Fizzy Lifting Drinks

Hold your breath,
Make a wish,
Count to three...

I feel as though yesterday I was a just a child sitting in our recreation room watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on a television that was built into a box of wood. The knobs on the set pulled out and turned to adjust the picture and every movie began by declaring that it was filmed in "Technicolor". When I was 8 years old it seemed like I had my whole world ahead of me and anything was and would be "possible".

Twenty years later reality has set in and bitch-slapped me across the face with its backhand. It is a harsh and cold truth when you wake up and realize that more than likely it will take you much longer than you had originally anticipated to accomplish what you originally had dreamt of being possible. When it is all said and done, most of us will be considered lucky if we manage to accomplish half of what it is we had dreamt of when we were younger. Things like "becoming a "firefighter", or a "veterinarian" were much easier said than they are done. Did we even know what these things were? I guess we had these dreams of rescuing children and cats from burning houses and really tall trees. The hopes of becoming a veterinarian must have overlooked the sadness of putting other people's beloved family pets to sleep and taking away actual members of their family. The motives were right: help others, be kind to women and children, take care of animals; but reality told us that we needed to actually make some money.

The closer to 30 that I get I am realizing that most (if not all) of what I had hoped to accomplish is incomplete and barely even started. Write a book. Own a business. Be in better shape. These things are just barely on my radar as we speak.

At 25 I thought that on my thirtieth birthday I would like to hire a photographer to do a self portrait photo shoot because I had hoped to be in the best shape of my life. No nude pictures or anything like that and not even pictures with my shirt off. Just something to commemorate what I would plan on being a great time in my life. Now, one and a half years away from 30 I feel as though I am in the worst shape of my life and currently hate the way I look in MOST pictures. So much for that idea.

While making my way towards becoming an adult I have never quite learned how to put any sort of money aside. I signed up for keep the change with BOA and yet I seem to have a habit of logging in every couple of days and transferring that money to my checking account in order to prevent any overdraft possibilities. I set a recurring draft of $30 to my savings account every pay day and yet I also seem to wait until the last minute to transfer that over pre-overdraft also. I have no savings. I have a small amount of credit card debt. I have just a little bit more to go on paying off my car. For the most part I life pay check to pay check and can't help but wonder "Am I an adult yet?"

Slowly inching my way towards 30, which is my new milestone age after surpassing "25" and "28" I am scared. I feel like Charlie when he and grandpa Joe drank fizzy lifting drinks and were inching closer and closer to the ominous fan blades that were anxiously anticipating their demise. "Grandpa look at me...I'm a bird, I'm a plane, I'm...I'm...I'm going too high!"

Getting older is really scary. It is odd to me that at 28 years of age I have two roommates (one 22 and one 24). At times I feel like their grandfather. Mentally I don't feel 28 and I definitely don't feel "almost 30". I don't know where this time went. The main time I do feel my age is when I go out to dinner with a friend and begin our night being optimistic for a night out on the town but then when dinner is over around 10PM my bed sounds like the best idea I have ever had. I can't believe I have reached a point in my life where I am absolutely content with staying home on a friday night and fully satisfied to be in bed by 11PM on a Saturday; EVEN when I have Sunday off!

It would be nice to reconnect with that childhood innocence that I once had. That time when dreams were never too big, and achieving your goals had no boundaries or limitations and anything was possible.

There is no life I know to compare to pure imagination.

Little Miss Connection

I couldn't tell you which I think is more pathetic. Between my personal commitment to find a missed connection on Craigslist that has been posted about me or the lackluster posts themselves. People are dying to connect out there. Whatever happened to our guts and guile? Better yet...where did our balls go?

I know I can speak for myself that in my adolescence I was one of those people that pretty much threw themselves at the people that I had my eye on. I wouldn't say necessarily that I regret that behavior, but I can tell you for certain that it did not get me very far. Nonetheless it was fun.

i just got home from the gym. There was a cute younger guy (by younger, I mean closer to my own age than who typically checks me out at the gym). As soon as I walked by him doing lat pull downs his eyes were locked on me in the reflection on the mirror. I continued toward the locker room a bit confused because he was really cute. Then the analyzation began. How gay could he be? He has nice arms but a little softer in the midsection (then again, same as me). He had that cute puppy dog look that most younger gay guys have, but then again, maybe just another artsy Tufts student (they seem to run rampant in my neighborhood with their skinny jeans, tattoos, and handmade lesbian coffee ((see Diesel Cafe)). I couldn't tell.

I began my work out close by him. In order to do so I skipped any sort of a warmup and in turn I think I pulled two muscles. One in my shoulder, and one in my foot. All in a days flirtation.

He kept locking eyes with me and it wasn't just because I was staring back at him. The eye contact remained but there were no flirtatious smirks, no smiles of homosexual nature. I really was having a hard time reading this guy.

He continued looking me up and down through his and my workout. So much so that he awkwardly walked back into the locker room after passing me on my way in, while he was on his way out.

It made me think about missed connections. I was anxious to get home to check out craigslist and see if by some small chance he had posted. Then I realized that Craigslist takes forever and that if he had rushed home like a loser and posted right away then it would probably not register for a few hours regardless. I thought it was dumb. I mean granted, I am making something out of nothing, since he has not posted (hopefully, YET) and yet it made me think of all the other posts I have read on there. "You were working on arms at the gym today, you wore orange shorts, tell me what color mine were" I mean come on guys. Can't we grow a bigger set than this?

I have to say, if this was a post that involved me I wouldn't remember what color shorts I was wearing myself let alone what anybody else at the gym was wearing. I don't know about you, but when I am physically attracted to some one "fully clothed" is not how I choose to remember.

I just think of how much easier it would be if we turned up the flirtation knob a bit. I mean he was OBVIOUSLY checking me out. I would not have noticed him had he not began the flirtatious eye dance. When it is all said and done it makes me think that if someone doesn't have the courage to be the first to make a move in person then maybe they aren't worth pursuing at all.

Let it be known some connections are worth being missed...

Geese that Lay Gold Eggs for Easter

Man. It has been one long ride since moving here over two years ago! I can't believe that much time has passed. Moreover I can't believe how much I have learned and grown since being here. This was seriously one of the best moves/decisions I could have ever made.

Six months before making the move to Boston I moved out of my parents house. I lived in a one bedroom (with den) apartment over 1,000 square feet and I lived alone. It was too good to be true. For Charlotte it was quite attainable. It just seems like that idea is out the window for as long as I should live in Massachusetts.

I currently have two roommates. One is moving out but another is moving in to take her place. This will be the 6th non-family person that I have shared a household with. It is what it is. When its good it can be really good. Yet, when its bad...well, you don't want to know...

This rat race for my adulthood independence seems as though it will never end. I mean, I know I'm only 28 years old but seriously, just like Veruca Salt declared "I WANT IT NOW!"

I am trying to force myself to be a little more dedicated to working on my book and I am writing a musical. These things can take years to finally wrap up and then who knows how long before publishing or production and actually seeing any profit from my work. But I guess that is what life is all about. You put all this work and effort into your day to day process only to reap smaller benefits in the beginning because of the anticipation of your payoff.

I am also trying to commit to more physical fitness. Before I left Charlotte I was in a pretty good routine and in some of the best shape I have ever been. I am slowly getting back to a point of satisfaction with my own body and it feels really good, especially since Summer is right around the corner.

I have a homecoming trip in the next few weeks and I am really looking forward to it. My Boston buddies are flying into town to meet up with me in an attempt to make Mother's day and the Beer and Bourbon festival an Annual occurrence. I can't wait. They LOVE LOVE LOVE Charlotte and make me see things in different ways when I venture home. It is always fun showing new people your old places. They definitely can make you appreciate things a little differently. In usual fashion I am giving myself a party. Not really as myself being the center of attention but just a reason for people to come and say hello before the boys get to town. Celebrating Cinco De Mayo and don't think there is a better reason to celebrate other than by way of Margaritas and Coronas with cilantro lime tacos. Mucho Gusto!

I know that the best things in life are free, and even if I did want to give them to the birds and bees. I will just have to wait (even if impatiently) to reap the rewards of the efforts I have put forth.

But in the meantime...where is my damn Golden Goose!!!

Spring Has Sprung

OMG in full effect. To say that spring has sprung is by far an understatement. Judging from my trek home yesterday alone the boys have caught wind of a heavy and high spring fever! I stopped at the gym first and was checked out by two VERY handsome guys although they seemed to be a couple which was a bit disheartening but a compliment nonetheless.

While waiting to take the redline home from Central to Davis another guy waiting was scoping me out. It was one of those awkward checkouts though where you couldn't obviously tell whether or not he was or was not. It messes with your nerves because you know not whether to send out the vibes or to not make eye contact because he could either give you his number or decide to knife you for your wallet.

We sat across from one another on the train and I was about to give up when he got off at Harvard but when he stood to leave he looked directly at me and offered "Have a good night" with a nod and a wink.

I hurried out of the Davis square station in an effort to make it to Chipotle for a late dinner seeing as how it was 9:55 and they closed at 10PM. "Please be open, Please be open, please don't have put away all of your delicious ingredients" I thought to myself as I scurried in and out of the crowd inside the station. I made it just in time.

With burrito in hand I made my way home. I passed another handsome man that was also in a hurried effort. He glanced over at me and caught me mid-check out. I smiled and looked away, embarrassed (almost, but not really). He double took me himself and smiled back. We both continued checking each other out and I laughed out loud with flirtational intent. I shook my head. Not at him but more at myself. I find myself funny. It happens often. Whether you agree or not. I am a whole heap of laughs. You should be so lucky as to be a fly on the wall of my life.

Anyway. He kept doubling back to look at me as he crossed the street. He almost got hit by a Masshole but hey, that's what happens when the spring has sprung.

Somebody to Love

Don't you want somebody to love? We all do. For the most part. I am starting to think maybe I am not capable of pursuing this. It is a possibility. I dated this guy for "a while" three weeks or so. Yeah, I know that is not a long time but it REALLY does not take me long to a) lose my attention and/or b) realize that nothing will come of it. This is a curse/gift that I have had since i first started dating.

I call it the "One Month Itch" because typically this is how long most if not all of the guys I have ever dated have lasted. This is what I refer to as a "long-term relationship" otherwise known to the gay community by website standard as an "LTR".

This last guy was a bit different. Things got kind of intense, kind of fast, because of very serious topics that were discussed in the preliminary stages of the getting-to-know-you process. I had very strong feelings for him but as many of my closest friends know I tend to let my mind wander and I think WAY too much about the what ever will bes, will bes and include all of the mights and maybes. It is dumb.

I picture these guys in the snapshots of my future. What do our Sunday mornings look like? What will we do on Christmas day? What will he look like when he shakes hands with my father? Will he take good care of my mother as if she were his own? What would he look like if he was holding one of my precious and adorable nieces?

Like I said, I give it way too much thought.

So I am over it.

I think that most people out there don't really think before they leap when it comes to the dating game. They just fly by the seat of their pants. Or. In most gay cases by the front of their pants. Either way. I am not that kind.

I talk to my friends. I talk to strangers. I meet people here and there and I realize. That we all just want somebody (something) to love. It is interesting to me to know people in real life and then you come across their dating profiles. You get to see their inner workings and whatnots and realize that they aren't so coldhearted and bitter afterall. The most handsome of men are still struggling to prove to the singles world that they are a catch. One guy I know has a headline that reads "NICE SEXY GUY HERE did I mention FUNNY?" That is the title of his profile. I find it interesting that he lowercased the words in between the materialistic description and that of the characteristic one. Its like he subconsciously separated the two in an attempt to make sure that people got the important parts of it "NICE SEXY" and "FUNNY".

As it turns out we are all just a bunch of pathetic losers sitting at home all alone on a Friday or Saturday night. We wish we had someone that would make us feel slightly guilty for eating an entire pizza or feel greedy for woofing down half (or a whole) carton of ice cream. Who knows if I will ever find someone with the stamina to keep my mind guessing what is next to come and make me want to wait long enough just to find out.

This most recent guy made me realize that I AM quite happy being on my own and if that is the consequence to being with someone that makes me feel less than my most best then I will take it.

Can anybody find me somebody to love?

Melt

I don't think I like the word "melt" very much. It doesn't sound that great and it is almost as bad as "yeast" or "conjunctivitis". That is, I mean, as far as words go. I really don't like it. I also do not use this word on an ongoing basis and I doubt that many people out there choose to utilize it in everyday jargon either.

Yet on my most recent Facebook status update I posted this: "the rain would make me melt away so I will take a pass on this 5K". I was referring to the race that took place in my neighborhood yesterday. It was a simple and stupid post. But today when I got in to work I found an email from my long time customer crush asking, "What happened to you yesterday? Apparently you melt in the rain?"

This could not have been an ordinary coincidence could it? Are there really people out there that use the word "melt"? A friend at work commented on it saying, "Ah, your people are always using any old excuse to reference that Wizard of Oz shit". I thought it was hilarious but somewhat of an awkward musing. I don't even like Judy Garland. She is responsible for Liza Minelli.

I thought that surely he must have checked out my facebook profile in the meantime to find out that I did not run in the race. We emailed back and forth for a while and then I wrote back and asked "you must have seen on facebook that I did not run in the race?"

He said that he looked on the results postings and did not see my name listed.

This was a bit upsetting but then even still he noted that over 3,000 people ran in the race. Even though he did not stalk me out on facebook, he took the time to scan a list of 3,000 people looking for my name.

I don't know. This is a tough call. It is getting to be a bit much. I mean, a full twenty four hours went by and he could not wait to email and ask why he did not see me at the race.

It was raining really hard, I will have all you readers know. I have not done a 5K in quite some time and I had gone out for (not that many) drinks the night before so I wasn't feeling at my best. I had this feeling that if I ran in the rain (and it was cold and windy too) that I would get a cold. The weather has a way of messing with my system. So I bailed. BUT! I will have you know, that my friend called me first and he did not seem up for it either. We both agreed to back out. Then two other friends backed out and said that their friend was backing out also. This is four people BESIDES me that backed out of this race. If 3,000 others still ran in it then I can only imagine how many would have done it if it was not raining on that day.

I had mapped out this entire plan for race day. I was looking forward to not only challenging myself but also excited to see my crush in a context outside the realm of my work environment. Plus, leading up to the race he had offered to buy me a beer if the bars were not open bar as he had mentioned (which was pretty much a signing bonus for me to register for the race in the first place). So I missed out.

The back and forth emails followed suit today but then of course once things got to a certain point the emails ceased to continue. It was after I wrote and asked about facebook. Then I responded and said "That is so random. My facebook said that I would melt if I ran in the race." That is the one that I did not get a response to. We do this all the time. We emailed back and forth about 4 or 5 times today. All within 3-4 hours of each other.

Then it just stopped.

What am I to make of this?

IN OTHER NEWS...

In the meantime I am somewhat dating this guy that is a really great guy. For the last few weeks we have spent most of my free time together. But I have since grown tired of him all of the sudden. It is what I like to call the "One Month Itch". I get it every time. I start dating someone and then within a month's time my attention deficit rears its ugly head and I am over it completely. This guy is really sweet and he is almost everything I have ever thought I might want in a mate. I know that I don't have to decide right now what is to come of the two of us together but it is hard not for me to think of the long term and what the future may or may not hold, or more importantly what I would like the future to resemble.

Am I destined to be single for the rest of my life or will this one month itch slowly fade away?

Maybe I should just invest in a topical analgesic.

Danke Schoen

As you may have already known. I have a sort of crush. It is on a customer of mine that keeps coming in to shop with me on a regular basis. This is not like any other customer that I have had. There is something quite different. We email back and forth. These emails include witty banter and verge on flirtation.

I still have not received SOLID confirmation that he is of the homosexual nature. I am pretty confident that there is something more there than meets the eye and I have been working on this situation to say the least.

It is hard because I think that when it is all said and done that we are both awful flirts when it comes to flirting with someone that we would or could actually care for. Either that or he is still in the closet. Which would suck because I have NO TIME for a charity case.

So here is how the weeks events began...

On Friday I got an email from him saying he would be in on Saturday or Monday. Of course this meant that on Saturday I kept an eye out for him all day long and he never showed. So when Monday morning rolled around I was excited to head to work because I knew that if he had not made it Saturday that today would be the day that he would grace me with his presence. Not so. He was a no show on Monday and my heart sank about three different spots. I figured I would give him some time, and then shoot an email to him to follow up and see what had happened. This is typical behavior of the email kind for us.

But when I arrived at work this afternoon I had one waiting in my inbox from him saying that he would be coming in this afternoon.

Now before I proceed let me just say that on Monday another pair of customers/friends had stopped by. A couple that I am friends with that I have looped in to my dating woes and dilemmas. I had mentioned this guy to them in the past and when they mentioned this upcoming race in Davis sq. I hopped at the opportunity for more reasons than one. First of all I have been wanting some race type goal to work towards to help motivate my fat ass up off of the couch and stick it to the cardio at the ol' gym routine. And in addition to this I figured that more than likely he would be there. I didn't realize it until I had already told them I would love to do it. They were excited for me and we plotted out all the great possibilities that could come of "bumping into" one another at this event.

So when he showed up today I mentioned the race to him. We talked about his trip to Costa Rica and he told me about how fun this race would be. He mentioned that although it is a real 5 K and everyone does compete that afterwards everyone crowds the bars of Davis Sq because if you have registered for the race then you get to drink for free. At one bar in particular he said upon entry when the race is finished they line the bar with cups filled with beer and you just go up and take one after the other. It that isn't enough incentive to run a damn race then I don't know what else it would take! Other than this Crush of mine being at the finish line with a beer in his hand!

As we finished our time together I mentioned, "Well, If I don't see you before then maybe I will see you at the race!" He added, "You should definitely do it," and I told him that if there was an open bar at the end of it then it would definitely be worth checking out. He thought about it and then added, "Well...If there isn't...pause...then I will buy you a beer, how about that?"

I can't help but think I am reading in to all of this entirely too much yet today's interaction made me feel like we made some real progress. I am trying to be patient with this and every other situation in my life.

This week I am feeling really good about everything. This interaction with my crush was icing on the cake to what has started off to be an incredible week. This morning at Starbucks I had the courage to ask that barista about her friend.

This is how it went down. She was at the end of the bar and we were talking and catching up. As we paused in between topics I started, "So, its Elizabeth, right?"

E. "Yeah, tell me your name again,"

J. "Justin,"

E. "Well, I am not going to forget it again,"

J. "Well you should remember my name, FAME,"

E. Laughs. "Exactly! I will definitely not forget it now,"

J. "So I have to ask you, and I feel totally hokey doing so; A few weeks ago there was a guy here, reading a book, and you joined him."

E. Thinking "Yeah...pause...Oh, yeah" as she remembered, "That was Ryan"

J. "Oh okay, Ryan...pause...yeah...pause...Ryan is cute"

E. Smirking and nodding, "Yeah, Ryan is cute, he is dating my roommate."

J. "Ryan is dating your roommate that doesn't do the dishes?"

I wanted to tell her that I do the dishes but my roommate Katie was standing right beside me (Part of the reason I had the courage to confront her) and I know she would have put me on blast cause I ain't never up in the kitchen doin' no dishes.

We continued the banter, which at that point was obsolete. She said that they were a cute couple, and I lied and said I was happy for them. She told me she would let me know if anything changed.

I held off on telling her that Ryan's eye wanders. I held off on voicing my opinion that it will be over soon and I would like to be next in line.

Katie comforted me saying that apparently there is a John Mayer song that indicates that I only have to wait until St. Patrick's Day and that is the national breakup time or something. Whatever. I can get into that. But hey, I tried. It is half the battle. Oh, wait, that is "knowing", knowing is half the battle, not trying. Well anyway, I tried. And I felt like I had halfway completed a battle. So there.

Its just like Ferris Bueller says,

Thanks You for the words of wisdom Ferris Bueller