Photo: Christopher Dunlea
When it rains it pours, shit runs down hill and all that jazz. The last time I wrote something here I was rather optimistic about life and the world; my life specifically. OPTIMISM!!! What word, what a dangerous mother fucking word. It implies that with good thoughts, feelings and hopes good things will be brought about. Maybe this works for some people. No one I know in particular, but some delusional idiot out there lives by this crap.
Even a pessimistic realist like myself falls into these optimistic ideals on occasion. It always happens to me when my life starts actually turning around. Then again had life really turned around for me or was I just starting to believe the lies in order to come to grips with the settlement my life had become? There were the lies I told myself and the ones that the machine of conformity claimed would bring me happiness. I am one for total honesty when it comes to oneself, but then again there are times when one needs to believe his own lies in order to accomplish certain goals and ultimately in this mess of an oxymoron a new truth may be achieved.
While I am at it let’s briefly touch on how I feel about the idea of happiness. I have always subscribed to the thoughts of Aldous Huxley “Happiness is never grand…Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And of course, stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt…Happiness is never grand.” This quotation is basically how my life has played out since birth. If you have been reading here a while then you know. If not, feel free to indulge yourself for I am not going to bore myself or my loyal readers with my own redundancy (that’s a fucking joke). Shit I have not written anything for months so I suppose I need to make it count.
Ah the sweetness of adversity Photo: Christopher Dunlea
Now that we got all that philosophical crap out of the way lets get into exactly what has happened in my life over the past four months. Believe me a lot must have been going on if I was left nearly speechless by it all. Some one who existed briefly, yet had a major impact on my life recently said that she found it rather odd that I only share the good side of things on my social media. Clearly she never read this blog for I am the anti-hero of my own story, a modern Sydney Carton waiting to give his life for his beloved Lucie Manette. Fuck how often am I positive about myself here? To be honest the pain, misery and suffering I had been going through had me so mentally crippled I was for once in my life at a loss of words or at the very least decent words to delineate my situation. I also have to blame El Nino as well cause if you frequently read the surflog or just surf in California you know how good it has been here in the 805.
Oh it’s been fun! Photo Christoper Dunlea
I guess the best place to begin my tale is in the middle of October. At this point of my life everything was looking splendid and grand. Things at work were going well. I had recently got a solid raise. My bosses were pumped on me. I had the respect and esteem of all of my employees. The food we were producing was in my opinion the best we ever had done in my six year tenure at the college. I was working with my best friend Bizarro and watching him develop as a cook, which gave me a real sense of kin. Life was good.
Yet there was something missing I just couldn’t put my finger on. Although production was at an all time high, quality good and waste low I still knew we could do better. I live by the code of the samurai striving for complete perfection and mastery of whatever I wish to consummate. “So many aspire to greatness yet so few succeed.” Maybe I got too full of myself. My ego can be a bit ridiculous at times. I might have pushed the kitchen and management too hard. I don’t really know how it all fell apart, though looking back now I have an idea. We are not there yet and I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I may not have wrote for a bit, but I think upon the conclusion of this piece you be happy I waited.
I will stand by my food with my life.
“Hindsight is 20/20” and in life I have always had eagle eyes. Like I said work was good. Life was good. I was surfing a bunch and well. Biz and I were shooting tons of photos. On the party scene I finally climbed to the top of my circle. It certainly helped having a bit of disposable income around. In my personal life I wised up to a certain entity that had been bringing me down for years. It wasn’t her fault or mine we just kept ignoring the writing on the wall and our own good sense. Certain instances took place that I am not going to mention, but opened my eyes and saw that as a couple we were never going to go anywhere and although we had found a livable groove that could have went on for another five years, I needed more.
I’m a romantic, a Shakespearean, an avid reader of Jane Austin. For these reasons alone I could no longer exist in a relationship of convenience. Finally after spending the bulk of September agonizing over what to do I took a deep breath and cut the cord. I emotionally freed myself from the cage I put myself in two and a half years ago. Man, it was scary. As most of you know I am not a person who does well alone. One thing I have always held true to is that I would much rather be alone for the right reasons then with some one for the wrong reasons. Loneliness, vulnerability and depravity by themselves are not good enough reasons to pursue a life with another if there is no magic. Thus I walked away standing tall and proud of the decision I made.
Once again I found myself single. The dating world had changed quite a bit from when I was in the game. It is very possible that I had changed a bit too, now in my mid thirties and having very different needs and wants then I ever had before. For the first time in my life the thought a family crossed my mind when meeting a woman. I wanted someone I didn’t have to save or constantly help get out of trouble. I didn’t want to regularly have to turn negative vibes into positive ones. I really wanted to learn from my past. Luckily I analyze the shit out of my life and especially my romantic escapades.
I wasn’t perfect either. In the past I had ruined more then one possible great relationship by being a total ass, selfish, immature or all three. My temper has always been a problem. I am Italian after all and we are very passionate people in all aspects of our life. Temper is definitely a flaw I am most guilty of. Over the years I have made great efforts to control such. There is still a long way to go. We are all works in progress till death comes knocking at that door, probably sooner then later for me.
Ultimately I wanted a relationship with more substance, a person with more substance. I wanted someone in the industry. People in my field constantly work crazy hours, nights, weekends, holidays. This makes having a relationship with someone in the 9-5 world nearly impossible. When you are off they are working. When they are off you are working. When you get off at 10 pm you want to drink a glass of wine, maybe go out, eat a meal. The 9-5’er is already in bed. On the weekends when they want to rage most likely a member of the hospitality industry isn’t getting off till midnight. It becomes a real strain on both parties.
I thought about other cooks or chefs, but we all have egos and mine is heavier then most. I knew unless I found the most passive chef we would kill each other. I put my sights on the front of the house, waitresses, hostesses, bartenders, managers, etc. Also let it be said I wanted at least six months to pass before I met anyone else. Even though my former relationship had been technically dead when we broke off our engagement nearly a year prior we still stayed together for another year of emotional dolor. By all psychological accounts I needed time to heal.
Day in and day out I went upon my everyday. As much as I hated the world of internet dating I got back on that horse again to no more avail then I had the first go around. The difference was I had grown a thicker skin and didn’t really take anything too seriously. If I met someone cool, awesome and if not at least I got out of the house and made a new possible connection. One should try to make at least six contacts a day according to many very successful people at life in general. I had a bit of fun with it all this time around. Why not have fun? We only get one go around.
My life was good. That almost brings us up to the fated blog of optimism I published on November 17th 2015: “A Fresh Start“. Not quite entirely, not even a little bit. During the aforementioned foray with dating through a digital medium I managed to meet someone whom I began to feel rather smitten for. I believe she did as well. The chemistry between us was about the best I have ever felt between a member of the opposite sex and myself. We had enough in common to be compatible, though not so much as for it to get boring. There were complimentary strengths and weaknesses existing among us as to be advantageous to both. The two of us looked good together as a couple both having impeccable fashion sense and good taste (yeah mostly her, my tastes are still very much on the Guido side of things. You know the saying: “take the kid out of Jersey, but never take the Jersey out of the kid”).
Like I said “Guido”
We genuinely got along. With all of these aspects of a budding romance in play I decided to legitimately pursue the relationship breaking my six month rule I had set earlier. There will always exist a spoiler to such rules in this life. For that spoiler always has been if I think I met someone who could actually be “the one”. Cupid doesn’t time when he shoots his arrows and I have let plenty of opportunities for love pass me by cause I ignored his call in order to sort out a different directive. The impetuous modern day version of Romeo I can be at times threw all caution to the wind and went for it. By the time I posted “A Fresh Start” I was very much in love and in the midst of a torrid romance.
For weeks I was in a blissful rouse of jovial spirit. As a matter of fact I couldn’t remember a time when I was more happy. Its funny how amazing life is when you feel everything is going your way. I didn’t have a care in the world. Nothing lasts forever and as fast as love had come to me that was as fast the pitiful wrath of its ending also abounded. How it all came crashing down at such a hastened pace was beyond me and the downward spiral it would cause was soon to be realized…
Photo: Christopher Dunlea
Stay tuned for more of this most recent saga of my life soon….
Surfing Ruined My Life 