things fall apart

Oh, faithful reader, when we last (mostly) parted 10 months ago, things were going quite swimmingly for our young protagonist (me!). I was sticking to my diet and exercise plan, I was saving money, and things were going mostly as well as I could hope for.

That was 10 months ago.

Stephen King recently personally told me that if I want to be a writer then I need to write and read as often as I can. (Don’t laugh, he can tell you too.) I used to love writing, then it became a chore. Mostly because I ran out of things to write about. But people seemed to like it and nearly a year later people still remark about it... so here we are.

I mean to write some fiction, but it’s scary and has a high possibility for failure... so who knows if will get around to it. I certainly mean to. I also certainly mean to get around to a whole bunch of other things. My unyielding love of the ellipse might drive a copy editor to a particularly gruesome murder/suicide. These things may be best left untouched.

When we last left off, things were uncertain for me at my place of employment. I believe I had just interviewed for a position in Washington DC. I liked that place, but they ended up stringing me along. I have a pretty realistic idea of what happened, and it’s times like these when I realize that I am able to view myself and the world around me with an objective lens. I am perfectly willing to accept that I’m not perfect - no one is (except Jack). The way I envision things going down is that they liked me, realized I didn’t have enough experience and wanted to hire me at a level lower then what I interviewed for. This would lead to my recruiter telling me that they liked me. Then they realized that this schmuck, aged 27 (at the time) somehow owns a house and we’re going to have to move him here. At which point, they probably all looked around and said something to the effect of “Oh that guy? Yeah, fuck that guy.” So, I didn’t get the job. Things were tense for awhile, but I finally ended up getting another position at Bristol here in Syracuse, ending my long national nightmare.

So, I got a new job. Got a raise. My bonus went up to 8% of my yearly salary, from the whopping zero that it was at. I opened a 401k and took additional steps to becoming a real boy. The main steps that I took were major remodeling of the house. That was a lot of time and effort, and well, mostly money. But I did what I wanted and it’s almost all done - so I’m happy. But I’m back to attempting to save large amount of money. I have more debt then I did at this time last year, potentially an understatement, but it’s justified and I’m satisfied and that area is all good.

So why is this titled “things fall apart”? Have I spent the last month just solidly listening to this:

No, but I liked that album when I was in high school and the track with Erykah Badu is really good (It’s called “You Got Me”). In fact, ever since then that’s been one of my favorite little sayings, used in approximately a thousand away messages and facebook status updates since. And it’s fitting.

Things have definitely fallen apart. Because, at my core, I still care about the same two things I cared about last year. Being financially sound and being in good shape (to the constant chagrin of my mother, who wants me to settle down and get married very, very much). I am in awful shape. The worst, in fact. I’ve gone from being in the best I’ve bee in since high school to being in amongst the worst. I have no one to blame for this but myself. I can spend 3000 words putting down all my feelings on the matter and over the next few weeks - I just might. It’s going to be a while before I’m in shape again. I’ve only been single a week (another topic for another day, but I’ll probably never write about it).

Every day I wake up and I look in the mirror and wonder just about the only thing a man can wonder in the situation, what the fuck happened? Just today I noticed more spots filling in around my eyes, giving credence to the Dr’s theory that it is lipid deposits in my eyes. Unlike my dog, who has him directly in his eyeballs (genetic to the breed), I just have them on the outside, which doesn’t hurt my eye in any way. This is usually a sign of high cholesterol, which I don’t have. Either way, the addition of more of these isn’t what I would consider a good sign.

Ultimately, I wish that I could build a time machine and travel back in time 9-10 months and punch my skinny self directly in the face. But that’s not going to happen.

Instead, it will be the same thing it always is. A slow climb back to respectability.

I’m going to attempt to avoid the “x happened today and x is the result of that” format that I have been guilty of at times. This may fall into that a bit, but it’s also my first post in 10 months... so kindly give me a break.

Practice, practice, practice. And I believe that, although he didn’t state it, Mr. King would agree that practicing not eating the double cheeseburger is a good thing to aspire to, as well.