examining my future and papers (was: free massage and inappropriate dreams)

So, browsing across the net personals, I ran across an attractive masseuse in training, who had marked me as appealing (gaydar has a pretty cool interface). So, I shot him a greeting and offered myself for practice. He said ‘sure, name a time’, so I did, and didn’t hear back for several days. Then he said sure, and lo a massage was scheduled. I had experienced a severe stymying of my paper plans earlier today when I discovered that, no really, the author of this book on homelessness was not a retarded monkey. Once again despondent about my paper prospects I picked up my umbrella and headed to bart, sql and perl dbi books in my backpack.

I’m feeling a sort of a tension about where my life is going to go. Could I hack it in public policy grad school? If I get past my own internal blocks, then almost certainly yes, I think. One of those big blocks is writing papers, probably my biggest block. My vocabulary and comprehension skills are pretty stellar across the board (though not so much for unfamiliar jargon). But when it comes time to select topics (most especially this) and organize my thoughts I run into big problems. So I procrastinate, big time. With this paper I feel like I’m making progress both on the paper and my issues with writing, but is it good enough/fast enough that I’ll be ready by the fall? If I am going to be ready by the fall, I really should do alot more writing of exactly this sort.

The alternative is to give up on public policy, at least for now, maybe take some classes at somewhere with lower expectations than Cal, in stats, econ, and writing. Probably wouldn’t hurt to work on the public speaking either. While doing the tech work I am eminently qualified to do. I think I may overgeneralize. It may be possible for me to have a satisfying job in tech, despite my prior bad experiences. Even so, I think there are other things (like pp) I’d rather be doing.

Anyway, walking down valencia in the mission, I came up with a more modest paper topic. Feels a little high school/early undergrad in terms of its structure, but it clearly demonstrates I know the economic model I’ve been busting my brain to figure out, and have some awareness of things outside of the model in terms of real world concerns about homelessness. I’ll post the rough draft when I’ve finished it. Hopefully sometime in the next 5 hours or so.

Back to Valencia. Made it to massage guy’s place about 15 minutes early. He’s slightly flustered, but warm & friendly. He’s still getting stuff ready, but we chat a bit while he’s doing so. Standard ‘feel free to wear as much clothing as you need to feel comfortable’ (boxers, in my case). He’s pretty good. He caused a bit of pain when working with my shoulders, though, oddly, not on the one I’d recently and repeatedly fucked up. He worked on that one second, and did not repeat the pain giving. Overall it was a very nice experience, the almost completely non-sexual physical intimacy is something I could use more of. I used to get alot of that with women, but I don’t have many women in my life these days. Especially not women I’m comfortable touching, who I suspect would be comfortable with that sort of thing.

Afterwards we talked about other massages recieved, both of us having had massages we’d paid for that turned a bit warmer than initially expected (at least on the recipients end). He said his experience with that, paying about big bucks for a massage that turned out to be brief, followed by admittedly good sex weirded him out. Which was more or less my response to similar circumstances. We exchanged a peck on the lips, which led to a lingering embrace, then I went home. Ran into a friend at the bart station, and chatted with him the whole way from the 16th & mission station to the 12th st city center station. Also had a homeless lady come by asking for a dollar bill, saying she had change, and what not. I gave her a dollar, then asked for the change, at which point she said she was asking for help. At that point, I pulled the dollar out of her hand and put it back in my wallet, while she glared at me. Then she moved on.

Back home, do some work (not much) on the paper. Eat vegan pizza with lots of veggies purchased by Melissa for the house (mmm, tasty, also, long story). Go to sleep. I recall bits of my dreams. One part involved being hit on hardcore by a particular and particularly attractive acquaintance, who I’m pretty sure is not attracted to me. That was fun, if not entirely comfortable. Another involved being cuddled up tight talking in a not-entirely-comfortable sort of way about my foibles with a particular friend, with whom I sincerely doubt I will ever share that sort of intimacy. (And if you think I’m revealing the identities involved, I’m apparently not alone in my dreaming =)

At least the other element I remember from the dream makes a great deal of sense. I was lining up to go into school (end of recess style, though I was my present real-world age), but I felt like I forgot something, or something was missing, and I broke out of the line and ran off to other parts.