I drove a van in high school

if only I'd had enough friends to fill it up.

got destroyed at work yesterday

I was told that not only did I not speak up enough during the team meeting, but what I did say was muddled and confusing. Later I got the comment that I was too quiet, too reluctant to grab the bull by the horns, and that my body language screamed that I was not at all confident in what I was saying.

For some reason, getting all that feedback makes me excited.

I can just tell

college is going to be the last time I have friends. My life peaks sometime in the next two years.

Who would have guessed

that I would go so long without anything resembling a girlfriend?

I would have!

In fact, at this point, I think I've won several bets to that effect by betting again myself.

I regret nothing I have done because of alcohol:

all the things I regret from tonight I would have done sober.

I know what my hookup tree looks like!

... It's more of a hookup node.

Sometimes I wonder

what my life would be like if I just woke up one morning and decided to be an asshole. Sometimes I think it would get much better very quickly.

Other times I just wonder if I'm an asshole.

I hate how

interpersonal relationships are judged by their "chemistry." I was fucking good at chemistry. That shit's not chemistry.

A series of texts from Terrance:

1) What am I doing with my life? When will I be happy?

2) I'm just lost. I'll be better tomorrow.

3) I want to go somewhere beautiful with someone beautiful to do beautiful things.

4) I'm getting old.

5) What if I quit school to become an artist? I'd write screenplays and work in experimental theater.

- the time difference between text 1 and 5 was 20 minutes.

Outside of a show:

Terrance: "I was born to play roles where I die."

On a verbatim:

Terrance: "Earlier today I said that I hate sad people and then I mispronounced self-loathing."

From a text:

"That horrible moment of drunken clarity when you realize you can't drink away the loneliness..."

I made a happy blog to go with this sad blog

but there's only one entry in it.

It's the saddest happy blog.

Today I realized

the blurrier the picture, the better I look in it.

At a fancy dinner:

Person A: "I have the most awesome friend."
Person B: "No, I have the most awesome friend."
Terrance: "I have no friends!"

Also at dinner:

"I saw Inception for the first time with her. It was her seventh time. I just wish we could have shared that discovery."

At dinner:

while staring into an empty mug: "I wish it was over...
...
...
...
...
...
by 'it' I mean the school year."

While teching:

"I wanted to say that I lost my innocence a long time ago, but that's completely not true. I still have my innocence..."

exhange

A: "Me and my roommate have an understanding: I don't bring girls back to the room."
B: "You live in a single."

The other night

I misheard "regretted hookups" as "reddit hookups." I was really curious about what a "reddit hookup" was. When I figured it out, I said the eternal sentence, "I was much more excited about them when I thought they had to with a nerdy website."

Something I never got to say at the bachelor auction

In response to the crowd chanting for me to take off my shirt (which also didn't happen): "No, that'd half my value immediately."

More command line responses:

> whatis life

life: nothing appropriate


> whatis love

git-cvsimport(1)     - Salvage your data out of another SCM people love to hate

-- so, apparently love has something to do with source control. This explains why I'm successful at neither.

I tried typing "man life" into my terminal window

but all it told me was "No manual entry for life".

Sad on several levels

Terrance: "This is what I imagine breaking up with someone feels like."



P.S. This marks 100 posts of sad things. I thought it particularly appropriate to mark the occasion with something that gets sadder the more times you read it.

"How can you tell the difference

between enjoying it and pretending to enjoy it?"
"Because when you're pretending, you cry afterwards."

At rehearsal:

Guys, I need a sad dance: I have so much sad.

Still too real

Too Real

I thought about writing something about tonight. Then I realized I'm still way too close to it. It's all too real, like "I'm going to go out into the cold and have an existential crisis." It's not funny anymore when it gets real and close like that. A while ago I went through a funk and wrote several posts that read like that. I was lonely and sad and I treated this blog like a journal, and for that I am sorry. That's not what I want this to be. I want this blog to be as lighthearted as a blog full of self-deprecating humor can be. I want it to be things that at least I laugh at.

On a side note, I'm creating a sister blog to this one, called "Happy Things Terrance Hears." It's not going to be funny, but hopefully it will be sweet, and hopefully I'll say some of the things that make it onto that blog. Because as much as I like pretending to be sad and insecure, actually being sad and insecure isn't something I want to do with my life.

And maybe in a couple of days, it will be something I'm not doing with my life.

"I'm going to go watch this show..."

because I'm celibate too.

"Wow. That's unfortunate."

... "Oh, don't worry, Terrance. I didn't mean you."
...
Terrance: "I didn't think you did until you said that."

Stolen from my college's FML site

"Getting into a relationship is like being picked for a team in elementary school PE: I’m always the last choice. FML"


Well said, random anonymous person. Well said.

In class:

"Oh GOD. A mirror. I'm so ugly! ... If only I was a vampire. Then I'd never have to deal with this."

I'm not emotionally needy

I'm emotionally want-y.

If I needed it, I would be dead.

At 2:30am:

Someone: "Hey Terrance, come cuddle with us."
Terrance: "I don't know how to do that."

"It's 11:11. Make a wish."

Terrance: "I always wish for the same thing..... A girl."

I could never write a romance

I want to. I really, really do.

But my romantic imagination is so stunted that I could never write a happy, or even a hopeful, ending. Hell, I can't even imagine what a conversation between people in love would look like. I don't know how it feels saying "I love you," and meaning it. I don't even know what it feels like to say, "I really like you," and get a response that suggests that the other person likes you as well.

I've never been on a date quirky enough to spark imaginations. I've never sat on a couch with someone I like sitting on me. I've never sat through a movie for the purpose of making out. I've never even sat through a movie holding hands. I don't think I've ever held someone's hand romantically.

Any romance I might write would be stunningly generic and boring. I'm not sure I could write women as anything more than vague ideas I associate with future happiness. I'm not sure I could write men who aren't thinly disguised versions of myself.

I would get stuck on phrases that sound cheesy - they look lovingly into each other's eyes; they hold hands, walking on the beach; they rock a rocking bench, watching the sun set over the beach; they look up at the sky and think about the happiness of this moment; they eat ramen and smile as they make fun of the movie they're watching; they trade inside jokes at a formal gathering, glad that the other's presence saves them from having to make small-talk with the sheeple; they spend the afternoon surfing in California, and the evening with a bottle of rum, the beach, and a jukebox playing Classic Rock; they run through the campus' fountain; they ride horses over the rolling plains; they fall asleep on each other without sleeping with each other; they compare the way they eat cereal in the morning; they ride to the horizon in a convertible, wearing cool sunglasses and letting their hair blow in the wind; they say "I love you" without ever actually saying it; they finish each other's sentences; they wonder about the meaning of life; they make plans for the future; they talk about how awesome their children would be; they roll around in the fall leaves and the winter snow drifts; they bask in the summer; they walk through the flowers in the spring; they walk arm-in-arm into a Broadway play; they wonder how it is that they are aging; they affirm that the other one is attractive; they imagine together; they live together; they "grow in and in to one another, for mutual support and nourishment, in intricate symbiosis" (Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon). 


See? I can't do it. That's not a romance. At best that's a B movie. Throw in a blown out of proportion misunderstanding and weird minor characters as their best friends, and it is the most standard of romcoms. At worst it's a bunch of drivel that is not only not even remotely related to real romance, but also makes a bad movie. Like Star Wars Episode II, if you just consider the scenes between Anakin and Padme (which could quite possibly be the worst movie ever).


I wonder if this is a Catch-22. Am I so unable to imagine romance that I'm incapable of supporting it? Does this mean I should give up because any relationship I could start is doomed not only to fail, but to fail spectacularly, crashing, burning, and proving utterly unfulfilling in the meanwhile outside of the enjoyment people might get from watching a train crash in slow motion? 


Do I even know what I want? I feel like I don't. I have so little experience with romance that I couldn't say whether or not I want something. I'm like a small child who asks for wine when he sees his parents drinking - the question of which wine is meaningless to them, they are quite likely not to like the wine you give them, and the real reason they want it is because they can see other people enjoying it.


I'm tired of watching other people enjoy romance.
I'm tired of watching other people be unbearably cute. 
I'm tired of watching romance movies late at night alone.


Therefore I have decided to move to Madagascar to be hermit. There are several reasons for this. First, as a hermit, I will no longer have to watch other people's romances. Second, in the event of a global pandemic, I'll survive because Madagascar will stop letting people enter its ports. Third, no one will think to look for me in Africa. Fourth, I bet the natives mostly don't speak English. Fifth, it seems more likely to result in my long-term happiness than sticking it out here and hoping for the best with women.


Good night and good luck.

If my life were the Sims

you could brag on the internet about setting me up with a girl, and people would treat you like a NetHack winner or someone who got to the kill screen on Pac-Man.

at lunch:

Someone else: "...Fail."
Terrance: "What?"

Apparently I've decided my new name is Fail.

At dinner:

"Smart people are uglier because ugly people get smart. Without any friends or relationships, they don't have anything to distract them from studying harder."
Terrance, interjecting, "YEAH. I know from first-hand experience."

I haven't been feeling sad lately

I'm more like numb.

No SERIOUSLY guys!

I would win the Hunger Games!
...
I've been working out, and running through these scenarios all the time....

If Elton John ever writes a song about my life

it'll be called "Wind in the Candle."

The worst part will be during the chorus when he tells me, "Your legend burned out long before your candle ever did."

http://xkcd.com/513/

What more is there to say?

Oh, I know! In my experience, the parts on the 3rd and 4th row don't happen.

From My Directing Proposal:

I find missed connections fascinating, maybe because that’s all I seem to have in my life (the sad part is that I couldn’t make it through a proposal without downing on myself. But then, that’s the funny part too). 

I'm thinking about directing a play

It looks like I'm going to propose a Christopher Durang play that's funny because it is grotesque, but disturbing because it is funny. The Marriage of Bette and Boo has missed opportunities, misogyny, anti-Church tendencies, intellectual witticisms, and a running gag of throwing dead babies on the ground. Betty's Summer Vacation has a laugh track, a serial killer, two gruesome murders that involve disconnected penises and heads, and the feeling that modern entertainment has desensitized us towards violence and depravity. I still have a few more one-acts to read, but those look like the best options for full-length plays.

If I did either, I could easily send squeamish audience members running for the door. I'd like that as long as I was laughing. I want to make people uncomfortable. I'm not sure which I like better. I found the humor in Betty's more accessible (and more outrageous), but I think I might like the underlying theme of Marriage better. This is a conundrum indeed.

I thought about becoming a Pick-Up Artist for a while

then I read The Game and realized that they were, for the most part, significantly more screwed up than me.


Also, their goals don't really line up with mine. I don't really want to sleep with lots of good looking women. Well, I mean, I do, but that's not what I ultimately want. I think I'm more interested in the romance than the sex.

Breaking sexual tension must be an art

I'm so good at it naturally that I can't be anything but an artistic prodigy.

I know I'm a good actor

because girls never figure out that I like them.

When I see a girl I like

my natural instinct is to hide.

Sometimes I get like this

I'm sad and I'm not sure why. But I like it. I don't want to be happy because I feel like being happy will somehow reduce the meaning of this moment or of my life. I can feel things when I'm sad that I just don't feel when I'm not. I can see the patterns that I refuse to see in normal life.

On the other hand, I'm not studying for midterms.

But that's okay, because right now I can feel the importance of things, and while courses are sort of important, they aren't as important as I usually think they are. This will not end my life.

The more important question is what sort of life I want to live. And maybe it is important that I don't know the answer. Maybe it is as it should be that I can't decide if I want to be a starving artist or a rich hedge fund technologist. Life only lasts so long. It's these little moments of beauty that we need to stop and recognize. I'm not even sure what if beautiful about this moment I've made. I'm just sitting at my computer typing on a blog that I originally thought was going to be cheeky but has suddenly become sincere. And yet something makes it beautiful. this little moment of time I'm making now that could be scripted on the internet forever. And I hope it isn't just the fact that I have the music from American Beauty playing in the background, although that is probably helping.

I can see so many roads stretching out in front of me. I know that I'll wind up on one or another, and that no matter which I choose, there will always be more choices and I'll never get to stop until my journey is completely over. Maybe then I'll have a moment where I can see the journey in its entirety, where I can finally understand what exactly I am. Or maybe I don't want that.

And of all these paths I see, the one that draws me is the one I'm too afraid to take. It is the path of declaring love when I shouldn't. It is the path of starving and screaming and living and trying in vain to be famous and successful at something that maybe I'm not that good at. It is not the safe path.

But what's so exciting about being safe. If I went that way, I know I would retreat into imagination. I would waste my life away reading, playing games, pretending to be something I'm not. And then one day I would wake up and realize that I had been fooling myself all along, and that realization will destroy me.

There's this depth of feeling here in this moment that I know I won't be able to recapture when I'm happy again. All of the numbness of everyday life is gone, and I feel. Sure I might feel like shit, but I'm FEELing something. There's something inside my chest that wants to get out, a palpitation that can't just be my heart. There are tears in my eyes, and that is where they'll stay. And I know I am alive.

I've always wanted to write poetry. I've always wanted to be a poet. I just never have the words. What can you say when life is good? Hell, what can you say when life is bad? I don't know. I don't know what I can say other than what I do. I'm sure you don't understand. I'm speaking in vagaries and generalizations.

I think if there is a God, he doesn't care if things are perfect. I think he was sad one day and wanted to make something, just so that he could point to it, and say, "Hey, look I made that. It's not perfect, but that's okay because it is beautiful. Maybe it's beautiful because it is not perfect."

That's what I've always wondered. Isn't it our imperfections that make us beautiful? The veins that I can see running down the side of your face. The way you snort when you laugh. The times you get mad when there isn't anything to be upset about. The burdens you put on yourself when you know you can't take any more. This is what makes us beautiful. These little struggles against the universe are what makes us people.

And right now I'm picturing your face. You probably don't know it. Even if you read these words, and there is no guarantee you will. What I can guarantee is that I will not tell you. I will never tell you. I'm afraid. I don't know what I want from you, and it would be unfair to put that on you. So I will bear it alone, perhaps into my grave. I will always wonder what could have been, and even now I realize that it might be still be. But I also know that I will not let it be.

I always I assume that I'm imposing. I don't just assume in this case. I know that I would be imposing. And you deserve better than that. You deserve to be happy. Maybe I deserve to be unhappy, and maybe I want to be unhappy. Either way, us being together could only result in one of two things: us both being unhappy or both being happy. And I can just feel that that is not what is store for us. That is not what the universe wants.

And I will just go on finding the little pieces of beauty where I can. I will do like I did in high school the one time - I will watch your taillights fade into the distance as I am covered with the moisture of a misty night under a red sky, and I will feel.

That's what I'm most afraid of. I can deal with being alone. I've been picturing being a hermit since I hit puberty. I can deal with failure, and rejection, and losing my family and friends. I gone through all of that. I can deal with being a virgin, and I can deal with whatever else the world throws at me. But I cannot, could not ever deal with not feeling. I lose it sometimes, and right now I feel as if those times were shorn out of my life. I fear death. I fear it more than anything else. I fear it because I'm afraid that when it comes I will no longer feel. I would welcome hell itself, if just for the continued sensation.

So what are you doing here? Are you here to laugh because you know me? Are you here to laugh because pain is funny? Are you here to laugh because of my witticisms and charm? Are you here by accident? Are you here to cry?

Every day I can feel myself becoming more accustomed to the world. I used to stop and look at things. I walk too fast now. I don't remember how I got places. I only remember arriving.

Sometimes I wonder if I truly believe in people. Do I think that other people feel like me? I'm not sure. Sometimes it seems like I'm playing a game, where the goal is to get people to like me and my tactic is to be the most pathetic person in the room. Everyone wants to pet the sad puppy. But what if underneath that is a level of cynicism I won't even allow myself to recognize? And if that's there, why do I care what people think? Am I saving up for a day when I can use it against them? Am I preparing for when things inevitably go south? Or do I genuinely like people and want to be around them?

I know that I hate people. In the plural. Crowds annoy me. I think the masses are stupid and scary. But do I like persons as much as I think I do? What if I am a sociopath and I don't even know it.

And now I'm thinking of you again, and my stomach jumps back up into my chest. That can't be the reaction of a sociopath, can it?

Sometimes I wonder what I am. I feel so separated from other people. I can never bring myself to say "we". I also never call people by name. It's always you or hey or a gesture. I remember reading someone saying, "We are born alone, and we die alone." I wonder if we must live in the middle alone. Everything I know about everything comes in through my senses, but I know that my senses can deceive me. Like Descartes, the only thing I can be reasonably sure of is my own existence. But I want you to exist, and I want you to love me, and I want endless nights snuggling and whispering little nothings to each other, and I want to feel your skin against mine, and I want to watch sappy, romantic movies with you, and I want to ask you about the beautiful things in your life and the small things and the strange things, and I want you to be one of the beautiful things in my life, and I just don't know how to say any of that.

So I write it down on an anonymous blog, knowing that even if you do read this, you probably won't think it is about you. But it is. And it is about me, and it is about life and love.

I think I used to be happy. I remember that when I was little, the thing I disliked the most was being bored. I always had to be doing something. Maybe that is happiness - the dichotomy between being bored and entertained. Maybe I just know too many things now and I can never return to the Eden of my childhood, and the best I can hope for are moments like this. These little pieces of clarity.

A long time ago, my life would have been preordained. If I had lived to adulthood, I would have had an arranged marriage, expected duties, a life laid out for me with nothing to choose. I would be free of existential crisis, because who has time for a crisis when they need to be working the fields? Maybe I would have been religious, and I would have thought that there was something good waiting for me after my death. Maybe I would even look forward to it, like a birthday when I knew I would be getting a really good present. Maybe I would love my predestined wife and our children, and maybe I would play a hand in shaping their destinies. It could have been a life.

It seems like there's so much more talk these days. You can put whatever you want on the internet. And soon it is going to be that anyone with a long pdf file can self-publish a book. And for all that extra talk, for all the quintillions of bits zipping around, do we listen any more than we used to? How much do I know about the people around me?

And now I'm back to you. How much do I know about you? It feels like I don't know anything, but I know your face and I can hear your voice even now. I don't know what you would say. Or perhaps what you will say. I can only tell you that I have never wanted to hurt you.

I've been writing for so long now, but the words keep coming. I can't make them stop. Something more wants to get out, and I won't know what it is until it gets here.

I don't know what is art. Maybe when you throw a bunch of people into a room and out of their minds and bodies and opinions and talents comes something new, maybe that is art. Maybe art doesn't need any structure or purpose. Maybe every game of charades and pictionary and Cranium is art. Maybe we are just surrounded by art and we don't know to call it by what it is.

Someday science might outstrip art. Someday we might go to the stars and ultimately escape this planet. Maybe we'll even abandon it to its fate, to be swallowed whole by the sun billions of years from now. Everything that is art now, every thought that any of us have will be lost. Will it all have been for nothing.

And I come back to you. I imagine wiping a tear from your cheek. I imagine telling you that everything will be okay. That it will all work out in the end. But this time I know what I should tell you. Maybe I wouldn't actually say this, but I should. I should tell you, "Life is what we make of it. It is full of little twists and turns that we shouldn't expect to all be good. But in the end, life is beautiful, however short and painful. And perhaps what really matters is love. Our love for other people, our love for each other, will leave a mark. It may not be physical or electrical, but something about our love influences the entire universe, and long after we are gone, someone or something will be here and they will know that we lived and we loved. And that will make of this worth it. Our love is timeless and perfect, no matter how flawed and transient we are. And I love you so much." Maybe I should leave out the last part. Maybe I should never say anything like this.

And maybe I don't love you. Maybe I don't even know you. Not really. Certainly, this can't be love. But I feel something, and I want for it to be love. I want to have that feeling, and I want you to have that feeling for me.

Maybe then I won't have to be sad to feel.

I found the official song of this blog

(at least until I find the next official song of the blog)

I found a passage that is MORE depressed than I am:

"I shall immerse myself among men. I shall be silent and attentive, an appreciative companion. There will be many acquaintances, friends, women - and perhaps even a wife. For a while, I shall have to make a conscious effort to smile, nod, stand and perform the thousands of little gestures which constitute life on Earth, and then those gestures will become reflexes again. I shall find new interests and occupations; and I shall not give myself completely to them, as I shall never again give myself completely to anything or anybody. Perhaps at night I shall stare up at the dark nebula that cuts off the light of the twin suns, and remember everything, even what I am thinking now. With a condescending, slightly rueful smile I shall remember my follies and my hopes. And this future me will be no less worthy a man than the me of the past... nor will any man have the right to judge me."
- from Solaris by Stanislaw Lem (from the English translation from the French translation from the original Polish)

The story of my longest crush to date

It was the second or third day of my freshman year of high school, and I was sitting in Latin class. The day before, the teacher, who was new to teaching, had dumped all of the declension charts on us. The only thing that was keeping me from dropping the class was the realization that I was much smarter than the other people in the room and that in such a small class, things would inevitably be graded on a curve. 


And then in walks a sophomore girl, there to tell us about the wonders of Latin competitions. She wore rectangular glasses, and my first thought was that this must be the nerdiest girl I had ever seen. I thought she might be a tad insane.


Naturally that wasn't the end of things, or this wouldn't be even a remotely interesting story.


It wasn't long before I was auditioning for the first play of the year - The Pink Panther Strikes Again (which, by the way, is a horrible show that was only slightly redeemed by the not inconsiderable comedic talent of the actor who ended up playing Clouseau). At the first read-through, I was nervously looking around. I saw some familiar faces from Middle School. And then her. I was kind of shocked that she was an actress. I was even more shocked to find over the next months that she was a very talented actress.


Slowly I came to appreciate Latin - mostly because it was easy, but that's really besides the point. I don't know when I realized that I had a crush on her, but I'm sure it was before the casting of the next play (Christopher Durang's The Actor's Nightmare, a much better show that I somehow managed to get cast as the lead in). I remember standing in the theater hallway, asking her to help me with my Dramatic Interpretation in Latin. I could feel myself blushing the whole time. Well, I'm not sure if I actually blushed, but I definitely felt warm inside. Did I mention that she was definitely the best Dramatic Interpreter of Latin in the state, and possibly the best in the country? Meanwhile, I continually managed to get second at state behind some douchebag I never met. 


That was the start of something beautiful in my mind. I must have inflated her into something she wasn't, but as far as I was concerned, she was perfect - she was beautiful and talented and funny and smart and fun to be around. I even liked the way she snorted when she laughed. 


The way the schools were set up in my district, sophomores and freshmen were in one high school, while juniors and seniors were in a separate senior high school. So, at the end of the year, I was facing the prospect of seeing her almost never for an entire year. The night before the final theater party, I couldn't sleep. I pulled out a sheet of notebook paper, and tried to write down exactly what I was feeling. I avoided the words "crush" and "love" and everything like that. I think it probably came out a bit like a yearbook message. I told her that she was amazing and that I loved being around her and that I would miss her and wanted to be around her more next year. I slipped it into her Converse while people were playing Freeze (it's a theater game that's sort of improvisational and usually ends up being ridiculous. My go-to move was an alien invasion). She read it and then gave me a hug. It never came up again. I told a couple of people that I liked her that night. It never came up again.


Lo and behold, the next year I did not see her much. She dated somewhere between a couple and a few guys that year. I remember thinking maybe I had a shot with her at the National Latin convention. Nope.


Turns out she started dating one of the Latin guys from our rival school (who just so happened to also be an actor and one of the funniest people I have ever met). And that relationship lasted more or less up until her graduation. They were adorable (see spoon story). I, of course, kept quiet and tried to pursue other girls - unsuccessfully, but those are other stories. 


She's had a few boyfriends since she started college. In fact, facebook tells me she has one now. (For comparison, I have had no girlfriends, ever, and the only time facebook would have lied to you was for a week in high school when I decided to change my relationship status to see how people would react - it was impressive how fast I started getting huge reactions).


The last time I saw her was after a show at my high school during my freshman year of college. We both happened to be back in town break during one of the big shows. We talked a bit after the show. I was awkward, but not unbearably so. She said that I should text her and we could get coffee. I didn't have her number. 


I haven't talked to her since then. 


There are so many unresolved feelings there. I think they will remain unresolved. It might be better that way. Honestly, I'm not sure she knows that I had a crush on her for that long. Every now and then I long for the simplicity of the old days when I had a fallback crush. A constant in a world of variables. 


I guess the good news is that we're still facebook friends. That's better than I can say for some of my other crushes. 

I don't want your pity

I have enough of that for myself.

Hey, everything,

Just shut up and go away, okay?

I'm going to go buy a decent sized house out in the middle of nowhere, and live off the land and freelance computer science work, writing novels and plays that never get published. I will be a computer hermit. Just go away and stop making me think about you. It hurts and I don't want to deal with it anymore.

I never do things I shouldn't have done

I can always tell when something is a bad idea. I know which girls I shouldn't hit on. My problem is that I can never tell when something is good idea. I don't know which girls would want me to make a move, or when. On some level, I don't know what a move is. I don't even know what I would do if I was successful. I don't believe in relationships. I have no mental picture. It doesn't mean anything to me. I don't believe it.

Today is just feeling pretty shitty all around

I was going to put something clever here, but I decided against it. Instead I'm going to recount the story of why I quit playing baseball.

It was a hot summer in Texas, and I had signed up to be in the Jewlympics. Okay, they were actually called the Maccabi Games (their slogan is "Building Jewish Pride Through Sports"), and I hear a lot of people had positive experiences with it. I mostly just wanted to play sports and meet people. Okay, I mostly wanted to play sports and meet girls. I was fourteen, what can I say?

The summer started out pretty well. I went to camp and had fun there. I got back and started going to baseball practices. I played a lot of first base during practice - I felt like I was really consistent about making plays and I'd occasionally make a really good snag. There was one other first baseman who made the plays less consistently, but also made more of the impressive snags. I figured we would probably trade off innings or whatever. I'll admit, I wasn't the best batter on the team, but I also wasn't the worst. I figured I would be towards the bottom of the line-up most of the time, and not bat sometimes. I made some friends on the team. We weren't great friends, but I figured I could hang out with them for the duration of the week that made up the actual games.

Then that week came. Things started out fine. I got a couple of cool guys from Miami Beach rooming with me - they were tennis players. At the opening ceremony, all the cities got different get-ups to wear. Since it was the Dallas games, and I was on the Dallas team, we went extravagantly Texan - Mavericks green tear-off warm-ups, white hoodies that said Dallas on the front, and a straw cowboy hat. My hat didn't last five minutes - my teammates decided to snatch it off my head and rip it to pieces. Fuck those guys.

I figured it would be okay though, because I would be playing baseball and meeting girls.

Then came the first game. It was August in Dallas - which means that it was over 100 degrees every day that week. It wasn't that bad though - I was in the shade. Riding the bench. I played a total of 4 half-innings in the field that week, and only one of those was at first base (and it didn't come to me). The others were in right field. Fuck right field. I got to bat exactly twice. Both times the game was already more-or-less decided. The first time was against the best pitcher we saw the whole time (I could barely see his fastball. I was told later it clocked around 80 mph coming from a close mound). I struck out in four. The second time, I got a double. They didn't let me bat again.

And then the coach had the nerve to scold me for trying to fall asleep on the bench. - "You should be rooting for your teammates." Fuck him.

Oh, but the good news is that my bench-riding really paid off for the team. We got fucking third of six.

Still, I was optimistic that I would be meeting nice and attractive Jewish girls. No such luck. The parties were in huge, intimidating venues, full of thousands of people I didn't know, most of whom were older than me. And the only people I did know were two kids from Miami Beach who had a lot of friends that didn't know me and didn't particularly need a dork from Dallas hanging around and my fucking teammates. I had hoped that I would be able to break out of my shell. Instead, I sat in various corners eating barbecue and wishing I was at home reading a book.

Lest I forget, I did meet two attractive girls. They came up to me at a go-kart place and asked me if I was okay, out of pity because I looked like a lost puppy. I don't remember anything about them except that I thought they were attractive at the time and that I was resentful that they were talking to me out of pity.

And now playing baseball is irreversibly associated with all of that in my mind. Maybe I'll take up softball when I settle down somewhere.

Actually that reminds me of an old review:

The only mention of me in that one was:

"A couple of early scenes, notably the ones set in the streets of Brussels and Liverpool, suffer from some confusion, exacerbated by lapses in diction (Mr. <Terrance's last name>), but these are minor distractions in an otherwise captivating evening."

From a review:

"Some of the other actors, like Terrance <lastname> 'XX gave less powerful performances. Their characters did not feel believable and would sometimes bring me out of the world of the play."

How I Met Your Mother

I watch it and think, "Wow, Ted has much more success with women than I do."

Finally, I've found the theme for all my Saturday nights

At dinner:

Terrance: "How does one go about becoming un-repressed?"

"I don't always smoke"

but when I do, I smoke a kazoo. *blows into a kazoo forlornly.

To my imaginary mistress:

Of all the things I do, you are my favorite.

Yesterday I said something really confident and self-important

Then I rushed around telling everyone about it because it was so unusual.

No Time

Sorry blog. I have no time for you.

Also, this will be my excuse if anyone asks me why I don't have a girlfriend because it makes it sound like I'm doing things with my life.

So, here

more facebook

Do you know what's on my mind? Facebook's asking me, and I don't know what to tell it.

On facebook chat (moments later):

But I'M emotionally stable.
...
jk

On facebook chat:

God, we're all so emotionally repressed at <insert college>. It's like I fit in.

I feel a mental disconnect at many parties

I will find myself staring at the bodies moving across the floor, and I will think of them as "them." They are having a party. I am not. I am instead considering the patterns the various strobe lights make and trying to calculate the frequency with which they repeat. Or I might try to see the people moving as successive still frames. Perhaps I am considering my homework or how lonely I feel.

In fact, I am writing this at a party instead of dancing. Maybe I shouldn't have brought my computer....

It's always been my theory:

if you're too busy to stop and think about things, you're too busy to be depressed.

Life's like a box of chocolates...

I always get coconut.

Conversation: "It's a Small World"

Terrance (interjecting): "That's also the name of a board game - that no one except me has ever heard of...."

At call

Person: I have to get dressed guys. You can't keep having these problems.

Terrance: Yeah! You should ignore them like I do!

I have too many things in my life

A girl isn't one of them.

Sometimes I say something like:

So, who do you think is the ugliest person on campus? Besides me, I mean.

Costumes

(Looking down at myself): Wow, either this shirt is horribly deformed, or my torso is.

Shakin' It

Terrance: What do you mean you can't shake babies? ... Man, all that time I spent with a shake-weight preparing to be a father was just wasted.

A Letter to My Future Grandnieces and Grandnephews

If you are reading this, then I am dead and you have hit puberty. I hope that you never read this.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you what not to do with your lives, since I can't be there in person to tell you.

I want to stress this most - do not do what I did. There is a reason you don't have second-cousins on my side, and it has entirely to do with me. There was something in me that just wasn't fit in a Darwinian sense.

It was about halfway through college that I realized not only was I virgin, but I also had never been in a relationship and wouldn't know what to do if I ever happened to find myself in one. The problem, I think, was one of timing. I was always waiting for the right time to ask the right girl.

So here's the deal (and do not tell your grandfather I told you this - he's a nice kid): FUCK WAITING. Right now, today or tomorrow, but not the next day, go ask some boy or girl out (just for the record, I don't care one way or the other about your sexuality - do what feels right) even if you think they'll say no, even if you're not sure if they're "the one," even if you don't know if they are already in a relationship, even if the timing just isn't right, even if you feel like you need to get to know them better first (especially then, really). Just fucking do it. And then keep doing it.

Because if you keep waiting for the right moment, it'll never come.

Trust me, I know.

- Uncle Terrance

P.S. Please tell me they eventually restarted the government manned spaceflight program. Anyone who thinks private industry is going to be able or willing to get us to the stars is an idiot, even if the move away from manned spaceflight makes sense in the shorter term.

Spandex

Is not a material I should wear.

Horror Films

"Terrance, you would die second in a horror film. You'd find the first person, freak the fuck out, and then die."

After a Show

Terrance: Why are you guys still hanging around?

Someone (sarcastically): We're waiting for you.

Terrance (earnestly): No, that doesn't sound right.

At the end of my programming interview

the interviewer said, "It seems you are not very familiar with Java."

email to a list

<Person A> to list:
This very weekend, new members <Person B>  and myself will be performing in the <insert theatre company>'s production of <insert show>!!! 

LATER
<Person C> to same list:
And Terrance! Terrance is in it! Everybody go see Terrance!

Ah yes, Valentine's Day

My plan is to not get emotionally invested.

My Bio for a play

Terrance, despite his many flaws, dies beautifully.

I'm Holding a Contest

I want to see what is the most unromantic book and genre that can make me feel like crap about the amount of romance in my life.

The current winners: from the genre of dystopian science fiction:
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

I celebrate getting cockblocked

It means that there might have been a possibility of something happening.

In my Dreams

I still don't get the girl.

I sort of enjoy being a smart-ass

Somehow I just never seem to do it.

Picture a Party

Any party. Okay, got it?

Now picture me curled up in the fetal position in a chair in a corner. 

Picture complete.

At Rehearsal

Someone: It's like we're all sexually attracted to Terrance.

Terrance: Psh. Like that'll ever happen.

Today

was a very happy day. I really don't have anything sad to say about it. I got lots of hugs from awesome people.

All I can say is that my smile muscles hurt. Maybe I don't use them enough.

Well, that was sort of sad. But not really.

At Dinner

Girl: The giggles cover up the sad.

Terrance: Hey! Can I quote that... for my blog?

Today in Class

Visiting Artist: Okay, so we're going to try and avoid tonality.

Terrance: I do that naturally.

Living Vicariously

I always warn people who try to live vicariously through me that they'll be disappointed.

The card I used to introduce myself

Name: Terrance

....

Fun Fact: All facts are fun...

I used to believe I could find my soul mate

Then I looked at the math.

I found it!

It took a little more than half a year, but I finally found it. The song that reminds me that I have less than zero chance of picking up girls who don't speak English primarily, no matter how attractive or intelligent they are.



(I'm little ashamed. I found it by googling "Oye oye oye song." I should've thought of that as soon as I started looking for it.)

*And now because of Universal Music Group, you're going to have to follow the link to youtube to watch it. Go figure. Or not. I'm honestly confused.

Apples to Apples

I put down the green card "Imaginary."

The decisive winner: My Love Life.

Too much truth.

Today on Facebook

Terrance (25 minutes ago)

SKYRIM IS AWESOME
It's just amazing
my hot girl character just became a werewolf
it was hot
...
I need a real girl character in my life, don't I?

Isn't it funny?

The more you get rejected, the less it hurts. Then it slowly becomes a dull background pain you can safely ignore.

Then you learn the lyrics to "Comfortably Numb."

Owner of a Lonely Heart

I was really disappointed when I look up the lyrics to "Owner of a Lonely Heart." The lyrics are all like - "You can do it. Just believe in yourself and go for it!"

I call bullshit.

Quotes

I love them. This one is for you, everyone:

I believe Art should mirror Life

That's why I never write a love story with a happy ending.

Coming Out

Today I asked my dad what his reaction would be if I came out as gay. He said he would be a little shocked.

Then he added that he wouldn't be at all surprised if I came out as awkward and shy

"With or Without You"

You know that song? You know, this song:



Well, it occurs to me that when it says, "I can't live with or without you," that reduces to "I can't live." Pretty grim, right?

I like it.

The Story of My Senior Prom

By senior prom, I had finally realized that formal dances were not for me. I actually wasn't going to go. I swear, I wasn't. Additionally, I was going to be secure in that decision, knowing that it would be better for everyone involved if I just didn't go. (Also, all the girls I would have wanted to ask were in relationships).

But there was one girl who decided to change that. I'll admit that she's attractive, and I had considered asking her to the prom (and initially decided against it). The thing is that she has a strong personality (I don't want to use the word abrasive. But now you might be thinking it. But I didn't say it. Okay). So, when she decided that she wanted to go to prom with me, there was really nothing I could do about it. You know, high school social pressure and all that stuff. So, I manned up, got a single white rose, and asked her out to her face, knowing that the asking was mostly a formality (which, incidentally, is a great confidence booster that I have not had occasion to experience since then). I left shortly afterward to finish eating lunch with other people.

So, the night of the prom, we decided to drive different cars - or rather, she didn't tell me where she lived or what time I could pick her up, so I assumed, correctly, that we would be using separate cars. Same group as the Homecomings. She was actually a part of that group, so all was well. We got another party bus (partially because the group had gotten to be ridiculously large over the last two years - it turned out to be just a bus). The air-conditioning in the bus didn't work, and it felt like it was approaching 90 degrees outside. I stayed in the bus while everyone else went into a 7-Eleven to get ice. She didn't sit next to me when they came back.

At dinner, we sat together, but I spent most of the time talking with the guy across from me about movies. She spent most of the time talking to the girl next to her about I-don't-remember.

At the dance, we went in together, but she went right into the big crowd of dancing people. I couldn't follow (I hate being touched by people in big dancing crowds - a fear and hatred that to this day I have only partially gotten over with the help of repeated exposure and alcohol). I went to my group of really close friends and spent the night dancing with them in a corner. I had fun. I never once danced with my date.

At the school-sponsored after party, I spent my time running around, bowling, playing laser-tag and video games, and just generally acting like a teenager. Without my date.

At my group's after-after party, I hung out with various people and talked about life, college, and the meaning of things. One of them was the girl I had actually wanted to ask to prom but couldn't because she had a boyfriend. None of them was my date. I'm not sure I've ever had a conversation like that with her. It's the type of conversation I wish I could have more often.

I finished out the night by watching Iron Man and the sunrise. Then I drove home and collapsed into bed.

In conclusion, I had some fun, but ruined yet another girl's night. I felt pretty guilty about that for a while, but now I think that she should have seen it coming when she used social influence to coerce me into asking her to the prom.

Luckily, I won't be expected to attend many more formal dances.

The Story of My Second Homecoming

Any sensible person would have realized that dances and me were a bad combination after the first Homecoming. I thought it might be different if I went with a girl I actually wanted to romance. How very wrong I was.

I had known her for a while, but hadn't thought very much about her until the summer before senior year when we were on the same trip with a school group through Italy and Greece. I'll admit, I had a crush on her - and actually my theater teacher had suggested us getting together (I assume in jest, but with her it's hard to tell).

Anyway, I did my usual Homecoming routine of complaining and whatnot. Underneath that I was gathering up courage for a feat of derring-do. I asked her out. Over the phone.

Someone out there is doing a facepalm. It's probably me. 

She said yes.

Things were looking good, right? I'd actually asked her out - albeit over the phone, which was sort of a wimp move, but considering how nerdy I am, some might consider that sweet.

And then I realized that I hadn't specified that I didn't want to go as friends. Cue thinking far too much about it.

This time we did all the usual stuff - mums, football games, Homecoming shirts. We were with basically the same group as the first time, but that seemed like a better plan because this girl actually knew a good portion of them. The group got a party bus. I remember dancing next to her on the party bus. I remember dancing next to her at the dance. I do not remember dancing with her, probably because I didn't. I do remember feeling self-conscious the whole time. Our conversations tended to have this structure:
Me: awkward open-ended statement.
Her: awkward, short reply.
(awkward silence)
(repeat)

But overall I was feeling good about the whole thing, even after it was over. At least until I realized that we weren't talking anymore, ever. I tried going up to her, but it always ended up being awkward. I remember one time I found an especially colorful fall leaf and pressed it in a book and then gave it to her. Perhaps it was an interesting idea, but the execution made me want to hide under the covers until graduation. Finally I realized it was ending, and in a last-ditch effort to make something happen, I wrote a poem for her and gave it to her. Over facebook. It was a limerick.

She has since unfriended me.

The Story of My First Homecoming

It was fall of my junior year of high school. I was preparing for Homecoming the way I had prepared for all school dances up to that point: worrying excessively, complaining loudly to my friends long after they stopped listening, coming up with alternate plans I would never follow through with (in retrospect, though, all-night Monopoly actually would have been worse than the dance), and definitely not asking a girl out.

While I was complaining one afternoon at lunch, one of my friends asked me to go with her. My immediate response was to start laughing - I'm not sure if it was because I thought it was a joke or because it caught me off-guard or because it just made me intensely uncomfortable. It slowly dawned on me, as she started looking really sad (did I mention that she's adorable?), that she had been serious. I apologized excessively before saying yes.

We more or less agreed to go as friends and not do any of the usual stuff - no mums, no football game. Then there came the question of going with a group. I don't remember exactly how or why, but we ended up in a group with my other friends - as in I knew almost everyone and she only knew me. While certainly not my only mistake, that was certainly the biggest one.

At dinner, she was sad and distant. Although I distinctly remember asking if she was okay, I mostly talked to my other friends. At the dance, we went and found some of our mutual friends. I danced badly, as is my wont. But mostly I remember the night as being straining and sad. Afterwards, several of our mutual friends accused me of being a horrible person. I agreed. I'm sure I apologized to her, but I'm not sure I could ever apologize enough. It would have been much better for everyone if I had just said no and spent the night watching CSI reruns.

Social Butterflies

People always used to tell me that I was a social caterpillar. Some day, they implied, I would find the right circumstances and turn into a social butterfly.

Lately I've realized I'm more of a social worm.

Interesting Thing

Group leader: Okay, we're going to go around the circle and everyone is going to say their name and one interesting thing about themselves.

...

Terrance: Hi. I'm Terrance, and I have trouble thinking of interesting things to say about myself. 

Me, Regarding Women

I'm like a dog chasing cars; I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one.

A Conversation

A friend: Terrance, I'm worried about you. I think you should talk to a psychologist.

Me: I don't need a psychologist. All my problems are just in my head.
       (pause)
       Oh....

My Life

It's been pretty much downhill since puberty.

Songs on Repeat

For some reason, I'm able to listen to the same song on repeat for hours at a time. Sometimes I really need to do that. One time, it was:
That was truly a dark period of my life. And also a really hard problem set.

But lately, I've been listening to
I find I have a certain affinity for it.

Last Night

When I went out, people kept asking if I was a freshman. When I told them I wasn't, one said, "Oh! You don't even go here, do you?"

Spoons

Today, I was hanging out with some friends, and I kept hanging a spoon on my nose.

(This is what I do when I'm left around utensils and run out of things to eat. Because apparently I'm three years old. I also tore up the tea bag I was using and the wrapper it was in.) The girls who were there said they couldn't do that, so one of the guys said that it was probably just a guy skill.

I disagreed. As I explained: The girl I had a crush on for more than three years in high school could definitely hang a spoon from her nose. I know this because she had an ultra-adorable facebook picture where she was doing that with her boyfriend, who was not me.

He was however a great guy and one of the funniest people I've ever met, and they dated until she graduated. I hate it when awesome people date other awesome people.

Ah, the good old days

I was once a twelve-year-old boy at Jew camp. For some reason, several girls thought I was attractive. Until they talked to me.

There was one girl that I think enjoyed making me feel awkward. Or else she was just really bad at taking hints and I scarred her emotionally for life. Whichever.

So, one night, my whole age-group of campers is sitting at the campfire, singing campfire songs. She sits down next to me. I squirm a little, like usual. She grabs my arm, and says, "Hey there, Hunkalicious." Internally, I'm on Red Alert, full fight-or-flight mode. So what do I do? Like any incredibly awkward twelve-year-old, I wait until a song when most people stand up, but instead of standing up, I roll backwards over the log we're sitting on and discretely run to the other side of the campfire where no one is sitting because that's where all the smoke is blowing. And I sit there with my shirt covering the lower half of my face until the end of the song session.

I can't help but feel that the Hunkalicious incident more or less set the tone for my romantic life from then on.

Third-Wheeling

I like it because it's the closest I ever get to being second-wheel.

See? Fun, right?

Clothes

The more I have on, the better I look.

On One-Liners

I like them because I'm not talented to come up with more involved jokes.

An explanation of sorts

This is likely to be the worst blog ever.

I take that back. There are some really horrible blogs.

It's based on a stand-up routine I did. I sort of hope the people who were there were blackout drunk. Otherwise there are a lot of girls who think I'm pathetic. Which is not inaccurate.

Like the stand-up, this may end up being mostly one-liners, but I'll try to mix in sad stories too. For the meat lovers out there. Never mind.