The Slight Return...

Well, it's been an interesting first month of 2009 to say the least. My absence the last few weeks can only be explained in two words: "Work" and "work." 'Nuff said.

Anyway I've been slacking on the walking (read - haven't been out there in three weeks), but I have upped the sit-ups to 400 a day and I've also added jumping jacks and push-ups to the mix, which makes for some serious upper-body pain, but that's weakness leaving the body, so they say.

My problem with walking is I like to do it as soon as I get up, but the advanced stages of darkness known as Daylight Savings Time has totally screwed me up. I'd wake up during the spring, summer and fall months with the sun blaring in my face, so I know it was time to get up and go do the work. Now, it's like 8 a.m. before the sun decides to show - if it shows at all - and I'm like "damn, might as well do some sit-ups instead," hence me going from 200 a day to 400 a day. At least I won't be too bad off when time goes forward again in a few weeks like I was last year. My God.

Sadly, I couldn't get to DC despite living about 90 minutes from the Nation's Capital, but I did watch and my mixed feelings didn't come from Obama taking office (as you can see by closing Gitmo and lifting the gag order on Abortion Funding, he's already taking care of business), but that dynamic that he and Michelle have. When she watched him take the oath (screwed up by John Roberts, BWAHAHAHAHAHA) with a proud and loving smile on her face, knowing it was as much her accomplishment as his, that was awesome.

But later that night during the First Dance of the ball with Beyonce singing "At Last" and nearly moved to tears while doing it, I sighed. As much as I love Barack and Michelle's relationship for being genuine, I just don't see that happening for a lot of us. There are a lot more Superheads than there are Michelles and more 50s and Flavor Flavs than there are Baracks. Maybe I'll go into detail about this in another post (which hopefully, won't take three weeks to write).

YouTube is the devil. I've said this before, but I mean it. I've spent so much time either here at the house or in the office watching NBA and NFL games from the 70s and 80s, it's a wonder I get any work or exercise done. I'm just so fascinated with that era of sports, that when a poster loads the bulk of the 1981 NBA Eastern Conference finals or someone has snippets of NFL playoff games from '75 and '76, I can't HELP but watch. Gosh I would've loved to be alive and a sports writer back in those days.

Anybody have any thoughts on swingers' parties? Just curious.

Thursday, I was in Wal Mart handling my grocery business when I saw a white girl in cloth shorts. Oh, I wouldn't think anything of it if it wasn't 15 FREAKIN DEGREES OUTSIDE! There's something wrong with these folks, I'm telling you.

The older I get, the less confident I feel...which is saying something considering I've never been confident to begin with. That scares me.

And finally, I'm learning to cook, slowly but surely. I made these honey barbecued chicken strips a week ago and they didn't turn out bad, just might need some seasoning or a trick to keep the chicken moist and let the bbq sauce seep in. Any tips you guys...I know the majority of my readers are ladies who can burn, so I know you all will help a brother out :)

Rhymes with 2009...

You've seen it on your friends' facebook and myspace statuses.

"Shine in '09!"
"Fine in '09!"
"[Insert whatever you want] is mine in '09!"

Clearly we've entered a new year, which is the last one of this decade, if you can believe that. Doesn't it seem like yesterday folks were Y2K-proofing their computers and reading their Bibles and praying when the countdown began for 2000? Yes, time flies very fast, which is why I'm hoping I can get over my tumultuous 2008 and make a way for better times in 2009 (See? There goes another one!).

'08 was certainly an up and down year for me, unlike anything I ever experienced, but being that it was my first full year as a self-sufficient career man (and a leap year at that), I think I managed pretty well. Some of the ups include:

- Getting back on track with my diet and exercise, even though the Holidays proved to be what I thought they were - a time to grub. Needless to say after today, it's back to work.

- Validation and compliments from my job's clientele. Needless to say those are the folks that make us go, and when I'm at games and they come up to me and say "you're doing a fantastic job, keep up the good work," it can't help but bring a smile to my face every time. What's even better when I hear from a co-worker that people think I'm a good guy along with the work I do. Needless to say I plan to focus more on the good than the bad with my gig. Hey, at least I have one.

- The Phillies winning the World Series! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I can say in my lifetime that my favorite baseball team won a world championship and I was able to witness it all the way through. I wasn't born the last time they won (1980) so being a fan of a World Series championship team is a new and exciting thrill for me.

- Discovering strength that I really didn't know I had. I spent a lot of 2008 going through drama. Work, women, family, friends, hell even my toilet flooded my apartment Tuesday and I'm still trying to dry out and get the funk out of my crib behind that. All of that tells me that 1) The traits of the old Chris are fading away and 2) That last blast of foolishness I encountered in the last week of the year is making way for great things in 2009. I truly believe that. The old Chris would've flown off the deep end, snapped out and left things unresolved. Now I can find a way to get things done without panicking and making them worse than what they are. Well, in certain cases.

- Starting the process of self-discovery and acceptance. I still have a long ways to go, but as some of my posts suggest, I have no fear of putting everything about me out there as a means of trying to figure out what's going wrong and how I can correct it. I still have some things I need to bring to the surface, but I did a good job of recognizing my faults and trying to tranquilize them, if you will, as I move forward.

We can't forget the downs, and there were a ton of those, so I'll just stick to the ones that had the greatest impact on me:

- Christmas in Dramaville. Needless to say my 30 hour stay at home didn't go over well. Without putting family business out there, I'll just say that this Christmas has forced me to re-evaluate my longing for "home" and my relationship with my family and friends. It's something that has messed with me since I got back to Maryland, but I'm planning to figure out what it will take to make things right.

- Women. And that creates a subdivsion of issues, problems and situations that include;

I. A woman telling me I should be gay because no woman would ever want me
II. Me going over a woman's house, engaging in certain acts before she stopped me and lied about having to pick up her daughter, who she said was out of town.
III. Being on the phone with a woman for just about five hours only for her to say she's too tired to hook up but that she still wants to do so. Haven't heard from her since.
IV. The False Friend Drama, which you guys know all about.
V. A woman telling me she didn't want to make it seem like she could be bought, but continues to co-own a house with a man that openly cheats on her and is still married to his previous wife legally.
VI. Blogger beef. Yeah, even here. I guess I can't escape it.
VII. 90 Day Rules
VIII. Women who still want to use me for "friendship," but will turn to (and get turned out by) other guys for physical needs on a regular basis. And that's just SOME of the crap I encountered from women in 2008.

- Work. Even with the aforementioned compliements and positive feedback from clientele, I still got picked on ad nauseum for stuff I have no control over. I've contemplated quitting, but doing so in this recession without a job lined up is like giving R. Kelly a kindergarten class - just stupid. I'm just going to tough it out to the best of my ability and begin evaluating my options.

So with the recap done, here are some of the things I hope to accomplish in 2009;

- A new job. I said I would focus on the good rather than the bad, but this particular part of Maryland is NOT where I want to spend the rest of my life, so let the games begin.

- Keep losing weight. I dropped about 22 pounds from March to November 29th, so only God knows if I've picked some back up, but like I said, tomorrow, we get back on track.

- Do more of the grown up. Which is funny, considering I had more partners this year than ever before (yep, even with the drama, I still managed to get some every once in a blue moon), but I still feel like I'm missing out on some playatastic experiences. How to go about setting it off? Only time will tell.

- Oh wait, I know how. Be more social. And this is the hard part. I still kinda rely on this here machine to try and meet and hook up with women, but it doesn't work as much as I want to. However, what can you do when you're still afraid to be seen in public? Yeah, like I said, this is the hard part.

- Be less flexible. I bend TOO much. For women, for my job, for everybody. I need to learn to stand my ground and not really be swayed by negative or contrived persuasion to do things I don't want to do.

- Be an asshole to women. Hey, seems to be the only way to get attention, so let's see if it works.

- Be happy. Somehow, I've got to find out what makes me smile, what makes me content, what makes me forget about my problems and cares and just latch on to that.

I hope everyone had a great time in bringing in the New Year right!