Sometimes I wish I could rip all the feelings inside of me out.

Wait, that’s bad English. I ended with a preposition.

Sometimes, I wish I could just kill all the emotions inside of me with the same smoke bomb that exterminators use to kill mice. I’d simply suffocate all those feelings: disappointment, envy, heartbreak… and if happiness and joy were killed in the process, well ‘tant pis’!!!!

Facebook stalking is like a hangover that continues to get worse...

I Facebook-stalked. I did it. I’m a loser.

I don’t even LIKE going on Facebook, but sometimes, you get that “Hmm, I wonder where/what who/he/she is up to….” feeling. I did. And now I regret it. (Smoke bomb that feeling!) After two months, I FB-stalked South African. I was curious. Wanted to see pictures, remind myself of how pretty he was to look at.

And there he was, in all his shaven-head glory. Sexy, devil-may-care grin under those kind eyes. Taut, outdoor-hewn body of a Greek God. Standing a top a mountain in his climbing gear with a celebratory martini glass in hand. He was part Hugh Jackman, part Most-Interesting-Man-in-the-World.

But what was this? Ah, the NOTES feature. You know that Facebook feature. Friends send notes saying things like “Ten Facts About Me You’d Never Know” and say “If you’ve been tagged, copy and fill this out, blah blah blah suck my toes, pussy tits yada yada yada….” But what was in his NOTES were journal entries he’d written over THREE YEARS.

Three years that included a couple of years with a past girlfriend, various places he’d been, and recipes he really wanted to share. They weren’t deep or personal really, just little journal entries of events that happened during the course of a day.

And although this man really is nothing more than a memory to me now, a faint shadow of a glimmer of hope in a dark room, someone I try to avoid at the gym (good god, we share the same gym!)… at that moment, I felt it again: defeat. Beaten. Unloved.

I tried to shake it off: “Look how good my life is!” “So many things to look forward to!” “I have so many friends!” but behind all that pep is that lump of poor outcome.

Intro: How To Feel F*cked in Two Easy Steps

I try to think about emotions like an actor: “I should remember this feeling for future reference,” “This feeling reminds me that I am alive!” “This feeling is a color on the canvas of my art!” Actors use emotions. We can create imaginary worlds with cans of emotional paint. Emotional connection makes us human, and actors are trained to be conduits of impulse and emotion and instinct and nothing is wrong, all of it is good and we must just allow these ethereal things to pass through us like the good semi-conductors we are.

But sometimes, once in a while, I wish I didn’t feel anything.