My Super Slutty Vacation, Continued...

I spent some of today researching the mythology of the Phoenix and found some cool things. Like the fact that its tears are supposed to heal, and it's supposed to regenerate when wounded, thus making it invincible. Also, in Chinese mythology, the Phoenix (Fenghuang) symbolizes femininity (the Empress) and the balance between ying and yang, and people would hang up images of the Fenghuang outside of their house to signify that people with loyalty and trustworthiness lived there.

I spent the rest of today lounging by the pool. I have to report, it was too hot for me to stay out there for very long, so I'm not significantly more tan than when I started. I'm in LA next weekend and then Hawaii the next, so hopefully I can work on that. I've never been one who wanted to be too dark, but my legs are almost reflective right now, so I've gotta at least make them presentable.

I got all dressed up and went to dinner at this place called Olive & Ivy that came highly recommended by someone at http://www.chowhound.com. It was super pricey and just okay, though the coffee was good. This one waiter who wasn't even my waiter talked with me for a while about having been a semi-pro basketball player in Asia (what is with me and basketball players? Oh yeah, I asked for Baron Davis and the universe is trying...), and he was trying to get off early so he could take me to a bar. I didn't really want to go to a bar with him and be stuck talking to him the whole night, even though he was nice, so I slipped out while he was talking to the manager.

I went over to Borders and got totally engrossed in this book called, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. It's about how everything you need to know about someone or a situation, your adaptive unconscious can figure out accurately within seconds. I've always believed this and have gotten really good about paying attention to these signals, so it was cool to read it from a scientific point of view. The first chapter is about this psychologist in Washington who has figured out an experiment where they can watch a video of a couple discussing something that's a point of contention, and by coding reactions (ie contempt, defensiveness, anger, stonewalling, etc) almost like marital DNA, they can predict with 95% accuracy if a couple will divorce within 15 years by watching an hour's worth of tape, and with 90% accuracy by watching for only 15 minutes. It's all about paying attention to those red flags that we all tend to ignore. He talks about how people are in one of two states within a relationship...if they are in positive sentiment override, positive emotion will override irritability so when the spouse does something bad, they'll excuse it in their minds or let themselves drop it. But if they're in negative sentiment override, even if their spouse says something neutral, the partner will perceive it as negative. So in this state, people draw lasting conclusions about each other so that if their spouse does something positive, they think it's a selfish person doing a positive thing. He says that it's really hard to change those states and those states determine whether when one party tries to repair things, if the other party sees it as an attempted repair or hostile manipulation. He tracks a couples levels of positive and negative emotions, and by graphing them, he can basically tell if the negative will override the positive to the point where down the road, a failure in the partnership is overwhelmingly likely.

I wonder if people became conscious of these negative interactions, if they could change and save their relationship. I'm usually really conscious when I interact with people, like when they're being defensive, or when I'm being defensive or irritable, and how it affects communication. But it takes two people to come to the table, and even if you can point these things out, if the other person won't acknowledge it or won't consciously work on it, the relationship (no matter what capacity it is--love, family, work, friendship, etc) is in trouble. I think any good relationship really requires consciousness and two people who trust each other to want to communicate clearly and really work hard at it when there are negative things in play. Reading that chapter, I realized that, outside of my other personality quirks and flaws, I'm a very good partner in a relationship because of how seriously I take good communication and how conscious I am about it. I'm always dedicated to making communication work and be open. I think I'm in a really good place in my life right now, and available for a very good, positive relationship with someone amazing.

Anyway, long story short, I got really engrossed in the book, so I bought it and now I'm holed up in my hotel room, blogging and reading. I'm not bummed though, because this is the stuff I like to do, and I just didn't feel like going out to a bar, drinking and talking to strange men. Also, I don't need to keep smoking out of boredom. This is enough of a vacation for me, to be able to relax, be alone with my thoughts, listen to music and have a change of environment.

Tomorrow I'm meeting up with a realtor to look at rental real estate in Scottsdale. I don't know if I really wanna buy a place out here. I wonder if, with global warming, it's going to hit like 130 degrees in a few years.