Today

I'm feeling pretty fabulous lately, in case anyone is wondering.

Flapping 'Em In The Breeze For The World To See

Still a little hard up concerning friends.  I've met lots of people, but they seem to only want to date, and if I don't want to date them, then it's nothing.  Every single guy is looking for either sex or a boyfriend, and I just want a good friend or two.

So I move on to the guys who are in relationships.  Then the question arises, "So are you into threeways?"

PUT YOUR DICKS AWAY GENTLEMEN.

Off Of Feelings

Just woke up from last night's craziness so I'm going to go ahead and just start spouting off emotions.

Yesterday was a pretty frantic day.  It's Market Days in Chicago which is this big gay street fair, and I work on the street on which it takes place.  It's hectic, lots going on, etc. etc, but my overall feelings on the event is that it was supremely overhyped to me.   The best way people could describe Market Days to me was, 'omg, it's so craaazy.'  They talked to me like this guy from this tiny fishing village they call 'Seattle' could not possibly comprehend the epicness that is Market Days.

Lots of guys at the club which is cool, lots of guys in the street, lots of this and that going on, but I was expecting some Folsom Street Fair shit or something and it was nowhere near that crazy.  Just a large gather of gays.

Last night I got off work at around 1:15am.  Afterwards, I was going to meet a friend at a late night bar, and as I was leaving work this cute girl tried coming into the bar and I told her we were closed and that I was leaving.  We got to talking and she ended up joining me and my other friend was too drunk to be able to come out anyway.  But this girl was super drunk too.

We ended up bar hopping and spending way too much money.  I ran into this guy who I met once and we were supposed to hook up but it never happened.  He was with his new guy and some other friends.  We tried getting into a different late night bar, apparently we were with a 20 year old so she couldn't get in, my new drunk friend decided to go home, and everyone else sort of split off.  So I went away towards the street parade area to another gay bar by myself.

On my walk, this group of african american men outside of Dunkin Donuts grab me on my walk, threw his fist into my face after uttering something like, "Hell naw," and pushed me away.

Now I'm a fast walker in general, so I kept moving and wondering what the fuck just happened, but still in hindsight, on this extremely busy night, I'm annoyed no one came to my aid to ask me if I was okay.  I got to my destination and walked back and forth wondering if I should go into the club or not.

I did, checked my face in the mirror in the dark club lighting and there was no bruising.  Went to the main area and talked to a random person about it and he said my face looked very swollen.  Upon feeling it, I felt a few large lumps in my jaw.  However, no broken teeth or anything like that which I was thankful for.  He happened to hit right in the area where I happened to have had a tooth extracted back in 2008ish and I honestly feel like if that was still there, he would have cracked it.  It hurt a lot.

Over the next half hour a lot went through my head.  Mostly it was the overwhelming sense of loneliness which I have experienced since I moved here that I haven't really admitted to anyone.  But I feel extremely lonely about 60% of the time I'm here.  I'm terrible at making friends, am extremely introverted, have gone out many times by myself and have managed not to meet anyone.  When I meet some cool people, they all seem to want it to lead to sex and if it doesn't, they stop talking to me.

So this whole debacle has mostly shaken up the lonely feeling up by a couple hundred percent.  I had no one to talk to about it besides strangers at the club when I was drunk, then after I got home, only able to vent about it on Facebook.

Overall I'm okay.  My jaw really hurts, can't open my mouth all the way, the left side of my face is swollen, but I think my spirit is the biggest thing to take a beating from all of this.  I feel so deflated and really wish I didn't have to deal with going to work today, but I do because it's a really big event.  So, guess I have to suck it up and roll with the punches.

Into the Groove

Hey blog-reading people,
Probably not many of you since my last post got 3 hits... but it was one of the only ones I didn't directly post on my Facebook, so... there's that.

I sure could use a deep, painful, unforgiving, soul-scarring massage right now.  You see, I used to work out.  A lot, actually.  For a little under a year, I had the gym bug, which I am trying to get back again.  But it was all in convenience.  This was back when I was in Bremerton temporarily but still working in Seattle.

The Bremerton ferry would drop me off in Seattle and I would exit the ferry terminal where you see the big red dot.  Now, there were two ferries I could take.  One that would get me into Seattle at around 7:50am, when I worked at 7:45.  My work is the big green dot.  Now, this was a corporate cruise line I worked for and being even 1 minute late added up to repercussion.   So that wasn't an option at all.  I had to take a ferry that got me into Seattle an hour and a half before work.

Now, during lunch one day I decided to go tanning.  The only tanning option in this 'financial district' of Seattle was at this gym located on 2nd and Cherry (big blue dot), just downhill from my work.  I went in, went tanning, and I saw signs saying they were celebrating their 2 year anniversary at that location and were offering memberships with no enrollment fee for $14 (!!) a month.  So I decided, yes, of course I am going to do that.  I even got a personal trainer twice a week for a couple months to sort of show me the ropes.  It wasn't cheap, but I was saving some major money, both a.) with the $14 gym membership, and b.) living in Bremerton.

Now the reason I included a map in this story is because, if you look at the location of everything, it works out absolutely perfectly.  I had to get to Seattle a hour and a half early before work so I wouldn't be late, and what else am I going to do?  Well, on the way to work, why not waltz my ass 2 blocks uphill to my gym, work out, shower, change for work, and then walk the remainder of the way up those steep-ass Seattle hills.

So I was working out 5 to 6 days a week.  Sometimes even on weekends I would stay overnight in Seattle and before heading back to Bremerton, I'd hit the gym.  It was great.  I went from a scrawny guy who fluctuated between 125 to 135lbs at 12-14% body fat to a solid 155lbs with 7% body fat.  It was awesome.

Then I moved back to Seattle.  To Capitol Hill.  And I switched jobs.  I was working on Capitol Hill.  If you're on Capitol Hill, at the way at the top of the city, you don't wander downhill for any reason.  Everything you need is there.  So I stopped going to the gym.  But they wouldn't let me cancel over the phone, I sort of forgot about it, switched banks at some point, accrued debt there since they couldn't charge me and I'm pretty sure I still have a lien on my record somewhere for that.

So I joined 24 hours fitness... which is just down Denny from where I lived.  Down, as in downhill.  I went here and there.  Got a workout buddy who I went with occasionally (Hi, Billy!) and tried to maintain and build, but I just wasn't going enough.  Eventually, I lost my job, had to quit completely, and that was the last time I was part of a gym.  That was probably mid 2011.

I worked out here and there and went on runs quite a bit.  I would work out in Seattle's police gyms, and I technically wasn't allowed to be there so I didn't go as often as I'd like, but tried to squeeze in a lot of night workouts in preparation for trips to Europe or a Caribbean cruise... which was gay.  So that's a lot of pressure.

So the reason why I need this life-changing, I-wanna-smack-a-bitch massage?  Because I rejoined a gym 2 days ago, did a tri/chest routine my first day and did legs/lower back the 2nd and my entire body is saying "FUCK YOU."  When I had my personal trainer, he worked my legs like a mother effer.  And after him, I would work on them quite a bit until one day I was doing box jumps, and I didn't quite hit the box and I scraped the shit out of my shin, blood everywhere, still have a scar, it scarred me for life.  So leg workouts have not been a focal point in my exercise routine in well over 2 years.

Now I can't walk, sit, stand, lie down, anything.  It all hurts.  Going downstairs is tricky.  But it's all worth it and even with the pain, I enjoy this feeling.  Pain means progress, just like day 3 of using Crest Whitestrips when your gums are peeling and you have that acid burning sensation engulfing your mouth in flames... but you have progressively whiter teeth.

ahem...

So that's me.  Today.  Yeah.  I am never one for posting such a graphic photo for all to see on the internet, but hey.  I want to keep track of my progress and I am holding myself accountable not to let myself be seen as not trying hard enough, so now that you see that, I'll have to follow up with progress, or else I'm a loser with no friends.

Anyway, I just posted a shirtless pic of myself on the internet so I am going to step away from the keyboard right now.  The reason I'm in a swimsuit is because I'm going to the beach so I can get nice and dark and look like this:

Hi, mom!

I'm out.