How to Break a Habit

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Learn to train yourself to break any annoying habit. Do you bite your nails? Chew on your hair? Suck your thumb? Pick your lips? Don't worry, there is a way to break all of these bad habits. You just have to encourage and motivate yourself.

Steps

1. Understand and admit to yourself that you have a bad habit. You won't get anywhere unless you can admit this fact. Ask yourself:
   
   • What is my bad habit?
     
   • Why can't I get rid of it?
     
   • What things stop me from getting rid of it?
     
   
   
2. Decide how you will break your habit. Here's a good method: Every time you catch yourself preparing to bite your nails, suck your thumb, or whatever else you do, stop yourself and make a mark on a calendar. If you really stick to your goal, you will see the number of marks steadily decrease over time.
   
3. Build your own "NO SMOKING" zone: Find someone you like who disapproves of your habit. Tell yourself you will not indulge in the act whenever you are around that person. If you like the person enough, you will find yourself having less desire to go back to the habit. Use the person as an anchor. Just be around this person whenever you feel like controlling the urge. (This doesn't necessarily mean you can't be around this person when indulging in the undesired habit, just try to use their dislike of the habit to fuel your own will to quit.)
   
4. Capitalize on other negatives: Use any other clashing habit or negative about yourself to combat the habit. For instance, if you're lazy, be lazy about your habit. Think of it as too much effort. If you're a smoker, keep your pack locked up in your car down the street. Then you'll find it easy to be too lazy to go get one.
   
5. Try to replace your habit with something new and positive in your life. The key is not to focus on the "not doing", but to think instead about "doing". Instead of thinking about missing that piece of chocolate cake after dinner, think about how good it is going to feel to take a long walk without all that sugar in your system.
   
6. Reward yourself. Once you have gone a week or so with no marks on the calendar, buy yourself a sundae, go shopping, eat at a fancy restaurant, or whatever makes you happy.
   
7. Forgive yourself when you slip: Don't beat yourself up if you end up falling into the habit again. Pick yourself up and try again. Your efforts have not been wasted and you have not lost any ground. With every attempt you make yourself stronger.
   
8. Open your eyes: Life shows you the way if you just listen. You always "know" when you're crossing a line. Go by your gut and avoid it when you "know" you should.
   
9. Visualize the new you, without the habit: See it, feel it, hear the sounds of success. Hear the compliments. Hear your new thoughts of how great it feels to have made this change.
   

Tips

• If you are trying to break a habit in a sport (eg. for cricket, throwing a ball instead of bowling it), then try doing 20 bowls concentrating on keeping your arm straight. Then sit in the quietly for 20 minutes and "Meditate" about what it felt like, the pros, and how much better cricketer you could be if you could bowl properly. Then go back to bowling again and this time do 40 bowls. Then return to the quiet place and do exactly the same meditation, but this time for 5 minutes.This should break the habit very quickly. This is because it makes a connection stronger between the stored memory and the neurones that tell you what to do. In this way, you can use existing habits to your advantage.
  
• Prepare the mind before you do anything else.
  
• Pay attention to rhythms: All habits are about rhythm, following a pattern of stimulus and response. The trigger could be an event, an emotion or the passing of time. Break the rhythm and you'll break the habit. Vary the rhythm by doing the act at different times or for different reasons. Try watching too much TV when you don't feel like it, or try not leaving dirty laundry on the bathroom floor when you do feel like it. This way you can remove the mental correlation of the act with the stimulus, and begin to do the act only as a matter of choice, not a matter of habit.
  
• Some people say that it takes 30 days to form a pattern and 90 days to form a habit, so plan on giving this a good chance.
  
• See wikiHow links below for specific tips on specific habits.
  
• Sometimes you will start your bad habit again after stopping. Maybe your mind hasn't quite stuck to the idea yet. Just break the habit as many times as it takes.
  
• Rewards may keep you motivated and may lead to a new and positive habit in your life.
  
• Get a friend to help you break a habit; someone you can trust in and rely upon.
  
• Carry a rock for every time you do your bad habit; or create a 'habit jar'. Every time you give in to your habit, put in a dollar or pull out a slip of paper that tells you to do something you don't want to do, like cleaning the toilet.
  
• Believe in yourself
  
• You'll need the support of your friends and family. If they're constantly telling you you won't succeed, you'll have trouble. Bad habits are often caused by stress, so tell them you're trying very hard, and ask for their support.
  
• An alternative to the calendar is a "Days Since" calendar for your computer. These can be found on widget websites, and they tell you how many days it has been since you've done a certain thing. Pick a set start date to break this habit and use your calendar to keep track of it. However this won't really work if you're not on your computer a lot
  
• Love why you're doing it.
  

Warnings

• There is a big difference between an addiction and a habit! Addictions often have biological causes, like substance abuse or smoking. These are more serious than other habits and require professional help. (Smoking might not, but substance abuse certainly does.)
  
• Try to stay away from cheating on these things, because you are not cheating anyone else, only yourself.
  
• Be careful and decide ahead of time if you are going to punish yourself when you do your habit. Although self-punishment could work, it still has a negative effect on you, so rewarding yourself for not giving in could work better.
  

Things You'll Need

• A calendar
  
• A pen
  
• Confidence!
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Leave All Bad Habits
  
• How to Stop Biting Your Nails
  
• How to Stop Picking Your Lips
  
• How to Evaluate Your Eating Habits
  
• How to Create Good Study Habits for Exams
  
• How to Let Go of Painful Memories
  
• How to Say No to Drugs and Alcohol
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Break a Habit. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

I don't think fashion basics will change all that much in just 20 years. I think that people will be wearing the protective gear we currently use more often, like sunglasses, hats, long-sleeved shirts in the summer and if there is a Day After Tommorow-like freeze over, maybe goggles in the winter and spacey ski-suits.

The best thing that happened to me this past week, considering the week starts with Sunday (today!), the best thing that has happened to me would have to be the emergence of wellness after being sick on the first airplane en route to Oregon (my current location: )

I felt super-fluish on the way, all the way through the connecting flight in Missouri - hottest airport everrrrr. But fortunatelt due to some serious hydration and ibuprofen, I was better by the time we reached our destination, yay!

The cartoon characters I find most disturbing seem to possess the qualities that disturb me most about real-life people.

There's the erratic, short-fused characters that could go off at any second without provocation(future spree killers, anyone?)like:

Ren from Ren and Stimpy or
Mr. DeMartino from Daria

Then there's the she-bully that everyone mistakes as innocent but is really EVIL such as:

Angelica from Rugrats and
Vicky from Fairly Oddparents and

It was especially disturbing to me that these people characters were put in charge of kids. Made me perpetually afraid of babysitters.

Which leads to my next category: Creepy old man characters that appear in otherwise adorable children's cartoons:

Gargamel from the Smurfs or Purple Pieman from Strawberry Shortcake

Yep. That concludes my creepy cartoon character assessment.

Hansel and Gretel. I liked the whole food aspect of it. It was very alluring, the bread crumbs left to find their way and the sweet scent coming from the old lady's kitchen. Of course, the true events are horrifying but the illustrations in childrens' books always seemed to attract me until the story unfolded. I also liked to wear overalls, so the depiction of Hansel wearing them always seemed really cool to me.

Littering

Without a doubt Lorelai Gilmore! She probably inspired the term MILF but that's not why. :D

She was a cool mom to Rory when she was a teenager, protective over Rory making the same mistakes she did but also a very fun mom! She sacrificed a lot personally and professionally to give Rory a good education, and I just love the verbal banter between these two!

It seems I only come here at times of deep despair, or any emotion that causes me shame when brought to light in the critical or confused view of the people around me. This is no different. I think I recognize that I am likely mentally unstable. Where it seems the most basic instinct of others is to self-preserve, mine is to feel the rush of desire to touch a flame, to feel its shocking sting. A craving for warmth that is constantly met by a burn...

A situation in which if fire were the true force burning me, I would be giving nothing but what the fire needed to sustain itself, hoping it would be thankful and loyal and give its best to me in the process. Of course, what I am talking about is not really a fire but a man,
to whom I should have never given my heart by way of a nearly immediate surrender of my body.

It's been years, and I can't justify in any way why I still love him, other than I have an insatiable desire for him to love me. A desire that has both propelled me with superstrength to succeed in work, weight loss, overcome what I perceived to be obstacles to our happiness. All in a futile preparatory fashion for an outcome requiring different ingredients. That I could never better qualify myself for. I don't know why. Why I let him recapture me for his own mindless sex option, what he calls million dollar sex...

All the while not knowing or ignoring the fact that what has motivated me is love, and a desire to be loved. Intense emotions fueling physical impulses that could never be satisfied any other way. I fear that they never will. Why am I so hopefully devoted? Why after accomplishing almost every goal I have set to get me to those roads and places people go to find happiness, am I paralyzed. Why do I think about him and the byproducts of him to the exclusion of all else. Why do I fend off friends that are truer and more deserving of my time to cling to nothing, why do I ask questions of the nothing so that I can't mentally imagine it as something else? Why do I clench my throat closed to limit tear flow for fear of the deafening calm and complacence that is sure to follow? I can't see past it.

I save my best for someone who can't even see it. After heartbreaking, fate-sealing verbal admissions I can only think of physically forcing him to witness my pain. I have flashes of suicides that I hope would churn his stomach. He who over-exposes himself to horror films and becomes desensitized. I want the light to leave his eyes so that they can't fool anyone else into believing they're indicative of something truer underneath. They lie.

Jeffrey Dahmer. His "weak acid solution" drilled into the brains of his victims to put them "in a zombie like state" and keeping their body parts in the kitchen...just out there. Very mad scientist. And the killers who look just like regular people, which are all of them I know, are particularly intriguing when they're good looking. Ted Bundy is another example. Just unexpected.

I feel really good today. It is a stark transition to most days in my recent life (and by recent I mean the last year or longer...yeah.) I did some community service work at my parents' church. You might think it was the do-good feeling that has put me in this mood, but it isn't. It just feels good to interact with people who are genuinely nice and warm. Sometimes I question the variables that go into the Christian equation to make them that way, but no matter my doubts about the reality of what they believe, the overall effect is quite often very pleasant. I can't say that of all churches, or Christians I have encountered, but at this church it is the rule as opposed to the exception...that everyone is really sweet.

Which is the main reason I have been attending Sunday school and church throughout the past few months. Certainly not for the sermons, which are mostly focused on salvation, and God's work, and heaven...the parts of the story on which I am a bit skeptical. But the power of a group of people who all feel the same way about it...seems to show how important a common sense of purpose is to social health. People at work, random people...can have a completely different set of values, and intentions. And we can all coexist easily enough, but God-fearing folk sure do seem to be happier, and easier to read. I've always been drawn to the products of Christianity, like the music and the congregation...it's just all these assumptions about history that seems pretentious to me. So anyway, I think I will continue going, just to satisfy my social desire to be around kind people. Yes.

"The Song that Never Ends," "I Love You (You Love Me)" Barney song, "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall"

If you are on my friends list, I want to know 36 things about you.

I don't care if we never talk, or if we already know everything about each other.

Short and sweet is fine... you're on my list, so I want to know you better!

Comment here and repost a blank one on your own journal. I'll screen the comments unless otherwise specified.

AND INCLUDE A PIC OF YOURSELF AT THE END if you'll please indulge me.

01) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
02) What was your dream growing up?
03) What talent do you wish you had?
04) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
05) Favorite vegetable?
06) What was the last book you read?
07) What zodiac sign are you?
08) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
09) Worst Habit?
10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
11) What is your favorite sport?
12) Do you have a Pessimistic or Optimistic attitude?
13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
16) Do you have any pets?
17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
18) What was your first impression of me?
19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
22) What color eyes do you have?
23) Ever been arrested?
24) Bottle or can soda?
25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
26) Favorite band to listen to when you're mad?
27) What's your favorite place to hang out at?
28) Do you believe in ghosts?
29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
30) Do you swear a lot?
31) Biggest pet peeve?
32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
34) Favourite and least favourite food?
35) Do you believe in God?
36) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?

I am wearing blurry contacts. I confirmed that my true prescription has strengthened, via my optometrist. Why, then, do you ask (?) =o) am I wearing old contacts? Because my new properly prescribed glasses in my own mind, make me incompatible with my new glasses-wearing crush.

He came to speak to me in the hallway the other day, and I remember looking at his glasses and pushing up mine and what a nerdy couple we would make and that if I had any hope (there is no hope) of kissing him I'd better put back in some leftover contacts.

It's like reheating macaroni. =oP Blegh. Anyway, I think I've finally lost it. Taking real-life precautions for a road that will never be travelled.

As my love interest, no...like interest has a girlfriend. And is a Catholic!

Better than a hypocritical baptist or non-denominational liar. Jack Asses. Both of my exes have the initials J.A. Fitting, isn't it?

Mhmmm. F those MFers. Anyway, I'd like to be a better flirt. I am like Shy Violet all the way. If it's not someone going after me it's me being coy and smiling and not a word after that. It's difficult for me. Not only do I stutter when nervous 8X but I am so uncool. I have increasing symptoms of anxiety. Or I should say my anxiety symptoms are increasing in frequency. And intensity. I often feel light-headed, like I'm going to faint. And pressure in my nose like it's going to bleed. Out of breath. I have real time anxiety and long-term too. I can't worry about what the future holds. Be thankful you're alive. Note to self. Life's not so bad here in America. ::pat pat::

I hope I'm not developing multiple persnalities. I know I'm rambling. Lalalalala. Chelsea saw me pop a pill the other day (Xanax) socially. I feel gulty, number one because she can't partake with all of the life-sustaining drugs she's got in her and two because I don't want her to think I'm dependent. She shouldn't, we've known each other longer than that. I don't even know why I'm tripping over it. Anyway. I guess this is Piece. Peace.

I have never so quickly wanted to eat my own words. Tonight, Wes, Jess and I went out to the bowling alley with some people from work. This one girl, Jessica...is one I know of, but don't really know know but know of because she played in active role in getting one of our trainers fired. A gay black man. And in a company that is pro-diversity, it takes a lot.

Specifically, cutting training modules short to engage the new hires in truth or dare games, with questions like "have you ever invited a third into the bedroom?"(a couple in the room) or "have you ever used a dildo?" (lesbian girl) or "have you ever been with a woman?" (gay man)...questions that in some social setting may be casual, but completely inappropriate for the workplace. Anyway, she was the female of the aforementioned couple.

Just broke up with the guy, who happened to show up uninvited to the bowling alley to rant and rave with her about god knows what. I was watching from afar.

He started yelling at her, and I said "god, I wish I had am ex-boyfriend who care enough about me to get mad, mine just walk away without a word."

So she said something snappy and came back to the lane

And this guy, the ex-boyfriend...walks up and snatches her purse out of the seat and BOLTS.

I wish I could have stopped him, I saw it happen but it was almost like I was frozen in amazement that someone would actually be that desperate/insane.

Possessive. Etc. And then I felt relieved to have not experienced a romance so emotionally charged. This poor girl is moving to another state to avoid these antics.

In other news, Friday is 80's day at work. I've goy some Ray Bans and Lacoste shorts. Blue mascara. It will be fun. Gonna sleep (platonically) at Wes and Jess' again to partake in getting ready with Wes. He's got this great long hair we're planning to crimp! =oD

And I will get to observe a good relationship. Some more. Love them together. He just got her this card with a picture of the heart on the Empire State building like in Sleepless in Seattle. One of those music cards that opens up to play Louis Armstrong's "A Kiss to Build a Dream On." So sweet. I won't be bitter about relationships forever. Just have to hold out for the rare uncaught fish. Or the mistaken throwback.

The extracurriculurs around work are making it a lot more fun, but I can't wait for my sales liason work to officially begin. I've been preparing for a month or so, but it still needs to go in my schedule. And we need to talk about the promotion and if it involves a raise.

It should; I make good money from sales. If I will be training others instead of having all of the opportunities to myself, I should be compensated for it!

But I am altogether happy regardless, with old responsibilities and new.

::sigh:: Sometimes you can only hope to get what you deserve and I shall.

I realized that I don't actually need to wait until times of emotional distress to express what I'm feeling. So simply by the observation of other entries alone...I am inspired to write to you all. Today was a good day, spent with my friends Wes and Jess. Married. Isn't that cute? Like Mickey and Minnie. I had stopped hanging out with them for awhile because of awkward, alcohol-induced sexual advances. But who hasn't used bad judgment before? I feel bad for trying to shut them out because of it, and amazed that they haven't let our friendship die out the second I made myself socially "unavailable."

I've never had that before. In almost all new friendships I've begun, I can scare them away when my paranoid withdrawal state kicks in. I am happy that didn't happen this time. Though I don't think it's to my credit whatsoever. They're just good people. Nothing's an imposition, no reason to be critical. And I think I can accept them for that too. Learn to be more relaxed, human. Since I'm failing less succeeding more in my professional life, maybe my personal life will follow suit. I want to get to a point where I can make myself content in any situation. Not think about what will happen next and just live in the moment. I read a quote I liked the other day...

"The basic thing is that everyone wants happiness, no one wants suffering. And happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors. If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy."

- The Dalai Lama

My mom says I should get a motivational calendar and read something inspirational everyday. She also thinks (and I know) that I suffer from extreme anxiety. I worry about short-term (what people are thinking of me) and long term...what will happen when my parents die, etc.

I'm beginning to realize the power of positive thinking. It's just dripping in, but I'd like it to gush from my mental faucet.

I don't even remember the last subject I posted about. Continuity is something I find myself thinking about, from a literary standpoint. I often consider more the structure of my sentences than the messages communicated by them. They are literary devices, intended to be pleasant traps but more like eye-opening contraptions to some degree enforce response.

Stay awhile and listen...

Why don't people like to talk about interesting things? Like, I am all for being quiet through a movie and then having a discussion. Appropriate venues and times for exchange of though. But it seems like so many people are just content to be someplace in numbers that they don't make it a priority to have a common thought process or social etiquette. Waiting for turns to speak. I hate it! I especially hate it on nights such as last, @ Hooters for a UFC fight. There were guys there, and girls. But forget limiting social conversation to your own sex because let me tell you, FAR too many of them don't think of themselves as more contributive than a prop to their boyfriends' grand display of bravada.

I feel like I'm losing my ability to spark interest in girls. I ask a lot of questions. I am truly interested in the answers. And I receive one-words or one-liners, and the curtain's down. There are exceptions I suppose. But they are so much harder to come by these days. I wish I could send out applications.

Cool Girl Friends Wanted:

Must have opinions and talk about them. Give advice and be fun!

Lew, Amy. Examples of what girls should be like. The end!

I can't believe a week has passed since my last entry. I don't know what happens to the time; I feel like I'm dangling from a pendulum that just keeps striking the same hour again and again. Permanently suspended within a measurable fluctuation of misery and apathy. Side to side, no up to down, no backward then forward. Because that would require some degree of intention.

Well, the willingness to suffer is an emotional intention. No purpose. It's like holding your head in your own vomit. It won't teach you not to vomit, it will only mask an involuntary disgrace as deliberate self-depreciation.

It's a useless preparation, to paint yourself black. Like a vampire, chilling the air and sharpening the splinters of his coffin to attract a bedside companion. Like somehow your intuitive fragility will cause other breakables to jump in the box. I want a boy with not a mean bone in his body. A person who could subdue the desire to suck every drop of blood by being ever so willing to entertain your advances, no matter how absurd or unfair.

To never rip your wings during flights of fancy. Because they're all just children's theater manifestations. Of our lion's roar, our scare-crow stupidity or tin-man timidity. A split second depiction of our self-confident snapshots, the fast-draft spit outs of the most prominent thoughts in our minds. No dress to impress, but straight on to the printing press.

A permanent position beside another person is a permanent subjection to the detours of a work in progress. A sacrifice to the satisfaction of the biggest picture, eliminating the element of pleasant surprise with every piece you see. Suddenly and secretly wishing you were Monet with a broken paintbrush. Dying to lose sight of the mid-masterpiece mess you've declared to abandon.

Just looking at this username makes me sick. God knows why I forfeited thegirlhasgone to a person who doesn't even use the account. Don't judge a lj-ist by her name.

Jarrod and I for all intents and purposes, have broken up. Even though I know we were going in a bad direction, just to hear him say he wants "time away from me," has put me in a tailspin. I can't keep a single thought to myself, and while he's been occupying his time with other interests, I keep texting and calling him to express myself. It's like I have no control over it, I realize how disgraceful it is. The scariest part is, I remember doing this with Jeff. It wasn't really a breakup to devastate, yet just the fact that it wasn't me doing the cliff-pushing made me beserk. I feel like I am in the exact same place I was 2(3?) years ago. I'm not smooth, I can't play relationship games. I can only make it more and more apparent to the other person that I am a loser-psychopath. In this case, just like the last. The damage has been done. Even if there were hope of reconciliation, the emotional stalking has definitely given him cause for a mental restraining order. And I know that no one will ever see it the way I do. On any given subject, I could write pages and pages of my thoughts. And it's usually no taboo to disclose them. And now, when privacy and emotional lockdown are crucial, I've gutted myself to hang from a meat locker. Festering and welcoming any and all infections to delight in me as their host.


I behave like the most desperate person possible, and I know that I'm not. I know that I can be happy on my own, I had been for a long time. So why do I feel so miserable and alone? It's a serious problem. I had temper tantrums pretty much my entire adolescent life, and nothing's changed. I don't know why I can't just help myself and be unaffected by this trivial half-love disguising itself as the greatest loss of all time.

And I know I was just buying time, but I've run the race and now the track is gone. I want to burn my skin off by the scorching asphalt. Move to a new city. But that's what I've made a trend and I don't know why I can't just pick myself up to carry on the way that other people do. It's like, an unbearable thought to pick up where I left off because it's not where I wanted to be then and even worse now that I've had a glimpse of the beyond.

I wish it had never happened, I wish nothing would ever happen if it's not the ride to last a lifetime. God, what a waste. Guys can go on, lasso the next girl to be a notch on the belt and march through their egotistical, passionless conquests. And it's not even that I want that option for myself, it just infuriates me that two people in the same situation can respond in ways that so drastically differ. Even if we have to reach destination Doomsville, I want to be on the same road. He wouldn't understand a damned word that I've said. Foreign trail guide! It's comical but serious. I want to be on the same page with someone so that at least when things go sour they'll understand what is happening to me. Empathize.

Yet here I stand in the sequel to Megan Gets Dumped, with the only speaking role. I want an understudy. I want to collapse after the next heavy vegetable is hurled at the stage. Wrapped in the velvet curtain and sleep through to the next universe.

Well, one of the two floaties keeping me in the Jarrod pool has been punctured. Yes...a semi-sudden collapse of charisma. It's like, in the beginning of relationships people will kiss each other's asses with a smile. There's no reason not to try; it's like having a bag of mystery seeds, fertile soil for miles and no other hobbies. For a while, your effort is completely immeasurable. So to remain invested in your product, you prematurely assume its identity. You imagine perfection: roses so bold with blossoms that would overshadow any thorn. And while you may end up with something living, it can only disappoint your fantasy.

And once this foreign object begins to take shape, instead of recognizing it for the simple organism it is and taking back all but the little time it takes to sustain the thing, you feel less and less committed to nurture it at all. The only thing you see is what could have been. And you'll ponder over that dying garden until its figure crumbles back down into the earth. And only then, without a single sight to trigger your memory of its seedling self, will anything else so much as spark your interest or even catch your eye.

But even after accepting the story so far, you're unsure if you can proceed without that portrait of perfection in tow. Though it may be a long time coming, you carry the idea that you know what it is you're trying to find. That the wasted hours have made you wiser, that you'll be better able to gauge which blank canvas is made to withstand the bold colors and boundless strokes you've planned.

With every attempt, do the bristles break? Will the materials in paint separate? Or do they just wait for newfound inspiration to blend back into that magic mix, the concoction just bound for creation if given the chance.

I imagine some miraculous conception, where water pours from the heavens to roll the soil out further, and give the paints new life. Where the person other than yourself not only indulges in being the canvas but works around your own wild, flailing arms to co-create his own heart's desire. Dripped down from brain to breast, an amazing collaboration immune to rules such as taking turns and offering mid-stroke admirations. NO rules, just right.

Not at all sure how easily translated that last scenario came over. But it's a feature film decades from production so there's room for revision.

The frame at present: Jarrod as a flower I'm about to hack. A flower that used to dance for me and now just tilts its petals to the sun for self-satisfaction. Even the sex is just to gratify his own ego. Sometimes I get the feeling I am just the audience, in what's meant to be a private confessional between Narcissus and his reflection.

Another vessel will come along, another body to dazzle and tape to create. (And yes, that was quite literal. I need to remove myself from the catalog of conquests somehow.) The fact that even just a few tears were pushed out from my reserves today suggest that this breakup will be permanent.

Though yet again, he had no words, no gesture to steer us in an alterate direction. What burns me up even more than silence is how he pretends to not understand what I say in plain language. Communication is key, and I can't go on without it. I've been the one to initiate the breaking up procedure twice now, and I need strength to not retract my decision for loneliness.

I've put myself between a rock and a hard place without any friends around. Just parents and a job. I hope I can do this.

I'm not in the habit of narrating my life anymore. But I want to keep the livejournal alive, even if it's on life support. Pencils shooting from an IV drip. Watch out!

I have a really terrible habit of taking one positive quality in a boyfriend and trying to sustain a relationship with it. Luckily, in this case it's the sex. I mean, I wasn't even attracted to Jarrod "that way," but once we had sex there was no way that show was going off the air. And the absence of dialogue, such an enjoyable experience. I mean, fluff talk just to glossify the sexiness. But it's like, the difference between Mapquest and On-Star.

And of course, the no-brainer attractors exist. General politeness, a quality far more rare in Louisiana but an unprovoked way of life in Birmingham. With all guys. I love that. Jarrod's particularly understanding about female habits, growing up with a single mom. He said he first learned how to drive with his knee by watching his mother do it while simultaneously applying makeup.

But. There's something missing in Jarrod, that was missing in Jeff...conversationally. I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again. But when I talk to someone, no matter who it is, I want to have a cohesive exchange of thought. And I don't want someone who's going to listen out of politeness, or even respect. I want to create interest. I come across it everywhere, and it seems like what I consider to be as paramount as a meteor hitting the earth...is like a raindrop to Jarrod.

He almost always brings the topic back to what he's done. What's happened. Not how or why and what the effect will be, just a transcript.

I know we all have brains that interpret different ways, but I don't see how people can carry on that way, just bystanding the activities of their lives.

I want to know every little thought passing through his head. Synapse to synapse. But if I could, would I like what I find?

My curiosity outweighs my fear.

But of course, I describe what I think I want without ever having experienced it. I think I'd go into cognitive arrest.