Inter-Yeti

I think the biggest problem I have living here is that I have to use filtered water to make coffee. Not that that is really a problem, but the fact that the tap water is so bad that boiling it and running it through ground coffee isn't powerful enough to take out that horrid taste it leaves in your mouth. When I first moved into this apartment I woke up and poured a glass of tap water for myself and I nearly gagged trying to take a sip of it. It is not good water. Thank god for those PuR water filters you can keep in the fridge.

I read somewhere once that there is a theory that humans can only think of about 150-200 people as people. Meaning that we can only think of a certain amount of people as individuals and everyone else we just group and stereotype. Our brains supposedly can't empathize enough with more than around 200 people so we have we can't think of too many people as once having been children, of having their hearts broken in the past, of having real thoughts and feelings. They are the minor characters and extras in our lives. I don't know if I agree with the numbers they say, or with the idea in total, but there is something to it.

I work with a lot of attractive girls and I barely talk to most of them. Even though I know things about most of them I don't really think about them in the same way that I think of other people I talk to a lot more. They are just there, not really people, just some sort of 'other.' There for scenery as far as my brain is concerned. Every once in a while I will have a short conversation with one of them I hadn't ever really talked to and all of a sudden I have a different perspective on them. Like a girl I talked to a bit last night. I've been seeing her three to four days a week for almost five months and just by putting a little more personality to her she sudden seems like a more dominering presence in my life. Before I could just ignore her if I wanted to and now I'm not sure I can do that. Not to say I really connected with her or something like that. It was a mundane conversation. But the fact that I'm forced to understand on more than just a theororetical level that she is capable of conversation it now seems like I'd be an ass to just ignore her for the rest of my tenure there.

On the other hand I could make the case that I distance myself from some people for purely selfish reasons and it has nothing at all to do with being able to see them as a real person, through and through. In this case I try not to connect at all with a girl that I know I can't at least try to date. Married girls and girls in other long term relationships. Once I fall for a girl it takes me many, many months to get her all the way out of my head. And even then she won't be entirely gone, just far enough away that I don't think about her all the time. It's frustrating to pine for a girl you can't have. Not to mention stressful and emotionally destabalizing. If there is such a thing as emotional destabalization. Probably.

But if that first theory is correct then it would stand to reason that there is someone from my past that is knocked out as a 'real' person in my brain as soon as I allow someone else to enter into my little world. Probably someone I haven't thought about for years. Someone I worked with or went to school with and now I can't really picture them as a whole person because I let one more person in. Maybe part of it is just memory. I barely remember a person from my past, have no idea what they are doing now, how can I really see them as a real person? Expecially when there are all these people right in front of me. Or maybe its stranger than that. Maybe I don't really see new people, even ones I've talked with and gotten to know a bit, as real people. Maybe I am just thinking of them as more specific generalizations. I suppose that is possible. I might just apply certain ideas to them that I think fit based on what I know and therefore I'm not really connecting on a human level, I'm just see them as slightly more complex characters.

This may, at best, make me sound very cold. At worst it may make me sound crazy. But I think we can all understand that we stereotype people. Maybe not, because I have had conversations with people who speak in generalizations and stereotpyes that swear they don't. But that is a lack of understanding of how their brains are working. A lack of self-awareness and knowledge of how the human brain works. I'm not saying these people are bad or making mean stereotypes, just that they make assumptions and don't realize they are making assumptions. But we all do it, and I think its important to, from time to time, try and figure out how we are doing it. Not to correct it so much as realize when we do it.

On a different subject, I need to meet a girl. Actually there isn't much more to add to that. I thought I was going to have a lot to say. Nope. I just need a girlfriend. I've been saying this for so long its almost lost all meaning.

I miss being around people with academic knowledge. Okay I'll say it the mean way; I miss being around smart people. The people I see the most are the people I work with. I found out one of them I talk to all the time never went past 7th grade. Half the girls are still in high school. The others are graduating now or never went on to any school after high school. The only person that has a college degree there beside me is the boss, and he is kind of an idiot. I have to dumb down my vocabulary around him. And I don't use many words that are all that complicated. When I used to listen to loveline Adam Carrolla would say it was better to be the idiot of the smart people than to be the smartest of the morons. When I was in college I would occasionally feel intellectually inferior to people. But that was a much better feeling than being around people that you can't even converse with because they don't understand what you are talking about. I'd much rather have people have to dumb it down around me a bit than the other way around. At least that way I have room to grow and try to catch up. Even the dumbest conversations I've ever had with people from the group have more depth than the most intelligent coversations I've had at work in these past months. Its a completely different world. I don't mean this to sound like I'm some sort of elitist, but if that is what I'm saying then fine. I'll gladly accept the mantle of elitist if thats what I have to do to get around people I can actually talk to. I used to think it would be nice to constantly know I was the smartest person in a room. But as someone who never thought of himself as being smart enough to ever have that experience it was pure theory. Now that I've experienced it for a while I have to say I really hate it. Not only do I feel more isolated than I'd like, I also have to admit to myself that I am much smarter than everyone else there and that makes me feel like an ass. And it makes me sound like an ass. And hell, maybe in some weird way I am the dumbest person in the room. And at the end of the movie I would learn that and everyone would laugh at me for thinking I was better than everyone else and some slick talking guy would run off with my girl. Of course there are problems with that, for starters I don't have a girl. And second, I don't think I'm better than anyone. I just accept that my brain processes information better than other people I work with. But that does play havoc with my emotions. Sometimes I wish I could just turn it all off and just do everything impulsivly and just be happy with whats in front of me. But not often, because I'd rather be discontent with a shitty situation than just accept it and be happy and never have any motivation to move forward in life.

I don't believe in Peter Pan, Frankenstein or Superman

I just watched Lars and the Real Girl. I realize that this movie might not have much mass market appeal, but I loved it. It is a very dense movie, you have to peel away at it once you've finished watching it to make any sort of sense out of it. But then you see the core of it which is that no matter how alone we all might feel at times there really are people out there that care about us. Sometimes it takes something utterly bizarre for them to really come to our side, perhaps, but they care. It takes on depression and loneliness with a softness and sweetness that is lacking in almost any thing else I've ever read or watched before. I'll grant that there are some unbelievable bits to how the town reacts, but you love these characters so much you just won't care. And the acting is just brilliant. As is the cinematography. Normally I barely notice the directing in a movie but in this case there are so many shots and images that just stick in your head.

I had a restless last couple nights. Bits of insomnia and crazy dreams keep me tossing and turning occasionally waking up in my chair wondering how it was I managed to actually fall asleep. When I do sleep I wake up with a sore neck and a sore back. I feel like an old man. I guess I'm just stressed out about life again. I'm in a bit of a writers block, I'm quiting my job in a week, and I keep obsessing about a girl I can't have.

Even though I was going to be everything from a book store owner to a cop since I've graduated, none of those things really seem to have worked out. In the back of my mind I kept saying "well, if these don't work out I'll go back to school." And I suddenly realized why so much hasn't been working out is because I just want to go back to school. I think I go after these things more half-assed than I should be and don't work to get a better job because even though I always thought of school as plan B, its really been my plan A and I am sabotaging myself so that nothing gets in the way of that.

This realization isn't that helpful though. Because I can't get accepted until next Febuary anywhere I want to go. And then I wouldn't start till August 2009. So I've got somewhere around 16 months to kill. I shouldn't speak of over a year of my life as just "time to kill." But I have to find something to occupy myself for that amount of time. Maybe this is a good thing though. I can do a lot in 16 months. Expecially if I know I don't have forever to hang around doing it.

Fuck, I don't know what I'm going to do. And 16 months is a long time and I change my mind every couple of weeks anymore. I used to always think I just need to get focused but I suppose that isn't my style. My brain jumps all over the place and I just have to accept that and work with it instead of against it. I have to understand that I am without sails. I must go where the current takes me.