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Let’s talk about what ifs.

December 20, 2011 – 2:33 pm

So here we are. Tomorrow I will be 30. Thirty. The big 3-0. The age when my ex-girlfriend’s friend once told me your life ends. (Bitch.) Thirty freakin’ years old. I realize that 30 is the new 20 and that it’s not that big of a deal, but I’ve also been conditioned my entire life to believe that 30 is old. (What are you, like 30?) Plus, I realize everyday how long ago the 80s were and that I was freakin’ born at the beginning of them. Listen to Private Eyes by Hall and Oates and figure that I am roughly the same age as that song. So, yeah, old.

As becoming older takes over my mind so do a lot of thoughts about my life. I think the whole idea of “what if?” is kind of stupid because (as Morpheus said) whatever happened happened and couldn’t have happened any other way, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about them. In all honesty, I am not living the life I envisioned for myself. I like myself, I have fun times and no man is a failure who has friends, but to say this life is ideal would be a lie. I could do better. I should be doing better and because of that I am thinking of what ifs. These are the big ones.

1. What if I never moved to Hawaii?

Really all the signs in my life pointed to this being a bad idea. I didn’t have a lot of money, I didn’t have a job and the only person I knew there was a girl that I wasn’t 100% convinced even wanted me to come. Actually, let’s be honest and say that she didn’t. She wasn’t mad when I did and things worked out that I did, but when I told her that I was doing it she said it was a bad idea. So I canceled my plane ticket. Then I bought another one a month later and didn’t tell her this time. It was irrational and when I got to my layover in Phoenix and they were overbooked I was the first one to put my name in. They didn’t use me and I ended up going. Things worked out. I had fun and I got a son of out of it, but holy crap would my life be different and I really don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t moved there. Would I have moved somewhere else? Would I have ever seen Jenny again? Would I have stayed in LG all this time? A crazy what if that ultimately doesn’t matter because of Nolan.

2. What if I had stayed in Tacoma?

I moved to Tacoma with my girlfriend at the time and when we broke up my first thought was to GTFO. I headed back to Alabama and ended up living there longer than I ever intended and getting into some shit I didn’t want to get into. It was dumb times and that whole Alabama phase has always felt like a big waste of time to me. So, what if I stayed? I don’t think we would have worked it out because, you know, I’m still me, but I loved it there and I could have found somewhere to live. Would it have worked out? I would have probably had to find all new friends, found another a new job and everything else, but maybe it’d have worked. I could be a Seattle Seahawks season ticket holder right now! I could say I was from Seattle and it actually have been true, but alas there would be no Nolan in this scenario so I don’t really care.

3. What if I had went to college for.. something?

I think about this a lot. I never know exactly what I would have went for (which is why I’ve never went), but I know that if I had went I would be down by now. If I had went when I left Tacoma, I’d be done by now. If I had went when I left Alabama, I’d be done by now. If I had went when I left Hawaii, I’d be done by now. Maybe if I had stayed with Jenny when Nolan was born I’d have been like “I NEED TO SUPPORT MY FAMILY” and went then, I’d be done by now and who knows. This isn’t so much a what if as a coulda/woulda/shoulda. I should have, but I didn’t and if I had I wouldn’t be me right now so who cares. I’ve never felt that college was my path to success and I still don’t. Stupid? Possibly, but that’s just me.

4. What if I had went to Milwaukee?

My entire goal of summer 2010 was to make enough money to move to Milwaukee. Then I fell in love with a girl from Illinois who told me she didn’t want to live in Milwaukee and bla bla bla. I probably should have called her bluff and just done it. If a girl doesn’t want to live where you want to live then it’s probably not going to work out. There’s no f’n way I’d live in Illinois either, but that was her home. Just not a good recipe for success. What if I moved though? Would it have helped or killed that relationship? Would I have found some success? Would my life be different? I can’t really regret this one too much because if I didn’t date that girl I never would have gotten over her and staying was the only way to date her.

Ultimately, I have no regrets about the decisions I’ve made in my life. My only true regrets are not doing the things I wanted to do for whatever reason. Twelve years I’ve wanted to write a screenplay and still they sit unwritten. It’s probably too late now, but I could have gone to wrestling school at any point during that time. I could have done a lot of things and I just procrastinated them all this time. Regretful, but like I said before 30 is the new 20. I got plenty of time to do things I want to do.

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I got a tumblr and other assorted things…

September 27, 2011 – 4:39 pm

Because I am totally cool guy who is trying to be a person who works full time on the internet and writes all the time, I found another thing to distract myself by starting a tumblr. It’s mainly for shorter posts that I don’t feel are worth posting here like this one I posted this morning:

I found an old ipod shuffle (I would say “my old ipod shuffle”, but I honestly have no recollection of ever buying or being given one) and it has the weirdest, most vintown playlist ever on it.

  1. Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl by Broken Social Scene
  2. Banquet by Bloc Party
  3. Rebellion (Lies) by Arcade Fire
  4. Last Nite by The Strokes
  5. lisztomania by Phoenix
  6. Whoever You Are by Geggy Tah
  7. Going Back To Cali by Notorious BIG
  8. Game Got Switched by Ludacris
  9. Off The Wall by Redman & Eminem
  10. Fuck You by Cee-Lo Green

And that’s all. There is still 42 MB left to fill. I can picture the timeline when I started working on this (late summer/fall 2010, post-Scott Pilgrim (track 1/when Fuck You was still cool)), but don’t remember why I stopped.

Regardless of why, I am going to be listening to this for the rest of my trip.

You know, stuff like that. One might question my desire to have a tumblr, blog, baseball blog, twitter, facebook and google reader as well as my business websites, screenwriting(?) and freelance writing; and that would be a good thing to question. On the surface it seems insane, but someone once told me that writer’s block is when there is something that you need to express/write about and can’t for whatever reason. This is my attempt to get everything I want to say out there in one way or another and thus never suffer from this disease. I’ll let you know how it works out.

Here’s a quick update on how to follow me properly: read more »

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A quick thought on moving…

September 6, 2011 – 8:13 pm

I’ve been thinking a lot about moving lately. I’ve even volunteered to be someone’s roommate in Milwaukee should a few breaks go our way and we get this nice house at a good price. I’ve been planning on it, actually. There were things keeping me here and those things aren’t here anymore and the logic goes that I should go too and yet I can’t shake the feeling that this isn’t the right thing to do. Not right now. Moving for the sake of moving is not a good reason to move. At least, it’s not the reason I am looking for to move.

And then there is this:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

That’s from a Robert Frost poem and I read it in this book I read recently and how those words changed the author’s life. About how he always tried to heed those words whenever making a major life decision and it’s how I want to live my life. I don’t bend to popular opinion and I don’t always do what everyone thinks is right for me. I make decisions based off of what I think is right. So, what’s the play here? Do I stay or do I go? What is the road less traveled?

I know that right now there is less reason than ever for me to stay here and somehow, that makes staying here feel right. At least for today.

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Everything is going to change and that is okay with me

August 30, 2011 – 2:58 pm

A lot of things have changed in my life and a lot more are about to change even more. Goals, jobs, living situations, relationships, it’s all going to be different from here on out. I’ve sensed it for a long time and now it’s here. It is a scary feeling, leaving things behind, but it is something that needs to be done at this point in my life and despite the scary feelings I am excited. I am happy how everything turned out.

I could tell you a story about two people who lived together in a space they didn’t want to be in, but stayed in it because they wanted to be together and ended up unhappy for it. I know that story very well and I have told that story way too many times before, but that’s not the story I want to tell anymore. It’s not my story anymore and I am just not interested in it anymore. I am interested in the story of getting better every day of your life and becoming the person that everyone thinks you can be and the person that you want to be. The people who fill in the supporting roles in that story are important to it, but they aren’t the story. The characters can change because the story is me.

(Is this coming across emotional? Because I don’t mean it to be. I have done the emotions thing and I am done with it. This is about positivity and new experiences. This is about saying goodbye to the life that I knew. It’s a happy time. It’s time to walk on through.)

I haven’t weighed myself in a few days so I can’t give the update on the quest for 180, but I imagine I’ve dropped a few more. Just been eating so right lately. Grilled chicken or salmon with veggies, every meal. No bread, no butter, no potatoes, no sugar. Smaller portions and salads with oil and vinegar (which is awful, btw). I am doing my best to not care about taste or feeling full and just eating what I need to eat. I definitely miss garlic bread. Drinking lots of water and no sugar drinks. I’ve drank a few beers (a few too many actually), but every time I’ve done so I’ve skipped dinner. I think that is the right thing to do, but I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll just switch to vodka full-time when I go out. (And I probably shouldn’t be doing shots, but hey it’s a work in progress.) Not being able to work out as much as I’d like to though. Just hindu squats whenever I get the chance. Once I get my job situation better figured out, as in only having one, I think I’ll be able to actually get to the gym. I hope so at least. That said, I can definitely feel a difference in my life now that I have adopted eating better/positive thinking/exercise and it’s only going to get better.

I’m off for now. Going to only my second Brewers game of the year tonight and I couldn’t be more excited. WORLD SERIES.

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We become such worse friends as we get older

June 29, 2010 – 9:25 pm

I cleaned my room today. I don’t really like cleaning my room. Now don’t get me wrong I love having a clean room. Having a clean room is something that is important to me. It’s just that whenever I clean my room I inevitably find something that reminds me of someone, some place, some thing that I didn’t really want to think about. Today is no exception. Today, I found this picture:

vin-john

This photo reminds me of a lot of things. It reminds me of the time I thought it was a good idea to shave a line in my left eyebrow because I thought it looked cool (like Spike). It reminds me of Muska, my crazy ass dog with a mole on his nose that we named after skater Chad Muska during my brief “I think I want to start skateboarding” phase. Was he tied up in the backyard here? Was he in the house getting into something, chewing up something? Was he doing that crazy howl he used to do that drove the old neighbors crazy? Maybe he was playing in the yard with Shannon, my big (like 250 pounds) black friend from Philadelphia who defied stereotypes by spending way too much time playing video games. Was he at the house? Was he on his way over? It was probably a Saturday. We’re probably grilling out. Our neighbors seemed cool. It reminds me of Tacoma and this house we lived in. There was so much fun we had there, but when I look at this picture mostly it just reminds me of the photographer and the guy cutting my hair.

Katy, my girlfriend from high school, the first person I ever loved who quit school because she didn’t want to lose me and came to live in Alabama and then went back to school because I came with her. I liked her a lot. She was the perfect person for me at that point in my life. I really screwed up that relationship.

Then there’s John, her best friend from college who became my best friend when I moved there. He was probably one of the nicest guys I’ve ever known in my life. He was so easy going and always willing to help a friend. We had a lot of fun and we were friends from the first day I arrived. He was a really great guy. It’s really no wonder she started dating him after me. I would have done the same thing. read more »

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