I don't know how most people in the world handle being alone.
I mostly walked around a bit today. Spent the morning with Cynthia and Colby at the farmer's market. Afterwards, killed a bit of time with Colby going shopping. I'm humoring him a bit but how do you stay with someone as a guest but not spend time with them? I just want to be alone in their apartment (like tonight); or take walks in the mornings and shoot a few photos. Perhaps that's what I can do tomorrow.
This trip to San Francisco feels different. While I've been away, the threads that ties me to friends here have frayed. Everyone has their own lives - pushing forward in a direction only the universe can take.
It's a relief, actually, to not be burdened to meet people and catch up. Most of my adult life has been a series of catch ups, and there's only so much you can have a conversation that orbits around a review of your life before you go crazy. The give and take of conversations when the speaker and the listener are on parallel tracks is very different than when they are intersecting for a few brief moments; you can have depth based on repetition, whereas the allure of the burst of reviews fade quickly when you've exhausted the usual job-relationship-weather topics.
It's strange - that while most people in cities are single - that cities at every opportunity cater to couples and thereby remind the poor souls that they are indeed alone. Walk into any restaurant, the the table settings are placed for two. You sit down, and the waitress will give the once-over and (as if she doesn't know) ask if "It'll just be one". You sit and wonder how many times must you notice that she removes the extra setting before it is a commonplace thing to be ignored?
Went to a reading for LitQuake near Montgomery stop. I've never been to an interesting reading before. Do all authors take themselves and their work so seriously? Listening to someone read -- and therefore interpret -- something makes my brain tired. It's too slow for me to wait for them to decide on what intonation and meaning to give to the characters and words. There was an interesting Afghan author that I should read up on.
Headed out into the sunny streets after an hour. Walked back to Duboce to catch the J back to Noe Valley. Bought a white shirt -- $165 is way too much to spend for someone unemployed -- but perhaps I have a masochistic tendency to fail utterly and see how the broken pieces can be picked up. It's kind of like the Ai Wei Wei schtick where he drops the thousand-years old vase and shatters it. What happens to the pieces afterwards?
Shirt was soaked. I think I actually smelled bad.
Bored -- keep telling myself I should do work but more and more I'm tired. Perhaps it's the different time zone. Perhaps.
Daydreamed about talking with Shanan today and telling him how I can't be happy. Then within the daydream, I had a thought that if I told him what my fears were right now, he can understand because he's had therapy before. Am I depressed? Do I see therapy? Just someone to talk to without judging? Slowly descending into a fog that is harder and harder to wake up to.