Solo Dining & Soul Searching: A Meal with Myself

Today's special guest is ME. When I mentioned to my therapist that I don't really feel comfortable going to a sit-down restaurant by myself, she suggested I do it and try to get over my fears. Well, it happened today!

Didn't know what I would write about, but a good friend of mine said that after reading my last entry, that he had no idea about my love of acting. That made me realize that there is a whole big bunch of stuff about myself that I never share with people. Not necessarily trying to keep anything a secret, but I just don't usually let people behind my false front to get to know the real me. That changes today. I'm going to talk all about myself.

Went to Dos Reales Champaign IL for dinner. Had my usual, Pollo Quesadilla. I enjoyed it. One bad thing is there was a family sitting next to me that seemed great. It was a mother with a young child and her mother and grandmother. 4 generations. I thought about handing them one of my It's My Treat cards but chickened out. So, boo for me. Still room for improvement when it comes to getting out there and being bold.

Let's start with the initial revelation that convinced me to do this. Yes, I love acting. I never talk about it because it never seemed like a real possibility. It was like a dream that would never come true, so I avoided thinking about it. There was a time in 2007 when I moved up to Chicago and was taking acting and writing classes at Second City that was the closest I have ever been to making that decision to go for it. One of the best times of my life. But, life happened, had a kid, and priorities changed. Don't know if I will ever pursue it for real, but it has been fun to dip my toes back in the water with the acting class that I was taking.

Hopefully I will continue to do that. As, I mentioned, I have a kid. Most wonderful kid in the world and the one person that I love more than anything. I would do anything for them. This may seem counter intuitive, but one of the first things I did for them, was to move halfway around the world to take a job in Doha, Qatar. Sucks to not be around for your child's early years, but the money I was making allowed for their other parent to not have to work and to form a tight bond with each other. So, I missed out on a lot, but it was a tough choice that had to be made, and I do not regret it. After Doha, I lived in DC for a couple of years. It was fun working with the college students both in Qatar and DC. I'd really like to get back into teaching at some point.

Did you know that I like poetry writing? My undergrad degree is actually in creative writing specializing in poetry writing. I even did a year of writing one poem a day- poetry.brianparis.com . I am sure most of you don't know about that because I didn't even remember until I started writing this. Went back and read some of the poems that I wrote and quickly realized that quick turnaround first drafts of poems is probably not the best way to make great art. But I'd bet there are a few in there that could be made better with some work. And at least I was creating, so I will give myself some points for that.

Speaking of creating, one of the reasons that I started to see a therapist, was to work on my TV watching addition so that I would have more time to create. Create anything, write, photos, videos, acting, anything really. It took a bit, but I got to the point of giving up on watching TV, but I have since relapsed and plan to start my cold turkey TV ban again on Monday, July 1st. I tried limiting the TV watching to just a few hours, but I was not good at it and failed. The only thing that worked was giving it up completely.

Here is a little truism that I have found dealing with creative people. The most reliable way to determine if someone is going to be successful is to look at their consumption versus creating ratio. If they are just watching TV or consuming social media or mindless video games, they will not be creative. Those who focus every day on creating have a chance to make it. I am sure there are exceptions, but it has held true in my unscientific observations.

One of my other big barriers to creativity is my lack of internal motivation. I do well in structured environments like work and school because there are deadlines and people holding me accountable, but if I am just left on my own, I revert to doing nothing and wasting time instead of creating. Therapist helped a lot with this. In the ideal situation I would learn how to get that internal motivation and be able to achieve all of the creative goals that I want to do. But I do not live in that ideal world, so I had to find a compromise. Because I need external motivation, I have worked with someone to hold me accountable for weekly creative goals, and it works. So, might not be the best or correct way of solving the problem long term, but as my therapist says, if it works go for it.

Another thing that people may not know is my health issues. First, I am diabetic, so I have had to deal with that for the last 17 years. Ignoring the chips that I had with my dinner tonight, I am actually doing pretty well with controlling it. A1C is in the low sixes, so docs are happy. I could always be doing better, but it is something that I am going to have to deal with for the rest of my life, so doing well is fine even if it isn't perfect. One problem it causes is the insulin that I take makes it very hard to lose weight. Again, I could be doing more about that and may start to focus on that in the last half of the year.

Another health issue is fatigue. A couple of years ago, I had a bad case of COVID. Ever since then I have been super tired all the time. There is not a good way to check for long COVID, so the docs sent me for a lot of test to rule out other things that it could be and the therapist worked with me to determine that is probably isn't depression. "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." So, long COVID it is. I try to put on a happy energetic face whenever I am out and about but know that is not the truth. I am always so tired that it is sometimes hard just get up and do normal things. Even with 9-10 hours of sleep a night, I am so very tired.

One of the reasons that I thought depression might be a possibility is that I had been a little unhappy at work. While I love my job, and it is important work, it is not very creative. Been working on adding more creative things at work, and focusing on doing create stuff on my own, so that has made things a whole lot better. Pretty happy with my life at the moment. I feel like this is a recurring topic in this write up, it could be better, but I have accepted the way things are.

Another big part of my life that some people do not know about is that I like doing things for other people. These acts of service can be anything from doing chores for others, helping them out with what I can or giving to charities. Nothing feels better to me than giving what I can to others. I think I have mentioned Tipping Karma before. I found that when I was working for tips, if I gave bigger tips to others, I would in return receive bigger tips for my work. I have been very fortunate in life, so it makes sense to give back some of what I receive as a thank you to the universe.

Speaking of memory. I have a terrible one when it comes to names. When you see me, there is a good chance that I have forgotten your name, so feel free to remind me even if you think that it would be ridiculous of me to not remember your name. I am the worst. Another thing that you may not know about me is that in my normal life I am very submissive. If you ever encounter me at work, you probably have no idea about this one, because I come across as someone who is in charge and a leader that people follow. Part of that is because I have been doing TV and multimedia work for the last 25 years, so I am very confident in my abilities. But outside of work and in relationships, I would much rather be told what to do than have to make decisions on my own. I am capable of being the decision maker but is it not my natural tendency.

Speaking of relationships, I have mentioned in passing on a previous It's My Treat post that I am bi-sexual. That is something that I don't really hide, but it is also something that I do not correct when people assume that I am straight. Little more insight into me is that I tend to lean toward guys when it comes to one off meetups, and I tend to favor women for longer term relationships. Don't know how much of that is a preference or if it has more to do with opportunities. Much easier to find guys to hook up with and women tend to want more of a longer-term thing in my experience. I am open to both for both, but that is just my experience.

In truth, I am not sure how much I am up for relationships. I really enjoy being alone, so it would take a lot for someone to be better than what I how I am on my own.

Here is one that very few people know about me: If I had the option to become an attractive woman, I would quickly take that option. I would much rather be that than the guy I am. But this isn't to say that I want to be Brian dressed as a woman. For one I would not be attractive like that, and this world is cruel to unattractive women. But even more than that it isn't about the external, but more the internal. Don't really have the words to express it because I don't talk about it very much. I did write a monologue about it called "I wonder if Elliot Page hates me as much as I hate him." You can see me doing a first reading of it here: youtu.be/rqbXHT0Ner4?si=kIZ5RQO5wsU2G-Fe I am sure there are a lot of things that I left out, but those are a few things that you might not know about me.

Even though I don't usually share things about myself, usually, I am happy to talk about them. Happy Pride Months! The UP Center is getting matching donations until the end of the month, so if you would like to make a donation, get them in by tomorrow. www.unitingpride.org

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