Progression

Here I am three weeks into a new relationship perhaps a little dazed and confused but enjoying it nonetheless. For me, and I think for her, neither of us were looking for a relationship and yet here we are. We somehow found each other and at a bar no less where I had given up trying to find any meaningful relationships based on past experience and alcohol's involvement in those experiences. Time has really flown by since I started dating her and I am still not bored, not even a little. I guess after not having someone to be intimate and close with for what seems a very long time the change is welcome. Yesterday we spent the entire day doing absolutely nothing and just laying in bed being lazy on a Sunday after a night where we both had too much to drink so the rest was needed. I am really good with people and getting along with them almost no matter what in most social and work situations that I have to be careful that I don't misread my ease with seeming familiar incorrectly because I am very good at telling people, especially ones I don't know that well, what I think they want to hear and I am so happy that I have had no inclination to do that thus far with her. Faced with telling her the truth of exactly what I am thinking when faced with a question I perhaps would rather not answer I find myself telling her exactly how I feel regardless of what I am predicting her reaction to be to what I say. This may not be news to some of my readers, I do have readers right?, but I am a people pleaser and have to fight the urge to speak my mind sometimes since I fear angering others by telling the truth in certain situations. It feels really good not to dodge or ignore what is happening and not be afraid to share what I am not matter what. I could probably sit here and write about this restating the obvious in different creative ways but I feel I have said what I set out to say. See you next time....

More and More

As I grow more comfortable at my new job I find my life is settling down somewhat. My old job was much more stressful and much less rewarding in small ways like feeling appreciated by your superiors and co-workers. Having worked at The Social for over a year before starting my new job at Wildflour Bakery I forgot that you could enjoy your job a lot more than I was finding myself able to do. This has spilled over into the rest of my life and I am able to feel more positive and relaxed about doing other things which is a dumb way of saying that I feel more active since my job isn't draining me with constant mental strain. More confidence and much clearer thinking are two results that spring to mind as I write this post. I am a little worried about supporting myself in the same way I was able to at my other job but until I get my first paycheck I won't really know. I have also been having more positive social interaction lately and even flirted with a girl at a bar. It seems like forever since I have done something like that. What life will bring me still scares me somewhat as I feel another transition coming soon but my ability to think positively about my future is increasing as is my energy level. Not feeling run down is great. One of the best things I have done lately is I have started gaming again with my friend Vesa and my roommates, and we were joined by more mutual friends last week but I am not sure if they will have continued regular involvement. The stupid holidays are coming up which always throws a wrench in life regularity and rhythm. At least I have this blog where I can toss my thoughts out into the abyss and clean the clutter out of my brain.

New Dawn New Day

Dawn is exactly what it was this morning as I slogged to work at 6:15 in the AM finally getting to take advantage of daylight savings time, I guess. First day at my new job and it was fine but felt weird as I still feel attached to my former job and didn't remember that I am not going back to work there until I thought about picking up my check and realized I have to make a special trip cause I won't be there tomorrow like usual. Change is something that has always stressed me out but as I get older at least I can see it coming before the panic sets in. My life is exhausting me right now even though I feel like I am on the verge of making some headway in changing my current lifestyle to one that is full of more creative outlets and focused less on hanging out drinking or whatever and working. That is how it has been for years now. Work and hangout and those have been my priorities and continue to be as working has become more of a mental burden than when I was young, strong and figured that was going to last forever. Now I see me and my friends begin the journey from adolecense to real adult hood with inescapable responsibilities and financial and emotional fears that are no longer mired in the drama of my early twenties. I have no fall back position I am in my position and not full of limitless energy and hope that I thought would propel my life in incredible ways once upon a time. And I am not alone in this position, as I previously mentioned, as everyone I know struggles in some way shape or form to create a life more tolerable and fulfilling. My decision to come back to Milwaukee is certainly giving me more opportunities as the relationships I have here are leading me to new and exciting connections that give me hope of finding my milieu.

Darkness Falls

As the days grow shorter and shorter in terms of sunlight it seems a metaphor for my life. Work is becoming quite the struggle these days as the economy or maybe just shitty management is making me very poor for the time being and actually looking for another job. How seriously will be determined because I told myself I am going to canvass the areas around my house with resumes on Monday. We will see come Monday, although I am sure I will at least go to the ones closest to my house. Sure...sure. It is amazing home only a few weeks have passed since work was good and the only bad things was someone quitting, which meant more money and shifts for me. All of a sudden it seems like I am one of the remaining rats on a rapidly sinking ship. Maybe I will be proven wrong and paranoid but the feeling in my stomach and the attitude of my coworkers tells a different story. It may be ironic that this is happening as we transition to winter when I remember waking up as a child an not understanding why there was no light outside. Well now I am wondering why there is no light inside me lighting more of a fire to change my fate and situation with more urgency. Part of me feels like the stress from dealing with all the negativity and long days, including a 14 hour friday, have just left me exhausted in every possible way. I hope I regain strength and began again the struggle to be happy. Even if only relatively.

Playing the game

It seems this year has been one giant exercise in futility. What else could possibly go wrong. I should have known that when the patriots didn't win the super bowl that the world was going to end. We are coming to the end of one presidents administration and about to enter another as the world crumbles around us. Financially most of the world is a joke as we try to keep the game going by writing numbers in books and calling it money when money is just an idea. Value is the real question that has been lost along the way as consumerism has enveloped this nation, along with several others. No longer is someone building or making something so that people have access to things they want and need in order to survive and flourish. Things are doled out little by little with several restraints and many rules governing use. Our cell phones suck and cost too much to do very little very well and the internet may be on its way there as well as I find it harder and harder to find something that isn't an ad trying to distract me away from what I am doing or preventing me from doing it all together as they find more and more ways so it is impossible to ignore. We should have access to just about all services for which we pay too much. Pretty soon you will have to pay for everything you want directly. When tv started it was paid for by ads. Then came cable, which still had ads but you were paying for premium content. Now cable is just like regular tv but you are still paying for it because some jackass has to come to your house and plug a cable into a box you don't even need. Why dont we just start over. Write off all the debt figure out what things are valued at and go from there. No more $150 dollar shoes, no more paying for cable, and no more bullshit from everyone cheating us out of our money because they have to have just a little more when pretty soon they will have it all and it will be worthless. I am not sure this rant made any sense.

Smells like clean spirit

Just got done cleaning my room and getting a new computer desk chair, which is really and old kitchen chair I just cleaned the beer off it. Been wanting to do this for a while but I am not used to having cleaning products like vacuum cleaners and the such. Feels so much better after words, like a good shave. I remember my buddy adam saying that his to do list is called a happy list. A bunch of stuff you have to do don't want to but once you do you will be happy. So much of what we do is so that we can achieve happiness and most people have lost sight of important ideas and become consumed with consumption. As long as I have my big screen tv, my cable, internet and free porn(from the internet) I am happy and I need not concern myself with other interests lest I get distracted from distracting myself. Mostly what we consume is media. We are watching, listening or somehow engaging ourselves in merely observing life happen and such a short time interacting with the outside world and what is pertinent to our long term survival; which sure would make me happy. I will drink and smoke away these troublesome thoughts so I can tune out the rest of the world and all the ignorance that is happening before my eyes.

The Network Network

Joined yet another internet social networking website called twitter. I had heard of it but never bothered to look it up until my sister got me to join. Pretty soon I am going to create a social networking site that helps you keep track of all your memberships and then you could link information between the two so you don't have to post stuff on more than one site. The more I write about what is supposed to be a joke the better the idea sounds. I wonder if there will be a cyber war between myspace and facebook someday and we will all have to choose sides. OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH. Choose wisely or you will die in the first wave.

Time to make time

Much has happened since my last blog post including regret over not posting more on this blog. Work has been up and down and even had a wedding to go to this last weekend for my best friend Jacob. The wedding took place very far north Wisconsin in a town called Ashland, farm country. Had a fire some surprises and quite alot of beer. Being there in what amounts to wilderness these days for me made it hard to come back to the busy city and all that it holds. It felt good to be away from everything and be able to disconnect and focus on other things with out the distractions of usual everyday life. The place has something to do with it but more than that it was the people. I have a feeling that no matter where we were we would have a great time. Great friends, old friends, and the like we in attendance and I got slated to play the processional and recessional music on the violin, which I did not initially want to do but was happy I did ultimately. I brought my own violin but ended up having some serious serendipity when I discovered that there was a violin maker in our midst and sought him out. Playing on his violin, which not only sounded much better than mine but also brought significant sentimental value to the experience due the closeness of the maker and the bride and groom, not to mention me. One of the best parts was the band they had to play the reception. Maybe it was all the beer and celebration but everyone was in agreement that they were crazy stupid wicked awesome. Played lots of cuban covers and a few others but tore it up and played three encores because we wouldnt let them stop playing. There are many many stories from this trip that without major context are lost on a general audience and my energy for such laborious explanation escapes me at the moment. All in all an emotionally draining and spectacularly wonderful event.

Sunday Bloody Mary Sunday

Can I get you anything else? So that was five bloody marys a mohito and a pitcher or mimosas...You guys all set? Ready to order? That was all I said for about five hours today during my brunch shift today. After a while you realize you've already made god tips so then you don't really want anymore tables cause you are tired and just want to sit down for five minutes but no I have to get a carafe of hot water so this lady can have hot water and lemon to drink along with her bloody mary. Now it is time to relax and get something to eat.

The big news of this weekend is the release of Dark Knight on thursday and which I promptly went and saw at 12:50PM on saturday. I rarely go and see movies on opening weekend or at all sometimes but this was well worth it. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone so I will just say that it is a good movie and I liked it very much. A complete movie that was more movie and less blockbuster will smith bullshit. Go see it and I doubt it will disappoint.

I am tired and sore and must go zone out on something.

Enough already

Thursday afternoon getting ready to go bowling just got home from work. It is day 4 or 5 or 6 of the Brett Favre watch as ESPN, and countless other stations, continues to beat this story, or non-story in my opinion, on whether or not ol Brett is gonna come back and sling it for one more season. I understand that the media is going to report whatever they have to for higher ratings but I have had all I can take. Until I hear Brett Favre or the Packers or someone with actual information not speculation I consider the whole thing first to be bullshit and second the worst idea ever. The Packers could finally move on to the post Favre era in good stead and not in complete rebuilding mode with a good team and what seems to be a decent QB and then this comes along and screws it all up and turns the whole situation into a joke. I know boxers retire and unretire all the time but other athletes when they retire have no choice and are physically unable to peform at a high level any longer while others are simply no longer wanted. Favre got it his way and walked away after a great season where I was not hoping for or against him coming back for one more year and, at least to this point before the season has started, fine with the decision from a fan standpoint. Now there is a pointless media storm that is frankley just starting to piss me off.

Monday Morning II

Although there is no specific connection to the previous post it is likely that alot of posting will be done on Monday's since it is my one weekday off and immediately follows the weekend where most of the world's population has been conditioned and brainwashed to engage in most of their free time activities after a week of being a slave to our corporate economy. Now that I have gotten a little cynicism out of the way I can move on.

I spent this weekend in Amherst/Stevens Point Wisconsin celebrating the birthday of one of my friends as she turned 30. Her band played the party and I also got to see the rehearsal the night before marking the first time I have seen her live since I got the CD they made years ago. I drank too much beer, smoked too much everything, and got barely any sleep. Being in the 'country' and away from the hustle and bustle of the city is important to get some perspective, some peace of mind, and the aforementioned drunk. I went up with my roommate and close friend as we both lived with the girl during our college years.

We left on Friday night about 6:30 and as we are getting ready I am putting music on my ipod and suddenly notice that about 13GB of music is missing from my computer. Pretty much my whole collection of which I no longer have the cds given my now minimalist lifestyle. This really pissed me off something fierce but I had to get it out of my head as I headed north to enjoy the various festivities. I successfully managed not to dwell or even mention the problem to anyone else deciding it was best to deal with once home on Sunday. I get home last night and after unloading the car and what not I tackled the computer problem. Doing what I think everyone does when they have a problem these days I searched the almighty internet. My first searched yielded the results I was looking for and by the time I went to sleep I had recovered all my lost music files. Super freaking awesome.

Monday Morning

Just got off the phone with one of my dearest friends who has to have back surgery to fix a bulging disk. The news is sad to hear but at the same time great that we had a great long conversation about everything we have missed out on in each others lives as of late. Which leads me to one of my new goals: do a better job maintaining current relationships. I want to create new history with people I have known a long time so that we are more than just old friends. It has been a very strange journey these last many years and all the moving around and change that has gone on in my life has put the focus back on my personal relationships and how important it is to me that those remain up to date and healthy. There are many different kinds of friends with a wide range of closeness and familiarity and it is not always easy to make sure you are keeping up with the ones that are the most precious to you. I had a conversation with a longtime friend of mine about how lucky we are to know the people we do and how we need to utilize each others talents to figure out and challenge each other on how we are living and what we are living for. Life for my generation has been much different than that of most of our parents and much less clear on what and more importantly how you are supposed to do things especially for those of us who's parents are not in any position to council us on our lives when they have a hard enough time with their own. I have no conclusions only questions and ideas that are ever changing.

My tooth can't handle the truth

Went to the dentist today for the first time in years and years and as suspected it was not good news. It was not horrible news but mostly just really expensive sounding, close to $1000 when all is said and done. I have to have my teeth rooted and planed which means they will scrape under my gum where all the bad stuff lives and I guess that going to give me a chance to improve my dental hygiene permanantly if I begin to have a strict regiment of care once I get the super cleaning. It was depressing on so many levels. Financially and physically I am kind of in disbelief it was much easier to live in blissful ignorance but I am guessing it will be much better to live and informed life full of teeth, my teeth. Its almost hard to belive I did this to myself but easy to understand how it happened.

Previously in Chester's Life.....

Here I am back in Milwaukee trying to revive my blog, my writing, and my sanity. I am sure any previous readers that I had are now since long gone but I persist none the less. Getting your life interrupted can change things in ways you never perceived and one of those changes was unfortunately the discontinuation of this blog. I stopped writing initially due to moving from Los Angeles to Milwaukee and I was too busy organizing what remains of my possessions and trying not to go crazy all at the same time. Upon my most triumphant return to brew city my living situation unsettled led to more of me not writing. It is a shame too because I had so much energy at that time and there were a lot of things happening to me and then once the energy waned and some of what I see as negative things occurred leaving uninspired and listless. I don't know if there is a tunnel or a light at the end of said tunnel but if there is and I can see it I may be emerging from it as I type these very words, kind of a stranger than fiction kind of thing if you are up to date on your pop culture references. I find that as my life becomes more organized I am more frustrated by my lack of decisive living and getting less enjoyment out of my usual distractions. Hopefully this will spark some positive change in my life that I feel has been missing lately but that I feel closer to now than I have in months.