Advance reading copies of the book have arrived. Right into my grubby little hands. I spent a few hours at the bookstore today (and together with a partner in crime, amassed a dozen or so books, many of them for $2 apiece) and remarked on how anything put in book form automatically read so much better. And then magically my manuscript arrived all bound and pretty, and with a cover! This isn't the final version, of course -- that one won't be out for months (with a dedication page for damn sure) -- but it's pretty near complete. Start saving up now kiddies, everyone on your list will need one.

I wonder if I can go public with this thing yet. I mean, my greatest fear whenever a book is getting done is that it's all some big dream and if I reveal anything about it I'll wake up. Okay, keep it real, this has only happened once before. But still. I'm afraid to talk or speak about it because it feels like they can take it back at any point.

But now that the advance proofs are here, they're committed right?

Recently Lilly has said a few times how her world is right again with me and Hong being friends again. Not that we were ever not friends but there have been some strained bits the past year or two, surrounding how I was at work the time I went nutty and also how we all walked out from the job afterward. In those conversations, there was definitely times when trust was a big issue. I think for me, the friendship between guys is hardly much questioned because once you accept a guy friend into your life, like a really good guy friend, the only thing that tends to strain that bond is a girl. Nothing splits guys up like having a girl in the middle.

But in these situations where trust devolves a bit, I squarely believe in acting out of self interest. While, of course, you always cling to your desire to not hurt the other person (and think of their interests as well), when it comes down to it, people need to act out of their own desires and wishes and if both people are honest and truthful about that, a bigger and better friendship will emerge. And right now, in a somewhat similar, but totally different way, James and I are going through a rough patch. And I say "rough" because there is a general lack of closeness that has been brought upon by the current situation and all the ramifications along with it. Whenever we've told anyone about it, one of the first things they'll say is how said it is to see the two of us "broken up."

So in that way, this weekend was wonderful. We had a standard and regular guy's night in (with George) and between the food and the poker and the laughs and the making fun of each other, we found familiarity again. Which is something that years of foundational friendship brings. When I've tried to explain my current feelings about the situation, and how I've been reluctant to engage in interactions with both of them, it's always in this way where I know that we're perfectly fine on the surface levels, but lurking underneath it is an uncomfortability and wariness, from both sides I think.

Only time, and eventual conversation, will heal that but given my current mind state, it's always good to have positive reminders of the way things usually are. Because at the end of the day, your boys will be your boys and the things that could pry you apart generally don't last for too long because male friendships tend to be more resilient than female friendships. If I can make that very broad generalization.

You know what's one of the hard parts of having a significant other? Having to demystify what your relationships with opposite sex friends is all about. And to do it in a kid glove way. "It's totally nothing. Of course I can see how people think she's attractive. But no I'm just not attracted to her." Meanwhile you're strategically neglecting to mention the two months you spent pining away for her last year.

I know, I know. Relationships are all about honesty and openness. However, there's really no safer answer than: "She's just a friend." There's like this telekinetic shield surrounding that statement. Even if the person asking is suspicious, they know they'll have to use that same line at some point so they have to respect the truth (or half-truth) that goes along with it.

If they're going to probe harder than that, they better be prepared to defend themselves at another time. Possibly in the next three seconds. "What about Chuck? He's always touching you. Are you guys 'just friends?'" Sometimes when talking about this stuff, it feels like both parties are playing a particularly volatile game of Bomberman, trying to defuse shit as fast as they can.

When you're not dating someone, if the person asking you is someone you trust, you can usually give a pretty honest answer. "Oh she's super cool. We have this weird kind of vibe that I can't fully describe but yeah, I'm kind of attracted to her." You say shit like that to your significant other and you're liable to get the glare down. Maybe I'm short changing women too much -- or at least my experience with women.

I've heard of couples who willingly talk out loud about their interactions and attractions to other people but personally I've found that it's usually done with a disclaimer right afterwards. "But you're the one for me because..." If you don't say stuff like that, you're a total ass. Trust me, I know. My problem is I'm terrible at giving my girlfriends compliments. I'm tight-fisted with my words of affirmation when I'm dating somebody. (I could probably work on that actually.) However, when I talk about certain other people, I practically gush about how cool they are. To the point sometimes when my girlfriend asks, "Wait, why don't you just date HER?"

"I don't know" or "We're not compatible in that way" usually doesn't suffice. The truth is that sometimes I do know or I think we could be compatible in that way but you can't even say that stuff. I guess what bothers me is that once you lock into a relationship, it's like you have to suddenly act out this play where both of you pseudo-acknowledge that you're both each other's number one choices.

Which is, like, totally not true. Especially at our age. You don't go through all this time without acknowledging the idea that you can be attracted to multiple people (sometimes at the same time). I don't know who's still holding out for the One but it seems rarer and rarer nowadays. And it's not even about the cynics or the jaded people. Holding your hat in your hand waiting for the One seems like something to do in your twenties. In your thirties? Get real.

Of course the question then is why are the two of you dating each other? Aren't we supposed to be dating our number ones? Well, as we all know, it doesn't work like that. Timing, circumstance, distance, unrequited feelings, mistakes, auto-fails, any number of things get in the way of an actual relationship. If we were all trying to date our number ones then there would be a hell of a lot more single people around, right?

There is another paradigm to consider here. Perhaps it's healthiest to just spit out your real thoughts and feelings about the people in your life. Talk about your crushes, indulge in your wicked thoughts, stop tucking away parts of yourself that are important even if they're relationship taboo. It could possibly be liberating. Possibly.

While I may not quite be ready for all that, I am grasping onto the idea of how harmful it can be to constantly downplay my relationships with other people. See, I'm really just promoting jealousy instead of defusing it. You can't use the "she's just a friend" line every time and expect to get away with it. Eventually logic wins out and not everyone is "just a friend." It's misleading and somewhat immature to keep insisting on it, especially taken in concert with the idea that we're of the age when we all know it's hardly always the (whole) truth.

So I should change my tune. If I'm going to pine away for honesty, then I have to be honest, right?

My standard line is that most of the girls I've dated have somehow acquired jealousy issues once we're in a relationship. This is despite me specifically looking for traits that would indicate they wouldn't be jealous. Do they a lot of opposite sex friends? Check. Do they have a guy best friend (who isn't trying to sleep with them)? Check. Are they emotionally capable of handling a few grey area friendships? Check. All this ground work but it still always goes to shit. Hang on now, once a sucker, twice a sucker, three times or more maybe it's you! You meaning me.

Basically what I'm beginning to come to terms with is the idea that "It's me, not you(her)." And I'm starting to finally see all the little things I do that that create a culture of insecurity and jealousness. For awhile I was convinced it was them -- them meaning girls. I was pretty certain that all girls must be like this; despite rumors of a parallel universe of girls who aren't like "that."

While I'm sure that parallel universe exists, I've got no time to sit around waiting for it to find me. I have a hell of a lot of things I need to work on myself. That's why I'm trying to stay single for awhile. I'm trying to take ownership of how my personality shapes the awful parts of relationships I'm in. There must be something I do that pushes fear and instability into my relationships.

And when I find that something I will slap it around a little and then maybe give it a quick hug.

You know how people are constantly evaluating how far in life they've come versus the traditional idea of success, etc? Well, those things can pretty much be distilled down to five general categories. Career, family, relationships, friends, and miscellaneous. That last one is tricky because it could be totally different for everyone. Health, religion, general state of being, comparison to peers, whatever.

Basically what I'm going to do in my head is assign 0-2 point values to each of the five categories and see what a particular person's happiness/life rating would be out of ten. Oh, and maybe minus points would be allowed for, you know, big minuses.

So I'm currently at a nice even 5/10 on this scale. Career (1), Family (1), Relationships (0), Friends (2), Misc (1). After giving some thought on it this weekend and batting this matrix around a little, we found a few people who might rank a nifty 9/10 on here. Okay, maybe just one or two people. Plus we're on the outside looking in so it's hard to tell if someone is really happy or not.

But that's kind of the point of this exercise, it's all about being on the outside looking in. When people are like "Oh, so how's so-and-so doing?" They are generally asking about these five things. I believe that if you can score a 8/10 by the time you're forty or so, you can say you've succeeded in life. And then maintain and try to cope. Or you know, just get crazy and wild.

Some guy developed the Oxford Happiness Inventory which is supposed to measure psychological well-being. From Wikipedia it says, "This measures happiness as an aggregate of self-esteem, sense of purpose, social interest and kindness, sense of humor and aesthetic appreciation." I'm not sure what these things have to do with happiness in the traditional sense but they seem interesting. Apparently this has been critiqued because it lacks a "theoretical model of happiness."

I'd like to research this some more and find out what other models of happiness exist. Here's one called the Emotional Quality Model and something called A Model of Happiness.

Tin Man: I had a dream the other day where I was at a hockey game or something and an ex-girlfriend and her husband showed up.

The Wizard: They live in San Diego now, are you sure it didn't actually happen?

Tin: San Diego doesn't have a hockey team. It's totally impossible. It was definitely a dream.

Wiz: Incredible. Go on.

Tin: So what happens is that we greet each other like perfectly normal people and then we start talking. Actually the whole time I was just talking to him, for like half an hour. We've never even officially said "Hi" before. And then afterwards we all went outside and had to run away from blue and red colored knights. But I woke up feeling like we just had a really good meaningful interaction.

Wiz: I'm gonna guess here that maybe your brain is telling you that maybe you should meet up. Isn't that your take home lesson?

Tin: Well actually, I feel like that's probably not going to happen but at the same time it feels like we already did the whole meet and greet thing.

Wiz: This might sound stupid but what's actually preventing you from hanging out?

Tin: That's the mystery, although it's no mystery. The last time we actually had a real in person conversation was probably right before I walked out the door and didn't stick around to actually talk.

Wiz: That was like six or seven years ago.

Tin: It feels like yesterday.

Wiz: Everything feels like yesterday. Get over it.