So I just found out that there are 3-4 bets involved with me, and all I find completely hilarious. The first was when I realized I was actually in a new relationship (answer: much later than I thought). The second is when I’ll actually visit the girlfriend when she moves away for school. The third/fourth is when we’ll break up/she cheats on me. I actually find the last one really hilarious, because honestly I don’t think it’ll go down that way. In fact, I don’t really know what will go down at all. It’s all so new, different (or very very different depending on how much I’ve had to drink and feel like sharing), and I’m having a great time. It’s honestly the most exciting relationship I’ve ever been, in that things take strange/wonderful turns that I’d never expect, and I’m rolling with it. As Tripp told me, I’d be a fool to screw it up right now. More on this later.

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well, this, then, would be it. i leave for japan early in the morning; my bags are packed, for better or worse, and still i find myself unmoved. no doubts, no questions, but also no overarching excitement, no stage fright. perhaps it’s typical of me, but i’m now starting to worry about the fact that i’m not worrying. scoff if you will, but i can’t help but feel there’s something wrong when you make a life change of any significance without feeling like you’re going to puke.

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i found out, this morning, the hard way, that i am the proud owner of a ~6mm sized kidney stone.

mainly, i found out by writhing around on the bed for over an hour, screaming and cursing while rachael got ready for work.

i’m doing ok now; we went to the dr, i got some good painkillers and a strainer for my pee. whee! i get to have a cat scan on wednesday to make sure there aren’t more. i am of the opinion that this is the only one, but science will tell me the truth.

i imagine i will have a very calm weekend as a result of this. fun.

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we have a house. this is nothing short of amazing to me. we do grownup things like spend $2K on a fence for the yard and have A Mortgage. and i still feel about 22. not that 22 is that far away from 29. but these things that are part of an adult life are a part of my life, and somehow the obviousness of that correlation does not sink all the way into my noggin.

after weeks of packing and then unpacking i can’t handle anymore organzing. i’d say about 80% of things are out of boxes and put away, but i have reached an impasse where i simply do not want to do any more at the moment. i sit here in our computer room knowing the entrance hall is cluttered with random plastic totes and shopping bags, a couple things needing to be assembled, and i just can’t deal with it right now. i love our house but i want a vacation!

so today so far i have slept in, had some non-breakfast food, joyfully watched the dogs frolic in the yard, checked my gossip websites, and played a few hours of sims 2 pets on wii. and i feel guilty! which is ridiculous. or maybe i just tell myself it is ridiculous to feel less lazy. particularly because i know it is pretty damn lazy, for example, to want to go outside to get the mail but to not do so because it requires putting pants on (flashback to new years: “no pants in ‘o7!”).

i’m hoping to get to new york next week. i think in 4 days i can approximate getting a fill of the people and things i need to see and do. (er. doing the things, not the, ah, people, to be clear.) it feels bizarre to think i have been away from brooklyn now for the same amount of time that i lived there. my mindframe considering this is melancholy, a little, but not regretful.

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Check out the zombie Hitler reference here… assuming you don’t get sidetracked by the pictures of Jessica Alba, that is. (Yes, Tripp, I’m talking to you.)

 Did the zombie Hitler concept originater here at MoG? I’m curious.

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“clothes make the man”

i believe that i behave not entirely unlike other people. there are many elements in life, many pieces. and one finds a status quo in many, a system that works, and they put it on the backburner. this frees one up to concentrate on other pieces, pieces that perhaps one derives more enjoyment from. to some extent, we all do it. we have to.

but there are pieces that deserve to be revisited from time to time. pieces that deserve to be relearned.

take, for instance, clothes.

many of you have known me for a long time. mike has known me since pre-mullet days. eric has known me since high school. petunia, since college. john and kurt since grad school. all have known various pieces of me, various versions of tripp.

it took rachael many years, but she has slowly weaned me into more ‘adult’ (read: non-baggy) clothes. clothing (and a style) that has been my uniform for years: a pair of jnco’s and a t-shirt. i’m good with that; after years of looking and poking, i have found brands i really like now, brands that look good and fit me.

water under the bridge a bit.

because the real issue, to me, is that i never wear out clothes. and i never really get rid of clothes. why would i? they still fit me, they are still perfectly good.

and last week, i wore a shirt that i have had since junior year of high school. high school. i have had the shirt almost 15 years. and you know what? i put it on and wore it to work. and felt lame the entire day. i did not enjoy wearing it.

that was that. this weekend, i got rid of it, along with some t-shirts, ties and some other shirts. i have taken the (long-overdue) approach of ‘if i don’t like wearing it, get rid of it’. there is no reason to feel less than good. there is no reason to hold on to items i will never wear or wear out of some sort of perverse guilt.

today i wore a tie to work. and unlike one of previous employers, the one who sat me down after i wore a tie to work and told me that i should no longer dress up to come to work, i have gotten compliments today from most everyone in the office. i feel good. i feel like i am dressed as i should be, as i want to be. i’m owning it. (perhaps my favorite comment was from a co-worker who seemed to marvel over the actual tie: ‘where did you find a white tie?’ as if i had performed some sort of strange magic before his eyes. i replied, lamely: ‘a store.’)

feeling good is a mindset.

and i am sure for many of you, you read this and think about how silly i am being, how slow i am to make these realizations. that’s ok — as i said to start with, sometimes it takes a while to revisit topics in life.

i’ve spent the last 6 or 8 months talking, over and over, about getting my life in shape. about getting organized and put back together the way i want to be. this is another piece of the puzzle. it’s quite pleasing to have a timeline, an end goal. and it’s even more pleasing to feel perfectly on track.

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i don’t read pitchfork, but this article, and more importantly to me, this quote says a lot about another perspective. of course, this isn’t new, but the ideas bubbling up — taping, recording, bite-sized media and the mindset of ‘the single’ (vs ‘the album’) get summed up quite nicely:

So I’m sitting there– now they’re really interested in this one song– and they still won’t make eye contact, looking through their little lenses, taping this one song for their blogs or for their fucking YouTube [accounts] or whatever, and it was just so annoying. It’s like, this show is already going south, and these people that seem disinterested are only here to further their YouTube accounts or their blogs or whatever, and it just pissed me off.

It was really annoying. It was just scratching at the surface of what’s happening to shows lately. Everybody’s got a camera in their pocket, and they turn it on to just, I don’t know, exploit us in some way or further their own projects or whatever the fuck they’re doing with their websites and shit. It’s become a little bit ridiculous, and it was just a bit unnerving, and [with] the situation with the show and everything, all the stars lined up and I got pissed off.

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