Author Archive

As much as my life has improved over the last two years, it has improved exponentially over the past seven months ago. A little over seven months ago, I was sitting in a hotel room in San Antonio with my dad. I was obsessing and depressed and felt like my life was spiraling downhill even though I rationally knew it wasn’t. It was about some insignificant s*** like the room number of our hotel room was not to my liking. As I hit the lowest point of this anxiety-ridden meltdown, I got a notification on my phone of a new 100hookup message.

I hadn’t been active on 100hookup for a couple of years, but still periodically received messages. Like I’ve said before, I think that the best way to conduct yourself on a dating site is to not aggressively search for and message people. Treat it like real life. You don’t walk up to every woman you ever see and ask them on a date. If you do, you’re not real, and exist on a TV show or are a Ryan Gosling movie. Every once in a while, when you’re feeling crazy, and drunk, you may hit on a woman, but usually you hang low.

So I got a message while feeling really s***** and it completely made my night. I knew it wouldn’t go anywhere until I woke up this morning engaged. It wasn’t a disease I had contracted while sleeping. I got tested. I had proposed the night before and she inexplicably said, ‘Yes.’ I had taken her out to the restaurant where we had our first date. Actually, it was the same table, and it was awesome.

So now I’m engaged and have officially won at dating.

So what do you guys think about this sequester business?

You’re up all night urinating.

A good measure of a man is how he handles a bad situation, and if that was the only measure of me as a person, I would be the human equivalent of a Comcast customer service representative.

Everything brings me down. I can’t make lemonade out of anything! When life gives me lemons, sugar, and water, I throw it back at you and punch you in the face. Every minor setback is a year-long uphill battle out of a hole that I never completely climb out of. If I get in a fender bender, don’t try to talk to me for at least two weeks. My bumper has a slight scratch on it that may have been avoided if the guy in front of me had decided to not stop suddenly for no reason! I can’t have any of that!

So today, when I realized that the button had fallen off of my boxers, that was it. My day ended at 9 am. I couldn’t focus on helping people… and walking… and opening doors… and whatever else my routine requires when there’s no button on my underpants! Where is this button? Did it fall out in the wash? Am I wearing somebody else’s underwear? If so, why do they have my name inscribed on the side? And if somebody else has my name, how do they have access to my home? So I called my locksmith, because apparently I have my own locksmith, and this joke scenario is now over.

If I could only move on from minor setbacks, I would be so much better of a person. However, it is always an uphill battle, and setbacks are always going to happen. Some people just roll with it: “Alright, so there’s no button on my boxers? I’m running for president tomorrow, son!”

I just need every possible thing in my life to go right for the rest of my life. But really the only way for that to happen is to react positively to the things that don’t.

Step 1: Be extremely attractive.

Step 2: Be extremely wealthy.

Step 3: Do not get a tattoo on your face.

You work your whole life to make yourself desirable. If you’re lucky enough to find someone to spend the rest of your life with, what’s the point in maintaining it, other than wanting to extend your life with this person? Oh, I suppose that is why.

But honestly, it seems like a lot of people tend to let themselves go after they settle down. However, coming right off of a huge amount of weight loss and adherence to a strict diet, I am not planning on letting that happen anytime soon. I don’t really care what anybody thinks about my looks, other than my girlfriend, but that’s more than enough motivation. I always have to look my best for her. If I know I’m seeing her the next day, I make sure to take an extra long shower and to actually use a clean towel when drying myself off. You guys may wince at that, but how many guys out there use a clean towel every time they shower? Really? Do you understand how much laundry that takes? Especially when you only have one towel left because the rest are lost in a mountain of clothes strewn out on the floor of your closet?

My OCD goes into hyperdrive before I see her. I don’t cut any corners. If I own a hygienic product, I’m using it. I suddenly have a beard trimmer in my cabinet for some reason, and I’m for damn sure using it, and I have absolutely no facial hair.

I don’t believe that my motivation to better my physical self will change as my relationship develops. I’ve had a whole new mindset over the past year and a half. Nothing will stop me on my journey to chiseled super sex god.

Every day I go to the gym; there is a man there that walks on the treadmill. He has a lot of difficulty simply walking. His steps are awkward and jerky, and he has to grip the sides of the machine tightly so he doesn’t fall. Every step is obviously very painful. Though I can’t see his face, I can hear him wincing sometimes, and he always looks like he is on the verge of falling.

I recently saw this man at the local movie theater where he was taking tickets as an employee. I talked to him for a moment. He has difficulty talking as well, and is confined to a chair.

Everybody needs perspective sometimes. If this man can find the strength to get out of bed every morning and not only live through the pain, but force himself to exercise (which is probably especially painful for him), and also force himself to get a job, which may not be easy either, maybe I can not have a huge fit in my car if traffic is making my commute three minutes longer in the afternoon.

I sometimes think it’s some huge burden to have to spend an hour and a half at the gym every day, but whenever I’m exercising, and I see him, I not only gain faith in humanity, but I try not to think about my problems — the biggest problem at that moment being how much my feet hurt and how badly I want to die or at least pretend to faint and fall off my machine so that I can momentarily experience some sort of physical relief.

Then again, once I leave the gym, I completely forget about everything I just learned. I just want to get my dinner and sit in bed and feel sorry for my terrible middle-class life. The Daily Show is on reruns all week? Are you serious? I need The Daily Show to be on and be new immediately after I get out of my nightly shower. I already heard that joke! Not only that, but I knew it was coming, and I already know everything the political guest trying to maintain relevance to the younger generation is going to say! I just want to wake up and have it be next week. I can’t live like this anymore.

Anything good that has or will ever happen to you is hanging by a very thin thread. At any moment, you could die in so many ways, the love of your life could leave you, you could lose all of your wealth, or your internet and cable television could go out yet again because you settled for Comcast. Nothing is for sure except regular urination and death, and even that is not secure if you have something wrong with your bladder or kidneys.

Don’t get too comfortable. I know this and am never comfortable. No matter how good my life seemingly gets, in the back of my mind I know I could lose it all in an instant. Yes, it helps me take nothing for granted, but it also takes up the majority of the hours in the day. Is it worth it? Probably not. Can I help it? I cannot. Will we all eventually die anyway? Yes.

Maybe after a certain amount of time with the love of my life, I will realize she’s not going away. Until then, I will continue to experience constant heart palpitations, back sweats, the inability to speak, and a lot of forehead scratching. Maybe there’s a certain amount of time that G-d’s making me live through before I can experience this. There is only so much more I can take.

I shouldn’t complain, though. Life is good. I have the best girlfriend of all time, a great job, and Tums I haven’t had to use in over a year. I have to lay down, though.

I’ve seen some bad things in my life. I saw a kid get hit by a car. I saw an entire season of Repo Games. I saw myself in the mirror three years ago. Up until last night, I have never seen anything as bad as the writing that went into the live production of Sesame Street that toured through our city.

I have pretty high standards when it comes to Sesame Street and The Muppets, and I won’t tolerate any B.S. I spent my entire early childhood glued to Sesame Street. So much so that my little brother would often try to mess with me while watching and I once ripped his head off. The doctors had to surgically reconnect it. True story.

Granted, it’s been a few years since I’ve seen it, and I really only went last night because I wanted to watch my girlfriend’s daughter enjoy the show. Also, I didn’t pay for the tickets. Also, I got a soda. Also, I got to spend time with my girlfriend. Also, it was an Elmo-centric show, and Elmo is easily one of my top four Sesame Street characters and top nine Muppets. I didn’t have high expectations, because I figured it would be geared towards two-year-olds. But for the same reason that kids’ movies have some adult undertones, this show should have at least had some sort of a plot.

Instead, it was characters dancing and singing about nothing, with each segment having nothing at all to do with the preceding or proceeding. The show was loosely centered on the idea that Elmo stole Abby’s magic wand. However, even this didn’t make any sense, and it was just an excuse for Elmo to dance around with a wand and make magic things happen like lights go off and then on again.

They played a lot of the classic Sesame Street songs, which were great, but they also played some other songs. I don’t know if these are Sesame Street songs that have been written within the past 22 years, or just some crap they threw together for this show, but I rather would have just heard the song “Sing“ played nonstop for an hour and a half.

Also, this is just a little gripe, but Cookie Monster did not eat a single cookie. As an adult, I often question why a children’s television character’s single characteristic is his love for cookies, especially in the midst of a childhood obesity epidemic. However, it’s Cookie Monster. There’s no going back. If he’s going to be in the show, which he damn sure should be, feed the guy a cookie.

I am writing this blog post at my girlfriend’s home. I consider that in itself a success. I’m an expert at almost nothing, but — if there’s something I not only do not qualify to give advice on, but believe that my advice may actually cause bodily harm — it’s dating.

Dating sucks. That’s why typical dating spots usually offer an abundance of alcohol. Without alcohol I would be so much of a worse/better dater.

The first enjoyable date I have ever attended was the first one with my current girlfriend. Yes, I had a beer, and yes, fajitas were involved, but there was so much more. Sour cream… Guacamole….

It was the first time I was out with a person when I was simultaneously not nervous at all — and yet completely terrified. I could completely be myself, yet still had to calculate my every move because I wanted another opportunity to be myself again. On the drive home, though I had just experienced something great, I knew, because of a lifetime of being in this situation before, that this would have been our only experience together.

She texted me five minutes after I left.

Today, I’m still in disbelief. For example, after spending a weekend with her, there’s still a part of me that believes she won’t want to see me again. Every new text from her is just like the first one.

I suppose 15 children and 65 years may improve my confidence.

I always see myself as young and healthy. Back when I wasn’t healthy, I was younger. Now that I’m healthy, I’m older. I never saw myself as overweight. Now, when I look at old pictures of myself, I wonder who that vaguely attractive semi-obese man is, and wonder why my mother never told me I have a second brother with no self control.

Back when I was big, and I saw those same photos, I didn’t see myself as other than skinny. Now, though thin, I refuse to believe I’m aging. My hairline is somewhat receding, yet I’m already using really cheesy middle-aged-man-methods to try to cover it up. I clip the front of my hair to make it try to blend in better. I brush my hair forward. I wear hats. I’m just kidding about the hats. I hate hats.

I believe God gave me the option of either youth or health, but never at the same time. Imagine if I had been young and healthy. I would have been married by age 18. That actually would have led to way more problems. In a way I’m glad I’m just now getting my life together.It helped me realize how bad things can get and appreciate how far I’ve come. If I had settled down by age twenty, I would have never realized what it’s like to really hit rock bottom, and wouldn’t appreciate anything, including my wife. Today, I appreciate my girlfriend more than anything, and I believe this is part of the reason. For ten years, I couldn’t even get a second date. Now, not only did I get a second date, but I’m on the cusp of starting a new life with someone who I wouldn’t have even imagined saying ‘hi’ to just two years ago.

However, I am still aging. My hair will fall out. My hip, which was just diagnosed with dysplasia, will give out. I will eventually care if my taxes get raised. I’m not a child anymore, and I really have no room to mess around. I can’t really sleep in anymore unless I’m sick, and even then, I really can’t. I can’t go to McDonalds everyday anymore. I can’t build forts anymore, because my sheets no longer have cartoons on them, so they would just end up looking like tents.

People experience sleepiness every day. While the best solution for sleepiness is sleep, this is not always a viable solution, as you may be at work, and you can’t sleep, because you are an open heart surgeon. I find creative ways to sleep throughout the day when not at home. For example, I’m really well attuned to my daily driving routine. People often use the phrase, ‘I can drive there in my sleep.’ loosely. However, every morning, I drive to work while asleep. Either that or I’m so used to my routine that while I’m awake while driving, I suddenly find myself in my work parking garage without remembering anything since waking up at about 2 am the night before to use the restroom. Most likely, I do not drive while sleeping, because I constantly find myself being alive.

I actually don’t sleep throughout the day. That was just a preface for that hilarious fake anecdote. I’m still on a strict diet throughout the week, and a lot of the time, though I am really tired, my hunger overrides my sleepiness, and I don’t feel the full weight of my fatigue until Friday after my diet is over and I’ve finally eaten a full meal. If you find that you are too tired a lot of the time, simply starve yourself. Once your stomach begins to eat its own lining, you will be in too much pain to realize that you need sleep. Also, you’ll lose some weight. Only five more months until swimsuit season!

Aside from that fact that the modern standards of beauty require a body that is unhealthily skinny, it is not a good idea to starve yourself. I just wanted to make that clear.

Because I am not a big fan of coffee, I sometimes rely on energy shots. Though recent reports indicate that drinks such as 5-hour Energy will kill you, and the fact that it should probably be renamed ‘2-hour Shaking’, I use this sometimes. I don’t care too much about my long-term health, so long as I feel okay now. Who knows? The earth may implode tomorrow, but at least I will be awake, alert, and shaking violently.