Emotion In General

Well, this might be an odd post. Then again, it might be an all too common post. If so, thank god I’m not the only person fucked up in this manner.

I was walking home from an event (Sorry Ben, I wasn’t walking out on you, I just needed to think and walk my thoughts off) and I was thinking of a friend of mine. She had a tough day at work and, while I’m not the person that really should be helping her through her troubles, I felt I should, as a decent human being. So as she was tearing up with frustration at her situation, I was trying to think of what to say. She means a lot to me, in an odd way since we aren’t the best of friends (we’ve never really had a chance to talk much, primarily due to my reluctance) and, well, she’s a woman which means my social ability with her is zilch, reguardless of relationship status, but I still wanted to help her out because she strangely does mean something to me.

What did I find?

I had no fucking clue on how to deal with it. Not because I didn’t feel hurt by her pain, but because I didn’t CONNECT.

As I thought about it on my way home, I realized that I really don’t connect with anything.I have one really good friend. The kind you only find once in a lifetime. Even with him though, I don’t really connect with him on any meaningful level, he’s just the one person that is enough of a balancing force to me for us to connect on a fairly superficial level. The rest of my friends, and don’t get me wrong, they ARE friends, don’t really share a connection of any kind with me, at least on my end.

My main thoughts though weren’t about the few friends I have. They drifted to my late grandmother and grandfather. My grandmother was a sweet heart. She showed me love where none was owed, primarily because we didn’t see each other often. However, the fact that she showed me such love should have meant something to me when she passed. It didn’t. Literally, the first thing that shot into my mind was “Well damn, no more home cooking when I go to Dover.” With my grandfather, her husband, passed away, I went to the funeral. Really though, I didn’t go out of remorse, I went out of a feeling of obligation because I didn’t make the funeral for my grandmother. I felt nothing while I was supposed to be “honoring” him.

I was thinking of this, primarily in my failed attempt to comfort my friend, and realized that my biggest fault is possibly my apathy. It’s not that I don’t want to care. I LONG to care about something. It’s just that I never have. If someone has a hard time, a bad day, is in a financial crisis, or dies, I really have yet to come across a situation where I actually CARE. I want to, but I just feel empty. I always feel empty, but I feel even more empty when something happens that should evoke some sort of emotional response from me.

This post isn’t really going anywhere, I just needed to get that off my chest. The only place I might have wanted this to go is a general question to my few readers.

Does my inability to, for lack of better words, give a shit mean that I am a bad person?

I’d like to think I’m a good person. I try to do the right things. I never intentionally screw someone over. However, I have always been under the impression that the ability of one to feel was what made one human. If that is the case, what am I?

Is the fact that I’m even worried about this a sign of my humanity, or is it just another means to justify that status?

Blue Mountain State

I have started watching this show recently. I first discovered it when I was snowed in at work this past winter. I immediately fell in love with it, but shortly after the snow ended, I started working even longer hours, so I quickly forgot about it. A few days ago, one of my friends on Facebook mentioned it in a status and I was like “Hey! That show! I need to watch that!” So I did. I am loving it even more.

So what is it about this show that is so appealing to me? Is it that the crazy shit they do at the parties is reminisce of a few parties I went to and I desperately want to experience it again? Is it the women and booze in a never ending supply? Or is it simply the college experience that, even though distorted to be more than it really is in this show, I still regret losing out on? I think it is a combination of these.

First, take the crazy shit. I don’t party that often. I can’t really afford to. Partially because of a lack of money, but mostly because I work for a living and I can’t use drugs on a regular, or even irregular, basis and I can’t afford to have a hangover when I get to work. I also simply don’t know the kind of people that party. Those that I did/do know are either gone from Salisbury or were college friends and never lived here in the first place. Even though I don’t party regularly though, each one turns out a story about me doing something crazy. Sometimes I even remember the event and it’s that much more satisfying when I do remember since I know that people aren’t just trying to boost my ego and play into the self-image that I have created for others to view, but that I really am that person. It acts as a sort of validation that I am not only who I say I am, but who I want to be. I’ve always been reserved. I’ve always had a hard time doing things that seem morally ambiguous. That was how I was raised. However, something deep inside me has always wanted to do these things, wanted to be quite a bit less reserved, and these events help me create that. This is one of the reasons Blue Mountain State appeals to me on such a level. I watch the show and realize that I have done some of this shit. Some of these things have even been the very events that have helped transform me from the “perfect” little boy I was in high school to the person I am today. I still am a little too reserved to do some of the stuff these people do, but I have more balls than I ever had before, especially with a few beers in me. This show reminds me of my journey and times that I hope to keep on having from time to time.

Next is the women and booze. I’m a man in all sense of the typical stereotypes (except that we always cheat. I might have at one time, but I don’t think I’m capable of it anymore), so I think it goes without saying that I want women and booze. A lot.

Last is the college experience. I went to one year of college. During the first semester, I stayed in my dorm room and talked to almost no one, including the other people in my dorm. I knew a few people, after all, I was still uncomfortable eating by myself, so I would only go to the cafeteria with my roommate and his friends, but I really didn’t experience anything. The second semester was a little better. I had my first rum and coke (cherry coke to be exact) thanks to one of my favorite college friends. It was in a big 32oz Styrofoam cup. I had two of them. Needless to say, I was feeling damn good that night. It was only the second time I had been drunk. I experimented with some drugs that semester. I don’t really approve of the use of drugs (except for weed), but I still feel it was a good experience. I am a firm believer in never knocking something before you try it, unless you know for a fact it’ll kill you. I used a few of them once, a few I took a few times that semester, but I haven’t touched a single one since I’ve been out of college. I went to two parties that semester, one in a dorm room, which was pretty awesome. These are all experiences that I had that are part of the college experience as a whole in my mind. I didn’t have much of them, though, and I missed out on a lot of others. BMS really lives out a lot of the experiences I wanted to have and relives experiences that I did have. Some of the things I can just sit back, laugh, and say “I did that!” Others, I just sit back, and wonder what it would have been like. Either way, it appeals to a side of me that is, in some way, regretful, and helps ease that regret.

Combine all of that with the witty humor, the dim wittedness of the characters, and the damn hot women, and you have yourself a great TV show. I hope this show goes on for a few seasons at least. I really want to buy the DVDs someday.

New Beginnings

Well, I was offered a new job yesterday. I filled out all the paperwork for it too. The only thing left to do is give my boss notice of me leaving and take the drug test, both of which should be easy and painless, and both are to be done on Monday. The only things that could cause this job to fall through are my drug test and background check. Beyond that, I have plenty of experience in a higher stress hospitality environment (where I’m currently working), so I shouldn’t have to worry too much about doing well. I just have to keep up my customer service professionalism and hope that the overload of my brain from being overworked will not matter too much while I’m training. The drug test and background check I’m not even worried about, they are always clean because I never really do anything.

What does this new job mean? Well, at first, it means $100-150 pay cut per paycheck. At first this sounds bad, but considering it’s that big of a pay cut because I will be working approx. 40 hours less each pay period, I’m willing to accept it. It’s about time I had some time to myself to relax. Been working my ass off for 6+ months now. I need this break. Money cut aside, the job has its perks. I am getting a dollar an hour raise. I will generally have a set schedule. Even if the schedule changes, it’s made a month in advance, so I can plan what I do around it with plenty of time to spare. I will eventually get vacation time ( I think. I remember hearing that from my interview a while back, not this job offer. I never asked). I get paid overtime (finally)! I get similar employee prices on NICER hotels than the chain (I am not going to name names here) I am currently with. I even get holiday pay! I also believe I can opt into benefits after a while, but, once again, I did not ask that, I just seem to remember them mentioning it when I interviewed for another position a while back.

Now, all of this is combined with moving into a new place that will be saving me around $360/mo. It’s a little further away from work, and I won’t be with awesome friends, but even after gas is taken into account, that much savings makes my after-bill pay approximately $60-160/mo. more than my current job and living situation. That will be very nice. The way I figured it out, after all my bills, including gas for work and $400 into savings each month, I will be able to afford $17 of food per day! That means a few cold beers after work and a decent meal. Maybe even lunch on my *gasp* breaks! That’s right. My days of working 12-16 hours without any technical break are over! Back to this food situation though, you may be wondering “Why is $17 per day in food such a big thing?”. Well, It’s such a big thing because I have (partially through my own fault, but most of the time just because of mishaps that are, if not out of my control, very hard for me to control) been living off of $2-5 a day for food for the past 6 months. Now, the part that is mainly my fault is when my friend Ray comes down. It’s a problem both of us have always had. Whenever we are together, we always part ways with naught but a penny to spare. We drink a lot, drive a lot (not at the same time mind you… except for that one time possibly), go see all the movies we haven’t had a chance to until now, hang out with friends that are primarily friends to both of us, but not really either of us, and any other sort of money-required activity we can bust out. Beyond that, however, it hasn’t really been my fault. So as you can imagine, I will be enjoying this freedom quite a bit.

To sum this all up, this is what is on my plate:

– I will start getting treated like an employee, not a slave (slaves got paid in the way of food and shelter, which is all I’ve been able to afford for the most part, so I do not feel bad about making that analogy after how I’ve been treated).

– I will be able to take vacations eventually, which was no more than a child’s dream prior to this.

– I will be able to go home after work and *gasp* be able to eat while watching TV and enjoying a cold beer without having to cut my time for sleep down to 4 hours.

– I will be able to start saving money! This will get me a new car in a year (if I can stick with the plan) or sooner and allow me to remain fairly financially secure, even if I lose my job for some reason (as of right now I plan on staying at the new job for at least a year, hopefully more, and see no reason I can’t fulfill my duties to make them want to keep me on).

– I will gain experience working in a high-class hotel, which will allow me to move into a nicer city hotel at some point down the road if I so wish.

– I might even have the time for college! Go degrees… and stuff!

– I will have more time to get back into gaming and hanging out with all my friends, not just the ones I live with.

Overall it’s great. Things are finally falling into place for me. There are still some things that I need to actually WORK at, such as lowering my credit score, which I’m going to look and start knocking things off one at a time with no more than half of the money I put into savings, and paying off all of my debt (I think those two are one in the same actually), but that will come with time and this situation is what will allow me to work at that. I might even be able to get that new car early if I can build my score up enough.  However, these two things kind of just fell in my lap (granted after I started finally thinking of myself as well as other people, not JUST other people) and I would like to think that all the bad karma I have gotten in spite of the good I do hasn’t just been in spite of me, it was to teach me to be a better person so I could finally enjoy life once it started falling into place.

Here’s to hoping I didn’t just jinx this. Cheers.