Consider the Source.

Today is day one of my new project:

I'm giving up swearing.

Not forever and in every context, I'm sure. But as I walk through South Philly and hear the negativity espoused by pretty much every person I pass- I find myself growing progressively more annoyed with it.

Does 'fucking' REALLY have to be every second word when someone talks? Are there seriously no other words that can convey your thought?
I've defended profanity for years arguing that no word itself is "dirty" or profane. That on a contextual basis the word pedophile should be much more taboo than the word fuck, since the word represents an adult having sex or sexual thoughts about a child. Words are symbols, sure. Sigils charged with meaning. It's not the meaning itself that I'm having a problem with, but the negativity that surrounds the use of it. The girl sitting on the steps- barely 15 who uses (and yes, I counted. Forgive me my OCDs) 10 culturally "dirty" words in the time it takes me to walk past her has a cloud of anger surrounding her that you can almost see. Seriously. How can a 14-15 year old be THAT angry, barking profanity/threats into her cellphone. A roof over her head. Judging from her appearance there's PLENTY of food on her table. And here she is spitting toxic-thought into the air with impunity.

I don't know if I can break my own conditioning. I'm going to use a punishment/reward system at first. Yes. A "swear jar" will be in place for every time I backslide. No, I won't feel 'morally' better for cleaning up my sailor's mouth. But my hope is that I feel happier without a cloud of negativity around me.

We'll see.

And yes. I know that I'm getting "kookier" in my old age. You don't need to tell me.

Baggage

I finally took time last night to do the post dating maintenance that I've meant to do for the last two weeks; those little tasks you have to do eventually but are far too difficult to do immediately after the parting.

The first and most immediate point of order was to remove the gallery of pictures of the ex from my Iphone. It's far from any kind of malice- I still think about her fondly and miss her very much. But the reality of having to see pictures of her or more to the point pictures of 'us' is more than I should be expected to bear.

I've moved from stunned/hurt to that bruise like state of everything just being a little bit sore. Little comments catch me- my mother saying "Uncle Shawn's over there alone" to my nephew, making travel plans and putting "guests, one" in the field for hotels; what to do with the present I bought for her birthday... all things related are sort of rubbing my already exposed heart and making me a little more melancholy than I need to be right now.

In matters of the heart, I think I should take a little time off before I set myself up for failure yet again. That said, I think that I'm changing my Prom Contest rules to "KISSING INCLUDED".

You never know.

Breakups in the age of Technology

My girlfriend and I amicably split up last night. I wasn't really for the breakup, but sometimes it's a wise man who accepts what's happening in his life, processes it and learns from it.

Nothing really emotionally changed for me, of course; I still love her dearly and wish things could be different. But as we all know, if wishes were fishes I'd be having sushi for dinner tonight- so accepting it seems like the only option.

Ohio Roadtrip: 05/23/08

I'll be heading out to Columbus, OH on Friday with Brian and Bucket. It will be approximately 478.11 miles of open road, representing nearly 8 hours of travel time. Right now, it's precisely what I need.

My head is very clouded right now and I feel that I'm on the verge of a major backslide. I've worked hard to fix pattern behaviour and have felt that I've made great progress- but it's likely that I've had a false sense of security because nothing had come up to test it.

Now that I'm being tested, I find myself reverting to old thought processes and pitfalls and I don't like it at all.

So. Put me in a car with two of my oldest friends- heading toward an event where I'll be surrounded by even more friends, and maybe I'll be able to clear my head.