The Best Year of My Life (part 5)

I just had a goals update two days ago, but in an effort to get back on track, I am going to have another one today.

Remember, I re-did a lot of my goals after reading Leo Babauta’s The Power of Less, and coupled with the short time between the last update, this should be a shorter post.

Without further ado:

1. Develop Attraction Skills

Even though I am unemployed, I haven’t increased my social life because I do not want to spend money. Sure, I can go out and simply not drink which I’ve done in the past, but it will still involve money. This is going to be a longer weekend so I will have ample opportunity to go out.

When I do go out, I will remember to be present, confident, and just an overall fun guy. After all, it’s just talking to girls!

2. Learn How to Drive

We had a snow storm here, so my driving practice was canceled yesterday.  I re-scheduled my test for later next month, since the dudes car I’m using will be out of town on the originally scheduled weekend.

3. Look for New Job

Interview on Monday. I’m not too excited about my options right now, though. I’ve been thinking really hard about ways to get myself out of the “entry-level hole.”

4. Better Management of $$$

Being unemployed has me obsessive about being responsible with my money. Any penny that I spend I know stress over. This weekend will be a real test because it’s Super Bowl weekend and I live in Pittsburgh. The *real* test however, will be when I get a steady flow of cash in and stop throwing the money away. I have actually spent exactly less than 30 bucks since Sunday, and half of that went towards paying small bills!

Okay, so I am now going to add one goal and drop two goals:

Add: 5. Take the GRE

Wow, if I ever want to get out of the entry-level hole, this is an absolute necessity. I have full afternoons open to do whatever I want, so being unemployed is a prime time to do this.

Drop: Cut Down on Watching Porn

I changed the way I watch porn and have made it more of a ritual. Now, whenever I think of watching porn I think that it is too much trouble. If I feel I have started watching too much again, I will re-add this goal.

Drop: Write on this blog everyday

I am doing this everyday. Yeah, I missed a day, but that was more because I mis-planned my day. 28 out of 29 days is really really good. Like the porn goal, if I stop posting consistently, I will re-add this goal.

In the end, it feels good to have reduced my goals down to a parse five out of what used to be nine. Hopefully in a months time, I will be able to eliminate two (driving and a new job).

I am working towards accomplishing these goals, I am sure that I will have the best year of my life!

It’s Just Staring At A Wall: Zen Understanding from a Total Novice (part 1)

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” – Buddha

I’m going to spend some time today expounding on my Zen Buddhist beliefs. My interest in Buddhism is very much in the beginning stages, I have read only a handful of books on the subject. I realize for anyone who has been following zen for a long time that I might come off as ignorant, but please bear with me here, I am a work in progress. I do go to the zendo, but have fallen off in recent months.

How I got into Zen Buddhism:

It was all by chance, really.

I was reading Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now and he speaks a great deal about living in the present moment. I had been talking to a friend who told me that is a basic tenet of Buddhist philosophy. She suggested that I also look into meditation.

A couple of months later, I felt like my life was in shambles. My job sucked, I wasn’t making any money, and I was angry all of the time because I had no women in my life. I felt like a waste.

My anger wasn’t going away so I figured I would try out meditation, which I had heard relieves stress. After doing some research about meditation groups in the city, I found out there was one not too far from my house. This meditation group met at a zendo and practiced in the soto zen tradition.

“What the hell is that?” I said to myself.

Being the obsessive researcher that I am, I read all I could about Soto Zen and it’s differences from Rinzai and even the differences between different forms of Buddhism. I listened to Zen Mind Beginners Mind at work and my interest was peaked.

I decided it was time to contact these people at the zendo.

I called them up, and the guy gave me a lesson on how to sit. Then we sat for 30 minutes of zazen, walked around for another 10 minutes (kinhin), then sat for another 30. Afterwards, we read from a chapter of the Transmission of Light, which I didn’t gain too much from.

Beliefs:

I did gain a certain calm from meditation that day. I believe that sitting in a dimly lit area staring at a wall for 30 minutes tends to do that. Or maybe it drives you crazy.

That’s the thing though, any kind of negative feelings I have while sitting-When is this going to end? Is my foot is falling asleep? I need to itch my nose! That is NOT living in the present moment.

In the present moment, the past does not exist, the future does not exist, only the PRESENT exists. Now, my body has no other other choice but to live in the present. When I move, when I breathe, any action I take, is done in the present moment. But our mind is often somewhere else. It is in the past, dwelling on something I forgot to do, or it’s the future, wondering when I’m going to have stable income coming in.

These thoughts are often negative and a waste of time. In the present moment, these problems simply do not exist.

This is why practice is so important, because I am  sitting for however long with the sole purpose of trying to live in the present moment. It is a very simple concept to understand, but very difficult to do.

TRULY living in the present moment is an experience I believe I have had a few times, but only fleeting, in a few seconds it was gone. In that time, a great calm came over me, all of my worldly problems went away, whoo it felt great!

That, my friends, is a state of zen.

But it’s important not to practice without expectation, because then it will become harder to achieve zen. Just understand that sitting is enough. Just sitting, no matter how difficult or how frustrating, is a learning experience in and of itself, and should be viewed positively. To think otherwise would bring me further away from my intended goal.

Next time, I’ll expand a bit more on my beliefs, which as I said are a work in progress. I hope that I haven’t offended anyone by this post. As for books I have read or am reading:  Essential Zen by Sekkei Harrada is what I am reading now, and I think its’ a great book. I also really enjoyed the Shunryu Suzuki biography, Crooked Cucumber.

Smile, Breathe, and Go Slowly

“Smile, breathe, and go slowly.”—Thich Nhat Hanh,

Lots to say here, my head is swimming!

I just got done searching for a new job, and while seraching through Monster, what did I find? The job that I applied for a month ago, and had been told by my little birdie inside that I was going to get.

I was sad, but only for a little while.

This could all really be a blessing. I have enough money to survive for a month, maybe even longer. I might even be able to survive on a part-time job if I am smart with my money. In the meantime, I want to start looking for a job that I want to do.

Originally, I quit my job because I HATED the management, but the truth is that I had become bored with my job. Ever since I graduated college I have worked at these meaningless data-entry jobs that have gotten me nowhere. Sure, they paid the bills and allowed me to live comfortably, but they weren’t very fulfilling at the end of the day and oftentimes I’d become depressed.

I have put some thought into the kind of word that I want to do.

First and foremost, I want to go to graduate school to get my masters in Library Science, so that is something I am going to work on in the coming weeks. In the meantime however, I want to work in a library. Libraries don’t pay too much money, and the competition is pretty scarce here, but I think I’m going to volunteer just to fill up my time.

I also have been thinking about working from home.

I have no idea how to go about this, though. I see spam mail all of the time, “EARN $50 dollars a day doing NEXT TO NOTHING!” But I know that is too good to be true. I know that earning money online is going to be hard work and will likely take training of some sort. It’s something I am going to research in my free time during the next couple of days.

I read a good bit of Leo Babauta’s Power of Less today.

He talks about putting the Power of Less into practice through having One Goal. I wrote down a list of goals I would like to accomplish, and picked out the one that was the most important to me.

I want to develop skills that will allow me to become better with women.

He says to pick a goal that will take six months to a year to complete. On average, this goal could take as many as three years to complete. However, I think after a year, I will have had remarkable success if I keep on task.

Now I need to break that one goal into a subgoal. A subgoal is one that I can accomplish in the next month or two.

Conquer Approach Anxiety (for the most part).

Fuck getting laid, fuck getting makeouts, fuck getting numbers even, I am going to just try to not become a nervous wreck whenever I step into a social setting. I will never become successful if I don’t at least do that.

Now I need to break this down into a weekly goal.

Go out three nights per week, and open three different groups of women per night.

It doesn’t matter if I get blown out, or don’t know what to say, or even if they don’t talk to me, I am going to do this until I no longer feel uncomfortable opening women. That is the first step.

Tomorrow, I will write about my three projects.

I know I say a lot of things on this blog and go in a lot of different directions, sometimes unexpectedly, that’s because I am often fickle and confused. I feel myself being pulled in many different directions. Sometimes I feel swamped from it all.

I need to remember to keep things as simple as possible and live in the present moment.

The Best Year of My Life (part 4)

I contemplated shutting down this blog today.

I wasn’t planning on shutting it down completely, but merely moving all of the posts to private status. I had a crisis where I became paranoid that someone I know might happen upon this blog. I also questioned the point of this blog-do I really need to have an anonymous blog? Couldn’t I just do the same thing with a personal journal (which I have) or in a word document?

This is a question I am going have to answer over the next couple of days.

The pros to having a public but anonymous blog this are: 1.) I am stating my goals in a public avenue, so that anyone reading can post here and say, “what the f are you doing?” and 2.) I can get advice from complete strangers.

I really don’t talk too bad about anyone on this blog, so if I were to be found out I don’t think it’d be that big of a deal. It’d be more of an issue about how weird I am!

I read a good bit of Leo Babauta’s The Power of Less today.

He talks a good deal about simplifying and putting limitations on what you do in order to be able to accomplish more. Mr. Babauta argues that in a world of multi-tasking, too many people are not getting anything done, because they are trying to get too much done. In the process of trying to get 20 things done at one time, tasks get diluted or abandoned altogether. Focusing on doing a few things and doing them well, is much more effective.

This is exactly my problem.

Therefore, I am going to eliminate some goals from the Best year of My Life list, many of which I plan on coming back to later. Babauta suggests trying to one goal at a time, for 30 days, since it takes 30 days to become a habit.

Without further ado:

Let’s first look at the list of goals overall and see which ones are left or have been amended:

1. Write on this blog everyday
2. Cut down on watching porn
3. Meditate Everyday
4. Exercise/Eat healthy
5. Apply for new job/Graduate School
6. Meet More Women
7. Learn How to Drive
8. Finish Rap Album
9. Better Management of $$$

Leo talks about breaking things down to the essential and non-essential. he suggests breaking things down to one goal at a time, starting with the most important first. If I were to break it down to ONE GOAL that affects me most in my life, it’d be WOMEN.

Not having women, for as long as I can remember, has been the #1 tried and true source of disappointment in my life. Tyler Durden says, “If you do not have women actively in your life, you are failing at one of your core purposes.”

This is not to say that I would like to have wild orgies with 2 or 3 women a night, but I think that having 1 or 2 women that I could spend time with on a regular basis is a highly reasonable goal. In order to be able to do this, I have to learn to be more aggressive and talk to women in public settings. Oftentimes, that means going to the bar, even if I have to go alone.

So, I am going to start with Develop Attraction Skills, renamed from Meet More Women because that isn’t necessarily what I’m trying to do.

1. Deveop Attraction Skills

I had a life first this past weekend.

I hung out with two different girls on consecutive days. One might even go as far as to call them “dates.”

It’s a great feeling, going from so many years of absolutely loneliness to hanging out with two different girls on two different nights.

Still, there is much work to be done.

Now when I was out at the bar, did I make a concerted attempt to meet more women?

No I did not.

My goal, first and foremost, is to get over my approach anxiety, which seems to have taken on a life of its own in my head. In fact, it is a monster that I can picture now, it is purple blob named Bob. I am closing my eyes, and imagining myself pouring cold water over Bob, which makes the blob dissolve and kill Bob.

In my mind, I have conqured approach anxiety. I just need to go out and show the world that I have conquered it.

I am going to go out three times this week. One night will be either tomorrow or Wednesday with Hero. Then probably Thursday and a weekend night. If I don’t open, I DON’T want to kill myself over it. First and foremost, I want to have a GREAT time. It sucks going home depressed as all fuck because I didn’t do what I came out to do in the first place. Hmm… maybe that is why I should open!

2. Learn How to Drive

I have scheduled my drivers test for February 7th, but it will have to be pushed back since Hero will be out of town. I am getting in some practice tomorrow with Hero, and will continue to do so 2-3 times a week until the test. I really already know how to drive, it is just a matter of learning how to parallel, which is kind of hard now since there are all of these snow banks on the road.

3. Look for New Job

A necessity now because I am unemployed. I must say that I am enjoying being unemployed a little more than I’d like to be. Sure it gets boring, . I want to take this time to secure a job in the direction I want to go in-which is library science. However, I am also drawn towards work at home opportunities. This task occupies the waking moments of every weekday now.

4. Better Management of $$$

Budgeting always will be a absolute necessity of mine. I have been budgeting pretty dilligently as of late, especially since I don’t know where my next paycheck will come from.

5. Cut down on watching porn

For years, I thought I was addicted to porn because I spent so much time looking for and watching it- I am talking 3 to 4 hours of my day, easy.

For a long time, I would go through spurts where I would watch a TON of porn, then feel guilty and stop for 2 or 3 days, then go right back into it. This past June, I stopped watching (and masturbating) for over thirty days, before regressing to my old ways.

But now, things are different.

I only allow myself to watch at the end of my day, after everything is done. I have also made watching a ritual. I pick a scene to watch, and I watch the whole scene, usually 30 or 40 minutes. I practice my stalin technique and kegel exercises in the meantime.

Oftentimes, I am too tired to sit down and dedicate 30-40 minutes to porn. Other times, I just don’t have the desire to watch anymore. I think this is due to me having ladies in my life, but also because I would be accountable for it in this blog.

6. Write on this blog everyday

Yeah, I missed a day.

That day was an exception, not the norm, and I have worked hard to keep writing consistently. After missing once, it’s  is very easy for me to say to myself, “who cares? I can miss again!”

I believe that posting everyday like this is very beneficial and I will continue to do so throughout the year. Let’s just hope I am not discovered!

A few words about the crossed out tasks.

3. Meditate Everyday
4. Exercise/Eat healthy
5. Graduate School
8. Finish Rap Album

It’d be stupid to say that I have just given up on these goals. I mean, who DOESN’T want to Exercise and Eat Healthy? It’s just that right now, I am focusing on other goals, and when those goals have converted into habits, I will work on these goals.

That’s not to say that if I wake up in the morning, and I feel like I need to meditate, that I won’t do it. What I am saying is that I am going to be the most focused on the six (actually, really four) goals listed above.

In Which We Ate Mushrooms…

“I experiment with things [psychedelics] that are usually an internal experience, because that’s just what excites me. And yes, it does sometimes give me visions…” – Tori Amos

Awwwww…

I missed a day.

But I’m not too mad at myself. I do wish I had lasted a lot longer, but 24 days in a row is a pretty great streak.

I had planned on writing after I got home from the bar last night, but I was busy.

I spent the day on Saturday being a lazy bum. I had meant to go to zazenkai, but for some reason decided against it and instead read some books, watched some wrestling and slept. It’s funny how the cold outside ruins my motivation to do a lot of things.

I almost contemplated not going out, too. It was PartyGirls’ birthday, and the people that were supposed to give me a ride canceled on me, so that meant I would have to take the bus. I did not want to have to take the bus.

Still, it was my good friends birthday, I really had no choice but to go.

I arrived around 10:30pm at the top 40 club. I had a good time overall, saw some people I hadn’t seen in awhile, and acclimated myself to a top 40 club, which I hadn’t been to in awhile. LOADS of fly women that I didn’t talk to.

Around midnight I realized that I didn’t have a ride home and decided to leave. PartyGirl and her boyfriend were leaving too, so I didn’t feel too bad. I caught a taxi home, put some more wrestling on, and went to bed.

While I was in bed, I sent a few texts out to the redhead, and HipsterGirl, a girl that I had a one night stand with back in November, but we have remained friends. She had told me to get at her this weekend, so I sent her a text on a whim, asking if she wanted to head to after hours. She said, “sure.”

I got out of bed, reluctantly I might add, and headed down to the bar, where it was last call. When I got there, she was talking to the door man who is a cool dude. I paid no attention, grabbed a beer and sat down for a little.

After I finished my beer, we headed to after hours. She ran off and talked to some other dude , and I talked to these other girls that I knew. I was pretty nonchalant the whole time, just really enjoying myself.

At this particular after hours, there is always this girl that is totally in love with me and has been ever since college, but I don’t think she is very attractive and she is also engaged to be married. Still, I think that she is a very nice person.

Anyways, HipsterGirl and I link up again at after hours and strike up some conversation. At one point, I tell her that I have mushrooms. She suggeststhat we go back to my place and eat them.

Sure, I say.

Now, I was tipsy when I agreed to make this decision. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best to make-mushrooms are a very serious drug to do, if this girl freaked out, it would have been a TERRIBLE time, not everyone can keep their shit under control like me. After all, I don’t know her that well.

Anyways, I had nothing to worry about, we had a great time.

I didn’t try anything, not because it was weird since we are on mushrooms, but because I have been hesitant these past couple of days-I don’t know what it is. First with the redhead at the theater, and now with HipsterGirl while we are on mushrooms. I’m just going to have to get over this headspace that prevents me from being as good as I’d like to be.

Push

“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, an hour, a day or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it will last forever.” – Lance Armstrong

I am tired right now.

I can barely keep my eyes open.

What’s funny is that I had ample sleep last night and I just woke up from a nap. Still, I am tired.

I actually contemplated forgoing writing this post for sleep, but instead decided to man up and get my writing on. Plus, there were a couple of other pieces of business I needed to attend to.

Wow, I am actually being responsible for once!

Still, this is going to be a shorter post.

Last night, was a good night.

King Lear came over pretty early and together we headed to the bar up the street. No one was there when we got there, which was cool, so we grabbed a few beers and watched the place fill up with people.

I talked to a girl briefly who wasn’t feeling me, but I didn’t care, the redhead would be in attendance tonight. She made her way upstairs a good ways into the night, and we had a great time dancing and making out pretty publicly.

When it was time to go, she accused me of talking to a other girls, which I didn’t think I was doing, although I was pretty damn tanked at the time. I went to the bathroom and she had left by the time I got back.

Maverick thinks this was a shit test.

King Lear and I went to after hours for a little, tried to talk to these three girls, but we didn’t get much progression fromthat.

Anyways, I awoke this morning to a facebook message saying that the redhead had a great time last night. Maybe she is just really insecure about getting it poppin’, I don’t know.

This afternoon we started texting again, and she invited me to go see The Reader, which is a good movie! No making out during this date, but that was moreso on my part, I don’t like PDA’s when I’m not WASTED.

Tomorrow is zazenkai at the zendo. I plan to be there for half of the day. From lunch onwards. They make great food at the zendo for lunch. It’ll be good to get some meditation in.

The Ultimate Dabbler

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” — Calvin Coolidge

First off, let me say that last night’s premiere of LOST was GREAT! I hope that the rest of this season will keep up the quality of yesterdays episode! If you haven’t checked out that show yet, do yourself a favor and start at the beginning. I can’t say enough about this show, it is my second favorite next to THE WIRE.

Yesterday, I had a driving lesson with Hero.

Hero and I have been friends for over two years now, and I consider him a close friend of mine. We don’t hang out too much depending on what part of the year it is. The reason is that he mainly goes to top 40 clubs, which I like to go to too, except in the winter I decide to go to mainly hipster events. I get bored of too much of any scene after awhile.

Also, when I go out with Hero, it almost always purely to sarge, and in the past  I have NEVER opened, so nights out with Hero have tended to be on the dull or disappointing side. I can count so many nights where I have gone out with Hero, and we have just stared at everyone else having a good time. The time moved sooooooo slowly.

Anyways, I can always count on Hero to give me his unabashed advice on anything. Some of his advice I agree with, some of his advice I don’t agree with, and some of his advice I file away and think about later. Yesterday Hero told me, amongst a lot of other things, that I spread myself too thin.

And he was right.

I engage myself in too many activities and in the process, I do a pretty shitty job at all of them. If I consolidated and concentrated on a few goals, then I would have much better success.

I am what George Leonard calls a Dabbler.

To become a master at a task, I must consistently work at it. I haven’t read the book yet, but Malcolm Gladwell often talks about the 10,000 hour rule. In order to become a master I must work at that task for 10,000 hours.

Here is the progress curve of a person achieving mastery looks something like this:

Instead of consistent progress, I often do a task for a little while, get bored of it, then move onto something else. In this way, I have become shitty at a myriad of tasks. Here goes a very common progress curve of me:

Those squiggly lines are the skills I have built slowly going down.

So what can I do about this? How can I break myself from the rut of being a dabbler?

Well, I think I am making great progress towards that by writing in this blog daily. I have been consistently updating for 22 days now, and tracking my progress twice a week. I can’t remember who, but a recurring theme in self-help says that success in one thing will lead to success in other things. So, by keeping consistent with this blog, I will likely become successful in other goals, as well.

So yes, Hero is right when he  says that I spread myself too thin. It’s true, in addition to my goals listed in the Best Year of My Life, there are a TON of other leisure activities I engage in. Fantasy Basketball, Travian, my incessant addiction to my Google Reader, comic books, wrestling, the list goes on.

What I need to do is prioritize. First and foremost, I think that the goals listed in the Best Year of My Life are highly doable-many of the tasks don’t require daily practice and even those that do can be reduced.

I think it is also important that if I don’t complete a task, I need to stop kicking myself over it. Oftentimes I start calling myself a failure because I haven’t completed x activity. Also, I have this tendency to go out on a whim and sign myself up for stuff I know that I have no time to do. I have gotten better in the past year, but improvement still needs to be made. Instead of adding tasks, I need to start cutting tasks.

I am going out tonight with King Lear. The redhead also told me she will be there, although she did cancel on our date last night. My goal is to first and foremost, have a good time, but also to shut the fuck up, be a man, and talk to some stranger girls.

Good job, Leigh.

The Best Year of My Life (part 3)

“If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.” – Barack Obama

First, some thoughts about yesterday.

Yesterday was a historic moment in our nation’s history. While I don’t think Barack Obama will the savior that many people are looking for, I do think that he will be a more effective president than the man we had in office for the past eight years.

Furthermore, it is hard to ignore the symbolic value of Barack’s presidency-he has broken down what might be considered the final color barrier for minorities in America. Does that mean he has single handedly ended racism? No, racism or discrimination for that matter will always exist in a ego-fueled society. Barack Obama has pereservered in spite these barriers. I think that is very powerful and inspiring.

I am disheartened when I hear or read about people who say that they could care less about what happened. Yesterday was one of the most remarkable events of our lifetime, whether you agree with the mans views or not. His middle name is “Hussein” for crying out loud. It goes to show, that no matter the odds, no matter the, if you have the will, YOU WILL SUCCEED.

David Wygant has a very inspiring video related to yesterdays inauguration:

Onto the goals update.

Without further ado:

I realized yesterday that in following my New Deal Plan, it makes more sense to have daily, weekly, and overall goals. I am going to list my weekly goals here at the beginning of every week.

- Find a new job – It looks like the job that I thought I had gotten has fallen through.
- Finish song.

Overall goals:

1. Write on this blog everyday

21 days and counting, no stops. There have been a few close calls, but honestly I really like writing this blog everyday. It is therapeutic, and helps me get my thoughts in order.

2. Cut down on watching porn

I am surprised that this is going so well. I have cut down IMMENSELY on my porn watching, and have even skipped days. Having women in my life helps cut down on this a lot. Also, I have made watching porn much more of a ritual-I watch one full scene, and practice my Stalin technique throughout. It is much more of a practice of restraint than pleasure.

3. Meditate Everyday

I am on a once a week average with meditation. I meditated yesterday but was interrupted by my Father calling, I actually thought it was the alarm sounding to end the session. Tonight, I plan to return to the zendo depending on when my date with the redhead is. I will probably miss out on the Transmission of Light reading, but I am not sure that I get much out of these readings.

4. Exercise/Eat healthy

The Hamburger Helper is gone, so my eating is a lot healthier. I have been splurging on KFC every Sunday, but I think that will end once football is over. This morning I had a chicken salad, which is probably what I will also have for dinner.

I have to save the money for the gym membership because I am now unemployed. Although, a few pushups and sit ups to start my day wouldn’t be bad.

I need to come up with a morning routine!

5. Apply for new job/Graduate School

Applying for new jobs is now a necessity since I am unemployed and have no money saved. I made a rash decision to quit my job and am now dealing with the consequences. I made an appointment with a temp agency for Monday, but what I’ve been doing for the past couple of years.

I am going to start working on grad. school apps starting today.

6. Meet More Women

I fell off pretty bad this weekend. Thursday I didn’t do anything, Friday I was embarassed by the redhead, Saturday I didn’t do anything, and even on Sunday I was introverted. I am in a slump right now. Too much inside my head.

This weekend will be different, mainly because I will be cutting down on the alcohol since I am now broke. But I will also be returning to the top 40 clubs, which I haven’t really gone to since the fall started. I am just going to have to step up, be a man, and not be outcome dependent.

7. Learn How to Drive

Going out to practice with Hero in about an hour or so. Will schedule test in the next week or two. Since I am unemployed, there is daylight, which means there is time to practice!

8. Finish Rap Album

I finished a verse yesterday, I just have to fix it up. A good hour a day or so will help. I really enjoy writing, it’s stupid that I don’t do it more often!

9. Better Management of $$$

This has me pretty nervous right now. I have no steady stream of income coming in as of today (my last paycheck was received). I have enough to pay my bills and enough food to last until the middle of next month, but my social life will suffer dearly. I am confident I can whether this storm and make better decisions in the future.

LJBF means “Let’s Just Be Friends”

“You know… I don’t think my father would approve of me dating the undead, and you’re probably too nice a zombie-pirate for me anyway. Let’s just be friends instead.” – Elaine Barley in The Curse of Monkey Island

I went out last night.

My roommate, his ex-girlfriend and I went to see Notorious. A good, but not great, movie. I love this quote that Diddy says to B.I.G:

“In order to change the world, we have to change ourselves.”

Indeed.

On the way home, my roommate dropped me off at the bar where I met up with PartyGirl and PghGirl.

Party, Pgh and I were a team this past summer. We worked together, ate lunch together and went to the bar together. This past fall, Party and I found new jobs and everyone drifted apart. These two can be fun to hang out with, they are a refeshing change from the majority of my friends, because they are not intellectuals and don’t go to hipster events. They are attractive, girly girls that like to dress up and go to the club.

It was $1 Taco night at the bar we were at and I ate four. We were at the bar basically alone so there were no girls to talk to. Instead, I just caught up with those two, whom I hadn’t talked to in a long time. As we were leaving, the girl that PartyGirl’s boyfriend sees on the side walked into the bar. PartyGirl is a really melodramatic person and started freaking out. I found the whole situation funny, nothing happened, though.

I caught a ride with PghGirl as we moved onto a more ritzy bar where PartyGirl’s boyfriend was spinning. It was pretty empty there, too. It was a Monday night, after all. Nothing too eventful happened as we didn’t stay long. I was back home by 12:30am.

Both girls had this revelation about me, they said that I am much nicer and relaxed now because I am getting laid. I have a more positive demeanor than usual. This was funny, because I’m not getting laid right now, but I guess the prospect of having ladies in my life when there usually are none puts me in a much more positive mood.

I had been texting the redhead throughout the whole night. We had patched things up after the debacle on Friday when she was out of control. She thinks that a guy spiked her drink that night and that’s why she acted so erratically. While I certainly won’t rule out of the possiblity of her drink being spiked, I often think that girls use that as a cop out because they can’t hold their liquor. I don’t know redhead all too well though, so a spiked drink may have very well been the case.

During our texting, I have been trying to build things up sexually, but it’s not working. After Friday’s debacle, and me ignoring her on Saturday, something was lost between her and I. It seems much more like a friendship than two people who want to get together and fuck. I don’t know what to do about it. This always happens to me!

Part of me wants to place her down in my priority list, keep her as a friend, if she wants to hang out, then fine. There are sooo many other girls out there. The other part of me wants to get real aggressive and give her an ultimatum, either we start taking things sexually, or we stop talking altogether.

I know that the latter option is not me right now. I am just not that forthright and would begin to feel guilty if things went bad. Remember how I said I wasn’t talking to her after Friday night for awhile? Well I got drunk on Saturday night and started texting her again.

There was another girl I met two months ago where the same thing happened. I took HipsterGirl home the same night I met her at the bar, but unfortunately my penis decided to go into hibernation. We have remained in the friends zone ever since. On New Years eve, she was part of the drunk texting rampage that I went on, but thought all of the messages I sent were funny. I invited HipsterGirl to an MLK day event yesterday, but she declined because she didn’t want to take the bus with me.

So, when I do get up the courage to meet girls, I am STILL not aggressive enough and get thrown into the friends zone. Do you see how much a lack of self-confidence can hamper success in a person’s life? This is all very frustrating, to know what I have to do, but still not do it, just because of my brain.

Or as David Wygant put it so eloquently:

You have no physical handicaps. You have only mental handicaps. You are allowing a weak mind – and your fears and insecurities – to dominate your life. You’re not willing to communicate with people because you’re not willing to push yourself the extra distance.

Geez. that cuts right to the bone. I am going to have to write that somewhere so it’ll be the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning.

Right now, if I were to rate how I treat myself on a scale of 1 to a million bucks, I think $50 would be accurate right now. This needs to STOP and it’s frustrating because I am not sure that I know how!

Since I went out last night, no goals update today, but there will be tomorrow.

The Company I Keep

“Tell me what company you keep and I’ll tell you what you are.” – Miguel de Cervantes

Yesterday, I woke up inexplicably early, ate some food, and took care of business all before football started at 3 PM. Seeing as I only had about 5 hours of sleep, I thought I would need a nap, but that was not the case.

Instead, I watched the Cardinals beat the Eagles (YEAH!), and then the Steelers beat the Ravens (FUCK YEAH, here we go!). Our friend, we’ll call him Lanky, came over to watch the Steelers game. He was tripping on acid and already pretty drunk. Some alarms went off in my head once he told me that, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt, because I am a chill guy when I am on acid.

This guy however, was pretty damn ignorant. Lots of yelling and screaming, which is normal because we are in Pittsburgh and it was a close game for the most part. But this guy, his yelling and screaming was filled with lots of “YEAH NIGGA’S,” (he’s Black) towards white people, which weirded them out. He also told a lot of stories about “fucking bitches,” that I really didn’t care for. At first, he was kind of funny in a “let’s laugh at him” kind of way, but later on it was more like, “when will this guy shut up?”

At one point Lanky  punched our Christmas tree, which we should have taken down awhile ago. He was making fun of us about it, and we were in turn teasing him about being angry about a Christmas Tree, then he got pissed and punched it. Not necessary at all.

After the game, he downed a good bit of our Smirnoff liquor. I didn’t know it at the time, but it’s not like I would have told him “no,” either. He starts yelling, “let’s go to the bar!” But no one wanted to go with him. My roommate and the other dude that was with us felt more like chillin’ so they stayed put, but not before Lanky tried to physically move them off of the couch.

I had already planned on going out, but I was hoping that I wasn’t going out with him. I should have, from the get go, told him that I really didn’t feel like going out with him, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

I have this whole theory on not doing something because I don’t want to hurt someones feelings, I think it’s actually the opposite, the action is actually not done because I  don’t want to hurt my own ego.I want to be able to say that I did or didn’t do x or y for this person, rather than just doing what I feel. Still, there is the emotion of compassion to factor in. I really didn’t care if Lanky liked me or not, I should have just been honest.

Instead, Lanky and I walked to the bar. It’d be about a thirty minute walk since neither of us drive. Lanky, having just downed a sizable bit of alcohol, is SUPER belligerent. He is walking down the middle of the street, yelling, “GO STEELERS,” but if the person doesn’t answer or tells him to get out of the way, because he is in the middle of the STREET after all, he’d respond, “FUCK YOU NIGGA!”

At one point, we see this guy who is all decked out in Steelers gear, and he has two terrible towels. When he approaches us, he’s like “HELL YEAH GUYS!” He was being as nice as can be. Lanky, however, immediately went for this guys terrible towel, and tried to snatch it off of him. The guy yelled “NO, that’s mine!” Lanky, in turn says, “I want to have it!” The two go on to have an argument that turned into a snatching contest. I shook my head and continued walking.

A few moments later, I look back and there he is running to catch up to me, “Yo, LEIGH, wait up!”

Sigh…

Not too long after we started walking again, Lanky started yelling all kinds of random shit. He would even do this like, war cry where his face started shaking. Then he tried to punch the glass out of an advertisement display in a bus shelter. He was really buggin’.

Later on, he was yelling his random shit, and then this older black guy approaches him:

Older guy: “Yo, I’m with you black man.”

Lanky: “Hell yeah!”

Older guy: “Yo, let’s roll on some niggas, straight up rob ‘em!”

Lanky declined, but it’s at this point I decided that I’m not hanging with him anymore. He was negative and attracting negative people toward him. I told Lanky, that I wasn’t rolling with him anymore. He didn’t want to hear it, he just said, “Leigh, fuck that, let’s go!” We started walking some more, he’s in the street yelling at whomever, then finally I just stopped. I didn’t do anything, I just stopped, dead in my tracks.

Lanky hadn’t even noticed that I stopped walking with him and strolled down the street.

Whew…

The thing with Lanky is, that he used to actually be a very mild-mannered person. Lately however, this is a theory that my roommate proposed and one that I agree with, he has gotten it into his head that he does not fit into the black stereotype enough and has therefore gone overboard in trying to adhere to it. Nowadays, it seems like he goes out of his way to be ignorant, using lots of “niggas” and bitches” when he didn’t before, and being on some ‘I will fuck somebody up if they step to me’ type deal.

I remember at some point during the game, he said to me, “I love you Leigh, but we’re like two different people.” I didn’t even ask him to clarify, because I knew what he was saying. I am not “niggerish” enough, I have gotten it my whole life.

Ugh, as you can see I’m still pissed off about this, and I carried these negative emotions with me when I finally made it to the bar.

I get to the bar, and I see King Lear making out with this girl he’s been seeing. He is not even letting up for air. I don’t want to be around his smooch-fest so I go downstairs. I see this guy, South American, who buys me a beer.

South American is a guy who I thought was my friend many years ago. Then he had sex with my ex-girlfriend (The One) a week after we broke up, impregnated her, then left me to pick up the pieces. South American has a reputation for being a VERY violent individual, so whooping his ass was not an option.

Everyone that knows him tells this story about how he cut a mans eye out for hitting his mother. This was back in his home country.

I tried to be cordial to South American. Partly because I don’t like beefing with people, but also because he’s pretty scary. He told me this long story about how he was jumped outside of  the same bar we were at one year ago by six dudes. He didn’t have any other options and had his knives with him (he’s a cook), so he went to town. He cut this one guy on his arm and he had to go get 47 stitches. Wild.

South Americans trial is this week so naturally he was a little nervous about the situation. I guess talking to me about it was therapeutic for him, I don’t know. Maybe he was trying to scare me so I wouldn’t retaliate on him for doing my ex-girlfriend like that.

I didn’t stay too long at the bar because I was suddenly not in a good mood. I did manage to go upstairs and say hi to King Lear. I pulled him away from sucking face long enough to have a brief conversation with him while his girl went to the bathroom. After all that, I walked back home, watched some porn, then passed out. I hadn’t had much sleep the previous night and it felt good.

On the way home, I thought about how I am surrounded by crazy motherfuckers in my life, and what does that say about me?  This is by far not the majority of my friends, but I do think they fill a certain void for me personality-wise. I think that, deep down inside, I admire these people, because they do things that I would be afraid to do.

I remember, maybe a month ago, King Lear and I were at the bar, and this guy BLATANTLY cut me in line for the bathroom. He’s taking a piss, and I’m talking to him like, “yo, you just cut me in line!” The guy says, “no I didn’t!” He keeps taking his piss. King Lear interjects, “actually, you did,” but he’s not paying attention, he’s washing his hands.

There was nothing I could do at that point, he was already pissing. I felt like getting in his face, and being like, “yo, you WILL respect me!” But instead, I just let him go. Afterwards, King Lear says to me, “I would have whipped out my dick and pissed on HIM!” and I am sure he would have.

People treat me like this because I have a lack of self-confidence. Therefore, I allow this shit to come into my life. If I was assertive, and shoved the guy that cut me out of the way as I went to the toilet, there would have been no issue. Not even a need for a fight. I feel like I am constantly stepped and picked on and just wish it would stop.

Guys like King Lear, South American, and Lanky, I admire them because they have balls. I don’t think they make good life decisions, but the fact that they are so confident and unafraid of everything makes me look up to them, and that’s why I hang around them.