A Lot Can Happen in a Year

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» Exploring the Nature of the Commitment to the Relationship

Girly, we have been together so long now .. ( pause for effect ) .. that I feel confident we would be common law married in a number of states.

In most relationships, something unspoken usually happens at the 1-year point. Not always .. but more often than not.

Girls normally start exploring the nature of your commitment to the relationship. And here I could write untold volumes .. about what happens under various circumstances.

But now is not the time for that.

» Spending All Four Seasons Together

I have long felt that a couple needs to spend together all four seasons .. spring, summer, fall and winter .. before they can know whether this person is worth committing to, and before entering into a long-term relationship with them.

You need to see them operate in a range of situations and circumstances .. before you can really get a feel for their soul. Eighteen months would be even better.

I bet that Prince Harry and Meghan agree with me here (at t=1:00).

At 18 months together, you have good feel for this person. Diana was his mother. Good for him. I am rooting for them.

» When Dysfunction Becomes a Comfort Zone

I will say, tho .. that my experience has been .. that it is difficult to build an intimate relationship that is not dysfunctional.

There is plenty of dysfunction out there to find .. dysfunctional relationship patterns that come from dysfunctional parenting .. where so much of what we learn about intimate relationships is derived.

The problem, as I see it, is that, when people spend so long in a dysfunctional environment .. where their formative years were spent .. they come to see such dysfunction as normal.

It becomes a part of who they are. And it is often obvious to everyone around them, but they themselves somehow cannot see it.

Because it has become a part of who they are.

I bet that Padma knows exactly what I am talking about here. Notice where she writes:

"When I walked into 30 Rock it felt like someone had died. The mood was somber to say the least, shell shocked would be more accurate. Like finding out your dad has been cheating on your mom and the happy family you thought you were living in is in fact broken."

That's good writing. I could easily tell you why I think it's good writing. I can feel myself impressed.

But she makes my point about there being plenty of dysfunction ('broken') out there .. which is hiding not far from the surface. And it doesnt take much for the ugly underbelly to reveal itself.

In other words, her statement there resonates with my own experience .. which is why I am mentioning it here.

And because I was in the middle of flirting with Padma when you came along, girly. One year ago today.

» Growing Up in a Cold and Dysfunctional Family

Notice how they say at t=0:30 in this video, speaking directly to Meghan about the royal family, and warning her about marrying into the royal family » "The Windsors are a cold and dysfunctional family." [ .. as opposed to a warm and loving family. ]

I saw a video of her on a talk show with Craig where she looked thin enough to make me feel concerned.

Hopefully my concerns are groundless.

Craig actually walks her out and blocks the camera so that you can't get a good look at her. And then when you finally get a look at her, the shot is pulled back and blurry. But she looks alarmingly thin there .. does she not?

Eating disorders are often related to sexual things .. to sexual abuse early in life.

Okay, this video is from 2013, and it looks like she has put on a few pounds since then. Good for her.

» Better to Separate Early

Regarding my son, I have had people tell me, "If you're going to break up, then it's best if you do it when they're still young. This way they dont know any different, and they dont feel like it's their fault."

My son was not even six months old .. we his mom and I parted ways for good.

But what does the person do, when stepping away from dysfunction takes them out of their comfort zone?

I'm talking about when you really get to know people .. beyond the pretty, outer, superficial image that they paint for you.

Am I saying anything that is not already intuitively obvious? And it can take a while to really get to know somebody.

» When the Improbable becomes Inevitable

I remember thinking about this thing with you, girly. I remember thinking how improbable this thing with you seemed and how it seemed to come so easily .. despite being so improbable.

But today I caught myself thinking, "Well, of course .. how could this thing not have come so easily? We're the perfect team. It's inevitable .. like peanut butter and jelly."

That's what a year will do for you, I guess.

After things have been a certain way for a certain length of time .. it becomes difficult to imagine them being any other way. (I know you feel me here, lover-girl. Probably Drake, too.)

The last time that I felt that something was inevitable .. I ended up making a baby. A number of people have told me that I make good babies. (I certainly give it my all.)

Speaking of the 1-year anniversary .. I remember thinking, after I had started to write this thing .. I remember thinking, "I am just going to write one page .. that's it. I will thank her for singing this song. But I'm not going to get carried away with this girl .. like I did with Lauren. I am just going to write what I need to write and be done with it. And then I will get back to catching up on my Netflix DVDs."

Now I look back and ask myself, "Dude .. a single page? What were you thinking?"

» Lauren with her Dad at the Wedge in Newport Beach

Speaking of getting carried away with Lauren .. here she is with her dad at The Wedge in Newport Beach .. at the end of Balboa Peninsula .. my old stomping grounds.

She was probably hoping to run into me there. That wouldve been nice. I like her. I would take her and her dad out for a taco afterwards. Maybe we'd even run into Kobe there.

The last time I was there, I said to Norman the manager, "You seen Kobe lately?"

Norman said, "He's been sending his personal assistant to pick up lunch." Before adding, "She's in amazing shape." Then Norman made a whooshing sound as he blew a little air out of his pursed lips.

"I bet," I said. (Lots of hard-bodies frequent this healthy-food joint.)

Perhaps Lauren would like to catch a movie later at the Big Newport. You never know.

» Walking Out on the Jetty at the Wedge Early in the Morning

Sometimes, particularly during the summer months, I would take my son down here early in the morning after picking him up at his mom's.

We would walk out on the jetty that you see pictured there behind Lauren and her dad.

The jetty is the thing that makes the Wedge "the Wedge" .. as the waves bounce off it .. before colliding with non-bouncing waves.

That was always very cool. Lots of fun. It's a long-ass jetty. Sometimes the waves would get big and scary.

I dont think that we ever made it all the way out to the very end. Each time, we would always try to go a little further than we went the last time.

But whenever I asked, "You wanna try to make it all the way out to the end today?" .. he would always say, "No."

» Feeling God Smile

I probably took him down here fifty times .. over the years. Maybe more. It's nice down there early in the morning. You can feel God smiling down on you.

[ Scripture says, by the way, that you need to live by faith in order to make God smile. Go ahead and read it for yourself. And who does not want to make God smile? ]

When the waves got super-big, TV crews would show up .. with those vans with their tall telescoping antennas. Along with crowds of onlookers.

After we left the Wedge, sometimes we would walk out to the end of the pier .. and see who was catching what kind of fish there.

But usually we would ride across on the Balboa Island Ferry .. and get out of the car and take a seat where we could get close to the water and feel the sun on our faces.

We normally had the targa top off and Elmo was always riding shotgun .. wedged there between the top of the passenger seat and the inside of the targa arch.

Then we would go to the coffee shop, where we might split a snickerdoodle, and where I might even tell him a story.

The Environmental Nature Center was right at the end of the street from the coffee shop, so we would go there when it opened.

Uh, I seemed to get a little carried away there. Lauren has that effect on me. I dont know why some girls do that to me.

[ Girly, remind me to talk to you later about setting up a threesome with Lauren. This is one of the benefits of having a smoking-hot girlfriend .. is that » all the other hotties want to have threesomes with you. Lauren is a smart girl.

I have noticed that sex is better with smart girls. In case you were wondering. You can somehow feel them more present in the moment with you. More fully present. More engaged. More there with you. ]

» I Can Only Imagine the Look on My Face

I was thinking earlier, girly .. seeing that today is the one-year anniversary of our thing. (I guess we do indeed have a thing after all, lover-girl.)

I was thinking about the moment .. when I saw all those stars line up before me .. just daring me to take a shot.

I can only imagine the look on my face. It mustve been a thousand-mile stare. It certainly felt that way .. when I reached over to hit the space bar to pause you.

[ Girly, look at your left hand here. You have nice hands, by the way. You have the kind of hands that know how to touch. I like hands like that.

I so badly want to know where your headspace is right now .. in this captured image here.

I dare not say what this image makes me feel. I would have to create my own language in order to do that. ]

» Do I Have a Blindspot?

It was a very cool feeling .. like, "Holy smokes .. where did that come from?" I was so surprised. I was so not expecting that.

I could feel myself trying to figure out a million different things at once. I didnt know what it meant .. but I knew that it meant something.

Because I had been super-primed for it .. by the effect of what I had read earlier that day.

And by that feeling .. where nothing feels right about anything. The feeling that you will do almost anything to get away from.

It is a horribly uncomfortable feeling .. that seemed to go on for an unusually long length of time.

But when I heard you sing your song .. I suddenly saw my way out.

» A Once-in-a-Lifetime Celestial Alignment

And the feeling that comes here, girly .. is » "This is exactly what I was made to do. I have been training my whole life for this."

Because of the way these stars lined up so beautifully .. in a once-in-a-lifetime alignment.

When I saw all those stars line up like that, I thought, "This girl doesnt even know what she's in for." 

And there is never a better time than right now .. that's what I always say.

And if you fuck this up, you get no do-over. No backspace key. Thread the needle or go home in defeat.

Uli knows what I am talking about.

So I knew that something was going on .. and it was going on right now. This second, right now.

And then I re-hit the spacebar to restart you. It wasnt long before I thought, "Oh my god .. it's even worse than I thought."

A part of me was asking another part of me, "How did you not see this coming?" .. such a big, shiny train .. overflowing with carloads of coal. Do I have a blindspot?

» Like I was Telling Obama...

On the subject of blindspots .. I was telling Obama about how, sometimes, you simply cannot see the obvious things that are on display .. right before your eyes in living color.

After the fact .. after the secret has been revealed to you .. you think, "I can't believe I didnt see that."

Expectations come into play here, I think. I didnt see anything unusual, I didnt see anything odd going on .. because I was not expecting to see anything. Even tho, now, in retrospect, it seems confounding that I could have missed it.

There is obviously more to it .. but expectations are one of those things.

My brother is a surgeon. He is smart fucker and he said the same thing. "I can't believe that I didnt see that. There were so many signs everywhere .. right in front of me."

It's definitely a trippy feeling .. missing the glaringly obvious thing that is on display.

» Jung Knows What I Am Talking About

Jung talks about something he calls » The Individuation Process (see t=2:00).

Jung says that this process here is a key aspect of becoming an individual person .. and not merely another automaton in the soul-crushing machinery of the system.

The graphic here illustrates very much this thing that I am trying to describe .. where things that were always there suddenly come into consciousnessness .. and you can't believe that you couldnt see this thing all along.

It is a bewildering and humbling feeling which makes you question your own powers of perception.

And here I could go into excruciating detail .. but, my point is that you definitely come away with the sense that you are now a more whole person .. a more complete person than you were yesterday.

You can feel the personal grow and it feels good. Growth is life. The end of growth represents the beginning of death.

» Anything Consequential and Far-Reaching Will be Difficult

At the beginning of this page, I referenced regarding Katy Perry » how difficult it is to "become aware of the underlying motives driving their beliefs and actions through honest and critical introspection."

The reason why these things are difficult, I feel, is because they are so consequential and far-reaching.

And nothing that you do in life that is consequential and far-reaching will be easy. (I will gladly put that in writing.)

» Suddenly Seeing Things that were Actually There All Along

See .. most of those stars were already there. But it wasnt until you came along that they became active for me.

I can feel myself struggling to describe it .. when you suddenly see something .. in an illuminating sort-of-way.

There is a scene in one of the Raiders of the Lost Ark stories .. where Indiana Jones throws a handful of gravel out over a bottomless abyss .. and the passage appears.

The passage that was there all the time. That scene actually does a good job at illustrating the feeling that I am trying to describe.

Sometimes (not always) you can hear a part of you admitting, "I would have never thought of that in a million years."

Another part of me was surprised that you had the balls to do that .. to sing that song .. while knowing. Especially since you were so young.

I had trouble putting all these things into just one person. I could feel myself trying to figure you out.

I could feel you pulling on things that most girls cannot get to .. that most girls do not even know are there. That most girls do not recognize.

How do you do that, girly? Are these trade secrets known only by Illuminati Ninja Warrior Princesses? Or can you be plied for insights with the right sort of .. uh, incentives?

» Responding to Let Me Love You

Speaking of recognizing things .. we have been together so long now, lover-girl .. as a team, and as other things .. that I now feel ready to respond to Let Me Love You. (I am very cautious with girls like you.)

Girly, are you doing this on purpose? You know what you are doing here. It is very difficult for me not to put myself here. Maybe even impossible.

And once you put yourself in one place, then it becomes only too easy to put yourself in other places. I know that this sounds like mumbo jumbo .. but I am confident, lovergirl, that you know exactly what I'm talking about.

I have seen many different looks on your face .. but I have never seen this look before. I can't help but wonder what it might mean.

» Girly, Girly, Girly .. What am I Going to do with You?

Girly, girly, girly .. look at you here .. with the moon coming up over the mountains. The full moon. It's probably just a coincidence .. that the full moon is coming up over the mountains in your video.

We seem to have many such coincidences .. wouldnt you say? (Some girls just make things so easy for you .. where the relationship resonates in a wonderful way.)

What do you think it might mean? .. all these strange, random coincidences. Dont you feel like they must mean something?

The moon rising over the mountains means that the sun has already set .. which means that nighttime is on its way. I can almost smell the night-blooming jasmine now.

I should not tell you the things that this video make me think and feel. Naughty things this video makes me think. Very naughty, indeed. Sometimes you make me feel aggressive.

What I am going to do with you? I am trying very hard not to completely annihilate your ass .. but you are making this difficult for me. So difficult. So very difficult.

I guess that being provocative comes with the territory .. of being an international culture-bending popstar. Madonna was always pushing people's buttons.

» Closeness Lies on the Road to Intimacy

Sometimes I use the phrase "bringing it to your doorstep" or "bringing it to my doorstep". This image of you here with the full moon rising over the mountains is exactly what I mean when I use that phrase.

One of the things about you that makes you you to me is that I can feel you close sometimes. And sometimes very close.

It's not an easy thing to describe .. but there is definitely an element of intimacy to it. And intimacy with a beautiful creature .. who can resist such a thing? Show me the man.

And there is also a boldness about it .. and I think, "Oh, this girl has gigantic cojones. She is getting so close." Which is something that I can't help but respect.

Oh, speaking of getting close .. check out the end of this trailer. The statement there is kind of funny, if you think about it.

The only thing more dangerous than going too far .. is getting too close.

They mean it in a different sort-of-way, but the statement is thought-provoking nonetheless. It suggests an insight not readily available.

The best relationships contain an element of playfulness, no?

This video has 200 million views. You cannot possibly know how big of a number this is.

» Dont Even Think About It

When I first saw that video (released May 22, 2016), I thought, "Not a chance, girly .. not a chance. Dont even think about it."

You know why I said this, girly. I know you know. But that was then. Now, however .. uh, I should probably not finish this sentence. I should not reveal all of my naughty secrets.

» My Favorite Ariana Moments

Would you like to know my favorite Ariana moments from the past year? (I'll tell you later.)

Girly, you show me yours and I'll show you mine. My favorites, I mean .. my favorite Ariana moments.

It always surprises me to learn which parts of my writing speak most to super-hotties such as yourself.

I have noticed, for example, that the car-theme seems to be popular with you super-hottie singers.

And a voice in my head says, "I think they liked the car thing."

And yes, I can see why girls like you might appreciate my Ferrari metaphor.

So I will see these things and think, "Maybe I should write a little more in that direction."

But I am by no means certain. This is probably because I dont really get girly-girls.

Perhaps things would be different if I had a sister. I dont get how the internal gearing works in some girls.

This is why I am always on the look-out for a girl who gets guys. A guy-savvy girl.

» All My Favorite Lines Come Organically

For myself, there are some lines that I have written over the course of this last year .. lines which I really like.

Sometimes I will hear a part of myself say to another part of me things like, "Dude, that's a good line .. you must admit."

For example, when I wrote, "Girly, are we really in love .. or does it just feel that way?"

The reason why, or at least one of the reasons why, I like this line so much .. is because it came to me so naturally.

I was really thinking this very thing long before I had ever written it. I was thinking to myself, "Am I really in love with this girl .. or does it just feel that way?"

Then, when I came to this point in my writing, it came with no effort. It was very natural and organic and authentic.

It was the same when I wrote another favorite line » "I am trying to impress you so much that I am impressing myseff."

Sometimes I find myself reading things that I wrote long enough ago .. that it kind of feels like it was written by someone else.

And sometimes, particularly when the writing goes deep, I will say to myself, "Who are you, dude? Who writes like this? Who says things like that? Who are you really?"

There are plenty of other cool, favorite lines that I could cite here .. but I should probably save them for later. (We want to keep our lover craving our touch .. dont we?)

» When a Girl Can Make You Feel Like This...

Girly, I hesitate to mention it .. but, regarding my favorite Ariana moments .. uh, do you remember when you did that woo-woo thing in New York? .. the night before the release of your album.

Oh, girly .. that's when I knew you were really dangerous. "When a girl can make you feel like this," I thought, "she can fuck you up."

That thing haunts me to this day.

Much respect.

There was a time in my life when I would not date girls who I knew had such a thing that they could fuck me up.

It's kind of hard to explain, and, from a certain perspective, it doesnt make sense .. but it falls under the general heading of » Being a Big Pussy.

Arent you glad that I am no longer scared of such girls?

» Off with My Jacket

You have never met anything the likes of me before. And I'm just getting warmed up. I'm fixin' to take off my jacket.

Camila's dancers know what I am talking about here. When you first see these girls in the dressing room, they are wearing their jackets.

But when they come out with Camila, they take off their jackets. Not only do these dancers doff their jackets, but they toss them aside .. like I do with pillows.

The last time a girl made me take off my jacket .. uh, I probably should not finish this sentence either. I should not incriminate myself like that.

Suffice to say that it was not pretty. And the ugliness went on for quite some time. (Have you ever needed to clean pebbles out of your hair before?)

Girly, if we get in trouble .. I'm blaming the whole thing on you. (Dont say you werent warned.)

» Ariana was Such a Nice Girl

I'm sure that you've heard the scuttlebutt going 'round. People are saying, "Ariana was such a nice girl .. before she got involved with that writer."

I am so glad that we will always be in love forever. I like the way it feels .. being in love with a beautiful creature. (I like it a lot.)

» I was Taking it Easy on You Before

I was taking it easy on you before .. because you are such a girly-girl. And because you look so fragile and so easily breakable.

And because most girls cannot really handle very much of me .. when I turn up my thing very far.

This is why I have been taking things slowly with you .. teasingly slowly, at times. But now .. uh, I should probably not finish this sentence, either. (I'm already in enough trouble.)

Girly, you have never seen anything the likes of me before. I almost feel sorry for you, sometimes. Your dislocated hips and whatnot.

I have been trying to keep it hidden. But I can feel you you drawing it out of me.

The last time a girl tried to draw that out .. uh, I should probably not finish this sentence, either. I dont want to scare you off.

» What a Ninja

Speaking of a lot happening .. I want to mention, ever so briefly, this article by Egan.

I had opened that page in a separate browser tab, but I got distracted and called away before I had a chance to read it.

Some time later, I clicked on the tab and started to scan the text there.

I normally browse the web with a separate dedicated browser with Javascript disabled .. because so many sites go crazy with Javascript, which can consume system resources for no good reason.

The effect of browsing with Javascript disabled .. is that the text sits well below the page title at the top .. separated by a large (un-sized) version of the photo they use.

After reading a few sentences, I was so impressed that I wondered, "Who is writing this?" .. and I scrolled up to the top of the page.

When I saw that it was Egan, I said (out loud), "You are such a ninja."

Note that this section has been moved to its own page » What a Ninja.

Today is the last full day of winter. Spring arrives tomorrow (March 20) at 3:28 AM PDT (West coast time).

The end. ■

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