the workshop is on

trying to figure out what i can say.

my floaty life has been shaken, slightly in the grand scheme, but i've realized i'm more alone in this endeavour than i realized. and that's always unsettling.

i've been without a wingman for quite a while now, and while it's certainly something i miss, i've been revelling in the married bliss instead - which, when it's good, is far better than having an ordinary best friend. wondering how long it will be until the next time you'll find someone to touch is just about the worst thing in the world. so married life is a total joy on that level.

and i suppose thats one of the things thats insulated me from missing having a real best friend. it's been a long time since i had such a relationship, i traveled heavily for so long, and didn't end up near any of my old friends.

which brings me to this "mentor" character. i've been living with or next to him for the past two years, and intermittently for the past seven. and we're close, we can basically communicate, but he's a fucking alien, and i've always known it. he's in his own world, and it's points of contact with my own little world are fairly limited. but we're both here all the time, and do the same sorts of stuff, etc. etc. etc. so we'd approached, recently, the general area of "best-friend" status. which was sortof wierd, in itself.  despite our similarities, we're not the same fucking species. i'm an american-bred slacker, i'm a.d.d. as fuck and a media/internet junkie.  he grew up in india and guam and shit, majored in world peace in college, a real "son of the planet" asshole.



so now, here's me, in the middle of my most ambitious project yet (after having a kid), about to have a fucking open-invitation, come-one-come-all workshop, for which i have asked and he has promised his "total support."

AND THEN HE FUCKING LEAVES. 

for like 10 weeks. to go sailing in alaska.

and i can't help but feel like he cares about learning to sail (no, really) certainly more than he cares about the house that i'm building, but perhaps more than he values our friendship?

and this was my best friend?

was this really the best male companion i've earned/developed/cultivated after thirty fucking years? someone i can't rely on for the FIRST AND ONLY important important IMPORTANT favor i ask of him in the entire course of our fucking friendship?

and now what the fuck am i supposed to do? i live next to the jerk, my little homestead depends on his/theirs/there for it's fucking justification for why the hell we live among all these fucking assholes instead of in asheville or somesuch happy shit.

forgiving and forgetting is something i've always been good at. i'm too fucking zen to usually care about what drama happened last week, or i'm too fucking short-attention-span. either way, i've always been good at letting go of bad shit (or just bad at remembering to care about it).

but this feels different. whatever else, our friendship can't be what it was.

and so it happens that as soon as i set my foundation, everyone in the community is suddenly saying "why do we live here again? why dont we live in california, or on a sailboat, or somewhere thats not so hot and buggy?"

and i'm totally powerless against that. 

i'm totally without defense against being left out here in the wilderness. i have no illusions of being a self-made man, being some kind of island, or that i can make it on my own. that's all bull. lonliness is the worst, most life-killing thing in the world. 

i guess it's really ironic that as i was working on my brick-and-mortar foundation (actually rubble trench and gravel-tire), my community foundation was quietly eroding out from under me. 

but what the fuck ever. the workshop is still on. 

lets hear it for being a pridefull stubborn jackass, too proud to admit defeat.  at least not yet.

Comments

[Nada]

hip hip!

[michael]

People can be seriously disappointing sometimes.

Good luck.