I know that I will not achieve any great level of happiness, wholeness, or intimacy by engaging in random sexual encounters, or really any outside of a loving, serious relationship. To really help summarize my thoughts on sex, I will defer to Ayn Rand, in Atlas Shrugged (I have abridged it a bit):

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"Do you know of your own first-hand knowledge that I spend my life running after women?
"You've never denied it."
"Denied it? I've gone to a lot of trouble to create that impression."
"Do you mean to say it isn't true?"
"Do I strike you as a man with a miserable inferiority complex?"
"Good God, no!"
"Only that kind of man spends his life running after women."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you remember what I said about money and about the men who seek to reverse the law of cause and effect? The men who try to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind? Well, the man who despises himself tries to gain self-esteem from sexual adventures - which can't be done, because sex is not the cause, but an effect and an expression of a man's sense of his own value."
"You'd better explain that."
"Did it ever occur to you that it's the same issue? The men who think that wealth comes from material resources and has no intellectual root or meaning, are the men who think - for the same reason - that sex is a physical capacity which functions independently of one's mind, choice or code of values. They think that your body creates a desire and makes a choice for you - just about in some such way as if iron ore transformed itself into railroad rails of its own volition. Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself...He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience - or to fake - a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer - because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut...He does not seek to gain his value, he seeks to express it. There is no conflict between the standards of his mind and the desires of his body. But the man who is convinced of his own worthlessness will be drawn to a woman he despises...Observe the ugly mess which most men make of their sex lives - and observe the mess of contradictions which they hold as their moral philosophy. One proceeds from the other. Love is our response to our highest values - and can be nothing else...His body will always follow the ultimate logic of his deepest convictions; if he believes that flaws are values, he has damned existence as evil and only the evil will attract him. He has damned himself and he will feel that depravity is all he is worthy of enjoying. He has equated virtue with pain and he will feel that vice is the only realm of pleasure...What glory can there be in the conquest of a mindless body?"
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I will not chase my desires, nor let my instincts govern my choices. Rather, I will only commit my body to a purpose that my mind and heart have already joined. Temptations will never end, and so we must ask ourselves why we give into those temptations that do us no good. If we are true and honest, it comes down to insecurity, fear, and ignorance, in my opinion (the idea of "filling a hole").

Searching for internal serenity through external things is completely illogical. No amount of sex, smoking, drinking, drugs, or other addictions will ever make one feel complete. It is like treating an infection with pain medications. Although the medications will help ease the pain temporarily, by distracting a person, making them numb, the infection will not only subsist, but spread. Eventually, treating the symptom instead of the problem may even cause loss of life. In the same way, seeking addictions and external pacifiers to replace one's self-discipline end up destroying a person from the inside out.

I have done things of which I am not proud. I can not go back and change these. But, I can use my experiences to inspire me, and to improve myself, and therefore my overall quality of life, both now, and in the future.

Training Log
Bicycle

Road the mountain bike dt to do work at Coho/campus, then back. Nothing major.

Still looking for a road bike.

Legs feel beat up today from swim/run/bike within 24 hrs.
Might take tomorrow as an off day to recover.

Oh Xanga, my long lost friend. How I have abandoned thee. And so much have I to tell you.

I don't know how much will be public, but we WILL talk soon, Xanga.