The Flight of the Rocketman

I'm not in love, but I'm open to persuasion. East or west? Where's the best for romancing? With a friend, I can smile but with a lover I can hold my head back and really laugh, really laugh. Thank you. You took me dancing, across the floor, cheek-to cheek. With a lover I can really move, I can really dance. I can really move, I can really dance. If I can feel the sun in my eyes or the rain in my face, tell me why can't I feel love? - Love and Affection by Joan Armatrading

We've got smooth sailing on today's flight. The Rocketman is grateful that you're taking this journey through space with him. We hope you are enjoying the ride. It's smooth sailing today, ladies and gentlemen. Smooth all the way home.

I've always been in love. With someone who just didn't feel that it was necessary to reciprocate. I'm used to giving up everything for these people (at one time or another). I could never let go or fall in love with somebody else unless it was transferred to some other person. There is that physics rule that states: Energy can never be lost, it can only be changed to one form or another. Well, I'm paraphrasing, it is something like that. I felt that love was the same. But currently, I'm not in love with anybody. And I wonder where the love has gone? In what form has it shifted to? Maybe it's directed towards myself. I don't know. But it is fun to not be in love. To just go through day to day with just thinking of the things you want to think about and not be a slave to somebody else's concerns.

I get interested in people, sure. That is pretty much normal. But I don't get obsessive, at least...

I've been thinking about doing some sort of exercise or physical regiment. I can't rely on dancing as the only form of exercise I can do. I mean, I can't do it all the time even if I want. I think gyms are cool except that I'm going to get bored. I can't really focus on my fantasies and I can't really focus on my work-out. I'm thinking of taking badminton with my friend and I think sports is better. I can really focus on something. I've never played badminton, though. So it will be fun, I guess.

I really want to take up surfing and kickboxing. I think those would be really fun and will help out in making my physical appearance improve or develop. It's so strange that people impress such a deep set notion on cuts, muscles and definitions. There is a sort of new standard now. You are either thin, fat, toned, defined. It's strange to me. I am as superficial as the next person and rely a lot on someone's physical appearance to make judgements (thank God I'm not the kind of person who imposes those judgements on the people I meet, though) but to categorize it as simply fat, thin, toned or defined is just waaaay too much for me.

I don't like boxes or categories or labels. I don't like complete definitions. I want to be a poet, an artist. Metaphor is my greatest tool. Symbolisms too. When something can mean another thing, it becomes perfect. Implications, connotations and insinuations become tools for communication. It makes things deeper and sophisticated. So I don't want to just put someone in a particular category and just say "that's that." It's not fair to that person's potentials to grow, change and develop.

But I'm still jumping the band wagon and want to look healthy. It's not that I don't want to be healthy but I enjoy my vices. They are part of becoming a hedonist. Pleasure in all its forms. I like smoking (well, I like the way it makes me look), I like drinking (I like the social aspect of it), I like sleeping late (sometimes, the solitude or the...) and the other stuff that I do. I'm sorry, but life is too short to be a vegetarian or to forego red meat (steak, medium-rare, yummy!) or to miss out on some of the fun that happens at night, like dancing in a club.

And it's December already. It's cliche, I know, but I can still remember the year starting out. How strange that time really moves so quickly when you turn around and look back. But when you look ahead, it seems so slow. This is the relativity of time that Einstein was talking about. Well, I hope it is because that means I understood what it means. Otherwise, I just missed out on it.

Read Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman. Wonderful book. Quite short but very insightful. Very clever. Very terse, very visual and very thought-provoking. Lovely, lovely book.