This one’s just a self-pity/non-poetic/unedited ramble to myself. Wait for something better, I’d tell ya! … Who’s to say, anyway! I started watching “Cobra Kai,” and it took me right back to the ‘80s! Those guys are even way older than me, and Ralph Macchio still looks like he’s 30! And of course he had to have the ‘perfect jersey wife,’ which of course only got me thinking of you. (She doesn’t hold a candle to you!) And something about watching the show, something about it, I saw all my delusions! What have I been doing?? And yet with it I had the feeling anything is possible. You got me to believe in myself. Even if it has nothing to do with you. Just when I think I’m too old, there’s a girl too young who likes me like honestly. In a way that seems genuine. Maybe she has ‘daddy issues,’ I don’t know. I’ve figured out on tinder I tend to do well with 20s and 40s. 30s, forget it. It’s like a different time warp. I guess it’s the pressures of that decade, women look at things so differently. Thinking marriage and babies or no babies, but in the other decades of life there’s none of that pressure. People just like you! Or they don’t. It’s easier. Just my dumb luck I had to fall in love with someone so wildly unattainable. But I’m a person with flesh and blood. And I’m tired of beating myself up. But something about watching that series (I’m up to Episode 4), had me really putting things in perspective. But I like having a life that’s been so different! That it didn’t follow the norms! I could have a kid at 55, who knows! I just want there to be love. Once you love someone like that, anything else feels so empty. It funny. You could feel, “oh! maybe she’s the one!” one day, and the very next it’s as if that feeling never happened. So different than it’s been with you. You haunt my dreams. And something about looking at Ralph Macchio with his ‘perfect jersey wife!’ And I thought, “You can have so much in this life, but you aren’t getting that.” Maybe jersey girls are programmed to not fall in love with boston types. I’m sick of beating myself up about the age, because younger ones say it doesn’t matter. People either like you or they don’t. My dream has been so simple, really. It all comes down to whether you like me. It doesn’t depend on anybody else’s opinion. The answer is already there. Only you know it. I just have to go on blind feeling. Even to be a friend of yours. That would be insane!! I can already tell my whole life would be spent buzzing about seven inches off the ground! If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. If it ain’t, it ain’t. I’ll write more generally now. I’ve kind of cleared the boards of whatever isn’t serving. I often feel if *this* variable or *that* variable, were twisted ever so slightly, it would be easy! It would come naturally! But I put myself in a perfect spot of impossibility. And that’s just how it goes. Sucks, though. Because I know I could make you happy as a friend. But I gotta pull myself out of this! It’s not helping anyone. I kinda used my dead twitter page as a marker. If it’s getting any views, then maybe she’s looking. It’s not. Not really. But I do have so much going for me! I spoke with a friend who is gay, and she said if she were me, she’d make a night on the town of it. As if she saw my value that I wasn’t seeing. But for all my waiting so long, I’m really old-fashioned deep down. I just want to love someone like I loved you, and not ever think about anyone else. Even though I never married, I’m the marrying kind. It’s just something in me told me *somebody* was coming down the line. I know it’s not you. I guess that’s pretty clear! And the dream of being your friend, I guess I’m not being realistic. Not my strongest suit. So, I’ll really just try to focus on me for a little bit. I know I made all these announcements about a show and whatever. The pandemic didn’t help, but it had other issues. Because I feel silly about it all. I don’t have anything to prove. I don’t want to be a guy feeding some YouTube channel with narcissism and try to build off 40 views. But maybe if I use whatever gifts I have, it might brighten someone’s day. I guess I’m kinda funny. I have a *little* musical talent. I can write melodies pretty easily that really aren’t half bad. Ah!! Every time I go down this road, I think of that Giles poem: “Blessed is she who loves, and does not therefore desire to be loved. Blessed is she who serves, and does not therefore desire to be served. Blessed is she who fears, and does not therefore desire to be feared. Blessed is she who behaves well toward others, and does not therefore desire others behave well toward her. And because these are great things, the foolish do not rise to them.” And now I’ve flipped it all around again. It’s so hard, though, when such feeling comes with it. And it feels it’s all going down a black hole. What’s the point in that, really? Somebody either likes you or they don’t. So I know I’ve made a million announcements before. About getting back in great shape, and training again, and drinking smoothies, etc. etc. But maybe it’s time. September always feels like the first month of a calendar year in some ways. Pull it back a little on the gushing and just disappear for a while and get things going like that. Because now it’s going on a third year, and all there’s really ever been is more blocking. And have a little faith that life will go however it’s supposed to go. I don’t think you want me suffering. And that’s just how I feel today. In the oddest way, it was watching “Cobra Kai” that brought it all out of me. I don’t know why. I felt this painful deep yearning when watching Macchio’s character with his wife. Like there’s that something missing. Joseph Campbell talked a lot about Carl Jung’s animus. This woman falls in love, aiming her animus at this guy, because something unconscious in her feels connected. And when he doesn’t turn out to be the guy she thought he would be, she says, “Darling, I’m sorry. But I’m taking away my animus on you, and aiming it for re-projection.” On somebody else. It’s just that “AH!!!!” deep inside us. All those bells. I never understood *any* of that until I saw you. It’s just insane how beautiful and amazing you are. But you could be with rocket scientists and Fortune 500 CEOs. I got a little cocky like Macchio’s character. I didn’t see it at first! But for all my wealth, it’s a pittance compared to what you deserve. I think that’s why I so often aimed for the friend part! It would take the pressure off! I could make you laugh – hopefully – and you’d think I was cute when you got to know me – hopefully. And finding ways to gift you and stuff! I know you’d resist it, but you know me, I’d find a way!! But all that pressure would be off. It seemed a good plan on paper, anyway! But something about being on tinder – just talking with people – it really brought it home that it doesn’t matter the age or the looks or the background – not *really*, anyway. It’s just whether somebody likes you! Or they don’t. And it’s often surprising which ones do and which ones don’t. But the feeling isn’t there. For me. How could anything even come close to what I’ve felt for you? As silly as it appears, I guess. So maybe just don’t worry about *anything*, I thought. Just pull it back and focus on yourself, despite that prayer from Giles. I know what he said is true, but I’m only human. On mornings like this one, especially. When the alarm went off next door! This system from like 1984! And the tenants were calling me at 5 a.m.! I heard it, anyway. And there was no way to turn it off, because the alarm company itself didn’t exist anymore. And just when I felt I had exhausted any sign of manhood. That I was a wimp who wrote bad prose and poetry over you, I found the lockbox – which was locked! – and jammed a screwdriver in, and the steel door exploded across the room! And I thought silently, “Wow. That looked pretty manly, didn’t it?” Maybe I still got some of that in me. And I solved a problem. And that alone had me feeling a little better. We’re capable of so much more than we often give ourselves credit for. Anyway, just a self-pity ramble on a Saturday! Okay! This time! I *really* mean it! Perfect September!! Hold me to it!! Send me a note, and say, “If you do it, I *might* give you a facetime call in 2022. *Maybe.*” That’s enough for me!! By then, I’ll be looking all manly and steal my best Cary Grant energy to round it out! Ah. That’s the thing with you. When all hope is exhausted, I still find a way to feel those tingles and goosebumps. Hope is always renewed. It’s like the dream is there! I got all I need, really! Just the girl is missing. And there are plenty of women out there! A few who seem interested. But, that *feeling.* How could anybody ever do what you do to me. Okay, I need some coffee. A self-pity post! I was due for one, right? I pray you cut me a little slack if ever you are reading! But remember that friend part! Because honestly that’s what would make me the happiest man on the planet!! Just to feel like I’m *HER* friend!! AH!!!! I’d be so ecstatic!! Even if we only talked like once a year!! Then, maybe if I’m feeling brave, I’d ask you, “Can we move it up to two?” This kid is hopeless! I know!! Ah!! Look what you do!! You’re that perfect jersey wife who won’t be mine! But I’m still angling for the perfect jersey friend! And even that would take time, I know, if ever. I promise I’d never, ever hurt you in any way at all. Quite the opposite! Oh, to get that smile?? And know it’s for me?? And maybe the nod, too?? And even a “Certainly??” AH!!!! I’d die and go to the moon and flip around and come soaring down!! With others, people search themselves. “Am I sure of what I feel about this person? Is it real?” blah blah blah. With you?? Not even a question!! “YUP!!! YES!!! ABSOLUTELY!! CERTAINLY!!!” “You didn’t even know what I was going to ask!” I’d answer before the question. It takes not even a moment of thought! Yup! She’s everything! Yes! She’s the most beautiful woman who has ever ever been!! Certainly! I’d die and go to heaven simply to be called her friend. I love that certainty. When all else in life is a little more murky. I so love what you do to me. Okay. There it is. 1/2-tablespoon self-pity, and stir in plenty of gushing at the end. And ready to serve! Just a bleary Saturday morning post – not an official one! apologies for the mess. Before having coffee, and exhausted from waking up to a blaring alarm system installed circa 1984, sometime around The Karate Kid. And it all comes back to Cobra Kai! I love when rambling comes around full circle! So September is the *real* getting to work month!! On everything remaining that I haven’t accomplished! And you’ll be in it! You’re in everything, of course. You’re the muse of all muses!! That golden inspiration I always longed for but could never find. Something about your eyes. You’re the most beautiful woman in the world. Happy weekend!! ☀️  

“Cobra Kai” is on Netflix, by the way! Yay!!