"I wanna feel the change consume me, feel the outside turning in
I wanna feel the metamorphosis and cleansing I've endured"
[Tool, "Forty Six & 2"]

What happened? It didn't get written? It didn't get written, at least until now, and in a slightly different condition and frame of mind.

Liza-Ann made the mistake of asking me about the possible future contents before I was able to sort through it in my head and write it; I made the mistake of trying to talk through them with her while it was still a big mess in the back of my skull. I'd like to think we both learned from the experience and won't repeat it. It made for some unpleasantness for a few days, though we sorted it out and moved past it.

She came to recognize the paradox within herself: to on the one hand want me to find her very attractive, and on the other to want me to love her unconditionally regardless of how she looks. I came to recognize dichotomies within myself: to on the one hand insist I am who I choose to be and on the other feel trapped by things about myself which I cannot (or perhaps will not?) change, and to at the same time both want to change a certain aspect of myself and recognize it is one of the elements that makes me who I am. And given that at the end of the day I'm pretty pleased with who I am, perhaps I shouldn't worry too much about fixing what isn't broken. Accept the cracks in the foundation and be happy the building is standing just fine.

The point, originally, was to be this: I wish I could turn off certain elements of my sex drive. The human sex drive has it's time and place and purpose. Without it, the race would die off. It's imperative. And were it not for that drive, I'd not have met LA and formed a relationship with her. Without that drive, our relationship would not have progressed to the level of intimacy we now share. Without that drive, perhaps I'd have a very different relationship with women in general as well as her specifically, and my life would be very different from the one I enjoy now.

At the same time, given my situation in a healthy and happy relationship, the nature of this underlying urge is to now become counter-productive. If, for instance, an attractive co-worker catches my eye on the way to the printer and I lose my train of thought, I'm less effective at doing my job. This instinct is no longer serving to forward my life's progress, but to hinder it.

The same aspects of mankind which serve to help us can also hurt us, given the time and the context. Whether it's the Justice-Dispensing Well or the Evil Dark Well depends only on which villager has fallen into it most recently; at the end of the day it's still just a hole in the ground.

This is who I am, and I have to accept that. I can't turn it on or off depending on its convenience. So if I have to struggle with a few Nick Cage's Weatherman moments (... tartar sauce... tartar sauce...) along the way as the price of having a healthy sexual appetite as a straight male, then we'll both have to learn to forgive me.