It was a bit sad to hear about our old friend last night having to deal with a personal issue. I'm getting back out there & making a conscious decision to get back out into the world. Going to the party last night was a "no brainer" given how the concept of "life is presciously short" has punched me in the head over the last 6 weeks or so. Everything was great & it felt good to see some old familiar faces. Yes it was a bit overwhelming at first but it did feel like a good comfortable college party.

Honestly it him coming out would have made the night even better. When you're in that state of mind where you want to preserve you just have to get in that comfortable place in your mind first. I guess going for so many years put a bit of confidence that usually I don't have. Usually I'm paranoid about my car in the city (This is a huge issue that I still need to work on), but I knew that if I got there early enough I'd get that nice sweet spot between driveways further down the street.

Even though I kind of had minor triggers of reminiscing about a former friend & an ex girlfriend on the same street, it was good to see how absurd those concepts were. Yes my ex was a descent thing at the time but honestly it wasn't going to work. Although I have to say not having a girlfriend in the city & physically not being up there is something I wish I could change.

Anyway here is the song that I had in my head as I was the lead singer as my costume. Sorry about the video as the colorized clean version was scrubbed when Gregg when he disbanded everything about the New Radicals. It was feel good music then & still holds up to this day.



In all it was an awesome night, I just wish our friend could have came out & snapped a few pics.

Although I'm not back in the SRQ (I've had a few facebook friends & someone I have listed on Twitter down there over the last week) I've found myself in my mind drifting back to when I was younger & "lived" down there more often. Ok it was more like I was in college on break visiting & the mindset I had that I felt like I recently tapped back into as of late. Maybe it's all the free time I've had lately to decompress from away from the cub. Also it could be the time added time that I've had to introspect once again. Although that can be horrendous as what happened for 6 months after Feb this year where I totally went off the rails emotionally.

But I've rediscovered some old books that I purchased down in Sarasota & with my free time I'm trying to at least stimulate my mind once again is this distressed time I'm having at the moment. The downside is that I'm feeling kind of like I'm a waste at the moment. The thought of volunteering has crossed my mind. I wish I was just wasn't so stupid earlier this year with money as I would have moved away for a bit.

Anyway I actually took another step today & went out in the city for a bit today. Yeah it's been a while but I was able to plan it out & enjoy a beautiful day sipping a smoothie with a bunch of people from a meetup. It's just good to get back into a good place & start taking baby steps again.

So with every time that someone passes it seems that this always reminds us of our mortality. I think with Walt he was totally prepared for what the great beyond was all about & passed over with a scenario in his mind and soul. He was one of the greatest thinkers that I ever have known in my life. In some ways even though I may have been in presence less than 10 times overall ((e:strip) parties & maybe a concert or two?) I knew that he was always around digitally. Yes this mostly was on facebook towards the end of his life (last 5 years) as it seems that blogginig is a lost art & updating a status or sharing a pic on your mobile smartphone is what we're all about. It is sad as it seems that now facebook has just become a forum where we share other(s) content from 3rd party sources. Although Walt did share some thought inspiring content like abandoned places or 1970's NYC pics. He has a brain & shared his intelligent thoughts with all of us.

I'm happy that his experiences (old school punk rock), insights and thoughts will be with us digitally. Whenever he commented on a post I always was happy that he noticed. Also I'm pretty sure that he is one to have contemplated his existence & life as it's too late to do that once you're gone.

Lastly he gave me hope (As I'm also in the very far from Brad Pitt in the looks dept also) that one day I may find love of someone of upstanding character despite our challenges.

I received some bad news today, one of my old high school friends died in a car accident. He also happened to be a facebook friend of mine as well and a pretty good one at that since He and I would always comment back and forth, basically he read my stuff and I did likewise.

Now I go to his page and see most everyone writing on his wall. A part of me wants to write something and another is kind of creeped out at the same time.

A while back I remember reading about a service that stores your passwords and acts like a digital will like what this company offers

But yea, another death and another reason to add to the pile of my hermit ways these days.

I may write something, but calling a couple of friends of mine with the news today really was hard to do.

Life is short, enjoy it while you can take full advantage of it.

I was cleaning out my gmail account when I realized that years ago I received some interesting monumental text messages that I had forwarded myself to save. All I can say is good thing that i did, as there were some insightful things in there.

The best ones are the old pics from the Cont. All I can say is I realize now why people do porn, it's to immortalize their youth. Needless to say I am pretty happy that I took some pics from the old fetish nights ;-)

For some reason this old Cure song has popped back into my head. I was just thinking about concerts and if the possibility arose where I could time travel to see a show from the recent past what tour would I see? I think for me it would be the Disintegration Tour in '89. Maybe it's because I caught the tour for Wish and felt as if I was missing something.



In other news my manager passed away at work which really just slapped me emotionally inside the only way a death of someone way too young can do to you. I'm just glad that I had this week booked off since for some F'd up reason I need to get my head straight due to the universe smacking me across the face to make my numb on the inside as it seems to frequently do.

I have to ask, "Why does it seem as if I have this dark cloud" stalking me once in a while? F**K! I want to know, Is it possible to make lemon aid out of this Freakin' Lemon?

It's just odd that after all that I wrote about we're having serious talks within my family about such and such just in case "if anything happened!" It's kind kind of odd as when I was younger I just felt that life was just too overwhelming and long. That was until now I'm really faced with my own mortality.

Fuck at this point I just hope that I can get to the point where my parents die before me. At that point it would be a moral victory or in my case "Happy Losses." As I'm just wondering on a very serious level, "How many years I get get out of this body..."

So today marks the dozen year mark since my sister was killed in a car accident. It's times like this that force you to to really look deep into yourself introspectively. To be honest for some reason my mind has just been stuck in the period a couple years after the event. I don't know know why all of a sudden why the sensations of how I felt and why around 2000 are just flooding my memory at the moment but they are.

What is at the top of my head at the moment is the thought that I just should have shut it down and taken up life as a reclusive. The thought at the time was just that everyday when you walk out the door of your home, you lose something. That day 12 years ago I went to work and came home to the news that I lost a sister. Every day we depreciate in value, something wears and tears and it will never be the same no matter what you do. The little scar that you got from falling down and scraping your knee to even some bigger trauma. It happens and there is nothing that you can do to prevent it. What fixated me at the time was my Mom's cousin also passed away around this time. I just remember that I didn't want to go because basically at that time I was "On Strike" when it came to wakes & funerals. I never met her and to me it was just a reminder of shutdown process of my family tree. Christ after my sister dies I had visions of myself being Chris Patten, lowering the Union Jack on my family tree. (more on this some other time, because in actuality..._) Then a friend/lover (really a F'd up FWB but minimal benefits) of mine that same weekend was assaulted by the guy she was seeing as he threw her down the stairs. So I heard all of her legitimate anguish and pain regarding the negative experience she just had being thrown down a flight of stairs.

It just hit me all at once and I just remember embracing myself with clenched fists crying. One part vengeful, but in reality I was just mourning the shit that life and the universe dealt me. Really I'm weak when it comes to life. People kill my family and I can't stand up for myself to get ahead. With whatever positive I have going in my life it just in practicality zeros it all out to a neutral experience for my so called life.

It's been 10 or a dozen years since I had that experience feeling those sensations. Basically I've come to this conclusion. I should have stayed the Fuck in my little protective cage. Well you can't be totally agoraphobic, because you have to go out in the world and work to make some money and do a thing or two not to totally lose it.

I don't know to be honest if everything that I have experienced over the last say 7 years or so has been worth it. I've had some good times out and about, but in all honestly when I attempted to really push it to become a social butterfly I just got smacked down by the universe, Literally as I'm still going to physical therapy to get myself together.

I love my job and the schedule, but sometimes I wonder if I actually was meant to be one of those guys that works some midnight shift job. You know someplace to put myself where most people don't want to be so I can just exist with minimal human interaction. Sex would be an issue because who could have a relationship with you and even if you were around when you were off during the day or night, Normal people don't have sex during the day! At least not the bulk of the time on a regular basis.

Yes at anytime I could have busted out of my rusty cage, but I have continually passed. Last year around this time I had an opportunity to move to DC, but at the last moment I passed it up. Yea, theoretically it may have been on paper the best move since I'm almost finished with my MBA and I wouldn't have been able to do it down there, but at the same time staying around here has just sucked the soul out of me.

At this time I'm just going to keep it to big ticket items. Going or doing something that has a big enough risk/reward ratio. If you have read this blog over the last little while it just seems that has been my life. Just living for the few days a month where I have a tremendous amount of fun, then after that I just go back into a lull or suspended state until the next time.

To me it seems to work. Being elsewhere like Florida/Vegas or even Rochester makes me feel more alive. To be honest the Vegas category on this blog has brought me the biggest smile when I have been reading old entries. Really what kind of person does it make me?

I guess I'm the person that you can't deal with on a daily basis, just in short spurts. It's kind of sad but that's also the same way I like my relationships. The best one I ever had was a FWB on call and it worked out great for about 5 years. We only got together when BOTH of us felt like it and if we went 6 months without hooking up we didn't care and when we did get together was great.

In the end I guess it boils down to the wish that life had a PAUSE button...

I had a very good 2008 and to be honest there is a part of me that is afraid that this year won't stand up to last year. I don't know what motivates women, but for guys the negative is more of a motivator that positive reassurance. I guess it comes down to sports and the "I'll show your ass" mentality that we learn early on in life when the other team runs smack or someone criticizes you. Just look at the NFL playoffs the top 4 top awarded people are out golfing & the two most badgered are playing next weekend. Heck I think of the bowl games only UB didn't cover the spread as an underdog or win outright.

Anyway I have a ton of work to do this year. As I was looking back the only things that would have made a great year into a stellar year would have been me getting married &/or having a kid.

Here is a list of things to do:

1. Get mentally healthy

2. Go to a chiropractor

3. Start being more assertive & take more risks in social situations

4. Go tanning at least once a week to keep my current color going.

5. Work some OT to continue building savings

6. Lose 10 pounds to get back to my "ideal" weight

7. Enter into a healthy relationship some some woman
Simple enough right? Well the OT is not guaranteed, I know you can't bank on something that is out of your control, but from the indication I got today, we may be in for a repeat of last year since I didn't get settled yet back into the job today when the question was popped!

100th Post

So Fall has finally kicked in and I am just thinking now of what I am going to do to get away during the winter months. I just need to go away again on a trip, although I did go to NYC 2 weeks ago. I could have even had a possible Aruba trip next weekend but work screwed up those plans :-/ Hopefully if soft plans hold up I will be in Vegas very soon.

It is just that I have been thinking beyond just getting out of town for a vacation lately. NYC really reaffirmed to me something that I have known all along, "The prospects for finding a woman are much better in a bustling metro area."

My friends have told me to move to Northern Virginia and I could have my choice among the 10+ single girlfriends of his wife. It took me all of 3 HOURS in NYC to find a "Girlfriend." In Buffalo once in my life it took me almost 3 YEARS!

I love this site for the basic fact that it contains people me age that are prospering in WNY. A place usually filled with hard luck stories and lives that are driving down the highway of life in the slow lane held together by bungee cords.

For the most part I have stuck around here for some advantages that I have enjoyed in regards to a few things in my life. Compared to most people I know outside of this site and especially the people that I work with I am pretty well off. Self actualization though a career in the past was not a high priority in my life. If that was the case I would have left for a job like many people have over the past 20 years from this area. I am convinced that I can't find a "Real Job" in Buffalo if my life depended on it, but I still remained.

The factor that may make me leave town is the fact that I am now convinced that I will have a better chance of finding someone elsewhere.

There is a disconnect with the women now entering the prime marrying age and the potential men that would be their mates. They're looking for guys like me that are pretty much are in short supply. The birthrate in the mid 70's was the lowest in the last 40 years. So these women in the mid 20's looking for an older guy are looking for guys that were never born in the first place. Let alone if they want someone that: has a degree, speaks proper English, enjoys culture, has an athletic body and able to dress himself.

I look though the non-existent personals on CL Buffalo and then the CL personals in other cites and think, "Wow there so much out there, compared to here." Yea, I know the difference in population has a great effect, but still I know what I have experienced dating in this area for more than a decade.

Why am I in this kind of mood? I just saw a house on line in Buffalo that I want, but thinking it through I don't want to be stuck in this area with just me living in it. I would rather have a wonderful relationship with a woman that I can't get enough of, than a house in Buffalo alone.