Turning the page...

Salut,

sitting in my little lunch corner at home... This is my 66th post on this blog... and I was born in 66... Cool...

***

I got disturbed... now, over an hour and a half have passed since I wrote the first paragraph... I'm now laying on my couch, with a nice fire in the fireplace, a good CD in the sound system, and the laptop on my... lap... There isn't much missing from this picture... But there is still something missing... of course... But at one point, one has to turn the page and move on...

It doesn't mean that I will burn the book that I just turned the page of... I'll buy more wood if needed, but will never burn a book... Anyway, I wasn't done reading this one... But if it won't open itself for me, there isn't much I can do about it... I can't force it open... All I can do is clearly express my strong will to read it, as well as my understanding of the hesitations that are preventing the book from letting go... And hope it will open itself again... for me... just me... one day... maybe...

There are so many other books out there... And I read quite a few of them... But some stories touch us more than others... We sometimes feel a connection that we just can't explain... And sometimes, we just enjoy reading, in the present tense... just because we like to read... Not all books are enlightening... And I do strive for this enlightenment... Nothing less... I thought I had found it... But the book was not ready for me... Or wasn't meant for me... Only time will tell... And while I wait... I'll just keep reading... and writing... :-)

Of course, I'm also working on my own book... and this weekend, I intend to turn an important page... Now out of the metaphor, I plan on completing the re-write of my Novel this weekend... I have nothing else planned anyway (though a friend of mine offered to play some music together tomorrow afternoon, maybe... we'll see)... I had already given myself the goal of completing the re-write for January 5th, so I'll be about two weeks late... not too bad...

So I guess I should stop here... Hit the Publish message button below... Switch windows and get to work... I wish it was as easy to publish my book as it is to publish blog posts... Maybe one day it will... But for now... While I polish my re-write I also have to start the publisher hunt... So I guess I will do some research about that this weekend too... I'll keep you posted...

In the mean time... Don't forget to have fun... And read a book, or open yourself to the ones you love and let them read you... as a book... It's worth it, I told you before... Treat yourself... Spoil the ones you love!!!

BYE
MAD the writer, the book and the reader... :-)

Now what?

Sitting in the bus... My fingers are slowly melting back to normal temperature so I can type... I'm not one to complain much (as you could tell from my previous posts), but I sometimes wonder how crazy or desperate our ancestors must have been to establish themselves here.... Frozen stuff falling from the sky, so we must invent large mechanical trucks to push or pick it up so we can move around... Temperatures so low that this mechanic we invented to move around won't even work... Staying outside for too long, without adequate protection can burn your skin in a very cold way (I would rather get my butt burned on a sunny beach... but I would still wear protection anyway, I admit it... as I would if I meet someone interesting this weekend, but that is a whole other story, got it? ;-)...

Fridays... I had a Facebook status last week stating that Fridays wouldn't be the same anymore... And I knew everybody would get it wrong... And it is kind of the same this week, but for reverse reasons... Last week was because I had my kids for the weekend, and so did the lady I started seeing, so we were not going to see each other for sure for the whole weekend... But today, I dropped my kids to school this morning, and their mom will pick them up tonight and I may not see them until next Wednesday, when I pick them up at school... But I just had a 9 days streak with them, so a little 5 days break is kind of welcome... But yet... It's not the same... You know... if not... read my previous post... You'll get it...

I don't have any plans yet for the weekend... Might go see a movie, alone, or with a friend maybe... I know I want to work on my novel and start the publishers hunt. I will do some research to identify which one(s) I should target first... I'm up to chapter 15 or 18 (page 256 of 315)... I should be able to finish this weekend... Just a few week later than the deadline I had given myself, but it's OK... I had good exciting reasons for not finishing on time... And it was well worth it... :-)

Also, I want to clear my mind of some past experiences and also stop thinking too much about the future (I have a very hard time with that, I lived most of my life preparing for what was coming my way)... I need to live more in the present tense... I may have talked about that in a previous post, I don't remember, but it's OK, because I want to stop living in the past too anyway (though I didn't do too much of that in the past either, I'm not one to hold grudge or be nostalgic, at least not too much, but I still have very found memories that I cherish, anyway, I'm derailing again, let's close this way too long parenthesis, with a smile :-)...

So... As the title of the post say... Now what?... I don't know... I have no clue... No expectations... A few hopes and wishes here and there... But no expectations what so ever... I have a few friends that would love to help me go trough this, and I really appreciate it... I just need to identify how far I'm willing to go and in which direction (cause, even when we are not thinking about the future, even in the present tense, we must decide what we want to do now, what step we want to take, where to put our feet... well... in front of us, of course, but which direction do we want to face)... OK, I'm losing you now, I can feel it (maybe, I'm losing a bit of myself too ;-)...

One direction I know I want to take this winter is south... Again, I will conclude by looping back to my introduction... But it is not just because of the recent cold wave that I want to go down south, I started thinking about this trip while I was in Cuba last year with my kids and my parent... While walking on the beautiful site where we were (Playa Pesquero, near Holguin), and watching the beautiful landscape (as well as the beautiful bodies filling it :-P), I decided then, that I would go down south again next year (which is now this year), but without my kids... I have a strange feeling I already told you about that... But I can't confirm, cause... I'm sitting in the bus, enjoying the heat of my laptop battery on my... lap... So no Internet connection to go check back... Ho well...

BYE

MAD

P.S.: And don't ever forget... to have fun... whether it's hot or it's cold, it's yes or it's no... ;-)
(damn, my kids corrupted me with this Katy Perry thingy... Ho well.. :-)

An unexpected left turn...

Sitting in the train, going back home to pick up the kids... Exceptionally on a Monday since it's their mom's 40th birthday today... Her boyfriend offered her a surprise week out somewhere so I get to have the kids all week long.. Yé... And it's actually a good timing, because I had some sort of bad news yesterday... So it's good to be busy and enjoy your kids presence and not being alone during those difficult days.

The woman I was dating (as I was talking about previously), finally decided that she didn't want to continue our attempt to eventually become a couple... She has stuff to deal with inside her head that are better dealt with alone and without a partner around... Stuff about relationships of course... So I won't get into more details about the specific reasons, but it hurts to know that I wasn't able to appease her fears and help fight these demons of hers so that we could share a ride on this most interesting traveling experience called life.

Even though she says it has nothing to do with me (and I really want to believe her), I can help thinking that I must have done something wrong, or I must be the wrong guy for her, or something like that... Which is OK, since I did everything I thought was right, and if it was the wrong to do, then doing the right thing wouldn't have been from the real me, cause I was true to myself all the way, I was not playing any game or laying out any strategy there... I was just being myself, and I'm very proud of that. If I am the wrong man for her, then fine, I can't argue with that, and I won't fight a losing battle like this... We should only be with the people that are right for us... Might as well be alone instead of being with the wrong one, or being the wrong one for the other...

At least, we are both able to stay good friends, almost as much as we were before trying this out, which is a good thing, because we will keep bumping into each other, we can't really (and don't want to) avoid that... It does hurt, and it is hard to cope with... But it is bearable... It is true that it would have been easier now if I would have taken it slower and not dive in completely as I did...

---

Part II
Tuesday
8:05 AM

I didn't get to complete this post yesterday for whatever reasons... So I continue it this morning, still sitting in the train... In a new train actually... Not just a new time, they have different seat configurations in this train so I'm not sure yet, where I'll be more comfortable... I will have to experiment... Life is full of trial and errors... You sometimes have to fail miserably to learn and grow...

I wouldn't say that I miserably failed this week, but I did not succeed in helping my friend accept that she can be in a successful relationship whatever conditions surrounds it, if you find true love in it... And to continue where I stopped yesterday, I would be contradicting my previous posts if I would conclude that I should have been more careful so that I wouldn't be hurt as much today... As a matter of fact, I'm not “that” hurt... I only spent a few days physically with her, and a few more expressing my feelings for her in a virtual way (though I'm pretty good at that, wanna try me? :-)...

But I really felt it (yest, this F word again), and this was something completely new for me, and something that I was waiting for for so long... And with a woman that I have looking at, and thinking of for a long while too. So this is why I'm a little more hurt than I should be at this point... I also enjoyed so much when she actually told me that she was also looking at me for a while (actually, since the first time she saw me, wow) and she was also thinking of me, and even dreaming about me... What can a guy do? What a romantic guy looking to discover his emotions do? What could I do?

The only thing I could do is close my eyes and jump... The only thing I could do when she admitted her fears and uncertainties was to do everything I could and say everything I felt to help her appease her demons... And I did... And it worked for a while... But not very long... And it's OK... What else could I do when she said she didn't want to continue? I tried to convince her otherwise of course... But once I realized that her mind was set... All I could do was understand... And let it go...

And now I allow myself to suffer a bit... It was well worth it... My stomach is still upside down this morning... My breath is little longer than usual... I have a hard time sleeping and eating... But that's OK... I prefer that to the cold closure and protection I was used to... And I also prefer that to having the foot on the break pedal all the time and preventing me from enjoying all that I enjoyed since we both admitted our interest to each other... It is worth it... And I don't say that just to avoid contradicting my previous posts... I truly believe it... And will fight hard for it all my life... Life is good... It can hurt... But it's good...

As a conclusion, I will loop back to my introduction in an unexpected way (as I often do, so you are probably used to it by now). And it wasn't even on purpose... this is what my mind does to me while I write... I was telling you about the 40th birthday of the mother of my kids... And while writing this, I realize that it might have a little bit of something to do with how I feel (F word! :-) about all this... We started going out together when she was 20, and then we spent 16 and half years together... And I remember thinking at one point, that, when she turns 40, she will have spent as much time with as without me... Wow...

But it didn't happen, we split up a little more than 3 years ago... And not that I would want to go back with her... We are very good friends (very useful for the kids) and I still think very highly of her... But with all that I learned through all the mistakes I did since she left, I know she is the not the type of woman I would want to be with anymore... And anyway, she has a very nice boyfriend that I like a lot, a very good guy :-).. for her...

So I was once thinking that I would spend most of my life with someone I realize now I didn't really fit with... And if I want to have lived more than half my life with someone, I better meet her soon, or live over 100 years!!! :-) More seriously, this just convinces me more and more that if I get to find one that I feel is a (almost?) perfect fit... I have to do everything I can to make it work.. Yet... At the same time... She has to do the same... Otherwise it won't work... It takes two to Tango... And Tango is such a beautiful dance, you don't want to waste it with the wrong partner, or one that is not ready to dance with you...

Will you dance with me?

BYE
SAD... but still having fun! Somehow.. :0)

Treat yourself right... By spoiling others...

Sitting in my little lunch corner, in front of the patio door letting me contemplate the deep blueness of the sky as well as the shiny white snow and all the other colors between them... As you can see, I'm in quite a good mood... I write this while finishing my Sunday lunch specialty, "des crêpes jambon fromage"... My kids love them... But as soon as they are done... They run down the stairs to go play the Wii and burn a few Calories ;-)

So I'm sitting here alone, finishing my coffee and I decided to turn on the laptop to check out the activities at le centre des sciences du vieux port de Montréal... My little kid has bugged me all week long (if not longer than that) to go there this weekend... But her big sister had other plans, she wanted to play with a friend... So I found the best compromise, we will take her friend with us... Why not.. The more the merrier... And yes, I will be a single adult with 3 kids... But it won't be my first time, and I have good kids, so it should all go well...

And it is a good feeling for me too... Just to see their bright and shinny smile when I treat them like that... Of course, as parents, we have the responsibility not to spoil our kids too much. They have to learn that they can't just get all that they want, and I make sure to do that as much as I can... But as in most things in life, the trick is finding the right balance, the sweet spot in the middle... It's not easy to deprive kids of what they want, especially if you can afford it (so it is easier to say no when they ask me to buy a real space ship, as it is when they ask me for the miniature Playmobil version of that same ship, right?)...

But it is an investment for their future... and mine also... If I don't say no now, they will be on my back all their life... Whereas if I say no now, I will only have them on my back for a few minutes, hours, and maybe days, but this is much better than years...

With grownups, it is a little different though. They shouldn't need us to help them learn that they can't always get what they want... They should know that by now... If they don't, personally, I would rather not deal with them anyway... Too much work and not enough reward (kind of like I was saying in my previous posts)... With adults, I don't think we should restrain ourselves from spoiling them... Unless you are not quite sure about the feelings you have for them and you don't want to mislead them... But if you feel the urge to spoil them, there must be some feeling somewhere deep in there (unless you are as weird as I am, but this is very unlikely ;-)...

I think that if you feel good with someone, and you want them to be happy, you should let yourself go and treat them as a princess (or prince if you prefer :-)... Of course, some will prefer that the prince turn into a biker once in a while, but that is also a way to treat the other ;-P... By finding what makes them tic, and then... well... do it!!!

I'm convinced that you will get an immediate internal reward of satisfaction for satisfying the other's needs, for making the them happy... Who doesn't get that deep satisfaction when saying something funny that makes everybody laugh... It is a great feeling to please others... So why don't we do it more? What are we scared of? That the other will start expecting more and more and we won't be able to cope with that demand? So instead, we don't give anything? That's a little sad, isn't it?

OK, I know, there usually is a sweet spot in the middle, but when come to making people around me happy... I don't aim for the middle... I want to go all the way... I'm religiously convinced that it is is well worth the investment... It will come back to me somehow for sure... It can't be any other way... Call it Karma, call it faith in destiny, call it whatever you want... but do it... treat yourself... and spoil others... Go! NOW!!! GO!!!

OK, I gotta go, my daughter's friend will arrive any minute now and we will drive to the old port to go see an exposition or two at le centre des sciences and then it will already be time to drive the friend back to her place, have dinner and do some homework... Isn't it great to be a daddy? It's keeping us busy at least... ;-)

Till next time!

HAVE FUN!!!... And go spoil someone...

BYE
MAD

The feedback loops

Sitting in the bus for one of the last time before I start taking the train more regularly since they finally change the schedule and add more departure next week, so it will be easier for me to take the train after dropping the kids to school.

While driving to the parking lot this morning, I was thinking about my last post (which I didn't publish yet, I know... weird, you might have noticed that the date and time of the post is around lunch time on Monday January 5th, after my empty house oil tank adventure. The blog keeps the date and time of starting to write the post and not the one it was actually published. I was just too busy this week and wanted to double check a few things before publishing the post)...

So this morning, I thought about the concept of the feedback loop that I was hinting on in that other post. It made me realize that it can actually go both ways (and in physics, there are actually two types of feedback loops, the positive and negative feedback loops), and we can say here that the positive one can lead us to Nirvana while the negative one is more likely to lead us to a void.

Here are two examples... When I was married, my wife (even though she was a very nice woman :-) wasn't giving much positive feedback. Whether it was for the artistic creations I was having fun with, or even the things I was doing to try and make her happy. OK, it could be that I wasn't doing the right things, but I had a very hard time identifying what I was doing right or wrong without the feedback, right?

So since I wasn't getting much positive feedback from her, I was looking for it elsewhere... Don't get me wrong, I was faithful, I'm not talking about that type of “elsewhere”... I was just spending more and more time on my artistic creations with which I was getting some positive feedback from friends and family that was appreciating what I was doing. So the negative feedback loop with my wife was getting me to spend less and less energy trying to satisfy her, since I didn't get much encouragement on that front, and she wasn't one to ask for much, so it slowly died down... Which is where a negative feedback loop leads you... The void.

I often get asked where do I find the time to do all these things I do, I guess it came from there...

Now a positive feedback, on the other hand, as I was saying in my previous post, can help keep the flame alive... If you don't feed a fire, it will die, right? It is the same thing about the passion or the spontaneity of the early days with a new partner can bring us... If we enjoy it, we should keep finding ways to feed that fire and let it last for as long as we can... For as long as we live actually...

And don't get me wrong, it is not about letting everything else down. We still have friends and family, we still have other interests (like artistic creations for me), and we should never let them down, even in the very intense early phase of a new relationship... Maybe that's one of the other mistakes we make that makes it hard to keep it up after this early phase. We need to leave room for friends, family and individual interests in the early phase, so that we don't get to miss it, and start blaming the early flame and slowly let it fade away...

I think that at my age, with kids, it is a little easier than it was in our early twenties... because we have accumulated more individual interests, we may have more friends, and family is also more important, especially our own kids... For those of us that put our children's interests ahead of our own, we don't have a choice but to have a certain control over the early fire... But it is not because we prevent the whole house to burn down that we put out the fire... We can still have a very intense fireplace, without burning down the house. If the house burns down, so will the fire, and we will have nowhere to live after that... Whereas, if we just take good care of the fireplace, it can burn forever and even warm our house... As long as we keep feeding that fire with good wood, and good care...

Arriving at the terminus, so I will end this by telling you to never forget to have very hot fun!!!

BYE
MAD... the fireman! ;-)

Avoiding the fading...

Sitting in the bus... yeah... I know... A little late to get to work... Doesn't start the year on the right foot... I had a little problem at home this morning... No more oil for the Furnace... I checked at the beginning of the season and thought I would be good for a little while but it was much colder than usual at the end of fall and I should have checked again at the beginning of the holidays... but I forgot... And no, I don't have the service to automatically come fill the tank... they only do it if you take more the 1200 liters a year... which I don't... Anyway, that spoiled my first morning of the year at work... I could work from home... but still...

But that's not what I wanted to talk about (but hey, you know me :-). While waiting for the oil man, I was thinking about the intensity of the beginning of a relationship (I wonder why I was thinking about that???)... And why it usually doesn't last long enough... Some will say that it just doesn't last, that's all... It's normal... But why? Others would say that at the beginning we feel we need to win the other's interest so we work hard for this, and once we have it, we don't feel we have to do it anymore, so we simply stop... Simple... Easy... But I don't like that...

I had an other idea this morning... There is a little bit of truth in saying that we eventually get to the point where we don't feel the need to make the extra effort to keep the intensity high (yes, I do believe that there is effort involved, it doesn't come by itself, but we don't feel the effort, at the beginning, because we really want to do it)... But I think there is also a large influence from the inspiration, motivations and encouragements we get from the other...

I don't know about you, but a lot of my energy towards someone else is driven by the interest that this someone else throws back at me. Why would I keep sending flowers if the receiving part doesn't seem to appreciate them anymore, right? Why would the one keep singing madrigals below the balcony if the lady never ever show up to encourage him?

So some will say that it is totally normal to also fade out the encouragement to the other, we can't keep it up, we get tired, bored, uninterested once we have seen it often enough, right? WRONG!!! It's not a question of enough, I think it is a question of predictability. If the flowers are sent on every Monday morning at 13h00, the one receiving them will get to expect them as opposed to appreciate when they arrive. Same thing with our madrigal, the signer can't be too constant in his showing up at the exact same place and the exact same time, on and on, and on, and on...

I think the magic lies in the surprise, the randomness, the imagination, the subtleties... But even that in itself isn't enough, there must also be some openness on the receiving part because if we don't get into a routine of what we know works, we are bound to make mistakes; we'll succeed at some attempts yet fail at others... So to all the receivers of relationship debut spoilness in the world (and no, I'm NOT aiming at one in particular, promise!), listen to this... If you want to keep being fed with little pleasures that your new partner is spoiling you with, make sure to show your appreciation and please be gentle when it doesn't work quite as well as it could have :-) just... ENJOY! :-)

And, of course, don't forget to have fun.

BYE
MAD

The first date...

Salut,

sitting on my couch, having sparkling water after a nice healthy walk outside, and taking care of the fire warming up my living room. I had a very good first week-end to kick off the new year... I even went cross-country skiing yesterday, I had not done that in about 25 years... seriously... It felt good... And it confirmed that I really need to register to a gym and work on my cardio...

But you are not interested in this stuff, right? You want to know what happened on my first date... Well... I'm very tempted to.... NOT let you know... I'll just say that it went well, and that's all I will say about that... But as I said in my previous post, getting to the first date was interesting... So this is what I will discuss here today... Feel free to jump to another page if you are not happy...

So, it took me a while to realize that there was dating potential with this lady I already knew. We would see each other occasionally, and half jokingly flirt with each other, but I thought she was already dating someone, and I was even close enough to her as a friend to tell her a bit about GG.

Since my divorce, I mainly dated women that I met on the Internet. Though the only relationship that lasted more than a few weeks was with a woman that I met at a wedding (yes, this still happens), I still didn't know her much when I asked her on a first date.

So usually, a first date is on neutral territory, trying to find a place about half way between where we live, ideally a restaurant or a bar, or a very good restaurant that is worth the detour of one or the other...

But with this lady, who already knew me well, there was no need for neutrality... So my first reflex was to be a good boy and find a place close to her place, so that she doesn't have to drive much... But we had previously discussed half jokingly the possibility of having dinner at my place. I said I wasn't a very good cook, but I'm pretty good at taking care of the entertainment by singing a few songs with either my guitar or my piano... So she said that she didn't want to impose on me to cook for her, but would love to hear the entertainment...

So I was brave enough to suggest that she drives to my neighborhood, to go to a nice French restaurant beautifully set in a very old house, and then we could get to my place for the entertainment... héhé... I know... But it was just a proposal, opened for debate... And she did... She started by saying that she thought we would meet downtown either at a bar or a restaurant, but liked the idea of the entertainment at my place... But... To avoid certain expectations of going to my place "after" the restaurant, she suggested we meet at my place first, early enough for some entertainment, and then go to the restaurant... And then... we'll see... and we did... but you won't know about it :-)

I know... Not fair... But who said that life was fair? And since this blog is about MY life, I get to choose when to be fair or not... NA!

BYE
MADly having fun... as ever... :-)