So last night I finished reading High Fidelity.  I didn’t
enjoy it as much as the movie (a rare case, indeed) but it’s a pretty
good read.  It’s one of those movies I turn to when I start
feeling sorry for myself, lonely, or worn out (the other one is Kiki’s
Delivery Service).

I relate to the main character (not that I’ve had that many
girlfriends), but in that I don’t really feel like I’ve “grown
up”.  My life feels like I’m in a holding pattern, that I too am
“keeping my options open”.

When I had a girlfriend, I felt very grounded.  That there was a
focus for my life, but now that I’m in the world of the single again
there’s kind of this drift.  After being linked to a person so
deeply for so long, you don’t realize how much of “me” became
“us”.  So you either jump to another person to fill in that “us”
or you take a long time to fill those missing parts of you back
in.  But being in love is sort of like having a disease.  You
never completely recover to the same person.  Some people just
wall off those sections of themselves and never look back, sort of like
cutting off an infected leg.  Some people push themselves in a
completely new direction and run away from the person they were when
they were with the person.  And some people (I’m hoping in this
category) just get suprised by discovering what tries to grow back in
the missing places.

First off you realize that it’s never gonna all grow back.  If you
really loved someone you will always have that part of you that loves
them.  And there’s that feeling you get that you’ve lost someone
you’re completely comfortable with.  You go back to building
little walls again, cause you have to be the right person for everyone,
and not just you.

So that’s my holding pattern, waiting to find all the pieces of myself
I can.  Keeping my options open for the next sign that my life
needs to change (meet the right girl, get laid off, something).

 I guess I have a slighlty different problem than Rob (from the
book), cause he was always keeping his options open, even when in a
relationship.  His lack of commitment in a relationship was
endemic to a whole life of not commting.  I was quite happy to go
on a planned, if uneventful cousre.  But that course was taken
away (or maybe I just gave it waya), and now all my options are opened
up again.  Now I’m kind of at a loss as to what to do next.

Options in my head:
1) Keeping with the High Fidelity theme, I had this hairbrained scheme
that I could start a Vietnamese Rock label.  Work out deals for
vietnamese rock stars to sell music online in the us, make compilation
cds to sell in stores, market parapanelia, work out deals to get them
on the variety shows, etc.

2) Economist.  There’s something that appeals to me about
economics.  It’s such a complex set of problems.  When done
right, it’s a rigorous science.  It’s a way of looking at the
world the breaks things down into numbers and builds them back up again
into people.

3) Going back to Houston.  Driving down to visit them has become
such a pain and with my mom retired, they kind of need me around more.
And being up here I’m not able to help the around as much.  Did I
mention I hate the drive?

Meh, who knows.  Works keeping my busy, so I’ve got a few more
months to mull things over.  Who knows, maybe I’ll meet
someone.  Maybe my life will change and push me in some
direcction.  Or maybe I’ll just spend less time pondering it and
get one with living it.

That’s all folks, g’nite.