, and hers in Santa Monica, cause a good chunk of the time, driving sucks in LA); maybe I've settled in to being "The Lonely Guy" for the duration of this journey.

____________________

Another thing that happened this year was the on-again, off-again relationship I have with my brother Tony became "on-again", just before Xmas.

It's been kind of a rough road for the two of us, because I don't think either of us really know how to be brothers. I don't think either of is terribly "clear on the concept", so-to-speak.

It was novel (and frankly, thrilling), to meet, but very quickly our radically different outlooks became clear, and started causing tension (Tension exacerbated exponentially by Facebook).

Without a "history" as brothers, I think often all we've seen is that the other person has views antithetical to pretty much everything we believe, and we couldn't really see why we should "put up with it".

He was the first person who broke off contact with me in anger because of our differences, but I was the cause of our last rift (He'd posted something on FB from Michael Savage - I don't even remember what - that I thought was just "beyond the pale").

And I don't want to re-hash the whole thing, because I've already addressed it in here earlier.

I felt terrible about where things had been left, but was very fearful (and resistant)about making an apologetic overture, for fear of being smacked down, and feeling worse then ever.

So it was tremendously meaningful to have, first his wife Lori, then Tony himself, make the first overtures toward reconnecting; I've gone through my life feeling like I'm always the supplicant in relationships, that I'm the one who needs, that has their hand-out, and the one who has to beg for forgiveness when there's tension, because I'm the one who "needs the relationship" more.

For me, conflict in a relationship, has meant feeling abject terror that the relationship will now come to an abrupt, unhappy end.

Lori and Tony gave me something that I've never had before, which is the feeling that, you might fight with family, but at the end of the day, they're still your family.

And I'm starting to get a small sense of what having a brother/being a brother might actually mean.

____________________

While I might have gotten (mostly) used to the idea of being alone in terms of human companionship, I did get Hamlet, my new feline roommate, at the end of 2013.

I've told people the reason I spend years "between pets" is that "I take it hard" when they die.

And that's very true...but "taking it hard" doesn't just mean feeling really sad, which is true enough; I wrestle with a lot of guilt over pet ownership, and basically feel like I don't "deserve" to have a pet (Because of my finances, because of my patience, etc).

But "deserve" or not, it's struck me, after getting Hamlet this year, that I need to have a pet in my life. I'm afraid to care about other living things (Human or animal) - afraid of rejection, afraid I'll feel bad for failing them, and ultimately, afraid they'll die - but life is simply more meaningful if you care about something/someone other than yourself, and dealing with the complicated feelings that can arise is "part of the package".

(An obvious "life lesson" perhaps, that you'd think I'd have learned before now, but "everything in its time", I guess...)

I've laid out more money for Hamlet early on (Between the "donation" to the rescue place, the twice-as-expensive-as-regular-food food, and now dealing with his parasite situation) - than for any cat I've had before. And I have to be honest - I've found it a little stressful.

But as I said to someone recently, I'm realizing that caring for other living things might occasionally require some sacrifice.

And, the expenditures aside, I've enjoyed having another little life in the house - He's provided me a lot of entertainment and amusement.

And I think I may even have experienced the odd sensation you humans call "love".

That might make paying a little extra for cat food worthwhile...

Well, I think I got everything, pretty much.

Now I can comfortably focus on 2014...


 

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