Journal1! December 27-28, 2008. Taboo and Avalon Clubs.

Wrote Taboo and Avolon in 5,200 words on 12/30

Taboo
I watched the bartender serve this green drink in a glass tumbler and asked the nearby bar-waitress what that was.

"A tokya iced tea." She mentioned a barrage of ingredients in it. I went outside in the back area and met an accountant named Amonn and his cousin, Doll. They were warm, cheerful, african american, people in probably late 20s early 30s. Later that night I learned Doll was probably 34. She was showing a lot of cleevage but you could tell she had a mind on her. She was good, almost maternal and looked out to make sure people didn't drink too much and had real ambitions. Needless to say, while I could have focused on her breasts the whole time, I didn't because her mind was unusally more interesting. Amonn and I seemed to hit it off with a good friendship. "This is a nice place, it's sophisticated" he said.

"Yeah! totally. Definitely sophisticated."

The song "Tipsy" came on and a short kind of round-faced hispanic kid came out and started rapping to use three. It was pretty awful and embarassing but Amonn and I laughed in a kind of cheering him on kind of way.

"I just did a show here earlier," he said.

"Wow. That was good man. Can't imagine what you're like when you're tipsy!" We all laughed.

Amonn and Doll were solid people.

I went inside the bar and made my third attempt at trying to penetrade the bar to get an order in. I don't really like drinking especially in bars. Unless it's a raging party and everyone's getting hammered, but that hasn't happened in years. Red wine has been my fancy recently. I usually end up drinking just as "false confidence juice" which doesn't really work. So not being able to get a drink in didn't bother me. Water is always my favorite anyways.

I glanced up at the television and thought I saw Kobe in a Chicago jersey. I turned to the shaved headed, kind of husky dude with an earring to my right. He looked slightly white-trashy, a little rough around the edges, but likely a good heart. I asked him,"Who's Kobe play for these days?"

"Lakers," he said giving me kind of an odd "duh!" look, still focusing on the bar.

"Oh right. Okay cool. Good. that's what I thought. I just thought I saw him in a Chicago jersey and was like what?!" He nodded in approval. I continued, "Yeah I was in Chicago and followed the Bulls during the late 90s when Jackson was there --"

"Michael Jordan," he interjected almost questioningly.

"Yeah, yeah. Andddd Pippin and Armstrong and Kerr and Kukoc!" I said smiling, going on. "So now that Jackson is with the Lakers it's awesome being in LA, Lakers fan now, with Jackson here too!"

He smiled approvlingly again and we both seperately focused on the bar. I think I've cultivated this gift of talking with people. I follow so many things -- sports, soccer, biology, math, academia, news, celebrity stuff, etc. etc. to get in conversations with people. That could be really potential for sales. Befriend, and then recommend a product or service.

Finally on the left hand side of the bar I found a spot and stood there.

This blonde, short, women with great about C-D breasts in a gold shoulderless fancy tank top thing under a gold dress coat looked at me out of the corner of her eye and then back at the bartender and said, "He'll pay for my drink." The bartender looked at me and back at her and then said, "Okay, I've never seen anyone do that. So you owe him [gesturing to me] 6 dollars." I looked back and forth between them and muttered something about paying for the drink. This bartender I liked. That's how it was supposed to work! Emphasize how unoriginal it is for someone to pay for another's drink! Exacty! I stared their at her untouched "dirty martini" with 3 olives in it as I tried to make eye contact with the nice cheery little bartender to try to order a glass of red wine. I wasn't sure I wanted to drink anythingShe laughed and joked with her asian friend. They were easily in their late 30s to early 40s. Okay maybe early 30s if they hadn't aged well. I asked, "What's your name?"

She said, "Iris."

"Oh cool, like the eye!" pointing to a portion of my eye.

"Oh no! I hate it when people say that! Like the flower."

"Ohh, okay! So what's your favorite kind of flower? Hmm I can't think of that many flower types. Something exotic?"

She thought about and said, "Orchid".

"Hhmmm yeah wow. Orchid." I had no idea where this was going. "Haha! Don't think I've ever talked about botany in a bar before!"

"Botany" was a new word for her. "What?"

"Botany. Plants. You know?" She muttered something garbled "close to botany" but, amused at the cuteness, I decided to move on. I touched her shoulder as I said a few other things which she seemed warm to.

I mentioned something about a martini and she gave me sip. "Wow that's good! I don't think I've ever had a martini before!"

"A dirty martini".

We talked a bit more. She was Irish, apparently "leaving tomorrow". Her asian friend with a weathered face was jumpy and wanted to dance. I asked, "Want to dance?!" She held my hand and we said a few more things. Wow. I'm going to have sex with this total hotty tonight I thought to myself! We mosied over to this corner table and she took off her over jacket. Wow she had perfectly shaped breasts. She was tiny. About 5'4 maybe. She never really looked at you, her eyes were always flitting about. So we hit up the dance floor after setting our drinks at the table. She pulled me towards the floor holding my hand. Wow! This was moving fast. Already holding hands and dancing after meeting about 10 minutes ago! It was a close quarters floor so we started a little bit far away but then were close-up grinding after about a minute.

"Do you like ballroom dancing?" I said in my attempt to be audible, after a few more minutes of laughing and joking and smiling at things we couldn't hear each other say!

"I Love ballroom dancing!" We then did a few spins and I accidentally bumped elbows with this woman who looked like a girl I knew from high school acting class, Meg Grunewald. I later learned this elbow-bump woman was named Vanya Gale (Dr. Vanya Gale).

So I continued doing this kind of clunky half-ballroom dancing with Iris. Then "Take a look at my girlfriend" song came on. and we started doing grinding her ass pressed up against me. The way she was holding my hand and acting all giddy she "did" feel like a girlfriend at the time! Sweet! She's attractive and small, but her movements were so clunky and clumsy like she had just gotten out of a wheelchair and decided to celebrate with 10 shots of vodka. haha!! :D But she wasn't drunk as she talked with sobriety and did everything with sobriety, maybe a little tipsy, you could just tell she wasn't the most elegant dancer. She was trying though and she was very hot. She almost wobbled over and said, "You better hold on to me. You'll regret if you let me go." Hmmm a kind of loaded demand. So I picked her up in a big hug and spun her around. That type of "playfulness" probably made her feel uncomfortable. She kept brushing her boobs up against my hand for fractions of a second and as we grinded I started to get a partial boner. I didn't know if I should focus on concealing it or the opposite, get sexual right there on the the dance floor. I'd danced with some women before and the latter had definitely been the most mutually fun and exciting thing to do. But I realized with hindsight this ambiguity of asking "hhmm what's appropriate or inappropriate behavior" for this relationship at this moment -- the very asking and uncertainty of that question -- revealed the fragility and poor communication on her part in the relationship. I didn't really know what she wanted! So we continued to grind, joked, and laughed more at things we couldn't hear because of the noise. I was really hot and feeling kind of sweaty, but kept my black sport coat on. We went back to the corner table in the bar potion of Taboo. And she sat down on the booth not making any room for me to sit next to her so I kind of half-leaned up against the wall. She engaged in conversation with these other people at the table whom I hadn't met so I glanced around the bar. For a split second I made eye contact with a slender and attractive women waiting in line for the bathroom. She flinched a smile at me and I instinctively smiled back. Iris then practically verbally slapped me with the comment, "I saw you looking around! Don't look at other women!" I must have apologized or said I was just looking around because that other woman was waiting in line for the bathroom. Wow, a controlling and insecure side to Iris. I moved in close to try to peck her on the check with a kiss, but she craned her face away!! What a brat!

"Kiss and make-up?!" I said playfully.

"He's really controlling and a vulture" she said pointing to this guy who could have been a lazy-eyed manican sitting in the corner with another woman who hadn't moved a muscle. "I'm a vulture too," she said.

I rolled my eyes. There was no way this clumsy-dancing, very attractive, but little woman was going to intimidate me thinking I was being "preyed on" by her. Was that really the message she was trying to send out now? So unconvincing!! I think she wanted me to feel intimidated by her. I certainly didn't feel that. Maybe apalled, not even confused, but just like wow, this woman really doesn't know how to communicate.

"Can we make room on the booth so I can sit?" I asked.

"I need space!" She said and kind of annoyed voice and made this gesture like she was shooing away a fly. She mentioned something about needing space but I got the picture. Dropped the table and her and hit up the dance floor. I think Iris wanted to make me feel used, but it didn't work. She just created the impression of being an attractive women with great breasts, but with really weird mannerisms. Maybe she was wanting to be some predator, manipulative person, or maybe she was but I had just seen through so many people like that and just saw insecurity written all over her, that I the only way to see her was ridiculous, but in any case, I realized that 90% of my interest in her was her boobs (and they were fantastic boobs), so I kind of apathetically left.

I instantly found myself dancing with the elbow-bump woman. I guess she had been watching me ballroom dance with Iris and wanted to do some spins.

"Move your hips from side-to-side." she instructed. "I'm a doctor" She said.

I played along and danced some. "Oh cool! Do you have a stephoscope?!" I asked.

"I do. At home."

"Do you know all 206 bones of the body?"

"I do!" She rsponded somewhat surprised that I knew that too.

"I think I broke my carpal bone" I commented but that wasn't heard. I think I asked those questions because they were unique and expressed and interest in her profession, but I also new that I'd get a "yes" response (yes a doctor has a stephoscope, yes they know all 206 bones of the body).

I learned her name was Vanya and later from her asian friend, Kimberly, that her last name was Gale.

Then she pulls me in and makes out with me. It wasn't my usual lusting, intense passionate making out session. It was a 5 second, tongue, quick lip kiss.

She was an aggressive woman. Pretty strong too. Maybe B-C boobs. She wasn't wobbly like Iris, but kind of like she had just strong bones, strong mind, but all amidst being a bit tipsy. It was funny.

"Wow I didn't notice the wine cellar there!" I commented pointing to the wine cellar oddly placed next to the DJ-sound area.

She kept kind of drifting towards the door of the bar. Eventually we went outside and I asked "Sweet! So where's the after party!"

"My house!" she said. Hhmmm wow she really wanted to party. But I'd heard "conversations" about after parties. Conversations about and actually doing were very different things. I wasnt' that attracted to her. I recognized her as that old acting friend I knew but wasn't that turned on by. I said "I've got to go close the tab." and jumped back in the bar.

It took me awhile to swim towards the bartender and when I got there instantly started talking with Doll.

"You and Amonn seem like awesome people! You were the first people I talked to at Taboo here!"

I invited them over for an after party. "We should go dancing!" I said enthusiastically. There was a long saga of talking about an after party and more dancing. This a reoccurring and common theme of the night. At this point in the night it's the climax, the rising action has reached it's Zenith and it keeps going up (with after party and sex) or starts to close-out falling action. Usually at this time of night you know whether or not you're going to get laid. I hadn't had sex in almost a year. I had been dogged, insane, desperate, nonchalant, apathetic, hopeful, hopeless, furious, enraged, afraid, timid, accepting -- all those things. I have learned just to have fun with it. But it's almost like this last panicked breath for air as you suddenly realize that hope doesn't die. It's just your hopes suddenly converge all towards this baseline of reality and the reality was that Doll is driving Amonn home and hell-bent on being maternal to his cousin (likely out of some insecurity in being able to care for her own needs, she obsesses about the needs of another -- still a noble soul she is); Vanya is sicker than a dog and wants to sleep, Iris left and was focused in creating some predatorial image, and Kimberly is trapped in her engaged-to-be-married stifled role and can't allow herself to have fun. Sigh.....

I've experienced that sensation and dreaded it easily over a couple hundred times. Probably closer to half a thousand times. Where you've partied, laughed, talked, felt a good vibe, and danced with a lot of women and then suddenly you learn a bout all these things preventing them, distracting them, creating obstacles from having sex -- be it, too much drinking, a fiance, an insecurity, an obsession with caring for her cousin, etc. I normally let my enthusiasm carry the invitation for an after-pary as that's safest because if they're interested they'll only go if they want. Unfortunately, there won't be a next time, but if there was I'd invest a tiny scruple of energy into persuading them to go to an after party instead of whatever excuse they conjured up. I just don't like being persuaded to do things I don't want to do, so don't want to do that ot others, but if I know they'd have fun, then all the better for us all.

"Do you know what's going to happen if I go to your house?" Doll said. "I'm just going to get there and fall asleep on your bed!" We laughed. She was tired. The night was young for me though. Amonn mentioned a 7am place called Forbidden City in Hollywood.

We launched off into a conversation. She had acting experience with commericals but now was focusing on starting a health club or health process or some sorts. I told I was doing acting but had other interests and we hit it up. She sounded and acted a bit like my aunt JoAnn! Caring, nice, playful, but business and kind of "getting things done" before play. When I ordered one last shot before closing the tab she said something like "John, be careful. Are you driving?" Clarity. She seemed like family in a way. Amonn and I started to say goodbye as Doll was acting like his mom chasing after him trying to get him to go. Amonn and I shook hands and we instantly did this 3-move handshake! Doll gave us a look of suprise like "What was that?!"

"Pure improvisation! That was awesome! The last time I did a cool handshake like that was in gradeschool! Best times!" I said. We laughed.

Doll and Amonn left out of the back way and I ran to say goodbye to them. I had gotten Doll's number earlier so asked for Amonns.

"There's a bunch of accountants and a party" he mentioned but I didn't catch all of it. He invited me to some party next weekend.
Vanya came back into the bar and looked really sickly drunk. She kept asking the bartender for her card for literally a half hour and the bartender said that she already closed her tab, reminding her a dozen times. She had totally shut down. I sat next to her friend Kimberly in this booth. She kept asking about my age, very adult-like haha. I learned she was 34. She put her scarf around me.

"Oh my good! What is that aroma?! This smells Soo good!" I exclaimed.

"It smells like cigarettes" she laughed.

"No it's like some exotic essence. Oh man! That's awesome! What is that smell! wow!" I was half elaborating half being genuine. You could tell this woman was trapped in a marriage she didn't like. She flitted her ring like it was some kind of manacle. She mentioned her fiance numerous times, too. I guess I wanted to make her feel that she still had pheromones, that she had sexiness, and sexual aromas oozing out of her that her love life hadn't ended. Later that night I glanced at her from the other side of bar. There were about 4-5 bar employees, Vanya, me, Kimberly, and maybe 2 other people in Taboo at the time and she looked kind of wild and sexy, so I told her that. She laughed and liked the compliment, but denied it. haha.

Kimberly and Vanya drove me to my car. Why do chicks always do that? It's like a 1-minute walk away and I've had about dozen women drive me to my car. I can't think of any magic to work when I'm in the back seat and they're driving and sleepy and acting like a chauffeur. Anyways, kimberly was nice, exchagned contact info and talked about buying the bar taboo. She was in real estate.

I got in my car, drove off to a side road and looked up Forbidden City on my trusty iphone. Vine Street. Right off the Hollywood 101. Okay! Off I went!

I found the exit and parked after making a few loops around blocks and saw a place with tons people people pouring in. It was some old theatre warehouse place turned to a massive concert-like dance floor, called Avalon. It looked like some kind of awards event so many people outside. I asked where Forbidden City was and the team of 6-8 employees dressed in back kind of scoffed at me and one looked with superiority at me and said, "Across the street." I examined the other side of the street and saw nothing going on. I later learned it wa closed. They served egg rolls there but Avalon was the all night place. I wanted to burn off steam so I walked to this hotdog venor (yes this was about 3:30 am) and I asked, "Do you know what time it is?" Just to make it look like I had a conversation with about something. She probably saw my own watch but pulled up her sleeve and told me the time. "Okay thanks! that's what I have too!" I said. "Shoot!" and acted like I was late for something and I sprinted towards the next intersection and rounded the bend after fake looking at my watch like full ahead sprint. People could think that my parking meter was up or whatever. Was a great sprint. Wearing boots, white colllared shirt, black jeans, and black sport coat. I did probably about 400m before I stopped infront of the Knickerbocker to catch my breath and stretch. These approaching to young men looked at me like I was some kind of intriguing, odd, wild animal.

I talked with them and learned that Evan and his friend had grown up in Hollywood but new Calabasas and Taboo. They were film students.

"So like behind the camera stuff? Cinematography?"I asked. Yeah. We exchanged numbers and talked and I said I wasn't sure how it works but if they wanted to make a movie I'd definitely be on board. They seemed like cool people. A bit odd. The other one had a huge floppy mop of hair, but they seemed nice most certainly. I stretched while talking with them

A bus made a broad veering curve. "Woah! is that going to hit that car?!" Evan exclaimed watching this bus come swerving towards us.

"Oh man! that was crazy. It just like swooped. that's a wild turn!" I said and we laughed.

We talked a bit more and I said, "Well, gotta go. Awesome meeting you guys!"

Then evan said back "Awesome meeting You!" with a lot of enthusiasm and emphasis on the "you". Like saying that it was most awesome for them to have met me not the other way around. Not sure what he meant by that. I'm not famous or anything, maybe they were just appreciative of someone talking with them and being congenial and expressing interest in their cinemtagraphy stuff. So that was cool. Then I walked up to Avalon. Amazing how a good run clears things up. There were only about two black-coated employees out now and none of them smug. I waited in line and joked with the bouncer about fake ids.

"Hhmm so if they have a good backstory. Believe backstory. You'll let 'em go?!" I joked?

"Yeah, that's it." He said.

I approached the booth and paid an outrageous $35 entry fee to what was like a movie ticket booth and walked in.

Avalon (Utter Crap)

I daned around a ton. It was this massive stage, concert like area. The main dance floor was probably the size of a basketball court, but there was tiered balconies dimmed out in the back. It looked like an old theatre where the seats had been ripped out. One thing I couldnt' get over was how all these hundreds of people dancing looked drugged or monkey-like. Many could have possibly been drugged, but maybe it was just fatigue (after all it was 3am - 6am that I was there). I was astonished how "in their own little worlds" everyone seemed. You were brushing shoulders with a dozen people, in a room with hundres and hundreds, and some people were just sitting down half asleep. The extremeties of liveliness were huge. It went from some people sitting down half asleep, to other people dancing wildly. The shadowy darkness was sparked up by light blasts and the DJ's music frequently slowed and almost stopped and then ascended quickly after declining in pace. Somehow someone had a drum. How did they get a hand drum in there? It was kind of interesting to see just how few people cared. But at that time in the morning it definitely felt somewhat tribal. I'd say a little less than half all the people in the club were asian. I met an armenian, asian, iris was Irish, Kimberly was korean. Wow talk about a trip around the world via people. It felt like something out of the scene in the Matrix in Zion but this was like a darker Zion without the warmth without the inspiring speech and a lot of compartmentalization. CA is warm so I love it for that though. Finally approached this women with amazing probably D-D+ breasts woman and I said, "You look like my dad's secretary!". It was the first thing that popped in my mind. Because of my romantic courage I have the ability to say what's on my mind.

She asked kind of coyly, "and what does she look like?". You could tell she wasn't merely being facetious and actually valued the answer to her question. Out of insecurity with herself or more likely, actually, probably just a genuine interest in how I saw her -- a craving for another's perspective possibly -- she eagerly awaited in what light I saw her.

I simply said the first thing that came to mind, "A woman," and smiled boldly and sincerely. Her eyes widened and my message looked like it jolted her back a bit. Ding! I had hit a potential softspot with a bulls-eye compliment. Saying your a man or a woman to anyone in their around-middle 20s is a unique compliment I think. Anytime you're in an era of trying to define and become something (like an adult, or even a fully formed man or woman, or say a doctor, or anything you're trying to define for yourself) and someone defines you already at what you seek to achieve, it feels like your work to metamorphasize is complete. I followed that up saying, "She's polish. Eva...Sosnowska" I couldn't remember the secretary's last name, so said the last name of another eva I knew from gradeschool.

I asked, "So what's your name?"

"Tasha."

"Hey, Tasha, I'm John." We shook hands. "I'm going to go dance. So do you want to go dance, Tasha? Last chance!"

For a flash of an instant their was a glimmer in her eye as if she truly did want to jump out on the dance floor with me. I hadn't seen her dance the entire night. But then that gleam vanished and out of what seemed like comfortable routine of hers she gestured to some guy wearing shades, shirt unbuttoned almost down to a few inches below his sternum, and could probably bench close to 300 pounds, and said "This is my boyfriend." I don't mind guys who dress well, stay fit, and look "cool", but it's usually ridiculous when that's the "only" thing going for them. You could tell, like probably 87% of that guys "gifts" I was looking at...just seeing him stand their flex pecs. Unlike him, I had numerous internal -- intelligence, humor, grace, genuine confidence -- and external gifts -- conversational mastery, attractivness, warmth. I wasn't jealous nor pissed because I didn't set myself up for failure. I phrased the invitation to dance as if it was a "one-time offer" and I knew that there was going to be a 95% chance that she'd say just what she said. I'd recieved the "Boyfriend" line hundreds and hundreds of times. There's no point in someone saying that and getting so wound up by it that it ruins your night, so you learn to gauge the situation, stay hopeful and alive nad spirited with no expectations, but use your deductive intelligence to scrutinize people and frame what they will and will not say or do. This gives you more control and allows you to have more fun because you won't waste your time trying to convince someone to, for example, dance when you know they haven't danced with anyone but their boyfriend for a few months. There's also the other argument that those confined restricted people should be helped. "Get her to dance! Help her break free! Be her salvation!" But I've learned from a lot of pain that if people do not specifically approach you and and convince you that they seek active change towards something, trying to change them will bring you tremendous pain and futilety. No one can change unless they willingly tell you to do so. So you've got to protect yourself and them. If they don't express interest and active, conscious focus on changing, any opportunity you see to "change them or help them" is an illusion. So stick with reality. If someone wants to pay me and actively says they want to change something I'll help; otherwise I'm free to do what I want. Besides, why waste time with someone who's stuck and is focused on staying stuck, when there's cooler people and more fulfilling people out there. Anyways, I expressed my love out to Tasha in a kind of mindful way. She had a gorgeous kind of Valley Girl body. Probably D boobs. Dirty Blonde hair. Kind of voluptuous curves. But kind of the bubbliness about her as the Boy Meets World girl -- kind of a little bit of dirtier Topanga Lawrence. So she was surprisingly nice. Normally you get those women that give you scoff that says no way anything's happening here!

I revisited the dance floor and with my best efforts to dance with people and have fun, but also to not intrude if they didn't want to dance, I did what most all other people did: kind of dance with yourself, half-hover near some people you want to dance with as they did the same thing. This one kind of smaller framed woman kept dancing by shaking her head back and forth. I asked, "Are you Russian?" with a smile on my face. If she smiled, I couldn't tell, but kept on shaking her head dancing. Probably on some kind of ecstacy drug. I saw a really wild asian dancer in a read christmassy sweater dancing. She could have been a professional dancer with all kinds of nonstop looks and hand movements, or just really feeling the music. I said to myself if I danced with her I'd be successful. So I did that kind of hovering dancing thing that everyone does in front of her which definitey counted as dancing with her. I give myself these little pushes.

So then I wandered around to the other bars and rooms in the huge club and saw Tasha walking alone into one of them as I walked out. I wasn't even really expecting her to acknowledge me, but in any case I did a quick little wave which ended up looking like a "good bye" wave. She smiled pretty deeply at me. Maybe she did feel some good chemistry after all! But she presented to many obstacles: reluctance to dance, boyfriend, and now this chasing game. Sometimes you've got to just refocus elsewhere. I remember having seen her outside the club before we got in. She was easily one of the hottest women in the club. Probably the hottest, I thought. I had actually talked with her! Something I doubt many other guys could say. I bet she was enchanted by the "woman" compliment and since very few other men had approached her, and her boyfriend's best conversational talent was merely flexing his pecs, she probably found me intriguing. But I have no regrets, there was nothing I could have done. Going back to find her, try to break the ice again and again wasn't in my capacity at the time. It's highly unlikely and I'm more likely just projecting what I want to be going on onto the scene, but at that point, after having fully flirted with over five women that night, I had no way of knowing what was going on. She failed in that one by not dancing in the first place! A lot of chasing women seems like "heart endurance" where it's like you go out to these places work up tremendous confidence just to talk to a woman and then hang on as she takes you for a little roller coaster where you feel progress then failure then progress then failure ad infinitum and then it's over and then you don't want to do it again, but somehow find yourself doing it again. With the constant fear of some boyfriend beating me up, some woman getting pissed or embarassing me, or just the constant effort, it's not very fun at all. I guess it built a lot of character though. In any case, it's something I'm proud of having done -- building that kind of "heart in a blender" resilience -- but even more glad that I'm going to focus elsewhere. It's that "She's the one. All the others were getting me primed for this!" mentality that simultaneously keeps me going to shove my heart into these tornados time after time and also nearly drives me insane. I think looking at it as a love rollercoaster is a lot healthier of an outlook actually, so I'll do that. But for now THEY failed. I gave 1000% effort in meeting women and instead of for the millionth time saying to myself "Oh, if I would've said this, or tried that one more time or this" and mounting regret, I know and fully understand that it was their fault. It was their insecurity, their insensitivity, their poor conversation skills, or their lack of intelligence, or lack of romantic courage that caused failure not me!! It's important to recognize that!

So I revisited the dane floor and urgently had to pee. Out if boredom for a challenge, not wanting to revisit the restroom, or some bizarre warped irrational belief that if I hold my urine some woman relationship will magically manifest itself infront of me -- I held it from about 5:25 am to 6:00. I gave myself permission to leave at 6am. And at around 5:50am I was checking my watch more than every minute, just dying to get out of there because it disgusted me. The whole scene disgusted me. The thought "you're supposed to have this success-failure confidence-shattering experience with women; that's how you find the one you like!" plagued me but I knew I had already done that. I knew that I was the most romantically courageous and intelligent person in the entire club, hell maybe in Hollywood that night. You can recognize people with a lot of romantic courage because of all the skills they possess -- the skills I possess -- paitence, intelligence, charm, devotion to doing what's good, and incredibly attention to intuition, and boldness and initiative in meeting new women. So I could say I was my fault if I did this or that, but I know that's not true. It was their fault. They're too blame. But I forgive them, but I won't forget and I won't go back. Ever.

Knowing that is distressing because a part of me says "The type of woman I like is the voluptuous, ditzy, Topanga, clubby woman" how else will I meet one? Well if that's the case, you have to know that you'll never meet one AT a club because that's when they have all their defenses up and additionally that's a fallacious belief. You pitied Tasha because she was trapped. Sure she was attractive, but attractive with issues. The right woman -- gorgeous, hot, fun, sexy, etc. -- will come my way especially when I don't focus on it and that's what I'll do -- not focus on it. At all.

There was this women older than she looked no doubt in a white long-sleeved dressy sweatshirt type shirt. She looked like the girl obsessed with Kangaroos from Chocolat. I liked her kind of clear, peaceful, but not cheesy energy but she act liked there was some force field up. I couldn't even get close to her. It was interesting how I'd say like over 60% of all the people in the club acted like they were dancing with themselves looking at the huge DJ booth-throne on stage. Almost like some bizarrely warped chanting. I didn't like it at all. Will tell you that much. But the common theme was this incredibly strong drive to mate, to have sex. The pursuit of women was only slightly more potent that the outrageous failure I had in having sex with one of the over half a dozen women I sincerely connected with or pursued. I mean just look at them all.
√Iris
√Doll
Kimberly
Vanya
√Kangaroo Girl
√Tasha
Wild Dancer girl.
Two girls who went downstairs
Russian Head-shaker girl

With checkmarks next to the women I was most sexually attracted to.

That type of "no pain, no gain" logic with women has been a really destructive program playing through my brain. I've got to relinquish that crap and embrace the new improved logic "no pain, no insane waste of time":D But it's an incredible drain doing all that chasing. It makes you feel weak, deprived, wounded, evaporated, burdened, heavy; it's not fun. Anthony Robbins is right though, if you don't replace an old pattern with a new more fulfilling one, you slip back into the old. So I've GOT to find new more fulfilling fun pattern than all that bar-women-chasing hellishness. I've just got too. It's pretty clear though that my 60% goal of the evening is meeting to have sex with women, the other 40% is having fun and ensuring good people I like have fun too. But going to bars feels like work to me. What's the point if like 95% of all the nights you put all these tremendous amount of tiring work into meeting and dancing with women and then you're left alone thinking of all the things that "I could've tried or said or kissed this way or that" to be having sex instead. It makes you feel evaporated if that makes any sense. I actually believed that only after getting shot down, rejected, over and over again will I meet dream babe. Not true at all. I don't want to do that any more. That's not how I want to spend my time. The problem is, I know my sexual drive has a mind of it's own and sometimes convinces me to chase after women but I'm in control of my body and mind. I won't give way to the impulses that end up wasting my time; I'll follow the fulfilling urges from now on!

The Lesson of Knowing When to Actively Observe amidst Acting: A Sub-Lesson of "The Best Commitments Never Bind and Allow Advantageous Flexibility"

One thing I realized I NEVER do in life is watch the movie of life. I'm OBSESSED With acting in it; engaging, moving, being active in life. All very good things. After all many a great wise man can espouse the value of being active and interacting with life instead of being a passive observer. However, what I recently realized is that constact acting, nonstop Yang, all the time is out of balance. While activity engagement, and initiative and just "doing stuff" is fantastic and a valuable energetic quality (and no doubt a necessity for success), knowing when to remain just as alert and focused as you are in acting mode, but to sit back and observe on select occasions is of equal importance.. I was at this club the other day and there were a few people there that, amidst all this blaring techno music, gleaming lights, hundreds of people moving and dancing, they weren't moving an extra muscle even trying to dance. Now this wasn't laziness. These people were alert. Sure, there were people that were half-asleep slouched in a chair sitting or spacing out. But these 2 people I saw were always in the middle of this huge dance floor, smack dab in the center of all these dancing partying people, and they were alert and observant and not lazy. It wasn't as if they didn't make an effort to dance; it was as though the thought didn't even consider to them or it wasn't in their interest. They weren't acting haughty or "above" the party or group; none of that. I couldn't figure out what was going on, but later I realized they were "watching the movie" of the club. Watching the movie of that small slice of life. Most interestingly to me was that they appeared to fully have validated their simply standing there fully observing.

Those two people had validated their active observation -- the choice to merely watch amongst crowds that were moving and dancing. The funny thing is what made me realize that. When I entered the club the cover fee was at a booth at which you normally by movie tickets! Wow! haha. I think we've got to ensure that we realize that any commitment mustn't be a "bind". The taoist beliefs emphasize the necessity of the balance between activity and stillness. You grow the best out of utilizing both those. Our very essential bio-rhythms function at such pattern - wakefulness (active engagement) and then sleep (stillness). Committing to being active shouldn't bind you from ocassionally observing, when observing actively could be more valuable at a certain time. Committing to eat certain types of food, mustn't "bind you" to occasionally eating some different type of food that at the time could be more valuable. So in a way the lesson of "allowing yourself to actively observe in the instances where observing would be the most valuable thing to do -- more valuable than acting", is a sub-lesson of the grander idea of remembering to maintain flexibility in your commitments and knowing that the best commitments are those that never bind or lock you into something but enable the flexibility to do something slightly different if that adjustment has more present value. The best commitments allow advantageous flexibility. You have to give yourself permission to do the most valuable thing at a given time within the construct of a commitment -- that's advantageous flexibility. It doesn't mean abandoning your original commitment or goal; just allowing it to expand through a different medium on select occassions.

Knowing When to Actively Observe or Actively Engage.
See, I had felt guilty out of simply actively observing around people. But actively observing doesn't violate that commitment to stay active. So I'm going to focus on being active and constantly doing things but give myself the permission to engage "active observation" when that's best at a certain time or place. How do you identify in which places or events are best to actively engage or actively observe? Excellent question. The best way to know is to ask yourself "is this place or event set up so that I could be the apex center performer? Or is there ropes, boundaries, an inaccessible stage or some kind of hierarchy? If there's a stage you can't get up on and a main event that other people have paid to see then such a situation is best to actively observe because actively engaging will eventually cause problems in such a scenario. If there's already a main event and you excel through exceptionally talented active engagement at that event eventually you'll hit a the ceiling where you aren't permitted to go on stage or use the mic or lead the seminar or whatever the main event is. In this situations simply accept that the maximal utilization of such a scenario is to actively observe. Feel guilty about actively engaging in such a situation because trust me from many many experiences of getting kicked out of places, running into security, hitting that ceiling where someone else is the center, the star because actively engaging is the best use of your time. Then where there's more of an open field in a different scenario you can actively engage.

The Lesson of Knowing When to Actively Observe amidst Acting: A Sub-Lesson of "The Best Commitments Never Bind and Allow Advantageous Flexibility"

The Lesson of Knowing When to Actively Observe amidst Acting: A Sub-Lesson of "The Best Commitments Never Bind and Allow Advantageous Flexibility"


One thing I realized I NEVER do in life is watch the movie of life. I'm OBSESSED With acting in it; engaging, moving, being active in life. All very good things. After all many a great wise man can espouse the value of being active and interacting with life instead of being a passive observer. However, what I recently realized is that constact acting, nonstop Yang, all the time is out of balance. While activity engagement, and initiative and just "doing stuff" is fantastic and a valuable energetic quality (and no doubt a necessity for success), knowing when to remain just as alert and focused as you are in acting mode, but to sit back and observe on select occasions is of equal importance.. I was at this club in Hollywood earlier this weekend. It was a massive dance club with multiple bars, hundreds of square feet of space. Massive ceilings in a former theatre hall and a huge stage and dance floors cluttered with hundreds and hundreds of dancing partying people. Amongst all that there were a few people there that, amidst all this blaring techno music, gleaming lights, hundreds of people moving and dancing, they weren't moving an extra muscle even trying to dance. Now this wasn't laziness. These people were alert. Sure, there were people that were half-asleep slouched in a chair sitting or spacing out. But these 2 people I saw were always in the middle of this huge dance floor, smack dab in the center of all these dancing partying people, and they were alert and observant and not lazy. It wasn't as if they didn't make an effort to dance; it was as though the thought didn't even consider to them or it wasn't in their interest. They weren't acting haughty or "above" the party or group; none of that. I couldn't figure out what was going on, but later I realized they were "watching the movie" of the club. Watching the movie of that small slice of life. Most interestingly to me was that they appeared to fully have validated their simply standing there fully observing.

Those two people had validated their active observation -- the choice to merely watch amongst crowds that were moving and dancing. The funny thing is what made me realize that. When I entered the club the cover fee was at a booth at which you normally by movie tickets! Wow! haha. I think we've got to ensure that we realize that any commitment mustn't be a "bind". The taoist beliefs emphasize the necessity of the balance between activity and stillness. You grow the best out of utilizing both those. Our very essential bio-rhythms function at such pattern - wakefulness (active engagement) and then sleep (stillness). Committing to being active shouldn't bind you from ocassionally observing, when observing actively could be more valuable at a certain time. Committing to eat certain types of food, mustn't "bind you" to occasionally eating some different type of food that at the time could be more valuable. So in a way the lesson of "allowing yourself to actively observe in the instances where observing would be the most valuable thing to do -- more valuable than acting", is a sub-lesson of the grander idea of remembering to maintain flexibility in your commitments and knowing that the best commitments are those that never bind or lock you into something but enable the flexibility to do something slightly different if that adjustment has more present value. The best commitments allow advantageous flexibility. You have to give yourself permission to do the most valuable thing at a given time within the construct of a commitment -- that's advantageous flexibility. It doesn't mean abandoning your original commitment or goal; just allowing it to expand through a different medium on select occassions.

Knowing When to Actively Observe or Actively Engage.
See, I had felt guilty out of simply actively observing around people. But actively observing doesn't violate that commitment to stay active. So I'm going to focus on being active and constantly doing things but give myself the permission to engage "active observation" when that's best at a certain time or place. How do you identify in which places or events are best to actively engage or actively observe? Excellent question. The best way to know is to ask yourself "is this place or event set up so that I could be the apex center performer? Or is there ropes, boundaries, an inaccessible stage or some kind of hierarchy? If there's a stage you can't get up on and a main event that other people have paid to see then such a situation is best to actively observe because actively engaging will eventually cause problems in such a scenario. If there's already a main event and you excel through exceptionally talented active engagement at that event eventually you'll hit a the ceiling where you aren't permitted to go on stage or use the mic or lead the seminar or whatever the main event is. In this situations simply accept that the maximal utilization of such a scenario is to actively observe. Feel guilty about actively engaging in such a situation because trust me from many many experiences of getting kicked out of places, running into security, hitting that ceiling where someone else is the center, the star because actively engaging is the best use of your time. Then where there's more of an open field in a different scenario you can actively engage.

Go Obama!

Obama is a story of a person inspiring and leading a disillusioned country. I'm adamantly a supporter of Obama.

Man he definitely has tremendous words of hope, unfathomably inspiring hope, but they aren't hollow; you can tell what Obama says is authentic and originates from a source of true belief.

In terms of his speaking style, the way he floats from a comical message, like the puppy in the whitehouse, to the seriousness of his mother's death.

But belief is contagious, so you believe like he believes in the positive shaping of our country. With his very words Obama has launched the country already into a positive uplifting state of change. Additionally, he's realistic in his promises. He doesn't say we'll fix everything 100% with 0% setbacks. He acknowledges the few bumps in the road. And in that flexibility, lies is his strength. You believe in Obama, hearing him believe! I believe in Obama!

Self-reiance, indiviudal liberty, national unity -- he knows the best values. I feel more faithful and more empowered just HEARING Obama; so having him actually make changes galvanizes just heaps of goodness. haha.

I actually heard this author on presidency speak in person and Greenstein

"gives Obama high marks for running his transition with the same brand of assertive self-confidence he showed during the campaign. The transition has been characterized, he said, by "a very strong sense of maintaining control and professing to be waiting in the wings but filling up all the presidential space, and doing things in textbook order."

A former Clinton aide thought,

"I find it hard to believe that, no matter how skillful he is, he can sustain this level of hope and support,"

. Well, that's where our part comes in. Obama has the right stuff -- the intelligence, the action-oriented certainty, the confidence, and the clarity to make the best changes; we just need to continue believing in his capacity to inspire, create, and galvanize things to the way they should thrive!

Obama Article