Where Do We Go From Here?

I know it has been several days since I last posted. Let me tell you, I have been doing behind the scenes…stuff like crazy! I have really been trying to drill down and carve a niche while still maintaining my original vision of doing whatever the fuck I wanted. Apparently that can be tough.

After a lot of thought, several tears, a nagging ache in my lower left quadrant, more tears, three more thoughts, a beer, spitting out a mouthful of beer that I realized I didn’t like, working on perfecting my “mosey” so as to retain my maleness after spitting beer everywhere and screaming like Mariah Carey in her prime, a half dozen more thoughts, a full and quite indulgent dozen donuts, learning about coding a little bit and a variety of other shit I just made up, I have decided…I quit.

LOL OMG JK!

This is only the beginning but just like a butterfly losing its wings to be…come…damn it!

That! That right there. That’s what I feel like right now. I feel like I’m on the verge of doing something backwards. Taking the wrong step. That step landing in the center of the pressure plate that releases the poisoned goddamned darts into the necks of myself and everyone in my party.

Yet I have to step somewhere, right?

The point is that it doesn’t matter where I step, stick, move, spit beer, etc. The important thing is that I make a move…period.

Our minds are designed to do two things. Offer solutions to problems and attempt to keep us safe. Unfortunately in the modern world, the mind often creates the problems it then attempts to fix and its sense of safety is when you just keep doing exactly the same thing every day. Sometimes you have to get a new perspective.

With that in mind, I have decided that I will continue forward in the manner that I have but also, I want to ask more of my readers. Like literally. I’m about to fucking quiz you.

1: What kind of content do you enjoy? Do you like the random thoughts, product reviews, book reviews or is there something else you were looking for that just didn’t seem to be here?

2: Is the layout easy enough to navigate? Do you like the single page style that you scroll down through or would you prefer tabbed pages to take you to a specific category?

3: Do you enjoy the text-based environment of the blog in its current state or would you like a more media-laden experience? Would you watch if I also rolled out content on my currently empty YouTube channel?

I had like 37 more questions but I think that is the core of what I need to know. I want to make this place as much about the communities and interests I’m passionate about while maintaining the heart and the weirdness within said heart.

Keep in mind that I am one man. A single person. I do not have a team so there is literally no one else’s neck that the pressure plate darts will go into. Honestly the darts don’t scare me. On top of having just made them up, I’d rather fail than stand still. I also know that as long as I keep moving that there is no such thing as failure. There are only steps in one direction or another.

So…

Thanks for reading! If you feel like taking my quiz, please leave a comment with your thoughts below! I can’t wait to hear from you so that I can make this blog the best blog for all eight of you…and growing!

A Happy Little Tree

  This certainly makes me happy! Thrilled, even! 

  I was at my local Walgreen’s and spied this amazing product. I didn’t actually buy this product but I have a feeling that it will be mine in due time. I don’t even need to review this because it is simply…beautiful! 

  As a kid,  I remember watching Bob Ross’ show every time I had a chance. I never had any real interest in painting but watching him paint and listening to him talk about it was incredibly entertaining. 

  There isn’t any other purpose to this post other than to let you know how pleased I am that this exists! 

  Woot!

I Made Incense Cones…Per Se

I was bored the other day so I decided to make some incense cones. Yeah,  I don’t know why, exactly.  If anyone has any suggestion as to my reasoning, please leave it in the comments below!

Again,  for some unknown reason I just happened to have most of the ingredients already.  No,  this wasn’t planned. Don’t you ever assume I know what I’m doing. I go with the flow!

So I ground up sandalwood, cinnamon, frankincense and myrrh. Then I added in some clove, ginger and nutmeg. After that,  a few drops of lavender essential oil and I was almost ready for the next step.

I wasn’t quite sure what to use to stick everything together so I rummaged through my cabinets and found chia seeds, which I ground up and dumped right in with the rest of the ingredients. I added a bit of water and started mixing it all together.

After I mixed it all into a dough,  I began the shaping process. I imagined I was in the pottery scene in that old movie Ghost making tiny clay pots in a sensual manner, only without any ghosts. (I probably wasn’t supposed to share that with you. To put it simply,  I’m a weirdo but I’m safe,  I promise!)

After shaping them, I placed them on my finest paper towel and began the drying process. This took several days to complete and each day killed my soul a little more. Last night I gave in…

I’m going to start with the positives.  First,  it looks pretty much like an incense cone but also has a turdish look to it.  Perhaps it’s a hybrid. Second,  it smelled decent,  though I went a bit crazy with the clove. Uh, yeah that’s about the only positives.

They light but they don’t stay lit unless I hold a butane torch to it until the entire thing is red. When lit, it smelled more like burning wood than actual incense. It was at that point I knew I had failed.

The lesson here is that you must never,  ever try new things or you will fail. Fail!

Just kidding.

I Miss My Dad

Another year came and is about to wind down. My daughter turned 3 at the end of last month and even though it was a very happy day,  I couldn’t help but wish my dad was here to see it.

My dad passed away when my daughter was almost six months old. He was diabetic and had been slowly declining for years and yet,  it was unexpected to me that he died. I guess I figured with as tough as that man was that he would outlive most trees but that last visit to the hospital,  when I looked into his unblinking eyes I knew he wasn’t coming back.

I was a total jerk for about two years after. My dad was my best friend and I was angry that he left. I took it out on my lady in that I became distant and often rude with her for no real reason. It was also during that time I came to realize that my bachelor’s degree wasn’t doing any good where I live. Yes,  I’m up past my ears in debt,  both student and personal.  That angered me too.

One night I had a dream. Dad was there. I started ugly crying and pouring my soul out to him. He hugged me and told me that he was proud of me and loved me but that there was nothing he could do to help. Even though he didn’t realize it,  dream dad helped a lot that night.

Since then I’ve had an awakening. My anger has subsided and has been replaced with a feeling of hope and the beginning stages of self-confidence. I have been trying to be more present in the moment and live instead of striving to remain my past self. I’m trying to become a new me. Ultimate Joe.

It’s up to me, now. I’m the daddy to a little person and unless I get my robot body, eventually I will die. I have to leave her with good memories and a solid foundation to stand on. I would also love to leave her with a few million in the bank,  but I got to get that for myself first.

Maybe this is my start. In the end, it won’t make her miss me any less but if a person can afford to arrange a marching kazoo band that only plays Jimi Hendrix- Crosstown Traffic on repeat,  that’s a pretty solid distraction.

My dad would have laughed at that.  He was weird like me.

I miss my dad.

Affirmations

I’m sitting here right now on my old, beaten and half dead Samsung Galaxy S5. It has been put through its paces and though it is scarred,  it still does everything it is supposed to do.  Well, everything except receive calls and text messages at my house.  It is not a Samsung issue, it is more a matter of where I rent. Location.

 

Anyway,  I’m gazing into my “phone” with my body slouched forward,  mouth slightly open-and I’m taking full advantage of all that mouth breath. I found my one natural talent.  I can take in a ridiculous amount of mouth air. I’m doing all of this not because of some horrible accident or malady, I’m just taking a shit.

Relaxation can be an ugly, ugly thing.

So…

Inside my head, my mind was just chattering away. It was saying things like, “I am successful.”

“I accomplish my goals.”

“I attract opportunity.”

 

I have been trying to reprogram here lately. I figure if anybody is gonna brainwash me, it’s gonna be me! I have standards. Oh! There’s another one!

See, I’m not the most confident person in the world. Even with all this raw sexual energy literally pouring off my upper chest  and some of my triceps areas, I still have a hard time just acknowledging I have a shell-much less actually stepping out of it.

This time is different.

 

This time, I have been telling myself all kinds of cool things I didn’t know about me in hopes that my brain will accept it and adjust my protocols accordingly.  I think it’s working. I also think I’m pretty neat-o! Obviously, some of my affirmations came from old books. Some of them I made up. In my own language. “BIE TGoaj hE leAngaerg floosTwek.” Well I feel much better now.

If nothing else, this experiment has made me think about why I have never really stepped out completely before. This time is different because I realized that I have never succeeded because of how I felt about myself.  I never saw myself as a person that succeeded.

 

] realized that I’m not that guy in my head. I’m more than that. We all are.  All that exists only exists right now. You don’t have to follow that voice that tells you to play it safe. That you aren’t good enough.  That you can’t just pass a love letter to your destiny and be fine when the “maybe” box is checked. Go out there.

Go forth!

Go get you some mouth breath, my friends!