I wonder if this diary doesn't make me focus on myself even more? Or does it help me work out what would otherwise get trapped inside and make me worse?

Hard to say.

We had a staff meeting at the theatre yesterday and instead of the usual customer service jargon crap: "When a customer walks in, SMILE", it was about us, like are you using your energy the best way you can?

Things like: eat right, get lots of sleep, get a balance in your life. Don't go go go all the time, but take a break every 90 minutes, that sort of thing. How to deal with stress, or avoid it entirely I guess is better. The following passage really hit a spot with me, and what Jackrabbit said to me in response did too. But here's the passage:

"Loving oneself is no easy matter...because it means loving all of oneself, including the shadow where one is inferior and socially so unacceptable. The care one gives this humiliating part is the cure...but the moral dimension can never be abandoned. Thus us the cure a paradox requiring two incommensurables: the moral recognition that these parts of me are burdensome and intolerable and must change, and the loving laughter acceptance which takes them as they are joyfully, forever. One both tries hard and lets go, both judges harshly and joins gladly..."

And JR said "yeah you do neither". I don't love my bad parts and I don't try to change them. Is he right? I actually think he is.

He's a critical person. Big time. He knows that he's critical. But I don't think he knows HOW critical, and how BAD that is. How everyone he knows, his entire family, his coworkers, me who he claims to love so much, strangers, EVERYONE, he seems to find fault with them, and he shakes his head and laughs, as though he were above that stuff. I know he knows he has faults, but I wish he could see how critical of other people he really is, and how unattractive it is, and how it's going to get worse the older he gets.

We were in the middle of particularly good and hard sex on the weekend, and he looked me in the eye and said "I still love you so much". I didn't know what to say. That's the first time he's said it directly to my face. And during sex no less? WTF? I wanted to hear that, I've wanted to hear that from his mouth for so long, and when I did, I was so surprised. I thought he would never say those words again. He said them to me the first time on the phone. I don't think he had said them since, just in an email and once while we were hugging I said I loved him and he said "me too". But from his mouth. That shocked me.

I am still waffling about how I want to be persistent, because love is persistent, but I want to pull away because he doesn't appreciate me truly for what I bring to his life. My heart and my body say don't give up, he loves you, he just doesn't realize how much yet. But my mind says, no believe what he says. He loves you but he'll never be with you because you're messy and you don't have a paid off visa. I wonder what I'm really worth to him. How far he would go for me. It sometimes feels like he's giving me this very same test. How far will she go for me? How far can I push her before she cracks and hates me forever? What kind of pain can she take from me before she buckes and dies? I refuse to give up!

Like in secretary, I'll sit at that fucking desk pissing myself and starving for as long as he can stand. And even then I won't win, but I'll have stayed true to how I felt. At least.

Nothing much else is new. Really. I don't do anything.

OH YEAH. I went to Modest Mouse on Friday. It was a great GREAT SHOW. Lead singer, who I believe is Isaac Brock, is a fucking NUT BAR holy shit. He got all wild eyed and flung the microphone around, after which the roadie guy came out with this bored look on his face that said "yeah, he does this every time. It's my job" SO FUNNY.

The encore was a bit too long and improvised, you could tell that the audience was getting tired after a while. So I was glad when it ended, but the body of the show was fantastic fun. Still a fan.