Confession time, folks.

I must have spent close to an hour staring at my computer screen, waiting for words to spontaneously ooze from my brain meats, travel down to my fingers, and then transfer to the blank Word document. Despite my protest, that didn't happen.

Originally I was going to discuss some drama that I experienced this past week at work, but I decided against it for the time being; while I have no problem talking about the incident, I do know that a few of my co-workers have access to my Facebook and thus my blog, and it wouldn't do to make a bad situation worse by talking about it. So as the great Bard Billy Shakespeare once said, "Seal up your lips and give no words but mum." 

"Preach on, brother."

You get bonus points if you can tell me which of Shakespeare's works that line comes from without using google or wikipedia.

So with my first idea for a blog entry cancelled, I found myself in the vexing situation of wanting to write, but having no subject matter. That is sadly an all too common occurrence with me; the spirit is willing, but the brain sucks a Krogan Quad.

"Go on..."

With that being said, I thought I'd give a general update on what's been going on in the insanely awesome world of Darren.

To summarize, the only awesome thing happening in my world right now is me. Everything else seems to have decided to get together and SUCK. I know I throw that word and others of its ilk around a lot, but I really mean it this time. Things are pretty bad right now.

In the order of the least SUCKTASTIC to the most:

1. My social circle has been cut in half. One of the few friends I have in this city is moving to Spokane, the armpit of Washington State, to go to college. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled he has a goal that he seems to be passionate about, but it kind of sucks for me. He's a recluse who has no problems spending everyday indoors playing video games or browsing the interwebs, so he'll be fine with friends. I, on the other hand, am a social animal (I know, right? Who knew?).

2. My financial situation becomes more and more untenable; student loan repayments, rent, bills, and food are sucking my paychecks up faster than I can save them. As it stands, I don't have the money for all the things I desperately need, such as my own place or a car. Looks like I'll be living went family for years to come.

3. My creative well seems to have dried up for the most part. I'm sitting on a few short stories that aren't going anywhere. Hell, even writing the blog has been difficult, as you can plainly see from the wide gap between updates. I try to power through and write something, but nothing happens. I feel...thin. Sort of stretched, like butter scrapped over too much bread. I need a holiday, guys. A very long holiday.

"That's MY line!"

Which brings me to:

4. The Thanksgiving Disaster. The whole family (My mother, older brother, younger brother, his girlfriend and their three kids, and yours truly) decided to go and visit my Grandma down in our home town of Kansas City, Mo. I cannot express the disdain I feel for that city. The sheer, venomous loathing that wells up from the pit of my stomach.

Kansas City is a disgusting cesspool filled with every negative black stereotype you've ever heard of, and some you haven't; ignorant thug wannabe's gleefully run the streets mugging and robbing folks for whatever they have. The public school system is an absolute disgrace; I was considered a nerd by the other students because I managed a C average in the brief 10 months I went to High School there before my Mother wisely decided we should move back to Alaska before I was killed. And no, I'm not joking; I had a gun pulled on me 14 times *on school property* by various knuckle-dragging primates determined to prove how tough and cool they were.

I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea. I will sum up by saying this: Kansas City is a filthy pile of concrete and has the highest homicide rates in the entire country. It's worse than Detroit and lacks the star power.

Had Obi-wan ever visited Kansas City, he would have revised his opinion of Mos Eisley.

"You will never find a more pleasant neighborhood of polite, honorable heroes. And the housing market is excellent."

As you can imagine, my enthusiasm for returning to the city of my birth was nil. I can honestly say that every time I set foot in that city, bad things happen. And my streak continued. While we were there, my Little Brother managed to piss off and basically alienate the entire family, my three month old niece caught pneumonia and had to be rushed to the ER, I only managed about 9 hours of sleep the entire four days I was there, and my Grandpa's wallet was stolen.

5. And finally, the reason for our trip: my Grandma doesn't have much time. For 10 years now, she's been fighting a losing battle with cancer. She's been holding out well, but it seems it's gotten worse. Now she's feeling pain where there was none before. And she's tired. We can all see it; the only reason she continues chemo is for our sake.

Last week she had to go to the ER because she was having trouble breathing. Her red blood cell count was low, and there was signs of internal bleeding. She had to have a blood transfusion, and thankfully they found the source of the bleeding and fixed it. But things are grim. I honestly don't know if I'll ever see her again. But I suppose that's just existential truth.

So, that's pretty much it! A lot of stuff going on in the life of Me, and almost all of it SUCKS. I'm trying that thing where I'm positive and wait for the shit storm to blow over. It's difficult; my positive muscles are not unlike the fat kid in gym class who was forced to run a mile by himself because all the other kids managed to finish theirs a half an hour earlier.

That was a lot of depressing, unhappy subject matter, so here's a picture of an adorable kitten. Don't say I never did anything for you.

The Worst Mistake

Going to college is without a doubt the worst mistake I've ever made.

I didn't want to go originally. In fact, I had planned on avoiding it. But a good friend of mine convinced me that not going to college would doom me to a life coasting from shit, low paying job to shit, low paying job. In fact, I remember his exact words: "Dude, you can either spend the rest of your life working some shitty minimum wage job, or you can go to college."

That ill-fated conversation still rings in my head to this day. So thanks for that. You know who you are.

But once I seriously considered the idea, I grew excited.

Like many an ignorant youth, I was brought up on the idea that going to college would be good for me; a great education, new friends, some parties, and as a cherry on top of that supposed Awesome Sundae, I would receive a shiny piece of paper proclaiming to world the incredible might of my brain meat.

Afterwards, employment opportunities would rain from the heavens, money would flow freely, and I could live happily ever after flying around the world in my private jet.

That sounds awesome, right? Of course it does.

What I got was the exact opposite of awesome. The college scene is highly exaggerated. Being the simpleminded youngster I was, I didn't realize that. But I quickly discovered my ideas of higher education were *ahem* flawed. My classes, rather than being the fonts of wisdom I envisioned, were for the most part a big waste of time and money; especially money, but I'll get to that. I can honestly say that within a week of the semester ending 80% of the information I learned in nearly all of my classes seeped out of my ear like rancid snot. I don't know whose at fault for that colorful imagery; the American Education System, the inability of my professors to motivate me to really learn the material, or the fact that I could give two fucks about some bullshit required course that had no meaning to my life goals and would have exactly zero usefulness in that frightening place adults called the Real World.

Regardless, I found myself increasingly dissatisfied with my education.

The social scene was little better than it was in high school; I found a small group of people who shared my interests and clung to them like the neediest sloth to the worlds most comfortable branch. Outside of that tiny circle, I associated with people as little as possible. So just like high school, I was in a clique. And so was everyone else for that matter., so nothing new there.

And worse of all, I got no shiny piece of paper. Yes folks, I never graduated.

There are a myriad of reasons (or excuses) why I never got my Magic Paper of Awesome. And since I know you're interested, I'll share. Aren't I such a nice guy?

Reason the First: The administration was complete shit. All they were good for was near constant increases in tuition and every other little added fee they could slip in; the price of housing, the meal plan with its inedible swill, the on-campus activities and events all went up in price and down in quality. And any major decision was met with delay after delay. If I didn't know better, I could have sworn that the university was being run by congress.

All in favor of as inept as humanly possible, say "Aye."

Reason the Second: The Hiring Freeze. During a ghastly three semesters, we were without an official Technical Theatre professor. That might not sound like such a big deal, except that I was a theatre major and I kinda need my technical theatre credits! How cool does it sound to have to sit and wait for the Admin's to get their shit together and provide the students with a teacher so they can complete their major?! Stage Construction, Lighting Design, Sound Design, and Production were all things I needed to learn, and yet could not.

Reason the Third: I didn't need college for my career goal. Ever since I stumbled into my first drama class in middle school, I've wanted to be an actor. Naturally, being young and dumb, I figured the next logical step after high school productions would be college. It wasn't until I faced my pointless delay in receiving my technical theatre credits did I realize that I didn't actual need a degree to act. I had at that point been acting fairly regularly in shows around town. It then hit me that the best way to learn how to act was to go out and act. Audition, work on monologues, see plays, and read.
Don't get me wrong, I did learn how to act while in college; I took every acting class offered, and then some. I had great professors who taught me how to come out of my shell and really perform. But looking back, I could have done that without enrolling in college and wasting thousand of dollars struggling to fulfill course requirements that were unnecessary.

So I quit. And now I suffer the consequences of my foolishness in the form of student loan payments.

My college career has racked up quite the bill, and I now find myself being slowly crushed under the weight of all that debt. Like poor Atlas forever condemned to bear the weight of the celestial sphere, I feel that I'll be forced to endure a life time of this nightmare. For years I've been going through one crap job after another, unable to afford payments; some years, eating and making the rent has been a challenge. And of course, as I run and hide from my doom, it persists, eternally the Pepe Le Pew to my Penelope Pussycat.

Dealing with this debt is causing me serious anxiety, and I don't know how much of it I can take. I'm so sick and tired of having the Sword of Damocles looming over my head. As it stands now, rent, bills, food and transportation plus my loans leaves me barely able to live, let alone save money. And if something serious comes up, like a trip to the hospital or an early release of Kingdom Hearts 3, I'm absolutely boned.

And I have no real options.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Autumn is officially here. The air is crisp with the precursor to winters chill. The trees weep tears of gold and orange and brown. This is probably my favorite time of year; wrapping myself up snug in a blanket, with a mug of hot chocolate in one hand and a good book in the other, I feel more relaxed than at any other time of year. I also get reflective, as I'm sure many others do. So I find myself contemplating years past and dreams unfulfilled. I have a question for you:

What do you want to be when you grow up?

When I was a child, I wanted to be an environmental scientist. At the time, Captain Planet was my favorite television show. I'd record every episode on vhs tapes and watched them over and over and over again. I'm pretty sure my mom got sick of me running around the house, yelling "go planet!" at all hours. I'd give stern lectures to the neighborhood kids about the selfishness of littering, of how their waste was killing the planet.

As you can imagine, I didn't make many friends.

Time went by, and I mostly grew out of that phase. Or rather, I just became more subtle. I realized after a while that no one likes being preached at, no matter how worthy the cause; get in peoples faces enough, and they'll eventually hate whatever you endorse. After all, no one likes being told what to do and how to think.

Eventually I changed my mind about becoming an environmental scientist (whatever that is); while I slipped the bonds of sheer fanaticism, I'm happy to say that I didn't loss the desire to save the world. I still care about the environment, and as a result am far less anthropocentric than the majority of people I know. Anthropocentrism is one of the roots of my misanthropy, but that's a rant for another day.

When I was in middle school, and just entering my teen years, I joined a drama class on a lark (and by lark, I mean I needed a creative arts credit) and discovered the grand world of acting. And during that year, my desire changed.

"When I grow up," I thought to myself. "I want to be an actor."

In that nearly forgotten drama class, I discovered a side of myself that I was previously unaware of. For the first time since I was little hell raiser, I had found something I could be passionate about again. In a play, I could fall into someone else's life; like a shapeshifter, I could assume a different form. I could be a king, or a murderer or beggar or a god. At times it was hard. But it was always fun.

I carried that passion with me when I went to high school. I fell in with the theatre nerds, and felt right at home. It was a wonderful time in my life; my greatest concern was getting to class on time, and cramming for a random test that I had forgotten about (ignored) until the day before. After classes ended, it was off to the theatre department to rehearse or goof off. It was good times.

College was a rude awakening for me. My faith in my acting ability was cracked when I witnessed people with far greater ability than myself perform; I was a guppie transported to a large lake, a lake with much bigger and hungrier fish. It was also in college that I discovered that awful truism that serves to shake the foundation of so many young actors: the business is a ruthless, cutthroat entity. Actors good and bad, with talents great, small and nonexistent all desperately struggled to climb to the top, to get roles and recognition.

Most don't.

Still, I held my own for a good long while. At first I auditioned and auditioned, only to be rejected time and time again. After a while, as my craft was polished and I became more skilled, I was cast in roles. Some bigger than others, but I was acting.

My downfall came once I allowed the prospects of going out into the cold, harsh world and plying my trade, of joining the rat race, of being lined up in a potentially endless parade of cattle calls and being judged suitable for a role based solely on how I looked or how tall I was or any number of details get the best of me. I let fear slip into my heart and take root.

And like that, I abandoned my second passion.

Oh, it's still there, burning like a feeble ember in a vast darkness. But I don't seem to have the courage to breath on it; doing so would mean having to actually try, and that's out of the question. My inner C-3PO keeps spouting the odds of success, and my inner Han Solo is absent, probably off somewhere making out with my inner Leia or shooting Greedo or whatever that charming bastard does when he isn't telling inner C-3PO to shut the hell up. Han is an ass.

Look at this smug bastard.

So what do I want to be when I grow up? At this point, I honestly don't know.

Tomorrow, September 18th, is the anniversary of my birth. That's right, it's my birthday. I'll be 31 years old. It's strange; I'm not filled with the bittersweet feeling that has accompanied my birthdays the past few years. This year I'm just..introspective.

 Since my 28th birthday, I've experienced a kind of panic whenever September came around; it was at that time that I realized how much of my youth I'd been wasting. It embarrasses me to write this, but I'd been in college off and on for around a decade, and had nothing to show for it. Well, I guess I shouldn't use past tense, because I still have nothing to show for it. Okay, that's not completely true; my 10 years of higher education did gift me with around $50,000 in debt, and a mountain of interest that continues to add to it.

The point is, I started experiencing what I can only describe as a panic depression, a weird fusion of the frantic desire to do something NOW and a crushing sense of defeatism; desperately trying to cram some life and good experiences won't make up for the fact that I had less time on this Earth than I did a year ago, or ten years ago when I was a fresh-faced high school graduate who had the entire world before him and the indomitable will to accomplish anything.

How the hell did I become so world weary without actually doing anything?

We fast forward to the present day. I'm sitting here, contemplatively absorbing the fact that today is last day of my 30th year; on Wednesday, September 18th at 2:23pm, I will have officially aged another year. And I have nothing to show for it. Just more of the same.

You can relax, I'm not about to slip into some "woe is me, woe is me" pity party. I think I've already mentioned that I'm done with those.

For once, I'm not sinking down into the murky depths of the past. Rather, I'm pondering the future, and what I want to do with myself. You see, I have this aversion to what most people call the Real World.

Best. Show. Ever.

The Real World involves waking up and dragging yourself to a job that you probably don't care about to do menial tasks that, in the grand scheme of things, don't really matter. You spend 8 hours of your day doing this distasteful whatever and then, exhausted, you shuffle zombie style back to your dwelling, where you spend the next few hours "relaxing" before you go to bed to get not enough rest so you can do it again the next day. You dance to this tune day in and day out, your only hope that distant beacon of light called the Weekend. You spend all of your energy striving for that glorious reprieve from the tedium, and once that shiny ray of light is finally in your grasp, it vanishes in the blink of an eye. And you're right back where you started.

You spend 5 days of the week striving for the last two, and in the meantime life passes you by.

And you'll probably follow this pattern for the rest of your adult life until you either retire, hit the lottery, or die.

This is my perception of it anyway. Perhaps I've made it seem bleaker than it is. After all, that doesn't account for people who genuinely, truly love their job or feel passionate about it. Those lucky few are truly blessed. The majority of us are not so fortunate.

For as long as I can remember, I've been deathly afraid of the Real World. I don't want to spend the rest of my life struggling at some job that I hate. I don't want to wake up one morning to discover that I'm 80 years old and I'm nearly out of time, while I wasted all of my youth and energy amassing money for trinkets and toys. I've seen how that movie ends; my own mother works 11 hour days, five days a week, and has nothing to show for it.

I can see myself all too easily falling into the same trap.

This represents the Real World, and your foot represents your hopes, dreams, youth, and energy.

It is far too easy to grow complacent. Complacency is one of the more deadly traps the Real World throws at you. You fall into a set routine and before you know it, tomorrow is your birthday. You blink in wide-eyed astonishment as that fact hits home: you are one year older, and that much closer to the end of the race.

The only escape from the Real Worlds' trap, the one thing that will bridge the gap between mere survival and truly living is finding something that you love, something that you're passionate about, something that really interests you, and doing it. Don't let little niggling fears and doubts and haters get in your way; most people are miserable and will do everything in their power to bring you down to their level. The worst thing you can do is let them.

This shiny ray of brilliant optimism has been brought to you by your Friendly Neighborhood Black Man. Don't forget to tip your waitress.

PAX! :O

I can think of no better way of spending a sunny Monday afternoon than doing what I do best: being a huge gamer geek. And I can think of no better way of being a huge gamer geek then doing so at PAX!

Just in case someone who happens to stumble onto this blog doesn't know what PAX is (I can't imagine such a thing) I'll tell you. The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) is a series of gaming festivals held in Seattle, Boston, and Melbourne, Australia. It was designed to give equal attention to Console Games, PC Games, and Tabletop Games. In these glorious conventions, gamers of all shapes (mostly round) and sizes (mostly LARGE) can come together and check out the latest games, play demos, collect loot, attend tabletop tournaments, and have an awesome time.

Until today, I've never had the pleasure of attending PAX; being dirt poor, I could hardly afford a plane ticket out of Alaska and a hotel for the weekend. Now that I'm no longer living in Alaska, and am no longer dirt poor, it was a simple matter of spending the $30 for a day pass and recruiting an awesome friend to give me a lift to and from the Washington Convention Center to experience what cruel circumstance has denied me for far too long.

Upon arriving, I had an epic nerdgasm.

One box of tissue paper and a change of pants later, I was ready to go. All about, people moved to and fro, going from gaming booth to gaming booth. The constant buzz of conversation competed with the ambient melody of computerized Pings and Bleeps. It was beautiful.

Not having access to a map (those apparently disappear within a few hours of opening on the first day), I spent the first hour and a half exploring, attempting to get my bearings while working on a plan of attack. With six floors across at least two buildings, I had my work cut out for me. I'm fairly certain that I missed out on a bunch of stuff despite my efforts.

For 6 hours, I experienced the glory that is PAX. I stood in lines for everything; whether it be for food, merch booths, game demos, or the disturbingly sticky floors of the restrooms, there will be lines. As someone who hates lines, I was surprised that I didn't mind waiting that much. It was all part of the PAX experience. Plus it afforded me plenty of opportunities to do another thing that I love: people watch. People are fascinating, for obvious reasons. Gamers, even more so. During my time there, I saw:

~ Boba Fett, his arm linked with Princess Leia's (in her slave outfit, of course), who in turn held the hand of an adorable young padawan learner.

~A guy dressed like Deadpool running through the crowds, slinging cheesy one-liners, and actually eating a freaking chimichanga.

~ Countless attractive (and hideous) females dressed as various anime characters, sexy maids, video game characters, and things I honestly have no names for.

~ A table flip. An honest-to-gods table flip. I happened to be passing by the Magic: The Gathering gaming tables when one high spirited neckbeard bellowed in rage and flipped his table, much to laughter of myself and countless others. He was asked to leave; I wanted to offer him a drink in thanks for the entertainment.

~ Vast seas of bean bag lounge areas where folks could take a load off and game on handhelds. But no plopping is allowed.

 Beyond the people watching was the actual game demos. Due to my tendency to wander, as well as the length of some of the lines, I didn't play as many demos as I would have liked. But unless you were fortunate enough to snag a 4 day pass, I doubt anyone got to play all the games they would have liked.

I tried out some of the latest greatest from the big wigs:

~I jumped on Final Fantasy XIV for a couple of 20 minute intervals throughout my visit. It was fun; what can I say about an MMORPG that isn't already known. I will say that it successfully rekindled my itch to play an MMO, as well has my desire to play a good Final Fantasy game (Fuck off, XIII). I *may* give the game a try once I pick up a PS3.

~ I got a glimpse of the much anticipated Beyond: Two Souls. In BTS, you play a girl who has a psychic link with some kind of entity. It can possess enemies, produce telekinetic shields, and a variety of other effects. It's looking like I will be picking this game up in October.

~ Wolfenstein, which is a game about an alternative Earth where the Nazi's won WWII using crazy cyber tech. It takes place in the 1960's and has an awesome atmosphere.

~ Elder Scrolls Online. Wow. I only got to play for about 15 minutes; the Bethesda Security Goons are strict about time. With people in the hundreds waiting in line to try the game out, I guess I can't blame them (grumble). I'm still iffy about an MMO Elder Scrolls, but from what I got to play, it will be a blast once it's complete.

~ Dying Light. A really cool looking zombie survival horror with a heavy focus on freerunning. It was fun. and worth the wait in line. 'Nuff said.

I took my time and went to the XBOX One and PS4 sections. Surprisingly, there was a decent crowd at the XBOX One, despite the recent *ahem* unpopular system design choices and alacritous retraction. I will hand it to them, they have some pretty cool looking exclusives coming out:

~ Killer Instinct, a remake of the classic SNES fighting game, looks freaking sick. Seeing it revamped with the latest graphics brought a nostalgic tear to my eye. I think I'm past my desire to play arcade style fighter games; with the exception of the occasional Soul Caliber match, I've pretty much outgrown them.

~ Battlefield 4 was clogged full of nerds for the entire time I was there, so I didn't get a chance to play. But I did watch a few rounds, and it's looking pretty nice. If you're into FPS, that is.

 I just hope for their sake that those exclusives are good enough to overcome the extra $100  hurdle compared to the PS4.

In addition I got to check out some  awesome Indie Games. A few stick out in my mind:

~ Delver's Drop, a 2D action RPG based around three characters trying to escape an ever-shifting dungeon.

~ Aztez, a game that combines a compelling combination of turn based strategy and real-time beat'em up violence.

~ Assault Android Cactus, a really fun and engaging twinstick arena shooter. I lost track of time and blew close to an hour playing this game.


So what did I take away from my very first PAX? You mean besides playing a bunch of awesome games and being able to fully immerse myself in glorious nerd culture? Of being able to bask in the aura of gamer geekdom?

Shirts.

I became a shirt whore at PAX; I can't count how many lines I stood in or the number of newsletters I signed up for or the number of games I preordered (and promptly cancelled once I was out of sight) on amazon, all for the promise of a shirt. You see, game companies have two sure fire methods of attracting interest and potential future customers at PAX. 1) An astonishing number of attractive females acting as lures for salivating nerds, attracting them into their devious clutches like BBQ attracts black people (It's okay if I say it), and 2) Free shit. Key chains, posters, stickers, and SHIRTS. Shirts galore! You get free clothes, and in exchange they get to use you as walking advertisement for their product. Everyone wins!

So I got shirts. By my count, I have 15 new additions to my wardrobe. All for the price of NOTHING. Damn I love PAX!

I need a project!

So this is going to be a relatively quick post; it's almost midnight, and another exciting work week begins tomorrow.

Lately, I've had this persistent itch...

No, not that kind. I mean this weird, restless desire to do something creative. Something above and beyond thinking up blog posts to give all three of the people who read it a quick and amusing glimpse into the life and thought process of yours truly.

It was inevitable, really. I know too many of these damn creative types; musicians, artists, actors, and writers are pretty much all I associate with. Granted, none of these people are actually *around* me, but whatever. And even beyond personal affiliations, there are all over the interweb cool, hip individuals letting their creative juices leak out of their smug, brilliant heads. They are doing web comics and vlogs, Video Game Let's Plays and movie reviews. They blunder about crafting memes, and in general, make the lives of social rejects such as myself a little brighter.

The point, dear lads and lassies, is that I find myself in need of a serious creative outlet. I need a project! I need something right-brained (yes, I know the left/right brain thing has been disproved) to bring balance to my current state, which is pretty meh, to be honest.

The only problem is that I have absolutely no ideas for cool, hip projects. However, I do have an overabundance of BLAH, so maybe it will work out.

A Tale of the Dreaded Friend-Zone.

Well, dreaded for guys, at any rate; I've rarely encountered a group of women standing around, complaining about being friendzoned by the hot guy who lives on the fourth floor. Or maybe they do, and they just practice a rare and valuable ninja art called Subtle. Perhaps it happens to women just as often as men, but men don't know about it because we are poor listeners and sexist pigs and *insert gender bias here*

Maybe, but I doubt it.

It wasn't my idea to upload an entry about this subject; the number of blogs featuring the angsty, despairing wails of antisocial neckbeards incapable of speaking to any female who isn't their mom could well reach into the hundreds of billions; I have no desire to contribute to that unwashed mess. However, a friend of mine who keeps insisting that I write about stuff (Gods, it's as if she actually cares about my aspirations of being a world famous novelist or something...) suggested that this tale I'm about to unfold would make for a great blog entry; the fact that she hasn't heard this story yet doesn't seem to matter, so here we go.

This miserable tale of woe takes place in May, right around Mother's Day. Since the beginning of 2013, I had been talking with this girl, let's call her Jenny, via online messaging. I met her on OKCupid, one of the countless online dating sites that have popped up like weeds in the interweb's prize garden. I've never been a fan of the online dating thing; I've seen and heard too many horror stories about them, involving everything from dudes pretending to be chicks, to dudes pretending to be chicks pretending to be dudes. I prefer to actually meet the woman in person first; I know, I'm weird...

But I figured, what the hell? I'm in a new city, I have zero friends, and am perpetually Forever Alone, so I might as well give it a try. Plus I know people who have done the online thing and met with great success. What could go wrong?

Anywho, I had been talking to Jenny for a few months via messaging; we'd have yet to meet in person. Our profiles on OKC were pretty closely in sync; a 93% compatibility is nothing to sneeze at (if you're the type who cares for that sort of thing). We had a lot in common; a love of reading, taste in similar movies, cartoons, etc. Plus she was hip to current nerd pop culture, a quality that's very important in a woman. Right up there with boobs.

The only problem was, I had no interest in her as a prospective mate. You didn't see that one coming, did you?

When we first started communicating, I had made it abundantly clear that I was not looking for a relationship. Now, you probably think that's a weird stance to take while surfing an online dating site, and you might be right. But OKC has this little section where you get to spell out what your are looking for on the site; not everyone is after relationships, or even a date. At the time, I was looking for friends and activity partners.

No, not those activities, you perverts. Get your minds out of the gutter. I wasn't looking for *ahem* casual fun time either. Just friends.

I mentioned this fact to her, and she said she was fine with it. We spent the next four months or so chatting,  and when we met up a week before Mother's Day, it was for the sole purpose of hanging out as friends.
We went out to a local bar, had some drinks, and talked. It was a lot of fun, and even though I have little interest in alcohol, I had a good time.

So let's jump forward to Saturday, May 11th. The day before Mother's Day. I was invited by Jenny to go bar hopping out in Bellevue. The plan was to spend a few hours running around downtown Bellevue, do some dancing, people watch, and then retire for the night. Jenny had made her couch available to me for the night, and on the morrow she would drive me back home.

Before I go any further, I want to say two things. First, I need to reiterate that I was NOT looking for anything other than friendship from Jenny. She knew it, and I knew it. Second, I am not the most observant person when it comes to recognizing signals. I once point blank told a hottie who insisted that she knew me from somewhere that I did not in fact know her from anywhere, and that she must be mistaken. In the background, my friends where groaning, slapping their heads, and silently calling me an idiot. One even went so far as to pound his forehead repeatedly into the bar top once the dejected hottie vacated my presence. My friends mocked and ridiculed me for months after that. And they were right to do it.

That second point is important, because *I* noticed her putting the moves on me. And if I notice it, it must be horribly obvious to all. Throughout the evening, she:

~ Played with her hair, twirling it around her finger while giving me sultry looks with eyes that smoldered.

~ Made a point of touching my arm or leg as often as possible.

~ Laughed at every one of my stupid jokes and idiotic ramblings. And there were a lot; Stupid and idiotic make up 80% of my sentences on any given day.

In addition to those telltale signals, there were other, more obvious signs that something was up.

~ At one point, we had entered the first of many bars. I'm paraphrasing, but she said something along the lines of, "I'm going to have to stick by you; if I leave a man as good looking as you standing around for even a minute, you'll be surrounded by women trying to get in your pants."

~ Later, when we had stopped by a cool little spot to get some food, our waitress, a smoking hot blonde, paused and sized us up. Again I'm paraphrasing, she said, "You two are really cute together. I like this." That part was fine, but what wasn't fine was the way Jenny took that opportunity to reach out and take my hand. It was awkward, to say the least.

~ As we headed back to her place, she was having a hard time walking; a few hours dancing in heels will do that to anyone, I guess. Taking off her heels, she then leaned on my shoulder for support. I guess that one could be an innocent gesture, right? You would be correct, if you disregarded the ever so subtle butt rub she offered in thanks.

Once the night was over, and she had retired to her room while I awkwardly tried to go to sleep on her couch (I HATE sleeping in an unfamiliar place), I reflected on the evenings events. I knew things would come to a head soon.

And I was right.

It was the next day, Mother's Day, May 12th. She had graciously drove me home that morning. The conversation was subdued; I hoped it was just because she was recovering from a night of drinking and dancing. Once I arrived home, I showered, did a little studying for a Math exam I had the following day, and then the family and I were taking my Mom out to eat. Because, you know, Mother's Day.

On the way to the steakhouse (it's always a steakhouse), I got a text from Jenny. It read: "After last night, I realized something. I realized that I really don't want to be your friend. I want  to be more than that. And I know that's not possible. For the record, I really did enjoy my time with you. I'm not sure if I can just be a platonic friend."

Well damn.

The Friend Zone sucks. I kind of understand how women must feel when they turn down the advances of some brave soul who approaches them. I feel bad, despite the fact that I made every effort to keep things platonic. I kind of feel that I could have done more to keep a wall between us, but at the same time, I didn't want to hurt Jenny's feelings.

I really did enjoy hanging out with her; she's an Archer fan, after all. But I was at a point in my life where dating was impossible; unemployed, with no prospects, no car, and living entirely on the kindness of family. I was in no place financially for a relationship, nor was I in the right state of mind; I battled with depression and low self-esteem on a daily basis. I would have ruined any sort of romantic relationship within weeks.

What really sucks about the experience is that I lost what could have been an awesome friendship. But what could I do? With her feeling the way she did, there was no way we could have still hung out.

Oh well.

It's been a while.

Wow, so it has been about two weeks since I've posted an entry for this blog. I don't think I've ever let that much time pass between updates; granted, I've only been blogging for a couple of months now, but up until now, I've been fairly consistent with my posts, averaging an entry every three or four days.

My hiatus hasn't been due to a lack of interest; I've actually been itching to post for a week now. Rather, I've just been so damn busy. Being busy is highly unusual for me.

The last couple of weeks have been rather hectic. In my last post, I gushed about my new employment status (spoiler alert: I do more of that); I have a pretty good job now, and am currently in the middle of training. It's a four week process, and trust me when I say that every day of it is needed. There is a lot of information to learn. Truth be told, I'm kind of nervous about it. Partially because it is a new job, but mostly because I'm afraid that I'll get some wires crossed and blunder something important. According to my trainer, it takes about 6 months for anybody to feel comfortable on the job, so I don't feel bad about being nervous; apparently, everyone goes through the same process of being a blundering wreck. So, go me.

Now, at the same time, I was also working my last two weeks at the retail job. So basically, my day began with me groggily stumbling out of bed at a cheery 6:30 am, grabbing a quick bite before heading out to do retail drudgery from 7:30 to 10:30 am, then immediately heading to the other job to work from 11 am to 7:30 pm. Getting home a little after 8 pm left me with about two and a half hours before I had to return to Slumberville, population me.

Now, I'm not complaining. I'm really not. I'm psyched about the new job, and more than happy to go and get paid real money. Putting in my last two weeks as a retail drone was good and decent; walking up and quitting on the spot would be a dick move, especially considering how understaffed they are.

That being said, I am greatly relieved to be done with Retail Land. I like my former co-workers; all of them are good people. But the job stunk.

With my new job comes better pay and more opportunities. It also comes with a few snags, unfortunately, but I can deal with those. Let's examine them (because I'm sure you're fascinated and not at all tired of me talking about this):

Pro's:
1. Good pay. I make more in a week then I did in whole month at Retail land. That sounds more impressive then it really is, though; Retail Land pay came out to around $95 a week. Do the math and weep with me.

2. Free time. I work 24 hours a week. Three 8 hour days. That gives me 4 days a week to focus on other projects and interests. Now, for the year and a half I've been in Seattle, I've had nothing but free time. The big difference is that now I'm not being a useless lump. I can actually contribute to the bills and rent and whatnot, which I can tell you does wonderful things for my ego and sense of well-being.

3. Paid Time Off! I've never had PTO before. I look forward to taking the occasional day off and not worrying about how it will effect my income.

4. I get to sleep in!!! You notice I have three exclamation marks. That indicates how excited I am about this. I HATE getting up early in the morning; to say that I'm not a morning person would be an understatement. Working at Retail Land, I was forced to arise with the sun. And being the night owl that I am, I constantly had to fight my natural tendencies to stay up late in the evening; I've had to dose myself with some form of sleep aid at least once a week.
For the next two weeks, I get to wake up at 9:30 am. This fact brings me joy, like the feeling of being wrapped in a warm blanket, drinking a mug of hot chocolate and reading a good book.

Kind of like this, except completely different.

After that, I can wake up whenever I want. (But see con's below)

Con's:
1. No school. So I've been in the Worker Retraining program, which helps poor scumbags such as myself get an education in a marketable field. They pay for tuition and books, sometime even transportation. That sounds incredible, right? Well, it was...
But I no longer qualify. It turns out you have to be on unemployment and/or not making a certain amount. Getting this job has knocked me off the list of those who can get free schooling. So now I'm forced to actually *pay* for my own education. What the hell has this world come to?

An even bigger snag is that the only reason I was going to that particular school and studying that particular field (medical assisting) was because it was being paid for. Now that that is no longer the case, it puts me in an interesting place. I need to sit down and figure out what I want to do as far as schooling goes. Oh, and save up money to pay for classes.

2. My shift kind of sucks. I work Thursday- Saturday, 5 pm to 1:30 am. Odd hours, but also the busiest. What that means is that when ever I actually cobble together some kind of social life, I will be at work during the time most people are usually out having fun.

It's kind of lame, but I'd rather do this and have money than be a broke fuck and have limitless free evenings.


It seems the Pro's outnumber the Con's; that's a first for me when it comes to any form of employment. Long story short (too late!), I'm pretty satisfied.

I'm waiting for the other shoe to fall.

Lifestyle Upgrade

It's been a long time coming.

I've spent 19 months, more then a year and a half, of my life living in a situation that has been... humbling, to say the least. Since late December of 2011, I've been unemployed, or nearly so; the 12 or so hours a week I get working at  Retail Hell barely qualifies as an actual job, and I don't count it as such.

In that time, I've filled out 927 applications, sent my resume to countless companies, temp agencies, and online job sites. And in all that time, I can count on one hand how many interviews or call backs I've received. I've acquired plenty of rejection letters, however; there are few things in this world more soul-crushing as a rejection letter from a prospective job.

Well, that's all done and over with. I've finally landed a really good job. And with that job comes the lifestyle upgrade that I've been yearning for for longer than I care to think about.

Getting to this point has been an ever present goal of mine since I first moved to Seattle; The idea was to get a good job, get my own place, a car, and start living like a grown up. Sadly, it hasn't worked out like that, as much as I've tried. As of today, I'm still living with family, have no means of transportation beyond the public kind, and I feel very much like a 30 year old child.

Now that I've reached this very important first step, I find myself experiencing a strange phenomenon I like to call "New Employment Syndrome" or "I Ain't Broke No Mo'!" It comes in three steps.

Step 1: Paradigm Shift
It starts out with a strange disassociation from your normal mode of thinking. In my case, I had to actually sit and contemplate just what had happened, and what the end results would mean. I've been poor and broke for a very long time now, and the prospect of not being in that state is so foreign that I can scarcely believe it. As it stands, I've just now come to accept that it isn't a fluke.

"Did someone say Fluke?"

This entry level position offers excellent pay, flexibility for pursuit of my educational goals, paid vacations, benefits, and plenty of opportunity for advancement should I choose it. As someone who has spent their entire adult life working retail and low paying positions, this is naturally surreal. Even now, days after the fact, I'm having a hard time adjusting to it.

Step 2: Toys!
Followed closely behind the first step is the realization that I'll have money to buy things! That is one of the goals of working in this consumerist society we live in today, right? Working hard so that you can go out and spend your hard earned money on shit you don't need.

Naturally, I've never had the luxury to just splurge on useless toys. I still won't, despite my unrealistic excitement, but I've taken a step in the right direction. I can now (or soon will be) able to buy some of the stuff I've wanted for a while but haven't had the means to get. Things such as:

~ The materials to build a kick ass gaming pc.
~ A PS3; I can *finally* play The Last of Us. And Kingdom Hearts 1.5 comes out in September...
~ A vehicle or some sort.
~ Real vacations to exotic locals! I've always wanted to travel. Now I can actually save my money and take a long, relaxing trip and not worry about how much money I'm not making while I vacation.
~ Books. I have so many books on my "must read" list. Now I can actually buy all those books. And read them. Read them so HARD.
~ Savings. I can actually save money for the rainy day that is always just over the horizon; I live in Seattle, after all. Plenty of rain.

Excuse me while I wipe the droll from my chin...

Step 3: Oh Shit, Responsibility?!
Now that it's the day before orientation and job training, I've hit the last step. The step where I realize that all this money and benefits comes with the expectation that I'll actually work. And worse, perform my job well. Fuck, there goes my wood.

Even worse, it comes with nerves. The job requires a lot of multitasking, combined with a secure knowledge of the computer system, *and* I have to talk on the phone with real life doctors on a regular basis. Um, gulp. Now I get to experience the nervous tension that comes with learning a bunch of new skills, in addition to the pressure to perform well in front of my direct supervisor, who will be training me for the entirety of August. Again, gulp.

Damn, I guess there really *aren't* any free lunches

Confessions of a Junk Food Addict

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I had been doing pretty well with my diet; two weeks of eating clean and with controlled portions combined with a vigorous weight lifting regiment was slowly producing results. While I can't actually see any results as of yet, the scale says I've lost a few pounds. But that's to be expected; it's a marathon, not a sprint, as the old saying goes. With patience, diligence, and a little willpower, I will in the span of a few months be thinner, healthier version of myself.

And then I passed by Five Guys.

That infernal burger place has some awesome burgers. Horribly expensive, mind you; their "little" cheeseburger by itself costs over $5. And don't get me started on the fries...needless to say, it's a bad place, run by bad people whose sole purpose is to tempt well-meaning individuals like myself into eating their delicious, evil crack-burgers.

Sad to say, I succumbed it it's seductive siren call. I failed my Will Saving Throw and couldn't pass by the stupid place. I entered and ordered the Little Bacon Cheeseburger with a small order of fries. And I ate it all. I nommed the hell out of it. 

Now I live in shame of my weakness; the long term goal of being in shape and having abs sort of got muddled in the aroma of cooking ground beef. It's dreadful that it happened; the amount of calories in that one meal probably killed whatever progress I'd made during the week. According to the nutritional information posted on their website, the little bacon cheeseburger is 630 calories, while the little fries are 526 per serving. If you've ever eaten at Five Guys, you know that they throw SO MANY fries in the bag with your food; they fill up a cup, which I assume is one regular serving, and then shovel in a mountain full of extra fries, just in case you're worried that you'll avoid the heart attack from the burger and first serving of fries.

So we're looking at a BASE of 1156 calories of filthy fat inducing sludge being pumped into my gullet; that doesn't include the additional calories from the condiments and that other landfill serving of fries. On the plus side, there was no need for additional seasoning; the salt content of my tears provided plenty of extra flavor to my Fat Guy meal.

I look pretty good here, don't you think?

Weight Loss is fairly simple. You burn more calories than you consume everyday, and boom! But of course, the simplest things are often the most complex; if simple was the same as easy, every one would be living in Abs City. As it stands, most of us are not residents of that most glorified metropolis; the housing market must be starved for business.

But I have learned a lesson or two from my relapse into my addiction to crap "food," and I'd like to share it, since I've already shared the humiliating parts. Will power is a finite thing. It's a muscle, and like any muscle, it can become fatigued when used too much. And once it's been reduced to a quivering mass of fail, you end up caving in faster than Charlie Sheen at a Free Drug Giveaway. 

Having discovered that the hard way, I've now resolved to give myself a little treat every other day or so. Nothing truly decadent; something small like a dark chocolate Hershey bar or a single serving of ice cream. Basically, I'm going to reserve 200 calories or so of my dietary budget to be used for junk. I health guru I know once said, "As long as you are good 85% of the time, you'll make progress." 

Let's hope that she's correct.

More Kitten Madness

It's been a few months since Khaleesi, the furry whirlwind of destruction, entered our home. Since that time, she has doubled in size and discovered her niche as an agent of chaos and anarchy; all that she surveys is reduced to its component parts in a matter of seconds.

In other words, she's a typical kitten.

Don't be fooled by her cute; she's a monster.

In the time she's been with us, we've spent much of our time trying to curb her destructive habits with a combination of patience, a firm yet gentle punting, and liberal doses of water from the numerous spray bottles strategically places around the battleground...err, house.

As expected, we've only had limited success.

It is with a great effort of will that I haven't kicked her against a wall or tossed her in the garbage disposal or something equally horrendous; cute though she be, her hobby of tearing apart my possessions has quickly gone stale. Even worse, she has picked my room as her favorite hang out, and loves nothing more than to try and climb in my closet or play with my window blinds.

To date, she has: 

~Slipped like a shadow into my closet and climbed everything. My clothes are her personal jungle gym, and the boxes filled with books her obstacle course. I've had to toss three shirts because her tiny hell claws have punctured them beyond repair. 

Needless to say, my closet is on 24/7 lock down; if the door is open for even an instant, she darts in. It doesn't matter where she is in the house. If that door opens even a crack, there she is. She can teleport like Nightcrawler.

~ Spent many a late night playing games with a plastic bag while I try to sleep. When I take it away from her, she creeps out of my room and returns not five minutes later with another bag. WHERE DOES SHE GET THEM? I once spent 20 minutes collecting every loose piece of plastic I could find and locking it in a closet. She somehow found another one and went right back to playing. I have no idea where she finds them; I'm convinced she can access the Demiplane of Plastic Bags using her infernal kitten powers.

~ Ruined two loaves of bread. I foolishly left a loaf of bread on the kitchen counter, naively believing that she would have no reason to destroy it; what kind of monster attacks bread?! Well, I now know the answer to that question. Oh, you don't believe me? Well, take a look at this:

After the first incident, I decided it would be wise to keep my new, unshredded loaf secured in the bread box (yes we have one of those) on top of the fridge. I then went about my business, a smug smile on my face; human ingenuity combined with weird old-timey devices would defeat the fuzzy ball of entropy. I would be able to enjoy a turkey sandwich with medium cheddar, lettuce, a dab of mustard, and a pickle after all.

I was a fool.

I came home a few hours later to find my bread demolished. The little hell-spawn had somehow managed to reach the top of the fridge by climbing up one of the bar stools, running across the kitchen counter, making a running leap into the pantry adjacent to the fridge, scaling to the top shelf, and then hopping over to the not-so-secure bread box that was all that stood in the way of Khaleesi and my future turkey sandwich with medium cheddar, lettuce, a dab of mustard, and a pickle.

Apparently, kitten voodoo includes a spell capable of opening slots in bread boxes. Or maybe somebody else had just left it open. Either way, my dreams of a turkey sandwich with medium cheddar, lettuce, a dab of mustard, and a pickle where reduced to shredded wheat and plastic wrap.

~ Chosen my cat Kira as her BFF. That doesn't seem like a bad thing in and of itself, but it is. Kira is like my second shadow; everywhere I go around the house, Kira is sure to follow. It's sweet and incredibly cute. But now Kira herself has an additional shadow. Which gives me three shadows in all.

Best Friends.

While it is nice to see Kira and the kitten darting around the house playing together and being adorable, the fact that they both orbit around me means that where ever I go in the house, destruction is close behind.

~ Mastered the ninja art of Sneak Attack. One must move carefully around the house, for every shadow, every nook and cranny, every tiny space could contain a nightmare ready to pounce on your soft, unprotected feet and legs. One minute you are minding your own business, the next you have a kitten latched onto your appendage.

I'm sure she will grow out it; all cats start out as kittens, and all kittens were put on this earth to shred furniture, bread, house plants, and human skin. She'll eventually get older and mellow out. Right? Right?!

Nightmares and Dreamscapes

I know what you're going to say; "Really Darren? Stealing Stephen King titles for your silly little blog?"

Yup. And?

Last night an old friend of mine decided to drop by. Now this guy is one of those assholes that has no understanding of timing; he drops by whenever he feels like it, not when you're free to entertain. In this case, his visitation coincided right as I was heading to bed.

But being the gracious host I am, I humored him as he inflicted a night of near sleeplessness on me. His incessant ramblings prevented me from achieving a good night's rest. It was until a little past 3 am that my good buddy packed up and left. Never mind that I had to be up at 5:30 am to begin my day. So I think I managed maybe 2 hours of sleep; really, I had a nap rather than a night's sleep.

Thanks for dropping by, Insomnia. It's always a pleasure.

As you can imagine, that wasn't really an awesome way to start (continue) my day; all the speed metal on the interweb couldn't give me enough pump to lift a glass of water, let alone drag my sorry cadaver out of bed. But being the incredible individual I am, I managed to carry on and shamble off to work.

"So what does this have to do with the compelling (and stolen) title of this blog post, Darren?"

I'm getting to that.

Anywho, I was again for all intents and purposes sleepwalking at work, and it showed. My clumsy attempts to do such intrinsic activities like walking, and sometimes, breathing, both amused and frustrated my fellow processing drones; conversation limited to slurred half-sentences, the slow, blunderous efforts at un-boxing the useless junk we sale, and reflexes so graceless that an obese elephant would mock them all made for a fantastic day on the job. I guess. I don't know, I wasn't really awake for any of it.

When it was finally over, I happily (sleepily) skipped (stumbled) my way back home for a day of productive job hunting and writing (staring blankly at a monitor with drool leaking down my chin as I tried and failed to remember which button was the "a" key).

Then I decided to take a nap.

Oh, I know what I wrote in my last blog post. But you see, the guy who wrote that was Past Darren. And Past Darren is an asshole. He has no idea what I have been through today; I stood staring at a tree for ten minutes because it looked pixelated. For a minute there I thought I had sleepwalked my way into someones Minecraft session. So yeah, next stop: Nap Station Central. It was Nap o'clock. The main course was sleep with a side order of nap.

So life-like.

And so it was that our hero did indeed nap. And it was glorious.

Except for the Nightmare.

Oh, what? You thought I was done rambling on like an insane person? Well to use the familiar vernacular of our times, "Lol, rofl, and lmao!" Noooooo, I've just begun to ramble. For you see, I managed about 40 minutes of sleep before I woke in a pool of my own sweat (and possibly urine) because my insane brain decided to visit Freakish Visions of Horror and Madness upon me.

"Oh, so that's why you choose (pinched) that title from the esteemed Stephen King! And that explains why you've been spewing gibberish at us like Daffy Duck mid-rant with his mouth full!"

I thought that was plainly obvious at this point in the game. Come on, Castle, keep up.

In this Freakish Vision of Horror and Madness, I was with some people I don't now recognize, but in true dream fashion, it made perfect sense for me to be BFF's with them. There was some kind of party we were planning on throwing for another phantom friend that I don't really know. We went for supplies (booze, alcohol, and liquor. And Pop-Tarts) and when we got back to the dream house, we found all of the other party goers dead. Horribly dead. Dead like Amanda Bynes' reputation.

If that wasn't enough, one of my phantom dream friends had the brilliant idea to use a magic spell to reanimate the party-goers so that the fun could continue. And, I guess, help clean the mess up when it was all done. I don't know; dream logic is shaky at best.

We all proceeded to drag the bodies into a big pile, for reasons that I'm glad I didn't conjure in my fevered absurdity. A second phantom dream friend produced from a backpack a thick, leather bound book. Opening it with a dramatic gesture, he began to read (babble) words from an arcane language (Happy Potter pseudo-latin). The sky opened up and a hellish beam of green light smashed down into the pile of bodies. One by one, they moaned and arise to stand before us, their empty eye sockets aglow with the same green light.

And then the phantom dream friend spoke more gibberish, and I began to sweat wasps.

You read that correctly. I was sweating wasps. And they begin to sting me. And my phantom dream "friends" laughed at me as I screamed in terror and flailed about like someone covered in wasps. Hell, even the zombies let out a dusty chuckle here and there.

And then I woke up, all thoughts of ever sleeping again eradicated.

The Day that Nothing Happened

Or more accurately, the day Darren accomplished NOTHING.

Sadly, I won't be presenting a harrowing tale where I overcome unusual events. Nor will there be funny anecdotes involving things that happened at the gym; I didn't even hit the gym today.

Nope. Today was pretty much a waste. And I call do over.

Sometimes you have those days where you wake up, take one look at the world that exists outside of your bed, and say, "Hell with that." You then roll over, facing away from that horrible world, and return to a state of Bliss called sleep. Today was kind of like that, except I had to actually crawl out of my safe haven and enter the nightmare that is the waking world.

Once I had climbed to my feet, the first thing I noticed was my complete lack of energy and motivation to do *anything.* I tried to shrug it off; it being Monday, those feelings are expected. But apparently my "Don't give a fuck" hormone was kicked into overdrive, because the aforementioned lack of energy didn't go away.

I shuffled off to work in full on zombie mode, and stayed that way the whole time. All conversation was limited to a single monosyllabic grunt; I think I made an impression, because after the first half hour, my fellow drones left me alone. Good.

After work, I was supposed to go to the gym. But fuck that. I know, I know, I probably would have gotten a nice boost from hitting the weights, but for some odd reason I couldn't convince my legs of that and they ended up walking away from the gym and towards home. Stupid legs.

Once home, I was supposed to do some writing; my lazy ass muse finally did her job and gave me a little bit of inspiration for a short story. I'm four pages in thus far, and if you know anything about my creativity, you'll realize just how impressive that is.

Alas, instead of being productive, of working on my writing and moving ever closer to my goal of getting *paid* to write, my defective brain decided that spending several hours browsing the net would be a better use of my precious time. So there goes three hours of my day. On the plus side, I've confirmed that the internet not only still exists, but the troll population is in no danger of being an endangered species.

"We are Forever."

Then came the nap. It's almost never a good  idea for me to nap, because I rarely get any real rest from them. Rather, all I accomplish is throwing off my sleep schedule. I'm nocturnal by nature; some of my best friends are vampires (actually vampires, not sparkly fruit-cakes). My body naturally wants any excuse to stay up all night, even when I *know* it's not good for me.

It happened pretty much as I expected. I slept lightly for a couple of hours, woke up feeling just as tired as I was when I went down, and now my body thinks that it has the right to party all night.

But I have it fooled. I took one of those wondrous sleep aids about half an hour ago, and so I will be in a drug-induced state of fatigue. So what if I'll wake up in a zombie-like state of groggy that will persist for half the day. And who cares if I'll more than likely give into temptation and take another nap tomorrow, and thus prolong this cycle of no energy/no productivity? Who needs to accomplish goals? Fuck goals, I'm sleepy.

Another Tale of Horror from the Locker Room

I thought experiencing the gaggle of naked old men converging in the locker room was bad. But what I witnessed today tops that by a magnitude of over 9000.

"What, 9000?!"

I had just finished up my work out. It was chest day, so I was feeling extra manly. There were just a few people in the locker room when I entered; the benefits of hitting the gym at 11 in the morning is that there are relatively few people. Most gym goers arrive early in the morning or around 6 in the afternoon ( because they actually have stable, decent 9-5 jobs, I'd wager), so during that period of the day there are no crowds. No rushing to and fro, frantically seeking a bench. No standing in queue around the squat rack, watching some jackass do barbell curls (seriously, those guys SUCK). Just open spaces and and lots of free oxygen. It was beautiful.

I was in the process of getting changed when a guy walked in the locker room. This was a BIG man; he had to be close to 300 pounds, and not much of it was muscle. He was soaking wet, covered head to toe in sweat. His pudgy skin was beet red, and his face was puffed out like a puffer fish.

DISCLAIMER: Now, before I go on, I want to say that I'm not making fun of him or mocking him for his weight; I *will* be insulting him, but not for those reasons. I can respect someone trying to change they're lives for the better. He clearly needs to shed excess mass, and I admire his efforts in the gym.

So, the morbidly obese gentleman lumbered into the locker room, soaked in sweat. He arduously began to peel off his shoes and socks at a painfully slow pace; exhaustion may have had something to do with it, or the fact that he was wearing wet socks. Off came his shirt, and then his shorts. Then his underwear.

There he was, standing naked in the locker room; I can only thank God for small blessings. And large blessing, as the case may be, because his belly distended down past his junk, obscuring any brain-stabbing imagery. Or so I thought.

This man proceeded to take his saturated underwear and WRING OUT THE SWEAT ONTO THE LOCKER ROOM FLOOR. And then he put them back on.

I, along with the few others unfortunate enough to witness this atrocity, could only stare in absolute horror and disgust as he did this. The man then proceeded to open his locker, squeeze into his dry clothes (over his nasty, still moist blubber, mind you) and then exit the locker room with as much grace as he entered. He didn't even bother to dry himself off.

Oh, and the puddle of man-blob sweat was left on the floor.

My Grand Return to the Gym

As I was walking past the bathroom this past Saturday, I happened to glance at the mirror and caught a glimpse of myself. Not one of those careful examinations where I could use a cleverly crafted combination of denial and angles to convince myself that I *hadn't* picked up weight; you know, telling yourself  "Wow, it's this shirt that's making me look like I swallowed a beached orca."

No, I mean a quick, passing glance. The kind of view point a stranger would have of you if he or she were strolling past you on the street. In that split second, I caught a look at how I must appear  to other people; how I must look to myself before my ego rushes out of hiding with amazing alacrity to pull the wool over my eyes with sweet, reassuring lies.

I've picked up weight. Fuck.

I'm not fat, or morbidly obese. But I have picked up more weight than I'm comfortable with. Once I caught that brief glance, my eyes opened. My face is a little pudgier than before. When I turn, I can see my belly swelling into view; it has clearly become complacent and decided to stop being subtle about it's residence over my abs. Before, it was like the curvature of the Earth; it was there, but it had the decency to HIDE ITS FUCKING PRESENCE. But now it seems the bastard has said, "fuck subtlety, I'm here, bitches."

Today is July 9th. According to my exercise journal, the last time I visited the gym before today was May 14th. That's almost two whole months of me sitting around, being a lump of inert meat. Thinking back, I'm certain I had my reasons for this; there was the stress of working a part time minimum wage job, of being 30 years of age and stuck living with family rather than on my own, and school.

Surprisingly, school is the worse offender.

If I recall, the strain of frantically studying a jumble of math equations had something to do with my hiatus from the gym. I was so worried about passing that class; when I wasn't at working or commuting to class, I was studying. I guess it would be easy for anyone to slack off a bit here and there; that hour I planned on  repetitiously lifting heavy objects was sacrificed so that I could bleed from my eyes staring at math formula.

And of course, even after the quarter ended and I had all of this free time, I still sat around like a lump. And I paid for it; now here it is two months later, and I've gained 10 pounds.

Time to kick my complacency in the balls. I dragged my lazy self to the gym right after work, a mixture of shame and disgust stealing the spring from my steps. Now begins the long, slow climb back to getting in shape. 

BUT, having turned over a new leaf, I'm not going to be cynical about it. I'm not going to go through that mind state of loathing my body, of comparing it to everyone else, and of wishing it would all just magically get better. Nope, I've decided to embrace a positive state of mind. 

Instead, I'll look at my body as a work of art in progress. Being the awesome individual that I am, I deserve to have an awesome body as well. 

Now to make it so.

The Futility of Cynicism or Think Happy Thoughts!

You may want to take a seat, because I'm about to reveal a deep, dark, shocking secret. Are you ready? Here goes:

I'm a cynic. I'm probably one of the most cynical bastards you'll ever meet.

"But wait," some of you are probably muttering, "That makes no sense! How could Darren, who is one of the most handsome, intelligent, and humble human beings I know be a cynic?!! It's impossible!!"

"Madness!!"

I know it must come as a shock, but I'm afraid it's true. It's an affliction I've been dealing with for more years than I can remember. Sometimes, it wins the battle for my peace of mind, and I transform into a moody, cantankerous shell of a man; dementors would drop by for a snack, and then leave in a huff when they discovered that I was one of them. This state of being could last for days or weeks at a time, and then I gradually beat the zombie horde of negative thoughts back for a time, and I return to my lovable self.

For a long time, I actually took pride in my cynicism; I was being "realistic," looking at the world square in the face and saying "I see through all the bullshit, world. You suck!"
The world, for whatever reason, never responded to my criticisms.
And so, being the realistic person I was, I would go about my day, scoffing at the people who dared be optimistic about life, who had the nerve, the gall, to be happy! How dare they?!

For a long time, I hated those people.

It took a while, but I've finally moved past that kind of thinking. Oh, I'm still cynical; a lifetime of being ill-tempered can't be shaken off that easily. But I have made a startling transition in my thought process. It was something I just noticed today, in fact. I discovered that I'm no longer proud of my hard-earned cynicism. In fact, I hate it.

I know, right? It only took me thirty years to grow up a little.

I also realized that all those happy-crappy optimists that I loathed for such a long time weren't a source of ire. They were a source of envy. I envied them their happiness, they're smiles, and their light-hearted laughter. 

I've become cognizant of the fact that cynicism is ultimately futile. It's a lot like candy; it feels hella good to be nomming down on some sweetly bitter thoughts, but all you get in the end is cavities of the soul, as well as a fat ass and a sugar gut. It's a drain on your energy, your health, and your personal happiness. It restricts who you can become and what you can do with your day. In fact, it pretty much limits you in every aspect of life. Someone (I don't know who) once told me that the only difference between the successful and everyone else is cynicism; those who are truly successful in what they do, be it careers, relationships, or hobbies all have that one thing in common with each other: they aren't cynics.

There are no successful cynics.

Now, since I don't want to spend the rest of my days as an unhappy sack of crap, I've decided to turn over a new leaf, and think happy thoughts.

I'll just let the magnitude of that statement sink in.

Happy Independence Day, ya'll!!