Rc’d a text from a friend in his early thirties last week:

I’m starting to feel like I’m uncapable of loving someone but I really want to and it makes me sad

To which I replied:

Temporary. When you are ready it will happen. Just take care of you for now.

To which he replied:

I think you are right. {Sez ANP: You wasted characters on a statement of the obvious?} I meet ladies. Get exited [sic] {*conscious slip?} about em. And then suddenly I feel nothing. Or I feel claustrophobic. Then I feel bad for creating false hope.

I replied by mailing him my standard Amazon “Love ya but you are a friggin’ nut job and I should know because I am too” shipment.

(Review of said shipment from most recent recipient: “This book is awesome.”)

Other quick thoughts regarding this:

1. This is not uncommon. Mr. “Eighteen Day Boyfriend” from this past autumn called me to announce, after he trotted me out for his family over Turkey Day and then his frat brothers shortly thereafter, “I don’t know, I just feel, numb.” Mr. “Sixteen Week Boyfriend” circa 2006 declared apropos very little: “I don’t know, I don’t know, I just, I just, I just … can’t.” You are not alone, Mr. Male Freak Out.
2. Is it really “nothing” that you feel or is it fear / anxiety? (Read the book.)
3. Don’t rush it, and don’t punish yourself for a perceived inadequacy re: your emotional state.
4. But, be mindful and aware. Kierkegaard once said something like, and I’m paraphrasing as I am no genius and if I trot to my bookshelf I might miss my 9 p.m. mockputer curfew, ‘Blah blah blah, if you want to treat yourself as a dissecting laboratory go right ahead, but to spin someone else into your web is some bitch-ass bullshit.’ So if you want to avoid the guilt of creating false expectations then you need to manage expectations, biznatchee. There are plenty of women in NYC who will ignore your warnings, but there are also plenty who are likewise unsure if they are ready for something authentically intimate. Remember: expectations reduce happiness.

Maharishi ANP done now.

Until the next neurotic burst of 160 characters, that is …

1. I recognize my recent zealotry (e.g., spending $675 yesterday at East West on things like, um, energizing crystal baths) on all things alter-na-tive and new agey is not unlike the devotion with which I took up Mormonism
2. However I would like to point out that I was Mormon for technically less than six weeks until finding new religion in the form of a Canuckian hockey player, vs. being into this whole universe-is-integrated-and-so-am-I schtick for going on 2+ years
3. But I guess my self-acceptance of my own journey — which began with giving myself permission to abandon old modes of thinking and living — chucking it — has given me the ability to accept the journeys of others
4. Which is why I no longer have a problem with organized religion
5. Even though adherents to organized religion were deeply judgy-wudgy and unkind to me, resident atheist-spawn-of-a-Buddhist-and-a-Methodist-turned-agnostic
6. But this is what love and kindness and respect is
7. Loving and being kind and respectful to others, regardless of how they treat you
8. Which is why, as I leaf through my zine from my undergraduate days, even though that version of me was unkind to others, and aggressively unkind to herself …
9. I love and respect her anyway
10. So this is really where time management comes from
11. Being respectful to your own time. Deciding for yourself where to devote your energies. Owning your temporal pipes.
12. And realizing that the time of others also demands respect.

It’s Sunday! Last night I turned power out at 8 p.m., lit candles, took hot shower, then realized my cleaning lady accidentally broke my tea pot. Boo hoo.

Irregardless, I think I am going to do the power out ritual on a monthly basis. It’s such a nice opportunity to sit, be consciously quiet, and be with myself. So what starts out as a kernel of treating the earth with love, kindness, and respect, becomes and opportunity to treat myself with love, kindness, and respect.

Which makes sense. Seeing as we’re connected. I am you am the earth am this orchid am this leftover carrot cake from Asa’s second birthday party am my bootleg Tulip chair that I ordered last July and I just picked up yesterday afternoon (hereafter referred to as the Turip chair).

Nyum nyum.

As of 3/31/2009, this post has relocated to a new home at:  Time.

Or: ANP is a robot

Behold! The powers of .xls in the hands of ANP!

I am highly motivated to never again live in a home with carpeting so bare that its holes resemble that of a golf course. I also refuse to assume that I’ll marry, let alone to a man whose earning power is at least on par with mine. But I also want to make sure I can provide a good home to myself and my future (possibly foster) children.

As a result, for the past couple of years I’ve been diligently monitoring my liquid assets and net worth. The process has resulted in me making fairly sound long-term financial decisions that occasionally have made me wince in the short term, such as:

• Selling my car
• Jumping back into equities
• Reallocating funds in my retirement portfolio

However, operationalizing said process has been challenging for me, but I think I’ve settled into a workable solution:

1. At the onset of each calendar year, determine financial goals (liquid assets & net worth) for year N+1
2. Straight-line forecast from T=now to T=(year N+1) and plot monthly goals into calendar
3. Ensure that bills get paid and accounts get updated no more than 3 business days prior to the “forecasted financial goals” date
4. When planned day for each month rolls around, go through all financial accounts and track
5. If ahead of goals, plow through shopping wishlist, travel ideas, and/or take self to the spa

The hard parts have been as follows:

1. against point 3 (above): Paying bills takes FOREVER
2. against point 4: I’ve been scribbling my account information into a journal mostly intended for literary mewlings which often ends up missing
3. against point 4: I pay a lot of business expenses out of pocket and the “float” confuses the “how much I actually owe” issue
4. against point 5: I live in Manhattan and pay $2,200/month for rent which makes progress towards my goal of joining the likes of the land-owning gentry difficult

So I’ve now moved from a box-and-one (hoops reference! alert to Dorie!) to a full court press and am handling these difficulties as follows:

1. re: the immediately preceding point 1 >> Considering asking a trusted recent grad with impeccable ethics to pay bills on my behalf for $
2. re: point 2 >> I just built a very nerdlette-y .xls file to track my net worth
3. re: point 3 >> I am going to shift all my personal spend an AmEx Platinum (yet to be approved for, but hey, details!) and business spend across my BofA Plat, USAA Visa, and AmEx Corporate so that I have better visibility into the dimension of the “float”
4. re: point 4 >> Change goals. Who needs to own? Let’s move to Astoria, Oregon.