I do feel generally at peace, and satisfied with my life. I don't mean that everything is perfect, but that I think things are progressing in a good way. I'm optimistic. I'm content.

 

I believe that I've changed a bit over the years, and in no stronger way was this evidenced than by a recent experience where a woman friend of mine named Fran spent 30 minutes talking to me about the color and length of her hair, and the history of her hair and how long it is now and all the different ways she has highlighted and cut it in the past. Once she grew it out to donate it to kids with cancer, but didn't realize that they didn't take hair with highlights, which reminded me of Suzanne Sugarbaker on Designing Women for some reason.

 

Anyway, then she cut it all off and dyed it green and now its really really short and it's bright red, so bright that she spent another 5 minutes describing to me how red it was, and the entire hair conversation ended with her telling me that it just looked like her head was on fire, and me wishing that it actually was. During this time, she said several times, "It's just hair, it doesn't matter!" to which I loudly agreed each time, hoping that she would get the hint that it certainly doesn't matter enough to talk about for more than 15 seconds. Sadly, she never did.

 

There was a time in my life when listening to this banality would have been an equitable trade-off for even the possibility of intimacy, but not now. I still believe there is an inverse relationship between how hot a woman is to how long a dude is usually willing to listen to her talk about her hair color or her cat, but I just don't see myself with someone who is even able to talk for 20 minutes about what color her hair is.

 

I feel a total inner peace, most times, though in the last few years every time I think I've learned everything that there is to learn, I learn something else. It's like being amazed not only at how far you've come, but that you ever thought that there wasn't anything more to know before.

 

The reason I mention that is because, since I've found this inner peace, I'm much less tolerant of disruptions. What I mean by that is, I just won't let things freak me out. I won't get worried. I won't be scared. I don't care who screams or bitches at me.

 

My friend Fran is not like that. Her mom bitches at her and she freaks out. Her sister complains about how Fran is raising her own kids, and she freaks out. Her ex-husband bitches about who she spends her time with, and guess what she does? If you guessed that she freaks out, you were right. She freaks out four or five times a week and she calls me up and says "I'm having a meltdown" and suddenly I'm responsible for her emotional health.

 

Now, see, I could feel responsible for her. And it could be that I was so afraid of hurting her in her fragile state that I would never say no to her. And I would always be trying to fix her. And God forbid we were ever intimate: That would be putting a down payment on guilt that I'd never pay off.

 

So I tell her, there's just too many people who have a say in your life. Like one weekend I ask her to do something and she says she can't because her friend Michelle is coming to visit and she doesn't know when she'll be getting there. So when she gets a call from Michelle (who I'd never even heard of), everything goes on hold?

 

Now, to clarify, the fact that she has to wait to hear from someone else before she can say what she's doing does not upset me. Because, you know, inner peace and all. I don't have any expectations of anyone, at least I try not to, and have invested nothing emotionally in plans for the weekend. The Buddhists call this not having attachments, when you expect things, invest yourself in those expectations, and then you're disappointed and that's one of the three causes of suffering.

 

So I just say "whatever" and let it go.