There are so many strangers in my past. I find myself revisiting the question "Who are you?" when I experience change in my friends, and then, given a second thought, I suddenly realize I never knew them at all. How close can you get to someone? How much should you reveal? If you don't like something they do, do you bury it down inside and secretly resent them, or do you face rejection and silence when you do speak your mind? If it's a repeating lose/lose situation, is it a friendship?

I tell you, for years I have had the gunsight of blame on me. I haven't heard an apology from anyone else in a very, very long time, and mathematically, that says that I'm usually wrong. That can't be true! Is the opposite so far from a possibility? Am I the only one who does things wrong? Look, if this was a pattern that recurred in all of my friendships, then I seriously have to look at it. It doesn't, though, and it only seems to happen when I mistakenly believe that someone wants to be my friend, but in reality they're not really interested in anything but an acquaintance. Whether it's twelve months or twelve years, I have to understand that sometimes people just aren't interested in my definition of friendship. They just want someone to talk to every now and then.

Friday morning...hoping for beginnings, a change in pace, a...well, something new. What? I'm crazy! I've got so much going on, blah, blah, blah, and we've heard all this before. Yesterday I was telling a friend about all my anxieties, and then turned around and took a big Alien-sized bite out of her forehead (via email, of course). What does any of this add up to? It's frustrating...the only things that reward me are family and theater, so I try to concentrate on those things. They're so postiive and my creativity is at an all-time high...but my "skinnyman" tries to bring me down with guilt and rejection, and I, unfortunately, give audience to a lot of the negativity that attracts to me. I try to say "no more", but yes, I am reactive and yes, I do hurt...so....

So what it should mean to me and what it does mean to me are two different things entirely. I wish I could hang out with my beautiful friend at work, but there are some ugly, ugly points of light there that reflect on me. I wish I could see my friend of almost 12 years, but there always seems to be the issue of baggage-handling. I wish I had more of a Zen approach with all this, but I don't, and that is exactly where all my creativity comes from. Not optimism. Struggle. Struggle and defeat. Because victory comes slowly and with a LOT of resistance, and that is exactly how my life is mapped out. This is what I need to do and live with so I can have...what? Where is this all leading?

Friday morning...hoping for beginnings and a change in pace. Hope springs eternal, I guess, and life goes on. When will I be able to recognize the next chapter?

It's Monday morning at the paycheck dance, and man, do I need to take a breath! Why I'm so hungry for all this extra stuff I'm doing right now is totally beyond me. Do I not value any kind of stability or rest? My eyes are doing this funky, off-focus thing, and I can't seem to slow down at an appropriate time; I always find myself nodding off when I'm alone and intend on doing more with my time, but that couch...that bed...that floor...it seems my whole apartment except for my computer chair is one big off button. Am I doing too much? I'm...directing four plays...writing a song for another...acting in another...and just accepted directing a film. What am I running away from? The mystery girl of my past hasn't written to me since July. The former pen pal is too busy to make me feel guilty for being poor and too busy myself. The new addiction is...let's just say she's unpredictable but she's here at work, so...so theater isn't really an escape from her.

What's going on? It's starting to feel like I'm on one of those little playground merry-go-rounds that the biggest kid powers around until everyone pukes. It's a good thing there was always sand available.

I'm writing poetry, writing plays, writing music...but what cracks am I trying to fill? Oh, God, please don't let me go crazy like so many creative people I've come to know and love.

This is all going somewhere, right?

Thursday morning. Weather report: my clouds are not dark, but they do block the sun, and there's a bit of a chilly wind coming from the northeast. Storms sit on the coast, waiting, watching for an opportunity when the high pressure either pulls them in or drops. Okay, so what's really going on?

Work and relationships: Have you ever noticed how people sometimes say one thing and act a completely different way? That particular pattern seems to be popping up like weeds around me, and I'm trying my best to distract myself, to give no value to the games that other people play. How do I maintain the friendship - the...whatever...masquerading as a friendship like a small, bearded man wearing a dress - and not compromise myself? After dealing with one person dropping the guilt trip on me for not being available to the friendship, yet never putting any value in my time when I can find her...after dealing with another one who can't balance work and friendship, and when I leave her alone to focus on work she thinks I'm avoiding her, but when she's caught up in work she completely forgets about me...after dealing with actors who tell me the project we're working on is the most important thing they have now, yet are having difficulty listening, preparing, and showing up...I just don't know where to stand, and it makes me angry. The whole thing makes me angry.

Okay, to redirect the moment. I get angry because I need, need, need to try for something better: Better, more functional friendships. A job where the last thing on my mind in the morning is Blogging and coffee.

John, the guy who brings me my mail every morning, just brought the answer. His sermon this morning - "Pause for the Cause" - preached one word: Patience.

I have to remember, though I forget sometimes, to breathe. Whatever is going on with these friends, these familiar faces whose actions just aren't translating to me right now, I have to let them figure it out. I've totally taken my own breathing for granted, and I can pull that bubble a little closer.

And so my work day begins with this blog jam.

T.S. Eliot once said, ""What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."

So here I am, beginning at the end, or ending at the beginning, in reality writing from somewhere in the middle, with 18 years of journal writing behind me and a life that's beginning to look like a Where's Waldo mural. Here I am at work. Here I am in Los Angeles. Here I am torn between a bill-paying job that satisfies me like a single M&M and a theater company that takes huge bites out of me like bat boy at Thanksgiving. To hyphenate me, I would appear in your mind as a genetic gumbo, starting with ground zero: Single/Male/35/Senior Secretary/Writer/Director/Actor/Manager of a theater company/Musician/wreck in my most private moments.

That's the foreword to this book. I toss a definition out into the ether, with full knowledge that there's more to come. What particular dilemma am I working on today? Stay tuned...I think my boss is looking.