3.19.01

Hey all! Yeah, I know...2 weeks since I've written. Bad Monkey! Bad, bad Monkey! I could use a good spanking. Anyway, I’m back. Let me tell you why I was gone…or at least give you a good excuse.

See, I started Space Monkey as a different type of journal, right? Well, let’s face it, it’s not that fun to be so damn serious all the time. Shit, the site’s named Space Monkey, how serious can it be, right? Well, I’ve realized over the last two weeks that I need to lighten up occasionally here. Not every entry has to be eight paragraphs long and have some deep meaning to it. Maybe I should just do the standard journal entry every once in a while and tell you what I’m doing this weekend or that I’m having a shitty day. There’s nothing wrong with that, right?

So, look for more of these “personal” journal entries to come. I’m kind of thinking that if I do a bunch of little ones that I’ll just keep them on the home page until the end of the week or something with the latest one first and then archive them at the end of the week or whenever I want to write something a bit more substantial. Just keeping you posted on how things are gonna work around here.

Ironically enough, this is not going to be one of those short little entries. This last week was a big week for me. My roommate was out of town on vacation and I was living on my own again for the week. Gave me a lot of time to think, read, even do some artwork – something I haven’t done in quite some time. (Hmm…I should put up some artwork of mine sometime…hmmmm.) During this week, I realized a few things about myself.

One, I watch too much TV still. I have cut back, believe me, but I could be watching less. How bad was I? At one time not that long ago, I would plan my after-work week around what TV shows were on at night. I would skip going out with friends because West Wing was on. Granted, it’s a great show, but that’s what VCR’s are for, man. It really hit me this week how much I let TV control my life. It’s just sad. So, I’m going to start kicking myself in the ass to change that. I’m going to limit myself to 10 hours per week, not including movies either on DVD or on one of our cable stations. That is, unless, we have guests over and then it’s just plain rude to say you’re going upstairs to surf rather than watch music videos on MTVX. So what will I do with all this free time? Well, that leads us up to the second change I’ve decided to make this week.

Secondly, I’m going to lose my gut. Yes, for those of you who don’t know me, I’m overweight, as are many of my fellow Americans. There was a show on last week on 48 Hours, I think, that was all about the weight problem in this country and it really got me thinking. I realized that I am in total control of this problem and it’s just a matter of doing something about it. So, with that in mind, tomorrow, I’m going to go buy a stair master and get my ass on that thing every night. Yeah, I could continue to work out at the office, but I get really sick of being at the office all the fucking time, it’s a chore to get dressed, get in my car, and drive over there on the weekend, and worst of all there’s a guy who’s always down there that just creeps me out. So, I think a home gym is the answer for me. And for about $150 it won’t kill my pocket book.

Could I go outside and just run instead of spending the money? Yeah, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that in my current state. I know it’s sad that I’m concerned about how I look to others, but you skinny bastards of the world just wouldn’t understand the feeling. I’m thinking that would do me more harm than good and I’ll just burn out faster. My state of mind is the most important aspect of this right now. If I can remain positive, I don’t see why can’t get back into a shape I’d be happier with. And embarrassing myself about not being able to do any kind of exercise for more than two minutes at a time will be much easier to handle in the privacy of my own home, ya know? So, wish me luck.

Thirdly, I need to get another job. I need to get myself out from under the yoke of credit card and school loan debt. As of right now I have about $3200 outstanding in credit cards and my school loan. This isn’t about buying luxury items for myself, this is about paying off debt so I won’t have to work as hard in the future. This is all about my Space Monkey adventure. No fucking clue where I’m going to work yet, or even apply in this shit town, so we’ll see what happens on this front. Maybe I’ll just suffer through until August when I get an additional $300 a month freed up when I stop paying rent on my old apartment. I dunno. This one’s still up in the air.

So, as you can see, it was quite a busy week. I got some things figured out that I really needed to work on and now it’s just up to me to do something about them. Again, wish me luck.

Your Pal,

Space Monkey