What a great weekend. We drove up to Oneida Camp Ground for a pirate party/wedding ceremony of two very important friends of Joey's. It was intense but very enjoyable. The camp ground is sizable but everybody knows everybody. We helped at up, Joey was "First Mate" and then we helped clean up. Their "camp" site was more like a small suite with outdoor showers, private bedrooms, pirate ships and a studio. Possibly better equipped than our apartment in some ways. Very impressive.

Another benefit of the weekend was that we didn't spend any money at all. (Besides getting into the camp, and gas, both sizable expenses). We are simply, me eating mostly fruit, and we were hurt hanging out, doing chores and interacting with people. In fact, this was one of the cheapest weekend since I moved to Asbury Park. And it felt good. A simple life is something we both like. Somehow it's harder to achieve at home. We just have to find out why.

On the way home, we stopped by an old iron furnaces in Scranton. Didn't have the time to get to the museum but hopefully some day.

What a big weekend! Went to water park with Baby K... Who's becoming a troubled teenager thanks to her unstable parents. It was also very cold so I think she got under the weather some.

That wiped us out and we just crashed. Ultimate lazy day today. Didn't even grocery shop but got my week's butterhead and cucumbers at the farmers market, then gallery-hopped a bit. That got us in trouble cause we have to have these "carp caddies". We just have to! Look at them! We are making payments...

After Snowpiercer (brilliant, nihilist, with questionable ending) we picked up our last purchase (we are becoming quite avid collectors). It's a vintage Chanel sealed in resin. I'm displaying it until Joey's done with sheetrocking.

My therapist has been talking to me about sensing and expressing. It's a long road for me to live with a reality where I have an active and outwardly-facing emotional life. Right now? I think that's selfish and wasteful. Instead of crying, there are so many other things one can do!

Still, I'm supposed to try something.

Surprisingly, of all things that I feel the need to express, the first thing is "to be a nice person."

Its the last thing I thought I would ever chose to do. But somehow it bubbled up in my mind and the thought brought calm to an otherwise stormy mind.

The stormy mind has been there for two weeks. It all started with the weekend of scientists- when I invited 8 scientist friends and friends of friends for some kind of brainstorming.

Silva and I chatted about some possible sources of the agitation. Was it a loss of control? Was I mad at myself for selfish intentions rather than truly helping someone? Am I angry that I can't control somebody else's fate?

Turns out it's all of the above but it's just the tip of something.

I have been mad because people several times these last few weeks, people thanked me for being something I wasn't. I was never this altruistic person who supports and lifts others.

But as I keep telling all my friends, that "fake it til you make it" is probably the most important mantra in life, that apparently, faking being a nice guy for 25 years finally got me to a place where I'm ready to be one, or at least to try to be one. And the agitation, apparently, came from a suppressed desire to be nice and open. To let go of old values. To perceive and accept the input of a new "reality."

Being nice and open to people takes strength and self-assurance. It also take a sense of contentment and, I think, boredom. It's not something I ever realized before. But somehow I do today.

It's not that I no longer have a strong sense of right or wrong. But I see that it's not as important as it once was.

It's not that I still have wants or that my sense of "what about me" is gone. But I see that those feelings will always be there and that they will never be sated.

It's not that I love everyone, or wondering WTF any less. But I'm just trying to see the world through others eyes more - and this will always be the biggest struggle. :)

Once again, this therapeutic journey is taking me to a place I never imagined.

After acknowledging how incredible last session was, I jumped into the two issues that happened since.

We talked about a tense moment when Chris, my best friend who's a therapist, and I had a tense moment because I didn't feel that much towards his moving to Mexico. To me Mexico just wasn't that far away and with most of my friends living elsewhere it just isn't something that causes emotional distress. But I said "I'm just not attached" as a summary, which meant something entirely different in his mind.

The therapist said she's more like me, that Mexico is a hop, skip, and a jump away and that the concept of attachment IS quite different between my upbringing and his.

Then I brought up that my cat died. She audibly gasped (even though she's not a cat person.) and I mentioned that with Joey and Betsy there, both crying audibly, I felt stone cold. It wasn't that I didn't feel sad. I even cried a little! But he needed to be taken care of and decisions had to be made. Besides he had such an incredible day that the thoughts of Jim makes me giggle still, as much as I miss him.

That event seem to have more connotations for Dr. silva. We discussed my tendency to not show emotions. And that brought on an interesting discussion about the purpose of emotional displays and if I should strive to do more of it. Dr. Silva said that she has determined that I could feel. But the display of feelings, which she describes also as a shared experience of emotions, is something we should explore. Is it wrong for me not to show? Does it bother me? Will it make me a bad parent?

Comes down to it she thinks that I may have a fear. She mentioned that since I have a temper, I maybe holding the emotions in so avoid an unknown effect of "breaking the dam." I think there maybe an aspect of it but it didn't feel like the whole story...

She really want to see me weekly. Hopefully I will in a month or two.

Oh summer! Kale chips! Dragon boat!

And beach!

With everything happening we weren't sure to make Macbeth at the Armory. In fact I forgot all about it, until I saw Jeff's post on it.

It's existence is a bit surreal. I'm not sure it would ever have made sense artistically without seeing Sleep No More which, in turn, was inspired by Macbeth and Hitchcock. It's almost as if the show was created so SNM makes sense.

We were on the second row. Most of these official photos pretty much reflects our view of the show.

The witches were our favorite.

She was just standing there for a good... Half hour? Before her roll comes on stage.

Dear Jim passed last night. Everything was fine and they were having a great day. Then, right after dinner, as Jim was walking around, his hind leg stopped working.

Within the hour, we were at the vet and he was put down after evaluating our options, which weren't many.

I was a bit worried for Reba. I think she sort of knows, and she looks for him, but so far, she's ok.

As Joey said, he has never seen a cat couple so close. It was a great love story, for sure.

Goodbye, Jim "M.J." Morrison. I love you.

Thanks to the generous and amazing Jeff Storer, I got to see an amazing play named "Cock".

A cockfight is the format from which the play is borrowed. The audience, sitting high above, watches on as a seemingly indecisive man is being forced to make a decision on his sexuality. Should he stay with the man with whom he has had a long-term relationship, or a woman he just met while on break with his man?

Amidst the bickering, displaced anger, and other stereotypical behaviors of a gay man, two issues were explored. The more obvious one was the very ideas of "gay" and "straight": Do the definitions truly exist? Can a man truly be happy within such a black and white division? While the exploration feels genuine and emotional, the play offers little to the topic. A quick introduction of the McKinsey Scale could have "fixed" it.

The more powerful, and slightly more of an undercurrent exploration, however, is that sexuality is more than an attraction to a body or a genital. In fact, it's the fate of a man and his possible futures. This discussion unveils delicately as our indecisive protagonist reveals himself to be a gay man dreaming of a heterosexual life, and the vagina becomes a door to his dreams. With it, he could have a wife, a pregnancy, a childbirth, and an empty-nest. Inevitably, he finds that he must either deny his sexuality or his dreams.

The play is relevant in its timeliness. As gay marriage is becoming acceptable, the fact that it's not the end of the journey, but a beginning, will soon become apparent. What would a "normal" rite of passage be for a gay married couple? In a less than subtle air of hopelessness and distain, the show states that without the possibility of offsprings, gay couples will always focus on earthly matters such as professional accomplishments and wealth.

In some ways, this may very well be a personal interpretation rather than an observation. Recent episodes have brought to the forefront of my mind that while I had spent almost two decade mastering a craft and a hobby that gives me a sense of satisfaction, continue to invest in myself will inevitably lead to an exponential diminishment in return. And when my life comes to an end, all that I have gathered and learned will fizzle and rot with no one to pass on to.

And very possibly, that is our protagonist final struggle as well.

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