July 15, 2004

Yep, it’s been another long delay since my last entry.

I’m sitting at the waffle shop right now, after just spending a nice evening of taking some photos out the road near tee harbor, as well as at the shrine.

Something sits heavy on my heart right now, though I can’t precisely identify what it is. While at the shrine I went to “The Gap” there I had a moment of prayer that was essentially me asking for help with cleaning up my life and fixing my heart. More and more I recognize that I am able to make fiends and be close, and then using that ability, get closer to someone than I really need to be. Just since Helen and I have broken up, Heidi, Heather, Helen… yeah, I need to figure things out.

I feel somewhat negligent towards my business right now, and that lends it’s own source of guilt, my relationships with women lend to feeling guilty, there is so much that I feel guilty about. I would love to release that, to feel free from any burden, to feel that people aren’t judging of my actions. Perhaps it’s my heart and desires that have to change, perhaps its my actions. How do I get out of my present situation?

June 30, 2004

Yikes, it’s been a while since I last posted.

Yup, Helen and I are still broken up.

Breadloaf is on campus, so that means lots of hikes (I have 3 planned this weekend).

Heather Eastaugh and I got a bit closer than I would have liked to (we kissed) after an evening of chatting. My feeling is that she’s been through lots of trauma, and though I suppose I’m willing to be a friend, I don’t want to wind up dating someone with those kinds of challenges (sexual/physical/emotional abuse.)

Helen and I need to figure out how to be apart. She’s looking for support from me, though I can’t really offer it because we’re supposed to be broken up. There’s still a middle ground available somewhere I hope. I guess it could all be resolved with a “I just can’t see you any longer, let’s take a break” talk…

I just had my Festiva’s muffler fixed yesterday. It’s all nice and quiet now. I like it.

That’s all I really have for the moment. I’ll try to do these more often.

June 9, 2004

Actually, I just experienced the 8th. It’s 1 am right now.

I just got back from Bill & Sharon’s place – we watched a movie called ‘Dickie Roberts – child star’ or something like that with David Spade.

I think the thing that I wanted to write about was my experiences with my father or lack thereof. At the end of the movie, Paxton started fussing in his room, and Bill went and got him. In the few minutes before I left, I got a glimpse of something distinct that I missed out on in life – Fatherly Love. Bill just held Paxton on his chest and hugged and joked with him (“Paxton, guess what?” “Wha” “I love you.”) I never have experienced that kind of love from a man. My father was a complete absentee father. I recall the memories I had of him.

The first I think was when I was youngest, though I don’t know my actual age. I recall sitting with him at my desk where the firewood would later be stored, and feeling really strange because I wanted to kiss him, but I didn’t know if that was right – him being a guy and all… I don’t recall how it turned out, but the confusion of not knowing what was okay is something that I still sometimes wonder about.

The second memory was a brief visit that my dad took to come to Juneau to pick up his tools – he was over at his friends house at 17 mile. I don’t recall much, but I remember that I got to go see him there. It still makes me wonder why that was the meeting location, and why it was so brief.

The third was while he was passing through town on the ferry. He only had a little while, so I think I was able to spend something like 45 minutes with him. He had this ratty Xerox paper box with stuff in it. While sitting there chatting with him and trying to think of significant things to say in less than an hour, I remember seeing a little matchbox car mixed in. It was already well used – the little antenna on the top, and the two guns off of either side of the hood were all bent. It looked kinda like a shorter heurst, though more sporty. I don’t know what it was supposed to be, but it was a toy, and he gave it to me (after I asked to have it).

The final memory was of a phone call. It was likely around 8:30, because I recall my mom getting the call, and then allowing me to chat, though I was supposed to be in bed. After a few minutes on the phone, she prompted me to get off to go to bed. I’d bet that the bed thing was a scapegoat because if I remember correctly, later on, my mother informed me that he had been drinking and she didn’t want me on the phone with him while he was in that state.

Four brief glimpses, four indelible experiences. That and some tools are all I have of a father.

I wonder sometimes how I am supposed to learn to be a great dad when I had no example. I wonder how I’m to be in a relationship when my father didn’t know the first thing about strength. I wonder how to make choices that are right and strong, when, again, I never had that example.

Well, time will tell, and personal development will have to suffice – observation, reading, listening, etc. Best of luck to me. G’night.

June 6, 2004 (cont.)

Alright, so since I’m doing this at 6 in the evening, I suppose it’s more of a June 6, 2004 than the previous entry.

First things first

Watched my little brother graduate today. That was interesting. Bruce Bothello was the speaker (he’s presently the Juneau Mayor). I got to see lots of people that I haven’t seen in quite some time. Nico Bus, Salena Kasler, Robert Ridgeway, and more. Then I went to eat with my mother, Shane, Dawn, and her daughter & daughter’s boyfriend. We ate at the salmon bake which was nice. It’s really nice out right now.

Sleep Log

I woke up at 8:30 to my alarm, and then promptly fell back asleep. I think I got out of bed at around 10ish.

Humor

Today during graduation, while the conferring of degrees was taking place, someone threw out a couple of beach balls into the crowd. I thought it was sorta funny, but I guess the lady who came in to take them away didn’t.

Struggle

Trying to figure out what I want to do with the relationship I have with Helen. On one hand, she’s a great person, on the other, I don’t think I’m ready to be in a committed relationship. I guess I should have thought of that years ago, huh? I think I need to grow up, or get something out of my system, or something… I don’t know how to explain it at this point.

Beauty

At the Salmon Bake today, my mother had found out that one of the girls working there had graduated the same year as myself. I was thrown into a conversation with her which was nice, but at the same time slightly strange. It seems that she was looking for some sort of adult interaction, as though she didn’t get much of it at times… Which might be the case – she’s got a 1 year old at home. Anyhow, the beautiful thing is meeting new people, and making them feel special. She has a gorgeous smile, and when I told her such, she lit up.

Kindness

I guess it falls back to the meeting new people. In addition to Cara at the Salmon Bake, I met Kay Anderson who is a sophomore at UAF – studying Spanish. She’s here over the summer working, but is originally from Oregon. It was nice to chat with her.

Goals for the evening

Go work on the garage. Possibly go for a walk out Kowee Creek or somewhere like that. Put together an order. Figure out details within my finances. That’s about it.

Alright, so since I’m doing this at 6 in the evening, I suppose it’s more of a June 6, 2004 than the previous entry.

First things first

Watched my little brother graduate today. That was interesting. Bruce Bothello was the speaker (he’s presently the Juneau Mayor). I got to see lots of people that I haven’t seen in quite some time. Nico Bus, Salena Kasler, Robert Ridgeway, and more. Then I went to eat with my mother, Shane, Dawn, and her daughter & daughter’s boyfriend. We ate at the salmon bake which was nice. It’s really nice out right now.

Sleep Log

I woke up at 8:30 to my alarm, and then promptly fell back asleep. I think I got out of bed at around 10ish.

Humor

Today during graduation, while the conferring of degrees was taking place, someone threw out a couple of beach balls into the crowd. I thought it was sorta funny, but I guess the lady who came in to take them away didn’t.

Struggle

Trying to figure out what I want to do with the relationship I have with Helen. On one hand, she’s a great person, on the other, I don’t think I’m ready to be in a committed relationship. I guess I should have thought of that years ago, huh? I think I need to grow up, or get something out of my system, or something… I don’t know how to explain it at this point.

Beauty

At the Salmon Bake today, my mother had found out that one of the girls working there had graduated the same year as myself. I was thrown into a conversation with her which was nice, but at the same time slightly strange. It seems that she was looking for some sort of adult interaction, as though she didn’t get much of it at times… Which might be the case – she’s got a 1 year old at home. Anyhow, the beautiful thing is meeting new people, and making them feel special. She has a gorgeous smile, and when I told her such, she lit up.

Kindness

I guess it falls back to the meeting new people. In addition to Cara at the Salmon Bake, I met Kay Anderson who is a sophomore at UAF – studying Spanish. She’s here over the summer working, but is originally from Oregon. It was nice to chat with her.

Goals for the evening

Go work on the garage. Possibly go for a walk out Kowee Creek or somewhere like that. Put together an order. Figure out details within my finances. That’s about it.

June 4, 2004

Day number two in a row! Neat!

Alright, briefly about the day… Went to work, was distracted a lot by dreamweaver, though that wasn’t entirely bad cause I’m learning about CSS. It has lots of potential, but there’s certainly a learning curve. I talked with Heather (?) for about an hour today. She’s the one with arthritis and a conspiracy theory against computers. That was neat. It was nice to share with her, though I don’t want to give an impression that I’m interested. I would be alright with getting to know her I suppose… She’s set high standards that would be good to learn from. Went to talk with Dr. Shepro today about orthodics. He, of course, is biased about his strategy and it seems that Patrick is naturally biased towards his training. I went ahead and set up time to meet with Patrick which was nice. It was at the end of the day, so that gave a little leeway for asking questions about whatever I could think of. Basically I took away that I don’t really need orthotics, but it is most important to stretch out my calves and quads… I am really tight there (duh.) From there I had ultimate, which naturally was a good time, though I was tiring more easily than I had been expecting. I had a collision with Anna that rolled my ankle slightly and my thumb/wrist pain decided to act up, so I ended up calling it quits a couple points earlier than everyone else. I then walked to Breeze In to return Anger Management. It was a good movie, but not really my style, some of the humor was a bit rough. Not crude, just not really my style. During the walk over there Helen wanted to talk, so we did – the entire hour that I was there! I actually was hoping to get some CommuniKate in, but that didn’t happen.

Right now, it’s 12:18, so I think I’m being consistent with my sleeping patterns I suppose. I have to be at work tomorrow at 7:30 so I’ll be going to bed here shortly.

More thoughts about the relationship thing with Helen… Well, I keep getting the feel that I am going to be breaking up with her, though I don’t really want to run from something that I should be addressing in the course of the relationship – namely the sexual aspect. In talking with Bill & Sharon, it’s pretty obvious that the next step that I need to pursue is what I want to accomplish, and how breaking up (or staying together) might support that direction. Sound advice, but naturally, not the easiest to follow.

Alright, so that’s enough for the moment – I’m headed to bed. G’night.

June 3, 2004

Wow. Time flies. So it’s 12:32 in the morning, and I thought I’d do some thinking before I went to sleep this evening. Helen and I are having ‘relationship troubles’ and I’m trying to figure out what I think about the whole situation. I went over to spend a little bit of time with her this evening since she was really frustrated about things last night, so we chatted a bit, and then read out of a new book about heaven and what it might be like, then I asked her if she’d go down on me – as a joke – but she said yes… What a tangled web we weave. I left from her place (she’s housesitting in the valley) and went to Bill & Sharon to chat about where I’m thinking of heading with this relationship.

I’m inclined to call it done. The thing about it though is that I need to know what I’m doing it for. I need to have goals that I am aiming for that this choice will facilitate. For instance, if I am looking to become a stronger man, I need to develop some way of tracking the things that I have done towards accomplishing that item.

I think my present goals of ending the relationship would be to alleviate the challenges that I run into with communicating with Helen… I find that I am a much more logic driven individual while she likes to chat about her emotions, feelings and responses. Not a whole lot of fun when the hackles come out to protect/defend your own position.

On one hand, I think it’d be nice to be able to have friendships with other girls. It seems very restricting to only have Helen – due to her jealous nature. Although that being said, I do kinda like her liking me. Yeah, but I don’t like the guilt and the inability to have friendships with other girls…

I think the ultimate factor is that I need to get good at being strong, and being myself… I am using women to justify/please something about myself, and I need to discover and overcome that. Perhaps it is related to my spiritual side and I would like to find God, perhaps it is something less extreme, but either way, if I continue in the relationship, my strength wanes and my commitment doesn’t increase.

This is a life-changing direction. I’m sure I’ll be thinking about this for a few more days.

Time for bed – and prayer to help figure this out.

April 18, 2004

Hey there, I’m actually over at Bill and Sharon’s place, waiting for the 10-10-10 program overview. I’ve got my binder of stuff and that’s about it… I think this’ll be done in an hour, and then I’ll do some other things… like clean my room. Helen isn’t feeling well presently so she’d like to have me come by (of course).

April 6, 2004

It’s Helen’s b-day! Whee! Though I really don’t know what will transpire due to that. Actually, right now, I think I’d rather take a brief nap – I might even do that when I’m all done with checking my email and writing this entry.

Work was alright today – was semi-busy since Jeff was out sick. I took a little bit longer lunch so that I could cover until 5, but the time taken was well needed. I ran around taking care of deposits/mailing for the Wildes… Whew – if having rental properties is as much effort as I put out the past couple of days, I don’t think I want any (unless they’re excessively profitable.)

I need to call Compaq about my computer to get it all fixed up before the warranty is up. I think I’m gonna take care of my taxes first and then work to back everything up so that I don’t have to rebuild data again… that’s been no good – though I’m so glad that Helen has been willing to do most of the data entry for last year’s finances.

Alright, next I’m onto making starclient work, bleh – more fixing things… I can’t wait till it’s all better.

April 5, 2004

Alright, another day. So I slept in a bit more than I expected, but I still had the chance to get to go to breakfast with Helen – I think it’d be nice if she were a bit more cheery in the morning – I suppose she didn’t get enough sleep last night – though I would bet that it’s more related to attitude.

I am hoping to get a bumped flight today, though it pends having Sharon contact me back before I’m supposed to get on the plane. As it stands, I’m getting into Juneau at 1:40, and then have pickup for Sharon and deposits to handle… I’d like to get bumped, but it means that I’d get into Juneau later this evening or even tomorrow. Ugh.

Sharon gets into Chicago at around 4 pm (1 pm Juneau time. That means that she should be able to get the message and respond before 9 am, right? I hope so.

April 4, 2004

The Sunday night after leadership in Spokane, and here I am studying and writing this to myself. It was great to see Tommy and give some guidance/thoughts on his relationship with Hilari – I hope that does him well. As for the relationship for Helen and I, it was a good function for information, now the need it to turn around and apply it. Brad Duncan gave a smashing talk about Marriage as the closing talk – I think it was a way for people to get their oars in the water going the same direction – and as insight for those who aren’t presently married.

I find myself wondering how I am supposed to handle our relationship. On one hand, I see that the things that we endure are completely normal, however, at the same time, it’s as though we act married with our challenges… I suppose it’s better to address them now before married than waiting to tie the knot. I am hoping that I can come to an answer through continued scripture and book study and counsel with Bill and Sharon and whoever else I can have chat with me. I’m nearly through Leviticus right now, but going through the old testament, I’m not sure that I’m receiving what I need (other than the renewed reward of making a choice and then disciplining myself to carry through with it.)