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12:25 p.m. - 2002-09-05 Being happier and more at home in your skin with a girl than you ever have before is worth a lot. Realizing that the way you talk to people makes them feel a disrespect that you never intend is worth a shitload. Learning the latter at expense of the former is a fucking tragedy. Having the lesson be one you take to heart in order to give up on whatever it is that drives you to act like an asshole, especially when you don�t want to, worth more than the fanciest stuff on earth. Getting a chance to address the problem before you lose what you want is beautiful. Taking that chance when it is already too late is a waste of time. How do you know if it is too late, or if you are giving up too soon? How do you determine whether the things that make you so happy in a relationship are really within your grasp? How can you decide whether what you hope to change will be shed in time to let you outrun the consequences that those scales are producing? Is there a way to produce hope enough for two, even if the hope is for you, the faith is in yourself? Are vague, introspective questions worth the finger movement to type them? I turned one of our customers on to diaryland yesterday. He signed up and asked for my username to plug in the �who referred you� field, but I balked. I don�t think the company would want my diary representing them too much, and frankly I didn�t want him to read it while I was in the next room trimming out his new window. I love that Bean. One of my favorite things about her is that she is not only intelligent, but also educated. I have a long standing resentment with society�s over-appreciation of college education, and no small measure of that comes from my own lack thereof having categorized me as less worthy of respect in many minds. The backlash comes in the form of giving no respect for a diploma until the mind that earned it is proven to me, just like everybody else, but it has apparently been overstated due to my own resentment. A lot of people go to college and gain the campus experience, one that I will never get to live, and that is one of my biggest regrets in life. Many of those people don�t leave with much more than that, but still are automatically respected more than a person who has gained knowledge and skill through working. I have often been disregarded initially because of my lack of education. This has built a resentment that has allowed me to act similarly toward those who have it. This makes me a hypocrite and a bit of a jerk. The thing is, Bean, although I didn�t give her automatic standing for her schooling, earned way more respect from me than most people ever do in very short order. She is not only educated, she is sharp and intelligent, and put her education to more valuable use than the vast majority of folks. Not because she used it as a tool to make big bucks. Not because she went through the motions and skated by in order to be able to say �B.A.�. It�s because she has a real love of subjects and learning and took classes that made her happy to think about new things and opportunity to add to herself through knowledge. Somehow I have misrepresented my view of her with my resentment, my own resentment. Not only has my bias interfered with my ability to give proper respect to people for their accomplishments, but it has retarded my ability to let her know that my respect for her in this regard goes above and beyond what I should have handed out before I grew to know her. I have made her feel bad about her education, that it was a waste of time, that it is useless, that she would have been better off without it. I don�t feel that this is the case. But I have somehow communicated through lack of care, that I do. The most frustrating part about it is that to me she tips the scale in the other direction, but I have been such an ass I have given her the impression that I don�t respect her. It sucks. Mostly because I really do. One of the most valuable things about her to me is that I have always felt like I can trust with anything that I trust myself with. The problem is, how do you explain to someone that you respect them if you have consistently, even if unintentionally, made them feel disrespected? How do you reconcile that when they have tried to communicate that fact to you, you were so caught up in defending yourself from perceived attack on an opinion that you don�t hold, that you were able to completely overlook the fact that something you are doing is making them feel that you do hold it? You hope that you can be smart enough to cut that shit out, for starters.
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