Stupid gas and cars and booze and other such things

Well, I guess I haven't been doing such a good job of keeping this up, now have I. These things tend to happen, I guess. Only a brief update for right now, at least as far as the events in my life are concerned. I got the girl, the muse, the fantastic, and everything is, well, fantastic. She is amazing in every way, and better than I remember. I guess part of that has to do with growing as a person, and two years will tend to do that. I'm trying to go back to school, and as such I need to find a consistent job both in hours and location. I have a good lead going as an assistant to a printing press operator, and pending the results of a drug test I have the job. Not a bad job, but not great. I'll make about $1,200 a month after taxes, and at 36 hours a week. Could be worse, I guess. But this will at least allow me to get some school going, and save up some money. I've been really bad about that, and I definitely now realize that any money I have ever loaned out will probably never come back to me. That fact, unfortunately, is quite sad. Between my two roommates, I am owed almost $2,000 and the majority of that debt has been owed to me for over a year. And it's not like they just took the money and ran. I see them on a daily basis. I know how much money they make, and I know what they spend their money on. Luxuries. Straight up. Oh, sure, they pay their bills, but they can't afford to throw me $20 here and there? A bit ridiculous if you ask me. But oh well. I've just learned that I can't count on them for anything financially related. I suspect that one of my roommates, wait, I know one of my roommates has a drinking problem. And that's something I don't say often. He's gone far beyond the acceptable levels of alcohol intake amongst our friends, and we're already far beyond acceptable levels for normal society. That's some scary shit right there. Hopefully it'll get better once he starts working again, but there's the chance it won't. I don't want to have to deal with that, but he's a friend. Though, sadly, I have been questioning that. I call him a friend, but one thing I've always believed about friends is that they will help you out when you need help. This fucker doesn't do shit. He's a mooch. He'll do whatever he can to avoid doing anything, which might make sense to some people, but not to me. He seems to not be able to really do anything to help himself, and constantly relies on others to support him. I can't do it anymore. I've stopped buying things for him, stopped loaning things to him, and tried to stop helping him in almost any way. But he always finds others to "assist" him. And some of them are starting to get sick of it, too. Hopefully he'll realize this and become more responsible for himself, but I fear he may just move on to another group who will take care of him. He never really grew up it seems. But I can't talk about him anymore, it just angers and depresses me. As of now, I'm in the Windy City. That's Chicago, IL for all you idiots. It's been a fairly interesting time, but God do I hate driving in this city. It's not as bad as New York City, but it's still pretty fucking bad. Yet I keep getting roped into it because it seems I'm the only one of my friends with a goddamn car. Talk about a bitch. And being the nice guy I am, I can't say no. Hell, I have a hard time asking for gas money. But oh well. I guess I'm going out to eat now, and probably driving across Chi-town. Wish me luck!

Adieu

Josh

Shiny and New

Hello inter-world! It's been quite a while, hasn't it? I've been quite bad at updating this, and lost interest in it for a while. Too much bad stuff in here. After reading it it once again so long after most of the posts, I've decided to start blogging again. You know, put down some of the more recent events in my life which have a bit more of a positive spin. Not to mention it makes a good way for me to remember this stuff later. Looking at the old posts, I had forgotten a lot of that stuff. Brought back some memories, I can tell you that much. So here we go. Update time!

Since the last post, I have lived in a few different places. Well, not so much lived in as much as stayed in, I guess. After I got kicked out of my house I last mentioned, I stayed with friends in another part of Mankato. After their lease expired, I think I couch hopped for a little while. I don't recall, exactly. I do know that I ended up staying with a girl I was sleeping with at the time, and ended up just leaving and staying with a different girl whom I started sleeping with. I ended up dating that girl for quite some time, and we lived in Minneapolis and St. Paul together. That relationship has recently ended, and now I'm back in Mankato living with Tony and Nick, probably my two best friends ever. So that's cool.

As far as work is concerned, I've done a few different things. I worked at a few different hardware stores (which are really fun, if you've never tried) and for a company that does some crazy stuff to transit buses. That's what I'm still doing now, and it's a pretty sweet gig. What I do, really, is install, service, and maintain GPS systems, radio systems, camera systems, and system monitoring devices on metro transit buses around the nation. Neato, right? Kind of. It sucks in the sense that I am gone for extended periods of time and never really get to see people outside of my co-workers. And I pay rent at places I never really get to be at. Definite downsides. But the income makes up for a lot of it. I haven't been poor for quite some time, and it's really nice. I actually have a car that works now (2004 VW Golf...I love it) and can afford all the video games I like. I've been able to afford every bill, and even have money left over. That's the weirdest part. Having money left over. It's nice.

Now for the fun part. Thoughts and feelings. The things that are really meant to be recorded. Many things have happened since my last post, and I have learned much. And changed much, come to think of it. I have adopted a new philosophy for life, the philosophy of happiness. I've decided that I need to live my life according to my happiness, so long as it doesn't come at the expense of others' happiness. Sort of hippy-esque, I know. But it makes sense to me. It's the most pleasurable, yet least offensive way that I have found to live. Whenever you are posed with the query of what to do in a situation, just think "what would make me the happiest?" And then "what is the price of this happiness? Will others suffer for it?" If it makes you happy, and no one gets hurt, that's what to do. If it doesn't make you happy, won't lead to your happiness, or will cause others loss of their happiness, it's probably not a good thing to do. It may sound selfish, but it's really not. At least, not for me. You see, I enjoy making other people happy. I enjoy helping them with whatever problems or troubles they have. I enjoy doing things for others. So I'm making myself happy, as well as someone else. I won't do things for others that will hurt me in some way, or make me unhappy, nor will I expect such a thing from others. It's been working out quite well so far. I have far fewer worries in my life, less stress, and a better overall outlook. Some may say that to do such a thing, I must be shirking responsibilities somewhere. Possibly I am, yes. But think about this; I work, I make my own living, I pay all my bills (on time, no less), and am a generally productive member of society. Granted, I have not yet been back to school, but that is not what I want to do right now. I will go back, probably soon, but I am not ready to do so yet. Besides which, my current job, which could easily be an occupation, pays me well enough to not have to get a traditional job. Not to say that I will make this my occupation, because I still want to be a Philosophy professor, but I can afford to not go to school at the moment. So this philosophy is working quite well for me at the moment. I am pleased with my life, and everything about my life I can control. Obviously the things outside my control are, well, outside my control. Can't really fret about that, right? I have told others to do this for years, to follow these ideas, yet never did it myself until recently. I now live with the people that make me the happiest to be around, the people that I care about and trust. The only thing left to work on is the love. I lost the love of my life so far, due to a lot of silly things. I want her back. It's tricky, because we broke up once upon a time, and she has changed and grown as much as I have. I mean, things never really went sour, they just faded away. We lost touch. I'd like to regain that very much, for she is the embodiment of all the things in life that I love and cherish. She is the free spirit, the provoker of chaos, the instigator of random thoughts, the perpetrator of intelligent conversation. She is, to me, what you would call a muse. She inspires me to think, to feel, to create, to destroy, to laugh, to play, and to be. And, silly me, I didn't realize that until 2 years after the fact. What the hell was I thinking, eh? But now I know, and I will do all I can to get her back.

I think that's all for now. Hopefully I'll be able to keep this up a little more regularly again.

Adieu

Josh