NYR

Sleep, Pray, Plan, Sweat, Study, Vibrate, Connect, Eat. Every Day.

Sorting...? De-confusing...? Internal Monologue Review

I have a weariness of spirit, a heaviness of heart, and a drag in my step that are at once totally familiar to me, extremely comfortable, but leading me more deeply into a lonely, null state. I've been depressed before, I think about things too much, and reach paralysis from fixating on regret, poor choices, my flaws, you know the cocktail.

Aerating these concerns among "loved ones" (have I ever even loved?) has been met with some combination of "I don't understand," "Do goals," or "Medicate." As someone whose goal system has been ruptured seemingly beyond repair from a set of factors outside myself (video games), and as goals are arbitrary, meaningless constructs used to distract ourselves on an increasingly desertifying planet, that leaves medicate and I don't understand.

Well, I don't understand. I don't want to be here. I don't have the energy to force myself into something I don't care about, and I don't care about anything. I have every blessing one could ever imagine (love, sex, nourishment, friendship, entertainment, talent) but I just never saw the fucking point. It's easier to be lazy. I don't have that impulse, that spark, that need to mobilize and motivate and create, but I similarly despise being prodded out of stasis by external forces, having my focus interrupted and redirected to someone else's arbitrary concerns. I don't derive enough satisfaction from accomplishing. I derive too much self-scorn from stumbling.

Medicate seems unwise. I was largely healthy, spirited, ambitious, ego-maniacal and satisfied with life at many points and the malaise that has beset me is a sign, a warning, a trigger that something is wrong and must be righted. I don't need to smooth those feelings over, they serve an important function.

Function for what? I despise myself for my lack, my flaws. I am an example of adult boyhood. I have not exited the womb I was raised in and instead have looked to transplant myself directly into another womb. Or at least, that's the pattern I've observed without there being any sort of underlying directive or motive: seek more pleasure, more comfort, more novelty. Where that falls flat are these periods where I sit back and examine the whole structure, find it wholly dissatisfactory, and become profoundly immune to pleasure. I wholly reject living out my life jumping from high to high in my privileged shell, but only the most determined saplings break their nutty enclosure to face the reality of the cold, dark without. Yet they are the ones that get to evolve, reproduce, transcend.

I want to spend more time bemoaning my latest rupture with a woman. She truly is a lovely partner whom I was blessed to have adore me. But I hate myself, so when someone loves me it seems increasingly glaring and contrasting and disingenuous and scorching for someone to feel about me a way I don't feel I deserve. I'm sorry. I don't hate her. I love her. I hate myself for not being a person whom I can admire and thus relish the soothing she would apply liberally to my soul. I hate myself for choosing to invite her walls down when I knew that behind mine were the same noxious, rotting beliefs that would undermine any connection. I hate setting up expectations that I'm some semblance of centered, whole, growing, and healthy, only to let those illusions fade whenever I get tired of maintaining the illusion. Also, I knew I wasn't growing. Nevermind everything else, my track wasn't aligned, my face wasn't forward, I wasn't surging so any temporary wind in my sails would slowly fade without progress points to reach and all that reinvigoration jazz. Of course life would stagnate. What a cruel fate to bestow upon a vulnerable, inviting, courageous person trying to live in connection.

The worst part is that every belief I hold about life is that connection is the only consistent, healthy way of a satisfying life, yet I push people away at the slightest vulnerability. What was it about finding myself off track that necessitated boxing her out? It didn't. But my vulnerability about being this lonely man-child combined with her rejection of that omnipresent culture made it easier to shut her out, the worst hurt I could throw in her direction to match the self-laceration I gave myself under her gaze. But what if I could grow out of that true moral failing? Especially if I saw it so clearly? What is it about being spurred on to new efforts from friends I trust and care about causes me to reject their influence and further bury myself in isolation and sorrow? Iunno. Probably some fucked up daddy issues, I guess.

I dunno what caused me to resurrect this diary, perhaps just the hopes that someone will read it (because the number one thing a narcissist does best is manipulate an audience's emotions for attention and gratification). Life is for the living, and they've made dozens of dystopic movies about the slow, living-death of the masses eking out their existence masturbating, watching Youtube, eating cookies.

How has your New Year been so far?

Why I love Die Hard, and why I hope Bruce Willis never dies

As far as Die Hard fans go...  in my opinion, the filmmakers cast the roles perfectly, and plotted the movie exactly, to make the audience feel every moment of this poor man's night.

Allow me a paragraph to gush (eh, it actually turns into 3). Recall that John McClane doesn't like air travel, so he's feeling really anxious and one of Holly's associates recommends he take his shoes off and exercise his toes on the carpet to help him relax. This little detail comes back in a huge, gritty way, because all the action takes place without his shoes on, shattered glass and all.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that his wife had assumed a different name while out in LA. These aren't the people of his city he feels duty-bound to protect: he is a fish out of water protecting people who don't even care that he exists. He was off-duty, the local authorities don't want to help, a stupid salesman gives up McClane's identity; in short, every moment of the film conveys the burden of being the only man willing and able to do something about a life-threatening situation for a lot of people. Only Carl (or Al as he's called in this flick), the greatest TV family man and cop, sees the body on his car's roof and decides to do something to try to help.

The icing on the cake, the comedy. Bruce Willis set the mark for how to deliver a one-liner in that film, and I honestly don't think that anybody else these days has the swag to pull it off (maybe Jason Statham, actually, but his talents are really underused, at best). McClane has a twisted, brutally comical view of things, so much so that he decides to imagine himself as a TV dinner. Or that, since it's Christmas and all, he would deliver to Hans Gruber a dead terrorist's body with "Now I have a machine gun, ho ho ho" written on the sweater in blood. I couldn't ask for a more suitable man for the job than Bruce.

I dunno how to describe it. I am certainly not the authority on that specific movie, my friends and I all like it a bunch, but I guess what I'm trying to convey here is that I really love great films, not just good or okay ones. Not films that earn a lot of money at the box office, necessarily, but films that come together down to every insignificant detail to make a complete product that totally sucks you in, and spits you out glad to have experienced it. Die Hard absolutely was a great film, and even though most people watching it just get taken in with the dumb jock swag and explosions (which are admittedly excellent), it's the smart features that really make it worth remembering. Although, I feel this strongly about all of the films in my personal "top 10," not just Die Hard.

Start to the Holidays

Well, I'm sitting here at my computer, and it's 12/12, and all of everything school-wise will be decided by 6pm on 12/14.

I'm nervous and excited, because I think that I should get good grades this semester. I've done all the projects and homeworks and papers, I didn't fall behind from day one. I have this final paper due that's completely distracting me and overwhelming and scary, but I can only imagine if I fart around here for long enough, I'll produce something by the last minute. It's intimidating as fuck though.

You see, I was supposed to be doing the paper last night, but I had a fairly powerful experience. You see, this blog stopped being updated and I stopped doing lots of things because (delete any reasons or excuses because it's hard to demonstrate causation: there was truly a lot of circumstances pressing on my time). Last night, though, instead of blasting through my stack of work, I listened to 4 albums back to back simultaneously with my best friend Johnny. We just traded off recommendations, 2 from me, 2 from him, and let our thoughts and feelings flow as we listened together over AIM. I spotted new details and wonder in the music I had already known, and was able to experience new music from him, guided by his own experiences. We not only appreciated the specific beautiful details of the music, but we also let the intangibles of the music guide our feelings, becoming nostalgic, dreadfully sad, hopeful, encouraging, and we just bonded very strongly by being able to spend time together.

My experience last night helped to remind me what it's all about; this time spent together with a best friend is the kind of thing that I live for. In addition, it was so much more special because I have been really busy and caught up with trying to "get things done" and "make the grade." It encourages and reminds me to cherish the friends I have and the time I can spend with them. It's cheesy to mention the holidays, but the gift I will give to Johnny will pale in comparison to the times I spend with him; the same fact applies to all of my relationships with my friends.

Thought I've been deeply regretful this semester about disappearing off the radar to most of the friends I had (my apartment boys, some college friends I've made, some dorm friends), last night reminded me how incredibly joyful it is to have the few close friends that will stick with me, no matter where our roads lead. JJ and I may have grown up quite differently since college began, developing different passions and tastes and schedules, but being able to spend 4 hours a late Saturday night on the internet demonstrates to me how strong our bond has become.

While some nights I come home and regret the choices that led to my current life situation, last night I was reminded how rich my experiences are and how bountiful my life truly is.

Thank you to those who make that true.

Dear Sir

I think the title of your blog is funnier than its contents.

Sincerely,

Yourself

Publishing

This is a document that was submitted as an introductory assignment for my English literature class this semester.

"While I'm not sure if the rest of the class would be interested to read this, my self-introduction will illuminate myself and my goals to anyone involved in English 417. My name is Mike Yanus, and like the Professor of this course, I have spent a few years dipping in and out of academic probation. Unlike the professor however, I could not single-handedly lift the short bus that carries me to school every morning and to work every afternoon. About my life's journey, college is definitely a part of it. I am in my 4^th year of college, have a junior's standing in credits, and entered as a freshman with 24 free credits from advanced placement courses. I aced the math portion of the SAT, had a great high school grade average and many honor rolls and national accolades to my name. Even in my early youth I was targeted by magnet programs and advanced curricula in order to give me the best chance to succeed. Since then, I've spent the last 3 years of my life avoiding as much work as I can possibly muster without my parents and college cutting me off.

And this summer, I was cut off.

I took a job as a customer service rep at a (somewhat) local Honda dealership. After a few pay periods of customers cussing and screaming at me for things I had no control over, I decided that my life could be better spent, considering I spend my free time salivating over Wikipedia articles about abandoned NASA projects from the 1950's and 60's. My passion for knowledge and curiosity for the secrets beyond mankind's reach are powerful, but my naivete, work ethic, and time-management follies are equally powerful. I'm back this final semester, requiring 12 credits and a grade average of 3.2 for the University to decide I'm worth keeping. I'm working 40 hours per week to pay for the adventure, and sleeping little more than that. My goals are far-reaching, and nobody expects me to succeed, but that just takes the pressure off of myself and allows me to slam-bang this cocksucker of a college ride once and for all. I'm in my darkest hour, but under the greatest of stresses come some of the greatest successes the world has seen. Or I could just fade away, and have a reasonably productive life doing things I hate with people who don't interest me. I think you'll find out very quickly whether I'm going to impress you.

And for the record, I've probably seen much of this literature in the other classes I've taken, but I never read or went so I can't do much more than name-drop Oliver Goldsmith, and Garrick. I've not heard anything about the Professor in the past either, except for his massive grunts from the gym a few towns away."

The Movie Post

I suppose after video games, I will post the movies that I make a habit of seeing constantly and often.

-The Empire Strikes Back

-Blade Runner

-2001: A Space Odyssey

-The Terminator

-Rocky

-Dumb and Dumber

-Anchorman

-Toy Story

-Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

-First Blood

-Die Hard

-Happy Gilmore

This blog is getting kinda lame, huh.

fuck

fuck....oooooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOO

I hope this doesn't get stolen

I am going to take a nap in the student union and this will be in my backpack next to me. I hope nobody lifts it while my guard is down. College has notorious thieving problems.

A Benefit of Privacy

One benefit to privacy is that when you keep your goals to yourself, people aren't pestering you all the time about when you're trying to lose weight but you eat a candy bar, ya idiot!

Video Games I've Played More Than Once

Video games is something that I'm very passionate about in general; I spend a lot of time with them, and interact with the world differently because of what I've learned interacting with games. It's very hard to come up with a standard evaluative criteria which would enable me to rank what I think are the "best games of all time," but I can apply a more subjective but perhaps more telling attribute: which games I've played through (and probably beaten) more than once.

In the order that I think of them:

-Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

-Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

-Super Mario Bros. 3

-Super Mario 64

-Super Mario World

-Sonic 3 and Knuckles

-Final Fantasy 6

-Final Fantasy 7

-Final Fantasy 9

-Final Fantasy 10

-Metal Gear Solid

-Metal Gear Solid 2

-Pokémon Blue Version

-Pokémon Silver Version

-Halo: Combat Evolved

-Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

-Portal

-Half-Life 2

-Ninja Gaiden Black

-Chrono Trigger

-Megaman X (too hard, actually, I play it through every few years but have never managed to beat it)

On the other sides of the die, there are books or movies that have the same effect, that I re-watch for love of their timeless attributes. I've also spent an inordinate amount of time with competitive and arena and MMO type games that don't really fit the criterion because they can't really be "beaten." There are also books, movies and games that I try over and over again to get into, but simply can't because they just don't appeal to me. And isn't the universe so wonderful that everything touches people on a different level?

Without a doubt, my memory is fuzzy, my funds are limited, and my reach is not expansive, but there exists a certain special quality about a game that draws users back in order to relive the first experience. There are a lot of awesome games out there that leave you shortly after you finish, and then there are games that stick with you for life. I thought I'd share some of mine with you.

How Long Does it Take for People to Stand Outside and Think, "It's Fucking Cold"

So here I am, class cancelled, plenty to do with my study time but I don't feel like it.
That's okay, but I will be cutting this short in order to work (soon).

Some observations:

-I'm losing my patience. I'm gettin' shit done, but it's exhausting when I really don't know what's gonna happen after this semester

-I need money. I've been looking forward to a potential Vegas trip for almost a year for my best friend's 21st birthday. Things have changed though, and the bros. 4 may be 3 come May

-Yes, my dad bought a 2011 BMW M3. Yes, this month will be the 1 year anniversary of him losing his job. Can't he buy a Kia and share the love?

-I really REALLY like Elliot in the Morning. I have to start calling in, doing radio contests and events. It's really entertaining
-I spend plenty of money to keep up with the video games, but I just don't have any time anymore. I've put less than 40 hours combined into Starcraft 2, Halo Reach, Left 4 Dead 2, WoW

-I need new shoes, thermal underwear, Tom Waits tickets, a piano teacher, and about 41 hours per day (that would just about do it, I think)

-Yeah, I tried the smoking thing for about 5 months, but that was pretty dumb; luckily I didn't get addicted. Literally, everything about it is true and is as unappealing as health class made it seem. You stink, food tastes like shit, I got sick all the time, stains on clothes, I'm sure my teeth yellowed, and apparently, aromatic hydrocarbons fuck your shit when trying to run

-Had an awesome run on Sunday. I should do that, like, forever. I was jumping around and wasting my energy and all sorts of stupid shit, but it was amazing, I couldn't stop

-Waited 5 weeks to travel to the coast and bump into a girl I'm curious about. Couldn't con her into meeting up with the group until the bar 10 o'clock Saturday night. The band started at 10:02. Oh well, maybe 5 weeks from now I'll be able to chat with her for 2 MORE minutes or so (ha, fat chance, this is a dead end)

I gotta record the things I want to do with my life (privately, for reasons I might explore later), so that the inevitable time I am stuck bored 2 years from now can be well spent. Honestly, if I knew how valuable the time I didn't have would be, I wouldn't have wasted the time that was mine.

Learning by science

This little blog post seeks to ask two questions: why is science used as the standard device for acquiring knowledge, and on what information do humans actually base their decisions on?

Science has been around for a couple hundred years. It involves the logical process of induction; we acquire massive amounts of data and observations from the world around us, and we try to observe patterns that can arise from this data. As a natural human aftereffect to the knowledge gathering process, we also try to apply causal relationships to observations we make.

This last step is the most dangerous part though: causal relationships that arise as a result of data and pattern research are not logically valid. Trying to develop causal knowledge really falls to the shoulders of abductive logic, which cannot present its conclusion of 100% validity, it can only find multiple solutions, ranked in order of plausibility. Additionally, while this type of logic makes the most meaningful conclusions, there is little formal theory behind constructing an abductive argument. Deduction and Induction have been pared down to the bone starting since Aristotle, on the other hand.

And this is the danger of "science." In order to seek knowledge, one has to have a very firm grasp on exactly what truths one can uncover with the data and observations one can acquire. I honestly think that almost no portion of "science class" is spent critically evaluating why this method is used, and ultimately, how limited it is. The danger of this post, then, is how poorly it is supported with evidence, and how it tries to generate overarching conclusions, from basically the dark.

And how do humans use our grand knowledge acquired through science in order to make decisions? We don't. If we have to replace the transmission in our Honda, we don't buy them because "they have bad transmissions", even though Hondas are shown to be reliable compared to other vehicle brands (there are more '97 Accords on the road still than any other vehicle from that year and class- yes, I completely made this up, but whether or not it's true it can be used to illustrate my point). Our personal experience cannot be taken as a representative experience upon which to make future decisions. For every 100 skilled tasks I perform, I estimate that I make a mistake on 3 of them. However, since I am interacting with other people in each task, there might be 97% of the total population who think I'm excellent, and 3% of the total population who think I'm a putz.

That's what I'm saying, that humans have evolved to be especially discriminatory over our evolutionary timeline. While it's important to make decisions that allow yourself the best chances for success, you've got to be able to understand when quick decisions based on limited experiences cannot make the best decision for you. This is because things don't happen the same way every time. Sometimes, sex makes a boy, other times, it's a girl.

You know when people are drunk,

all they want to do is yell in your ear about how drunk they. Man, this is the most drunk they've been in awhile. They can barely stand. They are having so much fun and they still have 4 or 5 drinks left till they pass out.

Yea, well I'm that tired. I just want to tell you about how tired I am. I stayed up till 2:30 finishing a paper and had to get up at 5:30. My head is cloudy, my eyes are dry, I'm just kinda stumbling anywhere and can't finish a complete thought.

Being with many a drunk (or tired and whiny friend, as the case may be), I've found that these diatribes are not particularly interesting, in fact, if you've heard them more than twice a year, they get really fuckin' old really fuckin' quick. That being said, here are some unrelated and hopefully more interesting status updates that I should probably add to my bio on facebook or at least cycle through my statuses every once in a little while.

Though I think of myself as being totally intellectual and rational, I have my areas of vanity; I like to dress in nice clothes and style my hair so as to appear normal and attractive for a male.

I am profiting from the fact that video games are considered "retro" and "vintage" recently. I've always liked them, so while they're at least somewhat an "in" thing, I can enjoy a slightly more robust social standing.

I think a woman falling asleep on her man's chest is the most romantic thing in the world, and despite how chaotic relationships can be, those moments should be treasured by the parties involved.

For some reason, I no longer can memorize the lyrics to most songs I listen to. I listen to largely the same bands over and over and over and over and over again but I can't keep the lyrics in my memory, which is a shame, because goddammit if I don't love to sing. By extension, if I found the time and resources to practice, I would learn and cover a bunch of Tom Waits' piano ballads for love of their lyrics and beautiful, simple music.

I really love being so constantly busy all the time. If there's a bunch of social events and gatherings I do miss, there is the other side of the coin which I don't miss, and that is having a low opinion of myself based on poor work ethic and laziness. There are tons of things I'm learning about the world and myself that help me to fit better within my own life that I wouldn't be learning if I took it easy and relaxed all the time (which tends to be the false binary I live by, all or nothing).

I am lucky to have a job which makes just enough money to keep the engine rolling. The people are fun and pleasant and the management has been extremely flexible in meeting my needs so long as I perform well in my task.

I wanna meet this girl real bad, but I don't know when I'll be able to short of some kind of break, which is a long ways away.

Nobody has ever had to do anything.

There's a very distinct difference between coercion and consequences. I don't have to go to work. I don't have to go to school. I don't have to do anything but what I want, even if that's just eating Doritos, playing video games, and masturbating for a month straight. The problem is, I've seen the other side, I lived the other side for the majority of my life so far, and it ain't pretty.

So we set priorities. We come up with goals for ourselves. We do what we "have" to do in order to reach the point where we want to be. I will now substitute want for the "have" that is in quotes, since I've demonstrated that outside of brutal coercion, people tend to overly misuse necessity and imperative.

Now we're back to page one. I want to be in school. I want to be at my job. I've set these priorities for an abstract future that I don't know about what may happen? But why live for tomorrow? What about today? My question has already been answered. I do want to be in school. It's where I can be with like-minded people. It's where I can be constantly learning, and adapting my identity to the knowledge I osmose. I want to go to work every evening. It's where I'm useful, it's where I can challenge myself or sit on the sidelines. It's freedom.

My question that I've asked myself, and subsequently answered, is this: now that I know the hedonistic lifestyle isn't IT, and I work hard because I want to, is there any reason not to want and thus become the hardest working, the smartest, the most accomplished, the absolute best in the world?

Bill Gates didn't "have" to make Microsoft and become a billionaire. My parents didn't "have" to work hard, get married, and raise a family, and have jobs in the healthcare industry where they feel they can best help people. Humanity doesn't have to wake up every morning and slave away in their mundane routines in order to keep the world going round. They want to.

Why not work a little harder so the mundane, the work, the trial can be in the manner in which we want it to be. Learn Spanish. Wake up and run. Write. Start a band. And be the best person in the world. While these specifics might be my callings, you do what you want to do. When you realize that what you "have" to do can very well be transformed into what you want for yourself, the world seems far less cruel.

Real Shit

I am so pissed and sad about everything all the time these days that I sometimes forget what real heartache is. The occasional dose of it keeps me alive and aware. It also makes me sick to my stomach. I have tangible and intellectual reminders of many of the things that compose my past, and I just don't know what to feel about them. The confusion paralyzes me for a day at a time, here and there.

That, and I've come up with an idea about what would be a cool book. I don't think I could write it, but I could try to write certain parts of it, flesh it out a bit, feel how it feels, and see if it's something that would interest me. It's totally inconsequential, and really more of a literary exercise for my own personal exploration than what would appear to readers to be a "book." I'd probably post snippets here if I decided to try and start writing it.

That, and 45% of my grade in English 417 is due between Tuesday the 12th and Tuesday the 19th. Two seven page papers, as well as a group presentation/leading a class discussion, all in the next 10 days. 45%. Fuck that. Fuck that shit straight back to whatever brilliant mind envisioned it would be a good idea to stagger everything that's fucking important this semester into one 8-day period. Fuck you.

That, and my parents don't believe in me. I don't care if they think I'm doing it wrong, I just wish they wouldn't bother me about it everyday. I'm doing it with my money, my time, and my sanity. They can do what they like. I just want to bang my head on the table in peace.

Okay, now that that's out of the way...

I don't really feel like writing today

I've had two long conversations in the last two days: one with an old friend, and one with someone who probably can't quite place my name, but that's okay. And let me tell you, it was refreshing as hell. I'm spending all my time in school and work, and though work can be a social experience, it doesn't offer me the chance to truly let go and be myself.

My circumstance may offer me a unique perspective as to how valuable that opportunity really is. Don't get me wrong, keeping to myself, having only my own wishes and imperatives being seen to, can be really fulfilling and useful for avoiding distraction, annoyance, and drama. But trust me, after about a month of solitude, more or less based on your own personality, riding in the car for an hour with my bud became equally as fun or more fun than what a full day Halo lan or beach trip would have been.

Really, though, am I just a slave to my own genetics? Humanity represents the dominant species on Earth because of our capacity to interact socially, and that brings us great pleasure because of the evolutionary advantages it provides us. The answer to this question is unimportant, I'm just resolved in the fact that I need to get out of my circumstances as quickly as possible, because I want to mingle again. Seriously.

Also, I may have a date-ish-type rendezvous with a cutie some time in the near (or far) future. But considering that I get an opportunity to relax and interact with people about once a month, I'm kinda pessimistic about anything cool really growing there. I'm just completely unavailable based on circumstance, and it is something I hadn't considered when evaluating the costs and benefits of going back to school.

But really, though, I gotta get back to my homework. As in, to prepare for the possibility of a date. This honey won't facebook stalk herself (am I doing it wrong?).

Things that I like to, but probably shouldn't, explain at parties- Also, why I'm single, Also, why I think I'm hilarious

-I compete with my sister on who has a louder burp

-I want to date Lady Gaga, but she doesn't want men to steal her creativity by invading her vagina (many people think hers was purchased after-market)

-No matter what I say or do at work, my coworkers mostly think I'm gay (see bullet 2)

-It doesn't bother me that people think I'm gay, I think it's funny how uncomfortable they become around me because of general homophobia

-If I had unlimited money and drug dealers weren't so fucking sketchy, I'd smoke weed and write everyday.

-I love to write but I fucking suck at it and it's not worth reading

-When you start smelling my farts, I likely have to take a shit, you likely don't stand near me anymore

-When I shit real hard, I sweat through my jeans

-More generally, I sweat copious amounts of fluid, particularly from my butt

-One of my nipples is larger than the other by a visible amount. I had surgery in high school to remove excess tissue from the region, but it's coming back

-I am sexually frustrated

-I would rather play Starcraft 2 than ever go out to a club. EVER. Every time I go, I hate the night and everyone experiencing it with me

-I suck my thumb, and have since I was a kid, but only when I'm rubbing a silky fabric of some sort, mostly shirt tags

-I'll probably be in undergrad for 6.5 - 7 years. That's right. Some people encounter some difficulties and stay an extra year. I'll be staying an extra 3

-I think vegetarians are collectively the stupidest group on the planet

-I follow competitive Pokemon and Starcraft 2

-My attention to emotions is like that of a girl

-I find the notion that everyone is special is retarded, and that people are unimportant in general, or more descriptively, far more self-important than they are actually important

-If I could only experience the work of just one artist for the rest of my life, that artist would be Tom Waits

Hiding Behind Words

When a person thinks they're really smart, they like to use big words (varied vernacular, myriad vocabulary, menagerie of language!). Since I know about myself that I think I'm really intelligent (like, really smart), I, too, like to use unique syntactic structures and the multi-syllabic synonyms to satisfactorily populate them.

Fuck that!

What did I even say that couldn't be said in English? What does it offer me (my penis) that I can dress up my message in a beautiful garland of tongue and teeth Olympics? This blog post (so far) isn't actually about what I wanted to write about (my penis).

Which doesn't bring me to my main point: social problems arise when one lives in constant satire of the rest of the world.

Those who like me are few and far between, because when deciding whether or not to become my friend, people have to listen to me speak. I say outlandish things because I like the attention I get and the raised eyebrows staring my way and the one person in the room who gets that I'm joking and hurts their stomach trying to stop laughing. But everyone else in the room thinks I'm rude, shallow, misogynistic, condescending, angry, weird, stupid, and in many other ways unappealing.

I think the human creature is blessed with a lot of flaws. I say blessed, because they likely arose out of evolutionary advantage over millions of years, and are aspects of our human nature empowering us to become the dominant species on Earth. I say flaws because when someone expresses one of these characteristics in public, you wonder why this person is allowed to vote.

When everything I say is trying to mock those fun little qualities in the people I coexist with, unfortunately, I become indistinguishable from someone having those qualities themselves. To any outsider's perspective, I've acquired any such attributes, and really, who am I to decide that even though everything I say and do would make me appear retarded, that I'm actually not because my consciousness is aware that expressing such a quality is a "joke."

Really though, I think I'm more the asshole for thinking that I can escape the nature of humanity. I get a haircut and it grows into my brain, I suck at school and barely ever do my work on time, I can't shut my fucking mouth sometimes. Everyone is retarded for a slightly different reason, and I think that I shouldn't always be mocking the people around me. It makes people focus fire me about my own flaws and makes me a target and an enemy. This effect, over the long term, has made it such that I've kept only a handful of friends since high school.

Perhaps I can embrace people alongside their flaws, so that they might embrace mine and we can learn and grow together.

I'm tired and a bit lonely

Most of the time, when I check out my sites, I'm going on youtube to enjoy a funny and informative video, or reading a product review which might help me make a personal decision, essentially, I'm consuming.

The creation of this blog and other kinda stuff, has a different end purpose in mind. This gives me a platform to create, share, and interact with the people I know and hold dear.

But you say "Mike, isn't that the point of cell phones and text messaging, as well as social events and interaction? What do you need a website for?"

To this I say to you, "I school, work, drive, and sleep for about 22.5 of my 24 daily hours. Like, I'm not trying to be a dick or blow you off or anything, but I have NO time for scheduled events, weekend getaways, dinners with friends, any of that loveliness that I live for. I have little sleep, less time with friends, and I'm just kinda reaching out in a unique niche way.

So it is this I say to you, comment on my sites, text message me, and use all those wonders of modern civilization that allow us to stay connected on our separate busy schedules. Even if you don't know me that well, I'm really encouraging you to engage in conversation and debate and shared pleasure and maybe we can get to know each other a little better (or at all). I'm hoping to stay sane during this transitory period of my life.

On another side note, I have always believed and still maintain that people, no matter how busy, will make time for the things that matter for them. Even if it's the shortest time, or it takes a long time to come together, if I want it to happen with you, and you want to see me, I will make it happen. No matter what. At the cost of anything, my friends who I would take the bomb shelter with me have always been my most cherished aspect of my life.

In summation, give me your wallet or show me your boobies, gender specific.