Promoting Myself

I had an interesting conversation with Erin the other day. We were talking about how sexism is still a major problem today, and also how we have no time to do anything and keep thinking that things will get better.

Me: Does it ever get better? I assume it will get better once I have a job.
Erin: No, it doesn't. If you're interested in promoting yourself-- and I know that you are-- there will always be more things for you to do. We're women. If we want to be successful, we have to be constantly promoting ourselves.

I think that what she said is very true. Erin is 15 years older than me, and already a pretty big deal in the field, so I trust her judgement on this sort of thing.

I've been busting my ass trying to finish this proposal, which is due tomorrow. I have it done, and it's been proofread by everyone in my committee, but I'm waiting on feedback from my software mentor. I'm hoping it goes through!

Next, I will get into those internships I've been putting off. Haha, there's always something else.

Anyway, I've been thinking I need to start enjoying life more, instead of waiting for it to get better. Fred has been helping me to feel better about the whole "being afraid of people" thing. I need to focus on the people in my life right now, instead of dwelling on those who left it. I do have a lot of close friends. And that is great :)

I'm already starting to feel a lot better. I've survived two 2.5-hour rehearsals... 3 more plus concert... hopefully my wrist won't die.

I've been having a lot more energy, and I felt energized after going to the gym today instead of exhausted. I need to work my way back into daily exercise. I'm definitely getting out of shape...

I think in order to feel better, I need enough energy and time to play viola AND go to the gym, almost every day. That also means dedicating enough time to stretching after both, and icing my wrist/heating my forearm after playing viola.

I need to make sure I'm taking care of myself and being stylish. My hair has looked blah for a long time, I think because I'm losing some of it (bad hair thinning genes). I should invest in some sort of volumizing products.

I need to embrace my current friendships. And relationships.

Oddly enough, now there are guys in my life. Currently going on dates with one, talking to another, and having a third introduced in the near future.

None of them are Tim, unfortunately. It sucks that it's never the guy we like who likes us back. I guess when I fall, I fall hard. I don't hold back. It's not something I can control.

It sucks because one guy I'm talking to was kind of a dick last night. That guy happens to be Tim's friend. But after I got mad at him, that made him start talking to me MORE. Wtf, I will never understand this. All I know is, when he was a dick, it was a complete straw man. It made me like the guy I'm dating, Dom, even more for being a gentleman.

But of course, none of them are Tim. And he's the one I really want. I want to talk to him more, but I'm afraid of coming off overbearing like Fred did. We'll see what happens I guess.

Downward Spiral

I still don't have a good solution for what to do about my problem. I tried therapy once and it was pretty bad. I'm not sure I want to subject myself to that again.

But I have to admit that I now have some pretty bad issues. I have these episodes where I hate everyone and everything. It's caused when something bad happens to me, and then depression by association. For instance, I had one yesterday because I was freaking out about my forearm. I finally had my full-body massage, and the massage therapist told me that she was unsurprised that I had had bone marrow edema in my wrist. Apparently everything in my forearm was extremely tense with a lot of "nodes" (?). So I called my physical therapist with my concerns, but she completely shrugged off everything. She told me that massage would be beneficial, but then said it would be unethical for her to okay it (for insurance coverage) because when I left there I hadn't had tension in my forearm. But then she was unconcerned that now I have tension there again. GAH!!! So then I got to thinking about how I didn't want to fuck it up again by doing the wrong thing. Maybe I was playing too much, even though I've been taking a few days off here and there for rest. But then that lead to me thinking about how I fuck everything up for my body. I go to the gym, and actually enjoy it, but I get injured. Then I started to think about how my personal life is a big old mess. And how Tim sucks for leading me on. It was just this downward spiral of suckiness, and I felt all alone. Aaliya tried to talk to me but I was a complete bitch because I felt so shitty.

Speaking of Tim, I've decided that I hate him. Earlier today, Leah said something really funny. She was like, "Guys are so stupid that they don't realize they like you until after they don't like you anymore." And that is so true. Tim fucking was interested, and interested, and confident in his pursuit. Then when I started to become interested, he apparently lost interest. Therefore, I hate him for making me like him and then losing interest before he realized that he liked me. Fucking hell. Cameron agrees with me. It's a perfectly good excuse to hate someone.

Well I can tell myself that all I want, but deep down I know it's not true. I still fucking like him. My god. He seems to like music almost as much as I do. During the party he kept diggin' the beats in the Harry Potter movies. Like he would be dancing in his seat just like I do. Fucking hell, it's so unfair. Then, when I started singing a song because someone had said something that reminded me of it, HE CHIMED IN. AND WE WERE SINGING A DUET. Plus. PLUS. He finds my sailor's mouth endearing. I said something to the effect of, "don't fucking cum on my face, you fucking cunt." His response was to crack up for about 10 minutes. ajflhaksjfh EARTH TO VERONICA snap out of it. You hate him for making you like him and then losing interest before he realized that he liked you. GET IT STRAIGHT.

The other thing that happens to me is that I now get anxiety attacks. I'll start to freak out because I'm afraid of people. I'll want to run away from them and hide. I feel like I can't breathe. That's when I smoke cigarettes. It seems to be the only thing that helps.

Feeling Debussy

I keep listening to Debussy on repeat. I feel like Arabesque #1, Reverie, and Clair de Lune describe my emotions right now. They are so beautiful.

One of the things that bothered me about Ray was that he seemed to be afraid to look stupid in public. I took this hilarious picture of him and posted it on Facebook because it cracked me up so much. I wasn't laughing at him, I was laughing with him. Making fun of him in a good-natured sort of way. But he made me remove it. I thought there was something wrong with the fact that Ray was afraid to make fun of himself. I'm constantly making fun of myself, because I've learned it's best not to take myself so seriously.

I'm really attracted to Tim's confidence. It's so refreshing. He's not afraid to wear pink socks, give people manicures, discuss the hotness of men, and admit to tearing up sometimes when watching movies, because he just doesn't care. He's comfortable enough with his sexuality to do those things, instead of not doing them because they're "gay" or "feminine."

It's like how I'm comfortable enough with my sexuality to discuss the hotness of women, to curse like a sailor, to strength-train at the gym, and to always be "real." Yes, I'm a real person. Both good and bad things happen to me. I'm comfortable enough to share both. I'm not about putting up a front that everything in my life is always peaches and sunshine, because it's not.

Also, Tim does things because he thinks they're hilarious. He wears racy lingerie as a joke. He's not afraid to publicly make fun of himself. I think it's awesome.

Plus, Tim was confident in approaching me. He wasn't afraid to befriend me, even though I was his teacher. Such a turn-on. Then in addition, he treated me like a queen, which is an even bigger turn-on.

I love how he makes me feel so Debussy. It's great.


But now the tricky part is trying to hang out with him more. I always hate this part. You can't seem TOO interested because it will turn off the other person. But you have to seem interested ENOUGH so that they don't lose interest. This part of social dynamics is stupid and sucks.

Plus, Fred told me I should just ask him out, but I know I can't. Society doesn't have the gender equality in place for that to actually work. If I ask out a guy, that allows him the freedom to treat me like a shit and use me for sex. If he asks me out, the odds are less that he will treat me like shit. It's because he's declaring interest in dating me if he asks me out, but if I ask him out, he never has to officially declare that interest.

Belonging

Have you ever had that feeling where you go to somebody's house and you feel like you're meant to be there?

I have.

It felt so natural for me to be in Tim's apartment. I got along so well with all of his friends. Basically the entire night consisted of everyone laughing ridiculously hard. I fit right in :)

It felt really good to fit in. It was one of those groups where everyone makes fun of everyone else in a good-natured sort of way. Exactly my thing haha. It's the sort of group I wish I had. I hope that I can spend more time with them, even if Tim transfers to Las Vegas.

Tim is a wonderful guy. I like him very much. He was including me in the group's inside jokes. He was very considerate towards me, making sure that the window was closed when I said I was cold, and giving me a comfy blanket to snuggle up with. He had made a bunch of appetizers that all had bacon in them, and when I told him I didn't like bacon, he got me some non-bacon food so that I didn't have to get up from the couch.

Plus, he did not make a move on me. If he had, it would have been a repeat of the Cal situation, since all of Tim's friends were talking about how he has lots of "relationships" instead of one-night stands, and how he is "in love with" this girl he met at a party but doesn't want to fuck her. Tim said, "she's the sort of girl you marry and live happily ever after with."

So it doesn't look promising for me, but at least he respected me enough not to try anything with me. He told Becky that he tends to separate love from sex; typically he doesn't love the girls he just fucks in his "relationships."

I think he's a really great guy. Maybe he was interested in me at first, but has lost interest or something. He has stopped liking and commenting on all my statuses for the most part.

Well, it sucks to like someone who doesn't like you back. But at least he wants to be my friend, and he didn't try to take advantage of me. He gave me a pretty lengthy hug at the end of the party. I hope we can continue to hang out and get to know each other better.

Finally A Good Day

Well, I think I have it figured out now. This is my second day in a row where I've actually had energy. It's fantastic!

Either I had some sort of virus that kept me fatigued for a full month, or it was my emotional problem. My emotional problem. I am terrified of people.

That had to have been it. Once I figured that out, I had a really bad anxiety attack. I was completely terrified and scared for about 20 minutes. I texted my friends about it, and Aaliya was really helpful. She said that she had known all along that I hadn't been over the Ray situation. She said she could tell that it had really torn me up.

Well, that was news to me. I thought I had been doing a lot better. But apparently, even though I am deeply afraid of people "fooling" me, I was somehow able to fool myself. On that note, I cannot follow Cosmo's last advice. Some of the advice said to picture the bad things getting smaller and smaller in your mind. Well, I'm not doing that. Doing that will just lead to more bottling up of these emotions. It took a full month of extreme fatigue for me to understand that what was actually happening to me was a result of bottling. I don't intend to repeat that mistake.

Also, I think I'm beyond the point where the other Cosmo advice would help. The advice said to give the moping a time limit so that you're not in a perpetually bad mood. I'm not going to do that either. If I need to give into it, I need to give into it. I'll take as long as I need.

Anyway, for the first few days after the realization hit, I felt extremely awful. I had forgotten what the pain felt like. I wanted to be around other people as little as possible. I tried to study with Becky, but the majority of the time I felt shaky and scared, and I wanted to hide under her office mate's desk and be by myself.

It's gotten a lot better though. I've been going out of my way to talk to people. I feel a lot less afraid now. I'm still afraid of loving people though.


Anyway, today was really good. My valentine was my espresso machine. I wrote a very moving haiku dedicated to it. Erin gave me chocolate too :) Then so many people asked me about plans this weekend. We're going to the hockey game tomorrow night, and the department is going out for sushi. Ned invited me out to the bar tonight, but I didn't go there. Enough drinking will be had on Sunday, for Tim's Harry Potter party.

Tim. I'm not gonna lie, I'm kind of interested. It was a turn-on how confident he was. And as per Cal's rule, it wouldn't matter. We both aim to live in Las Vegas. It's not certain that either of us will end up there, but we both WANT to be there. Which is something, anyway. But the situation is a little complicated because he used to be my student. It's a little awkward still..

But I got a lot done today anyway for my teaching next week. That, and I got a bit done on my proposal, which is due in 2 weeks so I need to get cracking. I made it to the gym and did 23 minutes on the elliptical, followed by stretching. I played viola for 35 minutes and finally made it to octaves. Right now I'm lounging around in my thermals. So comfy! Better than lying around in leggings haha.

Extreme Fatigue

I think the ghosts of last year are haunting me, manifesting themselves as fatigue. My poor body. Without energy for a month now.

Well, I had energy one day. It was last Tuesday, I actually made it to the gym. I had so much energy, in fact, that I was considering going back to the gym. It had been so long since I had had energy that I didn't know what to do with it.

But then I crashed hard. Yesterday morning I had a decent amount of energy. Went grocery shopping with Ray and Starbucks, and then came home and cleaned my apartment/did laundry. But then, all of a sudden, I felt all my energy being sucked out of me. I was so drained that I had to go and lie down on my couch for an hour and a half. I was so exhausted that I couldn't even read. It was that bad. I actually felt like I was going to die from having my life force sucked out of me.

I mean I've tried everything I can think of. I thought I might be overtraining, so I stopped going to the gym. Didn't help at all. And I know it's not from a LACK of exercise, since I still walk 40 minutes every day to my building and back. I was hungry all the time, so I started eating more. I'm talking at least 500 calories more per day. I feel less hungry, but no less tired. Last night I got 11 hours of sleep, and I was exhausted by 8:30. I thought maybe it was because I wasn't spending enough time with my friends, so I started going out more. Hasn't helped. I thought I was experiencing sadness from not being in a big city anymore, so I've been going downtown more frequently. Nothing. I thought I was upset from not being able to play the viola, but I can play again and I'm trying to work my way back up. Nothing.

I am seriously going crazy. I might have a lot of stuff on my plate, but I have DEFINITELY had it way worse before, and never been so fatigued before in my life. I don't even feel that stressed out because I've been taking lots of breaks, playing viola, and seeing my friends. So it can't be from everyday stress.

I went to the doctor, which was extremely helpful (not). She was convinced that there was nothing seriously wrong with me. If things don't get better soon, I'll go back for a second opinion.


There is one more possibility-- it's the stress from last year coming back to ruin my body. It kind of makes sense, because I had three very traumatic experiences that occurred simultaneously. These 5 tips were in Cosmo, and I'll give them a try. I've already tried so much, that I'm willing to try anything.

Step 1: Talk to Future You

I don't even know where to begin. It's at the point where I've buried the pain deep down. It's not something that affects me all the time anymore, but I know that my suffering will continue for a long time. So will this affect me in 2019? Yes. Unfortunately, I think that it will. I lost two people that I loved. I got taken advantage of, which got me into serious trouble. I'm really ashamed about the mistakes that I made, that I got caught, and the consequences of those mistakes. I failed myself.

Step 2: Address the Consequences

How are these things making me miserable? I'll tell you how. I do not know how to not fuck up relationships. I've tried it all. I've tried keeping my feelings to myself; if my best friend mistreated me, I wouldn't say anything. Who lost in those instances? I did. I made myself believe that it was okay for others to treat me poorly. Then I tried standing up for myself. If I felt like I had been deeply wronged, I told the person that they had deeply upset me. How did that end? My "best friends" decided that I wasn't worth the effort, and that they didn't want to be my friend anymore. They didn't understand, even though I tried to explain, and then they stopped even trying to understand. Then I said screw it, I will only do me. How did that end? I lost a friend for sleeping with her love interest. Then I lost my best friend for dating her ex-boyfriend.

What hurt me the most was when Ray told me he didn't care about me anymore. That is the worst pain I have ever felt in my entire life. When someone you love does not even care about you anymore.

But I think the actions that had the most consequences, which both Ray and Mara did, are that they fooled me. They made me believe that they loved me. Try getting a double-dose of that from two people you love. But really, Ray only wanted someone to fuck for the summer. Mara for some reason couldn't be honest with me and didn't trust me, before I had given her any reason to doubt me.

The consequence of this, of course, that I am scared of love. I'm scared of other people. I'm scared that all the people who I care about most will change their minds and decide that they don't even care about me anymore. I'm scared that the people I love are actually using me for their own personal gain. I'm scared that the people I love are actually planning to hurt me; fooling me into thinking that they care about me so that I'll be even more vulnerable for them to cause me pain. Especially if I'm stupid enough to tell them how I have been hurt before, that's like giving them a map of exactly how to cause me excruciating pain. It's not safe for me to love anyone. It's not safe for me to trust anyone. I've become so cynical. Now, I think about ways that the person could be trying to hurt me. It sucks.

What sucks is that I do not know how to move on from all this. Like I said, I've tried it all. I've tried pleasing others all the time, pleasing myself when it really matters, and finally just pleasing myself all the time. All three had the same result: I lost out. I lost friends. I was unhappy.

I have been grieving about these things for a very long time. It's been 7-8 months since I got in trouble. It's been 5 months since Ray cut my heart open with a piece of glass. It's been 4 months since Mara fooled me into thinking that she cared. I have suffered for a very long time. When I finally thought I was getting over it, I get slammed with extreme fatigue. I might have recovered from this, but with a very fine line. I do not know if I could recover from anything like this happening to me again.

Step 3: Relabel the events

1. If you're going to break the law, at least do it for people who mean something to you. That way if you get in trouble, at least it was for someone who actually matters.
2. Learn how to read people better. Trust your instinct better.
3. A healthy amount of cynicism/skepticism will go a long way.
4. Make people prove themselves more before they get to be in your inner circle.


Before I get to steps 4 and 5, I have to figure out my new plan of action.

Holy Shit

While my personal life is big old mess, my professional life keeps getting better and better.

Today there was a webinar for the geothermal play fairway analysis project. Erin came to my office all excited afterward.

Erin: Guess what??? Mark and I just finished watching the webinar. He wants to use YOUR THESIS PROJECT for it.
Me: O_o wait really??
Erin: Yes! It's perfect! Nobody has done it before!
Me: Cool! Well I guess I should have paid more attention to the application instructions, had I known I would be applying.
Erin: I think only Mark can apply. And by the way if we get selected, you would be all set. You would not have to teach anymore, and would be fully funded!


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Holy fucking shit. I have the opportunity to win millions of dollars for my department. From MY research! From an idea that *I* came up with!! How cool is that???


Also, one of the companies that I had emailed inquiring about summer internships actually returned the email. Someone actually got back to me! That was unexpected. I'm not sure if I'll get it, because they wanted someone to start right away, but hopefully it will pan out well.

WTF Happened To Me

Yesterday, I was thinking about how different I am from how I was 5 years ago. I've done a lot of things that I thought I would never do, ever. I don't necessarily have any regrets, but I don't like the pathway I've been going down. I feel like I'm just part of a downward spiral, and everything just keeps getting worse and worse.

Let's look at the facts. While I always had a dirty mind, I was never actually a bad influence, because I never actually did anything bad. Now, I'm a terrible influence. I enjoy smoking cigarettes. I enjoy having a lot of sex, and I don't care if it's with random strangers. I've had sex without a condom many times now. I have had sex with my best friend's ex-boyfriend. I have had sex with a friend's love interest. I allow men to pay for things for me now without even offering to pay for myself. I have smoked weed. I have become exceedingly cynical, and expect that people are going to hurt me eventually. Then I hurt them before they hurt me, but that's almost worse because I end up hurting myself. I might look (and actually be) happy on the outside, but deep inside I'm an unhappy mess.

And now? I'm just a fucked up girl looking for some peace of mind. It made me wonder, what on earth happened to me? Why did I become like this?

Two reasons.

Reason #1--  Most of the meaningful relationships I've ever had, eventually became fucked up. Even with my family. Sometimes it was my fault, and sometimes it wasn't.

Reason #2-- Penn State. The snotty attitudes of the majority of my classmates resulted in my not having very many friends in my majors. It resulted in my having a miserable experience when I went to Italy for field camp, and an equally miserable experience when I did it out West. Miserable experiences on all orchestra trips as well.

And because I went there with the low self esteem of someone who grew up being called ugly and fat by her classmates, who had no luck at all with guys except for her last relationship, and that relationship got fucked up because he (T.J.) dumped me when I left for college-- then started dating my friend and thought SHE was worth long-distance the next summer-- that certainly set myself up for success on the dating front. I jumped into a rebound that lasted 11 months (Elton), and then went wild afterward, as that was the opposite extreme from boring Elton. It didn't help that in my time at Penn State (except the last few weeks), I was only asked out on two dates. Two. Because the guys there only wanted to have sex without commitment, and most of the sex was exceedingly lousy. But I went along with it because 1) I was finally getting attention from guys who thought I looked good, and 2) my friends at the time were even wilder and they helped me to feel more confident about my body.

Then there's the fact that at the #1 party school, pretty much everyone is a smoker, an alcoholic, and/or a drug addict. Then all the guys want to have sex without condoms because "it just doesn't feel as good." And when you're around that long enough, you start to do it yourself. You start to think, "well everyone else does it and turns out ok, so I should be ok if I do it myself."

Also, I went through friends like wildfire. Most of these experiences started out as being not my fault. Then, because I was trying hard to please my friends and they were ditching me when I hadn't done anything wrong (or they refused to tell me what I had done wrong), and in fact was trying to be a wonderful friend, I started to please myself instead. Then it was me who was responsible for the wrongdoing. It was my friends who got mad at me and stopped talking to me. No matter what I did, I lost friends.

Then of course I got into legal trouble for trying to be a nice person. People took advantage of me for being nice. So what am I supposed to do, not be nice and be mean girl instead with a stick up my ass? Again, no matter what I do, it's always the wrong thing and always makes me unhappy.


Well, Penn State certainly did not agree with me. As Laura pointed out, most of my failed friendships happened during my time there. I just don't understand it. Maybe things will be different now that I'm out of that place.... or maybe it's not, and I have more disappointment in store from other people.

How I Became A Skank

So last night, I "watched the Superbowl." If you know what I mean. Which, when you think about it, is better than actually watching the Superbowl. That has got to be the worst game I have ever seen. A safety in the first 2 minutes of the game??? The first 3/4 of the game being a shutout?? Come on, the Superbowl is supposed to be a better game than that. I don't even like football and I'm offended.

Anyway. It all started because the night before last, Cal booty-called me. Apparently he was here visiting that night and wanted me to come out to the club-like bar at midnight.

To be honest it was kind of douchey. This guy who randomly started talking to me ALL THE TIME for about a week, then he didn't come to my concert, and then he stopped talking to me. Until the night before last, when he tried to booty-call me.

I said I was too tired to come out, and promptly fell asleep. The next day, he invited me to come watch the Superbowl with him and his buddies, in a town half an hour from here. I was intrigued, so I agreed to go. I hadn't met him in person before, since he lives like 2 hours away from here now. Plus the party sounded like fun, and I wanted to meet his friends.

I'm glad I went. Cal is a funny guy, and all his friends are really cool. I fit right in with them.

Ok, so one problem was that I don't have a car. Cal told me he could drive me home the next morning, since he was planning to crash at his friend's house that night. He also suggested I could try to get a ride home with some of the others who live in my city.

I was having a really good time until those others left that I could have gotten a ride with. Cal sat next to me on the couch the whole evening, sharing secrets and jokes with me. Since we were sharing the couch with 2 other people, it was a tight fit and our arms/legs were touching quite a bit. Aside from that, he didn't flirt with me at all.

I thought I would probably head back with the two girls, but right before they left Cal was being really considerate. I guess he overheard me telling the one girl that I had class at 10 today, because he said "You have class at 10 right? I'll drive you home at 8 so you'll be back in time."

So I decided it would be fine for me to stay, and he would make sure I was back in time for class.

However, right after the 2 girls left, he got really douchey. All night, he had been talking about this trip he was going to take with his friends in March to Mexico. He kept going on and on about how he wanted a good wingman there, etc, so he could hook up with girls. Then, his one friend started talking to him in front of me about how he wanted her to set him up with one of the 2 girls who had left, after Mexico. Because he thought she was cute and wanted to date her.

So that would have been fine, if Cal had just wanted to be my friend. But then we went upstairs to sleep, and we were sharing a bed. We started cuddling, and I was trying not to think about how last time I had cuddled with a guy, that guy had been Ray. But I was thinking, "this is nice. It's nice to cuddle."

But then, of course, he starts initiating sex. At the time, I wanted it. I don't even regret it really. Casual hookups are totally fine. Unless, the guy didn't even seem interested in fucking you the entire night, and was talking about hooking up with other girls and then wanting to date a different girl at the party, in front of you, and THEN initiates sex with you.

Yeah. Right now I feel like I'm easy. In fact, I'm a total skank. It's not a good feeling.

But anyway, I will try not to let it happen again. Even though casual hookups are the way it will go here, I'll do my best to keep a clear enough head that at least the guy has to show enough interest in fucking me, instead of just fucking me because we're sharing a bed together. Because Cal did actually give me a good piece of advice. He said, "the guys here want something serious. However, they want to stay here. You don't want to stay here. You want to leave for Vegas in a year. So I wouldn't even recommend starting anything and getting attached."

It's true, really. But also kind of sad.

Reducing Stress

I'm thinking that the cause of my fatigue is due to stress. I've tried eating more, but it doesn't make me any less tired. I've tried sleeping 10 hours a night, and that doesn't help. I tried not going to the gym for a week, and that didn't help either.

Probably what's causing me the most stress is all this internship stuff. GAH. I have 12 applications to fill out, and then I have to try calling all the people who never returned my phone calls and emailing the people who didn't return my emails. Ugh. So tedious.

I've put that stuff on the back-burner for the last few weeks as I've tried to focus on my research grant application and my revised software mentorship application. So much to do, so little time.

I guess I'll try to knock out at least one application a day. In the very least, I'll be done in 12 days with the actual applications.

My Mom was suggesting I add another way to reduce stress, besides the gym, into my daily routine. Maybe I can spend time reading each day or working on my novel. These are only potentially time consuming and will be decently effective and enjoyable.

I've tried these other methods, which work alright but have some problems:

1. Smoking. Enjoyable and effective, but bad for health.
2. Going out and drinking. Enjoyable and effective, but can be bad for health in excess. Also, is highly caloric. Very time consuming.
3. Bubble baths. Mostly enjoyable and effective, but can be less enjoyable and less effective when the bubbles don't form properly, and when all the bathwater ends up draining and I'm not even covered with water (even when I tape shut the drain on the side of the tub with duct tape). Time consuming.
4. Walking downtown and doing work in a bar or coffee shop. Extremely enjoyable and effective. Time consuming and cold. Drains the wallet.
5. Shopping and treating myself to something nice. Enjoyable and effective. Drains the wallet.
6. Meditation. Does not work for me.

Also, I've been on a Beatles in original minor kick. Hey Jude in minor is astoundingly hot. I'd really like to meet someone else who understands how music can be hot. Not just one genre, but many different genres. Other classical musicians think that classical music can be hot, but most of the time they hate every other genre of music. Metalheads think that metal music is hot, but again they don't typically appreciate any other genre. I would really just like to meet someone else who thinks that mode mixture, deceptive cadences, owning a solo, glissandi, voice passing, talent, etc. are sexy, regardless of the genre. Yet whenever I mention these things to other people, I typically just receive strange looks and question marks. It bothers me.