2004-12-27 - 1:30 p.m.
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Welcome back welcome back welcome baaaaack
So the dust gets blown off this thing and here I am, two or so months older, wiser...well maybe stupider but older definitely.
Has anything changed in Belmoland? You bet your fucking ass it has!
For one, I will be moving out to Arizona effective January 9th. I was tentatively going to move on December 29th, but I found out I have sleep apnea
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Sleep Apnea, which is not a disease so much as it is a condition - a fucking stupid and annoying condition - is when you have trouble breathing while you sleep. This can be attributed to many factors. Excess tissue in your throat will relax when you sleep, falling back over your air passage and literally choking you to the point where your body stops breathing altogether until your brain goes "Holy mother shit bag, I'm not getting air" and it violently shakes you awake gasping for air. This violent shaking gasp might be so quick that you don't fully wake up and as such you don't fully know that you even did it, making the condition hard to diagnose on your own. Other ways you can get apnea include shorts in your brain activity that prevent your brain from telling you to breathe properly, however this is not very common and usually is the result of massive head trauma or psycho and phisiological problems. The results of this condition are constantly interrupted sleep and the problems you can get from this include raised blood pressure, heart problems, insomnia, weight gain, change in moods, nausea while sleeping, chronic sore throat in the morning, a depletion of your immune system due to overwork as well as mental instability due to lack of sleep and sexual problems. Solutions to this problem include a surgury to remove any excess tissue (either your tonsils, your uvula or both) to open your airways, a tracheotomy to bypass your throat blockage entirely or a CPAP machine - a machine that pumps air through your throat via a face mask (covering either your nose or your whole face depending on if you sleep with your mouth open or closed) so as to keep your air passage open through air pressure and supply your body with suitable oxygen.
I didn't cut and paste this. I've just been doing some research is all. And I have a severe case of it. So it's Darth Vader face mask when I sleep until I can convince a doctor to chop my tonsils out. Which, since I'm leaving to Arizona and I'll be quitting my job here, will be fun with no health coverage to speak of. Fantastic
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and as such, I had to cancel some plans.
On top of this, I've been kicked out of one of my bands, which doesn't matter because I would have been leaving them both anyway when I moved. I've also been to Las Vegas as well, which I actually think I wrote something about (yep, it was the last main thing I wrote about).
The reason I'm leaving New York is because I'm moving in with Tiffany in Arizona, someone I actually met through this diary. Which is odd. It's the only time someone who contacted me due to this pile of digital horsecrap had something nice to say or didn't want to e-stalk me. So it's a nice change of pace.
NOTE: This is not a sweepstakes. I will not be moving out to your house if you talk to me due to reading my diary. This is a one time thing. Sorry to all who thought all you had to do to get me to live with you is reply to my diary. The end. And thanks for the emails too.
So that's that. I'm gone from here. I'm not upset with New York and in fact, I find it a fantastic place to grow up, to help broaden your horizons. There is a shit-ton of culture here. Think of any nationality or ethnicity and it is not only represented somewhere in the 5 boroughs, but you can eat their delicacies (with the odd exception of the French. For some reason they never caught on in New York, at least nowhere I could find...) as well as practice their faith in their church. It's odd. Want some kind of higher enlightenment? We've got it. Buddhaism? Yoga? Tai Chi? Accupressure? All available. All for sale.
Hookers? Yeah they're here. You just have to look for them.
There's a ton of things to do here and not just cultured things. There are over a dozen or so sports teams within driving distance from my house in every sport you can think of, including tennis, horseracing, baseball, basketball, hockey, football and major golf courses that the PGA has played on. New York City is considered a capitol of everything you can think of - travel, trade, art, literature, music and so on. While not the only source for any of these things, it certainly is a place people flock to when they want to "make it" in the world.
And I'm going to pick up and leave.
Again, I'm not attacking family and friends. In fact, I'm leaving on very good terms with all of them and have been wished nothing but the best of luck by just about everyone, with the few who haven't saying "I think it's stupid but good luck".
And you know what, maybe it is dumb. This very well could be the dumbest thing I do yet. I have it very VERY good here. No rent, a decent job that has me fly all over the country, a band that has good potential, a ton of great friends and very little for me to worry about financially besides my phone bill and my student loans.
But this is something I worry about. Because this cocoon will only last so long. And when it does break, when it is time to outgrow it and move on, if I stuck around content and satisfied, untouched by worries or troubles, what kind of warning will that be for the future? My parents will DIE. They will be dead one day, so this situation is only temporary in those regards and in more immediate and not so morbid of regards, there's only so long people can do the same thing before they don't want to do the same thing. I've seen so much in the past year just from flying to other cities across the country for a handful of days, in some cases just a handful of hours. It woke me up if anything. It showed me that there are other places in the country and even in the world that not only are as good as where I am but can be better if I just give them a try. There is something and somewhere out there for all of us that screams our name, that waits for the day we will arrive to it and when you get there, you'll look around and go "damn, this place is fucking amazing!" And I've been to 5 places like this already just to visit and I only saw a small sample of it from a few days of visiting. Go to South Carolina, in the Charleston area. Go to Boise, Idaho. Go to Long Beach, California. Go to Houston, Texas. Go to Orlando, Florida OUTSIDE of Disney. Hell, go to Vegas. Get out of your hole this instant and see the world. There are a ton of places that you can go to. And they are all just as interesting and in most cases MORE interesting than wherever you are now. Guaranteed.
The only price you pay is your current situation. Your family. Your friends. Your past. It will all be left behind. Just remember however that they will always be there, if not literally then figuratively in your mind and heart. With the internet and other forms of technology so affordable and easy to use, it's impossible to lose touch with someone if you truly do not want to lose touch with them. With the world getting smaller everyday from technology zooming ahead to the future, there will come a day where no matter where you live, you can see whoever you want as quickly as possible. Fly to Georgia from Maine in 2 hours. Drive from New York to Chicago in 3 hours. Will I see it? Who knows. Ask my dad at my age what the internet is and he couldn't tell you. Ask me what a cell phone was a decade ago and maybe I might have known. The world will change exponentially and will you? Are you going to be any different or will you suck the teat of security, of the status quo, of the just-another-day syndrome? Ask anyone you haven't seen in years what's new with them and they will tell you "just the same old same old". WHY? Why not start something new with yourself? Why not shake up your life once in a while? You can only do this once, you can only live once and everyone in the world has heard this but not reacted to it. Why?!!?!? Why the hell would you continue to do the same thing over and over again? You don't have to pick up and leave. Just do anything new. Start something new that consumes you. Start anything that does anything whatsoever to you to change you drastically. Do it today. Do it everyday. You're going to become covered with problems and issues that will tie you to the ground. Your kids, your house, your mortgage, the neighbors, a big project at work, your spouse not paying attention or paying too much attention to what you're doing - all the clutter, all the bullshit will come. It WILL. Don't wait for it to come. Don't wait for a time when you will be ensured your safety to transition to the other side. I'm afraid as all hell! I fear what I'm doing will either hurt me, kill me or otherwise and regardless, I'm doing it. I could very well be poor as dirt and be starving in poverty and squalor. SO WHAT!?!?! You can't know true bliss unless you've tasted the bitter taste of turmoil and despair to compare it to. You'll never know the true worth of anything until you struggle to get it. So stop sitting on your ass. Go out and change yourself today.
By the way, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is the greatest game ever created and is slowly drinking my soul.
Thought you'd like to know.
BMC
What did you just say? - What's he gonna say next?
