Eating Out is Dumb and Takes a Toll on You...

When we last saw our fearless adventurer he'd just been heartbroken by a girl he had thought and planned to spend the rest of his days with.  He was hurt and confused and driven 12+ hours straight through (stopping only for gas,) from MD to FL in order to NOT be in MD for a moment longer.

Pretty much what the drive felt like Source

So I am newly returned to FL after leaving only 6 months prior.  At this point....I start to get low.  Like REALLY low.  In my head I'm 33 years old, divorced and have three children to take care of...not exactly the hottest ticket for lots of single females.  I'm also stuck dealing with the fact that something that had seemed SOOOOOO sure, turned out to be the exact opposite.

Of course in all this...I'm not trying to say that I made ALL the right choices.  I did selfishly decide to quit my job (you know....the REASON I was waiting to go up to MD in the first place,) because it made me so UTTERLY miserable that I would go to work and not eat or drink anything for 12 hours. HORRIBLE.  I've never had a job that I have hated THAT much before in my life.

My general attitude towards that job.... Source

But I digress...my lack of money and financial contribution was the ultimate reason for the break up.  Either that or she had stopped loving me and was talking with her Ex, with whom she is now back in a relationship with despite her insistence that she doesn't do second chances.

I was back from MD....back with heartbreak and sad emotions.  The room I'd had before I left for MD was packed to the gills with boxes and stuff that my parents couldn't find a home for.  There was LITERALLY a path from the door to the bed.  I couldn't even access the dresser or put clothes away.....I was a visitor in my own 'home'.

I was a sad panda... Source

It was at this point I went full on Emo.  Right on down to breaking out the Dashboard Confessional on my iTunes.  There was lots of time during the next two weeks full of sobbing uncontrollably when I was alone at night.  Lots of really dark and scary thoughts running through my head.  It started to become a vicious circle of not wanting to be happy but being tired of feeling depressed.


Having been the 'victim' of unexpected breakup before, I had already had some experience of the types of thoughts and stuff that was going through my head.  But at that time I was 20 and had my whole life ahead of me.  This time around I was 33 and had my fair share of 'baggage' and things that made the future seem VERY obsolete to me.

So I sat there and on several occasions contemplated my own existence and recounted the reasons for why I should or should not live on this planet anymore.

So to recap....there was driving, sadness and Dashboard Confessional.  Which brings me to an interesting nick name for the next time I feel sad and blue.  Jumping ahead a bit....I met a lady.  And during the course of talking with her about my breakup I decided to say that the next time I felt REALLY down...I wouldn't use the term depressed.  Instead, since Dashboard Confessional was part of my music when I'm super sad post-break up (and because Chris Carrabba is the lead singer of the group.) We would just say I was "eating at Carrabba's" as the term for my sadness.

As I came to terms with my breakup (and by terms I mean that I would have to date again.)  I quickly began to feel the anxiety attack build in my chest.  I'm 33....I'm OLD!  I don't know if I can/want to do the internet dating.  I'm also very shy.....I have a hard time going out of my comfort zone with people I don't know.  I don't like rejection.....so talking to someone out of the blue is also out of the question.

So where the heck can someone like me find quality people to ask out on dates?

Where I work there are some single ladies....and those ladies go on dates.  They get those dates from the interwebs.  Sites like match.com, Okcupid.com, eHarmony.com....all the interweb sites. So I had a starting point.  However, because the breakup was still fresh and hurt a bunch...I just made a profile on match and OkCupid and just left them there.  Not ready to reach out....not ready for awkward dates with people I just met.

Actual first date footage of myself..... Source

During all this boo-hoo, woe is me stuff my friends acted as an AMAZING support system for me.  If I wanted to lay on their couch and just exist while they did their thing.....they let me do it.  They did their best to make sure I was out and about doing things and not sitting around wallowing in my own self pity.

Then one weekend....I had dinner with a work friend and her boyfriend where, prior to his arrival she and I got to talk about things and how it had all went down.  She basically told me her thoughts on it all and left it at that.  Her words were honest and seemed to strike a cord with me.  The next day on Saturday I met up with another co-worker, who also was going through a sudden break-up.  I spent half of that day laying on her couch and laying on her just watching TV.  I still don't know what changed for me that weekend but I know on Monday I had a drive and motivation to BE better.  Something about being told the way it was and being lazy with another human made me feel like things could and WOULD get better for me.

So that Monday I decided to really hit the internet dating scene on the ground and running.  Which meant making the profiles and filling out the information to 'find love'.  I was going to use Match.com....but they thought it a good idea to charge money to see messages from interested parties.....ummmm yea...no thanks. NEXT!  OkCupid apparently is where it was gonna have to happen....all free, no need to pay to see messages.

Spent a good bit of time looking at profiles and trying to find women I found attractive and that also seemed to have an interesting personality that matched my own.  Several potential matches were found and messages were sent out.  A new life was beginning for me....one with internet dates......


JOIN US NEXT TIME AS OUR INTREPID HERO VENTURES OUT INTO THE REAL WORLD TO MEET A REAL GIRL FROM THE REAL INTERNET.....

Oh god.....blind first date.......... Source

Love lost, Life gained....

I don't really write a lot on this blog.  I honestly don't have a lot to 'blog' about when it comes to my life.  I don't often have the time to sit down and recount my life experiences or write a summation of what has taken place with my life.

At least not always.  I feel like I'm too busy enjoying life or working to sit down and recount what has taken place.  That and I'm not really that interesting.  My life basically consists of 1) Wake up. 2) Shower, brush teeth, empty bladder etc. 3) Contemplate eating breakfast 4) Skip eating breakfast 5) Depending on the day....head to work or kill a little bit of time before work with household chores and getting things ready to go to work. 6) Actual work 7) Hoping I don't have to work 4 unexpected hours 8) Driving home to repeat the entire process back over again.

A fairly accurate portrayal of my daily life. Source

As you can see not really a lot of drama or crazy happenings to this old goat.

But here I am...sitting at work....bored out of my mind.  Looking for an outlet of sorts.  It's been a strange year since the last time I visited this writing space.  When we last saw our hero he was struggling with stuff related to me.  Since that time my girlfriend of almost 5 years decided that she couldn't handle dealing with all the things related to me (i.e. my lack of money situation due to child support and alimony.)

Waiting for something to happen.... Source

We had been together in a long distance relationship for a very long time.  SUPER long.  Longer than I think any reasonable individual would let them stay in a long distance relationship.  Mostly due to factors outside of our control.  I was getting a divorce from someone who was remarkably difficult to deal with.  She was in the military and overseas in a location that wasn't really feasible for me to live.  Then when she was stateside there was the issue of trying to find a job so that I could take care of my financial obligations related to my divorce.

In January of last year she had SERIOUS doubts about the viability of us working as a couple.  I, naively, thought that mutual love and caring for one another would help us overcome her fears and trepidation about how certain aspects of our relationship would work out (i.e. money issues...or lack of money for me.)  CLEARLY looking back at events and things throughout the relationship I should have more attentive and recognized warning signs along the way.  She had NO want to live in Florida (I was ok with this as long as we could potentially live a reasonable distance from FL.)  When we started talking about living together in MD...she used the phrase 'Roommates' to describe how things would be handled.

Just lots of things that through hindsight, seem like OBVIOUS reasons to call her dedication to our relationship into question.  Now before you get all 'whoa, whoa, whoa' on me...I do realize that pretty much anytime a relationship fails...there is normally equal blame shared.  However, after chatting with her post break up she told me:

but my problem wasn't your PROBLEMS.  it was the circumstances.  And i think with time, sure they can be changed, potentially, but I can see that being a struggle.

Circumstances.....

cir·cum·stance

>noun

1.  a fact or condition connected with or relevant to an event or action.
     "we wanted to marry but circumstances didn't permit"
2. one's state of financial or material welfare.
    "the artists are living in reduced circumstances"

They had pretty much been the same since day one.  Sans that when we met I was married.  But still I had kids....still was going to have to pay child support.  Those never changed.  And yet I'm to believe that is the sole reason why she fell out of love with me.  

What made the breakup hard is that in talking with her....she had given up MONTH'S earlier and had more or less been lying to my face each time I told her I loved her, or held her tightly or kissed her lips.  I know she denies it...but I'm quite sure now, that she had made the decision to move on LONG before she gave up and she just didn't have the strength needed to address things head on, which really hurts because we had prided ourselves on being open with communication and talking about all the hard and difficult things....I wish I knew what happened to that.....

So in my head things can and SHOULD be worked through when you are in a committed relationship with another person.  You are basically making an unspoken pact with that person to stand by them and struggle through all the things easy AND difficult.  It's the struggle that makes you the couple....not just the good times.  I thought she knew that...she told me she had.....I was gravely mistaken.

I see now the error of my judgement.... Source

Really I'm just a bitter pants that doesn't handle rejection well (it's the second time I've been dumped out of the blue.) and I want to be angry with her and at the same time get closure to everything that happened.  But I know that won't happen because I don't care enough to ever really seek it.....I've moved on with my life...as she has also done

JOIN US FOR OUR INTREPID ADVENTURE'S NEXT ADVENTURE WHERE HE EAT'S AT CARRABBA'S AND THROWS HIMSELF INTO INTERNET DATING.... 

Yea!  You tell 'em Jay and Silent Bob.... Source

Things are getting weird in here...

So it's been a LONG, LONG time since I posted anything here.  I guess I thought I was gonna have more to say about life in general...turns out I don't have much of a voice.  I struggle with things on a daily basis.  Some of it very close to home (my own insecurities) other things outside forces that can not be changed or influenced (trying to get a job in MD.)

Lot has happened. since the last time I wrote.  My Grandfather passed away at the age of 88.  I became officially divorced.  And I've developed this nasty habit of staying up till about 3 or 4 in the morning doing nothing more than wallowing in self pity.  I hate it.  But yet I do nothing to change it.  It's quite frustrating.

I contemplate stuff at 32 that I figured I'd be more inclined to worry about at 82.  Like my own mortality.  Reflecting back on life and how things have turned out for me and others that I knew.  Coming to the realization that I don't have as many close friends that I would like to have.  Realizing I don't really have any REAL friends (in the spending time with each other outside of work kinda way.)

Not sure when I'll post again....I will keep you posted on that blog...(you see what I did there?)

This one time I went all colonial and stuff

Took a trip up to Maryland around the Lexington Park area.  While up there stopped by Historic St. Mary's City and enjoyed walking around the early American Settlement.  I enjoyed how they have houses framed out around the area.  It was nice to get an idea of just how spread out everything was at that time.

So there I was knee deep in Netflix...

It has been said that I am a bastion of useless knowledge.  This is something that has been repeated many times before, it is nothing new to me.  But just the other day I found myself seeking out new and useless information.

There we were Netflix and myself alone on the web, just the two of us.  As I was scanning over the page I was curiously wondering what kinds of jobs Netflix was hiring for, not because I was looking to change jobs but I really wanted to know what jobs they had.  So I clicked on the link and saw a LOT of jobs out in Los Gatos, CA.  Letting my curiosity get the better of me I went to Google maps to see where exactly Los Gatos is located.

I found it just to the South of San Jose.  So I figured why stop there and gave myself a quick orientation to California in general.  This continued until I had illegally into Oregon.  At which point I noticed the swath of population in Eugene/Salem/Portland area of Oregon vs the sheer emptiness found in the rest of the state.

Oregon went by quickly and soon I was knee deep in Washington State's Google Maps areas.  It was a fun opportunity to take a look at Mt. Rainier, which I got to visit in 2009 while I was training at Ft. Lewis.  This was where things turned a little "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie-ish".

While I was looking at the mountain I remembered how cool it was that I could Mt. St. Helens from the peak that we were on.  I also remembered how the guide said that it was VERY unusual to see Mt. St. Helens so clearly from where we were.

Already being logged into Netflix and now having a hungry appetite for all things Volcano related I then decided it would be a great time to watch a documentary about Mt. St. Helens.  And in a click of a mouse I was instantly transformed into an 8 year old.  Mount St. Helens: Back from the Dead was my first victim.  that was merely the milk mustache that made me look in the mirror and reminded me I wanted to cut my hair.  Next was, National Geographic: Volcano: Nature's Inferno, which was even cooler than the first one because it has all sorts of neat shots of Lava shooting up into the air.  My inner 8 year old was VERY appreciative of this film.

Now, while I could have/should have stopped with two back to back documentaries about volcano's I did not. Because while I'm in the midst of watching the films I'm also on wikipedia learning all about these volcano's to include their history.  And so it was while I was learning about Mt. Pinatubo I clicked on the link about Krakatoa.  It was there I saw the words Tsar Bomba when it was talking about the force behind the Krakatoa explosion.....so curiously I clicked on THAT link which only led me further down the rabbit hole.

Once I saw that it was an Atomic bomb....I couldn't stop....had to learn more.  But then the issue was whether or not Netflix had a streaming documentary about the Atomic Bomb....thankfully they did and Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie more than satisfied my urge.

And poof, just like that I had managed to misplace nearly 3 hours of my life with mindless information and knowledge cramming.  I had, however managed to watch a documentary about dogs and learned some neat things.  Such as 80% of dogs that exist today did not exist 130 years ago.  Therefore I am going to beat you all the punch with this and invoke Godwin's law, by simply stating fact....if you own a dog, you support Eugenics and thus you are no better than Hitler and the Nazi's.

Dogo Argentino-If you like this dog, you like Hitler.
(Wikipedia)