The Daily Durvy

Alex as Buck

… and I like to fuck.

I am a perfectionist.

There. I said it. Not that this is news to anyone that knows me… Spend five minutes in a room with me and you will be subjected to lint picking, and, if there are things hanging on the wall, a long-winded analysis of how perfectly (or not perfectly) aligned each object is.

That being said, Alex and I have been working on a few home-improvement projects for my apartment. And because I cannot paint or put wallpaper featuring Greg Grunberg’s face up or do anything else fun, I have opted to fill every single inch of available wall space with framed art.

(As a side note, I am very picky about the art that I put up. I generally feel weird putting up anything that I didn’t make myself. Which is really stupid, almost as stupid as the Marshmallow Blaster, which is actually stupidly awesome.)

In any event, because I have a Big Strong Man living with me for the summer, I have him do all of the grunt-work. He does the nailing, screwing, hanging, assembling, lifting and arranging. I supervise. And because I am a perfectionist supervising means I watch him like a hawk and make throaty irritated noises every time I think he’s doing some unperfect. Which is a lot, because in addition to being a perfectionist I am also a control freak. Yes, I have a highly trained therapist and an unlimited supply of Prozac, thanks for asking.

Alex is generally a really good sport about the whole thing.

He normally responds with a sort of “I-love-you-but-I’m-about-to-kill-you” look, not unlike a look one might give a child who keeps asking the same question over and over. A look that says “if you want to make it to age 22 you better take your throat noises elsewhere” or perhaps “if you want this relationship to work you best run along and stick your finger in an outlet before I do it for you.” It is a look I get often, and I often am amazed at his restraint when it comes to me. More often than not I am commenting on the straightness of the pictures he has hung or his tendency to fart during otherwise romantic moments or the truly impressive amount of chest hair he has. And he hasn’t killed me. It’s a miracle!

But while I am the neurotic one, he is the charming one, the one who hangs pictures perfectly, especially when I’m not in the same room and preferably when I’m not in the same city.

Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and Billy Mays died. Not that this is new or anything, but I would like to note that when I heard about the first two I couldn’t have cared less. However, when I heard about Billy Mays I was truly upset.

I have no idea why, though I’m guessing it has something to do with my deep-seeded hatred of the 70′s as a decade and Michael Jackson’s face.

Dear God,

If you are listening – well, then I definitely owe my roommate 10 bucks. While she is a stout believer in you and yours, I am not one to pray, as I do not believe in an entity that micromanages my life. But tonight I feel that I need to believe that someone is listening. And even if you aren’t, I still feel like I could benefit from pouring my heart out to the world.

I am not often one who asks for help, nor am I a person who looks to a higher power for answers, but lately I have been wondering if something huge is missing in my life; something on par with religious experiences or the sense of belonging that a religious community can offer. While I do not see myself becoming a pious person by any stretch of the imagination, I can see myself believing in a natural order of Things, and maybe I can even stretch that to a belief in some sort of higher power, whether it be a god or a Mother Nature.

But here I am in my life, at the tender age of 21, and I find myself begging a higher power through prayer. I am not asking for an A on a test or a winning lottery ticket or a negative pregnancy test; rather, I am looking for clarity. Recently in my life I have had a distinct lack of direction and purpose. I have been binging on negative emotions, and pushing myself into a cocoon of despair, and to what end? This is where clarity would serve me well.

It is difficult to just ask for clarity -like asking for a “sign” that things are going well (or poorly)- it is utterly useless because of the open-ended nature. Interpretation is a bitch.

Recently, I have been so stressed out that my life seems to have lost all of its meaning. My therapist recommended that I read “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Frankl, and while it has been useful as a tool in recognizing that my mind is indeed swathed in a sense of purposelessness, it has been less effective in offering me a sense of peace in finding my meaning. Does this sound strange? That my mind is not connecting with a book that is obviously profound and pretty much exactly what I was looking for? Frankl talks about an extensential crisis that I myself am experiencing, yet the solutions he is offering seem to be doing me no good. Frankl advocates for a future-based existence; living for an ultimate goal. He cites patients of his that have survived the darkest of hours because they know that their life’s work – a book they are writing, a child, a loved one –is not yet complete. And while I certainly have loved ones, is that enough purpose? Can my purpose really be wholly invested in another corporeal being? It is not that I do not find meaning in my loved ones, I just feel like my meaning should extend past serving those closest to me. In short, what do I want for me?

That last question, the loaded one, is the most difficult of them all. I have never satisfactorily answered it, and I’m not sure that many people have. While there is small comfort in knowing that I am not alone in my search, it also scares the living Christ out of me; if most people don’t know, will I ever answer that question? I can’t move on in my life knowing that I will never answer that question. I have to believe that I will have an answer… somewhere down the line.

So, god, if you are listening, I am asking for a clear path. I am asking for the knowledge that I will some day answer that final question: that I will eventually know what I want for myself. I am asking for the strength to go on in the interim, and to know that my life is not meaningless- it is just a work in progress. I am asking for clarity on this cool, pleasant night to keep moving on in spite of myself, and eventually to keep moving on because of myself.

Love,
Dev