Futuristic Words

Congratulations to all the students who completed the workshop in San Francisco this weekend. I have high hopes for all of you. Vercetti and Big Business, I really appreciate the help. You gentlemen make it easy to forget that running workshops is a job because the whole experience is so easy with such ridiculously competent fellow instructors. Starlight, thanks for your hospitality at the tail ends of the weekend. You’re a prince.

I have scheduled a pair of boot camps for December.

New York: 4-6 December
Los Angeles: 11-13 December

If you’re interested, contact Love Systems either through the company website or by calling (310)836-0150.

If you do sign up for either of those boot camps, you will be treated to the sight of a man newly victorious.

“Newly victorious, Future?” you ask.

Yes.

“But why?”

I’m glad you asked. Because this November, I will be participating in National Novel Writing Month, or “NaNoWriMo” as the cool kids have been known to call it. For those of you who haven’t heard of NaNoWriMo, it’s pretty simple: one month, 50,000 words. I’ve toyed with the idea of spending an entire November huddled around a pot of coffee for eight hours a day while ranting about gerunds and fireballs since I first heard about NaNoWriMo in 2007, but this time I’m going to put my money where my dreams and delusions of grandeur are.

I’ve set up a contest with some of my friends to make the entire event a little more interesting. Everyone contributes $300 before NaNoWriMo begins. Everyone participates in NaNoWriMo. Those who get to 50,000 words get their $300 back. If you get to 49,999 words or less, you are assed out $300 bucks this Christmas shopping seasons. Money left behind is split by the participants who can now finally call themselves novelists when they look in the mirror each morning.

If you live in the New York area and would like to join me in this little adventure/competition, leave a comment (because I’m vain and like comments on my blog entries) and contact me at future@lovesystems.com (because you need to know where and when to drop off your $300 as well as to participate in whatever weird support group this thing will probably end up being). To prevent your message from being lost in the shuffle of my daily e-mail deluge, please include the word NANOWRIMO in your subject if you’re going to make 2009 the year you finally wrote your novel, and you’re willing to put a new iPhone/new PS3 on it. We’re putting the money together this week, so time is of the essence.

Oh, Onion News Network, you are a constant source of amusement.

All my creative attention has turned to my novel, a fantasy piece set in the modern day I plan to officially start for National Novel Writing Month. I’m 28, and I’ve had a book lingering in my brain for as long as I can remember. Time to put up or shut up.

It’s been a strange week in the world of skin and whispers. In two cases, Breakthrough Comfort did its thing, and even though I was explicit about the terms of the respective relationships, it did not assuage the angst these girls felt. An LJBF converted (again, BTC) and another reverted (she found a boyfriend). Some old flames returned, and some insanely beautiful women arbitrarily started qualifying themselves to me in a context outside stand-up comedy. Also, some very special drama manifested regarding two ex-girlfriends. Fuck, I am exhausted.

Braddock and I talked about same-night seduction when he was leading his seventy-two workshops in New York recently. If this year’s been any indication, I’ve found a way to generate the same intense results in a night—in an hour sometimes—but Braddock predicted the complication of girls getting too attached too quickly, i.e. the difficulty in modulating the Destiny/Golden Mirror switches in the Breakthrough Comfort model. He and Helicase and dahunter strongly favor a Shock and Awe model, with heavy teasing and strong logistical control mixed with unrelenting escalation. I bristle at the notion of walking into a venue as a wrecking ball of sexuality—it feels very Night at the Roxbury to me– but I don’t see an alternative if I don’t want girls crying over my behavior and raging about their senses of entitlement* when it comes to potential relationships.

I bristle because I go out of my way, perhaps too far out of my way, to practice empathy. One of the more insidious aspects of dating so much is a forced nonchalance to any eventuality. This girl will do this in this amount of time, this girl will do that. It’s true that people will always surprise you on a long enough timeline, but they are also predictable within a certain model. It takes a lot of contortion and comfort and peeling away layers of vulnerability before you can see any individual’s special snowflake, and with a lot of people all you find is the ORE that will eventually allow for such a unique design. Young girls especially are unrefined potential, usually, and it’s rare to find a fully-formed, fully-conscious 21-year-old (of either sex, really). Constantly seeing the same behaviors over and over again can make a man jaded and start to believe the SUISC truism that makes me bite through my tongue with anger: she’s not special. Ugh. Every time I see it or hear it or think it or—God help me—believe it, I want to stab the nearest baby. The world is a cold, ugly place if you don’t endeavor to find each individual’s specific human dignity. Shit, even if I eventually discover that I despise a given person, I hope I can do so after unraveling the real person beneath the persona he or she wears when facing the world at large.

Big Business pointed out that thus to really connect, you have to maintain a perfect dichotomy of opposite feelings: you have to believe in your gut that She is not special, this girl you’re talking to, because she won’t be attracted to someone who rewards her for that which she has not earned… yet you must be ready to connect at the soul-level when the chance presents itself if you’re going to have a romantic/sexual/intimate experience with any meaning.

For all the pain of separation in this past week, I have had much joy in connection; I have ridden a sine curve. The drama has been hard on my heart but educational. I am blessed to have this perspective.

Also, there is no love in the world. Only pain: