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I think I started writing these again when I caught covid and was trapped in the house with nothing to do. I'm back after a long hiatus and, surprise surprise, I'm sick again. It feels like I might need a reminder of why I started writing these in the first place, and what I was hoping to accomplish.

I wanted a record of what I was doing each day to look back on later, sure. It'd be neat to know I'm going to see someone that I've seen before but don't really remember, scroll back to the diary entry, and re-access that memory. Super helpful for alibis as well. I also wanted to keep my writing skills up, because I guess it's a thing I can do that not everyone can. More than all of that though, I wanted to be the kind of person that can commit to 20 minutes of healthy activity each night before bed. Yes, it's using the phone, but it's using the phone to improve my memory and work on gratitude, two things I know I need. And having the presence of mind to put those 20 minutes aside and actually do it would mean my life was somewhat stable and unchaotic.

That said, is stability really what I want? I just got off a streak of about 2 solid months of plans that has only stopped because of illness. I was so happy with it I didn't even make time to write in this thing. I guess I know that big stability or big instability is coming for me at some point, and I don't think I want it to be the latter. I like a grizzled anti-hero full of flaws, but I don't envy their lives.

Anyway, I worked from home today because I was sick. I literally worked feverishly on chargebacks to help Brian out, because he's even more buried in work than I am. Stopped working at 6:30, cooked some Japanese curry, watched a decent episode of Pennyworth, then purchased a Korean movie called The Roundup on a whim after reading an article that mentioned it. I'm kind of the action movie correspondent for an online blog site now, it's kind of my job to stay on top of them. I liked this one, and it whet my appetite for more action, so I started a Netflix subscription just to rewatch the first couple episodes of Happy! Chris Meloni is a genius, as are the writers of that show.

Also got a call from my mom who claimed to be sick and freezing but might have just been drunk. It's a sad situation with her alone down in Florida and I'm not sure what to do about it. I'll be down for the holidays for a bit but I can't really make it my job. I'm just not a family kind of dude, and hopefully that's okay.

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So I already tried writing this once and the site refreshed and deleted everything. Go figure. I don't know if there's much point in writing it all again, as I'm likely the only person that will ever come back to read it, but I suppose it'd be nice to have context. One question that might arise: why has it been so long since last time I posted? Well, I've been busy. And happy, I guess. The problem with free self-therapy is that there's no schedule to uphold and no consequences for missing a session. So I missed a bunch of sessions. I'm not even writing now to work through something, I just want to write a fun travel blog about my Boston trip and I know the only person who's going to care enough to read it is me.

I could talk about how much I enjoyed exploring the town/neighborhood of Somerville and learning what it is. I could talk about how nice everyone was to me, and how conversations seemed to spring very naturally and everyone seemed to be on the same wavelength. I could talk about how almost everyone came to the ska show in costume ready to have a good time, and had one in spite of my band being thoroughly unprepared.

Why wouldn't I talk about that stuff? Well, for one, I already did, I wrote about it and the site refreshed and deleted it. Also, it worries me in a weird way. I love all variants of England, new and old, and I tend to connect with the people in a way that doesn't happen when I travel elsewhere in the world. There's a clean and unworrisome explanation for this: I have English blood, I studied English literature in college, and I had really good experiences with a British teacher in high school. England is where my tribe is from, you could say. But once you say that, you see all the darker implications: no matter how many places I go, things I see, people I connect with, rich snobby white folks are always going to be the ones who really get me.

I don't love the thought. I have some words to say in my defense, if that matters. For one, I think there's a deeper explanation of my Anglophilia beyond just "they're rich and white and so was I growing up." I felt very disconnected from rich whites early in my life, both in my rebellion as a punk rock kid and my distance from everyone as a nerd. The thought that those two facets of my youth are related has crossed my mind. But rich white society cast me out to an extent, and I was happy to do the same to them. Why am I suddenly back to enjoying their company?

Here's my excuse: I do really love the English language. It's ugly to hear, full of sharp Germanic sounds mixed with unnecessarily dense Latin mumbo-jumbo, but in my limited experience with other languages, none of them are as good as conveying charm or cleverness as English. And those are the holy grail for me. I'm no athlete, I can't craft a whole lot of things, and I'm maybe not even much of an intellectual, but the neat thing about charm is that it doesn't require any of that.

As near as I can tell, charm is about your interest in others as much as it is their interest in you. It's about showing someone that you're interested in what they have to say, but not so interested as to be uninteresting yourself. But there's more to it then that, of course. The English language allows for dozens, sometimes hundreds of ways of saying the same thing, and the way you convey your ideas is just as important as their literal meaning. Charming people say the right things in the right ways at the right times. I've been studying them for decades now and I'm honestly still grasping at straws for what their secret is.

So yeah, New Englanders are charming. To me, at least. And what's more, I'm charming to them. I'm kind of charming to everyone when I travel, because I have one of the secret charming things: I'm an outsider. People immediately look for my approval. Changes my power dynamic, I can tell you that.

For example, on the flight to Boston, I sat next to a flight attendant who was on her way to attend a flight from Boston to Paris. I wouldn't say flight attendants are generally unapproachable people, but this was an attractive woman with an interesting life full of exotic destinations. I made fast friends with her because we were stuck seated together for 90 minutes, and I think I may have actually made a memorable impact. Who does that?

Enough bragging, back to the question at hand: am I a rich white snob by birth? Probably. No matter how much understanding I gain of the world, I'm always going to be viewing it from that lens, and it's likely the lens people will view me through. And maybe that's not such a bad thing. Might be I can see things that other people wouldn't. Or maybe I'm just a rich prick. Either way.

[attemptathumor-blog]

It's early. Stupid early, some would say, but that's appropriate because I'm doing something stupid. I am on my way to a miniature golf tournament in Atlantic City. I was talked into it by Micah, because who else would talk me into something like this, and thanks to a postponement it looks like our team is just the two of us. Luckily, I'm one of the few Philadelphians that actually kind of likes Atlantic City. Yeah, it's depressing, and gambling addiction is an awful thing to see, but at the end of the day it's Vegas on the beach and that's kind of neat.

I don't have too much more to say, and wouldn't have time to say it even if I did, but this has been a good week. I went out on a limb and invited some of my older friends to my millennial cidery and they were warmly welcomed and we all had a great night. Then I watched some fantastic television, Pennyworth and the Lord of the Rings show. Things are pretty alright right now.

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Worked from home today. Couldn't sleep for a while after I wrote that 3am blog, unfortunately. Things are not ideal at work. Did I mention before that absolutely everyone in my department is leaving or has already left, and my new boss was clearly saddled with the task of managing me on top of two dozen other customer service workers? The company's in bad shape. Although I guess the good news is that it's not a company, it's a corporation, and it's still making pretty decent money in spite of global recession. I can't figure out what everyone's trying to get away from, and maybe that should scare me more than it does.

Also it's cold today. Yes, it was cold all weekend, but it's like cold cold now. The dress code has officially changed over. Hawaiian shirts will be sitting in the closet for the foreseeable future. I'd like to use this time to welcome a change of pace, lord knows I need it, but I can't help but miss the summer already. Can't say I didn't make the most of it this year, though. I've been to more cities than I can even remember this year, and there's more on the way. This is the life I hoped for when I moved to Philly a decade and a half ago. Nice to see it finally come to fruition. That's all I have for tonight I think.

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3am blog. There's reasons for this that I don't really have to get into, but I will. Pulled a classic drinking move tonight: saddled up to the TV, put on something comforting that I was excited to watch with a little booze in my system, and promptly fell asleep watching it. Moved to my bed shortly after, fell asleep for a few hours, then woke up with the revelation that I had not brushed my teeth or washed my face before bed. This is where the moment of truth comes: do I wake up long enough to brush my teeth and wash my face, and risk not being able to go back to sleep? I did tonight. And guess what, I can't get back to sleep.

I drank a lot this weekend. I've been drinking a lot every weekend recently, and I'm not going to say anything as decisive as "it's gotta stop," but maybe it's worth exploring why I've been doing it. It passes the time, for one thing. Some people like sports, some people like videogames, I love drinking and talking to people. It also eases the dread a bit. Everyone's been talking politics recently, which makes sense with the upcoming local elections, but there's a whole bigger good-and-evil undertone with this one and I really am somewhat convinced that the world hangs in the balance. More than that, I'm not sure that there's anything we can really do to keep ourselves from sliding into fascism. We've just reached that point in the historic cycle.

Dark stuff, huh? We talked about it for over an hour with a bloke named Ian at Victoria Freehouse today. Also talked about it in a Lyft car with a fellow named Sixto yesterday. It's on people's minds, and it's affecting the state of the world already. Don't love focusing on that stuff, so I drink and hopefully fast forward to the parts of life where I'm traveling or playing on stage. Love that stuff. And hey, traveling for me is mostly drinking and talking to new people. And it can be done to a lesser extent from home!

I should be grateful for some stuff today, and I most certainly am. This city continues to show me all of the different wonders it has to offer, and I'm grateful to be here, at least for the time being. I'm worried this city is going to be one of the first places to go to hell when the world really begins sliding, but that's just a projection of a possible future. I'm happy with the here and now, and what else is there, really? My friends showed up, and I even made some new ones. Life could be a lot worse.

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Ds on't usually write these from the bar, but it's Saturday night and this situation is unusual and what the hell. Took a gummy that I maybe shouldn't have as one last test run for me and weed, and it is certainly having an effect. It's far from the only thing that happened today, and I hope I can detail all of that soon, but it feels important to iterate that it is very much still in my system and impacting my whole narrative here I'm not hearing colors or accepting astrology into my life, but I'm undoubtedly impaired.

I woke up at my own leisure, but received a text shortly after from Petra and Wyatt. Josh is in town from New Orleans, and it's time to hang out. That's cool. My mini golf trip to New Orleans was canceled this weekend, so I had to make alternate plans. My alternate plans were seeing my friend Chelle at her new bar, but it turns out she hasn't started that yet. Okay, plan 2: let's finally see Young American Ciderworks.

This plan couldn't happen immediately. Young American doesn't even open until 4pm. So I joined Petra, Wyatt, and Josh on some Sunday errands. Prepping bread (I watched two episodes of Doctor Who at the house). Returning an Amazon order (I sat in a car from Kensington to West Philly and watched this occur). Getting lamb for dinner (we explored a Middle Eastern grocer). In the middle of all this, we got lunch at a tasty dim sum place. It was a slice of alright.

My big plan for the day was to finally go see Young American Ciderworks, and I got all dressed up for the dreary British weather besides, so I of course got weirdly insistent about keeping with this plan when we got back from West Philly. I have a thing with goals and plans where abandoning any of them, no matter how menial and impromptu, is a slippery slope to abandoning everything in life and just not caring anymore. Yeah, your presence at a place's 800th Quizzo night isn't going to make or break the night. But it's something you committed to, and you're only as good as your word, so why dillute that meaninglessly?

I'm making strange straw men arguments here to say that I went to Young American Ciderworks for the first time alone and that I don't regret it at all. This was one of those rare life experiences that gives credence to the cliches about not having to leave your own backyard to see the world and have new experiences and all that. I took a train with near-perfect timing to a train station I'd never been to and only heard speak of before. And I saw it and drew my own opinions, and had many drinks, and went home. This is exactly the kind of life I'd like to have in the UK, and I pulled it off in southeast Pennsylvania. Maybe the soggy London-esque weather helped.

Anyway, the point is that I enjoyed the day. There's other events I could talk about, the campfire, the weed gummy, the return to the bar, but these aren't big deals. I also took a hangover remedy pill, so we'll see how that pans out tomorrow.

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Another two nights pass. I'm learning and getting better I hope. I do think blogging might be making a difference. Even if it isn't, placebo is definitely a thing, but then psychologists seem pretty sure gratitude and reflection help toward mental well-being and I say okay let's go with that for now.

My mom is safe from the hurricane in Florida, so that's something. My work life is pure chaos right now, with yet another one of my managers on their way out. You have to wonder what they're all seeing that I don't. Somehow I still feel like this is the best time to be at the job, when all the rats are jumping ship. This is when you demonstrate your real value, even if it's just physically sticking around.

My leg is feeling a lot better after the injury. I genuinely think I healed it by eating a lot more than I normally do, which is now becoming a problem because I want to return to eating that much full-time. It will kill my physique if I do, but I honestly don't know how much this physique has done for me other than make me talk about calories and exercise a lot more than I ever did before. Seems like it's more annoying for most people. Who can say.

I'm in a weird place between gratitude and real dread right now. I have 3 shows scheduled with 3 different bands in the near future, and they're all great opportunities that involve a small to moderate amount of pressure, but then combined it's kind of a lot. Add that to a job with no managers, an upcoming paid mini golf tournament that I signed up for with no experience, and a world slowly careening toward fascism, and it all just seems like a lot. Not sure what to do.

I guess the only thing to do is be grateful for what I have, and to be fair, it's a lot. I love living in the city and having access to everything within a walk or train ride. I love having the income to float off and go for a dinner or drink on a whim. I love my on demand television apps that bring me exactly what I want to see whenever I want to see it. Love the friends that I've made here and absorbing their unique viewpoints and lust for life. That stuff is cool. Hope it continues for a while.

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Again, a two-night post. We can only live and learn and try to discipline ourselves a little more each day. I'm going to need a lot more self-discipline this month, too. I have three different sets to learn or re-learn and the whole lean-on-my-natural-talent thing hasn't really worked since high school. But let's be real, it's a privelege to have 3 upcoming gigs.

Today was another hangover. Not a particularly big or painful one, but a bit of an unexpected one. I tried some drinks over at my new friends' Chris and Christy's place, and it was a fairly low-key night but we must have went through a good bit of alcohol because they offered me hangover pills on my way out, and in retrospect I should have taken them. Loved hanging out with that gang, though, and can't wait to do so again.

Work started with a big monthly meeting front-and-center at 10:30am. Boss's boss kind of thing. Serious. Not great for an unexpected hangover. But it did kind of make the rest of the day painless, so there's that. Also I was preparing all day for the run club meet-up that happened tonight.

Well, that's not all I was doing. I noticed discoloration on my possibly-injured leg this morning, and decided it was time to finally hit the gas on scheduling a doctor's appointment to have it looked at. This leg injury is maybe a month old now, but better late than never. Unfortunately, it seems that getting a new primary care physician and scheduling an appointment is not as easy as it seems, and even once it finally happens, it's just step one of getting the problem addressed. I wish healthcare was much much easier in this country.

But hey, I'm still grateful all around. I've spent a lot of time with friends these past two days, which are great to have. Hurricane Ian continues to pass through my mother's state, but it seems like the brunt of it is going to miss her town. And my town still has access to everything I need, and I've got lots of plans on the horizon. Looking forward to seeing how the end of 2022 shakes out.

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And now it's been days since the last post. I'm not taking credit for this one; I did actually write up a long post full of gratitude following the Pietasters show this weekend, but I then had to get my boarding pass for the train and the page reloaded and erased all of my progress. That's technology for you. Oh well. It's a journal; I wrote the words for myself, don't need to see them again.

Mondays can really be meaningful sometimes. My normal back-to-work routine today was of course altered by the continuing pain in my legs from my kickball injury last week (they're healing slowly but surely), but also a call with my company's UK team this morning. To be on a panel with UK workers at an office that I could be working on a day-to-day basis felt pretty good, and like something I should bring up to my boss. It's something I will bring up, and it may or may not get me any closer to leaving Philadelphia, but I think I'd be ready if it did. I still love this city, and I'd be fine passing the time here for a while, but this also feels like a great time for a new chapter in my life. This city is not going to be my final resting place, and if I'm really thinking about what place should be, Europe would be top of the list. I've given thought to Boston's suburbs as well, which are fairly vibrant and dense as far as US suburbs go, but boy does exploring Europe sound great. I'll be doing it each year one way or the other, but it'd be a lot cheaper on that side.

On the darker side of the life change, my mom is facing an emergency in Florida where the ground is already flooded, water has already been shut off, and a hurricane is just a few days away. She seems convinced that this won't be a New Orleans-scale flooding event, but I'm not so sure. She says she's unable to evacuate because so many other places are mandatory doing the same at present. Meanwhile, I'm complaining about my sore legs. I guess life looks different sometimes with context.

I've also got a big spider bite on my arm that doesn't seem to be healing, so that's something to worry about for sure. Also a report I need done for my boss by tomorrow that I dread starting because it requires reporting implementation that I don't think is going to work and I'm going to have to go back and forth with our tech guy about. I hate bothering other departments about anything.

Anyway, that's enough complaining. Ironically, I'm glad to be back from Europe and back into my routine, even if the plan ends up being to go right back to Europe again, because travel gives you the ability to see your old routine in a new light and truly appreciate it. I'm glad to work with people who I like and who might actually care that I'm interested in working from Europe, even if it means some challenges on their end. Glad to have spent the weekend with friends both locally in Philly and up in New York, from Boston and beyond. Grateful to have water, as my mom and many others do not right now. I'm in a less than terrible place right now, and it feels less than terrible for sure. Maybe I can muster up some better words than that tomorrow.

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OK, so I already fell off of doing this thing for two nights in a row. Definitely not good, but I'm going to forgive myself. I have an excuse, even if it's not a great one, that I messed up my legs playing kickball on Wednesday and I need to prioritize rest. Couldn't tell you exactly how I messed up my legs. I'd need to see a doctor to know that, and that's a whole can of worms here in the US. I know the thighs got very swollen and that walking or moving them in any way became quite painful. WebMD says it could be signs of a circulatory issue, or nothing at all. I'm hoping it's the latter, because I have a jam-packed day in New York scheduled tomorrow.

Why was I playing kickball at the ripe age of 36? That's a good question. I don't like sports in general, and I have an aptitude for very few of them. Unfortunately, this sport was one picked by my company as the extracurricular event for the season, and I've established myself amongst the ranks of the company go-getters that sign up for all this stuff. It's a weird position to be in for someone that doesn't like sports or American capitalism, but the older I get the more I find that the company you keep chooses you as much as you choose them, and there's no use being too picky about who they are and what they want to do because any friends beat no friends at all. Besides which, an old fellow like me needs to stay active, and that's certainly not something I'm going to motivate myself to do.

This is a rather ungrateful post thus far, and in my defense I have been in a fair amount of pain for a day and a half, but I do want to express some gratitude in all my posts on here because it's the magic trick to happiness according to modern psychologists. Monica Padman spoke on Dax Shepherd's podcast after a similar European vacation to mine about how much gratitude she has for the ability to take that kind of trip, and then the subsequent gratitude for being able to return to her life's routines afterward and re-appreciate their comfort and value. That stuff definitely resonates with me. I loved Europe and would have gladly stayed there forever, but there is also something very nice about coming back to the place where I know the people and the food and the drink and my favorite toothpaste and local bars and going to sleep in my favorite bed.

On top of that, I've been making a lot more travel plans. My work calendar is dotted with a few days off every month, and I'm glad people are letting that happen. It's been a not unstressful time at work, although it could always be worse, and it's nice to have understanding from management. And I'm truly excited about these trips, which are largely centered around getting back into playing music. That's the stuff that really charges my batteries.

Anyway, that's a decent place to cut this entry off. I'm walking to work in some unexpectedly brisk weather that I have half a mind to complain about, but that doesn't help anything. Hopefully I remember to write in this again tonight.

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I didn't really want to drink tonight, but the social occasion came up and I did. I didn't really want to stay out late, but the social occasion came up and I did. This is not a tale of peer pressure driving me to make bad life decisions, although I understand that it does sound that way, but of me savoring the last bits of summer before they're gone. I'm going to come to miss nights like this much sooner than later, I bet.

Day started real healthy-like. Rise at 7am. French lesson (learning French on Duolingo instead of Spanish for a bit because I'm heading to Montreal in a couple of months and because I did all the Spanish lessons). Brush teeth. Healthy breakfast shower. Walk to work. Productive workday with a nice low carb lunch. Really working on healing my unhealthy body from all the habits I picked up on European vacation.

It all fell off at 5, when I got bored of work and realized I probably wouldn't be eating dinner until late because that's how Petra does things. See, I had made plans to bring soup over and eat dinner at Petra and Wyatt's place. Made the mistake of popping into The Foodery on the walk over just to see what the cider selection looked like. It was all new and glorious. Bought a six pack, walked over, ran into Petra walking her dog Ghost. We took Ghost around the block and circled back to the apartment.

Petra revealed that we wouldn't be cooking food until Don arrived, which would probably be at least another hour. Figures. I started popping the ciders, giving everyone samples of each can. We drink at a steady pace, not getting trashed but not exactly taking sommelier sips and spitting the alcohol out either. Don shows up with manchego bread from Spain and toasts it over some bread in the oven's broiler. It's pretty damn good. We have it with rotisserie chicken and a soup I brought over (the curry soup I made yesterday).

We watch a show called Only Murders In The Building that isn't 100% my speed but it's a decent compromise between what Petra and I like to watch. I've got a dog and a cat to pet, things are pretty good on my end. I think the night goes well enough, but it's getting late, so I head out. The weather is basically perfect outside, great for a walk.

I stroll pass Original XIII because it's on the way home and it's been my home away from home for forever. Sure enough, there's a lot of familiar faces outside, including one I haven't seen in quite a while. Sam! Always a pleasure. We hang out and talk for about an hour. I'm thinking about sleep and what waking up tomorrow is going to feel like the whole time, but that's just getting in the way of me experiencing the here and the now. I should have been enjoying the weather and the company, which were both great. We can't win, but we can learn. That's all I've got tonight.

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Almost forgot this thing again today, but I'm back for day 3! So, yes, to pick up from where I left off, yesterday was a little drunker than expected due to only some fault of my own. It led to me waking up a bit groggy for work today, but I managed to get a journal entry written up and hop to it. Worked from home again, which is becoming my norm on Mondays and Fridays. It's been everyone's norm for a while, but it's starting to become mine. I'm the only person who actually wants to be back in the office.

No reason to expand upon that now. The point is, I was blessed to be able to work from home because having to go in would mean having to see people who could potentially see how poorly I slept last night and why. Easier to avoid that. The workload today was steady but rewarding, and I cleared out a lot for a home day.

Dinner was supposed to be curry, but I messed up and bought a pouch of curry goo instead of a box of curry bricks. This changed the whole dish entirely, and I ended up with a soup. I think I managed to save it with some spices. I hope so at least, because I'm bringing it by Petra and Wyatt's place tomorrow. I have a lot of it to share/get rid of.

Also finished writing my article about my UK trip that took place during the new prime minister transition and queen's death. Rarely am I in the right place at the right time, and I don't think this would qualify for those two things, but it was certainly an interesting place at an interesting time, and that's pretty good luck for a columnist. I don't get paid to write these articles, in fact I refuse payment, I just feel compelled to write them sometimes. It's a thrill to think that anyone might read them.

I rewarded myself for the article by watching two episodes of House of the Dragon, which ended up being more of a punishment. I don't even like Game of Thrones, but I enjoy the fantasy genre and I love a cultural moment when everyone can talk about something like this, so I decided not to miss this one. And, well, it sucks. Any characters with somewhat redeeming qualities are either betraying those qualities or being cast aside in the writing, and it's just shitty people being miserable. I don't understand why people enjoy watching this stuff. But hey, cultural moment. Anyway, hopefully I remember to come back to this tomorrow. Good habits die hard I hope.

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Okay, so it would appear that I already forgot to journal on day 2, but you have to bear in mind that I was a little incapacitated with alcohol. I'm choosing to believe that this was not my fault, as it was Alex's birthday and we were kind of at his whim on where the night took us.

It was a good day, as the drinking days often are. I woke up early, made breakfast (sliced apple, peanut butter, unflavored oats, breakfast tea, same as ever), finished every unfished Spanish story in Duolingo, completing all of the app's Spanish content, and worked on my article about my London trip. Made fairly good progress, up until 11:30am, when it was time to meet a bartender friend Taylor at the Victoria Freehouse. We'd not seen each other in two weeks, which is a long stint for a regular brunch guest to be away.

Taylor was not at Freehouse. She is finally free to work her other busier job that sounds hellish to me. In her place was Ashley, a younger girl who seems nice but is very much in the job for a paycheck and not any particular love of UK culture. That's fine, I guess. Most people in any job care more about the paycheck than the job itself, and I'm no exception. The expression goes "get a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life" but I think most of us know the truth is "get a job you love, watch your passions become comodified and exploited, and learn to hate it." So the result is that I end up at British pubs with barkeeps who know nothing of England and tiki bars with barkeeps who only drink whiskey. Bit of a bummer for me as the consumer, but I guess there's bigger problems in the world.

Instead of talking about those problems, I'll get into Alex's party a bit. I showed up to Glory early and met Mikey, a nice fellow who seems to be managing issues of past addiction with some success at present. We caught up with the barstaff there, who I have also not seen in two weeks, and I chatted with some of the others at the bar about Spain and Canada. Alex showed up a little late to his own birthday, but he had quite a cadre of nice folks in to celebrate his ascent to 38. Some were more socially adept than others, and I kind of felt bad for those who couldn't get a foothold in the conversation.

The day continued on. By 6:30, most of the guests had been steadily drinking for 4 hours and opted to go home (it was, after all a Sunday). Alex, KP, Steven, Don, and I opted to go check out a place called Amada for tapas (I went to Spain and now consider myself a tapas expert). Amada unfortunately had no space for a table of 5, so we set out toward Han Dynasty instead. We had a very good meal that I really can't complain again, then Alex said the fateful words that changed the night. He wanted to go back to Glory again.

I wasn't having too much trouble moderating my alcohol levels, and I had in fact avoided a couple of the shots given to everyone over the day, but I did get hit by a bit of shrapnel at the end here. I ordered a drink outside of my usual, they poured my usual drink by accident, said I could have it for free, then gave me the drink I asked for. After I finished both of those and we were finally ready to leave (it was about 10pm), we got more shots of whiskey. Who am I to complain? Alex had a good birthday. I woke up in my room at 2am with the lights on, as I often do, but at least I knew exactly how I had gotten there. And I don't feel too terrible the next morning, which is now.

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First post back in years. Who knows who will see this. Hopefully nobody. Blogging and journaling never stuck before because I was doing it for the wrong reasons. Yes, I wanted to hone my writing a bit and clear my mind, but I was also depressed and writing performatively for people to see how depressed and interesting I was. Hopefully I never have to go back and read that crap, and I'm sorry to anyone who did.

I'm not depressed now. I have a good collection of friends who keep my schedule busy, and hobbies that give me places to go and things to do. And yet, as Amir said on a recent episode of The Headgum Podcast, there is a constant buzz of depression at about a 3 or so that seems present in all of us right now. We minimize it and go about our days, because why complain about something that everyone's feeling, but it's there. The sticking point for me is being stuck living in this country, but honestly that might have happened even without the pandemic, at least now I have an excuse.

Technically speaking I'm just supposed to use this to talk about my day, so let me try doing that. I woke up at 9am, hung over, to the doorbell going off. My Kewpie mayonnaise came in from Amazon. I'm way too excited about that mayonnaise, so I did get up out of bed and greet the mailman in all of my unkempt glory. Then I couldn't really get back to sleep.

Wish I had a better reason for being hung over all day. I got Mexican food with Mikey and Betsy at Las Cazuelas last night and we were put in a position to finish a bottle of tequila within two hours. Mission accomplished and then some, and I guess I can at least say that I experienced the end of summer air for a good amount of time last night.

Since I was awake, I caught up on my TV shows. Severance is really interesting, Rings of Power is the Amazon Lord of the Rings show that I've been enjoying, and House of the Dragon is the Game of Thrones spinoff show that kind of feels like nerd homework for me. I also checked Alex's house to make sure his Amazon delivery came in properly, got some groceries, and went to the movie theater to watch a crappy murder mystery called See How They Run. Not my greatest Saturday all-in-all, but I weathered a hangover, and that's something. And I started journaling again. Hope I can keep this up.

[attemptathumor-blog]

Can't spell funeral without "fun"

Somewhere amidst all the whiny bullshit I've posted in this thing for so long I seem to sometimes lead myself to actual tangible and cohesive answers to my problems. Then I come back 2-4 months later and post another one of these as if I learned nothing. Here's a word I posted almost a year ago that I probably should have kept in my brain every day: deference. Listening to people. Making everyone feel good around me. Not being an asshole. That might have come in handy a couple of times.

Unfortunately, while generally helpful, that word doesn't answer my problem at the moment. It might be nice for the funeral that I'm going to in four hours on a stupidly small amount of sleep, but even this funeral is not something I'm really bummed about. What I'm bummed about, once again, is family. I'm back in Virginia at my mother's house, and I'm starting to hope this is the last time. Or at least close to it.

I got word from my sister that my mom plans to have another sit-down with me to talk about life and decisions, the latest in a series of condescending and insulting lectures from an unhappy woman who can't let go of the idea that money and marriage are the keys to happiness, even when they fail repeatedly. I don't know exactly how to tell her that her life is one of the greatest examples I've seen that those are not good ways to be happy at all, and that the happiest times of my life are those when I see her the least.

I know there's a thousand teens whining out this same angsty war cry as I write this, but as someone who just turned 28 and is still unmarried and without a steady career or degree, I think I'm finally ready to just let this be my life. I'm not saying marriage and a career are out of the question, I'm just saying they aren't top priorities. Being happy is the top priority. I believe it's called hedonism when self-gratification becomes the highest aim in life, and it's generally looked down upon, but I don't see any other way to do it. I can't let life be a chore. I'd honestly rather be dead.

I've been playing music for over a decade now. There's no throwing that away at this point; it'd be like ripping out an IV that's keeping me alive. I have to keep at it. I'm probably going to be back at this point over and over...unemployed, poor, and turning to people I don't want to have to turn to for help. People are going to judge me for it. I'm going to judge me for it. But I don't have to come back to a scoffing mother anymore. I'm too old for it.

[attemptathumor-blog]

Back at the top

I made it. I climbed from debt and eviction in New York to relative peace and comfort in Philadelphia that I had before I left. And now that I'm back to normal, predictably, I want nothing more than to get away from it.

Okay, that's not entirely true. There are people and things in this city that I truly love, and in my late twenties I'm finally growing to appreciate the stuff I have. More than that, I've both learned and come to grips with the unwanted 90s kid fact that I probably won't be particularly notable or spectacular to the general public. There's just too many people, and the past 10,000 or so I've seen haven't been anything special, so the odds aren't too great. Fine by me. There's plenty of entertainment, food, and places to explore in the world, and I'm actually pretty psyched to have the privilege of enjoying it all.

So what am I bummed out about? The weather, for sure. The darkness and the cold have been eating away at my mood relentlessly going on four months now, and the late shift at my job isn't really helping. Yeah, I took the late shift. I volunteered for it, kind of, in the sense that I know I'm single and unburdened with kids and have the least to lose by sacrificing all my daylight hours. All I've lost is sunlight, self respect, and 90% of my social interactions on work days. It could be worse, I imagine, if I had a spouse or child to worry about.

Neither of those are permanent or major concerns, though. Spring will come around eventually, and I might be getting a new job offer as soon as today, which is exciting and stressful and weird. More on that later maybe. Back to the issue at hand: I've been doing late night whining like this off-and-on with various people for over 7 years now, and I haven't located the thing that breaks the cycle. 

This sounds like it's going to break into a wah-wah-why-am-I-still-alone post, and I'll admit that thought crossed my mind for a second or two, but I'm being honest when I say that I don't think being single is the problem. It's frustrating to see my friends "move ahead" of me in life with significant others-turned-housemates-turned-fiancees-turned-spouses, but I feel worse for some of them than I do for myself because they thought all of that stuff was the answer. I mean who knows, maybe it is for some people, but I don't think that's my end-all thing.

I've said a lot that all I want to do is get a band of people together and tour about the country with them. It never seemed like too lofty or unattainable of a goal, but at this point I can really feel a goddamn biological clock ticking down to the day where I'm too old to make that dream happen. What then, huh? Hopefully some job at least lets me travel or something. There's got to be some way to make it work out. I hope. If not, I'll at least try some place warmer. That could help.

[attemptathumor-blog]

2014

No, this isn't a New Years resolution post. Pretty sure I already did one of those close to the end of the year last year. It's actually kind of been working out, if you can believe that. Yes, it's trite motivational speech-type obvious advice, but if you do everything to act like the person you want the people around you to act like, you get more people acting that way. And they generally like you, unless they're the worst. The person I'm going to write about today likes me and is definitely not the worst. I've written about a past experience with her where we went out and I found her personality to be not 100% for me, but she's never been anything but nice, and is a very good looking girl. In fact, there's nothing bad I can say about her, other than what I knew right from that first date: she's not what I want. And I'm not what she wants. So why did I go out of my way to see her last night?

We're both mature adults, in some sense of the word. I watch a bit more TV, play a lot more videogames, and have a much smaller affinity for children than she does, but we presumably both have the emotional maturity for a "casual" relationship that we both know can't move to another level. I'm going to write a blog about it, she's going to talk to some friends, and we'll both agree it's better to have a person to share the blankets with over this insanely cold winter. The bummer is of course what happens when the people we should be with come around and we're still with one another. This sort of thing doesn't end well; I'm almost sure of it.

So I guess that's where I'm at right now. Worrying that I've casually made a casual decision that will casually get in the way of happiness for either of us at some point. And truthfully, I don't actually need the crutch of having another person under the blankets, no matter how cold it gets. It is nice, though. I can't say I really know what I want to do, but I do know I want it to warm up outside. I've been very happy for the past few weeks, but the body can only take so much snow and darkness and disappointment at the same time. I haven't spent much time lately caring about finding the girl of my dreams, but once again I'm going to have to think about how badly I need to spend time with the girl I'm working with in her absence.