luctor et emergo

Forgive me for the meme, but I thought this was interesting when I saw it a while back:

If you’ve called me…

Ian you’re pretty much everyone in my life. As that is my first name and the word most people use to sum up the composite of eternal objects that I represent.

Ian Alan Carlsen you’re most likely my Mum and pissed off.

Ian J. Carlsen your name is Charles Parker Newton and you call me this knowing full well that my middle name does not begin with a J.

Dr. Carlsen you’re either Mr. Stickney, my high school music teacher, or any one of the people that have picked up my habit of referring to people as ‘Dr.’ because of that blessed man.

Ian-san your Michael Thomas Toth.

Mr. Lamb, Malvolio, George, Mr. Smith, Jake, Adam, Ian, Lysistrata, Cripple Billy, Shawn, Alan, or Doc we’ve probably been on stage together at some point.

Stari, Nudi or Duso your name is probably Vanesa and I probably have an equivalent gender-appropriate nickname in Bosnian for you.

Animal you were in the film Stuffed With Hate II: Get A Job.

Kelly you’re Autumn Rose, and I’m probably still stuck in the Other World.

Iyun Funo Baba you’re Steven Marchessault or you only know me through my old email address.

Ian but phonetically it’s come out sounding like “Ann” you’re name is Paul Bergeron.

Smeg-Head you’re probably Nick Rountree and about ten or eleven years old.

E you’re Sean Dutton and about thirteen years old at Scout Camp convinced that ‘Ian’ could have a shortened form.

Dan you’re that guy that kept calling me for three months asking for the wrong person.

And my three personal favorites:

James your name is most likely Tricia Green.

Carly you’re Corey Anderson or more recently Travis Curran.

Simon, LeClerque, Cho, Casey, Blue, Iwo, Switch, Peder or That-Guy-Who-Was-About-To-Get-Married- But-Then-Zombies-Attacked-New-York it was probably around a table, and there were probably dice involved.

Jared and I have been getting into this conversation about being single. Now I have only been single for about a month, and the past break up with Vanesa my girlfriend of a year and some odd months has determined to be a Good Thing and worked out pretty well for the both of us. Jared on the other hand has been downright monkish. He’s been without a lady-friend for about a year and because of this he’s been channeling his energy into turning his studio apartment into A Place Suitable For A Lady-Friend like some deranged bower bird.

The other day I bought a mattress pad for my bed. Now this was the first time in a while that I have had a mattress pad, maybe the first time ever since I was like ten. While I enjoy it as an addition to my bed as it makes my sleeping experience ever more comfortable I did not, in all honesty, buy it for myself. Rather I was sitting on a friends bed and noticed how comfy it was and said to myself: Chicks dig a cozy bed...

And so began the process. I went out to Target a few days later and came home all impressed with my cleverness and put on my new mattress pad, washed the sheets and began thinking about other repairs and adjustments I could make.

But in all earnestness, the idea of going out and actually finding someone and then introducing them to my life and perhaps my mattress pad, is daunting beyond belief. I have never been, nor ever will be I imagine, a person who can pick someone up from a bar and take them home. I dig the opportunity to be chivalrous, meet girls, court them, develop relationships, then introduce them to my mattress pad. So in that respect I have no definitive place from which to seek out girls, and having dated someone for a year, am fairly out of practice at setting up the occasion to ask someone for a coffee or such.

In all honesty it’d be easier to have a set mating season, where all it took was to inflate the prettiest throat-wattle in front of the prettiest girl and that was that. You’d know when the cards were down on the table, when She’d be interested. You could spend all year grooming that goddamn throat-wattle too. If you fucked up, you wait for next year.

Girls dig a cozy bed… What kind of thinking is that, really? That’s bower bird thinking. So little time ago that was considered female thought. Now I’m not lamenting the glory days of female oppression and chauvinism. I’m just saying that it springs up as something completely unregistered so far in my life. It’s domestic. It’s nesting instinct. It’s also not going to do me any good unless I start going out to more coffee shops and opening doors for cute girls. Sure I sleep better with the mattress pad, but I bed I’d sleep better if I could introduce someone new to it.

I want to defend someone’s honor, but man, in this town all the pretty ones are honorless.

—

POST-SCRIPTUM: It’s also my Dad’s birthday today. Happy birthday, Dad.

Sometimes you realize you have to be patient with things and not take events as a personal insult, because they aren’t.

And sometimes you have to sing Scottish Temperance songs at the top of your lungs while making a poor man’s dinner of spaghetti, garlic and diced tomatoes.

Signed  a contract with L/A Arts today. I’ll be teaching reader’s theater to fourth graders through a big grant from the Maine Arts Council all through the winter as a second job.

The cold is not so bad outside tonight. It was nice walking home.

So much for dinner for tonight. Here’s to dinner for tomorrow’s, tomorrow.