Category Archives: blogs

I’m not angry…

Where to begin? Where to start?

The mental retardation of my thoughts is seriously handicapping my capacity to put finger taps into words. I am seriously having difficulties putting words into sentences and then paragraphs and then ultimately into coherent thoughts that express the distractions that I have been going through.

I am definitely having mental difficulties. Definitely.

As my life progresses, a second at a time which adds up to minutes, hours, days, months, years, I do realize that as I get older, things change.

I have always known that things change for better or worse, but it always felt that I have some form of control and say on how I want things rendered.

But it just seems like things are out of my hands, my control.

This little mid-life that I am experiencing has no root in anything that I am aware of. It just showed up.

Where did it come from? How did it sprout?

Why?

It is just there and it is something that I can’t shake.

As I look around at the things that were my usual distractions, things that my heart usually harp on, I just seem to give up and let things go.

That pull that they usually have over me doesn’t really have any effect on me anymore. I just let it be. Let them be.

Am I gone? Is this heart of mine tired of playing these games of yearning and panging?

Maybe.

It is tired of this sense of ennui. It is just tired.

It needs to rest and just beat on its own without any reason to. It just needs to beat for a while, march on with its usual cadence.

Beat.

Thup-Thup.

* * *

I see you walking down the hall, you noticing me, smiling at me.

You are just being you, your nice sweet self. You want to talk. I see that.

Normally I would just be head over heels bonkers at the opportunity, but now, recently, I just want to do what I need to do and leave.

I’ve changed. Something in me just snapped and I just can’t do this anymore. I need to focus and not think about something that I just can’t have.

What’s the point?

Is there really any point?

I don’t think there is.

Focus.

That’s all I need.

Focus.

Work on things.

I need something to drive my existence and I think I lost it somewhere, somehow.

Over.

Things are just over.

* * *

My heart is closed for business.

Happiest Age

Here I am, a few days late, but here I am. It is time for my yearly diatribe of another year older, another year wiser. I’m 33. 33. 33. 33.

33.

From a recent survey, it seems that 33 is the happiest age.

It is the happiest age because:

Psychologist Donna Dawson said: “The age of 33 is enough time to have shaken off childhood naivety and the wild scheming of teenaged years without losing the energy and enthusiasm of youth.

Now that I am 33, does it seem that way? Grant it I just got here, I can’t really decide. It’s still early to say, so I’ll refrain from any judgment until that time when my 33s are over.

But I guess ultimately it is something to look forward to, and I think for me now, at this time and juncture, it is something that I need to look forward to.

* * *

32. What can I say about it?

It was another year for the most part in the right direction. As stated in my year-diatribe, it has been a year where I have been very social. I’ve been going out more and been more than chatty with a few people. It is definitely a step in the right direction for me.

It was a year of great travels and new adventures. I had a great time exploring New Orleans, that great epic road trip up the 1 and the 101 to home. I had fun times in Philly with family and even working in Moorestown again. I had my share of little small road trips here and there. It was another great year of travels and adventures and I don’t think that will be something that will change.

Even for my 33 birthday trip was another great adventure to Arizona. Traveling is in my blood. It is in my heart and until I die, that will never go away from me. Never.

I think in a way I had been influenced by my parents when it comes with traveling. I may have written about this before, but it does make sense.

My mom had that sense of adventure in her like I do. She’s always game to go places; it’s just that no one takes her. I’m always down to go anywhere and I do.

My love of road trips is most definitely from my dad. Some of my fondest memories of when I was a child were the many road trips down to California to visit family that I took with my family. My parents would just pack us in the car and we would just go.

I’m sure it was the sense of adventure and seeing new places that was appealing and also probably missing school at some point. It was just nice. I had a great time and it had shaped me into who I am today.

* * *

32.

It had been a really really good year for me and maybe in the end it is driving me to change a little bit more. I am definitely itching for something new, something more demanding in my life, but in a way, I’m weary of the change.

I can’t wrap it in my head but I am in a current state of mind that I can’t shake. I just know that something is off and this had been happening for a few months now. I just don’t know what it is.

I have no motivation to do anything. Nothing really interests me anymore and I’m bored with my hobbies or everything that I’m producing.

I think I just need a little something, I just need that little spark of inspiration that will jump start my life again, to get out of this rut that had plagued me in the last few months of my 32s.

I’m sure it might just be a phase, just something that I’m coining as my mid-life crisis or a 1/3rd-life-crisis as Ms. D had coined it. I don’t know what it is but it is something that had been haunting me and it is something that I just definitely need to shake.

I’m sure this will be something that I’ll figure out in the long run if not the short run. Nothing is forever. Nothing.

* * *

Projects.

Art.

Hobbies.

Creative endeavors and distractions had been no different in my 32s as my other years. I had been focusing more on my latest script — that of family and how we got to America — and my photography.

I finished the script in about four to five months and have not looked back at it. I’ve just been waiting for notes and taking a step back to get a better feel of it, trying to figure out a way out of the trap that I’ve written myself into. I have a vague idea of what it is that I want to do, but it is just a matter of actually doing it. This lack of motivation is really killing me.

I finished another 365 photography project last year, but this time it is with cellphones and for the most part it was a success. Instagram definitely made it a lot easier.

In terms of photography in general, I haven’t been taking much pictures since the project was over at the end of the calendar year. I had no pressures no reason to take pictures unless it is a trip, a la Arizona 2012.

I think for the most part it all goes back to the lack of motivation or the lack of inspiration that I had been feeling lately. It is this rut of soul sucking suckiness that is just wreaking havoc on me; mind, body, and soul.

I feel bored with everything that I had been doing. My script. Bored. My photography. Bored.

I haven’t even been reading for I have two books that I’ve started months and months ago that are barely even close to being finished.

Motivation is severely lacking.

Something is definitely gone in me or out of tune. I just need to fix it.

I do have these grand ideas of changing the way I shoot photography. I do have these grand ideas of new photography projects and just learning new skills and trying a different style of shooting. I have learned all I can learn right now in terms of street photography.

I need to do more studio work. More planned work. More lighting work.

I think it would be a great change of pace for me. It will be challenging and I think that is something that I am looking forward to and something that I definitely need. A challenge.

I think that is another reason why I have switched to writing more prose with my little writing prompts and what not. I always felt uncomfortable with my prose. It’s just not ever any really good. I need more practice and I need to write more, to figure out my voice and my style. Listening to words, books, novels and novellas of other more established writings, I’m trying to pick up and learn how to write better. I’m trying to get a better grasp of voice and just better writing in general.

It’s another challenge that I think I definitely need and I think it will be a good year for me to do that.

33, a year of creative challenges.

Maybe that will be the theme for this year, this age, and this number. 33. Creative challenges.

As of now, besides the prose writing I did in the past couple of months, I haven’t done anything. But this year is still early. I just turned this number. I have lots of time.

* * *

There’s just something about last year that made me wanted to go out more and be a little more social and I followed through on that. Dinners with friends and a lot more happy hours and just hanging out and doing things with people.

Maybe with my old age, it got to the point where I realize that I can’t be the hermit all the time and maybe it’s because I haven’t been hanging out with Scott and Rutledge as much because we all got busy and because of Gabriel.

Also most likely it’s because I know that they are planning on leaving and that I need to find some new friends to hang out with. I think for the most part, that is the driving force behind it…and maybe trying to meet someone that is worth meeting.

I don’t know what it is, but it was definitely welcomed.

I’ve gotten comfortable in this whole socializing thing as proven by the holiday party. Things are good. Things are well as I didn’t need a social buffer for me to fit in and feel comfortable.

As of now, it doesn’t seem any different as I had joined the softball team and gone to a few dinners with people I never thought I’d get dinner with, like Doan and in a way making plans with the Irish Ginger.

As much as I would love to go back to basics, go back to the hermit that I am, in my cave, I don’t know what this year is going to shape up in terms of that. There’s a part of me that wants to go out and do more, but there is also a huge part of me this is looking forward to staying home and working on new projects, whether in photography or writing or something new. I don’t know, but it is definitely on my mind.

Along the way I have developed a sibling relationship with Blox and it’s cool. I guess after having Mui Gwai Fah getting busy and not chatting with me, especially after the holiday party, I had found someone else to chat with. It’s nice.

But let’s see where this whole socializing thing goes.

Again, with the whole socializing, I have no problems asking people out now or agreeing to go out with someone. It’s just a matter of getting someone to hang out with me. Whether it is dinner with B5 or someone else.

I even made an effort to ask Ms. D out, but we all know how that turned out and with that I made a decision to not see her as much anymore.

In a way, I am not sticking to the decision that I have made, which is to just move on and forget about her. Not seeing her as often is definitely a step in right direction, but I should stop emailing her too. That whole dynamic is just confusing to me. I have no idea what is happening. I’m not smart enough to figure it out.

It just seems I can’t decide on what I want. I see girls and notice them and notice how friendly they are to me, but I just can’t read them.

For example, I have no idea what the Cute Tracker is up to. None. I think she’s just friendly, feeding off of my friendly vibe.

Blah.

Back to the cave. That is what it seems to be. Back to the cave.

* * *

From everything that happened, from things going well to the dreaded fatigue and lack of motivation, it just seems that 32 was a year of transition. The year of where my childhood ends to where I need to grow up and man up. It is a time for change, to prepare myself for adulthood.

Maybe, just maybe.

A year of transitions. A year of growing up. It is a year of shedding this little selfish childish kid inside of me and just maybe grow up a little bit more.

In an attempt, I feel the need to dress a little more grown up. I feel the need to ditch my t-shirts for something more adult.

It’s not like I’m ditching them totally. That will never leave me, that classic style of t-shirts and jeans, but there are times where I feel that I just need to grow up and face the world as a grown up.

I can’t hide from things anymore.

A year of transitions.

It started in my late 32s and it’ll keep happening through my 33s.

* * *

I don’t know what it is, but I think that I am at a precipice in my life. It is an interesting time in my life, the time of being comfortable in my skin, being comfortable with who I am is over and it is time to make use of that, to bring it to the next level.

I think that is what is in store for me in my 33s. It is time.

If the saying 30s is the new 20s is true, then I’m about 23 right now. It would have been a year or two out of college for me, and it would be time for me to get serious about life, to get serious about who I am, and just work towards securing the happiness of my future. It is time.

It is just right.

33s is the time for that.

* * *

The last couple of months of my 32s, was that rut, that crisis I was having.

It isn’t an identity crisis, nor do I think it is an existential crisis. It is just a crisis of the mind.

I don’t think I am lost like in my quarter life, but it is definitely something.

Maybe it is getting close to that time of the year where Dad passed away and it is just hitting a little too close to home for me.

32.

I do notice that I have been an emotional mess this past year. Just the slightest things that usually set me off will definitely and most always set me off.

Watching How I Met Your Mother, that episode where Jason Siegel’s father passed away, I just lost it.

When Lily got out of the car I knew it. I started to cry and crack even before the words left her mouth.

I haven’t cried that hard in a long time. I haven’t felt that pain, the sense of loss and yearning for my dad in quite a long time.

He is always in my thoughts. Every day, he is, but it’s been almost 10 years, almost 9 years, and the pain is still there like I lost him yesterday.

Sensitive.

Heartbroken.

That is where I am at.

I miss him and that is reason enough for me being an emotional mess.

But again, I don’t know why it is happening.

Am I just purging everything in me to get to the point where I am now, to make this transition to the stable person, to take the leap to be that grown up that I must be?

Is it time?

Maybe.

* * *

I’m at a point where I am just rambling for the sake of rambling.

This post has lost its point, lost its meaning, and has become something that wasn’t meant to be.

My 32 has come and gone and it was another year in the right direction, but it was also a challenging year for me, pushing toward the next phase in my life.

I think maybe that is it. That little boredom in my life, near the end is pushing me to do something different. To have me live my life a different way, to find other things to make my life more interesting, to make me less bored.

It isn’t a pressure for me to abandon the things that I currently love or my hobbies, but to enhance them, to make them better, to find a different way to do them. Instead of screenplays, write prose. Instead of street photography, do another type of photography, portrait photography, studio photography. Just something different.

I think that is it. It has to be.

* * *

In terms of work, it is going.

When I’m learning new stuff, I love it, but then there are times, when I am just bored and waiting.

I have so many projects that are hanging above my head that I want to finish, but I am relying on other people to help. I usually work alone and I hate relying on other people.

It doesn’t help when these people procrastinate and don’t turn in their part of the project, so it is a waiting game and I have no patience for that, especially when work is issue.

It may seem that I don’t care about work, that work is work, but I do. I enjoy my work and I enjoying new and challenging things.

I just don’t like waiting and relying on other people, especially when they are unreliable.

I think that is another reason why the last couple of months have been frustrating.

This waiting game in my work life. Just waiting.

Looming projects that I want to finish, but can’t.

Whether it is because of my limited skill set or because I’m just waiting on people.

Irksome.

* * *

32 has come and went. Now I’m another year older, another year wiser.

Like most years, 32 has been a good year, a year in the right direction.

But unlike the many years in recent memory, it has been a trying year, or a little more so than others. It has been a year that is pressing me to be something more than I am.

I need to break out of this comfort zone that I have been living for the past 4 or 5 years or so and grow up a little more.

It has been shaping me in the direction to start the next phase in my life.

What does that entail, I have no idea, but I am more than ready for face it. Hopefully.

I can already tell that my 33 will be a trying year, testing me, forcing me to grow. I just hope that I will face it like most of my other challenges, head on without fear.

I think I am ready for this. I am ready for a change.

I am ready to grow up.

The kid inside can only be a kid for so long before everyone has to grow up. Even Peter Pan grows up.

So with this, I will bid my yearly adieu to the year that was, I will say my goodbye to 32 and welcome with open arms my new number. 33.

Bring it on.

Love in the Buff

First it was a whirlwind relationship that blossomed over a week. It all started with a chance meeting sharing a cigarette. Now, it’s into the relationship and all the usual bullshit that comes with it.

What is to come? How will it end? I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

* * *

I sit here aging. Growing second by second, minute by minute. It will never change. This will be the case till I my final minutes, till my final seconds.

Tis is life and there is no escaping it.

There’s no point in reminiscing in the past and living in the warm nostalgia. There’s no point in fretting about the unknown future. Whatever will come, will come and who is to say that it won’t?

Time beats on. Time goes on forever, even when all the clocks have lost their ability to keep track of time.

Time is the ever elusive constant of life.

There will always be beats that ticks and ticks and ticks.

* * *

Prose.

Been writing a lot of prose lately, well more so than usual.

Prose.

It’s not good. But I don’t think it is that horrendous either. It is what it is.

My latest was the longest and most involved short story I had ever written. It was based on a prompt by Ms. D.

Prompt: WORST Date. Ever

For the most part, I did just that. Wrote about what I think would be the worst date ever, but it’s open to a lot of interpretation as to what is the worst date.

I finished it and turned it in at the nick of time. Just a few minutes before it was due.

I actually had fun with it. It’s been a while since I had fun writing something. Everything else felt like a chore, but these little prompts were fun. Especially this one, because I was so ambitious with it.

Two characters. Alternating from each perspective. Written in different writing styles.

Quinn’s part was written in a more straightforward usual prose. Very sparse of colorful language and words.

Melissa’s part was written in the vein of chick-lit; chock full of inner monologues and questions.

It was definitely fun. It was definitely a challenge.

Overall, I am happy with the finished product, even though I know it still can use a lot of work and it has a lot more untapped potential.

It was a first draft and I need to remember that it is a first draft. It can be reworked and be better.

* * *

Looking over my writing, reading it over, seeing my style of prose and how I write, I know that it isn’t really that good.

Listening or even reading more polished and professional prose, those of David Levithan, Rachel Cohn, and even John Green, I see that my writing is lacking. I am holding back, afraid that the length is long, afraid of how I write.

Their writing is bold. Their writing is simply better.

Eventually, one day, I’ll reach that level of prose and hopefully maybe surpass it.

Here’s hoping.

* * *

She’s not here today.

I usually have been seeing her on the weekends, in her little group. I don’t know whether she was studying or just doing something else, but I would always see her.

I wonder what he story is. I don’t even know what her name is.

I know that she works here from time to time. That is all I know.

We’ve been seeing each other from time to time here on a customer/server capacity for a while now. We usually do our Hi’s as I place my order and I just go off to the table and focus on whatever work I was doing that day.

I’ve seen her at the Sushi Stop and here on her off days.

It’s been a while and she knows nothing of me as I know nothing of her.

One day we just started to talk a little more. Just a little bit and a little bit.

Slowly it builds and builds and still there is just really nothing. It is just two passing strangers that have a built in relationship of customer/server. Nothing more.

Soon she found out a little more about me. She found out that I understand Cantonese.

She was sitting there in her little study group as I coined it and she was talking to one of her friends who was working. She was asking her to sing a song, Happy Birthday and I just heard and laughed.

She noticed that I understood what she was saying and she asked me about it.

I told her a little. I understand a little. I understand a lot, enough actually, but I just told her a little.

She’s cute. Not bad looking at all. I wonder who she is. What is she like? I wonder…

Will I get to see her again today? I doubt it. She’s not here and there are no signs that she’ll be here.

I just sit here and continue what it is that I am doing, which is trying to get back to the times of yore where I can just write and write and write and get my thoughts out of my head.

I just write.

* * *

The above, not good writing at all.

* * *

Slowly drifting away.

It glides away leaving my heart with the heaviness that it has grown quite accustomed too. It is the heaviness before the break, the healing that it must do. It is the pain of the right direction, the pain of release.

Eventually it’ll just melt away as my heart just freezes up again, putting up its natural defenses and not anyone in.

But history tends to repeat itself. Someone will just find the chink in my heart’s armor and start chipping away at it, letting the warmth melt the ice away allowing me to feel again.

Me, feeling is never a good thing because it’ll always end with me in pain.

Heart pains.

The story of my life.

I think it is poetic that I have heart problems, a whole family history of heart problems. My murmur, heart disease, chest pains. Just fitting.

It is the only way for a person like me, a person with such a huge heart, to live, just full of heart problems.

Let’s see how long it lasts, let’s see who is the next person that can chip away and melt this heart of mine.

Let’s just see.

step out in the twilight

Just about 11 days until I turn a new number. Just about 11 days before I usually do my yearly diatribe of another year older, another year wiser. Just about 11 more days.

That yearly diatribe isn’t going to happen on the 10th exactly for I’ll be on the road, but it might. I don’t know.

Just about 11 more days.

Right now, I don’t know what it is that I want to write? Do I even have enough to write about given how I feel stagnate as of late?

I don’t know, but I guess I’ll just figure something out. I guess I just have to. Can’t just let a tradition I have just die like this. No. It won’t.

* * *

For the past couple of months I have been feeling a little fatigued. For even longer I felt a sense of cloudiness in my head. I can’t focus. I can’t put thoughts into words that matter. I couldn’t do much of anything at all.

I’ll find any excuse to procrastinate, to not do whatever it is that I needed to do or wanted to do. Any excuse and I think I might have found the solution. My health.

The blood results came back from my doctor visit and everything that I thought could possibly be wrong with my body checked out okay. It is just that I am Vitamin D deficient.

It’s quite common.

The thing that bugs me about this whole thing is that I’d been taking supplements for it for a few months now and it still hasn’t done much of anything at all. Nothing.

Hopefully taking the prescription supplements will help me get back into form, ’cause I hate this feeling.

I feel so blah. There’s that blahness of ennui that I can’t shake. It isn’t quite the old familiar friend of mine, but a different level of it that I just think it is worse.

With my old familiar friend, at least I know what it is. This other feeling, I can’t put into words. It’s just a lazy daze of consciousness and it is not good at all.

Hopefully I’ll be back to form, back to normal before my birthday trip. Here’s hoping.

* * *

I don’t know when it started to happen; maybe it was just this new year or maybe it had been growing on me for quite some time now, I’m not sure, but I’m starting to get a little bored of my life.

I have so many ideas and creative ventures that I want to do, but they are out of the norm.

In terms of photography, I’m bored with what I usually do. In terms of screenwriting, I’m bored with it.

I need something new, something different.

I have started to change it up a little bit with the collaboration with Bradley and also with the writing prompts to write more prose, but I think I need something more.

In terms of photography, I think I’m just at a standstill because I’m just impatiently waiting for my new camera. But I know that is just an excuse brought upon by this newfound blahness of mine.

I need to do something. I need to do it and just do it.

Just do it.

It just seems my life is pushing me into a certain direction. It is certainly a direction that I definitely need to take and a direction that I need to choose to take, but I do feel that it is time for another change.

Just when I thought I’d gotten comfortable in my life it is time for another change in my life.

Like last year had been a year of socializing, this year will be an extension of that. It’s a year that will push my boundaries a year that will definitely change me into a different person. I just hope it changes me into a better person.

There is this sense in me that I need to go out more, to meet new people, and do different things. There is this need to kind of hang with people instead of being stuck at home. There’s this this-ness of change that definitely feel needs to take place.

I just don’t know if I’m comfortable doing it. I love being who I am, here, now, but this lingering feeling is just nagging at me. I need to get out more. I need to change. I need to better myself.

Funny. Isn’t that what I tell myself all the time? Change? That I welcome change? That one of the biggest reasons for this blog of mine is to document the change and life evolution that I have gone through in these formative years of mine.

It is something that I need and I shouldn’t be afraid of doing it. I just need to man up and do it.

I think I just may have.

* * *

Sure there is that change that I’m trying to move on from Ms. D, but there’s still a part of me that is still latched on. I’m just trying to find someone else. No, scratch that. I’m trying to forget her and just be which is how it should be. I shouldn’t be searching, finding. I should just be.

I’ve been trying to get more hang out time or a date with B5. I like her, I do. She’s cute and I’m just trying to work that. I’m just trying to see where I can get and hopefully something will work. We’ll see. It’s just a game of patience and virtue and we all know how much I hate games.

Been hanging out with the Blocks more since the year started. There’s nothing there, just your usual sibling relationship. She’s just someone to hang out with and bounce things off of.

I do notice that girls are noticing me more. It’s just that I don’t know what it means. Curse my simple mind for not being able to decipher the intentions of the fairer sex. Curse me. Curse.

It is what it is and I just have to deal with it. Blah. Blah indeed.

I also just joined the company’s softball team. After listening to the glassed-middle-A talk about it, I got interested. I just need to go out and do something.

Hopefully it’ll be good and I’ll have fun with it.

Also, it gives me a good excuse to exercise. I need it. It’ll get me the bodily action I need to get in shape without having to “workout” at the gym. It’s a win win for me.

I just hope it’ll be good and fun.

* * *

Maybe it is time for me to grow up. Maybe approaching 33 is the magical number that is pushing me to finally grow up and get my act together.

It is the time of my mid-life/one-third-life crisis. It is time that I just need to get my shit together.

I don’t know what is the precursor that is pushing this through, but I definitely feel it.

Is it my biological clock? Is it that I’m feeling the pressure of needing to be with someone, to start a family, to finally settle down and just enjoy my life and experience this out of reach sensation of love?

Is that it?

I don’t know, but there is this need to be more proactive in my life.

I think I have been stagnating for a long time now and it is just time for me to break out of my cave and go explore. I’m starving and I need to find more fuel/food for my life. I need to grab whatever sustenance that can drive me and make me want to continue on.

I just need something, just a little bit. Just something more.

Something.

* * *

The year is a quarter of the way over, or well, almost a quarter of the way over and there’s still a lot more of it left.

What is in stored?

I don’t know, but I do have a feeling that things are going to change. It has to. I haven’t felt this way in a long long time.

There is a burning desire in me to change, to do something.

I don’t even remember the last time I had a feeling like this.

No, this isn’t a feeling of me wanting to be in a relationship or a need for me to start a family or a need to settle down.

This is something more primal, more global, more general.

It is just a need to just change my life for the better.

Thinking about it, taking a step back and looking at it at a different perspective it is just a general and natural progression of growth. It is.

I’ve gotten to a point where I am comfortable with who I am. I have gotten to a point where I have accepted my faults as a person and welcomed all of the greatness that I am.

I’ve been comfortable for a long time now and it is just the right time in my life to change.

It just is.

And, I must.

Need You Now

I just need you now

It’s been a while since I have put anything really meaningful into this thought bank of mine. It has been a long while indeed.

I am here, finally just thinking, working, being a little antsy and annoyed at the camera gods up in the cosmos trying to figure out why?! Why haven’t my Nikon D800 arrived yet? Why haven’t it shipped yet? Why did I fucking order from B&H? Why? Why? Why?

But it is something that I need to learn to let go. Just let it go. I have waited patiently this long for it to be actually released. A few more months isn’t going to kill me. Right? Who the fuck am I kidding? Fuck it to holy hell.

FUCK IT TO HOLY HELL.

I’m impatient.

FUCK IT TO HOLY HELL.

* * *

Rant…over.

It seems for the most part that the mysterious fatigue is gone. I am still tired, the zombie drone droning on in the real world, waiting for the inevitable zombiepocalypse. It’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of when. Will I be ready for it?

I’ll fit in like it is nothing.

Nothing at all.

Ever since I stopped sitting on the exercise ball and started to stretch out, my energy level started to get better. That constant fatigue and sore back eventually went away.

It just shows that I am getting older and just weaker. I need to exercise more. I am so low on energy that it is just mucking up my energy.

Maybe that is one of the reasons why I am feeling that I am hitting my midlife crisis. I am hitting it in full stride, not looking back, not fighting it. Head on. It’s going to happen anyway. Might as well face it head on and embrace it.

Embrace it.

* * *

I’m almost 33. That fateful day is forever approaching and I’ll be off in some foreign land named Arizona during that day in my car just driving with my trusty Pickles admiring the scenery.

It’ll be another good birthday trip, hopefully. It’ll be another great time by myself unwinding.

It just seems that the theme for this year is hermitude.

Sure I have been hanging out with Cynderblocks form time to time, whether it is for lunch and once in a blue blue blue moon it’ll be with B5, but there is a huge part of me that wants to just be on my own. I just want to recollect my thoughts and just focus on myself and just say fuck the world.

I have dialed back my social visits, especially those to Ms. D and I just need to focus on myself.

I don’t really understand where this sudden need came from, but it just seemed that since the beginning of the new year, or even maybe before then I just felt that I need to.

It’s not that I was burned out by all the socializing I was doing because I really didn’t socialize all that much in relation to most social people, but last year was definitely a very social year for me.

I don’t know. I just need to focus on myself. Maybe I just need to refocus and reprioritize my life.

What is important to me?

What is it that I need to do and what is it that I just need to let go and forget about?

Do I want to just work and focus on my hobbies, whether it is my photography or my writing or any other projects? Or is it that I just want to refocus my life on trying to find someone?

If it is the latter, I think it is more important to think if I actually want to be in a relationship first. I still have no idea what it is that I want.

Maybe I should just take the time off and not think about relationships for a while. I just need to forget and avoid girls, the female species, women. I just need to avoid the Y chromosome.

I just need to forget and find other things to occupy my mind.

And for the most part, I have been doing that with my little writing projects.

* * *

Unfocused.

There’s just been a lot of things on my mind recently and I don’t know why. Maybe it has to do with this mysterious illness that I have or maybe I’m just getting old and I have subconscious itch to make a change in my life and I just don’t know what that change is yet.

I don’t know.

I don’t’ know much of anything right now.

That’s the story of my life.

Maybe my little vacation will help refresh my mind and get me back into the game of life. I’m definitely hoping that that is the case.

* * *

Blah..

I can’t do this.

we’re back. ready for round two…

Emotions.

It just flows out of me lately. I really don’t know why.

For some, it’s just that familiar spark that just packs a punch, lighting my tear ducts on fire. That familiar pulling of the heart string that reminds me of my long lost father.

It handicaps me; cracking, falling into that deep despair of hopelessness.

There’s nothing for me anymore.

Whatever that is I was latching on, that hope that I always come back to has darkened again. It seems like that is what has been happening as of late, the darkening.

* * *

Time.

I’m full of it, yet at the same time it feels like it is constantly running out. I’m on my last minute, my last second and It just seems I haven’t done anything to make my time here on this ignorant lonely planet worthwhile.

I know that The Fault in Our Stars, TFIOS says that our impacts are small and that it is okay, and I see the point. I do. We have to take each day and live it to the fullest, as the cheesy saying goes. We do.

And have I done it? In a way, there’s a mixed answer of yes and no.

I’m living my life, true to who I am. No compromises to my beliefs and who I am. I am not faking anything for the sake of fitting in. This is me. Take it or leave it.

I do take my adventures. I go to and fro, enjoying each trip, each endeavor as a new experience to a new state of zen.

The ultimate goal along with many others.

Zen.

Peace.

No more turmoil.

No more pain.

Leaving the mundane behind and embracing the peacefulness of everything that is around me. Life.

Life.

* * *

The tricky time of time. The constant ticking and tocking. The constant of it. Always the same beat, the same measure.

But time is marked in so many ways, by so many people. The relativity of it is a paradox.

Time can be so long and yet be so short.

Time.

Fascinated.

We are all marked by an end ticking. Our lives end on a single beat and yet the rest of the world still beats on.

Even in the end, time beats on, even when there is no one or nothing to keep track of it.

Time. It beats on.

* * *

Am I questioning my mortality?

Am I questioning my life up to this point?

Am I hitting another precipice in my life where I need to make a change?

My mid-life?

Maybe.

I’ll be 33 this year. It is coming up, just a little over a month away.

I know it is a little too young for the midlife, but I don’t know what it is. Maybe it is getting close to the anniversary of my dad’s passing also.

I don’t know. Just a general ennui.

An ennui of blah blahness in the blah-est manner.

Maybe a change is for the better.

I’m lost trying to find myself now…trying to find a better me.

I’m changing my way of dress and slowly in a way detaching myself from the world.

There’s still that boldness in me as evident in asking Ka-Kaw out on a whim, but I don’t expect anything to happen. In a way, I don’t care.

I’m lost. Again.

Wandering in this world, just hoping to find some place familiar to guide me back to where I once was.

Maybe I am stranded and need to find a new beacon. I need a new Fog Light to direct me.

Eventually I’ll find myself again.

I just hope that he is better than the person I know now.

Hopefully.

cough syrup

life’s too short to even care at all….

But in a way, I do care.  It just seems that my mind is lost in this constant fog of desire.  It isn’t a desire of love, but a quiet desperate desire of wanting to be with someone. 

It all goes back to this, and I think I am getting to the point where I am just a little pathetic.  I’m just a little pathetic lost puppy wanting to be found.

It has to stop.  It just needs to stop.

All of this attention given to girls that aren’t interested.  Why?

Why am I like that?  Sure there is the attention that I give and the little that I receive, but is that all?  Or is there something different?  It seems that all I’m approaching are the girls that I have no chance with or know that it isn’t going to work out.  They are too young. 

Their life just barely beginning.

Why am I just silently, willingly torturing myself?  Why?

It just needs to stop.  I think it is this, this this, that is just making me sick. 

My body is fatigued.  I am tired.  My tired body is rebelling against me. 

There is something wrong with me.

*    *    *

I’m tired. 

My body.  Is. Tired.

I haven’t been this tired in a long time.  This is out of the ordinary.  This is not normal.

There might be something wrong with me and I can’t quite put my finger on it.

There’s a part of me that thinks I’m just out of shape.  I just need to start working out again, getting my body into shape, my stamina up.  I just need to work out to get more energy.

Another part of me thinks that my dear old friend is back again.  But I don’t know.  This doesn’t feel like the deep dark depression that I am familiar with.  I don’t even want to call it a depression, because for the most part, I do feel fine.  It’s not even the blah of the blahness ennui that strikes me from time to time. 

Emotionally, I do feel fine.

I feel fine.

Yet, there is the part of me that is very soft and sensitive.  Thoughts of dad just tighten my heart.  It pulls at the strings and I miss him even more, pulling the tears from my eyes.  I miss the man.

But my body is screaming.  It is tired.

There might be something seriously wrong with me.  It could just be a nerve thing from sitting on the ball.  I don’t know. 

I’ll just do some simple tests.  No more ball. 

That’s the only thing I change in my normal day to day.  Instead of my chair, I have been using the ball. 

That must go and I’ll see where my body stands. 

Even with out the ball, the important thing is that I need to get some exercise.  I need to get back into shape.

I shall run at night.

I shall stretch in the morning.

I shall just be more active.

I shall just be.

*    *    *

I find it funny that I’ve been saying that to myself for quite some time now.  It still hasn’t happened.

Hopefully, it’ll start soon. 

I just need to stop focusing on things that are out of my control.  Girls.

I need to just focus on things that I can control.  My health.  My projects.  My writing.  My photography.

I just need to focus on me. 

What happened to my yearning to be a little more distant and away from people this year?  What happened to that?

Will I be able to get back on track and be a little more antisocial than I need to be? 

I have already been a bit social with B5 and the Blox.  Am I going to start with the Non-Artist?

What am I to do? 

There are times that I think these are things that I just need to go through.  These are just things that happen in life.  Living it.  Experiencing it.  Being with people.  Being around people.  Interacting with people.

Is it?

Didn’t I kind of do that with the D?  Didn’t I?  I would like to think I did, but what came out of that?  Nothing.

Just a dwindling friendship of my undoing and just people who know us trying to get us together. 

Out of everything, I think that is the funniest part. 

The other people trying to get us together.  Whether it is a simple recommendation of her being single thrown out by her boss or a simple thought of playing matchmaker. 

Just Funny with a capital F. 

Funny. 

*    *    *

Change.

I say it takes time and I am smart enough to know that it does take time.

But it also needs to start.  That small snowball that will eventually turn into a avalanche will need to start sometime.

When is that time? 

Will it be tonight?  Will it be here.  Now.  As I stake my claim to make this change in myself.  To just be. To just avoid.  To just live my life and be okay with it.  To just…just. 

It is time.

I know I have said this many times before.  This may be a part of that growing collection of false starts, but I will keep starting and starting.

Here.

Now.

I’m starting.

It’s time for that CHANGE.

Let it simply….begin.

…wait for you….

That daunting whiteness stumps many writers and I am no different. 

It stares back at me, taunting me to type, to ruin its perfect whiteness with letters, words, paragraphs.  It taunts me to write the story, but I don’t know what is holding me back.  Something is holding me back.

Is it the empty thoughts that cloud my mind?

Is it the thought of B5 feeding me wontons or the times that we hung out together?  Is it the separation from Ms. D that I’m feeling?  We are there, but not always there?

What is it?

Or is it just the fear of what all writers go through?  I need to just write it out, conquer it.  Just write. 

I’m trying a different trick, focusing my mind on something else until the story chisels its way out of my mind and onto the page.  I’m just looking for that one thread that will tie everything together, and right now, I have nothing to tie together.

Maybe that is my problem, as my mind has been a little preoccupied as of late. 

My mind has been filled with little thoughts of this and that and it accounts for nothing.  They are just fleeting thoughts that have no lasting impression.

They are nothing but mere musings of the heart, of the soul, of just playful teases to keep my mind busy and on something else.

I’m in a state of mind of that is not conducive for creativity. 

Am I in it again?  Another visit from this old long lost familiar friend of mine? 

It doesn’t feel like it, but it is something different, something I haven’t been able to shake.

I don’t know what it is, but it is definitely something.

*    *    *

When will it be over?  How long will this friend of mine stay this time?

I’m blocked.

I know I shouldn’t be looking toward this as a creative endeavor but more as work, as a assignment like I am making this little post of mine.  It is a assignment and I have no problems putting my thoughts into words here.

Why make the other any different?

It is the same.  Thoughts on paper.  Thoughts into words. 

Just do it.

Write.

Think.

Create.

Flow.

Stream the singsong streams of shoes and traveling.

They should be perfect for you; the inner wanderlust should be able to write it without any problems. 

Tap it.  Tap that inner soul of yours, that little child that I know you to be and just write you motherfucker.  Write!

Create.

This is it.

This is what you want to do.  Ever since the thought of writing came into your fingers, to your soul, it is what you’ve always wanted to do.  Write.

And now you should do it.  Just write.

Fucking write.

No need to brainstorm, no need to think.  Just let your fingers do the work.  Your mind and your fingers are one.  One thought.  One stream of consciousness that flows.

Words appear and soon a story of little shoes.

WRITE.

Words.

Sentences.

Paragraphs.

WRITE.

Some People Have REAL Problems

My thoughts slowly drift away and all that is left is a nothingness that is welcome.

No more screams. No more tears. No more fears.

There’s just an emptiness of tranquility.

That is what I am embodying in my current state of mind.

That is what I am here to doing, a mental meditation to get me in the game, to get me into the right mind state to do what it is that I need to do.

Maybe this will last till my dying days, running away from any distractions that might come my way.

Will this peaceful mental stability last?

I don’t know as I ramble on incoherently in this welcomed state of mind.

* * *

Closed Diary.

That is what I was coined last night as my friends had to pull information that I was more than willing to volunteer to them.

It just never came up.

They brought up the question on when will I find me someone and it was then that I let them know what my current situation is.

With all of my hangout sessions with B5 to the cop out of Ms. D. Everything.

It’s not that I am a Closed Diary, which I can totally see people thinking that I am, it’s just that you have to ask about it.

I guess in a way, I do put out the total private vibe, but it’s just weird that I totally never see myself that way.

Weird indeed.

Did you touch her?

That was one of the funnier questions of the night as they were trying to get more details on how I am with B5. I am openly flirtatious with her.

Then Partner Partner opened up about how I am all handsy, especially with the waitress, letting on that I have more game than he is. I totally don’t even remember that happened, but I guess it did, ’cause I do tend to get a little handsy from time to time.

Just funny.

* * *

Keeping myself busy.

Ever since the beginning of the year, I’ve just been trying to occupy myself creatively.

Working on the current projects with Scott, thinking about the rewrite of my current script and trying to get into more prose writing.

As I get my new camera, there will be other creative projects.

Maybe new video shorts and maybe Lego stop motion shorts.

I just need to stop fucking around and just do stuff.

* * *

Writing is becoming tougher and tougher on here.

My mind, these juices, these thought vomits aren’t becoming easier and easier.

Nothing hangs on my mind, but everything is on my mind.

Maybe I just need a break from certain things, from these heart spillings and brain meltings.

I just need to step back and just focus on other things, like a kid’s shoes walking over town, seeing things that it has never seen before.

Maybe, just maybe.

it is what it is…

….and that is what it should be.

It shouldn’t be the be all end all of all things that everyone makes it out to be. It shouldn’t be at all.

It should just be this. No pressure, no commitment. Just two people, two souls, being together, here now, just hanging. Just being.

Just enjoying each other’s company.

There shouldn’t be any pressure to make it more than it is. Take all those pretensions aside, all of those expectations and throw them out the window.

Just be…in that moment, in that time. Just be.

That’s how it should be. That’s what I am seeing more and more. That’s the way that I’m going.

* * *

I guess it is finally happening. That one part of me that is on the precipice of keeping that innocence or swaying and plunging into my usual jaded cynicism is making its decision. It is finally getting to the point and falling in line with what I truly am, a bitter, jaded, cynic fool.

The Hopeless Romantic in me is growing up. Finally?

Maybe.

Here’s to hoping, right?

* * *

So for some reason or another, I’ve been hanging out with B5 afterhours. It’s nice.

I do genuinely enjoy her company. She’s cute, independent, funny, and she’s just good peeps.

I rambled on and on about her from time to time on this little thing of mine.

And I think it is with her that I’m starting to get it. Things should just be, exist, just being together, not expecting anything.

I am just genuinely enjoying her company. No big grand gestures, no long term thinking, no expectations.

Nothing has happened per se and I don’t expect anything to.

If something happens, great. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. I get to hang out with her, just doing something and I am enjoying it.

It’s nice.

* * *

Just let go and let it flow.

Let it slide away, melt away. Just let it go.

There’s nothing you can do but just learn to forgive, if it is what it is that I need to do.

Just forgive and let go.

It’s over and you have no choice or say in the situation.

It is what it is.

Just let go, and give him a chance.

Is that it? Is that right?

Is that what needs to be done?

Just let it go. Let it be.

* * *