danny_g

I don't like not knowing what to do.

I'm not talking about not knowing what to do for dinner, although I'm not overly fond of that either as it tends to result in fast food more often than not. No, what I mean is I don't like being faced with a problem I don't know how to fix.

Now, I'm not saying I need to fix every problem I'm faced with. No, hang on, I am. I am saying that. Now that I think about it an irrational amount of my self-esteem is tied into being seen as a Problem Solver. I like fixing things. I like to help, even if all I've done is lighten the load for a spell. Even if sometimes I am capable of saying "I can't help with that, I need some me-time" or what have you. That I can deal with. It's the other times... the times when someone, often me, has a problem I just can't handle.

Electronics are a key example. Computers, especially. It's no great secret that I consider the most basic of computer programming tasks to be darkest witchcraft. I doubt I could back-up and format my laptop without sending for an old priest and a young priest. I need things to work according to some kind of logic: for there to be rules, patterns, and predictable behaviour. I'm sure computers have at least one of those things, but I don't know what they are, so more often than not when something refuses to work I end up shouting "WHY?" and just trying the same thing again until my eyes are bleeding with rage. And that's no fun for anyone.

The problem with life is that it's even less fond of rules and patterns than computers are. And logic? What seems logical to me may well be the fevered dream of a madman to someone else. My life, my friends' lives, they are full of problems with no clear solution, at least none I can see. That don't sit well with me.

I blunder through as best I can: this time last year, forging a new career was a problem I could scarcely glean the shape of, and I seem to have pulled through that one okay. Making people attend my shows... well, we run hot and cold on that one, but we do well enough more often than we don't nowadays. But there's still some hurdles left to deal with.

Love is a game that has no rules, at least none it's willing to share. There is no logic to it, save that which it invents to suit its own purposes. Sometimes I feel like I'm learning how to play a game that's already half over. I'm trying to pick up what I can, but I don't know how many turns I have left. I'm told it's not without its rewards... companionship, intimacy, knowing that there's someone aside from my mother or Granny who'd love to hear from me... but it all seems so distant, unreachable. Like sitting in a desert and dreaming of the ocean.

I'm not done yet. I have, on occasion, announced that I was done with the game, but I don't like how those proclamations made me feel. No matter how much better life has become this last year, I don't like the thought that this is all there is. It's just very tiring. And as far as this love and dating thing goes... I don't know what to do.

And I hate that.

"I require additional scoops."
-Hastings Kilgore